Chapter 6
I didn't look in the rearview until I hit the highway.
Headlights filled the mirror two car lengths back. Daniel's old Audi. He kept exact distance, no closer, no farther. I knew his driving. He wouldn't run a yellow. He wouldn't speed. He made being followed feel polite.
My dress rode up where it caught on the seatbelt. Red satin against the gray seat. I tugged it down with one hand and kept the other on the wheel. The city slid by in wet streaks. Valentine's night and every restaurant we passed was full, every window warm.
I'd said it in the car before we went up. That was why I'd said it.
"Don't embarrass me, my boss is joining us."
It wasn't just dinner. My review was at nine in the morning. Final round. Senior account lead. I'd been at the firm three years, and this was the first time they'd put my name on the slide for the foundation account. My boss had told me Tuesday in his office, door half closed, "Let's keep it low-key tomorrow night, celebrate early if Thursday goes right." He'd meant the dinner as cover. A good word before the committee met. I had spent a week picking that dress because I wanted to look like someone who already had the job.
Daniel had asked me that morning if he should come. I said yes before I thought about it. I thought if he came and was normal, it would prove we were stable. Stable people got promoted.
On the highway, the downtown tower came into view. Twenty-four floors, glass and steel, lit even at night. I'd always thought it looked like a lantern from the freeway. Now it looked like a place I shouldn't be going in a wrap dress at ten p.m.
The last time Daniel had been anywhere near that building was the foundation gala last month. I remembered it in pieces as I drove, the way you do when you're trying not to stare at the headlights behind you.
They'd held it in the ballroom on eighteen. I'd gotten us two seats through work. Daniel wore his suit, the same one he wore tonight. He sat at the end of our table while my boss and the partners talked about the endowment, and no one asked him what he did. At the bar, he tried to tell a story about a client house he did tile for, and my boss nodded and turned back to a donor. I watched Daniel's hand tighten around his glass. Gold watch catching the light. Neck tattoo showing above his collar. He didn't say anything on the drive home. He didn't have to. For a week after, he left his boots by the front door instead of the closet, like he wanted me to trip on them.
At the stoplight by the off-ramp, I checked my phone mounted on the dash. No new messages. The lobby guard's name popped in my head without me calling it — Marcus — third shift, always had the keycard reader on his desk and a thermos with a dent. After hours you had to buzz and badge. I had my badge in my clutch, which was on the passenger seat, which still had Daniel's folded napkin from the restaurant where he'd set it down before we left.
The light turned green. Daniel turned when I turned.
That's when it clicked, not all at once but in a clean line.
He hadn't picked a fight at home where I could ask him to leave. He'd picked the restaurant, with my boss holding roses at chest height, because there would be a witness who signed my paycheck. And he'd picked tonight, with a sealed envelope already waiting at a front desk that doesn't open until morning unless you come beg for it after hours. He'd given me a deadline that wasn't his. Nine a.m. The committee. The promotion.
He used pressure I couldn't walk away from to make sure I'd open it.
My hands went cold on the wheel. I didn't cry. I breathed through my nose and counted exits.
Downtown was quiet for Valentine's. A few couples on the sidewalk, a bus sighing at a stop. I pulled into the tower's parking garage entrance and took a ticket. In the mirror, Daniel pulled in right behind me and took his own ticket. The arm lifted for me, then for him.
I parked on P1 under the fluorescents, near the elevator lobby. I cut the engine and sat a second. In the side mirror, Daniel's Audi rolled into the space directly behind mine, not beside me. He left his headlights on for a beat too long, then cut them. He didn't get out until I did.
I stepped out, clutch under my arm, heels loud on concrete. The air smelled like exhaust and wet cement. Daniel got out and closed his door softly. He kept the distance of the highway — two lengths now become ten feet.
"You don't have to go up," he said.
It was the first thing either of us had said since the restaurant lobby.
"I do," I said.
He nodded once, like he'd expected that answer. He slipped his hands in his pockets. The suit jacket pulled at his shoulders.
We walked to the after-hours entrance together but not together. The glass doors reflected us both — red dress, dark suit — like we were still at the table. I pressed the intercom.
Marcus's voice came through, tired. "Tower front desk."
"It's Maya from Fourteen," I said. "I have an envelope holding for me. I need to pick it up tonight."
May you like
A pause. Then the buzz, loud and flat. The lock clicked.
Daniel held the door for me. I went through first. He followed, and the door closed behind us both.
