It was ten in the morning when Lucas finally showed up to take me… to take me where exactly? I realised I didn’t even know he would be here to pick me up. I looked down at my clothes, they’d have to do for today. I wasn’t even ready for anything.
“I thought I might as well have you with me today, I can’t exactly trust you to be walking around alone today. You could use the ‘I’m a consultant now’ card for the wrong purpose.” He said through the window which he’d rolled down.
I gasped, faking hurt. “Nah. We both know you’re desperate to spend time with me Lucas, don’t go denying it now. I know I’m splendid company jeez.” I opened the car door to get in. Then I spotted Miles giving me a peculiar look. I waved at him and got into the car. Yes, Miles, I didn’t know what I was doing either.
“Good company, yeah. Tooting your own horn I see.”
“People only say that when it’s true.” I laughed and turned to him, giving him a curious look. “You think I’m interesting, don’t you?” He shook his head. “Of course, you do.”
“Fine. you’re fascinating, that’s all. You bring up significant points, and you’re annoying.” Lucas said and turned a corner. “And so because you bring up marvelous points, you’re coming with me today.”
“You think?” My eyes widened in pretend shock. He gave me an exasperated glance. “So where are we going?”
“The note, you brought it right?” I rummaged through my purse and succeeded.
“Success!’ I held it up and laughed.
“Careful. It might fly out the window.” Lucas pointed out. Well, okay then.
“You still haven’t told me where you’re taking me,” I said. “Oh my goodness, are you kidnapping me?”
He laughed a little and then said; “We’re gonna drop that off with forensics, then we go to the airport.” He meant we’d drop off the note with forensics.
“Oh. You wanna find out where the husband went?” I said as I took a quick picture of the note. Why hadn’t I done that already?
“You need to stop calling him that. Say Mr Hedgepeth.” Lucas said as we turned into some sketchy looking parking lot. He turned and looked at me; “Tell me more about Alison.”
“Wait! You remembered?” I felt all fuzzy and warm inside. He’d remembered after telling me I was stupid. Now, I didn’t feel too fuzzy or warm inside. I felt chilled.
“I’m sorry about yesterday.” He touched my arm and made me look at him. He looked sorry about it. And he also had cute brown eyes, kind of like a puppy. “It was a rough day.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “It’s fine.” He smiled at me and removed his hand from my arm. I could finally breathe. I didn’t even realise I was holding a breath in until he stopped touching me and I let it out.
“So, I asked around town yesterday. No one I talked to knows anyone called Alison, except Molly from the cafe, says she saw her talk to you.”
“Saw Alison talking to me?” He nodded. “Thanks, captain obvious. That’s where I first met her, so Molly would have seen me with her.”
“Hey! Be at least grateful, Angie.” He said. “That makes two of you who’ve seen this person so that at least verifies your claim.”
“You didn’t believe me?”
“I did, but I have to verify things. I’m a detective.” Lucas grabbed his door handle to go out and held out his hand. “The note, please.”
“Yeah. Okay, here.” I handed it over to him. “Can I… can I come?” He shook his head.
“Nah. It’ll only take a minute. I’ll be right back, no point in you coming in, and that’ll mean way too many questions, more than I intend to be answering.” I nodded my understanding and watched him walk off into the building.
The building looked less shady than the parking lot, but then it was more recent. The parking lot looked ancient. I looked around the car. Nothing interesting at all. I opened the dashboard compartments, thinking there could be something more interesting than my phone. Nothing. The guy had cleared out his car, hid everything, and then taken me with him.
My brain had told me that his car wouldn’t be neat because men never keep their cars clean, but I could be wrong. This particular man was different. But then again, I don’t think police officers keep important papers out in their cars on display where they can be stolen. So with that being my conclusion, I pulled out my phone. I only had two people I could talk to, Lauren or Annie. Lauren was out. I wasn’t texting her.
Annie kept me entertained for a good five minutes while I waited for Lucas. She told me how her week had been so far and how she and her boyfriend hadn’t fought in exactly four days, three hours, twenty-seven minutes and… “I forgot how many seconds,” Annie said. “I mean, they keep increasing as I speak so I can’t say how many. And now the minutes have increased too.” I laughed along with her and told her I got the idea.
She told me how she knew that I wasn’t staying out of the case, so if I must be involved, I must be careful. I held back a groan but promised to be very careful, and I knew I was keeping my promise.
When Lucas finally came back, I sighed from relief and told Annie that I had something important to tend to. I enjoy being alone, but not in this parking lot. All movements made me question exactly how long I had left to live. But maybe that was because of Celine Ramroth.
“The airport?” I asked. He nodded. “Which airport?”
“There’s only one airport here, Angie. I thought you knew.” Lucas said.
“Oh yeah. I wasn’t think…” Well, no. I was thinking, so I refused to finish my sentence. “Never mind.”
“When was the last time you were here?” Lucas asked me.
“When I was thirteen, so ten years ago,” I said. “My sister and I died to come here every summer holiday to visit my aunt. And the ocean was a big attraction too.”
My voice cracked on the last sentence. Olivia and I had loved swimming, I’d loved swimming until she was gone, then I didn’t want to do anymore. It brought back way too many memories I’d rather not remember.
“What happened to her?”
“Who?” I asked. I knew who he was talking about, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about it.
“Your sister, Olivia. Everyone that knew her refuses to talk about it. It’s almost like a taboo subject in town, close to illegal.”
“That bad, huh?” I asked, looking out the window and biting my nail. I’d stopped nail-biting a long time ago, but when I was nervous or uncomfortable, I couldn’t help it. And I sure as hell was nervous. My solution? Go on to speak nonsense. “I get where they are coming from. Not even my mom and aunt want to talk about it. That part, I don’t get because if they talked more about it, they’d heal faster emotionally, and I…”
“But do you talk about it? Wouldn’t you heal too if you talked about it?”
“What? I’ve healed. It’s my mom and aunt…”
“So then, why won’t you tell me what happened?” Lucas asked, looking at me. I mentally yelled at him to look at the road, but he didn’t hear because it was all internal.
“Because… because…” Why exactly didn’t I want to talk about it if I had healed? Why did I mind it so much when people mentioned her? Why couldn’t I tell him? Tell Lucas. My brain said. “You already know what happened.”
“Doesn’t matter if I do. This isn’t about me, it’s about you, Angela. You need to heal.” And we were now at the airport. I noticed he hadn’t said he doesn’t know what happened diverted the whole conversation from himself to me.
“What’s the point when you already know?” I asked. I could feel rage already build up in my loins. He knew, and it wasn’t even any of his business.
“Come on. This might take some time.” He said, after looking at me with a fascinated look for three minutes and yes, I was counting the seconds because I felt uncomfortable. He had a very… captivating gaze.
I opened the door and forcefully shut it. Then immediately felt bad because the car did nothing. It was all Lucas’s fault that I was mad.
