Erasing Faith(80)

“I… this…” My mind was spinning so fast I could barely string words together. “Is there anything else you can tell me about what happened?”

“I’m sorry.” Roger’s voice was sympathetic. “I’ve told you everything I know. I’ll see if I can dig up any of the old newspaper articles about her death. If you’d like, I’ll email them to you.”

“Thank you,” I whispered into the receiver, my voice choked with grief.

I gave him my email address and we hung up a few moments later. I sat for hours with my arms propped on the steering wheel, turning my phone over in my hands and watching the sky turn from blue to yellow to pink to gray. Listening to the single thought that kept turning over in my mind like a washing machine on an endless cycle.

Margot was dead… and Wes was telling the truth.

***

Denial.

Anger.

Bargaining.

Depression.

Acceptance.

Crack open any psychiatric textbook, and you’ll see Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief spelled out with careful definitions and maybe even a colorful, convenient chart to illustrate them. You can study them, memorize them, take an exam or write an essay of 2,000 words or less explaining them. You can recite their descriptions verbatim and think, because you received that coveted A grade from your high school psychology teacher, that you know a little about grief.

Truth is, though… you don’t know a damn thing. At least, not until you’ve lived through it and come out the other side.

You don’t move through the stages like some kind of grim ten-step program. There’s no one-by-one order when it comes to what you feel after losing someone you love.

You feel everything all at once — an awful maelstrom of emotions. They swirl inside you like a violent hurricane: rage wrapped up in sadness blanketed by pleading cloaked in denial. It’s horrible. Horrific. And when you’re caught in that tornado, held hostage by your grief, there’s no getting out. You simply have to wait for the winds to die down and the twister to release you.

It takes most people months. Others, years. Some, lifetimes.

I had mere minutes.

There was simply no time to process my grief, as thoughts of Margot’s murder were overtaken by fears of my own.

If Wes had been right — if I really was a target — I had to get to the airport, book a new flight, and return to my safe, new life before my past caught up to me.

It was now dark and I’d been sitting in my car unmoving for so long, my legs were both asleep. My tears had dried hours ago, leaving salty trails on my cheeks. Flipping down the overhead mirror, I examined my face.

Dirt from my graceful fall out of the trunk still coated my features, but there were streaks through it where my tears had cut a stark path. My makeup was gone. I was missing one high heel. My clothes were unsalvageable, covered as they were in grime. In a feeble attempt to pull myself together, I brushed at my skirt, smoothed my hands over my fitted sweater to remove unwanted wrinkles, and ran a hand through my hair.

I was a mess. If I walked through the airport like this, I’d immediately draw unwanted attention.

It was time to pull myself together.

***

A half hour later, I’d reloaded my gun, shimmied out of my dirty clothes in the backseat, and swapped them for a pair of dark wash skinny jeans, knee-high brown boots, and a maroon silk blouse. I used a wet wipe from my purse to clean the dirt from my face and neck, applied a touch of mascara to my eyes, and swiped some lipstick on my lips. When I flipped down the overhead mirror, I saw polished, put-together Fae Montgomery staring back at me. I almost recognized myself again. Only the haunted look in my eyes was evidence of the deep grief I felt every time I thought of Margot.

I started to drive. This time, the music stayed off and the windows remained firmly rolled up. I drove through the night for hours in total silence, with only haunted thoughts to keep me company. Before I knew it, the sky was lightening as dawn broke and I’d nearly reached the airport. The traffic grew congested the closer I got, as several roads merged into one line of vehicles waiting to approach the terminals. I found myself glancing in the rearview mirror more than once as I weaved through traffic, watching the cars behind me.

A flutter of unease erupted in my stomach when I saw the same car that had been trailing me for almost twenty minutes was still there, half-concealed behind the truck directly in back of my rental. Initially, the car caught my eye because it reminded me of the one Conor was always driving — a black sedan with windows tinted so dark you couldn’t see through them even if your face was pressed against the glass. Now, I was watching it for another reason altogether.

I’d noticed it following me almost as soon as I exited the freeway.

Of course, it was possible that whoever was in the car also had a flight to catch. Perhaps the fact that we’d picked the same route to the airport was sheer coincidence. Maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe the news of Margot’s death and the things Wes said to me were simply too much to handle without succumbing to crushing anxiety. But, unwarranted or not, the fears had gotten into my head.

I was starting to panic.

Taking a deep breath, I drove straight past the turn that would bring me to the rental car return area. Instead, I pulled into the cellphone waiting lot, cut across the rows of idling cars, and merged immediately back into the main flow of traffic. When I glanced in the rearview, I felt my heartbeat pick up to a rapid staccato as fear began to course through my veins.