Emily moves past my kitchen and toward my small dining room table with familiarity.
"How'd you know I haven't eaten?"
"Because you think you're a robot. As much as you try to act like one, you're not a robot. Anyway, I wasn't sure what to get." She pulls the containers out of the bags and arranges them on the table. "There wasn't a guide for comfort food post-assault, so I played it safe and went with everything breaded, fried, and soaked in sauces."
"Perfect. It's already like I wasn't even assaulted."
She snorts and I smile, officially grateful for her presence. For the way she crowds my fears into the corners of the room. The same way she crowds everything dark and gloomy into corners, packing them away to deal with later.
I pretend I don't notice the way she eyes me as we eat. She pretends not to wait for me to bring up the subject. The giant elephant in the room.
"I spoke to the police last night," I say, reaching for another spoonful of rice. "They say there's been a string of attacks. You should be careful getting into your car at night."
"I know. It's been on the news."
She says the last word pointedly.
The news. My job. My life. Yet, I rarely pay attention to accounts of assault around the city. These things happen every single day. A woman narrowly missing an attack is a blip on the radar for news stations. Not nearly horrific enough for the entertainment industry that is news reporting. There is little incentive for reporters to devote much page time to an assault unless there is something that sets it apart. An angle to sell. A series of assaults, on the other hand—an attacker still out on the loose? That might be of more interest to the media.
To me.
The faintest trickle of shame comes over me, sobering me right up. Here I am, in the aftermath of my own attack, and all I can think about is a story angle.
"What's this?" Emily asks, picking up Detective O'Brien's business card from the table, where I'd tossed it along with my purse this morning. "Gemma O'Brien…is this the detective on your case?"
"That's the woman. There's a man, too."
I won't soon forget what he looked like, standing in front of my hospital bed, assessing me carefully with his calculating light brown eyes. Before he spoke a word, he'd sucked all of the air out of the room with his quiet, but commanding energy. When I'd confessed my fears, traces of compassion flickered across his otherwise stoic features. He seemed unable to stop himself from snatching the card from his partner's hand to scribble down the note.
Emily turns it over and reads the back of it.
"Trident Mixed Martial Arts. Are you taking self-defense classes?"
"I want to, but their classes are full."
"You called?"
"I went by earlier, had the cab make a stop there on my way home."
"On your way home from the hospital? Wait, where's your car?"
"The police still have it. Anyway, it was a waste of my time. Their self-defense classes are full until summer."
I walked into the studio this morning wearing the same clothes I wore last night. They felt like an awkward and unfamiliar skin, hanging off of me and weighing me down.
Kind of the way the silence falling between Emily and I feels. I go on eating as though unaware of the way she watches me. I know what she's thinking before she says another word.
"I wish you had called me. I hate that you took a cab home. I was watching a fucking movie last night. A movie, Amelia. And you were sitting in a hospital all…" She trails off, shaking her head.
"I didn't want to worry you."
"You know what? There's being independent and there's just plain shutting people out."
These words settle between us.
"Are you going to tell me what happened?" she prompts, having finally lost her patience.
I shut my eyes and let out a breath, then launch into the story as quickly as I can manage. The details spill out of me as though for the first time. Emily is transfixed, her plate untouched from the moment I begin. I've never seen her this serious, biting the side of her thumbnail. When I finish, she sits back and curses under her breath.
Her reaction cloaks me in discomfort I want to shake off.
"Emily, I'm fine. It could've been worse. It was a near miss."
"A near miss?" She gapes at me, furious. She sets down her fork, which she'd been holding on to despite not eating. "Stop. Stop acting as if it was nothing. For fuck's sake, Amelia. I swear, if you keep shoving away your feelings and pretending you don't have them, they'll bubble up and you're going to just…"
"What?"
She shakes her head, not wanting to say it. But I know what she's thinking.
You're going to fall apart again.
The double-edged sword of friendship, when they've seen your cracks and remind you of them without even meaning to, at the worst of times.
"Remember that manhunt a few years back?" I blurt out. "The one with the ranger who went AWOL and killed six people before he was found barricaded in someone's house up in Mount Laguna?"
Emily's expression softens as the memory falls into place. "Yeah…I remember."
"Remember the story I wrote my senior year of college? The one about the woman he held captive in her own living room? It was published in the Union Tribune, it's how I got the job after graduation—"
"Wait, is this the story that landed you in the hospital?"
My mouth hangs open mid-speech. I should've seen the question coming.
Emily and I had been attending the same school, but didn't meet until we both found ourselves in the cafeteria of Sharp Mary Birch hospital.
She was there for her mother, who'd nearly died from an overdose. And I was there because I'd driven myself into the ground while feverishly pursuing the story.
"Yes," I say, looking down. Why? Why did I open this can of worms? "That's the story."
"What does any of this have to do with what happened to you last night?"
"Perspective, Emily. For three days, the woman was hostage to this mass murderer who had the television on to show the ongoing manhunt for him. Police knew he was somewhere in the area, they'd found his car. So, they went door to door. They went to her door. Knocked on it five or six times. The woman stood just a few feet away, with a stranger's hand clasped over her mouth and a gun pointed to her head. She said she soiled her pants and slept in them because he wouldn't allow her to change. She was sure he was going to kill her."
Emily shifts in her seat, clearly uncomfortable.
Ugly things are hard to hear. Even harder to live.
"Three days," I repeat. "That woman lived through three days of hell. Me? It was seconds. I don't even think it was a full minute."
"What are you saying? That what happened to you doesn't count because you're holding it up to the yardstick of something else? Amelia, that doesn't make any sense. Sixty seconds or sixty days. Time isn't the unit of measurement for trauma." She pushes away her plate and bites out a weak laugh. "I mean, seriously, does anyone I know have a soul?"
I stare at her.
"You, my mother, my sister, Owen. Do you know what you all have in common? You're all dead inside."
"Well, it's a lucky thing we have you," I say, peering up at her.
Her lips quirk. "Sorry, that was a shit thing to say. Besides, it turns out Owen does have a soul, so I'm sure you have one too, down there somewhere. Deep down there. Way down—"
"Okay, I get it."
I stare down at my own food. We sit in silence for a few passing minutes, simmering in thoughts of all we've said.
There's a weightlessness to Emily I've always admired. She's resilient in a way most people aren't, in a maddening way I've never been able to emulate.
I seek out darkness; she always finds light.
When we first met, we seemed so different we almost repelled each other, and yet we clung together instead. We each recognized in the other what we were missing, subconsciously bonding over our absent mothers. Over the gap th
ey left behind inside of us. Forests that were only fields, filled with mere stumps where bigger things were supposed to grow but never got the chance.
I was five and a half when the courts found my biological mother, charged her with abandonment, and forced her to relinquish maternal rights. Years later, I was adopted by a couple who'd lost three babies, back to back, and wanted nothing more than to have a child to place in their empty nest.
My parents braved the adoption system to quell the pain in their hearts and they ended up with me. I was small for my age and distrustful, having been shuffled through foster homes all of my life. And though I can't remember much of what happened to me before my adoption, if I strain my memory enough, I come up with vague impressions of a deep urgency to hide.
While Emily's mother was an addict who never wanted children, my adoptive mother wanted nothing more than to have a child. But from the moment I'd stepped into the beautifully decorated room meant for a baby girl who didn't make it past her second week of life, I knew I was the impostor child.
Children are intuitive and they know when they are not truly loved, when a mother is too hesitant for fear of her own heartbreak.
I'm sure my mother wanted to love me, but she held me at arm's length, instead. It was my father who had convinced her adoption would help them heal. My father loved me and broken as he was inside, he managed to be the glue that held our family together. But after his death, my mother and I reverted to being strangers. From a desolate tree to just another stump in a field of things that were never meant for me.
"I just don't get it," Emily starts up again, as though there was no break in our conversation. "I wish you'd understand that just because only the worst stories go to print, it doesn't mean—"
Emily halts mid-sentence because I sit up, like a dart of lightning shoots through me.
Don't print it.
"Shit," I say under my breath.
I've got more on him.
"What?" Emily snaps her fingers in the air in front of me. "Hello? What are you—"
I get to my feet. All day I've been floating in the aftermath of my attack, but quite suddenly, the reminder of the lead hovering overhead comes crashing down on me, shaking me with urgency.
I can give you what you're missing.
The caller. I know who she is.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Amelia
EMILY FOLLOWS ME TO my bedroom, trailing behind as I head straight to the small, messy desk nestled in the corner. Notepads and papers litter the surface, and a half-empty mug of coffee lays forgotten beside the keyboard.
Emily moves closer, squinting up at the wall over the desk.
"Look at you, you serial killer," she says under her breath.
It's my brainstorming wall, covered with a slew of articles and pictures. Sometimes seeing parts of a story literally before my eyes helps me piece everything together. In this case? A picture of the mayor joins stickers of his campaign slogan, articles on his backstory, images of him reading at a local elementary school.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
I bring my laptop to life from sleep mode with a few taps on the mousepad. I launch into an explanation as I click around folders, looking for the document I set up last week where I transcribed my voice notes.
"I interviewed Mayor Connolly two weeks ago about the opening of that massive new animal shelter he commissioned. While I was there, I picked up on a different story…one of the mayor promising to stick his member in places it didn't belong."
"A sex scandal. Me like." Emily sits on the edge of my desk and picks up my post-it note dispenser, which is shaped like a Polaroid camera.
"Yes, me like, too. I wanted nothing more than to blow the lid on the whole thing—" I pause, finding the file in a folder on my desktop. I open it and scroll past disjointed notes and names, looking for one name in particular. "I pitched the story to my editor. He killed it in half a breath."
"How did you catch wind of the story?"
I hesitate. My hunches tend to be intangible.
I pieced together a slew of abstract impressions into a solid theory. The energy in the office was tense. The women, on edge. The interactions between him and his female staff felt off, razor sharp, disingenuously cordial.
"I had an inkling, so I started poking around, joined two of the women for lunch. They weren't exactly dying to talk to me, but getting people to tell me things they don't want to is sort of my specialty…"
I'm distracted by having reached the end of the file without finding what I was looking for. These notes are the text transcriptions of voice recordings, but I also carried a small notepad where I wrote random things. I start shuffling through the papers on my desk, searching for it.
Emily watches me in silence, waiting for me to continue. I find the notepad under the cup of coffee and begin flipping through the pages.
"I got a call yesterday from a woman. She seemed to think I was gearing up to publish the exposé—which I wasn't—and told me to hold off because she had more information. She said, 'I can give you what you're missing.' And that got me thinking…there are rumors swirling as to why the mayor's secretary lost her job after years in his service." I stop on the next page I flip and set a finger over a name scribbled in the margins of the page. Susan Levine. The name is underlined and underneath it, I had scribbled the words, Fired due to an affair?
"It has to be her," I think aloud. "I spoke to all of the women in the mayor's office, but the voice that called me? I keep replaying it in my head and I'm pretty sure I've never heard it before. There's an accent I can't really put my finger on. Canadian? The women in the office gossip like no one's business. I don't doubt someone tipped her off to a reporter asking questions about the mayor's behavior."
Something makes me glance up at Emily just in time to see concern dart across her expression.
"What if…?" she starts, trailing off quickly.
"What?" I ask.
"If this Susan lady was able to piece together that you were writing an exposé, do you think the mayor would've come to the same conclusion?"
The suspicion on her face is spelled out clearly enough for me to read. But she shakes her head again, as though trying to dismiss her own thoughts.
Our gazes remain locked.
"What are you saying?"
"You get that call, urging you not to print what the caller seems to think is an inflammatory story on the mayor, right in the throes of his reelection campaign, and hours later you're attacked? Did you tell the detectives about the call?"
I hesitate, having to think. "No. I didn't see how it was relevant. Honestly, I'd forgotten about it. But, would the mayor of San Diego really orchestrate an attack on me, just to keep the news of his indiscretions out of the press? That's extreme."
Even as I say it, a small voice whispers in the back of my mind.
Except, he doesn't know how little or how much you know. How little or how much you've uncovered. Maybe he has much bigger things to hide.
"Okay, forget the attack. What if Susan was just saying whatever she could to keep you from printing the story? What if they're still together?"
"First things first," I say, "let's find out if Susan really was the one who called me."
"Do you think you can convince someone at the mayor's office to give you her number?"
"No need, I'm sure I can find it myself. I don't want anyone at his office to find out I'm contacting her."
Emily busies herself sifting through the contents of my desk out of boredom, while I click around the screen, mumbling under my breath. Minutes later, just as I'd expected, I find Susan's number listed in the header of her resume, which is posted on an online job search site.
Emily hands me my cell phone and I dial the number straight away. The difficult part is figuring out what to say to her.
After a few rings, a woman answers with a wary, "Hello?"
"Susan Levine?"
Her tone only grows more hesitant.
"Yes. Who is this?"
"My name's Amelia Woods with the Union Tribune. You called me yesterday and I want to know why."
Beside me, Emily shoots me a wink, her lips curling up. She knows what I'm doing. It's the oldest trick for getting people to admit to something you already suspect to be true.
Don't ask for confirmation, ask for clarification.
Susan's reaction comes in a beat of silence before she speaks again.
"How'd you get my number?"
"I got it online. I figured you wanted me to get ahold of you."
"I did, sorry—I wasn't in a place where I could talk. I did mean to call you back but I…I got busy."
"Why did you call me, Susan?" I ask again.
"I heard about your story."
There's a sudden drop in my stomach for a moment when I think for sure she's going to say I heard about your attack. But when the word story registers, I rebound with the satisfaction of being right. She was the one who'd called me.
I wait, letting my silence tilt her toward divulging more. She seems to wait, too, so I decide to fold and let her think she has the upper hand.
"Why did you warn me against printing the story? Did you know…" I don't want to reveal my attack if she doesn't yet know. "Did you fear something would happen?"
"I wasn't trying to warn you. I was trying to help you. You shouldn't print the story yet because you have the wrong story. You think the worst thing the mayor's up to is sexual misconduct? There's more. There's so much more."
I look up at Emily, who gestures a circle with her hand, urging me to encourage Susan to keep talking.
"Susan, if you know something, if…"
"Do you know why I got fired? Because I got tired of fucking him. He's married, do you know that? He thought I was this stupid little girl, buying into all his vapid promises about leaving his wife for me one day. He'd talk about taking me on vacations. About buying me things. All empty promises. Yeah, maybe I believed him at first. Then I realized I wasn't the only one. I was stupid. But not for long. I opened my eyes, and I realized what he was really doing. He thought he could control me, thought he had me where he wanted me. That's why he made sure I was the one scheduling all his meetings, witnessing all of the transactions. He'd have me amend notes on checks to hide what they were really for, and whom they were really from. He's a crook. I figured out what he was up to and I knew I'd need leverage. That's what you're missing. The leverage I have."
Reckless Touch Page 4
