Follow Her Home (8 page)

I remembered those long phone calls. Hours and hours of comforting Iris, knowing that she was, consciously or not, spinning her resentment into veiled guilt trips because I had left her for college. I couldn't deny that on occasion, I found her tiresome. I never admitted it to her, but sometimes I dreaded her calls, a few times even ignored them. After some of the more frustrating conversations, I complained to Luke and Diego. About my downer of a sister.

“Do you ever listen to yourself when you talk about Diego? You go on for days. I know all about his family, I know how hard he works and how sweet he is—I know what he eats. When did I have time to talk about Paul or anyone else? After we've been on the phone for half an hour and you remember to ask, ‘How's Mom?' and, ‘How's Paul?' all in one breath? I didn't tell you about Paul because I wasn't sure you gave a shit anymore. You were relieved that I stopped talking about my problems.”

Tears stung my eyes, and for several seconds I was too stunned to defend myself. Iris waited, watching me struggle in the mirror.

When I slumped over to embrace her back, she didn't protest. “Of course I gave a shit. You're my sister. I'm sorry if I was distant, or self-absorbed. I didn't realize you felt like that. You should've said something.”

“I couldn't say anything. I couldn't force you to care about me, and I didn't want to make you pretend.” Her weight was still resting on her palms, and she trembled like the struck string of a violin.

“But we should be able to talk to each other about everything. I can't believe you felt this way for months. And now, you can't tell me what's going on in your life? How can you have been pregnant without me even knowing who the father was? It wasn't Paul, was it?”

She shook her head. “Paul and I never slept together.”

“Would you have told me if you had?”

She nodded. “But I'm not saying anything else.”

She wriggled out of my arms and hurried out of the bathroom, her fingertips dripping water.

*   *   *

I arrived in less than five minutes and parked on the street. I walked up a flight of white wooden steps to the front door of Diego and Jackie's one-bedroom. They lived in a complex with four or five units between two stories, all of which looked out onto a shared lawn that shone green and dewy all year round. The letterbox outside their door read D
DIAZ
&
J
BLUMENTHAL
. I rapped on the door one two three.

Diego opened it at two and a half, before the knuckle of my index finger could kiss the wood. He wore boot-cut jeans and a black polo that hung too square on his frame.

“Hey.” I gave him a clinging hug and he put his arms around me in return. They had a tranquilizing effect, imparting the warmth of relief. Dependable Diego.

“Come in. Sorry, it's kind of a mess. I haven't vacuumed in days.”

I surveyed the broad living room. One dirty plate and an open DVD case sat on the polished wood coffee table. Diego's Toshiba sat on his couch. One pair of mahogany leather loafers made twin islands near the door in a sea of café-au-lait carpet. I guess you could say it was a notch more cluttered than a monastery, if that was worth apologizing for.

Diego was a skinny Puerto Rican man born in the Bronx and raised in Plymouth, Minnesota. He had a young face with a small, uncertain mouth, thick, expressive brows, and saucerous eyes that were ever wet with a maple-syrup gleam. Their dark irises were the dark brown of black coffee, their whites the white of White-Out. His hair was blacker than mine, and the short curls stuck tight about his head gave the impression of a swim cap. He was one inch taller than me with a one-inch slouch.

It was not love at first sight, but we built a fast friendship. I spent a lot of time in Luke and Diego's room, and the three of us had frequent late-night discussions about life and family and religion and politics, often accompanied by alcohol, clumsily obtained. Freshman year was the time for introspection and discovery, and Luke and Diego were my shipmates. My own roommate was a spoiled, prissy archetype, delivered straight from the loins of a banker and a Manhattan socialite to the front steps of Yale. There was a building named for her grandfather, and she barely took the time to learn my name.

Luke was the most outgoing of our little pod, while Diego and I found that we were content to spend our social time together. We talked and watched movies, and within a few months we were cuddling on his Ikea futon and taking shy walks in the cold. It was the first relationship for us both, and it lasted just over a year and a half. Most of the affection between us melted back into friendship soon after our breakup.

While Luke and I moved back to L.A. after graduation, Diego stayed in New Haven, for law school. He put in three honest years of diligent study and came out with a shiny degree and a pretty wife. He landed a competitive job at Stokel without so much as a thumb's weight of help from Luke or Mr. Cook. None of this changed him in the least.

I took off my shoes and settled onto one end of his couch, slouching diagonally in the corner with my bag in my lap. He transferred his computer onto the coffee table and sat on the other side. He leaned toward me, forearms resting on his quads.

“Did you get in touch with Luke?” I asked.

“I tried him a couple times but he wasn't picking up. He's probably sleeping in.”

“On a day like this.” I palmed my forehead and rubbed my eyes. “Can I get some coffee?”

“Of course.” He got up and brewed me a cup while I contemplated what and how to tell him. A few minutes later, he set a hot cup of black coffee on the table.

“So, what's going on? Is everything alright?”

“I've had a long day, and it's not even nine. Where's Jackie?”

“At the gym.”

I took a long sip of coffee and organized my thoughts. “I met a co-worker of yours at the party last night, Lori Lim.”

He opened his mouth a little and looked ready to smile on one side. “Oh.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“Not much. She works at the firm, hasn't been there too long. She's young, twenty-two, twenty-three. Very friendly.”

“Is that your way of saying she's loose?”

He played with the ring on his finger, rotating it with his thumb. “I wouldn't know. But she is very friendly in a touchy way.”

I almost smiled. Diego would never call a woman's virtue into question. “I hear she tried to jump you the other week.”

“You should know better than to take Luke's gossip at face value.”

“What happened?”

“She got a little tipsy at a happy hour and she just started talking to me, but she was handsier about it than necessary. I guess it was kind of inappropriate, but I don't think she meant anything by it.”

“Inappropriate?”

“Enough to make me uncomfortable. Anyway, one of the other first-years told her I was married and she hasn't done anything like that since. Why? What's this all about?”

I took a deep breath and let it out with puffed cheeks. “Before I say anything, I need you to sign onto a couple things.”

“Such as?”

“This stays between you and me. No Jackie, no one. You, me, and Luke. That's the loop.”

“Okay, sure.”

“And you have to promise that you won't tell me what to do.”

He nodded, hesitant, and gave me a worried look. “I'll try.”

I pounded a knuckle on my forehead. “Don't freak out, Diego, but there's a dead body in my car and I need your advice.”

He stood up like the seat of his pants had caught fire. “What?”

I explained what had happened, from my jaunt on Citrus to my run-in with the villain. He listened with balled fists and wide eyes.

“Oh my God. You're not joking.” His mocha complexion soured into lemon-curd yellow. “You must be scared to death.”

“I am.”

“Do you need a hug?”

“I do.”

We sat quietly for a minute on the couch, side by side, my back resting on his arm. I almost started to cry, then remembered I didn't have the time. I rotated out of his arm and faced him. “Should I go to the cops?”

He thought for a second. “I know it would make me feel better. Why haven't you called them already?”

“I didn't want to call them from home because he'd know. He threatened my family.”

“I know, but what makes you think he could hurt them? You can't just walk around committing crimes. You get caught. Your family's in Texas. We could notify police there.”

“I know. It's just, I don't know anything about the guy. My guess is that he's a little unhinged but not necessarily a criminal mastermind. Putting the body in my trunk was a scare tactic and a really dumb move. Then he showed himself when I had no way of identifying him before. I don't think he's in control.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I don't think so. At least if I knew he was some kind of professional criminal, I could credit him with logic and strategy. I could take for granted that he wouldn't do anything suicidal. Can't do that with a pure lunatic.”

“But if he's just some crazy guy, he probably couldn't reach your family without getting caught.”

“There's something more to it, though. One, he alluded to an employer, which might be bullshit. But if it's true, he could have someone else track down my family.” I hesitated.

“And two?”

“He knew about Iris. He mocked pity for our poor mom, with two daughters getting into trouble.”

His mouth fell open. It had been a long time since I'd referred to my sister in a meaningful way. “Oh no.”

“I think he was trying to piss me off, but he was also trying to scare me. I can't shake the feeling that he knows about everything that happened to her, and a lot of that is not public information. If he knows about that, he knows everything about my family. That makes me think that if he is a psycho, he's a psycho with means.”

Diego shook his head. “I still think you should call the police.”

“I'm thinking about it. The chance that he'd track down my family is probably minimal. The thing is that the one time in a hundred that it actually happens, my family gets hurt because of me. And I know firsthand that he's dangerous in a very real way.”

“So what do you do? Pretend nothing happened?”

“I can't do that either. But the more I think about it, I really can't go to the police right away. I need information on what's happening, who the guy is, and what power he has over me and my family. When I'm satisfied, then I call the cops.”

After fifteen seconds of silence, Diego spoke up in a slow, clear whisper. “Are you saying you're going to keep playing detective? Are you out of your mind?”

“What choice do I have?”

“Song, you've been assaulted and threatened by someone you don't know anything about, not to mention there's a corpse in your trunk.”

“I think I know what I'm doing.” As soon as I said the words, I knew they were ridiculous.

“You have no idea what you're doing. You can't keep going with this.”

“I told you not to tell me what to do.” I felt my ears go hot. He placed a hand on my shoulder. It was warm and heavy through the white cotton of my shirt.

“I know you're tough, and in ninety-nine out of a hundred situations I would trust you with my life, but this is an incredibly unusual situation, and your life could actually be in danger. You've had a traumatic day. My God, getting assaulted on a dark street was just the beginning. You found a dead body. I know you can't be okay right now, no matter how—”

“Stop stop stop!” I shook my head on the third
stop
like an insect had flown into my ear. The violence of the motion made my swollen crown smart. He flinched and jerked his hand away. I sat up, leaned forward, and focused on a spot on his shoulder. “God, Diego, I hate when you do this. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to hear you go on about what I'm feeling? I'm fine. You need to stop thinking I'm some fragile fucking snowflake just because you've seen me cry once or twice.”

My face was hot and I was startled at my own anger. I forced myself to look him in the eye. He didn't return my gaze. His eyes were lowered and glued loosely somewhere on his coffee table. I waited for him to say something. It was a long wait.

He swiped twice at the bulb of his nose with the flat of his thumb. His voice came out bruised and soft. “You're asking me to let you put yourself in harm's way. You're right, I shouldn't assume I know how you're feeling, and if you say you're fine, I believe you and that's wonderful. But please, please take care of yourself.”

“Look, I know I'm new to this sort of thing, but I know what I'm doing. I like living, you know, probably more than you like having me live.”

“Clear your head, Song. Going after Iris's boyfriend didn't make you a detective, and reading all the books will never make you Marlowe. How on earth could you possibly know what you're doing?” He fixed those gleaming binoculars on me with the earnestness of a child.

The door opened like magic as I struggled for a plausible answer. Jackie Blumenthal Diaz walked in shoulder first in a plain white tank and gym shorts. Her forehead and bare arms glistened with the sweat of good health.

“I'm home.” Her eyes took a second to find mine and she looked at me with surprise approaching panic. “Juniper, I didn't know you were coming.”

Jackie was Diego's classmate in law school, a Columbia graduate who had taken a few years off after college to work in D.C. She was a few years older than Diego, having just turned thirty-one in February. They started dating toward the end of their second year of law school. It was Diego's first relationship after our breakup, but he and Jackie got hitched the week after their graduation last June. Luke and I used to tease Diego about their hasty marriage, attributing it to her insistent biological clock. We stopped once we noticed the shivering timbre of his laughter as he bore our immaturities.