“But you’ll be happier to see your bed. Let’s do this.” He stabbed a button on the dashboard and the speakers leaked classical music. “Google Maps says it’s twenty-five minutes to the Fifth Ward. I’ll wake you when we’re close. Deal?”
“You’re too good to me,” I murmured, and I meant it. I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but within minutes, I was out.
* * *
—
In my driveway I thanked Aaron and gave him a peck goodbye, then staggered toward the front door like a castaway approaching shore. I could’ve dropped to my knees, kissed the welcome mat. Instead I fumbled in my purse and backpack, unsure where I’d stashed my keys.
Inside, I lowered the blinds against the afternoon light and was about to flick off my lamp when my phone rattled on the nightstand.
Kristen. Her name made my heart tick up—was she okay? Did she need my help? I squinted at her text: “Landed! You made it?”
“Just got home! Passing out now,” I wrote back. I pressed my lips together, then added, “How are you doing???”
When her text came through, I almost dropped my phone:
“Great! Amazing trip. Miss you already. xoxo”
What trip had she been on? But then, as the goosebumps were still making their sweep up my sore neck and shoulders, it hit me: She was establishing a paper trail, maintaining normalcy. Making it clear to anyone listening in that all was well in the Journeys of Kristen and Emily. Ensuring we looked innocent. The text was a clever move, but it left me unable to nap.
Instead I stared at the ceiling and cataloged the details that would do us in. Each one hit me like a blast of cold, bright as a lemon, a strobe light’s sudden burst: the crowded patio bar, the black-haired British women with their huge backpacks and wide smiles, the blood on the suite floor, the lit-up window near the storage shed, the torrential rain on our pathetic mound…there were too many gambles, too many loose threads to trust that the Fates would bless us a second time.
A second time. What the hell?
I’d done this after Phnom Penh, too, replaying our coverup operation in my mind and tensing every time my phone rang, every time I refreshed the news. Now I silently thumbed through those damning bits of evidence. The flash as Sebastian and I left the bar—someone would see the photo, know I had something to do with his disappearance. Or the body would break free from the stones and bob up to Tonle Kak’s burbling surface.
Last year I also reckoned with the trauma of seeing blood gush from Sebastian’s head: Stop. Stop. Stop. And the surreal gruesomeness of ditching Sebastian’s body—in my milky memories, horror blipped out of the numbness like a voice through radio static. My hands had detached from my body, reduced a young man to an inconvenient bundle. That really happened. I knew it was him or me, that we were choosing the best worst option to keep ourselves alive and safe and free, but that primal horror stayed stamped on my psyche.
And above it all, like a drone whirring over a crowd, louder than a swarm of bees: After Cambodia, I couldn’t stop replaying the terror of the attack. Even back in Wisconsin, I felt Sebastian’s rough palm smashed against my face. I saw his clear eyes, blue and furious. The whole point of Kristen’s plan was to preserve our freedom, but I felt caged and bruised, like he’d stolen my joy. After Phnom Penh, I was a shell of a human, waiting, begging for an hour when I felt like my old self again.
Kristen had taken me on as an unpaid full-time job—listening to me sob, distracting me with meandering stories. Finally, mercifully, a moment of relief had come five or six weeks later, when the two of us were several seasons deep into a shared rewatch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When the show triggered a funny high-school memory, I’d caught myself midsentence with a jolt: Just now, you weren’t thinking about The Thing. It was fleeting but hopeful—if we could somehow evade notice and those periods between panic could lengthen like shadows in the afternoon, maybe someday I’d be okay.
And now I had to start that whole awful process again, from square one?
With shaking hands, I texted her back: “Miss you too.”
Eventually I fell into a restless, jagged sleep, woke in the dark, and then lay awake the rest of the night.
* * *
—
Kibble’s office was in a skinny turn-of-the-century tower on Rogers Street, with an ancient, creaking elevator and an ancient, creaking security guy who never looked up from the front desk as people came and went, even as I said hello twice a day. The workspace lacked the techie, technicolor flair I associated with start-ups; instead it was a beehive of old desks all facing the same way, partitioned off by ugly gray cubicle walls. Still, there was iced coffee on tap in the kitchen and floor-to-ceiling windows and parquet floors that made coordinating supply chains and launching lines for feline urinary care…if not pleasant, certainly tolerable. And there was a democratic feel among the twenty-odd employees. The sole Kibble worker with an office was Russell, the founder and CEO, who was only a couple years older than me.
Normally I didn’t mind coming to work after a trip—I looked forward to it, even. But as I rode the elevator up on my first day back, dread ballooned in my torso. I’d thought about calling Kristen before work, but it was the middle of the night in Sydney. How would I get through today without her quiet empathy, her reassuring confidence? And, jeez, how could I expect her to be there for me when she was the one who’d been attacked? She deserved a friend she could count on, the way I’d leaned on her after Cambodia.
As the elevator doors slid open, I paled. How was I supposed to sit at my scratched desk and poke at spreadsheets when Paolo’s body was just…there, decaying under a thin layer of dirt, waiting for someone to find him?
“Welcome home!” Priya bounded over, ponytail shaking, and wrapped me in a hug. “I am so glad you’re back.”
I spread a smile across my face like frosting. Priya and I had met a couple years ago, volunteering at a fundraiser for a nearby animal rescue; though my landlord didn’t allow pets, I loved ogling the shelter’s adorable Instagram and decided to help out at a one-day event. An organizer had paired us off in the morning, and by lunchtime, we were friends. She’d been the one to tell me about the job opening here—she was Kibble’s copywriter.
“I missed you!” I told her. “And I brought you something.” A miniature bottle of pisco clinked in my purse.
“Was it amazing? It was amazing, right?” She accompanied me to my desk.
I widened my smile. I wanted to cry. Days later, the soreness from dragging and digging still hadn’t let up its hold, and it matched the feeling in my chest: pain both broad and sharp. “It was unforgettable,” I managed, “but I’m glad to be home.”
* * *
—
I couldn’t stop poring over the news. I felt a jolt every time I refreshed CNN, like when you turn on music with the volume way too high. I scrolled and scrolled in search of any mention of a missing person. I knew I couldn’t google it, not even in private-browsing mode, because last year Kristen had hissed that the function wasn’t secure—anyone with your IP address could still track you down.
But nothing happened. Co-workers breezed by my desk to ask about Chile, but as is always the case with vacation recaps, they weren’t all that interested. There was an e-commerce relaunch to jump back into. I could only devote maybe 20 percent of my attention to drawing up production schedules and futzing with budgets, but that was 20 percent on anything other than Paolo.