Don't Turn Around Page 5

  Nine was the year when she discovered that all of the things she’d loved about her life were actually not good enough.

  She drained her coffee, sediment leaving a bitter trail down her throat, and signaled the waitress for a refill. She mashed her fork into the slice of pie. Now that it was in front of her, she didn’t want it. The cherries were near-fluorescent red and covered in thick, syrupy goop. She pushed her plate away. The coffee would have to be enough to get her through.

  She scanned the room. The four-top was still there in the back, the table littered with torn-up sugar packets and half-drunk cups of coffee. She saw one of them pass a flask under the table. She upped the tip she’d leave for the waitress, who had a long shift ahead of her, trying to get those guys out the door.

  The cook had come back in from his cigarette break and was now standing at the pass, cell phone in hand. The waitress was at the refill station, taking her sweet time picking up the coffeepot. Cait’s eyes snagged on a man sitting at the counter. She hadn’t noticed him before. Middle-aged. Jeans and T-shirt. Nothing special about him. Still, she felt a seed of unease start to germinate in her stomach. She had to be alert all the time—wasn’t that the motto at Sisters of Service? “Ever watchful, ever vigilant.” When she’d become a driver for them, she’d sat through eight hours of training on an overcast Sunday, where they went over and over the necessary safety precautions. The drivers would be using their own cars—the organization couldn’t afford a fleet—but would be given plates registered to a dummy address in Dallas. They weren’t allowed to tell anyone where they were going or whom they were driving. No cell phones. No photos. No last names. And always, always assume the worst. At the time, she’d thought it was a little excessive, but she’d learned to appreciate the stakes. Especially since the man at the counter had turned to stare at Rebecca.

  It wasn’t the kind of pervy once-over she’d had so often herself and would expect a woman as pretty as Rebecca to get all the time. There was something behind his eyes that went beyond trying to imagine a woman naked. He looked like he wanted to strip her down to the bone.

  Cait intercepted his gaze and didn’t smile. That was what she did when guys did things like this: she challenged them. If growing up in a houseful of meathead brothers had taught her anything, it was not to back down from a fight. If they smell weakness on you, you’re a goner.

  She kept her eyes locked on him. He had the good sense to look away, but after a couple of beats, his eyes were back on Rebecca. There was something desperate behind them, hungry. It scared the hell out of her.

  Calm down, she told herself. Focus. Use your eyes to assess the situation. What do you see?

  Okay. No obvious holster. He might be carrying, of course, on the ankle or in the waistband. Could just be a creep not used to seeing a pretty woman. Could be some kind of weirdo with specific ideas about when women should be outside, making a point about them being out here on their own past midnight. Could be that Rebecca reminded him of someone.

  Or maybe he knew where they were going and had made it his business to stop them.

  Cait looked at Rebecca, still lost in her own thoughts. She hadn’t clocked the guy yet. Good. It meant she would have less time to freak out when Cait made her move. In the dark glass of the window, she could see that the man had turned his body away from them, but also that the mirrored chrome above the pass-through to the kitchen allowed him to watch them. She caught his eye in the reflection and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

  Time to go.

  Rebecca looked at Cait, and Cait gave her the look. It was the sort of look a woman learns to feel rather than see. Cait flicked her eyes toward the man at the counter and then gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. Rebecca’s face transformed into a mask of raw fear.

  “What do you say?” Cait asked, as calmly as she could manage. “Back on the road?”

  Rebecca nodded, her eyes still fixed on Cait’s. She was scared—that was obvious—but she was keeping her cool. Cait was impressed. She reached a hand across the table and lightly tapped her wrist.

  “Don’t look,” Cait said quietly.

  Rebecca nodded. “I’ll get the check,” she said. Her voice was shaking a little but steady.

  “No time.” Cait dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. No time to wait for change—the waitress really would be getting a good tip. “Ready?”

  Rebecca went first, Cait close behind while she kept one eye locked on the man. He didn’t seem to see Cait at all: his gaze was all for Rebecca. He tracked her all the way across the diner, but he didn’t make a move. He just watched. That was worse, in a way. If he tried something here, there would be witnesses. Those guys in the back might decide to play the role of hero. The chef would at least have a knife at hand, and she’d be surprised if there wasn’t a gun tucked under the counter. Place like this, out in the middle of nowhere, people usually didn’t take chances.

  Cait glanced out the window at the empty stretch of parking lot. Once they were outside, they’d be on their own.

  The door jangled as Rebecca opened it. The waitress looked up from her crossword and, once she clocked the money lying on their table, gave them a half-hearted wave. Cait couldn’t remember the door jangling earlier. How had she not heard him come in? She’d let her guard down, gotten too comfortable. She’d been sloppy, and now they were going to pay for it.

  A step across the threshold and they were outside, the air sharp and cold on their faces, sprinting across the parking lot together. The El Camino was long gone, but the pickup was still there. Other than that, it was empty. The Jeep was on the far side of the lot. Cait berated herself for not parking closer to the building. The tarmac stretched in front of them, endless and black. Cait gripped her keys between her fingers and listened for his footsteps, sure she was about to feel his hands on her throat. She could hear Rebecca’s ragged breath, and the echo of their shoes slapping against the pavement, but the door behind them didn’t chime. He was still inside.

  Unless he’d used the back exit.

  Just a few more steps.

  She hit the unlock button on the key ring and the headlights flashed on.

  The two women dove inside and slammed the doors behind them.

  Rebecca hit the locks.

  Cait threw the Jeep into reverse.

  She cast one last glance through the window as they peeled out onto the road. The counter was empty. The man was gone.

  Jake

  “The thing that gets me,” Jake said, dangling his beer bottle by its neck, “is I feel like she tricked me. You know?”

  Craig ducked his head, which was his way of showing he was listening. It reminded Jake of being in confession as a kid, lying about how many times he’d punched his brother, leaving out the impure thoughts.

  “I’m not even mad that she wrote about me, though my manager said I should start getting chicks to sign an NDA, and honestly, it’s not a bad idea. It’s the principle of the whole thing. It’s like nothing’s sacred anymore or something.” He raised his beer to his lips and took a long pull.

  Craig shook his head. That meant sympathy.

  “I could tell she was crazy, but I thought it was the good kind of crazy, you know?” Jake shot a significant look at the crown of Craig’s head. “You saw her that night, man. Dancing in front of the stage, making a show of herself. She came to fuck. So we fucked! And then what does she do?” He slapped his hand down on the table. “BAM! She twists things around so it looks like I’m the bad guy.”

  Craig lifted his head. “It’s fucked up, man.”

  “It is fucked up!” Jake shook his head, baffled. “I swear, I will never understand women.”

  Craig made a noise that meant I agree. Craig had problems of his own—his ex-girlfriend from a couple months back had called earlier to say she’d been to the doctor and it turned out she had chlamydia, so he should probably go see a doctor himself so he could get some antibiotics. “It’s very treatabl
e,” she’d said, as if that were some kind of consolation. He wasn’t about to tell Jake, though. What, and get his balls busted for the next six months? Nah.

  “The more I think about it, the more I feel like I’m the one who got violated or whatever, you know? Think about it: I let her into my house, I have sex with her, which she was begging for, and then I’m the one who gets the shit kicked out of him. She gets to tell her side of the story and suddenly everybody thinks I’m some kind of sick pervert. How is that fair?”

  Craig grunted. He didn’t have insurance at the minute. Fuck. How much was this doctor’s appointment going to cost him? Maybe he could try the free clinic, though somebody might spot him there and he’d have to explain . . .

  Craig took a swig of his beer. He’d Googled chlamydia after getting off the phone with her, and now he couldn’t get the pictures out of his head. Holy fuck, man. That shit was no joke.

  Jake leaned back in his chair. “What’s crazy is, all the attention from the article has made the new single blow up,” he continued. “My manager called this afternoon to tell me he got a couple calls from promoters, wanting to set up a national tour. So maybe I owe her a thank-you.”

  Did it mean that she’d been sleeping with other guys when they were still together? Was that how she’d picked it up? Craig made a mental note to Google the gestation time when he got home, and then changed his mind. He didn’t want to know.

  “Have you read the comments section? They’re crucifying her. Not that they know who she is. ‘Anonymous,’ my ass.” Jake shook his head again and finished off his beer. He signaled the waitress for another round. “I told my manager I was going to out her, but he told me it might make me less sympathetic. People might want to interview her, and she might make up some bullshit that would make me look worse.” He shrugged. “I still wish somebody would out her, though. It’d be funny as hell.”

  Craig’s brother-in-law was a pharmacist. Maybe he could just call him up, ask him to swipe a pack of antibiotics for him. It wasn’t like he was asking for Oxy or anything.

  Jake grinned at the waitress as she set their beers down on the table, and she smiled back. “Might have to get her number,” he murmured to himself as he watched her walk away.

  Nah, his brother-in-law would never agree to that. He was too much of a wuss.

  “Okay, so maybe I was a little rough, but most chicks love that shit. Women like being dominated, period. They act like they want to be all independent, but deep down, they want a man to tell them what to do and how to do it. It’s just human nature. Ain’t nothing wrong with it.” Long swig of beer, suppressed belch. “But what’s crazy is that what she did to me is legal. Can you believe that? I mean, I believe in free speech as much as the next guy, but this shit is like . . . slander or something.”

  Craig picked up his beer bottle and started picking at the label. Shit. He’d have to risk the free clinic.

  “I’m just saying, somebody needs to teach her a lesson. Put her back in her place.” Jake twisted toward him. “You know what I’m saying?”

  Craig was silent.

  Jake nudged him with his foot. “Hey, man, are you listening?”

  Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico—217 Miles from Albuquerque

  They’d been silent for the first couple miles back on the road, eyes trained on the mirrors, watching out for headlights, waiting for the man from the diner to appear on the road intent on killing them, but the lights of Clovis had faded and the road behind them had remained stubbornly empty. Rebecca felt herself breathe again.

  Cait looked over at her. “Did you recognize him?”

  “No.” It was the truth: Rebecca hadn’t recognized that man in the diner, but she’d known as soon as she’d seen him that he was there for her. The look in his eyes, caught in a fraction of a glance, was enough to tell her that.

  Patrick must have called the house phone and realized she was gone. But how would he have found her so quickly? She looked at the dashboard clock. They hadn’t been on the road longer than a couple of hours. It wasn’t enough time for him to have sent someone to the house, let alone track her down like this.

  Unless he already knew where they were headed.

  Cait shook her head. “I didn’t recognize him, either. Well, he’s gone now, anyway. Are you okay?”

  “A little shaken up. You?”

  “I’m fine,” Cait said, a little too quickly. She was still rattled and trying hard to hide it. “Honestly? He was probably just some creep.” She sneaked a glance Rebecca’s way, testing out whether she was buying it.

  “Probably,” Rebecca said vaguely. She didn’t want to let Cait in on her suspicions, not until she knew for sure what was out there. She couldn’t risk Cait deciding it was too dangerous. They’d read a disclaimer to her over the phone when she’d set up the appointment. “Sisters of Service holds the right to terminate a drive at any point if the client’s safety or the driver’s safety is in immediate danger. If a direct threat is made to the client or driver, Sisters of Service will contact the authorities immediately.” Rebecca had agreed to the terms because this was her only choice. She couldn’t afford to lose it.

  “There are a lot of creeps in this world, but most of them are harmless. We get them at the bar all the time,” Cait said. “Guys who think that just because you’re serving them a drink, it means they own a piece of you. I had this one guy who spent the whole night tipping a buck on five-drink rounds. The bar closes, I’m walking to my car, and the guy staggers up to me and offers me a hundred bucks for a blow job.”

  Rebecca was horrified. “What did you say?”

  “I told him I wouldn’t touch his dick for a million bucks, and to get the hell away from me before I called the cops.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Of what? The guy could barely stand up straight.”

  “I would have been worried about making him angry. He could have hurt you.”

  Cait shrugged. “Like I said, he could barely walk, let alone take a swing at me. Besides, I grew up with three brothers. I can take care of myself.”

  Rebecca didn’t challenge her. She knew Cait was saying it so she felt safe in her care, but something about the bravado rubbed Rebecca the wrong way.

  She tried to remember herself at Cait’s age. She’d been teaching by then, putting in fifty-plus hours a week in a dingy classroom and still working weekends at the bar for extra cash. Had she met Patrick by then? Probably. She’d been—what—twenty-five? So maybe a little younger than Cait. Twenty-five and waiting for her life to start.

  It was his smile she saw first. It was blinding white, like something out of a toothpaste ad, a row of perfect teeth grinning at her from across the room. She looked away—that’s what she’d been taught to do if she saw a man she was interested in, make eye contact and look away—and when she looked back, he was still smiling. With something close to awe, she watched him walk across the room.

  Square shoulders, crisp button-down, that smile that led to a pair of deep dimples. He had eyes that could be credibly described as sparkling. He extended his hand and she reached for it without looking, and as soon as their palms touched, a thrill ran through her that she’d never felt before. “I’m Patrick,” he said, and she said her name in a voice she barely recognized.

  She was used to men approaching her. She was blond and thin and pretty—she acknowledged this about herself, she didn’t engage in the false modesty that most pretty women insisted upon—and, despite her mother’s worries, her air of detachment worked like catnip on men. She could sense it inside them when they looked at her, this desire to know what she was thinking. There were times when she caught a man she’d been talking to sizing her up like she was a specimen awaiting dissection and he was wondering which tool to use to pry open her skull. Sometimes she would give them her number, and sometimes she would even answer when they called. Mostly, though, she kept herself separate. Love, in her mind, was something powerful and all-encompassing, an e
arthquake or a hurricane. She was waiting for it to strike her.

  With Patrick, it did, full force. By the end of the evening, he’d kissed her. She couldn’t remember when she’d been kissed like that, his hands cupping her face, his eyelashes brushing against her skin as he pulled away, and she knew immediately that she was a goner.

  Later, she’d ask herself if she’d had a choice in the matter. The more she knew him, the more she realized that Patrick had a singular vision for his life, and when he saw her from across the room at that party, she slid into it like fingers into a glove.

  Two Years Earlier

  The cut and scrape of silverware on good china. The tinkling of champagne glasses clinking together in a toast. The murmur of polite conversation, gentle as a babbling brook.

  The thrum of a headache pressing against her sinuses. The nipped-in waist of her dress digging into her rib cage. The bile rising in her throat.

  “Excuse me,” Rebecca whispered as she pushed back from the table. Patrick barely noticed: he was elbow-deep in conversation with a major donor, some oil impresario whose name she’d already forgotten. The man’s wife—Sara, she thought, or maybe it was Tara—gave her a tight smile and went back to staring at her plate of langoustines. She seemed to have taken an immediate dislike to Rebecca, or maybe she was just exhausted by the thought of another evening of making small talk while the men flexed their muscles and did their deals. Rebecca could sympathize.

  She asked a passing waiter for directions to the bathroom, and he pointed to a door across the ballroom. She plucked her way through the tables, pleasant smile slapped on her face, and hoped she’d make it before she passed out.