Tim shifted them to the side. “Sure thing. It’s going to take me a while to figure this out anyway.”
I swirled the cloth in a circular motion along the desktop. Perhaps I wouldn’t need to find a clever way to ease in to talking about what had happened. “You’re trying to fill the staffing holes until Mandy can hire someone new?”
Tim slashed a blue highlighter along days on the print out, marking the spaces that needed to be filled. “Susan”—he inclined his head toward the kitchen—“is willing to take a few shifts up front as long as they don’t conflict with when she needs to be prepping food, but Becky won’t take night shifts, so I’m trying to move Mandy and me around.”
Becky wouldn’t take night shifts. That meant she wouldn’t have been at The Sunburnt Arms at all when Vilsack was attacked since we knew that had to have happened sometime after Mandy went to her private rooms around 4:00 pm and before she came back down to work in the morning. I filed that information away so that I wouldn’t waste time asking her questions about that night. I could focus on what she might have known about Vilsack personally instead.
Right now, the important thing was that Tim seemed more frustrated by the scheduling difficulties than he was upset over losing a co-worker.
I slowed my circles down, hopefully not enough that Tim would notice but enough so that I’d have time to keep talking. “I’m so sorry for your loss. It must be hard.”
“Not much of a loss,” Tim said around the highlighter cap clamped between his lips. His next highlighter mark was slower. He looked up at me and spit the cap out. “To me personally, I mean. I didn’t really know Bruce. I only saw him for a couple of minutes when he’d come and I’d leave.”
I moved to cleaning along the edges. Tim’s explanation might be true, but it seemed a bit callous. I’d worked with people who I barely knew and I’d still feel some sadness if they died, especially if they might have been murdered. Of course, that made the assumption that Vilsack was nice. He might not have been.
I ground my teeth together. This could go two ways. I could ask him if he’d been working that day, or I could try to find out more about Vilsack. Mandy could answer the former, and I didn’t want to risk Tim closing down because it sounded like I thought he needed to account for where he was.
“That’s too bad that you didn’t know each other better. From the sounds of it, he was a nice guy.”
The muscles in Tim’s neck tensed. Then he shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” He held up the sheets. “Look, I really have to get this done. Mandy wants it finished right away.”
He didn’t turn his back on me, but with the way he swiveled his chair away, he might as well have.
I quickly finished cleaning off the front desk and headed back for the vacuum. Tim could be telling the truth. He might not have known Vilsack, and he might want to focus, but his cavalier attitude felt a little too forced.
It was something my parents coached their clients on before they took the stand. The prosecution was sure to notice if a defendant seemed like they were trying to make themselves seem nice or make themselves seem like they had no motive.
I couldn’t push now, but I’d make a note of it for later.
I rushed through the vacuuming and hurried up the stairs. The niggling feeling that I’d pushed Tim too hard, too fast clung onto my back, making the climb seem steep rather than easy. I hadn’t. The opening had been there and I took it. But I couldn’t help second-guessing myself and thinking how my mom would react when we swapped information later. She’d probably be full of advice on how I could have handled it better.
I shoved the thoughts away. Losing my confidence now wouldn’t do any good. I still had to talk to Becky. This time, though, I’d convince her to let me work alongside her. That way, I wouldn’t feel any need to rush. Based on our small interaction earlier, she was shy enough that, if I rushed her, I’d spook her.
She wasn’t in the room where Mandy found Vilsack’s blood. I couldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t have wanted to start there, either.
The door to the room my mom had stayed in was open. This room boasted one of the floor-to-ceiling vaulted windows that looked out along the water. I knew from when I’d booked that it cost more than the other rooms because of the view.
Becky had her back to the door, using a long-handled squeegee to wash the window. Smart. That was much easier to carry upstairs than a ladder, and you wouldn’t risk falling off of anything while you tried to reach the high spots.
She stayed with her back to me even when I’d almost reached her. She must not have heard me.
Given how she flinched earlier, I didn’t want to startle her by touching her again.
“Becky?”
She spun around and swung the handle in an arc straight for me.
I screeched and dropped to my knees, covering my head with my arms. My heart felt like it was pounding right behind my eardrums.
From a distance, I heard Becky calling my name and apologizing, but it was like she was doing it through a pane of glass. My memories became more real than the present. All I could hear clearly, all I could think about, were flames reaching out for my skin, a gun pointed at my face, hands around my neck, so many lifeless eyes and faces that they all folded together.
My chest hurt, and I couldn’t get a full breath.
A cold hand slipped into one of mine, and it felt real, too.
“Focus on my hand.” Becky was down on the floor beside me now. “Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real. I’m real. You’re in a room at The Sunburnt Arms, and whoever’s trying to hurt you isn’t here.”
Focus. On her.
I listened to her repeating the words and concentrated on her grip on my hand until those things blocked out the memories.
Uncomfortable warmth seared up my neck and burnt my ears and cheeks. I crept up off the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. Becky let go of my hand and settled a respectful distance away.
How could I even explain to her why I’d reacted the way I did? She hadn’t meant to actually attack me. My rational mind knew it.
But I hadn’t been able to help it. Mark and my therapist had both been concerned that I hadn’t dealt with what I’d been through, that I’d only shoved it down as deep as I could and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. I’d always had trouble sleeping, but lately it’d reached the point of insomnia, and I found myself checking my doors and windows multiple times at night before I could sleep. I’d even started bringing Toby into my room at night, despite his snoring.
Becky shifted positions, and the bed squeaked underneath her. “I really am sorry. I’m a little extra jumpy with…with what happened here.” Her voice shuddered. “I didn’t mean to, well, you know.” She pointed at the long-handled squeegee now lying on the floor next to the window.
“It’s not your fault.” My face still felt sweaty. I ran a finger along my upper lip. At the very least, I owed her an explanation so that she didn’t continue to blame herself. “People have tried to hurt me in the past. When you swung at me…” I didn’t even know how to explain what happened to me.
She tucked her hair behind both ears this time, first the right, then the left, where the scar crawled. Her fingers brushed against it as she did. “I know. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
My first thought was that she was humoring me, trying to make me feel less embarrassed. But maybe she did understand. She seemed to know immediately what I was going through and how to help me. She basically walked me through a grounding exercise like my former therapist in DC had taught me to deal with my anxiety.
Common ground, the little voice in my head that sounded like my mother said. You can get her to open up to you about the case if you start with common ground.
I imagined flicking a tiny devil version of my mother off my shoulder. I didn’t need her in my head as well as downstairs. One was enough.
