Don't Look Back (17 page)

Anxious to know exactly what the box held, I drove to the hardware store as soon as I’d sent the email to Trevor.

I explained to the sales clerk that I’d lost the key to a heavy lock and I needed to get inside. Why would he doubt me, a young pregnant woman? He showed me to the bolt cutters and I bought one that I thought would work.

Driving straight home, I brought my new bolt cutters into the house, set the metal box on the kitchen counter and tried to cut the lock. After several tries, the lock snapped in two. Setting the bolt cutters on the counter, I pulled the pieces of the lock out of the metal loops and opened the lid.

Adrenaline pounded through my veins as I gazed at the money that reached the top of the box. I wanted to count it, but decided I should take it to my bedroom, just in case Marcus or anyone else stopped by. I closed the lid and carried the box up to my bedroom and set it on my bed. I ran back down to the kitchen to grab a notepad and pen, then went back up to my bedroom and began counting, writing numbers on the notepad as I grouped the money into stacks.

When I had finished, I carefully added the numbers I’d written down, then felt the blood drain from my face. Two-hundred thousand dollars. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t taken it. Trevor wanted this money and I didn’t know to what extremes he would go to get it back.

When he went to the GPS location and found the box was missing, he would probably suspect me right away. After all, I’d had the SD card, although he couldn’t be certain I’d found it. And the postmark on the package with the gym bag would be from Reno, so it would be evident that I had recently been in Reno.

He would absolutely freak out.

Crap! Maybe I should drive back and rebury the money. But Trevor will probably receive the package today. He’ll most likely go straight out to the burial spot. It’s too late!

Panic engulfed me as I thought of Trevor redoubling his efforts to find me.

What had I been thinking?!

I started to shake. It felt like my blood pressure had dropped and I thought I was going to pass out. Quickly shoving the money aside, I lay on the bed for several minutes, and finally the feeling passed. I stayed on the bed, pondering what to do.

I could confess everything to Marcus and beg him to stay with me. But that wouldn’t work. Not only did he have to go to work every day, but it wouldn’t be fair to drag him into my problems.

I could move. But that wouldn’t guarantee that Trevor wouldn’t find me wherever I ended up. Plus, I was making a life for myself here. I wasn’t ready to give that up yet.

Rubbing my closed eyes, I decided the only thing I could do was stash the money in my secret room and go on with my life. When I emailed Trevor about anything, I had to act as if I had no knowledge of the cash. I
could not
give myself away. And it was more imperative than ever that he not know where I was.

What effect was this going to have on Trevor granting the divorce? Would he move ahead, even though the money was gone? He couldn’t come right out and blame me. Then he would be admitting the money existed and if there was a chance I wasn’t the one who took it, he wouldn’t want me to know about it.

No, he wouldn’t have a good excuse to delay the divorce, since I’d held up my end of the bargain.

I pushed myself off of the bed, packed all the money back into the metal box, and took it into the secret room. Standing in the middle of the room, I looked around, trying to figure out the best place to hide the box. I set the metal box on the floor and then dug through some of the storage boxes to see if I could hide the metal box inside.

I finally decided on a storage box that had room and moved things around to make room on the bottom, then placed the metal box in a bottom corner. After moving the items in the storage box around, the metal box was completely hidden. I closed the lid, then set two other storage boxes on top, but it was as if I could still feel the money there, pulling at me, taunting me, warning me.

Though I now utterly regretted digging up the money, I knew I had to live with my decision and deal with the consequences that were sure to follow.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, I screamed in my mind as I crawled out of the hidden room and into the baby’s room.

Chapter Thirty

As the day went on and I focused on cleaning the house, doing some laundry, and running errands, I was able to release some of the worry that had built up inside me and I began to feel better. I believed I had the upper hand in the situation with Trevor because I knew exactly what was going on, whereas he would only be able to speculate.

As I put the last of the groceries into the cupboards, I wondered if Trevor had received the package yet, and when he would drive to the burial spot and try to dig up the metal box. I decided to check my email and see if he had sent anything. After a moment I was pulling up my email account. I saw an email from Trevor. As I clicked on it, my heart rate increased as I tried to guess what it would say.

Lily,

The package just arrived. Thank you for sending it. I will start the paperwork for the divorce in the morning.

Trevor

I let my breath out in a rush, not aware I’d been holding it. I hoped he would get the paperwork going before he discovered the money was missing. Although he probably wouldn’t suspect me right away.

Loud knocking on the door startled me and I let out a scream. I closed the email and walked to the door, looking through the peephole. It was Marcus. Taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, I opened the door.

“Marcus. Hi.”

“Hi, Kate. How was your trip?”

“How did you know I was back?”

He motioned over his shoulder. “I saw your car out front.”

“Oh, of course. Do you want to come in?”

“Sure.”

He followed me inside and we sat on the couch. Then I stood. “Let me get your GPS device for you.” I had set it on the kitchen counter when I’d gotten back from Reno. I went and got it and handed it to him.

“Thanks for letting me borrow it. It was really handy to have. I think I might end up getting one.”

“That was a pretty quick trip to Vegas,” Marcus said. “Isn’t it like an eight hour drive?”

“Uh, yeah,” I stammered. “I ended up not going there. I was partway there, but, uh, my friend called and said she had to, uh, she had a family emergency, so she had to cancel. So I turned around and came back home.”

“Oh. That’s too bad that you had to waste all that time and gas.”

“It’s okay. Sometimes it’s nice just to take a drive.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Marcus said.

“How’s work going?”

“Good. But I don’t want to talk about work.”

“Okay. What do you want  to talk about?”

Suddenly a big smile spread across his face. I smiled back, expecting him to share some good news, which I could use after the stress I’d been feeling.

“What’s up, Marcus?”

“Well,” he started. “Do you remember me telling you how I had recently broken up with my girlfriend?”

I remembered he had told me he’d had a girlfriend recently and that they had broken up. And with the little he’d told me, it had sounded like she had betrayed him in some way. “Yeah,” I said.

“Well, last night I ran in to her and we got to talking and we decided we were going to give our relationship one more try.”

I couldn’t believe he was telling me this. Had he already forgotten the kiss we’d shared? Had it meant nothing to him? I thought I was going to vomit. I tried to hide my feelings, but I wasn’t sure how successful I was. Hopefully he was too focused on his own happiness to notice my distress. “That’s great, Marcus. I’m so happy for you.” I paused. “What did you say her name was?”

“Marissa,” he said, his green eyes sparkling with his good news.

“So I guess I won’t be seeing much of you around here.”

“I can still help you with stuff. This won’t change our friendship, Kate.”

I forced a laugh. “Don’t you think Marissa might not like it if you spend time with me?”

He looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to get in the way of your relationship,” I said, while wondering what I could do to make sure he didn’t forget about me. He was the only real friend I’d made since I’d moved here and I didn’t want to lose that connection.

“You won’t.”

A thought occurred to me. “How does your mom feel about you getting back together with Marissa?”

Frowning, he said, “When I told her, she tried to talk me out of it. But she has to accept the fact that I’m a big boy and I can make my own decisions. In fact, now that I’ve got this job, I’ve been looking for an apartment so I can move out of my parents’ house.”

“Oh, well that would be good, I guess.” I didn’t like the idea of him not being right next door anymore. What if he moved to the next town?

“Yeah. I found a couple of places that I’m considering.”

I didn’t want to hear anymore of his news. It was all bad news for me. “Marcus, I have some things I have to do.”

“Oh, okay.” He stood.

I stood too and we walked to the door. “I hope everything works out for you.”

“Thanks, Kate. Take care.”

I locked the door behind him, then sat on the couch and put my face in my hands. Despair swept over me as I thought about the mess I’d made with Trevor, and now Marcus was going to be disappearing from my life. All of a sudden there didn’t seem to be such a rush to get the divorce. But I still wanted to move forward with it. Who knew what was around the corner?

Chapter Thirty-One

Over the next few weeks I didn’t hear from Marcus at all and Trevor was strangely quiet as well. I considered emailing Trevor to ask how the divorce was coming along, but didn’t do it because I actually wanted to avoid all contact with him. I was certain by now he had discovered the money was missing and I hoped that somehow, if he didn’t talk to me, that he wouldn’t even consider that I might be the one who had taken it.

Someone had finally bought Dad’s house and I had deposited the proceeds in my bank account. More than ever I wished I had never found the SD card. The money sitting in the hidden room just stressed me out.

I tried to push all thoughts of Trevor and Marcus to the back of my mind and instead focused on my job, the coming of the new school year, and especially focused on my growing baby. The baby was much more active now and I was looking forward to my ultrasound. It was scheduled for later that morning and I could hardly wait.

I kept myself busy until it was time to leave for the appointment, then drove to the place where the ultrasound would be performed. I was so excited to know what I was having. Even though my main concern was to just have a healthy baby, I really was hoping for a girl.

After a short wait I was taken into an exam room. The ultrasound technician squirted some gel onto my belly and moved the wand around. As I watched the image of my baby on the screen, I was amazed by the detail.

“Do you want to know the baby’s sex?” the technician asked.

“Yes,” I said with enthusiasm.

She moved the wand around again. “It looks like it’s a girl.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” I said, thrilled to know I would be having a daughter.

On my way home I stopped by the nearby mall and bought a few pink baby outfits. I could hardly wait for her to get here.

There were only two weeks until my classes were going to start at the college. I used that time to get the baby’s room finished; I knew once classes started my free time would be severely limited. I ordered a dresser and changing table online.

A few days later when I came home from work, there were two large packages on my front porch. They were too heavy for me to carry in and I knew there would probably be some assembly needed. Even though I hated to bother Marcus, I knew I would need his help to get the dresser and changing table into the baby’s room.

That evening I walked over to Marcus’ house and rang the doorbell. Trish answered and seemed surprised to see me.

“How are you, Kate? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’m doing fine. Keeping busy with working.”

“What can I help you with?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I was hoping Marcus could help me with a dresser and changing table I just had delivered.”

“Oh. I thought you knew. Marcus moved out.”

“No, I didn’t know. But the last time I talked to him he said he was looking for a place.”

“Perhaps Jeff can help you.”

“That would be wonderful, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’m sure he won’t mind. He should be home soon. I’ll send him over when he gets home.”

“No big hurry. Thanks, Trish.”

As I walked back to my house, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad knowing that Marcus had moved out. I wondered how much of him I would see. He’d gotten back together with Marissa and now he’d moved out. I probably wouldn’t see him at all.

A little while later Marcus’ dad came over and carried the furniture into the baby’s room and put the changing table together. When he was done I thanked him and walked him to the door.

I was glad to get the baby’s room done since I knew my time would be limited once classes started. I would still be working in the mornings and I was certain homework would take up my evenings.

Trevor had emailed me and said the divorce proceedings were under way. He had even scanned in documents and emailed them to me to prove he’d kept his word. I wondered if he suspected me in the missing money, but from the tone in his emails, it didn’t seem like it. He’d been friendly, which surprised me. Maybe he had changed.

Classes started and I was excited to immerse myself in learning. One of the classes was a web design class and I was particularly excited to create a web site.

As I went to my classes I kept to myself. I decided that the fewer people I spoke to, the lower the chance that Trevor would find me. The drawback to that though, was how lonely I felt. Now that Marcus was no longer part of my life, I didn’t really have any friends. I had hoped Billi and I could become friends, but when she was at the store she was either helping customers or working in her office. And my coworker, Maddy, worked afternoons, so I only saw her when she took over for me.