He quirked a crooked smile in return and ushered me up the steps. “It’s no thing. Let’s just get you home.” He pulled cash out of his pocket and paid the bus fare as we got on, then walked back and sat beside me for the ride.
“Where do you live, anyway?” he asked.
“South City. Off Hampton. You?”
“I share a loft with my boyfriend downtown. He’s a chef at Le Grand Concours.”
I lifted my eyebrows. Le Grand Concours was a sweet gig, if you could get it. “Nice.” Not to mention, proof that most of the good ones were batting for the other team.
“Here, give me your phone,” Len said, gesturing.
“Okay.” I pulled my phone out of my bag and unlocked it, then handed it over.
“This is my phone number, all right?” He got to the contacts and entered his number. “If you ever need anything, let me know. And hey, I only live a few blocks from AJ’s. So I can walk you to the bus stop anytime.”
My smile widened. “Thanks, Len.”
The bus arrived at my stop, which was only a couple of blocks from my house. The street I lived on was quiet, so the walk home wouldn’t be too terrifying.
“I mean it,” Len reiterated. “If you need anything, give me a call.”
I nodded as I stood to get off the bus. “I will. Thanks for making a shitty day less shitty, Len. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I got off and waved at him as it drove away from my stop.
The two-block walk home was blissfully uneventful, and I made it without any other incident. As I stepped onto my front porch, my phone dinged. It was Len, checking up on me. I smiled as I texted back that I was walking in the front door and locking it behind me. Then I told him to tell his boyfriend from me that he was one lucky dude.
The lock clicked behind me. Home.
I sat on my couch and for the first time all day, I could breathe.
What a terrible day. After all that, I desperately needed a drink. And a bath. I could still feel that guy’s bad mojo crawling over me, like spiders. After balancing my need to relax against the damage that a glass or two of hard cider would do to my already shaky health, I said fuck it and poured some for myself. I took a few sips and wandered into the bathroom to fill the tub. When it was steaming, I stripped and tiptoed in, cider by my side and soft music playing in the background.
I closed my eyes and tried to relax. The mountains of bubbles over hot water went some way toward washing off the invisible layer of grime left by my interactions with that horrible man, as well as soothing my sore, tired muscles.
Still, nine o’clock tomorrow morning would come sooner than I wanted it to, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t relax completely. When the water started to cool, I got out and spent some time looking up Guthrie Leonides on my phone. He seemed to be a pretty big deal in business circles—bigger than I would have guessed based on his straightforward, laid-back demeanor. I jotted down a few notes, and tried a search for his name and Rans together. No results.
That avenue exhausted, I killed the rest of the evening mentally organizing my arguments for the meeting with the auditor in the morning. I dared to hope that it wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal as Daisy seemed to think. I’d gone over the material listed in the email thoroughly, and I was confident that I was in the right.
After a late dinner and an hour or so spent trying to slow my racing mind with a thoroughly forgettable romance novel, I popped another handful of painkillers and headed off to bed. Predictably, my aches and pains combined with unsettling images from the day to leave me tossing and turning for a long time before I finally slipped into to a restless sleep.
My recurring dream came shortly thereafter.
* * *
It was hot outside, and the sun was summer-bright. It illuminated the colorful banners and bunting hanging around the stage. Red. White. Blue. The crowd was happy, cheering. At first, I could only see legs, like tree trunks in the forest where Mommy and Daddy took me camping sometimes.
Then, Daddy lifted me and I had the best view ever, sitting on his shoulders. His strong hands steadied me as both of us watched Mommy talking on stage. Mommy was going to be a Senator. I didn’t know what that was exactly, but it was a real important job. She was gonna help loads of people, and be famous, like a movie star.
That made sense, because she was already pretty like a movie star. Daddy and me were so proud of her.
She was talking now, lifting a hand when people around us started cheering again. But behind us, someone yelled. It wasn’t a happy noise like the others. I tried to twist around and look, not liking how that yell made me feel. Now other people were yelling, screaming, and Daddy whirled around. Then he was grabbing me… pulling me down from his shoulders… wrapping his body around me.
I saw Mommy for a moment before I was surrounded by Daddy’s body, jostled by people running past us. Mommy was frowning, her eyes wide as she met mine. I saw her mouth open before I lost sight of her.
A loud noise like fireworks hurt my ears, and more people were screaming, running, crying. I started crying, too. Mommy said we’d watch fireworks later, but why was everyone so scared? Why were the fireworks starting now, when it was light out and Mommy was trying to talk?
“Oh, god,” Daddy was saying. “Oh god—no, no, no.”
He hoisted me up, holding me against his hip, and then he was running, too. Shoving against the crowd that was trying to run the other way.
“Sasha! Sasha!” He was screaming Mommy’s name, and I sobbed louder, afraid because I didn’t know what was happening.
“Mommy!” I cried, the noise eaten by the louder noises all around me.
Daddy climbed up on the stage, dragging me with him. His hands hurt where they were gripping me too hard. Mommy was lying on the ground on her back, like that one time she slipped on the ice last winter and fell down. But this time, she wasn’t laughing and saying, “Ow, ow, ow, stupid ice!”
She wasn’t saying anything at all. She was just staring at the sky, lying in the middle of a big red puddle spreading around her, red stains on her blouse. Her skirt.
Everywhere.
Her chest had a big ugly hole in it. Dad dropped me to the stage. Someone else picked me up and covered my eyes.
But it was too late. I already saw.
My mommy was dead.
EIGHT
AT FIRST, I THOUGHT the sound of my alarm going off was the sound of wailing sirens in my dream. When my brain untangled reality from nightmare, I jerked awake, lunging upright in bed. I was breathing hard, my heart racing so fast that my chest hurt.
I stared at the gray light of dawn barely illuminating my childhood bedroom, some distant part of my mind recognizing the panic attack for what it was. It had been a while, but I knew this feeling far too well. I knew that I wasn’t strong enough to pull myself out of it by willpower alone. I just had to weather it and hope that this wouldn’t be the time that I truly had a heart attack or a stroke.
The only way out was through.
I sat in bed shaking, hugging my knees, feeling like I couldn’t get enough air as images of the hole in my mother’s chest superimposed with images of the hole in Rans’ chest. Rans was alive, I tried to tell myself. Well, maybe not alive, exactly, but he was okay. I’d seen him afterward. Talked to him. Felt the brush of his fingers against my cheek.
None of that makes your mom any less dead, said the horrible little voice that lived inside me.
“It was a long time ago,” I whispered to the empty room, finally getting my breath back as reality asserted itself. “Twenty years.”
God, I was backsliding. I’d been hanging on pretty well these past few years. Making it. Managing my various physical and mental challenges well enough to cope, day by day. I didn’t want to return to this place of being broken and useless. Damaged goods.
And it had all started two days ago, when a vampire chose my shed to break into. Was all of this happening now because Rans had drunk my blood?
I wanted nothi
ng more than to chug every bottle of hard cider in my fridge and pull the blankets over my head until everything went away, but that would be the worst possible thing for me to do on so many levels. I told myself that it would be like giving up, and I wasn’t a goddamned quitter.
The red display on the bedside alarm clock read six-thirty, and I had to meet the auditor at MMHA at nine. In fact, I should get there early so I could get all the files ready to go. I couldn’t huddle here on my bed like the terrified six-year-old that still lived inside me, buried deep.
Food. Ibuprofen. Stretching exercises. Shower. Get dressed. Leave.
It was no different than any of the other rough mornings I’d had in the past few years. Power through, don’t give up, and eventually things would get better. I eased out of bed, feeling joints creak and pop, feeling my gut churn. Outside, rain spattered against the window, the atmosphere heavy and gray.
* * *
At fifteen minutes until nine, I hurried toward the glass doors leading into MMHA, wincing as my body protested. The skies opened just as I ducked under the awning, and I sighed in relief. I might be a walking disaster in most respects, but in this, at least, my timing had been impeccable.
The moment I stepped across the threshold, my heart sped up as I realized that, impeccable timing or not, I’d just stepped into a nightmare to rival the one I’d woken from a couple of hours ago.
I’d thought yesterday was bad? Surprise, Zorah! Today had just been fucked twice as badly. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I saw Creepy Ponytail Guy standing in the office, talking to Daisy and a few other members of the board. There were people here that I hadn’t seen since they accepted my volunteer application. There were others I’d never met at all, wearing suits and serious expressions. These were people involved in executive decision making, not day-to-day operations.
Why were they here now? This was supposed to be a low-key, informal meeting to straighten out whatever mix-up or misunderstanding had the Department of Revenue’s panties in a twist. Not a full-blown gathering of the board of directors.
As soon as Daisy saw me, her eyes narrowed. Anger clouded her expression.
There was something off-kilter about the atmosphere in the office. Daisy didn’t seem like herself. She didn’t normally do cold anger. She did short, explosive bouts of temper that blew over quickly and were inevitably followed by an apology.
This morning, she walked over to me, her face unsmiling. She looked like a completely different person than the one I’d left yesterday. It was like we were strangers. Like I didn’t know her at all.
“Conference room,” she said coldly. “Now. Mr. Werther from the state auditor’s office wants to speak with you.”
“What’s the board doing here?” I asked. My voice was shaking.
“You’ve messed up royally, Zorah.” Her expression never thawed. “There are going to be repercussions. Serious ones.”
My breathing was speeding up, another panic attack threatening. “No, but I showed you…”
Daisy cut me off. “I don’t want to hear it. Tell it to the board.”
I stood there, my mouth open, staring at Daisy. At the board members filing into the conference room. At the creeper from the restaurant. His eyes met mine, a slow smile spreading over his too-perfect face.
My skin started crawling again, even worse than it had yesterday. On top of feeling like total shit, I now felt like I was going to throw up. If I did, I made a mental note to aim my stomach contents in Ponytail Guy’s direction.
Everyone was inside the conference room at that point except me. I grew faint, beads of clammy sweat breaking out on my forehead. It felt like it was about a hundred degrees in the office. I took in a breath, let it out slowly, then went over to the small refrigerator in the corner and pulled out a bottle of water. I suspected I was going to need it to get through this meeting.
I mentally reviewed the filings as I stood gathering myself to go in. Everything had been done correctly. I’d double and triple checked it yesterday. It was all in order. I saw absolutely no errors, and sure as hell not the ones this guy was claiming I had made. Not to mention, I wasn’t the last person to look at the non-profit’s paperwork before it was filed.
MMHA had an oversight committee. I was just a lowly volunteer. I wasn’t solely responsible for keeping the books, and someone was always supposed to check up on my work. Even if I’d missed something, someone higher up the food chain should have noticed and fixed it, or at least flagged it. If they hadn’t, was that really my fault?
Trying to shake off my burgeoning panic, I carried the bottle of water and my backpack into the conference room. It wasn’t a huge room to begin with, but right now with twelve people crammed inside, it felt like a sardine box. Claustrophobia joined the clamoring chorus of reasons to lose my shit. As soon as I set down my backpack next to the last remaining chair, the room fell silent. Everyone stared at Ponytail Guy, including Daisy. It was like they were following his lead, waiting for permission to speak. Permission to fucking breathe.
Ponytail Guy leaned back in his chair, regarding me coolly. “I am Caspian Werther of the Missouri State Auditor’s office. Explain how you came up with the numbers for Form 990-T.”
I narrowed my eyes, unfamiliar with that form. “Can I see the files?”
“You already have the files. Explain why there is more than seventy-two thousand dollars missing from this organization’s withholdings and why your name displays on withdrawal slips at the bank.”
I stared at him. He might as well have been speaking a foreign language. “What? I don’t…”
He cut me off. “Do you understand that Form 26B relates to for-profit organizations and that by filing such form, you are in violation of Missouri law?” Werther’s eyes narrowed. He tilted his chin down, staring at me just like he had yesterday.
Looking right through me.
“I never filed that form,” I said. “Why would I? I need to see the documentation.” I looked to Daisy and gestured, waiting for her to hand me the box of files I’d given her yesterday. The files that showed I had filled out the proper forms and that I had done nothing wrong.
Daisy looked at Werther, who shook his head almost imperceptibly in the negative.
She returned her gaze to me, crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head as he had. “I can’t do that.”
The sense of unreality grew. “How am I supposed to defend myself if you won’t even let me see the files?”
“We didn’t bring you here to defend yourself,” Werther said. “Simply to admit that you have been embezzling money from this non-profit. The evidence is clear.”
“What?” My eyes went wide. Where was this even coming from? I tried to regroup. “I have never touched a dime of MMHA’s money. Ever.” My heart was beating so hard that my chest was aching again. I felt as though I was in real danger of throwing up. “I’ve never even handled the money at this place. I just crunch numbers and fill out forms!”
“You committed fraud,” Werther said. “They trusted you.”
Daisy stood up, pointing at me with a shaking finger. “How could you take money from us?” She sounded appalled, like she believed everything Werther was saying without question. “You’re a fraud. We trusted you!”
After Daisy started, so did a few of the other board members.
All yelling out that I’d committed fraud. That I’d embezzled money. That they’d trusted me.
Like drones, they repeated every word he said.
I felt my grip on reality slipping. Was I in some kind of alternate universe? What in the actual fuck was going on here?
Every new lie that spewed from Werther’s mouth was immediately picked up by Daisy and the other board members. It was as though he had some kind of mental hold over them. Like they couldn’t think for themselves anymore.
Like Werther had somehow compelled them to believe whatever he said.
I had volunteered at this place for years. Years. But these peo
ple—people I knew, and who knew me—were all acting like I was a complete stranger that had walked into their office and stolen money at gunpoint.
Some of the board members started spewing things that were completely crazy. Saying I lived in a fancy house, leeching money from MMHA, when in fact I lived in a crappy 1940s two-bedroom bungalow that I could only afford because my dad had refinanced the mortgage for me. Claiming I drove an expensive car when everyone in the office knew I had a broken down Civic, and had needed to take the damn bus to even be here today.
Standing in front of them all, people I’d respected and trusted, I fought back tears, only the growing sense of dissociation with reality making it possible for me to keep them inside.
“Stop!” I said it aloud, though the croaked word was swallowed up by the growing clamor of outrage in the room. This entire thing was off-the-wall crazy. I refused to stay here any longer, accused of doing terrible things while Caspian Werther stared at me like some kind of mildly interesting science experiment.
I flung my backpack over my shoulder and glared at him.
“I don’t know who you are or how you pulled this off, but you won’t get away with this,” I said, pitching my shaking voice to be heard over the din.
Werther smiled. “Won’t I? I daresay I’ll be seeing you again soon, Zorah Bright. Until then.”
Daisy blocked my approach to the conference room door, her face the same cold mask it had been earlier. “You’re fired. I don’t ever want to see your face here again. Do you understand me?”
That broke me.
A horrible choking, clawing sensation clogged my throat. I opened the conference room door and rushed out wordlessly, passing Vonnie as I hurried by.
“Zorah?” Vonnie called my name, but I couldn’t speak. “What happened? Where are you going?”
There was no way I could answer her. I had to get out of this place before I lost it. Before that Werther guy came after me—because even though I wanted to believe this was the end of it, after his final words to me, something in my gut knew the nightmare was far from over. When I left the building, it was pouring outside. I didn’t care. I just ran, as far and as fast as I could. It had been a long time since I’d run like that, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’d had enough. At that point, my body was in agony and my spirits were drowned.
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