Probably nothing. I’d have been working some event he was attending and he would have overlooked me completely. That sobering thought was enough to make me lift eyes I hadn’t realized I’d closed and push away from the door.
Yesterday had been an aberration, a hiccup, a weird little detour I’d one day tell my two sons and daughter about over Sunday dinner.
But it was over now, and it was time for me to get back to my life, back to building the dream fund, back to my real life.
Moving deeper into the house, I flipped on a lamp, noticing for the first time how quiet it was, how unlike Tiffany, who had been noisy the entire time I’d known her.
I stopped short in the hallway, a chill coming over me.
It wasn’t so much that Tiffany chose not to be quiet; she just couldn’t be. It wasn’t in her nature, but our entire house was still, silent in a way so unlike her that were it not for the items inside, things that I knew belonged to us, I wouldn’t have believed it was our home.
My heart was racing now, but my lungs were tight and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I started moving again, though, talking to myself with each step.
She’d had a busy night, so maybe she’d gone to bed early. Or maybe she’d been worried and decided to take a walk around the block to clear her head.
Either option was plausible, especially if I ignored the fact that both of us were night owls, a side effect of our crazy hours. Or if I ignored the fact that Tiffany would rather take a five-minute drive than a two-minute walk.
Still, I ignored all the things I knew about her and clung to those options because the others, those tantalizing whispers of suspicion and worry that grew ever louder with each step I took, were ones I couldn’t believe.
“Tiff?” I called out in the thick silence.
There was no response.
I’d reached her bedroom door, and for a moment I stood, not moving, not breathing, just waiting, hoping for movement, for sound, anything.
There was nothing.
The fear I’d felt last night was nothing compared to how I felt now, and as I reached up and turned her doorknob, I felt almost outside of myself, like I was watching a movie, because this couldn’t be happening. Not to Tiffany.
I pushed the door, the creak of the hinges loud enough to be deafening, but the deafening noise was nothing in the face of the shock that had me rooted to my spot. Shock that grew in my mind, deepened as I peered into the room, and seemed to expand inside me and fill my chest. Shock that twisted into a scream, the physical weight of which was too much to keep inside.
My lips fell open, and my facial muscles twisted and pulled tight as my body went through all the motions of a scream.
But the only sound that came out of my mouth was a low, broken whimper.
Thirteen
Milan
“So you want to try this again?” Detective Whatshisname said.
I looked at his face through the tears that clouded my eyes, and in it I saw no sympathy, no pity. No remorse.
If anything, he was gleeful.
Not able to bear that expression or his scrutiny, I turned my head, face pressed against the disgusting padded wall of the small room I’d thought I’d never see again.
Less than three hours after I’d left, I was back. Back and completely different, so different that I didn’t even want to bang my head against it. I didn’t have the energy to do that, didn’t have the energy to do anything but push the air out of my lungs and bring more in. That and fight to block out the memory of what I’d seen in Tiffany’s bedroom, the reality of what it meant.
“Milan!” the detective yelled. When I didn’t look at him, he slammed his fist on the table.
That sound, the slap of his meaty hand against the metal table reverberated through the room, loud enough to sound painful, loud enough I probably should have jumped.
I only moved enough to again look into his face.
“Good,” he said. “I have your attention.”
He didn’t. He might as well have been miles away for all the attention I was giving him. Except, maybe I had made a mistake. I hadn’t touched her, hadn’t dared, so maybe…
“Is she—”
“Milan, you know the answer to that question,” he said, cutting me off before I could finish.
I did know the answer. Because no matter how I hoped, wished it wasn’t true, I knew it was.
Though I hadn’t touched her, I had seen her, still saw her now, her body as it always was, her face soft as if she was asleep. Her eyes, before so full of joy, now lifeless, proof that the Tiffany I had known, my very best friend, was gone.
“Tiffany’s dead, Milan,” the detective said needlessly. “Any clue as to who killed her?”
I looked at the detective then and focused on the pit of anger that flared in my stomach. I’d take whatever I could if it meant I didn’t have to think about Tiffany like I’d last seen her.