Aaron looks at me, finally, like I am the bane of his existence. Like he would rather be anywhere in the world than here, with me.
“What kind of receipts?”
“I’ll show you back at the motel,” I say. “Aaron, please. I need you to help me with this.”
He hesitates, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel.
“I’ve told you before,” he says, quieter than ever. “In my line of work, trust is everything. Honesty is everything.”
“I know,” I say. “And I promise, right now, I will tell you everything.”
We pull into the parking lot, the motel bleak before us. Aaron turns off the ignition, sitting silently beside me.
“Please come in,” I say, moving my hand to his leg. He flinches at the touch, but I can see his resolve melt. Silently, he unbuckles his seat belt and pushes the door open, stepping outside without a word.
The door to my room creaks as I open it, and we both step inside, closing it behind us. It’s cold, dark. The curtains are pulled tightly, my bag still resting on the bed. I walk over to the bedside table and click on the light, the fluorescent glow casting shadows across Aaron’s face as he stands by the doorway.
“This is what I found,” I say, zipping open my duffel bag. I reach inside, and my hand grazes the bottle of Xanax resting gently on top, but I push it aside. Instead, I reach for a white envelope. My fingers shake as I grab it, the same way they had been shaking as I leafed through Daniel’s briefcase, unsnapped on the dining room floor, digging through the papers organized in manila folders and three-ring binders. There had been packets of drug samples organized in clear dividers, memorialized like baseball cards. I had recognized the names from my own desk drawer: Alprazolam, Chlordiazepoxide, Diazepam. I remember feeling a choke lodge itself in my throat as I read that last one, imagining a single hair floating to the floor like a feather. Then I had forced myself to keep flipping until I had found what I was looking for.
Receipts. I needed to see receipts. Because I knew that Daniel kept everything, from hotels and meals to gas stops and car repairs. All of it could be expensed.
I open the flap of the envelope now and dump its contents onto the bed, a pile of receipts fluttering onto the comforter. I start flipping through each one, my eyes scanning the various addresses at the bottom.
“There are receipts from Baton Rouge, of course,” I say. “Restaurants in Jackson, hotels in Alexandria. All of these receipts paint a picture of where he goes all day—and the dates at the bottom can tell us when he was there.”
Aaron walks over and sits next to me, his leg pressed against mine. He grabs the receipt on the top and stares at it, his eyes trained on the bottom.
“Angola,” he says. “Is that in his territory?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “But he goes there—a lot. And that’s the one that caught my attention.”
“Why?”
I pluck it from him, holding it at a distance between the tips of my thumb and forefinger, like it’s poisonous. Like it could bite.
“Angola is the home of the largest maximum-security prison in America,” I say. “Louisiana State Penitentiary.”
Aaron lifts his head. He turns to face me, his eyebrows lifted.
“The home of my father.”
“Holy shit.”
“Maybe they know each other,” I continue, looking back at the receipt. A bottle of water, twenty dollars’ worth of gas. A sleeve of sunflower seeds. I remember the way my father used to tip the whole bag into his mouth and crunch like he was chewing on a handful of fingernails. The way the shells would turn up around the house, stuck to everything. Wedged between the cracks of the kitchen table, trapped beneath my shoe. Clumping together at the bottom of a water glass, drowning in spit.
I think of my mother, spelling Daniel with her fingers.
“That must be why he’s doing this,” I say. “Why he found me. They’re connected.”
“Chloe, you need to go to the police.”
“The police aren’t going to believe me, Aaron. I’ve already tried.”
“What do you mean, you’ve already tried?”
“I have a history. A past that’s working against me. They think I’m crazy—”
“You are not crazy.”
His words cut me short. I’m almost stunned to hear them, like he had opened his mouth and started to speak French. Because for the first time in weeks, someone believes me. Someone is on my side. And it feels so good to be believed; to have someone look at me with genuine caring instead of suspicion or worry or rage. I think about all my little moments with Aaron, moments I had been trying to push out, trying to pretend didn’t mean anything. Sitting together by the bridge, talking about memories. The way I had wanted to call him that night on the couch when I was drunk and alone. I can tell he wants to keep talking, so I lean forward and kiss him once before he can say anything else. Before this feeling is gone.