Land of Entrapment (16 page)

She managed to sit up and stare at me with an expression bordering on bewilderment and awe.

Blood oozed sluggishly out of her palm but she seemed completely unaware of it. “I know you,” she mumbled, frowning. She stopped trying to stand on her own.

I eased carefully behind her and grasped her beneath the armpits so I could lift her to her feet. She sagged against me, breathing heavily. Jesus. She reeked of alcohol. God, how had she made it home?

Unless she had been home for a while. I looked around, found a small table and chairs positioned under a nearby window. I maneuvered Hillary over to it and eased her into a seat. “Don’t move, okay?”

She nodded, too drunk to really do anything. I left the kitchen and found a bathroom with a linen closet.

I took what looked like an older washcloth and wet it, then squirted soap onto it from the dispenser. I also found some gauze, bandaging tape, and Neosporin. I returned to the kitchen. Hillary hadn’t moved, but I doubted my instructions had anything to do with that. She was slumped against the table, holding her cut hand palm up.

“I think I’m bleeding,” she announced slowly.

“Yep.” I carefully dabbed at the slice, which was about an inch long, with the washcloth. She barely flinched. Probably too drunk. It was a clean, shallow cut that wouldn’t require stitches. I washed it thoroughly and then dabbed her hand dry. Hillary remained completely compliant throughout my ministrations. When her hand dried sufficiently, I slathered Neosporin on the cut and placed a gauze pad on her palm. I then wrapped gauze around her hand, not so tight to be uncomfortable and not so loose to be ineffective, and taped the gauze down.

Hillary had her head back against the wall, her eyes closed. She probably felt sick. “Melissa never holds my hand anymore,” she stated.

I glanced at her. Can this get any more fucked up?

“I’m sorry. How come?”

Hillary was quiet for so long that I had to look at her to make sure she hadn’t passed out. To my surprise and discomfort, she was crying silently.

“I’m a drunk.” She leaned forward suddenly and put her head against my shoulder, which seriously freaked me out. She quickly sat back, as if she had located some kind of resolve in that motion. It passed and she sagged again.

“I think you should go to a doctor when you’re feeling better. Have that looked at.” I didn’t expect her to register what I told her. It was just something for me to do in this most surreal moment.

“Melissa hates me,” she said softly.

I looked at her, startled. Her eyes were green. I never knew that. “Why would she hate you?” I asked, trying to be conversational. Melissa was going to have a total shit-fit when she got home and I dreaded that even more than sitting here with the woman she had an affair with three years ago.

Hillary’s gaze was surprisingly direct for her condition. “Because I’m not you.”

It felt like Hillary had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it stopped beating. We stared at each other for a long time before I straightened. “I think you need some rest.” I kept my tone neutral as I helped her to her feet. She didn’t say anything else as I eased her out of the kitchen into the dining room.

Master bedroom. Shit.

“No,” she slurred, beckoning with her bandaged hand. “Over there.” We crossed the living room, Hillary’s feet dragging on the brick floor, and entered a hallway. “The one on the end,” she muttered. I turned left, walked her carefully down the hall to the room she mentioned. The door stood half-open. I helped her through and eased her onto a king-sized bed. She collapsed on it. This room had a bathroom and I retrieved the wastebasket—plastic, fortunately—and placed it next to the bed. Hillary had passed out cold. The lines across her forehead disappeared as she relaxed and she looked kind of like a cherub. That’s probably part of why Melissa was attracted to her. She loved taking care of people.

And I hadn’t necessarily let her do that with me the way she was used to.

I left the room, making sure the door was open in case anything happened. I went back to the kitchen and found the utility closet, hoping I could clean up the glass before Melissa got home. I found some de-stain chemicals and poured them into a bowl along with some water so I could soak the bloody washcloth in the mixture. I had just finished wringing out the mop and putting it on the back porch to dry when I heard a car in the driveway. Shit. Here we go.

I returned to the living room just as Melissa burst into the house. From the expression on her face, she was both angry and flipped out. “Where is she?”

“Asleep,” I said, keeping my tone level. Melissa brushed past me, headed for the hallway that led to the bedrooms. I reached out, grabbed her arm. It was the first time I had touched her in three years.

“Melissa.” She stopped, looked at my hand on her arm, then at me. “Come and sit down,” I entreated quietly.

She gently pulled out of my grasp and went to look in on Hillary. When she came back to the living room, the expression on her face scared me. Numb.

Lifeless. “What happened to her hand?” Melissa said dully.

“She cut it. I happened to be here at the right time.

I helped her with it.”

“So now you know.”

I didn’t say anything.

“My dad. Megan. Hillary. I’m into addicts. Kinky, huh?”

I really wanted to run. I wanted to jump right out the nearest window and start running, right up the face of the Sandias and down the other side. Instead, I did the only other thing that seemed to make any sense. I pulled Melissa into my arms. She stiffened. I continued to hold her until she relaxed then started to shake as she cried. She grabbed onto me and let it out.

She sobbed so hard I worried she might choke. I held on to her, rocking her a little bit, remembering the last time she’d cried like that around me, when Megan called from the rehab facility after her relapse and told Melissa where she was and after Melissa hung up, she collapsed against me and cried for an hour.

After about twenty minutes she stopped crying but she didn’t let go. She continued to sniffle a bit against my shoulder. My shirt was wet with her tears but it didn’t bother me. I felt so sad for her, so sad for us, for what had happened between us. And I felt sad for what was happening with Hillary.

She finally pulled away. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

She went into the kitchen and I heard water running in the sink. I glanced at my watch. Almost eight. I joined Melissa in the kitchen, where she was sitting in the chair Hillary had so recently occupied. I opened the fridge and saw a bottle of Tazo tea. So Melissa still drank it, too. I shook it up, opened it, and handed it to her. She took it and sat staring at the label. Then she started to laugh. I looked at her, worried, wondering if she was about to have a breakdown. She managed a smile.

“You want to hear something really funny?”

I watched her, not sure what to say.

“I really wanted to talk to you tonight. I wanted to get things out in the open. I’m not sure why, but I think it would help both of us. So you show up and...”

she shook her head and took a sip of tea.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “This might be a bad time.”

She looked at me and started laughing again.

“K.C. Fontero. Mistress of understatement. God, I miss that.” She sighed and glanced at her watch.

“Well, here we go.” She pulled a scrap of paper out of her pants pocket and crossed the floor to a counter on the opposite side of the room. She picked the wireless phone up off its cradle and dialed a local number.

Allison must’ve been waiting because Melissa was talking to her right away. I relaxed. This I could handle. An interview and research-related information. Melissa explained to Allison what was going on and she said she was going to put me on. She handed the phone to me.

“Hello?”

“Hi. K.C.?”

“Yep.” Allison had a nice timbre to her voice.

“Megan’s mentioned you.”

Jesus. “Good stuff, I hope. So have you heard from her?”

No. Not since the middle of June. She called me and said she was going out of town for a few days with Cody.”

I sat down at the table. Melissa placed a notepad and a pen next to me. “Did she say where?”

“No. She said that Cody had friends in the East Mountains and they were going to stop by. She said they might go to Colorado to visit some other friends.”

“Did you meet Cody?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you think?”

“Creepy.”

“How come?” Interesting.

“He watched her all the time. And not in that nice

‘I love you’ way. In that freaky stalker way.

Possessive. And the longer she hung out with him, the weirder she got. She started going off on gay people. I mean, how lame is that? Her sister’s gay. I told her she needed to pull her head out of her ass and dump Cody. She didn’t call me for a while after that.”

“When did you tell her that?”

“Oh, around the middle of April. After about a week she seemed to get over it a little.”

“Does she have a Web site? Like on MySpace or Facebook or something?”

“No. She was trying to get one together and she told me in May she was all psyched about the graphics she’d been collecting but then she left town.”

Okay, well, that was good. One less thing to check out. “What else did you notice about Cody? Anything that stands out?”

Allison snorted. “He’s one of those loser racist guys. I couldn’t figure out why the hell Megan would want to hang out with someone like that. I mean, she’s so pretty and sweet. She could have any guy she wants. And she goes for that one.”

“So you know he’s racist.”

“Oh, yeah. At first it was just little things he would say, like he was testing Megan and her friends.

Stuff like we need to be proud of our heritage and affirmative action should extend to poor whites, too.

And after a while, she stopped hanging with her old crowd.”

Classic abusive relationship. Isolate her from her friends and family, then start indoctrinating her with his own belief system. I was really, really pissed at Cody Sorrell and I wanted to rip his arms off as well.

Sage would have to take a number.

“Have you seen her since she called you last?”

“No. I’ve tried to call her cell phone but she doesn’t answer and her voice-mail is full. So I tried e-mailing her. And I still haven’t heard from her. Do you think she’s okay?”

I hesitated before responding. “Here’s the deal.

Cody sounds like he’s—” I glanced at Melissa and changed my wording—“like he might be controlling and he runs with some people who may or may not be dangerous. Hopefully, he’ll want to keep Megan with him as a girlfriend, whatever that means to him, and we’ll find him and get her away from him. So if she calls you, please tell her to contact me. Here’s my number.” I gave her my cell. “That goes for you, too.

If you think of anything else or if you see anyone, call me.”“Definitely. I really hope you find her. Thanks.”

She hung up. I handed the phone back to Melissa, who set it on the counter. She stood looking at it for a while.

“How do you feel about talking?” She turned to look at me.

“I think it’s a good idea. But I don’t think here and now is a good idea.”

“Neutral territory?”

I nodded automatically, feeling really drained.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Meet me for dinner tomorrow?”

Not a good idea. She caught my expression. “Just dinner,” she repeated. “We all have to eat. Please don’t read anything into it. I just really want to talk to you.”

I relaxed at the tone of her voice. “Okay. Where?”

“How about Old Town? La Hacienda?”

I mulled that for a moment. Okay food, some privacy. “Sure. What time?”

“Six?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.” I stood and tore the sheet of paper off the tablet I had been using to scribble notes during my conversation with Allison. I handed the notepad back to Melissa. “Are you okay?”

She smiled, tired. The dark circles under her eyes were more pronounced than they were the day before.

“I’ll be all right.”

“Don’t give up. You’ve got to hang in there. Get some sleep and if you need anything, call me.” I suddenly realized what I had said. I hoped Melissa didn’t think I’d meant anything but that. We walked through the living room. I opened the door and was out on the porch before she spoke.

“Kase?”

I turned, waiting.

“Thank you.”

I nodded. We stared at each other for a bit longer and then she quietly shut the door. I got into my car.

It took me a very long time to get back to Megan’s.

Chapter Ten

I SLEPT LIKE a dead woman, crashing as soon as I got back to Megan’s. Rolling out of bed at eight-thirty, I decided I needed some exercise so I stumbled into my running clothes and headed out. A half-hour later I felt better. While the coffee brewed I did sit-ups and push-ups, then poured a cup and headed into the bathroom. Emotionally, everything still felt freaky after what had happened the night before at Melissa’s, but getting all that sleep had helped quite a bit. I opted not to think about Melissa and Hillary for a while.

I finished showering and towel-dried my hair. In the mirror, I saw an older version of my sister Kara, whose dark hair also lightened like mine a bit during the summer months. My sister Kara and I got our dad’s hair color. Mine, though, is naturally wavy and I wear it short. Here in the dry air, I don’t need to

“shape and style” like I do in Texas. It tends to look

“endearingly mussed,” as my mom says. My sister Joely says it looks like squirrels nest in it. Whatever.

Better squirrels than rats. I threw on yet another pair of grey cargo shorts and a red tee, poured another cup of coffee and toasted a bagel, which I slathered with cream cheese. More coffee for the road, my school bag, photos and print-outs—finally ready. I turned off the coffee machine, slid my feet into my Birkenstocks, and headed out.

I arrived at the police department with about ten minutes to spare. The main complex was located in the North Valley, up Second Street, about two miles from downtown. I pulled in and parked in the visitors’ section, appraising. The building was a relatively new structure, sort of administrative-looking but with lots of windows. An open, airy lobby greeted me when I entered, scuffed but clean linoleum underfoot. The white walls featured photos of graduating police academy classes spaced at intervals. An information desk hunkered across from a carpeted area decorated with several tables and chairs. Vending machines near the carpeted area offered a variety of snacks from junk food to soup.