Tabula Rasa (22 page)

I went back down the hall to my room and quickly got dressed in some
jeans, sneakers, and a light sweater. Back in Shannon’s room, I
noticed the nightstand drawer beside his bed was open. I pulled it
out the rest of the way and gasped. Holy shit, there was a lot of
cash. Small bills, mostly twenties. There must be a few thousand
dollars in there. It’s not that I considered this an inordinately
large sum of money. My bio-dad had given me a staggering amount after
all. This was small potatoes by comparison. But my interaction with
money had always been through the medium of plastic cards and distant
vague numbers on bank computer screens, which my brain refused to
fully process as money—even though it could buy me things. So this
was a large amount of
cash
.

This was definitely a trap. It was all too convenient. Him abruptly
leaving me, creating an emotional reason for me to leave... money in
the dresser. Cell phone left behind—though that had been hidden in
his pants and could have been an accident, but it also could have
been intentional. Shannon never left his clothes lying around. Then
there was the unarmed balcony door and the trellis with an easy way
to the ground level and freedom outside.

There was still a part of me that feared he wanted me gone from his
home. Like he was tired of me, and maybe he did feel some spark of
something that made him not want to kill me, but nothing else beyond
that to make him want me to continue invading his personal space like
this. But if he didn’t want me gone, it was definitely a test.
Either way it was orchestrated, everything laid out so simply and
enticingly.

I grabbed a few hundred out of the dresser and put half in one pocket
and half in the other. It wasn’t like I was stealing it. He had
full easy access to my accounts if he hadn’t already drained them.
I could pay him back. Though I doubted he cared if I did.

I searched for a spare set of keys and was happily surprised to find
one in the drawer with the money. I stepped outside and locked the
balcony door behind me, then climbed down the trellis to the ground.
Child’s play.

I wasn’t going to run, but I sure as shit was getting out of the
house for a while. If he wanted me gone, he could have a conversation
with me and tell me himself. Or he could put a bullet in my head.
Whatever. But fuck this. Even if
I wanted to go, I wouldn’t leave this way. He had to be smart
enough to know that by now. Maybe in the first day or two in his care
I would have, but over weeks my feelings had changed.

I’d known in a vague way that
Shannon lived in a nice neighborhood, but now I was walking through
it, experiencing it live. I wasn’t even sure what month it was,
which, now that I had my memories back, seemed extra disorienting. I
was sure it was after Christmas, though.

I’d had opportunities to learn the date, but each time I’d only
realized after the fact. Like when I’d been shopping online for
clothes that first night... all I’d had to do was glance into the
bottom right corner of the screen, but I’d been too flustered by
everything. And the time I’d checked Shannon’s phone for his
number. There wasn’t much time, and it just didn’t occur to me
until Shannon’s phone was back in his pocket that I could have
easily read the date on the phone. And even this morning with the red
phone. I could have checked that, but I’d already taken the battery
out when it occurred to me yet again. And by now I was too paranoid
to put it back in. I was determined to remember to find out the date
while I was out.

I
hadn’t realized how close Shannon lived to town. He lived in a
small town near Savannah, called Stoney Oak.
From what little I’d seen in the car with him, there might
be fifteen thousand people here, if I was being generous in my
estimation. His parents lived inside Savannah proper, but it was
still an easy drive to get from one place to the other. I wondered
how he felt about his parents living so close. They could just drop
in on him at any time, but so far since I’d been here, they’d
maintained a polite and respectful distance.

It was maybe a mile walk into the main part of town—twenty minutes
or so. Or it was that far into what had been the original downtown
area at least. I wasn’t sure how much urban sprawl had overtaken
the edges.

There was a small old-fashioned grocery store on the corner of a
strip of buildings that looked like they’d been built maybe around
the mid-eighteen hundreds. Next to that were several boutique stores
that ranged in offerings from tourist-y gift shops to clothing
stores.

I wondered what would ever possess Shannon to live in such a small
town. Small towns were nosy. Everybody wanted to know everybody’s
business. And if you weren’t involved enough in town stuff, people
always wanted to know why. I would think Shannon would prefer to get
lost inside a big city.

“Hello,” a woman said from behind the register inside one of the
boutique stores. Her name tag read,
June
. “Can I help you
find something?”

“I’m just looking, thanks.”

June had short pixie-cut graying hair that fringed delicately around
her face, and reading glasses perched on her nose. The glasses were
on a chain so she could wear them around her neck when she didn’t
need them. She was dressed smartly in a black leather skirt that
ended mid-calf, covering the tops of chic black boots. A somewhat
fitted black top completed the look, accentuating the gentle curves
on her slender frame. She had this freaky sort of old-lady/young
hipster combo going on that made it impossible to tell if she was
twenty or two hundred.

Sure, I’d met Shannon’s parents, but it was so weird being
anywhere
without Shannon or Trevor and being around strangers.
This was my first
unsupervised
visit anywhere since the car
wreck. And it made me want to climb out of my skin.

I know I’d decided I wanted to be with Shannon, and it seemed
nothing could drag me from that determination, but it was unsettling
being in this little boutique shop outside of Shannon’s direct
grasp and
not
asking for help. Like, if I were a sane or
rational person, shouldn’t I realistically ask this woman to call
911 for me? Shouldn’t I make some token effort? But even with how
our relationship had shifted, I had a hard time realistically seeing
my life with Shannon as imprisonment—despite the extremely limited
times I’d been allowed to venture outdoors.

So instead of doing something rational, I wandered toward the back of
the store to the lingerie section. I didn’t even know if Shannon
still wanted me, and yet the first thing I did as a supposedly free
woman, was shop for lingerie for him. Well, for me... but you know...
for him.

The sales lady by this point had migrated back to the lingerie area
as well. If I were a teenager in a baggy overcoat, I’d assume she
was shadowing me for fear of shoplifting. But I was pretty sure it
was more general nosiness. This suspicion was confirmed a moment
later.

“Are you new to the area, or just visiting?” June asked.

I was tempted to insist I was just visiting, but instead I said,
“New.”

“Oh? Do you know anyone here?”

“Shannon Mercer.” I had a momentary fear that he might murder me
for bringing his name up, but hey, he chose a small town to live in.
And frankly, if he was going to end up killing me, I wanted him to
have to work up an explanation about my disappearance and sweat a
little over it.

“Ooooooh,” she said. I swear, I thought she was going to start
singing the
kissing in a tree
song like a grade school child.
She got a sort of blushy dreamy look on her face. “He is
so
beautiful.”

In spite of everything, I found the grin inching up the side of my
face, followed by a nervous giggle. “Yeah. He
is
pretty
hot.”

“You did good, honey.”

I was pretty sure she wouldn’t maintain that position if she had
more facts about Shannon. This made me wildly curious about what
she
thought Shannon did for a living.

“And he’s such a
good
man,” she continued. “But I
don’t have to tell you. I guess you’ll be going on the trips with
him?”

“Ummm, yeah, the trips. Sure.” I had no idea what this lady was
talking about, but I was fascinated to know more about the saintly
portrait Shannon had painted of himself.

“I think it’s just so lovely that he donates so much of his time
to helping all those poor people in those destitute countries.”

Oh, dear lord. It took all my powers of self-control not to bust out
laughing at the deranged idea of Shannon doing extended charity work
like some black-clad special ops Mother Theresa.

The sales lady sized me up and then handed me a sexy little black
lace number. The lace was elegant and made me think of something a
Victorian-era courtesan might wear. “He’ll like this,” June
insisted.

I checked the size. It was my size, all right. She had a good eye.
“I’ll take it.”

“You don’t want to try it on to make sure?”

“No, I’m sure.” I kind of needed to get away from her. This
lady had a crush on Shannon and thought he did charity work. If only
she knew. I would never do it, of course, but there was this sadistic
part of me that wanted to tell her the truth about him. Just to watch
the color drain out of her face.

I frowned, realizing the dark road my thoughts had turned down.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I was just thinking about something else.”

“Now, I’ve got all sorts of fun and interesting toys and edible
body paints and...”

“No, the lingerie is fine.”

“Is it for Valentine’s Day? That’s right around the corner, you
know. We have some cards at the register if you want to pick one
out.”

“That’s okay, I’ve already got a card.” I couldn’t imagine
ever giving Shannon a card for any reason. I was tempted to ask “how
right around the corner” Valentine’s Day was. But at least now I
had a better idea of what month we were in.

June took the lingerie to the register and rang it up. She quirked a
brow briefly at my shopping with cash, but it was probably just more
nosiness. With a card she could learn my name. Without one, I was
still a mystery. I was surprised she hadn’t just gone ahead and
asked. Maybe I should have offered a name. I wasn’t sure about the
small town meet-and-greet protocol.

She carefully wrapped the lingerie in tissue paper and put it in an
elegant black paper bag with shiny silver accents. Then she added
some additional gray tissue paper in the top, tied the handles
together with some curling ribbon, and handed it to me like it was
the holy grail.

“Have fun,” she said, winking at me.

I looked at my receipt. The date was February third. Okay then,
another piece of the
what the hell is happening in the real world
puzzle solved.

I stopped in a few other shops on the block and got some apple
cinnamon bubble bath which I felt tempted to just go ahead and eat
instead of bathe in—it smelled that real. Then I grabbed a few
fashion magazines and some stationery and a roll of stamps and some
fat white candles.

Finally, I stopped at the corner grocery and got a few snacks I
missed now that I remembered I liked them... like kettle corn
drizzled in dark chocolate and a bottle of Merlot.

Since I didn’t have a car, I stopped buying things at this point. I
still had to carry it all back.

It was tricky figuring how to get everything back up into the house
since I couldn’t use the front door. The security system was like
an extra lock. If you didn’t know the code, it didn’t matter
whether you had a key or not. It wouldn’t just sound an alarm, the
door or window wouldn’t even open. The balcony door was therefore
the only door I could still get into.

I ended up having to throw the bags one at a time onto the balcony
from the ground. Except the Merlot, which I carried up. I was glad
there were some trees around the house and that Shannon’s nearest
neighbor was more than a block down the road. I didn’t need anyone
asking why I was tossing stuff up onto a balcony, or climbing the
trellis to get inside the house. I looked like a really inefficient
cat burglar. And even from my perspective—knowing the back
story—the whole thing seemed absurd.

Once inside, I still felt antsy. The freedom of finally being able to
come and go in a civilized world was not lost on me. I grabbed some
more money from the drawer and after a quick lunch, I went out the
balcony and climbed down the trellis.

This time I went into a florist shop a block over from where I’d
been earlier. As soon as I stepped inside, I knew this was what I’d
craved. Plants. Living green things. Shannon didn’t have a single
plant in his house. Given my history with the study of them as well
as being surrounded by greenery constantly in the abandoned park, it
was almost distressing not having any of my own. They changed the
energy of a space, making it more alive than it might otherwise be.
It was the kind of thing you didn’t notice unless you were used to
it and then suddenly it was gone.

In the company of so many options, I went a little crazy, buying up
almost everything in the front part of the store. I was, however,
careful to only buy plants that were non-toxic to cats. There may be
no love lost between me and the white cat, but if I killed her,
Shannon would be livid.

“No flowers?” the old florist asked, disappointed. “I haven’t
gotten to make a fresh arrangement since Tuesday.” His name tag
read, “Stanley.”

“I’m sorry, not today.” I made a mental note to come back for
flowers at another time, assuming Shannon was just testing me and not
trying to get rid of me. “Can I get these delivered?”

The old man pulled out a large sales pad. “Address, please?”