Close to You Read online

  I found my voice.

  “I pray to God he won’t.”

  xxx

  “I’ll take another beer, sweetheart.”

  I stopped washing glasses and turned. It was nearly closing time, and most patrons had left by now, but not the bar’s most regular customer, Clint. He was standing against the bar holding his glass in his hand, tilting it, wiggling his eyebrows at me. He was totally sloshed.

  “Already? I feel like you’re drinking ’em like water tonight.”

  He gave a dramatic sigh as I took the glass from his hand, then ran a hand through his graying hair.

  “To be honest, it’s my wife.”

  I stilled, uncertain of how to proceed. I’d only been working at Catfish Tavern for about three months, and in all that time, Clint had never said anything to me other than to order his beer. In my opinion, he drank too much. A lot of the guys who came in here did, but that wasn’t my business.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, lamely. I turned to grab a clean pint glass, but his words stopped me again.

  “Married for twenty years. Was gonna be twenty-one next month. Isn’t that some shit?”

  “What happened?” I bit my tongue, but it was too late. I’d already asked.

  Clint clicked his tongue, looking away from me. His eyes scanned the dim surroundings, focusing on a young couple slow dancing by the jukebox. They were practically glued together, moving so slowly that it could hardly be called dancing. I looked away from them quickly.

  “She called me at work, ten minutes before my shift was up. I’m a dispatcher, you know. She never calls me. So I thought it was an emergency. She told me that when I came home, she wouldn’t be there. She had met someone else. Said…it was over.”

  He slumped against the bar now, either overcome by what he said or too drunk to stand upright anymore. In my slim experience with slinging drinks, I figured it was a combination of both. I set the empty glass down and tentatively patted his shoulder.

  “Hey now. How about we settle your tab and I call you a taxi? You should get some rest.”

  He mumbled something incoherent. I went to the computer, closed his tab out, and brought the receipt over for him to sign. His signature was chicken scratch.

  “Okay, Clint. Time to get up. Let’s get you home.”

  I signaled the bouncer over, a burly, dark-haired guy named Jacob. His services weren’t usually necessary, but the owner, Anderson, was obsessed with ensuring the safety of his establishment. It was also helpful for when drunken middle-aged men needed help leaving the building.

  Jacob appeared in a flash, helping Clint stand. Jacob was ogling me, not even attempting to conceal the fact that he was doing so. I’d been a few days since I’d seen him, and I’d almost forgotten that he had a bit of a crush on me. It was cute, but it would never happen. I wasn’t looking.

  “Sweetheart…” Clint slurred, locking his eyes on mine. I smiled politely, hoping he wasn’t about to throw up everywhere.

  “What is it?”

  “Love doesn’t exist. It’s a fuckin’ lie.”

  His words struck me. I struggled to hold my polite smile in place but couldn’t. My face turned to stone as I remembered the way my husband had looked at me on our wedding day, all love and passion and fire simmering in his dark brown eyes. That look had taken my breath away; the world had ceased to exist outside of us. That look had felt so real, I could have held it in my hands. But it wasn’t. It was turned to ash, blown away by a frigid wind.

  “I know, Clint.”

  He seemed supremely satisfied with my response and allowed Jacob to lead him out. I scanned the bar, trying to calm my beating heart. The couple of customers still left this late were finishing up their drinks, and none of them were familiar. I took a deep breath, forcing my mantra through my mind whenever thoughts of my husband took over, when I found myself unable to stop thinking about the worst. I was safe.

  I’d been in Brooklyn for four months. I’d heard nothing from or about him, not even a whisper. I was safe, as safe as I was ever going to be. I was in the one of the biggest cities in the world. I was safe.

  I was safe.

  Chapter 3.

  Two days later, I had the entire day off and was driving myself crazy in Shannon’s apartment flipping channels. The sounds of Brooklyn just outside of the living room window filtered in, as they always did, asking me to join them.

  Sighing, I turned the TV off and stood, pulling my coat and gloves on. The high was almost 40 today; it wasn’t too cold to hit the streets and explore.

  On the street, I began to walk aimlessly. Brooklyn itself was big enough, but what if I ventured into Manhattan today? It felt like such a touristy thing to do, but I had barely seen the city at all since I got here. A part of me felt like exploring was putting myself out into the open, like a mouse launching itself into an open field when it knows a hawk isn’t far off.

  And there was no doubt that I was that mouse.

  I thought of my husband, remembering that careful way he watched me. The way his eyes tracked me through the house.

  No. I wouldn’t think about that.

  My breaths were puffs in front of my face as I strolled, looking at the buildings and people as I passed them. Everyone looked so at ease, in a way I never felt since coming here. They walked as if they knew where they were going.

  I definitely didn’t know where I was going. The farthest I ever had to go from the apartment was to work, and that was only two blocks away. I still hadn’t gotten used to this place - everything I could ever need was in those two blocks, a stark contrast to suburban life. Trendy coffee shops. Restaurants ranging from carry-out Thai to overpriced gourmet. A pet store with kittens mewing through the windows at passersby. Even a full-service grocery store - it was all there, amongst all the apartments and brownstones. I sold my car after two weeks of living here, realizing quickly that having one was not practical at all.

  My husband had also been on the title, and I had to hold my breath and force myself to forge his name on the title before selling, knowing that doing it could possibly be my downfall. But I didn’t have much of a choice. I had gotten a ticket the second day here because I forgot to move it, and that was precious money ill-spent.

  The money from the car went straight into my account, more than doubling what I had. Seeing that money, knowing that it belonged to me, gave me a sense of security. But I still didn’t know what exactly I was saving for.

  The thought of downtown loomed in my mind again. I hadn’t seen the Empire State building up close, nor Central Park, or even Times Square. All those things you think of when you think of New York, and I hadn’t seen them. Today could be the day to change that.

  At a street corner, I paused and pulled my map of the city out of my bag. It wasn’t something I did often, as I had learned the few blocks around the apartment quickly, but I knew that if I was going to cross the bridge and venture out, I had to brave the subway and this map had a helpful guide to the routes.

  As my eyes scanned the map, I began to doubt myself. Was this a stupid idea? It had been four months since I left. Four long months. Every shadow made me jump, and I was constantly looking behind my shoulder, half-expecting to see him there, following me. I thought of Shannon’s offer, to help pay for a therapist. But I knew, deep down, that no therapist could change the inevitable.

  He would find me. He was only biding his time.

  “Are you lost?”

  The sound of a voice, a male voice, snapped me out of my thoughts. I turned to look in the direction of that voice and saw a man staring at me, hands in his coat pockets, blue eyes piercing mine.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, trying to add indignation to my question but failing miserably. I knew how I looked: windswept hair and reddened cheeks from the cold, holding a flimsy map of the city. I had been staring at it for too long, like a lost toursit.

  “I don’t mean to be rude or anything. You just looked lost. Can I help you find your way?”
r />   My eyes flicked to his full lips, tracing the line of a well-groomed beard, and then finding my way back to those eyes again. He didn’t look threatening, but I was immediately suspicious. He seemed awful friendly for being a perfect stranger, and any thoughts of him being a tourist were lost when I caught his mild accent. I had heard a lot of New Yorker accents since I got here, but for reasons unknown to me, his made me look twice.

  He was handsome. Oh, who was I kidding? He was hot. A blush crept up my neck as I felt a strange feeling in my gut, knowing that I was reacting to a stranger in the street.

  Jesus, calm down, I told myself.

  “I don’t think so. Thanks though.”

  I went to great pains to pretend to consult my map again, all the while aware that the hot guy was still lingering. I didn’t move, intending to find the proper route to Manhattan, wanting for the first time in four months to see what Central Park looked like.

  “Where are you trying to go?” his voice cut through my thoughts again, and this time there was persistence in his voice.

  I sighed, looking back at him again. The wind blew, raking his brown hair back. It looked thick and soft. He squinted at me, and my eyes snapped to meet his, hoping he hadn’t caught me staring.

  There was something about his face, something so open. I licked my lips.

  “I’m trying to… to get to Central Park.”

  If he thought that was stupid, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled and leaned closer, pointing at a yellow route on my map.

  “You’ll want to take either the R or N train. See how there are stops right here, near the park?” he traced one of the lines, and I had a bizarre and utterly consuming thought of how that finger would feel tracing that line down my skin.

  My mouth dried, and I nodded. I wished he’d step away. His nearness was making me dizzy.

  As if he could read my mind, he straightened up. He had a look of satisfaction on his face, but it shifted suddenly, turning into something else that I couldn’t name.

  “Thank you very much.” I folded my map up, putting it back in my bag. I was eager to get on the subway and away from this encounter.

  “Iain,” he said, extending a hand. I shook it, wanting very much not to, not wanting to create a connection with him.

  “Lila,” I said, forcing a smile on my face, giving him my fake name with an ease I wasn’t aware I possessed. “Thanks again. I’d better get going.”

  “It was nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  He inclined his head and then turned, heading down the street in the opposite direction from which I came. I watched him go, feeling a sense of loss but not knowing why. There was nothing to lose - he was a stranger, and knowing his name didn’t make him any less so.

  On the crosswalk sign, the light changed, and I crossed the street with some other people, forcing myself to forget about Iain and those searching blue eyes.

  Chapter 4.

  Iain

  She told me her name was Lila, but I knew it was really Michele.

  Running into her had been chance. I knew it was, but something nagging inside of me told me it was more than that. It transcended pure luck.

  She looked like the woman Brandon asked me to find, except her hair was longer, wilder. She’d been hiding in plain sight. In the pictures he sent me, she had dark brown hair, blue-green eyes, a delicate nose, and perfect rose-red lips made for smiling, although they were never curled into one in any of the photos.

  He had given her everything. That’s what he had said. A big house in an Indianapolis suburb, a new car, a diamond ring. He said he had given her his heart, his home, his family. His life.

  He said one day he had come home to find her in bed with some guy - and he was willing to forgive her. But instead of talking about it, she broke into his safe, stole all the cash, and drove away in that car, never to be seen again.

  And the guy?

  “Ran out of the house like a coward.”

  Why didn’t he call the police?

  “You know my dad is a senator. I want this as quiet as possible. I don’t think she’s hurt, but I’d like to work things out. I love her.”

  He sent me everything he knew about her life here. When I asked how he was sure she was in New York, he said she got a parking fine a few days after she left, and he found records proving that she had sold the car shortly thereafter. He knew she was in Brooklyn but not exactly where. That’s why he called me.

  He implored me to find her, if only so they could talk about it. If divorce was what she truly wanted, he could do that. But sitting around was killing him. It had been four months and he still wore his wedding band.

  God - his story tore straight through me. Brandon wasn’t perfect, but nobody was. He didn’t deserve what Michele had done to him.

  A cheating wife was in my field. I was easily one of the best freelancers out there. I’ve found people who didn’t want to be found. I could easily have found Michele even without the chance, the luck, the fate - whatever it was. I could easily pick up the phone and tell Brandon where she was.

  So why wasn’t I following her now?

  I didn’t have an answer for myself. I still didn’t know where she worked, what she did with her time. I didn’t know where she lived - but with the way she was burning holes into that map, I knew she didn’t live far.

  Why wasn’t I more excited about this? This was one of the easiest cases I’d ever come close to solving. Brandon and I spoke only two days ago. I should be trailing her ass, watching her every move, learning her patterns so I could relay them to him.

  Why did that suddenly feel so wrong?

  I thought about that face, the way she trained those eyes on me when I asked her if she was lost. A stupid move. I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

  But I couldn’t help it.

  She had looked lost. Maybe in more ways than one. I’d been looking at those pictures off and on, searching her face, drawn to it. She was beautiful. She was beautiful like an animal in a cage. Like something captured, not knowing how to break free. I couldn’t let go of it.

  Why did she look that way?

  Being unhappy in a marriage could lead to all sorts of things - cheating, namely, but emotional sabotage too. I’d been hired to catch cheaters in the act who had been so careless and lazy, it was as if they wanted to be caught. They wanted the conflict. For some people, cheating was just a cry for help.

  Was that why she cheated?

  In my apartment, I resolved to sit down and update my records about our encounter. Brandon asked for details about her life here, which was out of the ordinary, but it was what I was hired to do. I couldn’t let some strange doubt take over just because I ran into her in the street. Sure, she had taken me by surprise. But Michele had hurt him, and I intended to help Brandon get his wife back.

  I had a job to do, and I would do it. I always delivered.

  Always.

  Chapter 5.

  Michele

  After spending what felt like forever on the subway, smooshed between people, getting off it felt like taking a breath of fresh air after being underwater for too long. Stunned by the bright daylight, my eyes were drawn to the sky immediately, squinting at the tall gray buildings. After being so used to Brooklyn, Manhattan was like a whole new beast.

  It was much busier here, and I had to move out of the way to avoid being shoved. There were cars everywhere, and the amount of people walking around was overwhelming.

  I was born and raised in Greenwood, Indiana and the biggest city I’d ever seen before moving here was Indianapolis, where I attended college for a degree in business. When I got there, I remember thinking that the bustle of the city was like a different life form. I hadn’t liked it, so I ended up spending a lot of time on campus or in my dorm.

  I didn’t grow up wealthy, not like my husband. My older sister Clarissa and I lived in a small house on the outskirts of Greenwood. My mom, a single mother with no help from my deadbea
t dad, was a nurse at the hospital, and she worked long hours. There wasn’t a lot left over after food and bills were paid for. I paid my way to college with grants and student loans, and my sister did the same.

  Shortly after I graduated high school, my mom sold the house and moved to Florida alone. I hadn’t seen her since. And that was fine - our relationship has never been close, not even when I was growing up. I didn’t even have her phone number, and that was part of the reason I ended up here when I ran away.

  The University of Indianapolis was where I met Shannon. She was so different than anyone I had ever known - so up front and at ease with herself. She studied business, which to her was generic enough to apply to just about anything.

  “We’re too young to know what we want to do for the rest of our lives,” she’d said one day. “So, business. Who isn’t studying business?”

  We’d lost touch shortly after college. I had fallen in love, something completely unexpected and unplanned for, and it had consumed my world. I had gotten married so quickly - I was only 22.

  “I’m not coming home. It’s one time too many, Josh.”

  The sound of an angry voice drew me back to the present. It belonged to a woman talking into her phone, pale-faced and drawn.

  “I’m not coming back. Beg all you want, but you’re still a bastard.”

  I had to look away. The pain in her voice was real, and it sliced right through me. Sometimes I thought about talking to him - telling him how I felt, why I left. But I knew it was safest to stay hidden. If he found me….

  No. There were no ifs. Brandon would not find me.

  I told myself that I was safe.

  This was my never-ending cycle. I told myself I was safe then reminded myself that I wasn’t. Over and over again.

  Unbidden, thoughts about the man I had met - Iain - came to mind. He looked so confident when he told me which train to take. He’d smelled clean, like soap and wind and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. I’d wanted to lean right into him.