That Was Before

by Dan Lawton

  She sighed an exasperated sigh. “Are you not hearing what I’m saying to you? If you just listened to—”

  “Patricia!”

  “They’re saying you’re a suspect! Is that clear enough for you? Get your shit together, Randolph. Clean this up. I don’t want this embarrassment in my life. I’ve got a reputation to live up to, you know.”

  She disconnected.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  He pulled the phone away from his ear and stood back, tried to catch his breath.

  What just happened?

  None of it made sense. Why would Patricia call him, and why would she care who he was with? She seemed off, hurt that he had moved on. Was that it? Sometimes the grass was not always greener on the other side, so maybe that realization hit her. Maybe she realized watering their own grass was a better path forward than the one she thought she desperately wanted. But it was too late for that. He had moved on. And dare he say it, his feelings for Sheila were real.

  But then he considered something else. He made a promise to himself to not make an emotional judgment until his feelings settled. Did he fail himself by not following through with the boundaries he set? Was it too soon?

  Nonsense.

  The heart wanted what the heart wanted. When it knew, it knew.

  Patricia wanted out for longer than he could remember. If it took feeling desirable again for him to find the courage to let it happen, to let, what they once had, go. Then so be it. If it failed to work out with Sheila, then it did. It changed nothing between him and Patricia. That phase of his life was over.

  That was before.

  Now was after.

  Sheila.

  Was he wrong about her? What if what Patricia said was true? Patricia did have a motive to muddle his psyche—jealousy, perhaps, or spite—and she knew the ways to rattle him. So that had to be considered. But why would she say anything at all? That was the most difficult part to justify. It was as if she wanted to delay the divorce or was having second thoughts, which seemed entirely out of character for the new version of herself he still did not recognize. If there were dots to connect, he failed to do so.

  He felt settled now, breathed easier. His toes were cold against the wooden panels beneath his feet, so it was time to go back in. He would confront Sheila, though he did not know how. He wanted to tread lightly.

  He leaped backward and squeezed the phone in his hand, felt a pinch on his skin. Sheila stood on the other side of the glass with the afghan from the bed draped over her shoulders like a shawl. Her eyes pierced his like a scythe, and he felt the fire. But her lips were parted and her teeth showed, and the indents in her cheeks greeted him.

  The door slid open. Sheila’s hand grasped the frame and she pushed herself past the threshold and stepped toward him. He relaxed his grip and sunk back into normalcy.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “Everything okay out here?”

  He nodded and lifted his phone. “Phone call.”

  “Anything important?”

  Here it was: the fork. Decision time. He could shrug it off and move on, make his own judgment and keep it to himself. Or he could tell her who it was on the phone and what she said and respond accordingly, based on what Sheila’s reaction might be.

  “Actually,” he said, “that was Patricia.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “My wife.”

  Her face fell. “Oh.”

  She looked hurt. Or disappointed. Or heartbroken. Sad.

  “We had some details to discuss about the divorce, that’s all.”—she perked up—”Everything’s fine. It’ll be over soon.”

  She smiled and walked toward him, rested her head against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, the smell of sweet romance very much in the air.

  “Did she have anything else to say?”

  He pulled her tighter, planted his lips on her forehead. “No, nothing important. That was it.”

  . . . . .

  They went back inside, made up the bed, and showered. Packed their things. She carried a bag now, full of a clean new wardrobe, thanks to their shopping trip and shenanigans at the laundromat the day before. It was nice to see her in something new, something fresh. One thing he noticed: She looked amazing in anything and everything she wore. Why she was with him still baffled him beyond belief.

  The morning was early enough to partake in the continental breakfast the hotel offered, so they did. Stale muffins and cold coffee and fresh fruit, though not much of it. The toaster worked to warm a slice of white toast from the loaf, but it smelled of burned raisins and ash. They pieced together enough to fill their bellies for a few hours at least. For the price of the room, it was about as satisfying as he expected.

  Check-out was ten o’clock, which came fast. By ten past, they were in the parking lot and loaded into the truck and already sluggish. He wondered what their next move was. They could be in Wyoming by dark, but then what? Anxiety flooded him at the thought, about what they would do, where they would stay. What were they doing? They could not hop from cheap motel to mediocre hotel and back for the rest of their lives. They needed a structured plan.

  The excitement had worn off—not about Sheila; the fondness for her grew by the day, but of the journey. Headaches lingered because he was so liquored up. He was exhausted. He wanted to be home—not home in the sense of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but rather in the sense of a place to lay down roots. Permanence. It was not clear if Sheila wanted the same thing.

  “You okay?” she asked. She smiled at him, but he saw the concern in her eyes, behind the facade. He would have loved to know what was on her mind.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  He looked down and smiled. The ignition key was in his hand, which rested on his knee. He turned his hips so he faced Sheila, then he looked up. “Can we be direct with each other?”

  Her face dropped. “I thought we were.”

  “What happened at the supermarket?”

  She hesitated. More so, she did not respond. Her mouth opened as if she were about to speak, but she stopped. He waited, tried not to analyze her silence and open his mind to all the possibilities that may follow.

  “I don’t know what happened,” she said.

  He was disappointed. While he was not convinced it was a lie, he felt as if she held something back. It was just a hunch, though. Nothing she had said or done made him believe otherwise.

  “I don’t remember much. You came, we chatted, you left. Another customer came in line, who I helped. Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital. What happened in between...it’s blackness.”

  He studied her face, kept his neutral. For him, it was difficult to tell if someone was being dishonest or not. Tears welled in Sheila’s eyes as she relived the trauma, and he thought it looked genuine. But what did he know? He was just an engineer; he knew nothing about the psychological aspect of people and if faking such a thing was even possible. All he had was his instincts, and those told him Sheila was an honest soul.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she wiped a tear away. She took a moment to regain her composure and shake off the emotion. When she did, she looked him in the eye and said, “Why do you ask?”

  He felt terrible, like he wronged her. It was a sensitive topic because it was still so fresh in her mind. It must have been traumatic for her, being inside when the supermarket exploded. He could not understand what that must have been like. The guilt he felt about his lack of sensitivity weighed heavily on him.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing
,” he said, “but I was told there’s a tape. Footage.”

  “Okay. And?”

  And what? Did he want to tell her? He had no choice. “And the police think we had something to do with it.”

  She pushed away, leaned against the door. She studied his face, sized him up. He did not like the look in her eye; he felt judged by her.

  “But as I said, that could just be hearsay.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Patricia.”

  She relaxed, then smiled. “Ah-ha. That makes sense now.”

  “What does?”

  “You. Since you talked to your wife this morning, you’ve been off.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Hold on a second.”

  “What?”

  “Did you say ‘we’? The police think we had something to do with it? As in you and me?”

  “That’s what I was told, yes.”

  “They know we’re together then. How do they know?”

  “I was wondering the same thing myself.”

  Sheila did not respond. She looked around the cab, frantic. She spun around and fumbled in the back, unzipped her bag. When she turned back around, her phone was in her hand. It shook as she pressed her finger on the screen harder than needed.

  “What are you doing?” Randolph asked. He was alarmed by her reaction, but he did not know what about.

  She toyed with the phone for another minute before tossing it on the back seat. “Damn.”

  “What? What’s the matter?”

  “I was hoping for a wi-fi network to connect to, but nothing.”

  “Still no network?”

  “I tried. Still nothing.”

  He retrieved his phone and found the same thing. The network data quality was very poor and had been for quite some time.

  They sat in silence.

  “What were you looking for anyway?” he said.

  “I was going to try and see if it was online. If it was on the news or something.”

  Good idea. He was embarrassed he had not thought of it himself.

  Her eyes lit up. It was like a lightbulb—an idea that sparked in real time. Before he could ask what she was thinking, she whipped around again and grabbed the phone from the rear seat. She pried the back of the phone case off, removed the battery, and pulled out a tiny computer board. Randolph knew nothing about any of that stuff.

  She tossed the board on the dashboard and dropped her phone into the cup holder. “It makes perfect sense.”

  “What?”

  She faced him. “Gary.”

  O’Reilly! Right!

  “It must be him,” she said. “How else would anyone know we’re together? He saw us together.”

  Randolph thought about it. It made sense, except for one thing. “But what about the footage?”

  “Don’t you see! He’s a private investigator, right?”

  “You said he was like a private investigator.”

  “Don’t parse my words. That’s what he told me. But look, he has connections, okay? Good ones. Men in uniform. Government officials. He could have easily got his hands on that tape.”

  “Say he did, what are you suggesting?”

  “He found out we were together. He’s infatuated with me still, right? He got jealous. So he looked you up.”

  “How, though?”

  “You told him your name, didn’t you? He greeted you by name. Cross-check that with your license plate, and easy. It’s not hard to find someone.”

  “I still don’t understand. What does one thing have to do with the other?”

  She dropped a hand on his, captured his focus. “Gary got the tape and tracked me down at the hospital, just like you did. Then he followed us. Then he looked into you, found out you were married, contacted your wife. Do you think it’s a coincidence she called you?”

  He considered that. It made sense.

  “He thought he’d use her to drive him back to me.”

  He remembered the phone call. Where are you? “My God. I bet you’re right.”

  “We must have lost him somewhere. The cell service has been spotty.”

  “You think it’s the phone?”

  “What else? He’s a psycho, I’m telling you. You can track someone’s SIM card so easily. Too easily.”

  That must have been what she removed from her phone. The SIM card. The term was familiar.

  Then a gasp, and an, “Oh no!”

  “What?”

  Sheila wrapped both hands around his wrist and squeezed. He winced and tried to pull away, but she quickly released him before he had to fight to save it.

  “He might be here,” she said. “Or close. Who knows when we lost him? Maybe we didn’t.”

  “We haven’t seen anybody. We would have seen him again by now.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know him like I do. This guy, he’s a fucking lunatic, okay?”

  He realized his heart was beating quickly, jolted with nervous energy.

  “Trust me on this.”

  “Okay, I trust you. What do we do?”

  “We have to leave. And we have to leave now.”

  “And go where?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Anywhere but here.”—she reached over her shoulder and grabbed the seat belt and buckled in—”Please, can we just go?”

  He looked at her, peered deep into her eyes. There was fear there, and panic. She was scared of this man. Petrified. Randolph wondered if that meant he should be too, but he was not. All he wanted to do was protect her, to keep her safe. Whatever that took. If that meant they had to leave right away, then leave was what they would do.

  “Okay,” he said. “We can go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The amazing thing about being a digital ghost, about doing all his work from behind the protection of a firewall and several aliases, was Benji had a clean record. Aside from a speeding ticket a few years back and a handful of parking tickets, he was as clean as a whistle. An upstanding citizen. Which meant flying using his real identification was not only possible but also much safer.

  He and Cheyenne waited in line and bought tickets at the counter at the airport. Their flight boarded an hour later. Benji’s gray, coffee-stained bag contained all he needed—and nothing illegal; he left most of the weed at home. He was not proud of how he smuggled the ounce or two past the security gate, but it was what it was. He was just an ordinary guy taking a leisurely flight across the country. Nothing to see here.

  Cheyenne sat in the chair next to him at the gate. Despite a lengthy, loud, embarrassing disagreement with the ticket agent, her oversize duffel bag was too large to be carried on. Cheyenne belittled the agent, spewed obscenities, and demanded to have a conversation with the manager about the situation which happened. The manager was friendly but not accommodating, and if Cheyenne wanted to board, she must check the bag. No exceptions. The manager promised to personally take the bag to the tarmac and see to it with her own eyes that the bag was safely secured underneath the airplane.

  Liar.

  But Cheyenne took the bait—she had no choice. Not unless she wanted to stay back, which Benji knew she did not. And so she radiated with hatred next to him while they waited, angry at the world for not accommodating her every desire. A much smaller carry-on sat on her lap, her knuckles white around it. Outside the window, the plane was being fueled. The bags were already secured beneath, the airstairs gone.

  Cheyenne huffed and stood, walked away with
out saying a word. It made no difference to Benji. She would either get over herself or would not, and he put her out of his mind. He thought instead about what lie ahead. It was not clear to him what they might find, if anything.

  Before long, Cheyenne returned with a hot coffee and a cooler head, and she sat back down and sipped. Their knees touched but their eyes did not meet. A crowd filled in around them—folks with bags over their shoulders; folks with luggage on wheels; folks with packs on their backs. There were solo riders and vacationing couples and families who regretted bringing their young, obnoxious toddlers along to ruin their vacation but had no choice but to. It reminded Benji to always wear a rubber. Always. A line of these people formed near the gate. VIPs were let through.

  Their group was called and they stood, made their way to the back of the existing but moving line. He waited behind Cheyenne, who tied her hair into a ponytail. The strap of his bag dug into his shoulder and yanked on the collar of his shirt, so he readjusted. As he did, a voice came from behind him, a man’s.

  “Excuse me,” the man said.

  Benji turned toward the voice and the man.

  “Are you Benjamin Griffin?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Come with me, please.”

  Benji turned to Cheyenne, but she ignored him, looked away. Bitch. Hers were the only eyes not on him at the gate.

  “Come with me, before I force you.”

  He did not know what to say or do, so he obliged. The man was not dressed like a police officer and did not offer a badge or his name or his credentials. His button-down was pressed and tucked into his slacks, and he stood taller and more well-built, fuller, than Benji was. Though he would never outwardly admit it, Benji was intimidated.

  The man led him down the corridor, through the crowd, and into a private room through a door no one knew existed, despite being unhidden. A conference room or an interrogation room meant for TSA agents. There was a long table without chairs and plain, undecorated walls. Windowless. Stuffy. Sweat formed on Benji’s neck.