Until I had run out of ways to break myself apart.
Saturday’s bride was a hugger. And a crier. She had shock-blue hair, combat boots under her poofy princess dress, and a Rebel Alliance tattoo on her shoulder. For a few hours, I lost myself in the work, capturing the moments of heady bliss and wild energy and the soft, tender seconds in between—the groom’s grandmother sitting at the edge of the dance floor with her eyes full of pride, the flower girl twirling slowly to watch her skirt billow out, the moment the bride leaned her head briefly on her father’s shoulder in a moment of rest.
We made our lives of rites and rituals, and this one was bright with joy and meaning. I stood on the edge of it, a witness but not a participant. More than ever I felt the wall between me and the images I took.
At the end of the day I packed up my gear and headed to a hotel I couldn’t really afford. I still had the engagement shoot tomorrow, or I would have just headed back to Chester. For all the crowds around me, I’d felt isolated all day, exposed. At least I had work that I could focus on.
At the desk in the hotel room, I pulled up a few shots I’d already identified, doing the most basic of touch-ups on them before zipping off a few web-sized JPEGs to the bride. Just a preview!!! I thought you might like to share these. CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I was uncomfortable with exclamation points, but one had to make certain sacrifices to work in the wedding industry.
My stomach growled. I’d snagged a couple appetizers at the wedding, but otherwise I hadn’t eaten. I was only a few blocks away from one of my favorite Thai places, and suddenly I could think of nothing else. I sent another couple of quick emails—telling my engaged couple I was looking forward to seeing them tomorrow, confirming dates for a spring wedding—and headed out.
Forty minutes later, sated with noodles and curry, I felt a bit more human and a bit less panicked. It was harder to be scared on a full stomach. Carrying my leftovers in one hand, I walked back to my room. Ethan called just as I was making my way down the hallway.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” he said when I answered.
“Bad news first. Always.”
“The car following you was a rental, and I’ve got no way to find out who rented it.”
“Shit. What’s the good news?”
“That’s also the good news. That I found the car,” Ethan said sheepishly. “I was planning to do that in the other order.”
“Can’t you, like, call and pretend they rear-ended you or something? Or hack into their database? Rappel down through their skylight?”
“Naomi, I make a podcast,” Ethan said.
“You could have skills. I don’t know. Hold on, I’m getting a text.” I juggled my keycard as I checked. Tomorrow’s couple wanted to know if I could be there at eleven instead of noon. No problem—that would give me more time to get back to Chester afterward. “I’ve got to answer this. I’ll call you back in just a sec, okay?” I shouldered the door open and stepped into the room.
“I’m not going anywhere. Talk to you later.”
I hung up and shut the door behind me with my foot, then typed out a reply as I moved farther into the room.
The shadow was in my peripheral vision. I didn’t notice it until it moved—and in the same instant I realized it was a man, lunging toward me. A man with brown hair and a cold look in his eyes.
Pure white panic flashed through me. He was in my room. He was going to kill me.
I struck out in blind fear, swinging with the hand holding my phone. It clipped him in the temple, and with a yell I drew my arm back to hit him again. Swearing, he grabbed the phone from my hand, tearing it out of my grip, but I didn’t stop, clawing at his face. I wouldn’t go without a fight, not this time.
His hand closed around my wrist. He yanked hard, spinning me half around, then shoved me hard in the back. I hit the wall face-first and rebounded with a cry of pain. I sprawled backward, my hip and ribs catching the hard bed frame on my way down, and I lay in a heap on the floor, my vision blurry.
I stared up at him, blinking to try to clear my vision, waiting for him to attack me again—but he only bent, grabbed my phone from where it had fallen, and ran out the door.
The door slammed shut. The pain in my ribs throbbed with my frantic heartbeat, but I sucked down a breath and then another.
He hadn’t killed me. I was alive.
Every part of me hurt. I dragged myself up holding on to the end of the bed. I tasted blood and realized that my nose was bleeding. The closet mirrors showed a wild-eyed woman, red smeared over lips and cheeks and chin.
I tried to get my feet under me, but standing up made the room spin. I crabbed my way over to the bedside table and fumbled for the room phone. And then I stopped.
Who was I going to call? The police?
Yes. Obviously. That was the sensible thing. And then I’d explain to them about the man, about the Camry, about Chester. Persephone, Liv, Stahl—they were all tangled up in this, and if I gave the police the end of that thread they would follow it.
This is stupid. Call the cops.
Because that had worked out so well before. The cops were at least half the reason I’d ended up on that witness stand, testifying against the wrong man. They’d wanted Stahl, and they’d used me to get him.
I gathered up my things in a rush, clawing everything into my suitcase and barely getting it closed before I hurried out the door. Moving at a shuffling run, I made it down the back staircase and to my car without running into anyone. I sat behind the wheel, taking gulping, painful breaths, and watched pedestrians wander by, unconcerned.
I leaned my head against the wheel and sobbed.
My ribs and hips were bruised, but nothing was broken, I decided. Not even my nose, though by the time I hit Tacoma it had swollen up and was bruising fast. There was a hard-edged bruise on my ribs, though, and a splotch on my hip from where I’d fallen, and my arm was red where he’d grabbed it. But I didn’t have a concussion or any broken bones, so I was lucky.
I was lucky he’d left without doing worse.
I’d filled up on gas before the wedding. I drove straight through to Chester, and even taking the long way around the Sound to avoid the ferry, I didn’t stop once. I kept watching for a black Camry in my rearview, and a couple times I pulled off at weird spots to make sure no other cars were following me either. When I got to the Chester motel well after nightfall I was alone, as far as I could tell.
I went straight to Ethan’s room. I hadn’t called him—without my phone, I didn’t even have his number—and he greeted me with surprise and alarm.
“Naomi! I’ve been trying to call you— What the hell happened to your face?” he asked.
“My face isn’t even the worst part,” I told him, sounding like I had a head cold. I pushed in past him, shut the door, and engaged the chain. “I couldn’t call you because my phone got stolen. By the guy who did this.” I gestured at my face. Scar or no scar, I liked my face. It had severe angles that intimidated people, an effect that the scar actually helped but which the puffy, purplish state of my nose completely ruined.
“What guy? What happened?” Ethan asked. “When was this?”
“A few hours ago.” I went through the sequence of events—the Camry, getting back to the hotel, the intruder. When I got to how I’d decided not to call the police, he sank down on the bed, elbows on his knees and hands laced behind his head.