Page 41 of The Business Trip

“Hell no! I got on a plane and came home by myself. I told you, I knew that chick for only a few hours. She even bailed on the conference early. You can ask anybody who was there. In fact, do. Ask Dorothy from Boston and Alan from Kalamazoo. They both met her too and then saw her take off. I’m not crazy. She disappeared andI never fucking saw her again.”

“Trent, did you see anyone else on Sunday or Monday when you were home? Go anywhere? See any friends, family, coworkers?”

“No, I told you I was sick. I stayed in.”

“So you have no alibi other than the fact that you were home sick?”

“It’s not an alibi.I was home sick.”

From there, they just kept asking me questions and questions and questions until I almost lost my mind. I had to describe my job, my relationships, my childhood, and reenact every second of the conference and my return back home.

I decided not to tell them that I had skipped the mental health session, though. One, it would place me and Stephanie out of the conference at the same time, and two, it would tip off Bill, my boss, that I had lied to him. His cardinal sin was lying and people had been fired for doing so. I figured if Dorothy or Alan opened their big mouths and said I wasn’t at the session, I would explain that I had needed some air and got up for a moment, then watched it from the back of the room.Dorothy and Alan wouldn’t know if it was true or not—their backs would have been to me the entire time.

As the questioning droned on and on, I just kept trying to make sense of anything, literally anything, that was happening. Stephanie Monroe? That bitch had to be framing me. There was no other possible explanation.

About two hours into questioning, Portly Belly decided to drop the biggest bomb, though.

“Trent, can you explain why blood and hair were found in your apartment?”

“Whaaaat? What are you talking about?” I was in a panic now. What the fuck was happening?

“We found blood, hair, and this…” Portly opened a manila folder, took something out, and pushed two photos across the table at me. “Can you explain why these were in the breast pocket of your sport coat?”

They were pictures of women’s underwear. I had never seen them before.

I began to stammer. “I… I… I swear on my children’s lives. I have no… no… no idea.”

“Trent,” said Officer Spanish. “Semen was found on the underpants. And there’s something else: Investigators found a second woman’s ID buried in your backyard and DNA from that woman, Jasmine Littleton, in your suitcase. Can you explain that?”

Jasmine? Wasn’t that the name of the chick I met in the corner bar the night I returned from the conference? The one who stiffed me on the sexy picture?

I opened my mouth, but words would not come out.

“It’s not looking very good for you, Trent. Why don’t you just tell us what really happened?”

CHAPTER 33Trent

The Thursday After the Conference

They set bail at $1 million. I was confident our company would pay for it. The parent company of NBC6 owned dozens of stations across the US and raked in money every year, especially political years, when candidates threw attack ads at each other. NBC6 definitely could afford it, and we’d get it all back and then some when we sued the pants off the Atlanta Police Department.

There was no way I was going to jail for this ridiculous story the police had concocted. DNA found in my apartment? Absurd. Personal belongings buried in my backyard? Insane.

As I lay awake at night in my jail cell staring at the ceiling, thoughts kept running through my head. It was either some woman trying to frame me—Stephanie? Katrina?—or the police themselves. For what reason the police would do it, I didn’t know, but they could have planted evidence when they barged into my house in the middle of the night.

The one thing I was sure of, as sure as I was of anything ever in my life, was that I had not seen Stephanie Monroe since she had peeked out of her door at the hotel. Was she truly dead? Imean, if so, that sucked for her, but I had nothing to do with it. My conscience was completely clear.

They allowed me three phone calls. Since I was still sitting in jail waiting for the magic words “Bail has been posted,” I started with Bill. When he answered, we both had to sit through a “This call is coming from the Fulton County Jail and may be recorded” message and then a beep. I heard him take a deep sigh. I jumped right in.

“Bill, this is the most asinine, ridiculous, insane, warped, twisted, fucked-up—pardon my French—thing ever. You know I’m 100 percent innocent. I didnothing. I never saw Stephanie after the first day. I don’t know who this Jasmine person is. I’m going to sue them for character defamation too. I trust NBC6 will pay my bail?”

There was silence. It went on for so long that I thought our connection was lost.

“Bill? Are you there?”

“I’m here, Trent.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

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