The Sound of Broken Ribs(49)

“Are you staying or not?”

A moment’s silence, then, “Yes. I’ll stay. Please hurry. I stand a high chance of being sexually assaulted.”

“I’m sure God wouldn’t let that happen. Have a good night, Jack.”

Lei thought she heard the woman mutter an “Amen” before she disconnected.

Lei booked the first available charter to California. It was the only way she travelled. After all, they didn’t allow firearms on commercial airlines.

*

“What the hell are you going to do now?” Carl leaned against the dresser, his butt on the edge, arms stiff and palms resting atop the wood.

Belinda heard what Carl had said but did not immediately respond. What struck her was the use of ‘you’ instead of ‘we’. Everything they did up until this point, even tonight’s drunken dinner, had been ‘we’. But now, at the first sign of trouble, Carl changed the group to a singular entity.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was oddly emotionless, given the circumstances. She should be up and pacing and huffing and puffing and flailing about hysterically. But she wasn’t. She sat on the corner of her bed with her hands on her knees. “I don’t know,” she repeated.

“What I want to know is—why hasn’t she called the police?” Carl seemed as unaffected as she did, but she could feel the concern coming off him like powerful body odor.

“She’s likely a private eye. That author probably hired her. Once she confirms I am who she thinks I am, she’ll call the author and the author will call the cops.”

“They won’t extradite you—will they? Not that far. What’s between us, like eight states?”

“Something like that,” Belinda said, even though she hadn’t a clue. American geography—actually, geography period—had never been a subject she’d excelled in. “She might be a bounty hunter.”

“Don’t those people go after bail jumpers? Bounty hunters don’t go after people unless they know they’re guilty—right?”

“I don’t know, Carl. I don’t know.” Belinda flopped back on the bed.

“Okay,” he said. He loosed a sigh and continued, “If the woman was someone like a US Marshall, she would’ve just arrested you. If she is a private dick, then she has no real power to do anything to you but watch you. And even if the author does call the police, there’s nothing the cops can do because of extradition laws.”

“That’s a maybe. We don’t actually know.”

“And I ain’t looking for it on my phone.” Carl let out a nervous giggle. He wiped sweat from his brow with one dark forearm. The temperature in the room was relatively cool. Belinda figured Carl’s perspiration was flop sweat brought on by anxiety. She, herself, was a little damp under the arms. “Last thing I need when we’re arrested is the police finding search results for extradition laws and statute of limitations concerning attempted murder.”

Belinda caught the ‘we’re’ instead of ‘you’re’, but she had also noticed the ‘when we’re caught’ instead of the ‘if we’re caught’, too. Still, she smiled, thinking that Carl seemed to be back on her side.

She sat up and reached for him. He stepped into her embrace. She wrapped him in her thin arms and squeezed his waist, laid her ear against his soft paunch.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for staying with me all this time. I’m not sure I could’ve done the same thing for someone who was essentially a stranger.”

“You’re not a stranger anymore. I’m pretty sure over two years makes us besties for life.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Her father used to kiss her like that, but the touch of Carl’s lips had been different. The press was gentle and caring and far from patronizing. The kiss of a brother, not a father. Considering how her father had once looked at her, she didn’t think calling his kiss father-like was accurate either. She gave up overanalyzing things and enjoyed the human contact.

When was the last time someone had held her? Dan? Probably. If there had been another time between her previous life and this one, she couldn’t recall it. Had Tony hugged her before he died? For the life of her, she couldn’t remember.

She still had her arms around Carl’s midsection when he said, “Should we do something about her?”

The way he said it, Belinda thought that maybe he was only broaching the subject to test her mental stability. The mindset behind the question, simply: ask the likely crazy person if she wants to do something crazy with the intent of making her feel less alone.

“Should we make sure she doesn’t talk to anybody?” Carl’s tone shifted. It became more insistent, and now Belinda thought that maybe he was suggesting instead of asking. She remained quiet to see if his suggestions would escalate.

A second later, they did just that.

“I think we might have to do something about her, Bee.”

She nodded against his stomach. “So do I.”

*

Jack showered and shaved her legs, wrapped herself in a towel, plugged the TV in again, and propped herself up in the bed, intending to find something to watch until she became sleepy. When she turned the set back on, she immediately changed the channel, just in case there was more sexual assault playing. Nothing but infomercials as far as the channels would go. She finally settled on a product placement for a colon cleansing product because her digestive health had always been poor. Mother had occasionally said this was because Jack was a woman and that women were born constipated, it was just the nature of the beast, so to speak. Jack had since come to learn that chronic constipation was not the norm for women, but had nonetheless not found a cure for her perpetually clogged pipes.