Page 79 of The Inmate
My cheeks grow warm. I didn’t know he knew about that. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I wanted to hear the panic in her voice. I loved it when she was screaming at me to leave her alone. “I blocked the number before I called.”
“Dawn.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not foolproof. She traced the call back here. She was telling me about it this morning. If she hadn’t gotten arrested, she was going to be driving out here this afternoon. Do you know how screwed we would’ve been?”
“Oh…”
Perhaps it was impetuous of me to call her. But then again, Caleb is not blameless. He told me about how he tormented her all week with that turtle figurine on her desk, even though it would have ruined everything if she had caught him in the act.
“It’s not safe to be here anymore.” He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I checked us out and settled the bill. We’ll find another place today.”
“Okay.”
I’ll be glad to be out of this seedy motel, although I’m sure the next place won’t be any better. Really, I want to get out of New England altogether. Head south. But Caleb thinks it’s too dangerous to be driving around right now. Plus, it would look suspicious if he suddenly quit his job. He’s got to stick around a little longer, then we can go.
I’m not sure where. I always wanted to live in the south. People are nicer down there.
As I chew on my sandwich, Caleb climbs into bed beside me. I could never have done this without him. He played his role perfectly—he deserves an Academy Award. And it was so much better than I hoped. Natalie shot herself in the foot by trying to convince him to be her alibi.
I don’t know how he managed to pretend to be her boyfriend for that long. But he never slept with her. He swore he wouldn’t.
While I finish the sandwich, I turn the television back on. They’re talking about the body that was found in the woods in Cohasset, brutally beaten. The body of Dawn Schiff. Or so they think.
“They’re going to figure out it’s not you sooner or later,” Caleb remarks.
“I know.”
“Christ,” he mutters. “What are the chances, you know?”
He’s talking about the coincidental fact that a body turned up of a woman approximately my age, and apparently, her face was so badly beaten, they assumed it was me. The news mentioned most of her teeth had been knocked out, so they could not use dental records. It facilitated Natalie’s arrest, but ultimately, it won’t matter. Eventually, the DNA will reveal that the dead body is somebody else—this random dead body won’t send her to prison.
Caleb’s eyes are still on the screen. “What kind of sick person would do something like that?”
“There are a lot of sick people out there,” I say. “You should know that by now.”
“Yeah. But to be beaten so badly, they can’t even recognize who she is…” He turns slightly green. “And nobody is even looking for her.”
I stuff the last of my turkey sandwich down my throat, and I nod in the direction of the phone in Caleb’s hand. “Show me the video,” I say.
He’s got one already ready to go, which makes me think he’s been obsessively watching them the same way I have been. He hates her as much as I do. He’s been waiting for this as long as I have. We’re both soaking it up.
In this video, you get a close-up of Natalie’s face as that detective reads her her rights. You can see her lips contorting in an ugly way. Her face turns bright red, and then she’s yelling something.
“She’s calling your name,” I observe.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “She is.”
The detective jerks on her cuffed arms and she stumbles. He leads her to the police car and shuts her inside. She’s crying now. Big ugly tears. And snot is bubbling under her nose, but she can’t wipe it away.
“Oh my God.” I stare up at Caleb. “We made this happen.”
“We did.”
We sit there for a moment, staring at each other. Caleb is the first one to lean forward and press his lips against mine. I grab two fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him even closer. He pushes me down onto the plastic-wrapped mattress with the white sheet and thetanpillowcase, climbing on top of me, careful not to touch the bandage on my wrist.
“We did it,” I gasp as his lips make their way down to my neck. “We did it.”
“We did it,” he breathes in my ear. “I love you so much, Dawn.”
“I love you too.”
