Lies We Bury(58)

My contacts list is relatively small at this point. It takes only two swipes to find the number I want. Loud music and laughter reach through the phone before Oz’s voice of surprise registers against the din. “Claire? You coming to Suzy’s?”

Downing my vodka, then grabbing my keys, I allow a full shudder to ripple across my back. Someone gained access to my home and might return while I’m sleeping, to plant items from my past here as they continue to do at the crime scenes. Or simply to gut me from clavicle to navel. I fumble in my backpack until I find the pack of cigarettes.

“Obviously,” I say, angry at everything. Then I remember I’ve been avoiding men and assuming the worst of them without looking at all the facts, and check my tone.

I wipe my mouth with a shaking hand. Try for a smile that he can hear through the speaker. “I could use a night out.”

We hang up, and I cross to the kitchen stove. My shoulders tense, passing the bathroom.

The front burner ignites, and the cigarette pressed between my thumb and forefinger follows suit. Sharp, acrid tendrils rise to the smoke alarm. The sour smell curls my toes as I quickly lower the lit end to a new circle of flesh.





Twenty-Three

Anger pulses beneath my skin most days. I used to take note of it and attempt to talk myself down, to diminish the fury, as if my internal thermostat had broken and all I needed was an adjustment down a few degrees. But I was a lost cause, as I was told by my tenth-grade school counselor after a boy I knew fell down the stairs and broke his leg.

No matter that the boy had cornered me in the girls’ restroom and tried to stick his hand down my pants. I’d punched him in the nose then, which resulted in his family bringing assault charges against me. A month later, after I was allowed back at school, the boy broke his leg, and I happened to be nearby. No one, not even Rosemary, I think, ever believed that he slipped on his own. Physical violence breeds physical violence, the entire town seemed to whisper.

Though I may appear outwardly calm now, the thrum of rage continues to boil on low. A childhood therapist I saw—before Rosemary’s money ran out—suggested that anger was a secondary emotion to fear, that I was, underneath it all, afraid of something. I didn’t know what to make of that at the age of ten. But I knew at sixteen, when that boy cornered me, that I was afraid of being touched in an unwanted way.

It’s why I feel an effortless peace only when I’m behind the camera, snapping photos of the world from a safe distance that no one can cross without my notice.



Drums beat on the inside of my skull, pounding away at my feeble, remorseful, regretful brain.

No, not drums. My pulse. My own bewildered and disoriented heartbeat. I reach out from underneath flannel sheets and press both palms to my temples. Jesus. Flannel sheets?

Why did I have that fifth bourbon shot? Why didn’t I go home last night after meeting Oz for one drink and working through my next steps in the safety of a very crowded, public bar?

I open my eyes. Blackout curtains reveal little in this bedroom, but the outline of a stout, cheaply built dresser and an unframed poster of the movie Police Academy 4 on the wall tell me enough. Sitting up in Oz’s bed drains the blood from my head and brings on a new wave of dizziness and images from last night: that final shot of whiskey, kissing Oz on the mouth, leaning on him as we walked to his car, clumsy hands as he tried to take off my shirt on his couch, then me growling at him to leave me alone because I was tired. Although I committed a little too hard with the excessive drinking, my plan worked: I didn’t sleep at home last night.

I roll onto my side, and a square of paper greets me at eye level.

Morning! Went into the office.

Coffee is brewing on automatic setting.

Thx for a fun night.

—Oz

So he’s a morning person. And extremely trusting to leave me alone in his apartment.

Bumbling on the ground for my phone, I note the fresh scab newly formed on my arm. Did Oz see this last night? It throbs a yes in response.

I search the web for local locksmiths and find pages of options. Derry Landry said he’d handle anything needing fixing in my apartment; then we’d negotiate the division of financial responsibility. In this situation, I don’t care how much it costs, and if it requires the rest of Shia’s $1,000, I’ll pay it. I can’t go back to my studio knowing someone has a key or can pick the lock. I call the only company that’s open at 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday and make arrangements to meet the locksmith at my apartment this afternoon.

An electric coffeepot finishes sputtering somewhere in another room. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, bringing myself to a seated position. The room sways.

Yesterday, someone was in my home encouraging me to confess, as if I’m the murderer. Navigating to the photos app on my phone, I absorb the image of my fogged-up mirror. Time to come clean, Missy. In preserving the evidence of harassment and stalking, am I doing the killer’s work for him? Did I just record another implication of my guilt, one that otherwise would have faded with better ventilation and disappeared from my future court transcript?

I press the back of my hand to my forehead, willing my hangover to go away like that mirror message likely has. Prior to seeing it, part of me was still debating whether the anonymous author could simply be an obsessed fan, killing as a tribute to Chet and wanting me to embrace my identity. And now?

Using the nightstand for balance, I almost knock over a red cup filled with water, two aspirin beside it. Oz is more considerate than I gave his grabby hands credit for.