Double Bind (5 page)

           
Shivers ran down her spine and she leaned away from him nervously.
 
She didn’t like this one bit.
 
“I think you’re lost, Rob.”

           
“I think you know that’s not true,
Sarah
.” He managed to sneer her name as well as she had his earlier.
 
She met his gaze, wishing that she was wearing a lot more clothes.

           
“So, you’re following me now?
 
What are you waiting for?
 
Perhaps for me to meet with my evil co-conspirators?”

           
“I didn’t follow you here tonight.” He said, his voice rough.
 
“Believe me, this is not exactly the way I expected my evening to go.”

           
“So just leave me alone.
 
Take Denise home.
 
She is certainly eager enough.
 
Maybe because she doesn’t know that you are helping to frame an innocent woman.”

           
He didn’t reply for a minute, but let his eyebrows stay up.
 
“I’m thrilled that you can help me pick out my dates.
 
Maybe you can find a way to not bad-talk me around all of the women in the entire club?”

           
Sarah shrugged, glancing behind her at the mirror.
 
She wished that she had lipstick or some makeup that she could pretend to put on to cover up the fact that she’d been hiding in a bathroom for the better part of the night.
 
“What can I say?
 
I just have to let the truth be known.”
 
She turned back to glare at him.
 
“That’s who I am.
 
Someone who insists that innocent people not be screwed over.”

           
He folded his arms angrily.
 
“You haven’t exactly proven yourself innocent.”

           
She glared back.
 
“Neither have you.”

           
They held each other’s gaze for a moment.
 
Just when Sarah was starting to wonder if maybe the detective meant more than he was saying, he shrugged, breaking the electric contact.
 
“Look.
 
I don’t mean to pick a fight.
 
I want things to go well.
 
We didn’t exactly have a chance to have a real conversation yesterday.
 
I just want to set things right.”

           
Sarah was skeptical, but she hopped down from the counter anyway, letting herself relax a little.
 
“Oh, so you’re going to tell me that you falsely arrested me?”

           
He looked at her, the openness on his face fading a little.
 
“Well, not exactly.”

           
Sarah rolled her eyes, and started toward him, pushing him out of the way so that she could open the door.
 
She wasn’t going to put up with this.
 
He had no right to interrogate her in a club bathroom.
 
“Yeah, thanks, but no thanks then.” She said, reaching for the lock.

           
His hand snuck out to catch her arm, and he leaned in.
 
For the first time, Sarah realized that he was drunk.
 
She could smell it on his breath, and his eyes focused on hers unsteadily.
 
“Look, it’s not like that.”

           
“Oh?” She said, pulling her arm away from him, surprised at how reluctant she was.
 
“Then what’s it like?”

           
He shrugged, seeming a little confused.
 
“I can help you.
 
I’m sure you didn’t know what they were going to do.
 
Just tell me who you sold the chemical to.
 
They are the ones who tried to kill people.
 
Tell me who paid you, and we can work with you.
 
You might not even have to go to jail at all.”

           
Sarah stared at him, incredulous.
 
“Seriously?
 
You think I just went out and sold my life’s work to some asshole for a couple of grand?”

           
He blinked, shrugging a little.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I just -” His hand reached out to her, and she didn’t resist.
 
He was leaning in closer.
 
If Sarah didn’t know better, she would think that he was aiming to kiss her.

           
Just when he was close enough that his breath touched her face, he pulled back, alarm on his face.
 
He swallowed hard, and Sarah did as well.
 
He was trying to get her thrown in jail; she couldn’t seriously be thinking about letting him kiss her, right?
 
Shaking herself, she lunged for the lock, turning it with shaking fingers, and pushing the door open.
 
The music of the club washed over her, making her feel instantly better and clearing her head.

           
Still, despite that, as women glared at them as they hurried into the room, Sarah glanced back at the detective.
 
He was still shaking his head, oblivious of the girls around him.
 
Just as she let go of the door and turned to head into the club, his gaze caught hers one last time.

           
“Sarah,” he said, his voice heavy.
 
“I promise.
 
I’m trying to help you.
 
Just let me help.”

           
The door closed before Sarah could think of anything to reply, and she turned back to the club.
 
She was suddenly aware of exactly how depressingly sober she was.
 
She hurried through the dancing crowd to find Angela, and then dragged her friend out into the night and home.

           
Absolutely nothing was going right.
 
Nothing at all.

Chapter 4

           
The next morning Sarah slept in.
 
She kept meaning to get out of bed, but it seemed that every time she tried, she woke up another hour later to some noise outside her apartment.
 
When she finally managed to pull herself together, it was only to stare dismally at her computer, and the lone file on her desk.

           
The last thing she wanted to do in that moment was think more about how doomed she was.
 
So instead, she decided to clean her apartment.
 
After all, with all the craziness of the last few days, things had gotten pretty out of hand.
 
Unfortunately, even after she did the last of her dishes and started her laundry, she still had hours and hours left in her day.
 
Normally Sundays were spent relaxing with some music or a movie and some wine so that she would be ready for Monday, but this time it just didn’t feel the same.

           
Finally, she decided she would have to face it.
 
She might not like thinking about how she was going to wind up in jail, but the only way for her to avoid it was for her to be proactive.
 
Gritting her teeth, she sat down at her computer to finish the sorting that she’d started before.

           
To her dismay, nothing new popped out at her.
 
She poured through old reports, forms and memos, looking for anything even a little suspicious.
 
Yet, nothing came up.
 
Everything really did seem to be in order.
 
After
awhile
, she closed out the files, knowing that if she kept going in that direction, she was just going to drive herself crazy.

           
Instead, she opened up her web browser, and started looking up the news reports on the incident.
 
There didn’t seem to be a lot that the police were telling the media, but there were a few details that she hadn’t known before. She read through them, trying to find something that would point to someone other than her.
 
Other than her complete lack of motive, there really didn’t seem to be anything.

           
Angry and frustrated, she decided to hack into the work security feed.
 
It was a lot harder from home, but she was getting pretty experienced with all this hacking that she’d been doing lately.
 
Before long she had the footage to scroll through, and she quickly fast forwarded through to the night of the incident.
 
She hadn’t really expected to find anything, thinking that she would have to go back a few days to find the “incriminating footage” Angela had told her about, but stopped the footage when at 8:53 a figure appeared.

           
She was so startled that she had to rewind the tape to the right place before she could pause the screen.
 
Then she gaped at it in surprise.
 
Sure enough, there was a woman on the screen.
 
A woman who looked uncannily like herself.
 
You couldn’t see the face from the camera angle, but the hair looked the same, and she was wearing a shirt that looked a lot like Sarah’s favorite.

           
Sarah stared at the screen for a long time before getting up to pour herself a glass of wine.
 
Standing by the counter, she downed the glass, pouring another right away.

           
It simply couldn’t be true.
 
It didn’t make any sense.

           
She went to stand facing her computer, staring at the image on the screen.
 
It looked enough like her to make her wonder.
 
Had she visited the lab that night and forgotten about it?
 
She tried to remember.

           
She had gone home happy about the progress they were making.
 
It was a Thursday night, which meant that she had watched Cloud, her favorite show.
 
She remembered the episode, and she remembered that after the episode had ended, she had done a little shoe shopping online.
 
That was that.
 
She definitely hadn’t gone into the office.

           
She looked again at the tape, fast forwarding to when the figure exited the building.
 
Again, the face was turned away from the camera, making it hard to see who it was.
 
It was almost as if they knew where the camera was.
 
Sarah frowned.
 
It looked a lot like her, but the person moved wrong.
 
Sarah wished she could pinpoint it exactly, because then it would prove that she was different.

           
She replayed the footage over and over, trying to find something that would prove it wasn’t her. She was still there, crouched over her screen, staring at it, when there was a knock at the door.
 
She carefully turned her screen off before heading to answer the door.
 
She straightened her hair a little before peering through the peephole.

           
Her mouth dropped.
 
It was the detective, with several police officers standing behind him.
 
She turned to stare at her disaster of an apartment in dismay.
 
What was he doing here?
 
Were they going to take her back to jail?

           
Panicking, Sarah stood for a long time in the doorway without moving.
 
Suddenly there was another knock, harder this time.
 
She took a deep breath and leaned forward to open the door.
 
She would just tell them to go away.

           
She opened the door a crack, glaring out at the detective.
 
He smiled at her, and for a moment she thought that he looked sheepish.
 
Then, his serious expression was back, and he cleared his throat.

           
“Ms. Gaul,” he said, “If you don’t mind, we would like to take a look inside your apartment.”

           
Sarah scowled.
 
“I do mind.
 
I am busy, and I don’t like you harassing me.”

           
She started to close the door, but the detective put his hand out, stopping the door from closing.
 
In his other hand he held up a folded piece of paper.
 
“I’m afraid I wasn’t really asking.
 
I’ve got a search warrant that says I can come in.”

           
When Sarah didn’t immediately open the door, he scowled a little.
 
“If you don’t let us in, we will have to arrest you.”

           
Gritting her teeth so that she didn’t say something that she would later regret, she folded her arms and stepped away from the door.
 
Detective Snyder nodded, opening it and stepping into the room.
 
Sarah backed into the apartment, glaring at the officers, she went to sit on her couch, and the detective placed a hand on her shoulder.

           
“Uh, Sarah?”

           
Sarah’s eyebrows went up.
 
Now he was going to call her by her first name?
 
What did he think, they were buddies?
 
“What?”

           
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step outside the apartment.”

           
Sarah glared at him, and bounced up to her feet.
 
“I can’t believe you still think it’s me!
 
I’m innocent.
 
This is harassment.”

           
One of the other officers looked over at her, grinning while he held one of her fine china plates in his hand.
 
He motioned as though he was about to drop it.
 
“Hon, if you want harassment, I’ll be more than happy to help.”

           
“Steve!” Detective Snyder said, his voice tight.
 
The officer looked away, looking a little ashamed.
 
The detective looked back at Sarah.

           
“I’m sorry it has to be this way, Ms. Gaul, but it’s the law.”

           
Sarah scowled a little more, scooping up her phone and sauntering to the front door.
 
“Fine.
 
But I’m calling my lawyer.
 
We’ll see what she says about all of this.”

           
The detective sighed, shaking his head as he turned back to the officers.
 
Sarah scowled.
 
This whole thing was unbelievable.
 
She couldn’t believe they had any right to do this.

           
When Angela finally picked up the phone, Sarah’s voice was heated from the wine.
 
“You will not believe what they are doing!” She said.
 
On the other line she could hear Angela sigh.

           
“They finally got the search warrant?” she asked.

           
“Yes!” Sarah said, knowing that she sounded a little hysterical.
 
“And they kicked me out of my own apartment on a Sunday night.”
 
She looked around the hall, angry.
 
“They dumped me in a hallway.
 
My wine is going flat as we speak!”

           
Angela laughed a little on the other side of the line, and Sarah got even angrier.

           
“Angela!” she said, and Angela seemed to calm down.

           
“Alright
hon
, I’ll be right over.
 
Don’t let them go until I can talk to them.”

           
“Thank you!” Sarah said, feeling relieved.

           
She hung up the phone, but found herself wishing that she had someone to talk to.
 
Standing in the hall she could hear the officers moving inside, but she couldn’t hear what they were doing.
 
She peered around the corner of the door, hoping to get a glimpse of them.
 
What could they be looking for?
 
Not that she had to worry - after all, whatever they were looking for, they wouldn’t find it.

           
She heard them talking in the front room, their voices low.
 
She leaned in to hear what they could be saying, but couldn’t make any sense of it.
 
She started to step inside, when the detective suddenly stepped into the hallway, blocking her view.

           
“Ms. Gaul,” he said, his voice sounding angry.
 
“You need to wait in the hall.”

           
She tried to see past him, stretching to see around him.
 
“You’re not breaking things, are you?
 
And don’t mess my apartment up!”

           
He glanced briefly at a shoe that was atop the side table by her front door, a laugh sparking at his eyes.
 
“I don’t think we can mess this place up any more than you already have.”

           
She glared at him, reaching out to push him a little out of the way so that she could see past him.
 
He reached out to stop her, his hand meeting hers as a small spark crossed between the two of them.
 
She jerked, looking at her hand and then her gaze traveled slowly up his strong shoulders and neck to his face.

           
He was looking at her intently, his hand not moving from hers, his mouth moving slightly as though he was about to speak.
 
The same tension as the night before filled the air around her, and she felt a blush rushing up into her cheeks.
 
It felt like her whole body was centered on his hand on hers.
 
She could feel her breathing slowing, and without even thinking about it, she was leaning closer into him.

           
“Detective?” One of the officers said behind Snyder, and he jerked, his hand falling away from hers as he took a quick step back.
 
The intensity in his face suddenly faded, and he was all business again.