by Beth Yarnall
I type Carla’s name into the search box first for his incoming mail, then his outgoing mail and trash folder. As quick as I can I highlight everything and send a copy of it all to the thumb drive. I close out of that program and send the file marked ‘Ruiz’ on the desktop to the flash drive without even opening it. We’re running out of time. I can almost hear a clock counting down the time until Debbie comes in and catches us.
There’s another folder with a number instead of a name. I send that and just about everything else to the USB drive without even knowing if it’s relevant. When I’m done I pull the stick out and bring the summation back up again. I blow on the dust on a stack of books next to the computer so it scatters across the keyboard, disguising the fact that the computer was tampered with.
“Nice,” Nolan says in approval. “Good thinking.”
I’m not proud that I thought to cover my tracks. Quite the opposite.
“If you’re done there take some pictures of the room—close ups of things and the whole room in general.”
I do as he says and take a picture of the whole desk. I go around the room snapping things here and there. I have no idea what’s important and what’s not. I’m getting a really icked out feeling the longer we’re in here and it’s not just because of the filth. It’s almost like we’re being watched. I wrap my arms around me on a shiver.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I feel weird. Like someone’s watching us.”
His head comes up from the drawer he was looking through. He closes it and starts to wander the room, checking out objects here and there. He pulls out a flashlight and switches it on to examine the ceiling vent, then moves on to the bust of President Kennedy in the corner.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispers. Lifting the bust from its resting place, he flips it over. “Hello there.” He reaches into the neck and pulls out a small black box with a wire and small circular thing attached. “Gotchya.” He lifts a small chip from the box and puts it in his pocket. From his other pocket he pulls a similar card and inserts it into the box, then puts the whole contraption back inside the bust the way he found it and sets it back on the pedestal. He keeps his hand over JFK’s eyes.
He looks up at me and whispers. “Good work. Always follow your instincts. Can you get the door? Time to go.”
He’s so calm it’s almost spooky. I have no idea what happened other than we were indeed being watched and possibly recorded. I’m totally on board with getting the hell out of here. I unlock the door and check down the hall.
“All clear,” I whisper.
He slides his hand off the eyes of the bust, staying just out of range of the camera and slips out the door after me. I pull my gloves off like he’s doing. He takes both pairs and stuffs them in his pocket.
“Let’s go find Debbie and say goodbye.”
We get to the end of the hall just as Debbie comes out of the kitchen toward us. An explosion of panic goes off inside me. Was she the one watching us look through her husband’s office? Or was the timing just coincidental? If it wasn’t her, who was it?
“We just got a call about another case and have to go,” Nolan tells her smoothly. He holds his hand out to her. “Thank you for letting have a look around your husband’s office.”
“Did you find anything useful?” she asks.
“We’ll be in touch if we have any news about your husband.” He grips my arm and tows me toward the door.
“Thank you for the milk and cookies,” I manage to mumble. I’m so freaked out I’m shaking.
Nolan’s hand moves up my arm to my back as we go down the front walk. I look over my and Nolan’s shoulders to find Debbie standing in the doorway, frowning after us.
“Damn it,” Nolan spits out as he opens the car door for me.
“What the hell happened back there?”
“We almost got fucked. And not in a good way. Are you okay?”
He wraps his arms around me and rubs up and down my back. I curl into his embrace, tucking my arms between us. I like the way his arms feel around me way too much, but I’m past caring about keeping him at a distance right now. There are more important things going on. I look back at the house, but the door is now closed and Debbie is gone.
“The good thing is that the camera wasn’t on a live feed.” He tightens his embrace and I snuggle deeper into it. “We should be okay. I think.”
“What do you mean you think?”
“I’ve got the SD card. Hey, you’re okay.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ve got you.”
“We shouldn’t have gone into that office. It was wrong.”
“It’s what I do.”
“I don’t like what you do.”
“Sometimes I don’t like it either. Especially when I screw up. Damn it. I should’ve checked for cameras when we first went into the room. I hope it was the only one.”
I groan. “Don’t say that.”
“It probably was the only one.” He looks up and down the street. “We need to get out of here. Give me your keys.”
I hand them over and he helps me into the car. It doesn’t occur to me until we’ve pulled away from the curb that I did indeed let him take charge and it doesn’t feel weird or frightening. It feels…comfortable. Safe. I don’t look too hard at that or at how reassuring it is to have him next to me in the car right now. He handles my car with ease and competence.
“Do you have the USB cable for your phone?” he asks.
His question confuses me for a second and then I remember the photos I took. “Yeah.”
He takes an unfamiliar series of turns and I realize he’s taking me to his apartment. Of course. I drove. He’ll probably upload the pictures from my phone and send me on my way. That’s good. The way I’m feeling I’m not so sure it’s a good idea that we’re alone. This is what I wanted. So why do I suddenly feel abandoned?
“Are you hungry? Do you want to grab some food?”
He glances at me sharply. I don’t know where his head was at, but my questions seem to throw him.
“I’m hungry and I want to know what’s on the SD card you pulled from the camera,” I explain.
Some of my anxiety about being alone must’ve come through my voice because he takes my hand, prying it away from the other one where it was all twisted up.
He gives it a squeeze. “Yeah. Debbie’s cookies aren’t sitting real well with me either. How about In N Out?”
The familiar red and yellow sign is lit up in the distance.
“Sounds good.”
He maneuvers the car into the right lane and turns into the drive thru. We give our order to the employee going car to car to make the long line go faster and he punches it into the tablet he’s holding. Nolan eases the car forward and rolls the window back up.
“You okay? I know you weren’t very comfortable with what we did back there.”
“Not comfortable is putting it mildly. I’ve never ever broken the law before.”
“Never? Not even once?”
“No. Not even a traffic ticket.”
“You’re kidding.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who was such a straight arrow.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s cool. I’ve just never met anyone who hasn’t messed up at least once.” He shifts in his seat, propping his elbow on the door and rubbing his chin. “What I do must seem really bad to you. Are you looking at me differently now?”
“A little. Yes.”
“And not in a good way.”
I shake my head again.
“Damn. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m likely to do something that skates the line between legal and illegal again. Probably more than once before we’re through here. Are you going to be okay with that? Cause if not then maybe we should think about you not coming with me while I’m investigating this case.”
; “I don’t know. I’m not really sure I’m okay with what I did today. I stole from a man. I looked through his things.”
“Technically you didn’t steal. Neither of us did. We copied things and took photos, but we didn’t take anything. Debbie let us into that office. There was no breaking and entering. And I did replace the SD card in the camera with a blank one so again technically nothing was taken. Just switched out.”
“That is a mighty thin line you walk.”
“I can live with it. Can you?”
“I don’t know. I’m struggling with it. I know what you’re saying is true. Everything is there exactly like it was before we walked in except for the SD card. Technically. I’ve never had to add a qualifier like that to anything I’ve ever done. It feels weird.”
“Maybe we should concentrate on what each of us do. Separately. We can meet up later and compare notes.”
He’s giving me an out. The thing is I’m not sure I want it. This case is my responsibility. Carla’s my responsibility. Not that Nolan wouldn’t give me all of the information he discovers, it would just be second hand. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that either. The control freak in me doesn’t like that idea at all.
I can’t have it both ways. I either have to let Nolan do his job separately from me like he said or I go with him and maybe do things that redefine my morality. Which to choose?
“I was planning on going to that motel tomorrow,” he says, cutting into my thoughts. “Maybe talk to some of the local girls to see if they remember Carla. It’s been a while so it’s doubtful. Prostitutes don’t have long lives. That’s probably something you shouldn’t do with me since I plan to pick them up like I’m a john and it would be odd to have another woman in the car with me. You could visit Diego’s grave like you promised Carla.”
A test. To see if I can handle giving him free reign. I know he’s right. I shouldn’t go with him to that motel tomorrow. This is going to be really hard. I had no idea when I decided to take this case that it would make me examine who I was as a person.
“Okay,” I say. “We can meet up later and go over everything.”
“It’ll probably be late by the time I get back. Why don’t we meet up Monday after work?”
“What about everything we found today?”
“We’ll start on it tonight and see where it takes us. If we need to we can meet up again tomorrow afternoon.”
“Why not in the morning?”
He gets a funny shy smile. “It’s Sunday. I go to mass at nine.”
“You go to church?”
“What? Are you surprised that someone with seemingly no moral compass would be religious?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. Wow. This really highlights how little we know about each other.”
“I would’ve pegged you for a fellow Catholic.”
“My strong moral character comes more from living most of my life as an illegal immigrant than from catechism and Sunday school.”
He gives me a long, considering look, but he doesn’t ask what most people would ask—are you still in the country illegally.
“My family and I got our documention when I was fifteen.” I don’t tell him how or why. I’m ashamed to. It’s not a pretty story. It’s not a happy ending.
I cried when our paperwork finally came through. Not because I was glad, but because it didn’t matter who I was or how hard I had worked. It wasn’t my good grades in school, my part time job after school or the volunteer work I did at the local Boys and Girls Club that changed my status from undocumented immigrant to documented immigrant—it was my rape.
Nothing I did or could ever do would have the same power over my family’s fate as my rape has. That’s an incredibly sad thing to contemplate. The days after receiving our paperwork were darker for me than the days and months after my assault. I didn’t share that with my family. I didn’t want to take away their joy. Our lives changed. We didn’t have to live in fear anymore. For that I’m grateful.
Since then I’ve made fighting for the rights of the undocumented my mission. I understand them. I am them. Carla and I are more alike than we are different.
“That’s great he says. Why don’t we go to mass together tomorrow so you can see the other side of me.” He winks. “I’m not totally morally corrupt you know.”
I know. And I’m more than who I used to be or what happened to me. I should cut Nolan a break. He’s not a bad guy and he got us into Martin’s office. Something I wouldn’t have been able to do. I owe him an apology.
We pull up to the window to pay. I give Nolan money for my half of the bill. A few minutes later we’re headed back to his apartment with steaming bags filled with burgers and fries. He unlocks his front door and I’m struck again by how harshly and wrongly I’ve judged him based on what little I know of him.
The apartment is neat and clean. Not as tidy and Debbie’s house, but it’s definitely cleaner than my apartment. Dread washes hot over me followed by panic. Pushing my secret shame away, I force myself to look around his apartment. His furniture isn’t fancy. It’s serviceable and comfortable. I guess that’s all a guy really needs. He watches me, no doubt trying to gauge my reaction.
“Nice place,” I say.
He gives a half laugh. “That’s high praise coming from you. Come and sit at the table. I’ll get us some plates.”
“Am I really that harsh?”
“You’re that particular.”
I watch him move around his kitchen like he spends a lot of time in there. The image of him in an apron and not much else flashes in my mind and I sit down hard in a chair at the table. This day has really screwed with my head. He’s screwed with my head. I can’t pin him down. Just when I think I’ve got him all figured out he does or says something that throws everything out the window. I can’t find a compartment in my brain to slot him neatly into.
And that could be a very dangerous thing for my resistance.
7
Nolan
“What wine goes with cheeseburgers?” I ask Lila.
She looks like she could really use a drink. This day really shook her. I’ve never met anyone like her. I want to say she’s naïve, but she’s not. She’s world weary in a way I never will be. Where that comes from I don’t know. She grew up undocumented. There’s a whole story there, an entire unpublished novel I’d imagine. I can’t ask her about it. I have a feeling it’s not something she talks a lot about.
We seem to have turned some kind of corner. She’s not outright rejecting me like she was before. Maybe it was the shared experience of going through Martin’s things. She thinks we have very different thoughts and feelings about the experience. They’re not as different as she wants to believe. We’re not as different. I’ve gotten used to what I do, but I’m not entirely comfortable with it. It’s what I do, not who I am. I think that’s the major difference between us. I can separate the two. She can’t. That’s going to make it difficult for her to see past what I do to who I am.
She looks up at me and I can still see the war going on behind her beautiful eyes. “Red, I think, since we’re eating beef.”
“Red it is.” I pull a bottle from my wine fridge, open it, and pour us each a glass. I set hers next to her plate and join her at the table.
She takes a big sip. Bigger than I imagine she normally would. “Mmm, that’s good.” She downs another gulp.
We dig into our food each of us absorbed in our thoughts. Something’s bothering me and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
I do a mental finger snap. Carla.
“You didn’t seem surprised when Carla told you she was a prostitute,” I say, circling back to our interview with her.
“Not really. I’ve seen it before. People do what they have to do to survive.”
“So you can you separate who Carla is from what she did to support herself and Diego?”
“It’s not like she had much of a choice being undocumented. Plus with her back ground…” She lets the though
t trail off, closing down her expression.
“What do you mean her background?”
“She had Diego when she was fifteen. There’s no father listed on his birth certificate.” She raises her brows like I’m supposed to infer something from that information.
“What are you saying?” I know I sound dense, but she’s back to talking in riddles.
“Diego was the result of rape.”
“Man. She hasn’t had it easy, has she? Welcome to America. Jesus.” I take a couple gulps of wine.
“No, she hasn’t.”
“I feel like I should apologize as a man and as an American, but that’s stupid.”
“It’s sweet, but unnecessary.”
“If you can separate who Carla is from what she did, then why can’t you do it with me?”
She tilts her head slightly and frowns at me. “That’s not the same.”
“It is actually. Very much the same.”
“You can get another type of job. You don’t have to do what you do.”
“I know this may seem strange to you, but I like what I do. I’m proud to be a private investigator. I’m prouder still when I get to help out on cases like Carla’s. It’s the reason I became a private investigator instead of a cop. It’s the reason I applied for a job at Nash Security and Investigations. I wanted the chance to help free people who were wrongly convicted.” I take a sip of wine, contemplating the events that led me to be sitting here with her now. “Just like you. I may not identify with Carla in the same ways that you do, but I know what it’s like to make mistakes, to feel like the world is working against you.”
“When has the world ever worked against you?”
“Every damn day it feels like sometimes. I don’t know what it looks like from the outside, but the truth is I’ve worked hard to get where I am. Nothing’s ever been handed to me. I have to try and try again. I fail. A lot. That’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s the truth. I screw up. Like today with the trunk and the camera. I should’ve checked for surveillance devices before we started searching that office. That’s a mistake I won’t make again.”
