We Were Never Here(13)

    “Nicole” announced she wanted to show Paolo the crystals she’d picked out at the market, and I gave her one more out: “You’re sure? You know we have that flight tomorrow?” She brushed me off, so I recited my lines: They should go, I wanted to finish my drink, but I was sleepy so (yaaawn, streeeetch) I’d probably be back in forty-five minutes. Paolo lifted his gigantic backpack, and Kristen touched her palm to my cheek gratefully as they slipped past.

I hoisted myself onto a stool at the bar and pulled out my book. I strung my purse over the back of my chair and tried to read, tried not to think about what was happening in our suite a few blocks away. I envy her, I realized suddenly. Sex had been stripped from my list of acceptable activities for a full year now, to the point where it was wearing my new love interest’s patience thin. And here she was having a spontaneous vacation hookup. As if nothing bad had happened the last time one of us gave that a go.

But there was more to it than that, and I sat quietly, waiting for my thoughts to snap into place. Aha: I envied him, as well. A week with Kristen had reminded me how I felt braver around her: more capable and resourceful, more cavalier and fun. Chosen. Kristen could do that, her attention like a tractor beam, now trained squarely on Paolo. On our last night, no less.

But that was just my own insecurity—I was happy for her, her and this handsome Spaniard. I had Aaron waiting for me at home, and more travels with Kristen to look forward to. Maybe we really could pull off that backpacking stint next year, when things were more settled with Aaron and Kibble and my life in Milwaukee. The thought cheered me, and I ordered a beer.

Thirty minutes later, I swallowed the last of it, then asked for a bottle of water. Thirty minutes when I was blissfully unaware that panic was about to go off like a grenade. Alone in a leafy bar with cigarette smoke and the barks of desperate dogs wafting past, I noticed nothing. I reached for my purse and half registered that it was unzipped. Stuck my hand inside, felt around, slowly at first and then with mounting alarm. I slid from the stool and searched the floor around my feet. Patted my hips, as if my sundress had suddenly grown pockets, then tore through my bag again.

    “Someone took my wallet,” I gasped at the bartender. I forgot every Spanish word I’d ever learned.

“Mil,” he repeated, then pointed at the bottle of water. “One thousand pesos.”

I shook my head and opened my purse wide, as if to show him. “I don’t have any money. Someone took it.” My voice cracked and he made a sympathetic face, then whipped the bottle back behind the bar. I hugged my bag against me, unsure what to do next.

When had someone taken it? I picked back over my minutes alone at the bar like this was a puzzle I could solve, rooting around for the instant my subconscious had picked up on something wrong. The way some faraway part of your brain snags while you’re leaving your scarf on a bus: a momentary something’s not right.

Nerves popped along my neck. Someone had watched me from across the bar, noticing my bag hanging limply as I curled over my book. Plunged their fingers inside just inches from my hip and strolled away with fifty bucks in local currency, my driver’s license, and a few credit cards. I loved this wallet—green leather, a relic from a flea market date with another ex, Colin. Stupid. I’d let my guard down in a foreign country—and I’d been violated.

I took a step toward the exit; Kristen would know how to handle it. It hadn’t been forty-five minutes yet, but I’d knock and knock, giving them time to cover up. She’d hug me tight and know what to do. She always knew what to do.

But then I sank back into a seat. I should wait. Barging in on them now would just be selfish.

Another decision that changed everything. What if I’d run straight back? Banged on the door, interrupted them just a bit sooner?

It was time—I rushed off, making my way uphill in the dark, and rapped on the glass door to our suite. In the second that followed, I knew something was wrong: a gasp, a clang, a strange, strangled groan.

    “Kristen?” My heart beat wildly, the wallet forgotten. I tried the handle, then fumbled in my bag for my key. “What’s going on?”

I slid the door open and slapped at the light. It blared on, blue-white and hideous, and I froze.

Kristen sat crumpled on the floor, crying. Her tears mingled with a spray of blood across her jaw, and there were smears of it on her palm and forearm.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice almost a whisper, and she lifted her eyes to me. Something came into focus behind her: two legs, poking out from beyond the aqua couch.

“Emily.” She reached for me, a toddler who wants Mommy.

My pulse was so loud it was an ocean, surf pounding against the inside of my skull. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Like a sleepwalker, I took a step forward. Then another, and another, past Kristen, whose face dropped back into her blood-spattered hands.

“He attacked me.”

Another step, another. Then the sight blasted through me like a sonic boom, shaking all my cells: the bottle of wine, streaked with red. Blood on the tile floor, forming a strange amoeba shape. His eyes open and vacant, and just to the right of them, the dent in his skull.

I shrieked and sank to my knees.

“He attacked me,” she repeated, struggling to stand. I met her gaze across the room. “You have to help me.”

I let out a sob and turned back to Paolo.