Shrieks of laughter and then the splash of someone jumping into a pool float over the fence from next door, pulling me back to the task at hand. I dump the remains of my sandwich in the trash and return to my computer, my mind mapping out the next two weeks. If all goes well, by the time early voting starts, there will be no way for Ron to extract himself.
But first, I need to put together an inspection report that will back up what I’ve already told Ron, and I’ll need to start packing. Once again, I’ll be leaving almost everything behind. I scan the room, trying to imagine what it’ll feel like after I’m gone. With everything left just as it is, for Kat to uncover.
Kat
October
“Come visit. You have the time,” Jenna says.
“I can’t afford it.” I push my earbuds firmly into my ears and walk along the bike path that cuts through the beach. I’d parked in a lot in Santa Monica and headed north, needing to feel the wind and sun wash away my frustration.
“All you have to do is buy a plane ticket. Once you’re here, you won’t have to pay for anything.”
The bike path is empty at nine in the morning on a Tuesday, only the occasional cyclist passing by in a flash—on me and then gone again. The pounding surf beats a rhythm to my left, the early October sun gentle on my back. “The election is in four weeks. I need to stick around and see this through.”
If Jenna thinks I’m wasting my time on a story that’s slipped beyond my grasp, she doesn’t say so, and I’m grateful. I reach the part of the bike path that lifts up off the sand and hugs the edge of PCH, glancing at the dark tunnel used by beachgoers to pass safely under the busy street, and give it a wide berth. Another road cuts a sharp right off the highway into the Palisades, and my gaze follows it upward where I imagine Meg, tucked away in a house I’ve never visited, planning the final stages of a scam I won’t see coming.
“What do you think she’s going to do?” Jenna asks.
“I have no idea. She’s locked me out, saying things are slow right now and she doesn’t need me.”
“You don’t believe her?”
I laugh and lean against a metal railing, looking toward the ocean and Point Dume in the hazy distance. “She may have been right about Scott, but she lies about everything else.”
“Maybe she figured out who you were.”
That’s what Scott had wanted me to believe—that Meg had followed me home, stolen our mail, and launched a campaign to steal from us. None of it had been true.
Two seagulls fight over a half-eaten hot dog bun on the sand below me, swooping and pecking each other, tearing the bread to tiny pieces in the process. “I don’t think so,” I say. “If she did, she wouldn’t keep me around at all. But we’re back to yoga and lunches, texts and calls. Nothing is different.”
But the truth is, there’s no way to know for sure.
Jenna’s voice comes through the line, gentle and cautious. “If you still want this story, Kat, I know you can get it.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” I say. Everything I thought I wanted had been based on the assumptions of a traumatized young woman who needed to assign responsibility for what happened to her. To look at the chain of events leading up to her rape, find the link connecting before to after, and then cut it.
I’m ten years older now, and I understand that life isn’t linear; cause and effect are often unclear. I still want the story, but at some point over the last several weeks, my motivation has shifted. What I want now is to see Meg succeed.
Jenna’s voice pulls me back. “When it’s over, call me. Maybe take the trip then. My door is always open.”
“Thanks.”