Page 15
6
LOUISA
Icounted down the time to leave every shift that I worked. Every single night, I checked the time and obsessed over how many hours I had left to go. How many minutes I needed to make it through to the end. Even the seconds were counted down when the end of a shift neared.
Tonight, I felt like I had to leave. The urgency to escape and distance myself from what I saw on those few minutes of the video footage gripped me. Choked me. All through my shift, I sat there as still as I could and prayed that no one in the office could realize how panicked I was, then also wonder why. Owen kept strolling past me after he’d first noticed how freaked out I was.
The first second I exited the building, I exhaled a long breath. All the tension that tightened me into a coil should have left my body. My shoulders should have lowered, slumping without the prompt to brace myself for the impact of a proverbial hit.
Within the first two feet I took down the cracked sidewalk, though, no calm came. No relief filled me and encouraged me to loosen up now that I was out of the building.
Instead, I was wound up tighter. Pure fear coated over me, suffocating me.
Someone is watching me.
The intensity of someone’s eyes aimed my way was too stark, too palpable, to deny it now. Like a live brand, a searing bolt of fire, I felt the unending pressure to check over my shoulder. To glance back. To pause and cower against a wall and rove my gaze back and forth to find who was hunting me down.
Who is stalking me?
What is going on?
Is it because—
I gulped, quickening my pace. Too afraid to look over my shoulder and see who was around, I tried not to look like I was running from my own shadow but was determined to reach the safety of my apartment as soon as I could.
It has to be because of that video.
Women could be stalked and followed at any time. All over the world, we were preyed upon. It was a simple fact of life that none of us could erase.
Women would always be targeted by others, but that couldn’t be the case now. Someone was zeroing in on tailing me—only me.
I didn’t expose myself to risks or partake in questionable activities. I didn’t even have a life outside of working and being a present mom. I never committed a crime. I lacked acquaintances who could qualify as bad influences. And I didn’t do anything wrong. All I had was the debt. That was all I had as a mark against me, and it was completely legitimate, legally obtained debt that I would need another century to feel like I’d made a dent in paying it all back.
It has to be that video.
Guilt and regret and panic churned into a nauseating mix in my stomach. Bile rose up my throat. Sweat trickled from my pits. My mouth was dry and every step I took felt jerky and too slow.
It has to be that video.
But it wasn’t like I’d gone out of my way to see those few minutes. I hadn’t chosen to do anything nefarious or get mixed up with anything bad.
It just happened.
Finally, the front door to my building was within sight. The light shone brightly—for a change—and I wanted to have faith that I would be secure here. They maintained the property most of the time. The locks functioned and once I got through there, the danger of the world would remain out here. Away from me.
I darted forward like the devil was on my heels. Maybe he was. Maybe the people involved in whatever was going on with the transportation of that body bag in the video were devils and demons and the kind of criminals I’d never willingly want to be near.
Holding my breath, I forced my key into the lock on the exterior door. My fingers trembled. They shook and quivered, making the lift and movement to the key so jittery and shaky that I couldn’t make it fit.
A whimper built in my chest, but I crammed the metal into the knob and nearly sprained my wrist rotating it so swiftly to get it open. Then I flung the panel back, eased inside the tiny foyer, and shoved the door closed again.
Silence met my ears.
Nobody tried to rush in after me.
No one banged their fists on the door and demanded that I let them in.
I was alone in the dimly lit foyer that stank of weed and onions from someone’s cooking.
