Applying those insights to the problem that was my memory loss, I knew that I needed to just work the equation, and my mind would reveal the truth. I just had to try to remember that night in Austin with the same fierceness that I’ve always tried to forget that night my mother died. The strategy seemed sound, if not for one large flaw: some doors are better left shut. Ironically though, when a door is shut, it’s pure human nature to want to open it, even if we need a crowbar to make it happen.
I had my crowbar ready, despite knowing that it was better to keep the door on Austin shut. My father was the favored candidate for the presidency, after all. Dirty little secrets in his world, which meant mine too, were to be buried. The problem was that my best friend was buried as well. I knew that I couldn’t bring her back but I had to know why she was gone. The real reason. I owed Danielle that much.
Later, my father would call me selfish and immature for stirring up the details of Danielle’s death. He would tell me that I wasn’t thinking with a head on my shoulders. The real problem, though, was that I was thinking at all, rather than blindly following his lead. And yet, he’s the one who urged me to solve the problems before me. So really, truly, you could say it’s his fault I went to Austin.
***
THE PAST—THE TRIP TO AUSTIN…
Staying in uniform, I leave my apartment in black jeans and a black long-sleeved lace top, with a scarf tied around my neck and sunglasses on my face, for no reason other than those things seem to throw off the press. Soon, I’m tucked away inside my car, driving to the airport, and within an hour, I’m at my gate, and so far, there are no press eyes on me. My wait there is short, but long enough to search attorneys in Austin with the name of “Drew.” There are a number of first and last name variations of “Drew” but only one that works near the bar. My efforts to locate a photo are thwarted by lack of information, but I’m struggling right up until the moment I’ve boarded, and the flight attendant scolds me for using my phone.
Settling into my seat, I wait for lift off, and order a drink, not of the whiskey variety, thank you very much. Coffee. Strong. Two cups. Once we’ve leveled off, I down my caffeinated beverage and order another, clearing all the cobwebs from my mind. With a cup by my side, I open my MacBook and connect to the internet, but I still can’t find any photos of Drew. I spend the remainder of the flight searching the Austin locations I know from the trip, starting at the debate site, and moving forward, while I hope for a trigger to a memory that I don’t find. At some point I sleep, imagining that fight with Danielle in the bar, as I do, but still, it leads nowhere.
We’re on the ground in six hours, and it’s not long before I’m in the back of a cab, my preference when I don’t want to talk. Uber drivers are more civilized. That means they actually look at you and notice you. Talk to you. The driver delivers me to the hotel where I’d stayed during the debate, where I have requested the same room. I check in and I’m at the door to the room in a flash, but then I freeze. I can’t seem to lift my hands and swipe the card, as if I’m about to open the door to a bloody murder scene.
My head starts to spin and I think I might be hyperventilating. I don’t hyperventilate. It’s as if I’m afraid. Am I afraid? This is insanity. It’s a room. Just a room. I swipe the keycard and open the godforsaken door. I enter the room and set my bag inside, my purse with it, before locking up and resting on the door. No murder scene. As I’d said in the hall, it’s a room. Just a room. I stand there an exorbitant amount of time and wait for a tornado of memories that support my terror of this room, but the story is as the story was. I get nothing.
I push off the door and walk around the room, before I end up at the bed. I stare at it, remembering the moment I’d woken up disoriented. Wanting more than my mind is giving me, I walk to the bed, and lay down. That’s when something Tobey said to me hits me. Something about us getting naked when we got to the room. I sit up. I wasn’t naked when I woke up. I was fully dressed. He lied to me. I spring off of the bed, and rush across the room to grab my phone from my purse. Once it’s in my hand and I’m about to dial Tobey, I stop myself. Why would he lie to me?
I can come up with only two answers. He knew I wouldn’t remember what happened, which means he either helped drug me or knew that I was drugged. Or I got dressed again after he left and went somehow, perhaps to kill Danielle, which is illogical. They have her killer, who just happens to be a defenseless homeless person, just as Danielle was conveniently cremated, both of which read like perfect cover-ups. Of course, Danielle’s father would cremate her to cover-up a crime against her. Would he? He is close to my father, and who knows what my father has on him. I don’t like the places my mind is going and I want a reason to stop.
I glance at the time on my phone that reads nine p.m. and since it’s a Thursday, it’s the perfect time to return to the bar. Maybe there I’ll find a lead on Drew. Or even better, Drew himself. I call another taxi.
***
Thirty minutes later I arrive at the door of the bar, which is as formal as I remember. There are well-staffed checkpoints, all men, all bulky, all formally dressed in suits and ties at the entry of the building, and then again at the elevators and even at the corner you have to turn to walk toward the club. The last bit of security between me and my destination is the man at the door. He’s a tall, thirty-something guy, with sandy brown hair that I recognize from my previous visit. “You,” he says, when I stop in front of him.
“Me?” I ask, my heart thundering in my chest despite what is likely a perfect innocent comment. “What does that mean?”
“You’re the Monroe daughter,” he replies. “And your friend—”
“Died,” I say tightly. “Yes. She did.”
He studies me a beat, but offers no apologies. “I can’t believe you’re back,” he says, instead.
“Why?” I dare, both dreading and craving his answer.
“You have a history here,” he says, and now it feels as if he’s baiting me.
“A history with Danielle,” I say. “This is the last place I was with her.”
Understanding fills his eyes. “Of course,” he says. “You’re not on tonight’s list, but—” He motions me forward. “May you find whatever peace you’re looking for.”
I stand my ground. “Can you ensure the press won’t show up?”
“No one gets past me,” he says, “And I won’t call them.”
If he expects that to move me along, it does not. “There was a guy here talking to Danielle and—”
“I thought they got the killer?”
“They did,” I say, sounding confident, when I am not, a skill that is just part of being my father’s daughter. “He was talking to Danielle,” I add, “and I just—I want to see him. To hear the last words she spoke that were actually happy words.”
“Some things are better left alone,” he says, as if he’s consulted with my father, and who knows? Maybe he has.
I pretend he has not. “Drew,” I say, as if he hasn’t spoken. “An attorney. A regular here, I think.”
“Drew Ellis,” he says. “He hasn’t been in since that night, but who can blame him? The press has hounded him and us.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, trying to sound sincere, and I guess I am but not really. For all I know, any one of these people, aided in the eventual end of Danielle or even me being drugged. “Do you know where he lives?”
He arches a brow. “You want me to tell you where he lives?”
In other words, he knows. “I have to leave in the morning. I really want to see him.”
“Why?”
I frown. “I just told you why.”
“Right,” he says dryly again. “You want to pour salt in your wounds already festering with guilt. I have no interest in aiding those efforts. Go inside and do that on your own.”
He’s a dead end, I decide then, at least for now, but he served a purpose. I have a last name. I make a show of frustration,
and head for the door. He doesn’t stop me, but he’s still here and so am I. I may not be done with him. One way or another, I’m getting a conversation with Drew Ellis before I leave Austin again.
I enter the bar, scanning the giant fish-filled aquariums on the walls, and behind three bars, thirty or so people speckled here or there in the room, memories punching at the back of my mind. Seizing the pieces of a puzzle I don’t need fitted into unknown holes, I make a beeline for the bar and stool where I’d sat that night. No one is to the left or right of me. The bartender appears in front of me. He’s good looking, a tall, dark drink of delicious that I’d remember and don’t. He wasn’t here that night, at least, not during the part before I was drugged.
I order the same martini I’d ordered the last time I was here, with no intention of drinking it. I’m tempted to order a coconut hookah, but there is nothing in this bar that is going into my body. I’m just looking for triggers. I’m looking for my way back to Danielle, when I know I can’t find that way. I shut my eyes and try to remember something, anything, I don’t already have cemented in my mind, but I’m interrupted by the bartender.
“Anything else?” he asks, and I open my eyes to find my drink in front of me, with his hand planted on the bar, leaning toward me.
“Did you meet the girl who died here?” I ask, since information is the something else I want.
He doesn’t blink or look away. “No. I wasn’t working that night, but I know who you are. I’ve seen you on the internet.”
“What have you heard about her death?” I ask, ignoring his comments about me.
“You had a fight with her,” he says. “You two were shouting by the exit.”
“And then what?”
His eyes darken. “You slapped her.”
“Stories snowball here, I see,” I say, dismissing the idea, when I’m panicked inside.
“So does anger when you’re drinking,” he comments. “Doesn’t it?”
“What are you inferring?”
His lips curve. “Nothing. They got the killer. She wasn’t you.”
“He,” I say. “You mean he wasn’t me.”
“He,” he amends.
“What else did you hear about Danielle?”
“You left,” he says. “She left. She died.” He motions to the drink. “Anything else?”
“Do you have anything else to offer?”
His lips quirk. “Are we still talking about your friend? Or are we getting more personal now?”
I stare at him. I don’t look away but there is no invitation in my eyes. “Too good for the likes of me, huh, sweetheart? I’m not royal enough for your blood. Got it.” He pushes off the bar and walks away.
“I didn’t slap her,” I whisper to no one, since he’s given me his back, but I can’t know if I’m right or he’s right.
My gaze lowers to the drink and suddenly I realize I ordered coconut hookah and chocolates. The s’mores martini. I didn’t order the drink, and my mind goes back in time. I remember Drew. He’d been talking with me. He’d ordered the drink and I’d been sandwiched between him and Danielle when her phone had buzzed with a text that I’d accidentally read: Tomorrow, honey. Market Street.
Just thinking of those words clenches my belly again and anger follows but before I can embrace the memory, another takes hold. I’m talking to Drew. “What do you do?” I ask, “and who are you really?”
“Corporate attorney,” he replies, reaching into his jacket pocket to slide me a card.
I didn’t pick it up. Not then, but later? I reach for my purse and start digging. In a deep scoop I pull my hand out and the card is in it. I have a work address and I even have a cellphone number. I toss money on the bar and climb off the stool, headed for the back door.
Once I’m at the exit, I pause at the door, remembering those last moments with Danielle:
Danielle whirls me around. “How about talking to me before you judge me?”
I don’t know what she means but I’m angry at her. So very angry. “I need to leave. Honey.” God, now I’m using my father’s words. Honey. Honey. Honey.
“The real you comes out,” she snaps. “Crass and bitchy.”
I snap back to the present, and I shove the memory away as I had her that night, exiting to the alleyway. Once I’m there, I regret this departure route as darkness surrounds me in the narrow walkway. I reach for the door again, but it cannot be opened. I swallow hard, a chill running down my spine. This is where Danielle died. I feel it. I know it. There’s a sound to my left, a cough I think, and then footsteps, but I can see no one. I dash right and start running, reaching for my phone as I do.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My father once said to me that if you have an enemy, lead that enemy down a dark alleyway and make sure they can’t get out. He’d been talking about his political opponents and using their own words against them in a debate. It seemed easily transferrable to life in general, though, and I remember, for the briefest of moments in that alleyway wondering if his words had been a foreshadowing of what would happen to me in the future that was that moment. I feared that someone wanted to ensure I never left that alleyway. Obviously, since I lived to tell this story, if that was their goal, they failed.
Present day, I can speculate with reasonable certainty that there was indeed more than one person who would have been relieved, if not downright celebratory, had I died that night.
***
THE PAST—AUSTIN PART TWO: THE BARTENDER
I clear the alleyway with my heart in my throat, but I don’t stop moving. I’m on the main downtown strip, a buzzing area most nights of the week with bright lights offering safety. Still, it’s not until I’m passing several busy restaurants that I breathe again. Even then, though, I turn and look behind me, feeling as if someone is there, someone is after me. Maybe it’s just Danielle haunting me. It would be just like her to do such a thing and laugh as she does.
I become aware of my phone in one hand and the business card in the other. I stop walking and step to the wall, next to a sandwich shop, punching in Drew’s printed cell phone number. The line is disconnected. My mind races the way my heart had in that alleyway. Why would a man who had an established career and life here disappear? It could be the press. It could be coincidence. Or it could be murder. I call a taxi again and I key in the address on the card to Drew’s office, only to realize it’s only a few blocks away. I glance around me, finding people walking here and there, which should feel safe. It doesn’t. I wait for my taxi. It’s a good decision. The car pulls up to the front door of the dark, locked high-rise, and I have no path but back to the hotel.
I enter the lobby, and I’m just passing the doorman when I hear, “Ms. Monroe.”
I stop dead in my tracks, uncomfortable with the idea that the doorman knows my name, though it could simply be hotel policy to know those in expensive suites. Or perhaps my face recently slapped all across the news. Dreading what comes next for no real reason other than everywhere I step is quicksand, I turn around and face him. “Yes?”
“There was a man here looking for you. I didn’t feel it was appropriate to deny or confirm your presence at the hotel.”
“What man?” I ask, crossing to stand in front of him.
“He didn’t leave a name.”
“What did he look like?” I ask.
“Like me.”
I whirl on my heel to find the bartender standing a foot away and without the bar between us, I can see that he’s in black jeans, and a black T-shirt. “What are you doing here? How are you here?”
“I get off early on Thursdays and I took a chance that you’d stay at the same hotel the news reported you were at last time.”
Early enough to follow me in that alleyway, I wonder.
“Is there a problem, Ms. Monroe?” the doorman asks.
Good question, I think, because this man is hot enough to give any woman pause, but then they say Jack the Ripper wa
s as well. “I’ll let you know,” I say, walking toward my potential serial killer and stopping in front of him.
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to buy you,” he pauses for effect, “a cup of coffee. I thought we could talk.”
“What do we have to talk about?”
“You seemed to want more details about Danielle’s time at the bar. I thought I’d offer them.”
“You said you weren’t there.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. You did.”
“I wasn’t working, but I was in the bar.”
“I don’t like games,” I say.
“And yet you live a game of politics every single day. Coffee or no coffee?”
I don’t immediately respond, and he turns to leave. “Okay, asshole,” I call out. “Coffee.” And because I do live a life of political games, playing them better than he could ever dare, I turn and start walking. I don’t stop until I’m sitting at a table for two in the hotel lounge area, a cluster of empty tables around me. A wall to my right.
He, whoever he is, claims the seat across from me, an amused look on his handsome face.
“Who are you really?” I ask.
“Jake Bridges is the name,” he says.
“You’re not a bartender, are you?”
“Because you think I jumped behind the bar tonight just to be able to say that I made the future First Daughter a drink?”
A waiter chooses that moment to step to our table. “Irish coffee,” I say, “but leave out the whiskey.” I glance at the man. “Coffee, creamer, and whipped cream.” I look at Jake and arch a brow.
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