A Stranger on the Beach(40)

I held up my hand, and a taxi screeched to a halt in front of me.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“I’m leaving. If you follow me, I swear to God, I’ll call the police,” I said.

I jumped in the backseat and slammed the door.

“Drive!”

The cab sped away. When I looked out the rear window and saw Aidan fading into the distance, getting smaller and smaller, my eyes filled with tears of relief. But this was a temporary escape. I hadn’t seen the last of him, and I knew it.

“Where to, miss?” the cabdriver asked.

Where would I be safe? If he’d gone through my phone, then Aidan knew the address of my apartment in the city. He knew my comings and goings, my spin class, restaurants I liked, my friends’ addresses. Anywhere I normally went, he would find me. I’d held off going to the police out of fear that my fling with Aidan would become public knowledge. But given what gossipy Stacey had seen in spin class, it already had. I needed to worry less about my reputation and more about my safety.

“Take me to the nearest police station,” I said.





27


The Nineteenth Precinct was housed in a quaint brick-and-limestone building on a quiet side street. Inside, it was standard government issue, with scuffed linoleum floors and garish fluorescent lighting. When I explained why I’d come, the gruff old guy behind the desk took my name and told me to have a seat.

The waiting room was crowded, and from the look of it, I could be sitting here all day. While I waited, I texted Hannah. Seeing her at dinner the other night had reminded me how much I missed her. Some quality mom-daughter time would make me feel better about everything. I suggested picking her up at school this weekend to take her shopping and to lunch.

Ten minutes later, Hannah still hadn’t texted me back, and a young woman stepped into the waiting room, holding a clipboard, and called my name.

“Follow me, please,” she said.

She introduced herself as Officer Sanchez. She was short and stocky, with a pretty face and dark hair pulled back in a bun. I followed her through the door to an open area crowded with rows of desks. Uniformed officers bustled all around us. A large, tattooed man was being led away in handcuffs, and a police dog stood obediently in a corner. Officer Sanchez led me to the back of a room, to a desk that was separated from the others by a partition. The desk was covered with folders and paperwork and strewn with half-filled coffee cups. We sat down, and she pulled a keyboard toward her and pulled up a form on the screen. She typed in my name and address.

“First,” she said, “do you require medical attention?”

“Medical attention? No.”

“You were not injured physically in the incident?”

“I mean, he grabbed my arm. Maybe I have a bruise or something. But no.”

“Name of perpetrator?” she asked, evenly, holding my gaze.

And I froze.

This was the moment of truth. If I gave Aidan’s name, this officer would presumably interview him, possibly even arrest him. I would have to face Aidan in court. My one-night stand would become public knowledge. My indiscretion might even make the news. It would be so much worse than Stacey’s gossip. But wasn’t it better to risk humiliation and public shame than—than what? Aidan had followed me, but would he really hurt me? I found myself denying, rethinking—chickening out.

“I—I don’t know if I can.”

“This is always the hard part,” Officer Sanchez said. She glanced down at my wedding and engagement bands. “It’s your husband, right? A lot of women get to this moment, and they can’t bring themselves to file charges. No matter how long he’s been hurting them, they still love him. But you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know in your heart it’s the right thing.”

“No. You see, that’s the problem. It’s not my husband.”

“Oh. Another man?”

“Yes.”

“An intimate partner?”

“An—?”

“Somebody you had sex with?”

I hesitated.

“Ma’am, no judgments. This situation comes up more than you’d think, where the abuse was by—you know—someone on the side. I always advise complainants to put their safety ahead of any embarrassment.”

“But why do you need to know if we were intimate? You’re not going to write that in the computer, are you?”

“It’s relevant to whether you can file for an order of protection in family court. You can only do that if the perpetrator is an intimate partner or family member. So, yes, I do need to know, and it will go in the record.”

That gave me pause. But the officer had a point—it said something that I’d even come here. I was afraid of Aidan, and with good reason. I had to be brave and protect myself.

“Okay. Yes. We had sex.”

“Name of perpetrator?”

“His name is Aidan Callahan,” I said.

“Spell it?”

I did and watched her type it into the computer.

“Do you have his date of birth or social security number?”

“I know his birthday. Why?”

“There could be twenty Aidan Callahans. I need to make sure we get the right one. Plus, with a DOB, I can run him for priors.”