listen to me; I had nothing to do with this. I swear to you I didn’t, but something happened, and I need some time to figure it out. All I’m asking is that you don’t tell anyone about me and Emily.”
“Clay, stop!” she hisses through clenched teeth.
“Katie? Everything okay?” a voice asks from the inside of her darkened apartment.
For the first time, I notice what Katie is wearing: a long T-shirt and apparently nothing else. Her hair is disheveled and her cheeks are flushed. Also, that’s not her car in her parking spot.
Over her shoulder, a man appears from the doorway to the bedroom. He has sharp facial features, a chiseled, hairy chest, and he’s wearing jeans he hasn’t bothered to button.
Katie closes her eyes and hangs her head in resignation. “Everything’s fine. I’ll be back in a second.”
The man and I lock eyes.
Oh, this is sooo bad.
“Hello, Mr. McDermitt,” I say in a quiet mixture of panic and mortification.
“Clay,” he responds. He’s obviously not my biggest fan at the moment.
I wanted to talk to Katie to keep anyone else from finding out about Emily and I. Instead, I’ve added one more person.
He turns and goes back into the bedroom.
“Seriously?” I ask Katie.
“I told you it was a bad time.”
“That his car in your spot?”
“Yes. Mine’s in the shop. Nick’s been giving me rides to and from work. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to switch out-times the other night. He gave me a ride to the station this morning and we came back here.”
“And what does Mrs. McDermitt think about this?”
Katie crosses her arms.
“I wouldn’t know because they split last month and are you really going to try to lecture me on this particular subject at the moment?”
I take a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m being an asshole.”
She takes it down a notch as well.
“You want to tell me what happened?” she asks.
If I tell her about the text messages and the blood in my car, she’s going to call the police, and I wouldn’t blame her.
“I can’t tell you right now.”
“Clay—”
“I can’t but I need you to know that I didn’t kill her, okay? You know I could never do that, right?”
“Of course I do.” She sighs. “But you know something, don’t you?”
“Not me, but someone does.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then, I don’t understand. Why don’t you go to the police?”
“Because I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t.”
She shakes her head, unhappy with my answer but knows it’s all she’s going to get. “Fine … But tell me; are you okay?”
I’m not sure how to answer, but decide to be honest. “I don’t know, but, Katie, please promise that you won’t tell anyone about Emily and me.”
She tilts her face towards the ground.
“Katie?”
She looks up at me with eyes that are filled not only with worry, but with hurt. “Clay, if they ask me, I’m not going to lie to the police … and I can’t believe you would ask me to do that now, when she’s dead.”
“Please, Katie, it’s really—”
“I’m not going to lie to the cops,” she says quietly, but forcefully.
She’s right. I can’t ask one of my best friends to risk getting herself in a lot of trouble for me. I rapidly come up with a middle ground.
“I apologize. It was wrong of me to ask you to lie to the cops.”
She won’t make eye contact.
“Katie, please look at me.”
She reluctantly does.
“You believe me when I tell you I didn’t kill Emily, right?”
“Yes, of course, I believe you.”
“Okay. How about this, if they ask you about us, don’t lie, but please promise me that you won’t say anything unless they ask. Is that fair?”
It’s a really fine hair to split, but I’m hoping our friendship wins me the benefit of the doubt.
She considers it. “… okay.”
“Yeah?”
She shrugs. “Okay.”
“Thank you.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you knowing something else that you wouldn’t want to lie about.”
There’s a long, awkward pause as we’ve hit a wall where I won’t say anymore and she won’t promise anything else.
“I’ll, uh, I’ll let you get back to … that,” I say with a wave of my hand towards the bedroom door.
Katie scoffs in disbelief.
“See you at work, tomorrow,” she replies and closes the door in my face.
My apartment has never felt so small. So claustrophobic.
I pull the shades on every window but can’t shake the feeling that there are eyes watching me.
Dinner consists of some reheated leftovers and a beer, but I hardly touch either one as I obsess over watching the news on television and checking the news on my phone. There’s nothing about Emily’s murder, but it’s only a matter of time. A millionaire’s wife found naked in bed at a seedy motel with her throat cut? It’s a true-crime podcaster’s dream.
Midnight hits and I’m still wide awake, trying to imagine what a conversation with Detective Mendez would look like if I tried to come clean now.
