Tabula Rasa (21 page)

But that wasn’t a problem. After reattaching the shower head,
Shannon held me strongly against him while he fucked me, finally
seeking his own release. When he pulled out of me, he shut the water
off and I slid to the floor of the shower, no longer trusting my
legs, or even my voice.

Shannon got, toweled off, and went back into the bedroom to change. I
stayed where I was like this for several minutes—leaning my head
against the tile, willing my legs to support me when I stood.

He’d left a second towel for me next to the sink, and I secured it
around myself. It was an extra large fluffy towel probably meant for
someone much larger than me. I loved the quiet luxury of Shannon’s
towels, the way they wrapped me up like a cloud on a warm sunny day.

When I finally emerged from the bathroom, the towel wrapped firmly
around me, both Shannon and his bags were gone. I went out into the
hallway to find the white cat bitching at me because she always
blamed me for everything as if every aspect of her little furry
existence had gone horribly wrong the second I crossed the threshold
into Shannon’s life.

There was no sign of him downstairs, either. I made my way back to
the main part of the first floor. He wasn’t in the kitchen. I
glanced at the front door to find the security system armed, the red
light blinking. I ran to the door and peered out the window to find
the tail lights of Shannon’s shiny black Cadillac disappearing
around the corner.

I heard the faint sound of a cell phone ringing on the second floor.
I took the stairs two at a time to get to Shannon’s room. The phone
rang from a pair of pants draped over the dresser. I dug through the
pockets and found the red phone—the one he used with his
family—shrieking incessantly at me.

“Shannon?” I said, hoping it was him. He hadn’t even said
goodbye. Why hadn’t he said goodbye?
Because you don’t matter.
Nobody matters to him. Look at his non-response to what happened to
you?

“It’s Millie, dear. Is Shannon around?”

I pulled back and just gaped at the phone for a moment. Was she
serious? Why would I say
Shannon
into the phone if he was with
me?

“I’m sorry, he just stepped out,” I said, biting back all the
sarcasm that wanted to come spilling from my mouth. None of this was
Millie’s fault.

“Oh, Elodie, I wanted to tell you... those green beans I sent home
with you, you want to add a little bit of sugar and a little bit of
olive oil to them and then cover them and let them boil almost down
to no liquid. Leave a little bit in there, but not much. It’ll make
the flavors kick more, like Shannon likes them.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Do you know when he’ll be back?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. Do you want me to have him call you?”

“Yes, thank you, dear.”

I disconnected the call and sat on the edge of the bed wondering if I
should do what I really wanted to do next. I knew the number for
Shannon’s most recent burner phone. I’d been nosy and snooping,
and he’d left it out. I don’t even know why I searched the
phone’s information and wrote down the number. I probably would
have never done it before I was reasonably confident he wouldn’t
kill me. It was telling that instead of using the burner to call for
help
, I used it to find out what number I could reach him at.
Of course, Shannon had been in the house at the time, and I’d only
had a few moments to scribble down the number—not long enough to
communicate with the police even if I’d wanted to.

Despite my better judgment, I dialed the number.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” I said.

“Are you calling from my other phone?”

“Yes.”

“How do you have this number? More importantly,
why
are you
calling this number? Do you realize I now have to get rid of that
phone, too, and get a whole new
permanent
number for my
mother? She’ll ask endless questions about why I have a new number.
I’m going to have to ditch this phone and get another one. When we
hang up, take the battery out of that one.”

“Your mother wants you to call her,” I blurted.

“Of course she does. Was that all you wanted?”

“A-are you mad at me?” I felt like an insecure schoolgirl asking
that, but what else was I supposed to think? He’d gone so cold and
distant. I tried to shake that thought out of my head. He’d been
cold and distant from day one. This was all just my own weirdness
about us sleeping together and then him leaving like this without
saying goodbye. It was hard to know how to behave when a sexual
relationship was new, even under the best circumstances. And I had no
idea how the script worked with Shannon. Maybe he was already
regretting moving things to this level. Maybe he thought I was going
to be nothing but drama. He was probably already rethinking whatever
spark of feeling he’d thought I’d inspired in him.

Maybe now that he knew what had happened with my Professor, he saw me
as
tainted
somehow and didn’t want me anymore. That last
thought felt too true, and I quickly pushed it away. I hadn’t
sensed any of the ugly weight in Shannon’s words compared to
Professor Stevens’, but maybe I was only hearing and seeing what I
wanted and needed to hear and see to survive.

“Why would I be mad?” He sounded genuinely confused. “Did you
do something for me to be mad about? Besides calling from that
phone?”

“No. Why did you leave so fast? You locked me in. What if I need
something?”

He’d always locked me in, but it was never for very long. Not like
this.

“I told you. I have a job. I’m running late. I’ll talk to you
when I get home in a few days. Remove the battery and do not use that
phone again.”

“Why am I removing the battery?”

“So no one can triangulate the signal.”

“But why would they do that? Who would do that? Is somebody after
you?”

“No. Not that I know of. These are just basic precautions. This is
a normal part of my world you need to get used to.”

“But...”

Shannon sighed. “Elodie, just do what I say.”

“But what if I need something?”

“For God’s sake, the house is stocked with everything you need to
survive without me for a few days. You spent months in an abandoned
theme park with one other psycho and no access to the civilized
world, and you survived that just fine.”

Rationally, I knew he was right. I was actually sitting there
panicking, worrying some unforeseen emergency would happen and how
would I get medical care? I’d lived for months in a world where
hospitals weren’t even an option, and yet this was my first worry
locked up in Shannon’s clean, well-stocked house? I had a quick
flash, wondering what Trevor would have done with me if I’d had a
medical emergency. Probably let me die, but then I remembered he was
a doctor and likely could have handled most things.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I don’t know. You’re mad!”

“I’m not mad. Goodbye.”

“Bye.” But I’d already heard the connection go dead before I
said it.

As soon as I hung up, I did what he’d asked. No matter how paranoid
I thought his caution was. Though maybe it wasn’t over the top. He
did
kill people for a living. One didn’t exactly want to
leave a trail of bread crumbs behind them while doing that. I wasn’t
sure there was any level of paranoia that was too much under those
conditions.

I stared at the phone sitting on the bed with its guts spilled out.
At least his mother couldn’t call back again. I didn’t want to
have to start coming up with excuses for why Shannon wasn’t there
to take her call. I didn’t know what he’d told her as his cover
story for what he did now, and if she thought he traveled for
business. Maybe she thought he worked in an office somewhere now.

As I stared at the phone, I finally realized what I had. A link to
the outside world and plenty of time to utilize it. I could call for
help. I could get away from Shannon if I really wanted to. The
trouble was, I didn’t want to.

And while I still didn’t want to deal with the police and a million
questions, the idea of such a thing didn’t seem as traumatic with
my memories back in their proper storage lockers in my brain. I
just... didn’t want to go. Shannon’s house was a clean, safe
cocoon from which I wasn’t ready to emerge—even if Shannon’s
emotional range left something to be desired.

I crossed to the balcony and, without thinking, opened the door and
stepped outside. Winter in southern Georgia was pretty mild, unless
this year was a fluke. I didn’t know. It was my first Georgia
winter. I actually stood for a good five minutes breathing in the
crisp morning air before it suddenly occurred to me that Shannon
hadn’t armed the balcony door. The main door, the back door, and
every single window was always armed, but almost never the balcony
door. Shannon liked to go out there a lot and didn’t want to bother
inputting the code to get in and out each time.

I wondered if he’d forgotten about it in his rush out the door.
Surely he normally armed it when he’d left me in the house all
those times. But today, for whatever reason, it was unarmed. The
wheels in my head started turning. Was this a test? It had to be a
test.
Or he doesn’t want you. He’s dismissing you from his
life, you little idiot. If you don’t leave while you have the
chance, he might just kill you and dump your body off with his buddy
at the crematorium when he gets back.

I know people can make mistakes, but Shannon... Shannon was the most
precise person I’d ever met. He had a system for everything. He had
a protocol for everything. He covered every single track he left no
matter how minor or discreet. Shannon didn’t
do
mistakes
like this. If he did, he’d be sitting in a prison cell right now.

All I could conclude from this was that he’d purposefully left me a
phone and an exit. The insecure schoolgirl part of me thought he was
tired of me, done with me, and instead of tying up the loose end,
he’d decided to give me a chance and let me go while he wasn’t
looking. But then... the way he’d looked at me, even this morning.
It was impossible to think something that intense could fade so
quickly to casual disinterest.

Or at least this was what I told myself. Maybe fucking me after
knowing ugly parts of my history was somehow less satisfying to him.
He’d left so quickly afterward. What did that even mean? What else
could it mean but that he’d wanted to get away from me?

But despite my negative inner monologue, I knew he wouldn’t release
somebody who could destroy his neat, minimalist life. And I didn’t
think Shannon could even pretend to be the noble type who would let
me go because it was the
right thing to do
. Shannon didn’t
give a shit about the
right thing
beyond the basic desire to
keep his life as uncomplicated as possible. If someone or something
got in his way, I was sure he would take care of it, and there were
few if any laws or appeals to reason and morals that would sway him.
He may not have killed an innocent
yet
, but that didn’t mean
he wouldn’t or couldn’t. If I pushed beyond my fears and
insecurity, I just didn’t believe he intended to let me go.

So that only left one option. It was a test. He wanted to see what I
would do with the temptation of freedom. Would I try to escape? Fuck
no, I wouldn’t. Even if I hadn’t grown stupidly attached to this
man, no way in hell would I run. I had no doubts that Shannon could
track me anywhere. He’d built that dossier on me, after all. And it
hadn’t seemed too difficult for him to map out my whole existence.
The news stories were months ago. I had no idea how he’d managed to
piece it all together so quickly and easily, but clearly he had.

Before my memories had started coming back, I could have said that
he’d simply invented much of the dossier, but that was no longer
true. And either way, he couldn’t invent my fluency in French. I’d
planned to move to Paris before the accident had landed me in the
hospital under Trevor’s care. I’d decided there was no future for
me left here, and not enough people I cared about to warrant my
staying. I’d known Trevor was dangerous. And I’d had the money to
get far enough away from him that he would no longer be a threat. I
did
have friends in France.

I’d wanted a new start. I just made the mistake of telling Trevor
that. It had slipped out because I couldn’t resist the urge to let
him know just how little control he had over me or my life. He’d
manufactured this story in his head about how our life would go, how
we’d get married and live happily ever after—us against the
world. It hadn’t initially occurred to him that I actually could
escape him, that I had the means and ability to be free. I didn’t
need him.

He’d flown into a rage and actually got into a car chase with me
like right out of some cheesy movie. How smug he must have been when
I woke in the hospital for that brief moment without a single memory
in my head, with no way to know I’d wanted to leave him and the
country. Now I could again. Technically.

But all those plans were from my life before. While the idea of Paris
still sounded nice in theory, I didn’t want to leave Shannon. And
if I ran away, I’d no doubt make some amateur move, and he’d see
it in plenty of time. And even if he didn’t, he would find me. He
probably already suspected I’d go to Paris based on what he’d
learned about me. And unlike Trevor, Shannon had the means and
ability to follow me and drag me back. Realizing all this should have
disturbed me. But for whatever fucked-up reason, it didn’t. The
only thing that bothered me was the continued nagging fear that he
might not want me anymore.

There was a fine sheen of frost on the ground. It glittered like
starlight under the weak rays of the sun. I leaned over the balcony
railing. There was a trellis I could climb down. A fucking trellis.
Like he’d set it all up for me. I went back inside before I froze
to death. Winters in Georgia might be mild, but I was only wearing a
towel, and my hair was still wet. I didn’t want to tempt fate.