The Lion's Den(112)
I’m nearly certain passport checks aren’t mandatory between Italy and France, but I’m obviously going to have a problem if a spot check is conducted at any point. There’s no way around it, though. I guess I’ll just have to somehow elude the passport inspectors if that happens.
I study the board, unable to find La Quessine or Saint-Tropez. From the map, it looks like the closest station is a place called Saint-Rapha?l Valescure, which I’m guessing is still a good hour from La Quessine by car, but it’ll have to do.
The uniformed man in the booth looks up as I approach. “Ciao,” I say, smiling. “Uno ticket por treno a Saint-Rapha?l Valescure.”
Thankfully, he seems to understand my pigeon Italian. “A che ora?” He points to the board.
The next train is at 14:59, arriving at Saint-Rapha?l after one change at 20:07. I’ll just have to pray I have enough money left for a cab and that I find a driver willing to floor it to La Quessine to get me there by nine.
I have no idea how to say 14:59, so I go with “La prossima treno.” I’m wildly guessing at the translation, but he gets what I’m trying to say.
“Quattro minuti.” He points to a large clock that I somehow missed, right next to the board. It reads 14:55. I have four minutes. Not enough time to find a phone charger, but oh well. I’ve got the address memorized, thank God, and if I want to make it in time to meet Vinny, I’ve gotta get on that train. I nod wildly. “Ventinove.”
Grateful for the low price, I hand over the twenty-nine euros and he gives me my ticket just as the train pulls into the station.
(nineteen to twelve days ago)
Mexico/Los Angeles
I was trapped somewhere in the middle of the thick line of cars inching toward the US border when the remorse set in.
I’d screwed up. I should never have said those things to Eric.
A hot wind mixed dust with the exhaust of the hundreds of vehicles behind and ahead of me, forcing me to keep the windows raised though the air-conditioning struggled to keep up. My head pounded; my tongue was thick with thirst. But what pained me most was the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’d ruined things with him. I’d been mean. I knew his brother was his point of weakness and used it against him. All because he’d asked me for help.
Had he been trying to manipulate me? He’d made no false promises, told no lies. He’d answered all my questions honestly and was nothing but gracious and open with me.
So he flirted with me; that wasn’t a crime. He was just a flirt. He was French, after all; it was probably how he dealt with everyone. I was the one who had read into it, thought there’d been more between us than there was, because I’d wanted there to be. And to be fair, he probably did want to sleep with me, even if he didn’t want anything further.
God, I was so glad I hadn’t slept with him last night. I’d be far more mortified than I was right now.
I should go back, apologize. But there was nowhere to turn the car around in this clusterfuck.
I took out my phone and thumbed through my contacts, landing on the number for the Mexican burner he’d purchased this morning. I steeled my nerves and hit dial. The phone rang and rang, and finally a message in Spanish came on saying what I could only imagine was that the user had not yet set up voice mail. I sent a text:
I’m sorry. I want to help you. Tell me what I can do.
When I still hadn’t heard from Eric a week after I returned from Rosarito, I figured it was over. I’d managed to fuck it up and I’d never see him again. I worried about him; I considered driving back down there—I lay awake nights staring at the ceiling, going over the different possible scenarios for our reunion (he loved me, he hated me, he was gone, he was dead)—but in the end I decided that if he wasn’t returning my texts or calls, he probably didn’t want to see me. And I desperately needed to work to pay my rent.
I did speak to Dylan a few days after I left Mexico. He didn’t call me; I called him, maintaining the charade that I was simply a concerned friend. I inquired as to whether he or his father had found anything further about Eric’s disappearance, hoping against hope that he’d come clean with me and admit that John was their father, who was only looking into Eric’s disappearance so that he could make it permanent. For Eric’s sake, I wanted Dylan to turn out to be a good brother after all, for Eric to be wrong about him. But Dylan shut me down, telling me they’d found no signs of foul play. I should let it go, he said. When I reminded him there was still no body, he gave me a rather cryptic “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
“Has anyone been to his loft?” I’d asked, knowing it would still be the mess he’d found after it had been ransacked, as Eric hadn’t had time to clean it before Summer pushed him off the cliff. “Maybe there would be some clue there.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Everything was in order.”
So he was lying to me. “Summer has a key,” I fibbed. “Maybe I’ll go by and––”
“Please don’t,” he said. “Belle—the kind of people Eric was involved with—even if they had nothing to do with it, trust me, you don’t want to draw their attention. Promise me you won’t.”
He sounded genuinely worried enough that I promised, realizing that just maybe he was lying to me in order to protect me. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Maybe he was a coward, or maybe he was biding his time to bring his father down on his own terms (though from what Eric had told me, it was doubtful). Only time would tell.