Reclaim: A Recovered Innocence Novel (14 page)

My impulse is to pick up the phone and call Lila, but after the last phone call I think we’re due for a break. Tomorrow will come soon enough. Meanwhile I have a lot more work to do. I only hope it will keep my mind off her.

I can’t stop thinking about the look on Nolan’s face as he told me to get dressed and get out. It kept me up half the night. I don’t know how to be what he wants. I don’t know how to explain to him all the things that are wrong with me and why I won’t ever be normal. It’s not just the rape. There are things that go back much deeper into my childhood. They’re as much a part of me as the color of my eyes. I can’t change who I am or the coping techniques I’ve adopted over the years. Not sleeping in my bed is just one of them.

The least shameful one.

On the outside I project confidence and assertiveness. On the inside I’m a walled-off mess. I say it’s not the rape, but that’s not entirely true. That was the tipping point and it changed me in ways I still don’t fully understand. I know I’m not normal. I
know
it. No one who lives like I do is normal. I’ve seen TV shows and read articles about people like me. It’s not that I don’t see it. I live it. I can’t
not
see it. But there’s nothing I can do about it. Over the years I’ve tried. Every once in a while I make another attempt, but they always fail. I fail. Only now I’m not just failing myself, I’m failing Nolan.

I don’t know what to do about that.

I fill up the coffee carafe from the bathroom sink because the kitchen sink is broken. I’d stop and get coffee, but that gets expensive. I have student loans to pay off and rent to make. I should call the landlord to come and fix the faucet, but I don’t like people in my space. I’d much rather put up with the inconvenience.

Last night I emailed my friend Anna who interned in Billits’s office and asked if she could meet today. Luckily she said yes. We have an appointment this afternoon to meet for coffee. Hence my struggle with broken plumbing. I was also able to contact Carla’s neighbor, Inez Torres. I’ll stop by her place after my meeting with Anna. There’s too much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it.

My phone rings and my heart does a little flip at the thought that it might be Nolan. Which is dumb. It’s not like I can have him.

I groan at the name that pops up. I knew I’d have to deal with this sometime, but I’ve been putting it off for so long I was hoping it would eventually take care of itself.

“Hi, Kurt,” I answer, picturing him already sitting in his office at Kellen, Van Buren, Ahuja, Gill, and Foley. He’s Kellen.

“I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”

“Just busy.”

“I was wondering if you had any plans tomorrow night. It’s been a while since we went to that jazz club you like downtown.”

“I’m so busy with this new case I don’t think I’ll have time to go out for quite a while.”
If ever.

“How’s it going? Have any new leads?”

“A few.”

“Tell me about them.”

I pause, uncertain, which is weird because I’ve always shared my work with Kurt. It was our thing. He has a way of seeing a case from angles I don’t even know exist. I respect his opinion. Our conversations never drifted into the personal. That was one of the things I liked about Kurt. It was easy, never messy. It never tore me open and made me
feel.
It was boring, but it was predictable, and I liked that about it, about him. He never made me want things I can’t ever have.

He also never gave me orgasms that made every cell in my body buzz like I’d been electrocuted.

Which brings my thoughts back to Nolan. I can’t imagine having sex with Kurt after what I’ve experienced with Nolan. That would be like choosing frozen single-serve dinners after dining at a five-star restaurant every night.
Nolan.
His name does something funny to my insides. He makes me nervous yet comfortable all at the same time. I’ve been more myself with him than with anyone else, including my friends and family. I’m not sure that admission is a good reflection on me.

Why am I hesitating with Kurt?
It’s not like me and Nolan are exclusive—I really don’t know what we are or even if we’re anything at all—but somehow the thought of being with another man feels wrong. Going back to Kurt feels wrong.

“I wish I had the time,” I lie. I’ve always made time for him and him for me. “In fact I’m running late to an appointment.”

“You? Running late?” He chuckles, not buying my excuse. “Now I’m
really
starting to think you’re avoiding me.”

“I’m not. I swear.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Why don’t you stop by tonight. I have a great new bottle of wine, highly recommended…”

That’s code for “Let’s have sex.” Not very subtle code, but then Kurt’s never had to try very hard with me. The only time I’ve put him off was if I was sick. Not even my period kept me from going over to his place and fooling around. By being so
available
have I led him to believe that we’re more than we really are?

“I can’t,” I say, hoping he’ll take the no graciously and let it go.

“You
are
avoiding me. Are you seeing someone else?”

No
is right there, trying to push past my teeth, but
yes
shoves it out of the way and storms forward. “Yes, I am.”
No, I’m not. What is wrong with me?

“Oh. Well. How long?” He sounds hurt.

“Not long. It was kind of sudden.”

“He’s a lucky guy.”

He
is
hurt. It’s strange to be having this conversation. I’ve never stuck with a guy long enough for it to get to this stage. Usually we just stop calling each other and if either of us notices it’s weeks later and easily shrugged off.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him.

“Don’t be. I guess all good things must come to an end eventually.”

“I guess so.”

“This is going to sound pathetic, but if it doesn’t work out will you give me a call?”

I won’t, but I tell him I will. I say something about valuing his friendship, but it sounds stupid and false. We were never friends. We just…were. I end the call with the sense that I made the right choice, but it doesn’t sit entirely comfortably with me. Kurt is a good man. I could’ve been happy going along the way we had been indefinitely. That’s a sad but true admission. I never wanted much. What I had was enough. Now it’s not.

I stare off, absorbed in those thoughts. They tumble and dive around in my brain like dice in a cup. I wish they’d just stop and give me some kind of result, some direction to take. I’ve never been this person. I always knew what I wanted and how to get it. But now I want something that will forever be out of my reach and I don’t care what I have to do to hold on to what little of it I can for as long as I can.

The phone rings again, jolting me out of those thoughts. It’s the office. I check the time.
Shoot.
I was supposed to be there twenty minutes ago. What is wrong with me? I haven’t been on time in days. Ever since I met Nolan, I realize.

Emily, the assistant I share with two other attorneys, called to remind me that I was supposed to be in the staff meeting that starts in ten minutes. I hang up with her, dash out the door, and run right into a wall of chest.

Nolan.

The panic bubbles and fizzes inside me. I keep a hand on the doorknob of my front door and lean back against the doorframe.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“We have a problem,” he says, running a hand through his hair. He looks terrible, like he didn’t sleep all night. “I think Martin is dead.”

“
What?
How?”

He looks around the hallway and lowers his voice. “Can we go inside and talk?”

“You can’t. I mean,
I
can’t. I’m late for an important meeting.” I lock my front door and turn around to find him staring at me with a strange expression. “I can’t miss it,” I explain.

“Okay. I guess this can keep. When is the soonest we can meet?”

“I’m meeting my friend Anna, who interned with the DA’s office, and Inez Torres this afternoon. I can come over after that.” I say all of this on the way out to my car with Nolan following me.

“Fine. I’ll see you then. And Lila—” He grabs me around the waist and hauls me into him, crushing his mouth to mine. When he lets me go I stagger back a step. “Miss me.” With that he’s gone, walking across the parking lot to where he parked his car without a backward glance.

It takes me a full minute, long enough for him to drive away, before I regain my wits. With a kiss like that how can I do anything else
but
miss him?

My morning is a blur of catching up and taking care of things I’m normally on top of. I was late to the meeting, which earned me a glare from the lead partner. I want to remind him that I’m never late, but he won’t care. I’m late today and that’s all that matters. I’m so behind that I eat lunch at my desk with the phone pressed to my ear while I answer emails. If it weren’t for the alert on my phone to remind me about meeting Anna I would’ve forgotten.
What is wrong with me lately?

I pull up to the coffee place near the courthouse where I’m supposed to meet Anna. I splurge on a small cup of coffee and wait in an out-of-the-way corner. A few moments later she comes in, places her order, and joins me. She looks different than I remember, softer somehow. Have the years been as kind to me as they’ve been to her? Normally it wouldn’t occur to me to have those kinds of thoughts. I don’t usually compare myself with other women mostly because I don’t imagine myself in a competition with them. I haven’t had any reason to, but recently I’ve started to notice the differences between them and me.

What does that mean? Why do I suddenly care about how I measure up?

“How have you been?” Anna asks and I realize I’ve been staring at her like some crazy lady.

“Good. Busy. How are you?”

“We’re pregnant,” she blurts out in the way women do when they’re really happy about their news. “We just started to tell people. We wanted to wait to make sure everything was going well. You know how it is.” Her use of the word
we
is blunt-force trauma, cracking open the gaping hole in my life where a
him and me
—a
we
—would live, forcing me to face the fact that I will never use the pronoun
we
the way she does.

“Congratulations.” I force a smile because it’s expected. Not that I’m not happy for her—I am—but I’m also inexplicably jealous. It’s an odd-tasting emotion that I’ve never experienced before.

“It was kind of a surprise. We weren’t even trying, but you know, newlyweds.” If possible her smile grows wider.

“Your wedding was beautiful and so were you.”

“Thank you. It was a really great day.” She’s so twisted up in her happiness it’s hard not to be drawn in. We chat for a little while longer—mostly about her—and then she sits back in her chair and says, “I know you didn’t ask to meet me here so I could bore you with my personal life. What can I do for you?”

“No, I didn’t, but I’m always glad to hear about what’s going on with you. I wanted to ask you about your internship with the DA’s office. I’m working on a case and I had a few questions I’m hoping you can answer. What I’m looking for is a sense of how the office was run. I can’t get into specifics of the case, but I was wondering in what instances DA Billits would get personally involved in a case.”

“Hmm, well, he knew about the status of nearly every case. He was and probably still is very hands-on. There were several cases in which he worked closely with the attorneys prosecuting the case; usually the higher the profile, the more he was involved.”

“How was he to work for?”

“Not bad. He knew the interns’ names. Not all of the prosecutors took the time to do that. He was nice, polite. Always in meetings or on the phone, but he’d stop and ask about your day as he passed by.”

“I know you’re not someone who participates in office gossip but…”

She nods, getting my meaning, and leans in closer. “There was never any indication of an affair, at least not in the office or with anyone associated with the office. And I’d know. People treated us like furniture a lot of the time so we overheard a lot of conversations we probably shouldn’t have. There were a couple of guys who met with him fairly regularly who weren’t attorneys—at least not that us interns recognized. We used to joke around and call them his mafia goons. You know, big guys, kind of rough. They looked more like guys he’d prosecute than associate with.”

“Did you ever get their names?”

“No. They’d come in and go straight to his office without knocking, like he was expecting them. They’d stay ten or fifteen minutes then leave. They never spoke to anyone, not even his assistant.” She makes a straight-on-through gesture. “In and out like a surgical strike.”

“What did they look like?”

“Big. Both of them had dark hair. One looked like a boxer, you know, with a messed-up nose. The other one was missing the last two fingers on his left hand. We called him Lefty and the other guy Bruiser. Not guys you’d want to owe money to or get caught alone with in a parking garage.”

We talk a little more, but she doesn’t have anything more to tell me that might be useful. We part, promising to get together soon. My meeting with Anna makes me late to meet Inez Torres, Carla’s neighbor and babysitter. I don’t glean much new information from Inez, but she backs up Carla’s story, including what happened with her asshole of a landlord. She insists I stay for a cup of very strong coffee and sweet empanadas, which are filled pastries she made herself. The taste reminds me of the ones my grandma used to make when I was a kid.

I text Nolan as I leave Inez’s house with a bag full of empanadas to let him know I’m on my way. Once again I’m late. It’s nearly dinnertime and way past the time I thought I’d be heading over to his house. I hadn’t thought much about what he told me about Martin possibly being dead when he showed up at my apartment. I was too busy panicking at his unexpected arrival. Since then I’ve been running from meeting to meeting all day with hardly any time to catch my breath in between.

On the drive over what he said really hits me. If Martin is dead then there is something much bigger going on here than any conspiracy theory I might come up with. What happened to him? How did he die? How did Nolan figure out he was dead when the authorities didn’t? How does this affect Carla’s case?