As I emerged back onto the sidewalk, I nearly collided with a woman in a track suit. She glanced between me and the side yard, as if trying to figure out where I’d come from.
“Did you lose a dog?” I asked, my tone urgent. “Small, black, with a white patch on his chest?”
“No,” she said, her suspicion melting away.
“I almost hit him with my car. I pulled over and tried to catch him, but he ran into those bushes and now I don’t know where he went.” I gave her a worried look. “I hope he’s okay.” Then I checked my watch. “I’ve got to run, but maybe keep an eye out for him? See if he returns?”
“Sure,” the woman said.
I felt her watching me as I made my way back to my car, grateful for Cory’s generous clothing allowance—7 For All Mankind jeans, Franco Sarto boots, and a Rag & Bone sweater. I fit into this neighborhood better than I ever had before.
I gave the house one last look, knowing it was unlikely I’d ever return. But instead of feeling sad, I felt a lightness bloom inside of me. Life was long, and a lot of things could happen. Circumstances might bring me home again, back into Ron’s circle. And if they did, Cory had taught me how to be ready for him.
Los Angeles
Present Day
Kat
June
I stay at the fundraiser, keeping a loose eye on Meg, but she and Ron don’t talk again. She leaves around eleven, and I wait fifteen minutes before retrieving my own car. Then I text my mother, the only person still awake who might care.
I saw Meg Williams tonight. She’s back.
Even though it’s 1:30 in the morning in Chicago, I know she’s up. When I was a kid and would wake in the middle of the night, she’d be in her study, reading newspapers, magazines, and political blogs. Anything she could get her hands on.
As I make my way down the winding street and back toward Sunset, I try to imagine Meg on her way home, only thinking about her introduction to Ron. Not knowing I was there too, watching her.
A couple months after Nate, I called Connor, one of the nicer reporters who had worked alongside me under Frank. “Did the police ever talk to Nate Burgess?” I’d asked. Even saying the name made me sweat, but I needed to know.
“Oh yeah,” Connor said. “An anonymous tip was called in, shortly after you left, about an attempted rape. The police investigated, but didn’t find anything. Since there was nothing to back up her story, they wrote it off as a crazy ex-girlfriend, looking for revenge.”
Connor’s words hit me like a punch. Meg never mentioned anything about an attempted rape. Not even a warning—Don’t go alone or Watch your drink around him. Instead, she’d led me to believe that if I concealed who I was and what I wanted from him, Nate would share all of Cory’s secrets. She didn’t care that it might put the young female reporter on the other end of the phone at risk.
My mother’s reply buzzes as I turn onto the freeway that will lead me home. I’ve kicked off my heels, and the gas pedal vibrates against my bare foot.
This is your second chance. Don’t squander it.
A familiar pinch of disappointment. With just a few words, she’s reminded me that most people don’t need a second chance at all.
I never told my mother what happened with Nate. All she knows is that I was on the Cory Dempsey story, and then I wasn’t. I was a young, promising reporter working at the LA Times, and then I wasn’t. I’d gone to the high school the following morning, gotten the quote for Frank, and delivered it on the edge between late and too late. But as the story developed, with new and horrific details being released every day, I couldn’t stomach it. I kept seeing Nate’s face, blurry around the edges, the last thing I remembered before I passed out. There’s a special kind of hell in not remembering trauma. It becomes a dark and faceless fear that lurks in unexpected places—the smell of whiskey, a certain type of bar stool, a song, a laugh—reaching out to grab you when you least expect it.