He let his extended hand drop. “Traci will take care of this mess when she comes on Monday. You know she lives for cleaning.”
Even though I forced myself to laugh, he wasn’t wrong. Traci, Michael’s housekeeper, certainly did love to clean. She spent more time here than she needed to. I think she preferred to be here during the day than at home. Her husband worked long hours and she was home alone a lot.
Michael stood at the door and waited for me to pass him. As soon as I did, he closed the door behind me. “Did she go down okay?”
The hallway was wide. Shaped like a square, it had six doors. Four were for the bedrooms, each with its own bathroom; another led to the attic, and the last to a terrace that overlooked the backyard. I glanced toward Clementine’s room. “She was exhausted. Poor little thing fell right to sleep.”
“I thought she might. Erin didn’t give her much of a nap.” His hand went to the small of my back as he guided me toward the stairs I needed no help locating.
Each step I took, it remained in place. By the time I got to the first step, I considered grasping the doorknob to the attic because the walls were beginning to blend into the floors. I wondered how much longer I could hold my breath.
The answer came soon enough when his hands shifted. “You feel so tight.”
My breath was still in my lungs.
His fingers began massaging into the knots that had to be spreading throughout my entire back by now. This was the time to tell him to please keep his hands off me. That I wasn’t interested in him in any way other than as a friend. Yet, I knew I had to be careful. Do it with tact. He held my future with his daughter in those hands.
“Michael,” I tossed over my shoulder, very unsure of what I was going to say and how I was going to tell him that not only was my heart in a thousand shattered pieces right now, but I wasn’t the least bit attracted to him.
The smell of something burning wafted through the air and had him rushing by. “Shit, I must have left the rice on.”
Relief whooshed through me.
I was wrong—things weren’t back to normal between us.
A very unsavory feeling struck when I began to fear this might just be the new normal.
DAY 32
LOGAN
It was hard not to wonder what would have happened.
If I hadn’t gone to the beach that day twelve years ago, if Emily hadn’t looked so innocent wearing shorts and a T-shirt when all the other girls were wearing bikinis, if I would have left when the guys wanted to leave, or if I would have just listened to them and not gone after her.
The problem was, in the parallel version of my life, everything would be different. I probably would have ended up like most of the guys I went to prep school with, James excluded. Unhappily married with two small kids, having dreams about girls on their knees and blow jobs that never came, and then waking up next to a Stepford wife in training who closed her vagina after her last pregnancy.
In this alternate future, I wouldn’t be sitting here staring up at the green-painted steel frame of an empty bunk in a place that smelled like perspiration and disinfectant for two fucking nights wondering about what might have been.
I also wouldn’t have met Elle.
So fuck the might-have-beens.
Deal with it, McPherson, I found myself saying. I was talking to myself now. But then again I had no idea how long they were going to keep me, and I had to find a way to keep my sanity because I really felt like I was going insane.
It’s not as if I didn’t know the law inside and out. I was well aware of my rights. None of that mattered in here, though. I was stuck with no communication to the outside world and no one knew where the fuck I was. I was about ready to lose my mind. I wanted to claw my way out of here so I could get to Elle. I couldn’t even think about what must be going through her head.
The South Bay House of Correction was a place I’d been to almost as many times as the Nashua Street Jail, yet I never knew they had an isolation wing for possible terrorist-linked inmates.
And here I sat.
Minutes ticked by.
Hours.
Days.
It had to be Monday morning by now. How much longer were they going to keep me here? The weekend was one thing, but how could they keep me under wraps during the week? Then again, I was in isolation in some unknown wing God knew where deep within the prison walls.
I closed my eyes and tried to push the ache in my heart out of my mind. I had to think. Use my head to get them to let me use a phone. Bribe the guards if I had to. Patrick’s goon squad had to be off duty by now. I might have a chance with a new crew.
“McPherson,” one of the guards called as he opened the door. “Get up.”
I did. I was done resisting. It wasn’t getting me anywhere.