I Have a Secret (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Three)

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  She pivoted on her black suede boot and squinted. “Why are you following me?”

  “I wasn’t. I mean, I guess I was, but I saw how upset you were in there and—”

  “Who are you? I know everyone in this town, but I haven’t seen you before. People don’t just pass through and poke their head in on an AA meeting, so what are you doing here?”

  “I’m an old friend of Doug’s from high school.”

  She dried her eyes with her hand and shook her head. “You couldn’t be.”

  I shrugged. “Why?”

  “Because if you were, I’d know you.”

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  “What’s yours?”

  “Sloane.”

  We both stood there while her brain ran a scan of all prior Sloane’s she may have known in her life. And then, a recollection. “Is your last name Monroe?”

  I nodded and she rushed over and threw her arms around me. My arms remained at my side—stiff and wishing for immediate release.

  “I can’t believe this!” she said.

  I couldn’t believe it either. I patted her on the back a couple times and tried to understand why she’d latched on to me. She pulled back after a minute, rested her palms on my shoulders, and tipped her head to one side. “Wait. You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  She let me go, stepped back and pointed at herself. “I’m Heather Masterson.”

  Still nothing.

  Her eyes lit up. “Remember that time in school when you came around the corner and found me in the trash can?”

  I flashed back to a memory from my senior year of a scared young girl with a mouthful of tinsel teeth. “Some of the varsity girls put you in there as part of freshman orientation.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, they spilled that plate of spaghetti on my head too. You helped me out and gave me one of your sweatshirts from your locker since mine was soaked in red. I idolized you after that.”

  “You were a few years younger than we were. I didn’t think you knew Doug very well back then. Did you meet in AA?”

  She nodded. “I was his sponsor.”

  “But I thought sponsors—”

  “Had to be the same sex? They probably prefer it, but there weren’t enough of us, and it’s not like there’s a rule against it. Doug chose me, and I didn’t want to say no.”

  “What do you mean—chose?”

  “He’d come to a few meetings and heard me talk about how long I’d been sober and said he was moved by my story of sobriety and by what I shared with the group. After that he asked me to be his sponsor.”

  Heather rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. “Do you, ah, drink coffee? There’s a great place around the corner if you don’t have any plans.”

  I smiled. “Your car or mine?”

  The diner was closed when we got there so we opted for hot beverages from a metal dispenser at a gas station and sat in my car with the heater on high.

  “Have you been to AA before?” she said.

  I shook my head. “First time.”

  “It’s a great group. You’ll like it.”

  “Actually, I’m not umm…”

  She reached out her hand and pressed her fingers into my arm. “It’s okay…I know how you feel. It’s always hard the first time. The good thing is you took a step today that will change your life.”

  I felt too guilty to continue the farce any longer, especially when she was a recovering alcoholic herself. “I don’t have a drinking problem.”

  Her face twisted into ten different kinds of confused before she said, “You don’t have to deny it any longer. Once you attend a few more meetings you’ll realize we’re like the family you never knew you had, and now that you have us, we’ll always be here.”

  “No listen,” I said, “I wasn’t there because I have a problem.”

  She shook her head like she still didn’t believe me. “Why else would you go?”

  “How long were you Doug’s sponsor?” I said.

  “A few months. He said he’d been trying to come for years, but it’s not easy. If you can make it through the door and face your friends and neighbors, it’s considered a big deal, especially in this town.”

  “I wonder what made him commit.”

  “Trista.”

  “She made him go?”

  Heather shook her head. “She’d started taking med’s. I guess that reality gave him the push he needed.”

  I took a sip of my drink and set it down in the cup holder. “Why?”

  “Doug said she was depressed. He blamed himself and thought if he could stop drinking, maybe she’d start to care again.”

  “What made him think she didn’t?”

  Heather shook her head. “I don’t know what kind of dose they had her on, but it was high enough to make her behave like she was in a coma. He’d come home and she hadn’t made dinner like she usually did, the house was a mess, the twins had destroyed the place…”

  “And where was Trista while all this was happening?”

  “In bed most days with the door locked behind her. The kids basically fended for themselves.”

  “You seem to know a lot about their situation,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Do all sponsors get this involved in their partners personal life?”

  Heather scratched behind her ear. “He needed someone to talk to, and I was there.”

  “Well then, it was good he had you for a friend.”

  She placed her coffee cup on the center console between us. “Yeah, I guess that’s why I got so emotional in there.”

  “If you two were so close, maybe you can tell me why you think he’s dead,” I said.

  “Whoa—what makes you think I know?”

  I wiggled my arms up and down. “You seem to know everything else.”

  “I was shocked when I found out what happened. Everyone loved Doug.”

  “I’ve heard that a lot lately,” I said, “but at least one person didn’t feel that way.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean. I was told he got drunk and fell over the railing on the ship.”

  I shook my head. “I was there, on the boat. I saw the surveillance camera. He didn’t fall over the side; he was stabbed and then thrown over.”

  She clasped her hand over her mouth and flicked her head from side to side. “Rusty died from a stab wound too, didn’t he? I can’t believe it. What does it mean? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  Heather stuck a couple fingers in her mouth and bit down.

  I looked away.

  “I know I shouldn’t,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Bite my nails. Can’t help it. I always do it when I’m nervous. Sometimes I bite them down so far, they bleed.”

  I turned back around and was glad to find her hands in her lap again. “Is there anything that connected Doug to Rusty over the past year?”

  “Nothing. They were opposites in every way. Everyone in town adored Doug, but people always had some kind of beef with Rusty.”

  “Over what?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Everything. Rusty didn’t have the best temper. Most people around here just tried to stay out of his way.”

  I thought back to all the suspensions he received as a teenager for fist fights. “I remember what he was like when we were younger.”

  “Take high school and multiply by five and you’ll get the man Rusty turned into after he graduated.” She turned her body to the side and faced me. “Wait—is that why you’re here? The murders? Are you involved?”

  “I’m curious about what really happened to my old friend. Aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Good, so if there’s anything else you can tell me…”

  “I thought I already did.”

  It was about to get real. From the moment our backsides slid into the leather seats of my rental car, I’d watched her—her hand ges
tures, her body movements, the way her eyes flickered to the side whenever something I said pressed her uncomfortable button. Over the years I’d learned it wasn’t always what people said that gave me the answers I was seeking, it was what they didn’t say.

  “So far you’ve only told me what you wanted me to know,” I said. “What I’m interested in is what you’re not saying.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “About what?”

  “Your relationship with Doug.”

  She squeezed her hands together like she wished a higher power could teleport her out of the car, scoop her onto a magic carpet and whisk her away.

  “Care to know what makes me think you’re keeping something from me?” I said.

  She didn’t respond.

  I grabbed the cup from the center console and held it out in front of her. “Two things. You set this cup in between us. Now, I know that doesn’t seem like much, but you did it right after I used the word friend. It bugged you.”

  “You got all that from a cup?”

  “Did you know that sometimes when a person is lying they’ll place something between themselves and the other person? It’s like a miniature barrier you and your lies can hide behind. You probably weren’t even aware you were doing it, but I was. And before that you scratched behind your ear. We could sit here all night and I can keep going—it’s up to you.”

  She blinked her eyes in disbelief.

  “Heather—whatever it is, you can tell me,” I said, “and you should, tell me. You don’t have to keep it inside anymore. Doug’s dead and he’s not coming back.”

  She flattened her hand and rammed her head into it a few times the way a person did when they’d made a mistake they couldn’t take back. “I slept with Doug, all right!”

  I leaned back in my seat. Now we were getting somewhere. “How many times?”

  “Once. It didn’t happen right away, and it shouldn’t have ever happened. He trusted me, and I let things go too far between us. But I swear I didn’t know anything about anyone wanting to harm him. And I knew we shouldn’t have slept together, but I couldn’t help it. The closer we got, the more I fell for him.”

  “Did Doug feel the same way?”

  “I don’t know—I don’t think so. Doug always talked about how much he loved his wife. I was more of a friend for him to confide in. He even cried afterward saying Trista deserved to know what we’d done, and he had a hard time looking her in the eye which further complicated their relationship.”

  Usually I was an advocate for complete honesty between a man and a woman, but Doug was dead. The truth would only make things worse. “It would be for the best if you kept your little indiscretion to yourself. Losing Doug has been hard enough on Trista. I’m glad she never found out about you two.”

  Heather stared out the window and choked back her tears. “That’s just it. She did.”

  The crisp mountain air breathed life into a new morning. I sat up, peeled back the thick tapestry that adorned the hotel window and peered out into the courtyard. A man was swimming laps in the pool a few stories below. His chest was whiter than the tips of my fingernails, and he was in desperate need of a jacket.

  I thought about Heather’s confession the night before and wondered why Trista kept it from me. But what woman wanted to admit her husband cheated on her to someone they hadn’t talked to in twenty years? That kind of information wasn’t exactly the best ice breaker. Hi, nice to see you again after all this time…hey, did you know my husband is responsible for putting the U in unfaithful? It made me wonder what else she hadn’t told me.

  I showered, placed a call to Giovanni, and took the elevator down to the lobby where I feasted on a complimentary bagel and peach yogurt. Not the hearty breakfast I had in mind, but it would keep me going for a few hours. I finished and headed outside. When I got to the parking lot I took one look at my car and realized it had been altered from its former state of unblemished perfection. All four tires had been slashed with excellent efficiency by someone who wasn’t a virgin when it came to wielding a knife.

  An employee of the hotel wheeled a bin of trash past me. He lifted his chin and smiled and then took one look at my tires and ditched the trash can to run inside. I followed.

  When I caught up to him at the front desk I said, “You don’t need to call anyone, I can handle this myself.”

  He shook his head. “The hotel manager already notified the police. Someone’s on their way over. You should wait here.”

  “I need to grab something from my room,” I said.

  He started to say ‘wait’, but it was too late. I was already up the stairs and didn’t bother looking back. I whipped the key card out of my jean pocket and sprinted toward my room. When I turned the corner two maids stood there, one with her finger aimed at the center of my door. She then threw her hands up in the air and spoke a bunch of gibberish to the other woman whose eyes popped open about three times their normal size.

  Mounted to my door was a plain white piece of paper that had been ripped in half, but that wasn’t what their eyes were riveted on. It was the sharp object used to secure the note in place.

  I shooed them away with my hand and leaned in for a closer look. The object was small and delicate. It reminded me of something a surgeon would wield over a patient in the operating room. I pulled out my phone, snapped a photo and texted it to Maddie along with the words: I’LL EXPLAIN LATER. Then I shifted my eyes to the note. The handwriting was sloppy and careless:

  THIS DOESN’T CONCERN YOU.

  STAY OUT OF IT AND YOU WON’T GET HURT.

  The problem with notes like this was I never had the chance to reply, which I considered a pity. I would have said:

  IT’S NOT ME THAT NEEDS TO BE WORRIED.

  IT’S YOU.

  I wanted to yank the knife out and get a better look at it, but something told me the maids wouldn’t keep quiet, and I didn’t need the Tehachapi Police Department offering me an escort out of town before I tracked down Doug and Rusty’s killer.

  I turned to the maids. “Did you see who did this?”

  They looked at me with a blank stare that made me regret all those years I flirted with Troy Lassiter instead of paying better attention in Spanish class. The only thing I did remember from back then was my teacher saying, “Cual es la fecha de hoy?” But I didn’t see how them giving me the date would help the current situation any. Given the language barrier, I did the only other thing that came to mind: Charades. I balled my hand into a fist and thrust up and down like I was doing a reenactment of the shower scene in Psycho and then moved my arms like a senior citizen power walking in the mall in the wee hours of morning. I hoped my one-woman show would indicate someone stabbing the note on the door and then fleeing the scene. I thought about saying ‘capiche’, but realized I would further confuse them by adding yet another language to the mix.

  When my performance was finished, I smiled, proud in my ability to get my message across without the use of actual verbiage. I looked at both women and waited for the results. One of the maids grabbed the shirt of the other and they fled in terror, leaving their cart of goodies behind. Excellent. I knew I’d missed my calling as an award-winning actress.

  With the maids gone and no cops in sight, I decided whoever left the message was long gone, but it still wouldn’t hurt to have a look. I stuck my key card into the slot, traded my cell phone for the 9mm in my handbag and raced back down the hall toward the stairs. There were three floors below me and I scaled them all, but the corridor was vacant all the way down. I was too late. The walls around me offered nothing but silence. If someone had been there, they were long gone.

  I climbed back up the stairs, pushed the door open and rammed it into something on the other side.

  “What are you trying to do, maim me?” Jesse said.

  “How was I supposed to know you were behind the door?”

  Jesse rubbed his no
se with his hand, but his eyes were fixated on my gun. “What the…where’d you get that?”

  “Same place you got yours probably.”

  He stuck his hand out. “Not funny. You can’t run around here with that thing.”

  “I have a license.”

  “And you think that allows you to whip it out whenever and wherever you please?”

  I slid by him without a word and went straight for my room.

  Jesse followed so close behind I could hear the shift in his pant legs as he walked. “So,” he said, “who’d you piss off?”

  I reached my door and noticed the note and its accompanying knife-like object were no longer stabbed into the middle of it. All that remained was a small nick in the wood. I spun around and glared at Jesse. “Where are they?”

  He angled his head in the direction of my room and it dawned on me my door was cracked open. I shoved it all the way back and walked in. A second officer was standing in the middle of the room looking around.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “you don’t have any right to be in here. The note was on my door not in my room.”

  He exchanged looks with Jesse but didn’t say anything. The knife and the note rested on the desk packaged in separate plastic bags. The police officer had his hands cupped over one another like he was concealing a small bird, but the shiny piece of pink plastic that emanated from his hand was unmistakable.

  I leaned forward and held my hand out. “What the hell are you doing with my cell phone?”

  No response. Jesse jerked his head and the officer handed it back to me.

  I held my phone out to Jesse and shook it. “What the hell was he doing with my cell phone!”

  Jesse sighed and glared at the officer. “Walker, wait for me outside please. And not in the hallway, in the SUV.”

  “But don’t we need to—”

  Jesse shook his head. “Just do it. Now.”

  The other guy nodded and walked out. Jesse leaned his weight against the door, creating a barrier between me and the officer.

  “I’m not going to attack him if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said. “I just wanted him to answer the question. He’s been in my room with his mitts all over my things.”