“Let’s get out of here.” The frightened one moved towards the door. “I’m sorry about all this. Dermot gave me a key to his place to water his plants. I was just trying to help.”
She held out the key in the palm of her hand, extended towards Rosie.
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Rosie said. “Answer the question. Who are you?”
“Are we making introductions now? Fine, I’ll go first. I’m Trina, this is Addy.” The strung-out woman gestured to the younger one. Laura noticed Trina’s other hand held a silver laptop.
“I know you, too,” Laura replied coolly. “You’re the woman who was with Dermot the night he died. I saw the two of you together.” As soon as she said it, she wished she’d just kept her mouth shut.
Trina’s eyes narrowed. “Seems like we have something in common. We were both there the night Dermot was killed.”
Laura hadn’t realized she’d been seen. She’d been watching, hoping the signs she read were wrong, and that Dermot wasn’t going to go through with it. Laura followed the two of them from the wedding party up to the room he’d asked for, wishing he’d turn around at any point to say he couldn’t do it. In fact, Laura was certain he would. He was drunk that night, but he wasn’t cruel. Deep inside, he knew he loved Laura and that they should be together. That he’d never want to do anything to hurt her. She had to believe that.
And then Dermot and Trina disappeared behind the hotel-room door, and Laura was left alone in the hallway she’d vacuumed just a few hours ago for minimum wage, with nothing waiting for her at home but a pile of dirty laundry and her brother barking orders to make him a sandwich.
“Whoa, what are you talking about?” Rosie took a step further into the apartment. “Are you implying that my pregnant friend had anything to do with what happened to Dermot?”
That word—pregnant—sucked the air out of the room. Everyone went quiet, Trina and Addy still pushed together at the end of the hallway and Rosie standing guard in front of Laura like a pit bull ready to pounce.
Laura should have waited, done the test at home and hid the garbage in her purse. Or done it at the bathroom at the McDonald’s, maybe. But she had to know, and Rosie was there, ready to be such a nice friend, and Laura had forgotten that Rosie, like most of the people in Laura’s life, had problems thinking through the consequences of her actions.
Trina wouldn’t look at Laura. Addy seemed less nervous, at least.
“I think we have some things to talk about.” Addy moved from her spot by Trina and sat on the couch, adjusting a pillow behind her back and then leaning forward, her hands in between her knees. She took a deep breath, sucking it in through her nose and blowing it out through her mouth.
Rosie, Laura, and Trina all watched her.
“I get panic attacks sometimes,” Addy explained. “I have to think through the situation, focus my thoughts, and breathe deep. I can usually make it go away.”
“I’m sorry we made you panic,” Laura told Addy. “We just didn’t know what was going on.”
“Still don’t,” Rosie cut in. After Laura told Rosie she wasn’t sure who the father of her baby was, Laura also told her about Dermot. How she’d loved him. How much she missed him. How she didn’t have anything to remember him by, not really.
Rosie had raised an eyebrow at that. “Except for maybe a really big thing,” she’d said, looking pointedly at Laura’s still-flat stomach.
Rosie convinced her that the two of them should go over to Dermot’s apartment. Laura made a key for Dermot’s place a while ago.
“What are your names?” Trina asked.
“I thought you knew who I was.” Laura couldn’t help it. She didn’t like this woman. Not one bit.
“Yeah, but I don’t know your name.”
“Maybe we should keep it that way.” Laura snatched a glance at Addy, who was breathing deep again. She didn’t like hurting people. “It’s Laura. And this is my friend, Rosie.”
“Okay, so we have that cleared up. How about you tell us why you have a key to Dermot’s apartment?” Trina looked pointedly at Laura.
Again, Rosie decided to fix the situation herself. “She was Dermot’s girlfriend. Of course she has a key.”
Laura doesn’t correct her. What would be the point?
Trina moved over to the couch and sat down. She looked very, very tired all of a sudden, her eyes pinched at the corners and her skin pale. “Oh,” was all she said.
“Yeah, so like I said, we have some stuff to talk about.” Rosie pulled up a kitchen chair and angled it across from the couch. “You sit here, Trina.” She gestured to the hard chair. “Let my pregnant friend sit down on the soft couch.”
Laura took a seat, and after Rosie grabbed a chair for herself, she started their little discussion group.
“So why are you taking my dead boyfriend’s laptop?” she asked Trina.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN TRINA
So much of this situation is surreal to Trina. She’d slept with so many men over the last several months, remembering few if any of their names, and then this one—this Dermot—stuck to her like a burr in the forest, rotting away as he clung to her. She couldn’t help hating Simon even more than she already did, because none of this would be happening if he had never stumbled his way into her life with his God complex and his drunken hubris.
Trina looked at Laura, and not for the first time she thought about just how very young she was. Her skin had the creamy, plump texture that only came with youth and that nobody appreciated until they were too old to have it anymore, although there were thin lines already forming around her mouth, probably from smoking.
That won’t be good for the baby, Trina thought automatically.
“They think I killed him,” Trina told the makeshift collection of women touched by Dermot’s life and death who’d gathered in his apartment. The guy must have passed out apartment keys like phone numbers. Something tracked as desperate to Trina in his willingness to open himself up so easily, but then again she wasn’t the best judge of vulnerability lately. Maybe that was just what people did now—normal people, that is.
“Did you?” Rosie stared her down. If it were any other circumstance, Trina would like her. As it stood, she found herself annoyed at the fresh bravado the petite brunette kept pushing out into the world.
“No, but somebody did,” Trina replied. “That’s why I need his laptop. I think he might have gotten himself in trouble with some bad people.”
“So what? You’re going to hack into his email and see if he was messaging criminals about stuff? What’s the likelihood of that? I mean, come on.” Rosie stood up and started doing something in the kitchen. She ran water from the sink, opened and shut a few drawers, and soon Trina heard the familiar sounds and smells of coffee brewing.
Rosie was right. Trina didn’t know how to hack an email account. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, or even if finding something could actually help get her out from under police suspicion. If they learned she broke into Dermot’s apartment, it might make them more focused on her.
She had an impulse to call Simon, and tell him to figure out what was wrong, which was pathetic. Trina hated herself a little bit for even considering it.
