Page 20 of The Coworker
I touch my throat. I still wake up at night sometimes, covered in sweat, the memory of the necklace tightening around my windpipe still fresh in my mind. It was a long time ago, but I can still feel it happening like it was yesterday. I could feel the links of the gold necklace digging into my neck, I could smell Shane’s sandalwood aftershave tickling my nose, and I could feel his hot breath on my neck.
But there’s one thing I can’t do. I can’t see his face.
I never saw the face of the man who tried to kill me. The power was out that night and everything was pitch black. But I knew Shane very well. I knew the feel of his body. The smell of him. I knew it was him.
It had to be.
Because if it wasn’t him, I have made a terrible mistake.
Chapter 11
The entire drive home from Raker Penitentiary, I can’t stop thinking about Shane. I had truly believed I would never see him ever again after his sentencing went through. I certainly never thought I’d be inches away from his face again.
After the visit, Hunt brought me Shane’s chart. This time I had permission to look through it without guilt. It was fairly slim, which made sense given that Shane is still young and in good health. Most of the notes were from injuries, likely sustained at the hands of other inmates.
The last note was written by my predecessor, Elise. Shane had come to her complaining of abdominal pain. She had prescribed him medication for acid reflux, but then at the bottom of the page, she wrote, “Manipulative, drug-seeking.” And she had underlined the word “manipulative.”
I’m not sure if I would agree with that assessment. I even offered Shane pain medication and he wouldn’t take it. But seeing those words written in his chart made me uneasy.
Just as I’m pulling into my driveway, my phone buzzes in my purse. A text message came while I was driving. I sift through a surprising number of loose tissues in my purse—you can never have too many tissues when you have a young son—before I retrieve my phone.
Hey, it’s Tim Reese. I got your number from the parent directory. Hope that’s not too creepy.
Despite everything, I have to smile. Tim is a lot of things, but he’s not creepy. But if he looked me up in the parent directory, he must have figured out that Josh is not a kindergartener. And inexplicably, he still wants to talk to me.
Only slightly creepy.
He writes back almost instantly:
So I was just thinking, coffee in the evening is just going to keep us up. How about getting a drink one night this week?
A drink. That’s a bit more serious than coffee. That’s a very date-y kind of get-together. Do I want that?
I have no idea. But I do know that if there’s one guy I can trust to back off if I need him to, it’s Tim. And I haven’t socialized outside of work in far too long. Maybe I should just let myself have a little fun for once. Don’t I deserve it?
Let me check with the babysitter and I’ll get back to you.
Any negative feelings from work today and the shock of seeing Shane after so many years (and knowing I’ll have to see him again in a week to take out the sutures) fade away as I contemplate a night out with Tim. It will be nice to hang out with him again. Growing up, Tim was always my favorite person in the whole world.
I feel bad that I shut him out for nearly eleven years. But it wasn’t like I had a choice.
I get into the house, and this time Josh doesn’t come running when I call his name. I take it as a good sign though. If he were clingy, that would be worse. But he’s got a few days of school under his belt now, and he seems more confident.
I reach the kitchen, where Margie is pulling another of her delicious concoctions out of the oven. It looks like some sort of lasagna. It’s bubbling hot when she lays it down on the kitchen counter.
“Hey, Margie,” I say. “That looks great. You don’t have to cook every night though.”
“Oh, I like it!” she says. “When my kids were growing up, I had a home-cooked meal for them every night. Home cooking prevents cancer, you know.”
I’m not so sure about that, but I’m not going to say anything else to dissuade her from cooking for us. I am obscenely grateful that she does it.
“Listen,” I say, “do you think you could watch Josh one night this week? I was going to go out for a drink with a friend. It shouldn’t be long.”
Margie’s eyes light up. “A friend or aman?”
Oh God. I had a feeling when I hired this woman that she was going to be a bit of a yenta. “Just a friend.”
“A male friend?”
