Page 43 of I Will Ruin You
I hesitated. “I’ve already compromised you, telling you this much, that I’m the target. Let’s say this kid—this man—really is a victim of someone. His coming after me could be the product of some very fucked-up thinking.”
“You’re giving him too much benefit of the doubt.”
“Let me think on it. The thing is, like I said, an allegation like this, even baseless, could be devastating. I’ve already got one strike against me.”
Trent cocked his head, like he knew what I was referring to. “The Lyall Temple thing,” he said.
“I was vindicated, but you know there are people out there who still think there was something to it. A new allegation comes along, I guarantee that photo will resurface. Those who vouched for me at the time will start wondering, wait a minute, maybe he really was a little too friendly with that kid. It’ll be two strikes. You’ll have people with pitchforks and torches storming the school.”
Trent was slowly shaking his head. “I want to say you’re wrong, but I don’t think you are. You try to control the narrative but you can’t, and yet...”
“I’ve thought about talking to Bonnie’s sister. But what if she believes the allegation, or at least isn’t sure? I’m her sister’s husband. Whose interests you really think she’s going to care about?”
“Something about this,” Trent said, more to himself than to me, “doesn’t make any sense.”
The glass door to the deck slid open. Bonnie and Melanie, a large salad bowl in her hands, emerged from the house. Melanie smiled and said, “Haven’t you got those burgers on the grill yet? What on earth have you been talking about?”
Bonnie gave me a look that suggested she was wondering the same thing.
Nineteen
Marta had played the security cam video from Jim’s bar more times than she could count, trying to get a better look at the woman Cherise Fowler met with, however briefly. Jim had been right about the time Cherise came into the bar, and right again that the woman she’d been waiting for arrived around ten. Five minutes after, to be exact.
Jim’s description was pretty on the money, as well. She was white, probably no more than a hundred and twenty pounds. Stringy hair that hung over her face. The camera captured most of the bar’s interior, and the fish-eye effect, along with grainy resolution, meant that any distinguishing physical features Cherise’s friend might have were difficult to assess.
If there was even a remote chance this woman might return to the bar Saturday night to make another sale, Marta wanted to be there. She believed she would recognize her, even from that shitty video, and presumably Jim would give her a nod if she was the one.
When Marta told her wife, Ginny, she would have to duck out early from the function they were attending that evening, Ginny was neither pleased nor surprised. It was a retirement dinner for one of Ginny’s coworkers at the insurance company where she worked. The event was to start after six.
“I can hang in until eight-thirty,” Marta said. “The thing might even be over by then.”
“That’s when the coffee gets served and the speeches begin,” Ginny said.
Marta smiled. “Then maybe you’d like to sneak out with me.”
“I’m giving one of the speeches.”
“Oh, well, that does make it awkward.”
“You go. I’ll Uber home. Pretend you got a text or something.”
It wasn’t as though Marta hadn’t done this kind of thing before. Last year she postponed their fifth anniversary dinner because there was a tip a gang of smash-and-grab thieves was going to hit a mall jewelry store. Three of them, all wearing black balaclavas, would rush in, take hammers to the glass cases, scoop up as many goods as they could in fifteen seconds, then go tearing back out of the mall, where the fourth member of the team was sitting behind the wheel of their nondescript, but turbocharged, getaway car.
Marta was sorry they wore those balaclavas, because she couldn’t see the look on their faces when they came running out and their getaway car had nobody behind the wheel, their driver sitting handcuffed in the back of a cruiser.
What was different about that takedown from what Marta planned for this evening was that the former had been a well-executed team effort, and tonight was something she was doing on her own time. A small reconnaissance that, if she spotted the person she was looking for, might lead to the bigger fish who were bringing this stuff into the country.
The fentanyl boom had been out of control for a long time, and more recently there’d been reports some dealers were lacing the opioid with animal sedative. From what Marta’d learned, you’d be better off dead than taking this shit. Fentanyl laced with xylazine was turning addicts’ skin into dead, scaly tissue. Some people were actually losing limbs. The stuff was a fucking horror show. And if you took too much of it at once, you wouldn’t have to wait for those ghastly side effects to kick in. Your life would be over before you knew it.
As promised, Marta pretended to sense a buzzing from her purse as dessert—some kind of blueberry crumble thing that looked like it had been made with a cement mixer—arrived at the table. Marta pulled out her phone, shielding it with her hand so no one would notice that it was blank, and shook her head with feigned regret. She made whispered apologies to the rest of the table, pushed her chair back, stood up, and slipped away, but not before catching a look from Ginny that said something along the lines of You’ll pay for this later.
She had dressed smartly but simply for the evening. Nothing too glitzy glam. Black silk pants and a matching top, simple string of pearls for her neck, strappy shoes with three-inch heels. She’d have gladly gone face-to-face with a serial killer if it meant she could get out of those shoes, which she did the moment she reached the car. She had packed a comfortable pair of sneakers that she laced up sitting on the driver’s seat with the door open. The string of pearls she removed and tucked into the glove compartment. Finally, she pulled a plain dark blue sweater over her head that covered the silk top.
Marta keyed the ignition and drove to Jim’s.
She found a spot at the curb across from the bar a few minutes after nine. Her hope was that, if her alleged fentanyl dealer did return, she’d come around the same time as she had the other night. She got out of her car, locked it, and went inside, sidling past a couple of young men who’d stepped out of the bar to smoke.
Once inside, she discreetly scanned the room. So far, the woman was a no-show. Marta took a seat at the bar.