Like Glass We Break (Glass #2) (13 page)

While she eats, Lauren fills up her water bowl, and leaves out a second bowl of water too.

Returning to the task at hand, Lauren continues her walk through Oliver’s apartment. He owns a few DVD movies—mostly comedies, one of them with a blank sticky note on it. The dresser drawers in his bedroom still have clothes in them, although not a lot. There are three shirts and two pairs of dress pants. Only two pairs of boxers.
Gross.

There’s no frame for the queen size mattress; it lies directly on the floor. Lauren wonders how many women Oliver has had in this bed since he was forced to abandon her because of those jealous people at Aldona. There had to be at least a dozen women. Oliver is attractive, after all, even though for some reason he doesn’t think he is.

***

He probably met some unsuspecting woman—maybe she was already attached, but the relationship was failing because her husband spent all of his spare time drinking in their garage with his buddies—and he didn’t even know he was flirting with her. She didn’t realize it, either. She thought he was just being nice, but even still, it made her realize that men could actually be just that:
nice. But weren’t all men douche bags?
She started to dress nicer, not to impress him, but just because she started feeling better about herself. She started eating better. She didn’t need to lose any weight and she looked just fine as is, but she did want to tone up a bit. She wore makeup for the first time since her high school dances. Dark eyeliner, a hint of grey shadow, and expensive mascara made her eyes pop, which her husband barely even noticed except for one night when he thought he had forgotten their anniversary, but she corrected him and he went right back out to smoke a joint. Bright pink lipstick that made men turn their heads, even if they were walking down the street with their significant others.

She started staying out later, lying about having to work, when really she’d be meeting up with Oliver at the café across from where they both worked at Danis Accounting. They’d sit and talk, staring into each other’s eyes, as the girl would convince herself they were merely friends. They were still just friends. However, that day over coffee, Oliver suggests that they meet up for a drink later that night. Instead of arguing with her husband about why she needs to stay out until all hours of the night, the girl decides it’s best to just tell her husband she needs to go to a conference first thing in the morning that is two hours away and that she’ll be back right after work. As she explains to her husband that it is easier if she just takes a hotel tonight so she can beat traffic, she’s not even sure he actually hears her. He nods, giving her permission to leave, but the words don’t even seem to register as his puffy eyes stare at the television. She grabs her clutch, a small suitcase packed with some overnight essentials, her cell phone, and she’s off into the night; her high heels click along the walkway as she makes her way toward her car. Her car beeps twice as she unlocks it and she gets in, backing out of the driveway. Once in the street, she watches the front door of her house, almost expecting her husband to figure out her plan and run out after her, but the episode of
Cops
that he’s watching must be far too enthralling for that.

She takes in a breath of air and drives, meeting up with Oliver at the bar only twenty minutes later. He’s standing outside to meet her and he walks her in. He buys her a drink and then another. He tells her about his day. Another drink. They dance. Oliver excuses himself to use the men’s room and the girl gets lost in the crowd, where she ends up dancing with another man. When Oliver finds her only a few minutes later, he seems irritated that she’s dancing with someone else. He ushers her away and buys her another drink. There are women dancing in cages suspended from the ceiling and the lighting is dark and blue. Oliver leans in and suggests they get going. The girl is surprised; it’s not nearly as late as she thought it would be—had she known they would not be out all night, she would have made up a different excuse and not waste her money on a hotel room for no reason.

“Should we go back to my place?” Oliver asks.

“I need to get home,” the girl says.

“Don’t be silly. You’re obviously not going home.”

“What do you mean? Of course I am.”

“This is our night,” Oliver says.

“Oliver, I’m married. We’re just friends. We’re just having a good time. I thought we were on the same page,” the girl explains. She’s drunk and is slurring her words, but she knows what she’s doing.

“And you’re really going to go home like this? Stumble in to your loving husband?” Oliver asks.

“I’m going to take a hotel room, Oliver. I’m going to sleep it off, go to work, and go back to my husband tomorrow night. I needed a break. I thought you’d understand that. You were the one who encouraged me to get away for a while. Please understand,” she pleads.

“That’s ridiculous. Every hotel in the city is going to be booked up tonight with the lights festival going on. Why don’t you just come stay at my place? I get it, we’re on the same page. But there’s no sense in wasting your money, and you won’t even be able to find anything. You can sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch. There’s a lock on the bedroom door. I won’t try anything—I promise. We work together,” Oliver assures her.

The girl sighs. Oliver is right. She had forgotten about the lights festival—finding a room would be next to impossible and even if she could find one, they’d be triple the normal price. She’s fairly new to Danis Accounting and hasn’t paid off any of her debt yet from having been off work since her lay off from her last company. Her husband hasn’t been able to hold down a job for more than a couple months in the last few years.

“Okay,” she agrees, nodding. “I’ll take you up on your offer, but no funny business. I mean it. As much as he pisses me off, I’m loyal, you know.”

“I get it.”

He gets it.
He’s going to get it.

They take a cab back to Oliver’s month to month tan colored stucco apartment. Oliver changes out the sheets and the pillows and offers the girl a glass of water. She graciously accepts and drinks it while Oliver gets changed in the bathroom that is surprisingly large considering the rest of the apartment is so cramped.

The girl takes a step toward the dresser in the bedroom and sets down her empty glass. She staggers toward the window and looks out, feeling woozy. She reaches down and opens the window, only to realize there are latches on all of them to prevent them from being opened too far. What cool summer air does come in feels soothing against her skin, still warm from sweating at the bar.

She stumbles back. She feels like she’s going to vomit or pass out or both. She begins seeing black splotches that disrupt her vision. The bathroom door opens behind her and she glances back as Oliver emerges.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks, coming toward her.

Unable to speak, she takes two steps back and collapses onto the right side of his queen size bed with no frame. On this bed is where he brutally murders her. He walks over to where this beautiful woman lies on his bed. He promised he wouldn’t share this bed with her tonight, and he won’t. It’s all hers. She’s only half on it, and barely. He stands by the head of the bed and pulls her from under her arms up onto the bed and then swings her legs onto the end. Drugged and unconscious, she lets out a weak moan.

“Shh,” he says, “it’s going to be okay.”

Instead of using the pillow that is now under her head, he takes a sweater from his dresser and holds it over her face. She gasps for air and tries to flail her arms. Deciding that this isn’t going to work, Oliver releases his grip on her face and retreats into the kitchen. The girl takes gulps of air between moans, eyes still closed tight.

Oliver returns with a ball of twine, which he fashions into a noose around the girl’s neck. He pulls. She moans loudly and her hand slips between it and the skin of her neck.

“Ugh,” Oliver sighs, frustrated. He slips the noose back over her head and returns to the kitchen. He’s back, seconds later, this time with a knife. He spares not even a second this time as he plunges the knife into her stomach with one swift thrust. He doesn’t pull it back out; he leaves it, unable to take his eyes off of it, watching her wriggle and squirm as it takes her life from her.

Weeks of her stringing him along, leading him to believe they were far more than just friends—he’d had enough. Lauren had done the same to him. She played with his emotions. She pretended she was fragile and weak, needing his help. She didn’t need his help; she just wanted him to fuck her. She wanted to use him and she didn’t care that it cost him his job, his career, his wife—his family. She had destroyed him, and now this bitch had tried to do the same. Well, not this time. Instead of running, he had chosen to destroy her.

Her name was Karli. Karli never went home to her drunk husband that night, or the next. He actually didn’t even notice until the third night that she was missing and then only because her mother kept hounding him to have her call. She missed four consecutive days at work before they contacted her family, trying to track her down. Everything else was normal at the office, although people were whispering. Oliver showed up bright and early every morning, shirts proper and pressed, tucked in and neat. He’d sip his coffee in the morning, read his paper in the afternoon during his break. Local girl missing: never came home. Not like her.

Finally, Danis Accounting had no choice but to create a new job opening, as the work flow was too much and they couldn’t keep contracting out her part of the work.

Renae was hired.

Renae has never been in Oliver’s bed.

Chapter Seventeen

Lauren snaps back to reality after finding herself staring at the right side of the mattress, unsure of how long she’s been standing there. If only she walked over to the mattress and pulled off the brown sheets, she’d see the blood stains that haunt the right side of the bed. Instead, she stares at the entrance to the bathroom, which you cannot get to unless you go through the bedroom.
Odd.
What if you have guests over and you don’t want them in your bedroom? Then what? Too bad. Don’t mind the two weeks’ worth of laundry I have piled on the floor. Please just step over it on your way to take a leak. Actually, don’t even come over to my place at all, unless you’re comfortable with peeing outside in the parking lot because I don’t have a washroom that’s accessible from the living room and I don’t want you in my bedroom.

Lauren walks into the bathroom and looks around. It’s a big room, and it’s white. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s open and empty. There’s nothing on the counter and it’s clean, like it hasn’t even been lived in. There aren’t any hairs anywhere—no toothpaste spots, nothing. It doesn’t smell like mildew. There are no cleaners under the sink.
How can there not even be any cleaners?
Surely he didn’t pack up a bag and take them all with him.
Who does that?

Feeling defeated, she sulks all the way out of the apartment. She’s almost out the door when she notices an empty fruit basket with a single gold key in it.
What is this for?

She holds it in the palm of her hand. It feels cold because the temperature in here is so low. She studies the place one last time, trying to figure out what it could possibly be for, but she has no idea, so she pockets it and leaves. On her way out, she leaves the door open so that the skittish cat, who is still eating from the almost empty bowl of food, can wander out into the hallway and find help.
Perhaps a nice family will take her in.

Down the hallway, the walls are scratched and dented. As she takes the staircase downwards toward the back door, she notices another flight of stairs leading to the basement. She glances down into the dark and notices a shine from the metal on the wall: one side of the wall is completely filled with mailboxes. She quickly pulls the key out of her pocket and looks at it. She jogs down the flight of stairs and searches the wall for a light switch. When she is unable to find one, she pulls her cell phone out of her pocket and uses it as a flashlight to find the number 210 on one of the boxes.

210.
There it is.

The key fits perfectly into the tiny lock and as she turns it, she hears the latch pop open.

Pulling gently on the door, she opens it slowly, revealing a stack of envelopes and advertisements. She grabs the stack and closes the door quickly, locking it again. She runs to her car.

Even sitting in her car, she feels as though she’s going to get caught by someone, going through Oliver’s mail, so she pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the street. As soon as the rundown apartment building is no longer in view, she slams on her brakes and veers off to the side of the road, coming to a screeching halt. She tears through Oliver’s mail. Spam. Spam. More spam. Brochures. Bank statements, and hotel charges for a room in Newport, Vermont.
Is he running to Canada?
She sets the mail down on the seat beside her and ponders for a few minutes. He must have a fake passport. How else would he be on the move without the authorities finding him, if they are searching for him now? There’s no way he could have gotten to Vermont so fast unless he flew. Lauren can’t even fly—not using her own name. She’s wanted—not like Oliver is, but because they think she needs help. She doesn’t. She’s perfectly fine the way she is; they just don’t understand her. The charges for the hotel room are quite high so he’s been staying there for several nights. Perhaps he’ll be staying a few more.

She picks up her cell phone.

“Nathaniel?” she asks, urgently.

“Hey, Lauren. Are you okay?” Nathaniel asks.

“Yes, of course. I need a favor.”

“What do you need?” he asks, almost skeptical. He’s always willing to help, but he doesn’t want to see her get hurt. He’s not a fan of her following Oliver around the country. Nathaniel believes that Oliver is dangerous, but knows that Lauren is stubborn and even if he refuses to help, she’ll find a way to do it on her own which is quite possibly even more dangerous, so he generally just gives in to her ridiculous requests.

“I need a passport. A fake one. A new name. And identification. I need to fly—tonight. And you know I can’t use my name. I think Oliver is trying to get to Canada,” Lauren explains.

“I’m going to advise against that, Laur,” Nathaniel sighs.

“I know you are, but it needs to happen, so please help me with this,” Lauren begs.

“Fine, Lauren. Just be careful. I have a contact in Dallas and I’ll call him right now but it’s going to take at least a day. You’re going to have to hang in there until tomorrow, at least. Book a flight for tomorrow afternoon. Do you have enough money to pay for the ticket?” he asks.

“Yes,” she replies, glancing at the pile of cash on the floor of her car that she stole from the Toyota. There must be at least three hundred dollars there. “Okay, I’ll find something to do until tomorrow afternoon. Text me the address where I can pick it up and let me know what time. I’ll be there. Thanks, Nathaniel. I knew I could count on you.”

“Anytime.”

The phone goes dead.

Lauren pulls a little bit further off the road and shuts off her car. The sun is about to rise and she is just realizing how extremely exhausted she is. Without exiting the vehicle, she crawls into the backseat and covers herself with her sweater, using her thin silk scarf as a makeshift pillow. She shuts her eyes. She is so tired that they’re burning, but having them closed feels amazing. She feels slightly dizzy, perhaps from the excitement of being so close to finding Oliver after so long. Oliver or Scott. Scott or Oliver. Whoever he is now. She doesn’t care which one of him she finds at this point. Maybe the old him is dead, which is fine with her. Maybe he has left his old life behind and wants to forget about everything that has happened. Also fine. As long as whoever he is now is content with being with Lauren Blue, and finally beginning their life together, all will be well.

With that thought, Lauren drifts off to sleep in the back of her vehicle as the sun rises on sleepy Dallas, Texas.