“You know what I mean.”
I click on news, check for his disappearance. Nothing. Of course there’s nothing. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and that car sunk like a stone. “Yeah, well, she downed probably half a dozen drinks and picked a fight with some ladies at the next table.”
“Over The Bachelor? Are you kidding me?”
“Apparently, some of us take our dating reality shows very seriously. . . .”
I stand up, and there’s a whoosh in my ears. Sparks dance in front of my eyes. I hear Luke’s voice over the speakerphone, but I don’t know what he’s saying.
“Cam?”
“Yeah. Sorry . . . I was just . . . Man.” It’s the antianxiety meds. The lack of them, rather. I usually take them first thing in the morning, meaning I’ve basically skipped a day. “What did you say?”
“I said, you didn’t get punched in the head, did you?”
“No, no. I emerged unscathed.” I sit down on the bed, rub my temples. I need to take my meds. But first I need to make it into the bathroom without passing out.
“You didn’t let her drive home.”
“Hold on a sec.” I lurch down the hall and into the bathroom, drop the phone in the sink. I can hear Luke asking if I’m okay, and it makes me angry. “I said hold on.” It comes out a growl. Just one day without my pills and I’m like this. Joan prescribed them when she was alive and she died a year ago. I need to see another shrink. Get weaned off. It’s awful to be this dependent on anyone or anything. I pop two pills into my mouth, gulp water from the faucet, and close my eyes until I’m me again. “Sorry, Luke.” I say it to the mirror once I feel steadier. I catch my own gaze, stare into my eyes, and remember him staring into them, the last eyes he ever saw. Sorry, he had said. Too little, too late. What was it Violet Langford told me, about them begging and pleading? “I just . . . I just needed a drink of water.”
“Better now?”
“Much.”
“Good.”
“So, anyway . . . I drove her home myself. In her car.”
“Wow. Above and beyond.”
“Well, I didn’t want to subject some poor Uber driver to her.”
“Not to mention their upholstery.”
“Exactly. Even when I got her there, I felt like I had to hang out with her for a little while. Just to make sure she didn’t die of alcohol poisoning. . . .”
Luke says, “When did you get home?”
“All I can tell you is that by the time I Ubered back to where I’d parked, the sun was rising. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t get towed.” Amazing how easily the story comes out. My alibi. And with my back to the mirror, I believe it all. I haven’t killed anyone. I just had a rough night, taking care of a friend.
Luke says, “And here I thought the big news was Alayah coming back.”
“Who?”
He says nothing for several seconds. “Alayah. From The Bachelor. The reason why you met your Reddit friend in the first place.”
“Oh right. Yeah.” I wince. “That was quite a plot twist.”
“So,” he says. “The reason why I’m calling has nothing to do with Pilot Pete.”
I frown. “It doesn’t?”
“Nope.” I don’t like the tone in his voice. It feels cheerful but forced, as though he’s in character and about to lower the boom on some bad-apple cop in his precinct. “I’m calling,” he says, “to let you know that Nora and I decided to take you up on your offer.”