Page 72 of The Wrong Track
“The public library?” Bill seemed puzzled. “Are you serious?”
“He hid things in the ceiling at our old apartment in South Carolina. It got searched a few times but no one found anything,” I mentioned. “If he hid something in the library, that would be where it would be. Like in the bathroom ceiling because there are no cameras in that room. He could have waited until no one was around and then stood on a toilet in a stall, and no one would have seen him move the ceiling tiles and put a stash up there. A stash of something.”
“In the men’s room,” Bill filled in.
“Or the ladies’ room. He might have snuck in. But he would have worn gloves when he did that and not left fingerprints, so there wouldn’t be any way to tie it back to Kilian. I don’t think.”
“This is going to be a little hard to explain to my superiors.”
“Well, someone could leave an anonymous note in the library describing where to look if you don’t want to get involved.”
“Involved in your drug deals? What are you suggesting?” he asked.
“I’m not dealing drugs and I’m not suggesting anything!” I said. “It would be awful if someone else found that stuff and sold it or used it. Or if it got connected back to Kilian and ended up hurting Tobin. I didn’t want to sell it myself, I sat on it—literally, I sat on it for so long because I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t just get rid of it before. You have to understand that I didn’t have anything. It was my last hope to make a new life for myself so that I could escape.”
“Why didn’t you try to do that before we picked him up?”
“I did. He hurt me so badly that I couldn’t even get out of bed for a week and he told me that the next time, he would kill me. I believed him. Before he got arrested here, I never thought I’d get away. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with him, miserable and afraid.” I looked up at the fresh, blue sky. “It’s still hard to believe that I won’t. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.” I looked back down and met Bill’s eyes.
“I wouldn’t worry about the library,” he told me. “No one’s going to look in the ceiling until there’s an official search. Maybe an anonymous tip could come in so we’d go check it out. And so many people are in and out of that room, it would be impossible to tell who’d hidden their stash like that.”
“Ok.” I breathed out. “I told Tobin’s mom and I’ll tell you too. I won’t ever do anything to hurt him. Not on purpose, and I don’t want what I’ve done in the past to come back on him. That’s why I didn’t bring anything into his house. But it would hurt him to know about this at all, which is why I’m telling you. You don’t want that either.”
Bill looked at me, sizing me up. “Tobin may have mentioned that he didn’t care about my opinion, and that if I didn’t like you, I could keep my mouth shut and shove any and all advice up my ass. Which doesn’t seem comfortable, but looks like I’ll be doing just that.” He snorted, and I relaxed a little.
“Ok,” I said again. It seemed like we had reached not a friendship, but at least a détente. And he was going to help me because that would help Tobin, which was what I’d wanted from him. I was prepared to say goodbye to all the money that I could have made off selling the drugs, not only because I didn’t want Tobin to be hurt. I didn’t want anyone else to be, either. No one would be able to snort and shoot and swallow and smoke that stash now. Nobody else would be hurt by Kilian.
That was my last loose end. So my next stop after leaving the police station was the yoga studio to pick up Tobin and Ella from their baby yoga session. We were going together to the county clerk’s office to apply for our marriage license.
“We should celebrate again,” Tobin told me after we were in the car together. He’d grinned the entire time we’d been in the little office. “Going out means that you don’t have to cook.”
It was also more expensive than me cooking, but I kept my mouth closed about that. He looked so happy about our impending marriage, I didn’t need to start haranguing him before we even said our vows.
“Remember how much you enjoyed your chocolate shake?” he prompted.
I glanced at him in the back seat, where he’d wedged himself to sit next to the baby. “I remember how muchyouenjoyed my chocolate shake.”
“Let’s try somewhere else.” As he said the words, we passed by a diner. “No, not that place,” he quickly interjected.
“Is it bad?”
“Lulu’s dad owns it and she works there. She used to, anyway, but the last I heard, she was moving downstate. Detroit.” He turned his head, looking back at the restaurant sign, and I swerved because I’d almost driven into a parked car.
“Are you going to tell her about us?” I asked.
“I should. I will,” he said. “I talked to my mom today.” He yawned a little.
“Oh.” I gripped the wheel tightly. He’d seemed so blasé but I couldn’t imagine that Charlene had reacted very well to the announcement. “How did that go?” I asked.
“She wasn’t as surprised as I thought she’d be,” he told me. “She asked me if I was sure about it.”
“Are you?”
Tobin reached for my shoulder. “Very. I’m almost afraid to ask if you are.”
“We got the license,” I said. “It’s really happening.”
“And it will keep happening for the next fifty years or so,” he told me. “My mom said she wants to come to the ceremony but I explained that it was just going to be us. Right, peanut? Are you going to spit up on a pretty outfit?”