by Rose, Kristi
The account was empty. Thirty thousand dollars gone. I stilled, suddenly chilled. I put the phone on Lockett’s desk. “There’s nothing in the account.”
He clucked his tongue. “They’re moving fast. You’ll need to as well. I wish I could ease you into this, but it looks like we’re up against the clock.” He took another folder off his desk and thrust it at me. “Carson left you his business.”
“How? You said his estate gave everything to the real wife.” I swallowed that down like a person did a cockroach.
“He put this in your name. The building lease has been paid in full for the year. It renews at the end of January. It’s yours to do with what you want. You need to start securing everything you can.”
“I know nothing about security systems. I can’t do his job.”
Lockett looked weary. “His business wasn’t just security. He also acted as a private investigator.”
Unable to refrain from being sarcastic, I said, “What? He sold security systems and solved crime?” Nothing, and I mean abso-freaking-lutely nothing, made sense. My life was currently the definition of bizarro-world.
“Yes.” Lockett gave me this look, part sympathy and part pity, that infuriated me.
I snatched the folder and my bag, jumping to my feet. My savings was gone. My husband was not my husband but, regardless, he was gone, too, and now some blond surfer wannabe was annoyed with me because I’d been duped? Nope, I’d had my limit of crap today. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about the man I was sleeping with for the last year and clearly did not know?”
Lockett kept his mouth closed.
“No? Good. Then I’ll get out of here before you tell me my dad isn’t my real dad and I’m actually a boy named Pablo from Spain.” I marched to the door, fueled by indignation and fear.
“Samantha,” Lockett said.
I paused. Staring at the door, my hand on the handle, I refused to look back.
“Please be careful. Be careful who you talk to. Who you share information with. Just forget you ever knew a Carson Holmes and get on with your life.”
I glared at him over my shoulder, appalled he could ever suggest such a thing. I now had a million unanswered questions, and if there was one thing everyone could tell you about me, was that I had an insatiable curiosity.
3
Friday
How I got from Lockett the Lawyer’s third-floor office and into my car was anyone’s guess.
The day was unseasonably warm, but I was chilled to the bone. I flung my sling bag and envelopes haphazardly on the passenger seat then took the driver’s seat. Without air flow, the thick heat in the car was suffocating. I pressed a button on my fob to lower the windows then clutched the steering wheel, my hands at four and eight, as the turmoil of the day surrounded me.
I stared out the window but only saw the film reel of the past year I’d spent with Carson. Image after image captured by the camera of my mind’s eye replayed, this time looking for signs. We’d met at the Portland Marathon, having run the last six miles at the same pace, and crossed the finish line together. We’d celebrated our achievement by dumping water on one another, hugging and laughing. I’d never forget how he’d stepped back, surveyed me as if he was seeing a stunning view for the first time, and stuck out his hand as an introduction.
“Carson Holmes, like Sherlock Holmes,” he’d said. I supposed that should have been my first clue. His introduction, a whopper of a lie, had likened him to a fictional person.
“Samantha True,” I’d replied. I’d studied the soft angles of his face. He was handsome with a boyish charm, an impish smile, and twinkling brown eyes.
“Can I take you to a celebratory dinner?” he’d asked. “I’m new to the area and would like to make a friend.”
Everything in my being had screamed yes. In hindsight, it was shocking really how easily I’d been played. There were no warning signs, no red flags. Ever. One dinner had led to several others. He didn’t rush me or work me over like those scary news stories about how a woman became a victim. He’d never hesitated answering questions I asked. Never, not once, did I get the vibe he was hiding something.
And it wasn’t like I resembled a bridge troll or anything. I’m taller than most women, but only by an inch or two, with long strawberry-blond wavy hair, gray-green eyes, and straight teeth from four years in braces. My complexion was good, with a smattering of freckles across my nose, and I got the occasional zit, usually at the worst possible time. Yeah, I often wore ponytails and preferred shants (pants that unzip at the knees and become shorts) to dresses, but I’d dated when I wanted to. It wasn’t like I was hard up to find Mr. Right.
Six months after meeting, we took a Vegas trip, never intending the weekend to be more than a fun getaway. Several drinks and a buffet later, a polyester-suited Elvis married us. There was no something old, borrowed, new, or blue. But there had been a drunken video of our nuptial kiss that ended with Carson sweeping me off my feet and carrying me off toward a fake sunset. I stupidly blasted it out on social media instead of calling my parents and telling them. My mother had told me the video quality was poor but the message was clear. Oh, and couldn’t I, just once, do things like other girls my age?
Hey, I’d gotten married. What more did she want?
“Samantha?” Outside the driver’s side window, Lockett was bent at the waist and peering in at me. “I know this is difficult, but you need to leave. It’s not a good idea for you to sit out here. It’s not safe.”
I gave him the view of my back, not caring about his warning. I wasn’t too worried about the food truck vendors, the business people, and stay-at-home hippie moms that were bustling to the nearby parks or coffee shops.
Lockett sighed. “Can you call someone?”
Sure, I could. But I didn’t want to. I was in no hurry to have the conversation about my lying, cheating not-really-my-husband with anyone.
I had three options. None of them were good. There was my sister Rachel. She lived on the east coast, was an active duty nurse in the US Navy, and a single parent. She liked to boss me around, like older sisters do, especially when she was worried. I considered my parents next. This was going to rip them up, especially my dad. He loved Carson and Carson loved him. Or maybe that last part was a ruse, too. I couldn’t tell my dad that. Last was my best friend, Precious, but with her came more drama, and I didn’t have the energy for that.
Lockett shuffled away, grumbling, and I was glad. I continued to hold the steering wheel, rubbing my thumbs over the stitching of the leather as I tried to put the pieces together. How had I judged so poorly? Even now, I couldn’t pick out the clues.
I must have done this for some time because when Lockett returned, he had a friend.
“I can’t get her to leave,” Lockett said. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the man’s gray pants, his hand in his front pocket.
Lockett’s face appeared at the window. “You left me no choice. I’m not trying to cause you more trouble.”
Another face came into my periphery, pushing Lockett out of view. “Hey, Samantha. How’s it going?” Asked the cop at my window.
I closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them he’d be gone.
“She’s not had a good day,” Lockett whispered. “Maybe not ask her that.”
The cop cleared his throat. “Samantha, it’s Leo. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
As if.
I said nothing.
“Want me to call Hue, and you can talk to him?” Leo held up his phone.
Hue was Leo’s kid brother and one of my closest friends. Leo was not one of my closest friends. In fact, we had a past heavy with mutual irritation for each other.
He’d been the star quarterback for our high school team while I’d been the photographer for the school paper. Every time I tried to get a shot, he’d turn away. But only for me. He’d let others take his picture. He was that sort of butthead. To add fuel to the fire, Leo Stillman had born
e witness to my most embarrassing life stumbles. Or contributed to it, depending on who was telling the story.
Besides my current one, that was.
I’d gone to college for photography with high hopes of becoming a forensic photographer. During the intern phase in my year, I was asked to photograph an auto collision for insurance purposes. The scene included a dead deer. Trouble was, I had the flu—body chills, clammy skin, queasy stomach, and double vision. One look at the deer’s beady black eyes and twisted body, and I’d upchucked everywhere, including Leo’s still-being-processed scene. The night had gotten worse from there as the cops had taken a call to respond to a second scene, one where a woman I’d grown up with had been chained to a pole and hit by a car following a robbery.
Seeing the dark underbelly of the criminal world had left me uncertain of my life’s plan. Sensing this, Leo told me to give it up and go take pictures of babies dressed like peas in a pod. Sadly, for the last ten years, I’d done just as he suggested. And, no lie, there was a dark side to women and their unbendable determination to have their precious little ones captured just right.
“Go away, Officer,” I said and stuck the key in the ignition.
I bet Leo Stillman would never marry a polygamist.
Perfect people didn’t do stupid things. He stood well over six feet with the wide shoulders of a warrior. His dark skin and steely gray eyes were enhanced by his broad features and the high cheekbones passed down through his Native American roots. He was the walking epitome of the word strong.
“Wanna tell me what’s wrong? You need to talk to someone.” He spoke to me like I imagined he would a person on a ledge, contemplating jumping. Like I’d lost my marbles. Asking a jumper to share their woes wasn’t a good place to start. It was where you want to go eventually, sure. Even I’d learned that in Criminology 101. What more was there to make a person carry out their plan than to rehash their failures?
I turned the key over one click so the SUV had power then raised the window up, closing it in his face.
Leo ducked his head and sighed so loudly it briefly fogged the window. Then he straightened and walked around to the passenger side, Lockett with him.
“You can’t sit here, Samantha. You need to move on.” Leo again with his commands.
Apparently, this was his be-stern-with-the crazy-person voice. I raised the passenger window while simultaneously lowering the driver’s. I might be in shock, but I wasn’t ready to roast in my car.
Leo slapped his leg in frustration and strode around to the driver’s side. I reversed the position of the windows. Eventually, he would get the hint and, hopefully, it would make him go away. How did he like having someone always turn their back to him like he’d done to me? I wanted to point this out, but that would require me to look at him.
We did this song and dance three more times before he lost his cool.
“Dammit, Samantha,” Leo said. His words were muffled by the closed driver’s window. He banged his hand against the roof of my car and stepped up onto the sidewalk where Lockett waited. I left the windows up and cracked my sunroof. I picked up bits of their muted conversation but couldn’t decipher it. I needed to figure out what to do next. Exhausted from the power play with the windows, I let my head fall back against the headrest and my eyes shutter closed, fatigue pulling me into a dark abyss.
The earsplitting trill of a coach’s whistle ripped through the air.
I jumped and banged my head on my car’s ceiling. My heart raced like a pony out of the gate.
Standing outside my car, purple coach’s whistle between her lips ready for another blow, was the large-breasted, big-haired, Amazon of a woman known as Precious. Her real name was Erika Shurmann, and she also happened to be my best friend since second grade. We’d discovered being sent from class for extra help—me because I’m dyslexic and her because of a stutter—that we were stronger as a tribe. We brought Hue Stillman, who also had dyslexia, into the fold. And we’d stuck together for our entire school career and after. Until Hue joined the Marines and shipped off to foreign lands.
The nickname Precious came when another kid asked her what was so special about her that she didn’t have to read in front of the class, and she’d responded with, “Because I’m P-p-precious.” Yeah, the moniker stuck, likely because it was used a lot to tease her, but over the years that had shifted. She embodied the nickname. The girl treated everyone like they had a gift to give to the world and, in return, she was treated the same.
As a best friend, she was loyal and had the biggest heart. As a professional life coach, her no-nonsense, frank-speaking ways and honesty came in handy. It also didn’t hurt that she always looked as if she stepped out of a fashion magazine. Today, she was immaculately dressed in a figure-fitting plum dress with matching nails and lip gloss.
She had one impractical weakness. A deep love for all things Bigfoot. She spent her off-time on the Washington Bigfoot Research Team.
I clicked the key and lowered my window.
“Holy cripes, Precious, I think I wet my pants,” I said and squirmed in my seat as a way to check.
“Samantha Jane True, just what in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks are you doing sitting here in this car? According to this tall drink of water over here”— she gestured to Lockett— “you’ve been here two hours. I get a call from Officer Hot Pants who says he thinks you’re high or drunk or something.”
I glared at Leo through the windshield.
“I told him he was being ridiculous. But you don’t really look so good. You’re pasty, almost sickly.” She reached into the car and put her hand on my forehead. “Clammy, too.”
“This must be the legendary Precious,” Locket said to Leo. “Her reputation precedes her.”
“Precious,” I said. Tears burst forth and ran streaks down my face. Grief? Humiliation? Both?
“Jumping flying crickets, what’s happened?” She bent forward and studied me, the purple coaches whistle swinging on the lanyard around her neck.
“Carson,” I said hoarsely. Too humiliated to say the words, I picked up the manila envelopes Lockett gave me and waved them in her face. “Lawyer,” I forced the word out and pointed to Lockett.
Precious’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that slick son of a gun you married has filed for divorce? I will skin him alive. I will flay him to the bone.”
“That’s the same thing,” Lockett said.
“Hush,” Precious said and pointed a long finger at him. She returned her attention to me. “I’m sorry, Sam. I always knew he was too good to be true. Men like him are in romance novels, not real life.”
Leo crossed his arms and cleared his throat.
“Oh, please,” Precious said. “In high school, the only constant in your life was your jock.”
“No,” I said shaking my head. “Not divorce. Dead.” On the last word, I let the tears flow freely. I covered my face with my hands.
“Aw, jeez,” Leo mumbled.
The door jerked open. Precious pulled my hands from my face. “Are you kidding me?”
I shook my head and sucked in a ragged breath. “That’s not all. Turns out Carson isn’t his name. He has a whole other life and a whole other wife. I married a polygamist.”
Lockett stepped forward. “Who has some powerful enemies. The sooner you can get her out of here and away from me, the safer she’ll be,” Lockett said, making shooing motions with his hands.
“Care to explain that?” Precious asked.
“I can’t.” Lockett gave a sheepish shrug.
“Can’t or won’t?” she asked.
He shrugged again.
She faced Leo. “Why are you here?”
He jerked a thumb toward Lockett. “He called Wind River PD and asked for assistance, requested someone who knew Samantha. DB sent me.”
DB Louney was our police chief, another jerk I’d gone to school with. Only he’d been a dweeb who puberty had been kind to. He’d gone from skinny dork to buffed-out meathead o
ver the course of one summer. Personally, I thought his change was a regression.
I groaned and pointed to Leo. “You can’t tell Dweebie what’s happened. He’ll blab everywhere, and I haven’t told my parents.”
Leo gave a brief nod. He didn’t have a reputation for being a gossip, and I was counting on that.
Precious mumbled something about people being useless. She pushed me over into the passenger seat. “I’ll text Bob to come to pick up my car,” she said and quickly tapped something into her phone. Bob was Precious’s neighbor and a lovestruck Lothario who’d do anything for her. This was the life of Precious. No man would play her for a fool.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Clearly no one here is going to help you except me. We’ll stop and get several gallons of ice cream and some wine. We’ll sort this out.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed, her eyes moist with unshed tears. “Hold on to your titties, kitty, we’re in for a long ride.”
I wish I knew then how huge of an understatement her words were.
4
Saturday
The next morning, I woke from a restless sleep to find my life was still a dumpster fire. Yesterday hadn’t been a bad dream. And to make matters worse, I hadn’t gone to see my parents. Hopefully, they were still in the dark about Carson’s death.
I needed to fix that, and soon. The secret I wanted to keep was Carson’s polygamy. I was okay if no one else ever discovered that little tidbit, but wasn’t sure how I could contain it.
My mother, a non-practicing lawyer, was currently the town mayor, and following this term, was eye-balling a position on the school board. My father owned and ran the local paper. The Trues were go-getters. They always did the right thing, overachieved when they tried something new, and were pillars of the community. This description included Rachel but not so much me.
