Someone Is Watching (12 page)

“Targeted? What does that mean? That you think you knew your attacker?” he continues, answering his own question. “That you were raped by someone you know? Someone like me?”

“I never said that. In fact, I said just the opposite. That there was no way it could have been you, no way I wouldn’t have recognized you, even with a pillowcase over my head.”

“So you
did
mention my name.”

“Detective Marx asked about disgruntled ex-boyfriends.…”

“That’s what I am to you? A disgruntled ex-boyfriend?” Travis shakes his head, more in sadness than in anger. I can actually feel
the hurt in his eyes. “How do you think I felt when Heath told me what happened to you? I wanted to kill the bastard who hurt you, for God’s sake. I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands. And now I find out you think it was me?”

“But I don’t think it was you.”

“For God’s sake, Bailey. You know I’d never hurt you.”

“You hit me!” I hear myself shout, attracting Finn’s attention.

Finn lowers the phone from his ear, holds it against his chest. “Everything all right, Miss Carpenter?”

“Everything’s fine,” Travis answers before I can find my voice.

I nod, but my eyes urge Finn to stay vigilant.

Travis lowers his voice. “You think that because I lost my cool one time during the heat of the moment …”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Is there something about me that encourages violent behavior in men?

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that night. I was wasted. I was upset. I was wrong. Look. I’m not trying to make excuses for what happened. And I promise you that it will never,
ever
happen again. You need me to protect you, Bailey.”

“It’s over, Travis,” I say, as gently as I can.

“Please don’t say that.”

“It’s over.”

He shakes his head, blows a puff of invisible smoke into the air. “I didn’t rape you,” he says, after what feels like an eternity. The red circles have returned to his cheeks.

“I know.”

“Yeah, well, try telling it to that fucking detective.”

“I will.”

“You know what else you can do?” he asks, the little red circles glowing brighter, as if someone has lit a match beneath his skin. “You can go straight to hell.”

“Miss Carpenter?” I hear someone call, and look up to see Finn’s concerned face. Travis is gone. I have no idea how long I’ve been there. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I tell him, forcing myself toward the elevators. “Everything’s fine.”

I decide to go straight back to my apartment. My encounter with Travis has left me exhausted and confused. Am I wrong about Travis? Is it possible he could have raped me, that I wouldn’t have recognized him, or that he might have hired someone to do his dirty work, someone to convince me I needed his protection? I step inside the elevator, about to press the button for the twenty-third floor when I hear a man shout, “Hang on!” Before I have time to react, he squeezes between the closing doors, pressing the button for the eighteenth floor, then notices I have yet to enter my floor. “Where you headed?” He tosses the words over his shoulder without looking back, his fingers impatiently circling the various buttons. The man is in his mid-thirties, of average height and weight. He has long fingers, large hands. I picture those hands around my throat, feel those fingers pressing down on my windpipe.

My legs buckle, and I hug the wall for support. Perspiration coats my forehead and drips into my eyes, causing everything to blur. My mouth goes dry. My heart bounces against my chest like a rubber ball against a brick wall. I grow dizzy and light-headed. I can’t breathe.

I have to get off this elevator. I have to get off right now.

“Second floor,” I shout, pushing past him to press the button myself, then barreling through the doors even before they have fully opened.

“Have a nice day,” the man calls after me, his sarcasm pursuing me down the marbled hall.

I have no idea where I’m going. I run blindly, following the circular corridor as it twists past the spa, the pool, the massage room. Two men are walking down the hall toward me, both wearing thick white robes and flip-flops, one with a towel wrapped around his neck like a pet snake. The men are between twenty and forty and are of medium height and weight. They have deep voices with no discernible accents. One of them smiles as they draw closer. He smells of mouthwash, minty and crisp.

The carpet beneath my feet suddenly turns to quicksand, sucking me into its swirling muck. The walls around me start folding in and out, like an accordion. I struggle to stay upright. A faint cry escapes my lips, and I duck through the nearest door, find myself inside a windowless gray room—gray walls, gray carpet, gray equipment. I count five treadmills lined up side by side next to two elliptical machines, two rowing machines, and three stationary bicycles, all with tiny TVs attached, all positioned in front of a long mirrored wall that reflects the mirrored wall behind it. There are benches and free weights, various pulleys and other equipment whose purpose I don’t wish to imagine. Beside me is a water cooler, a plastic hamper, and a supply of small white towels piled high on a single shelf mounted on the wall, along with a spray bottle of Lysol, a jumbo-size roll of paper towels, and a large bottle of hand sanitizer. I note the presence of a surveillance camera mounted close to the ceiling in the far right corner of the room and wonder if anyone is watching. I stand by the door until I feel my breathing return to something approaching normal and I think I can move without fainting. But I don’t move. I just stand there.

“Hi,” a breathy voice calls from one of the elliptical machines.

I recognize the young woman as one of the girls I saw in the elevator earlier. She is bouncing rapidly up and down, back and
forth, arms and legs operating individually but in perfect coordination with one another. Her blond ponytail sways rhythmically behind her.

Her friend is on the second of the five treadmills. She is skipping and watching Judge Judy on her tiny TV. Judge Judy looks angry.

I stand by the door for several minutes, trying to decide what to do. I want to return to my condo, but that would be silly. Fate has succeeded in bringing me here to the second floor, to the gym. Fate wants me to exercise. It wants me to take back control of my life.

Get on the fucking treadmill, Fate is telling me.

I climb on the treadmill next to Judge Judy. “You’re an idiot,” she is shouting at some hapless young man cowering before her. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

I turn on my treadmill, feel it sputter to life beneath my feet, my body lurching forward as I try to adjust my pace. I move, slowly at first, then faster, picking up speed, eventually settling on three miles an hour. The girl on the treadmill beside me is going considerably faster and has started doing some frightening combination of skips and jumps, all without breaking a sweat. “Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”

She doesn’t break stride. “Nah. You get used to it.”

“Looks pretty scary.”

“Trust me. It’s not as scary as it looks.”

Do I tell her I trust no one? “Looks pretty scary,” I repeat instead.

“Not nearly as scary as Judge Judy.” She nods toward the television screen. “Now,
that’s
one scary lady.”

I watch Judge Judy shift her attention from the young man in front of her to his accuser. “And you, young lady,” Judge Judy is saying, her voice as lacerating as a whip, “what were you thinking, showing up at his apartment in the middle of the night?”

“I wanted to see him,” the girl whines.

“But he already told you he didn’t want to see you.”

“I know, but …”

“No buts,” Judge Judy shouts.

Who are these people?
I wonder, temporarily losing myself in their squabble. What are they doing on national television, airing their silly problems for everyone to witness? What happened to the desire for privacy, the very idea of it? Surely it is one thing to try to see ourselves as others see us and something else entirely to see ourselves
only
as others see us. What have we become that we achieve validation and credibility only through the eyes of others?

I turn away from the TV, shift my focus to the mirrored wall in front of me. I’m a hypocrite, I recognize. My whole career is predicated on the lack of privacy I was just condemning. What am I but a scavenger, constantly sifting through the detritus of other people’s lives, digging through their garbage, spying through their windows, on the lookout for their darkest secrets?

I call it “collecting facts.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” the girl on the treadmill is saying. She is turned toward me, her well-defined arms gripping the side bar of the machine as she lopes along sideways, a few delicate beads of perspiration sliding gracefully down her chest before disappearing into her cleavage. “I’m Kelly. Suite 1712.”

“Nice to meet you, Kelly.”

She points with her chin to the girl on the elliptical machine. “That’s Sabrina. She’s in 1019. You are …?”

“Oh, sorry. Bailey. Bailey Carpenter.”

Kelly waits a beat for me to reveal my suite number, as if my name is incomplete without it, then continues on when I don’t. “Don’t you just love living here? Isn’t it the best? We love living here.”

“I love living here,” I echo.

“So, what do you do?” she asks.

The unexpected question causes my knees to buckle, and I almost trip over my feet.

“Careful,” Kelly warns.

I lower my speed and manage to steady myself. “I’m kind of unemployed at the moment,” I tell her, a half-truth at best, something I’ve become very good at.

“Been there, done that.” She smiles reassuringly. “Trust me. Something will turn up.”

I admire her certainty. I still don’t trust her.

“I’m a bartender,” she tells me. “Sabrina, too. We work at Blast-Off, over on South Miami Avenue. You know it?”

Who in Miami doesn’t know Blast-Off? It’s a cavernous, industrial-looking dance club that boasts music so loud you feel as if your head is literally going to explode. I went there once with Travis and my brother. They claimed they wanted to see some famous DJ who was on the schedule for that night, but it turned out that the only person they were really interested in was their dealer, and when I found this out, I headed straight for the exit. Travis and I didn’t speak for two days. It was another two weeks before my ears stopped ringing. “It’s kind of noisy there.”

“You get used to it,” Kelly says. Clearly she is a woman who gets used to things. I wonder how she would adjust to being raped. “And the money’s terrific.”

“Maybe I should consider it,” I say, more to be polite than because the idea appeals to me. Even the thought of working in a club like Blast-Off sends fresh waves of anxiety shooting through my body.

Kelly’s eyes widen in obvious surprise. I check my reflection and immediately understand why. I am skeletal beneath my shapeless clothing, my arms protruding like bones from the short sleeves of my T-shirt.

Would you buy a drink from this woman?
I wonder.

“I’ve lost a bit of weight,” I start to say. But Kelly has already turned away from me and is now facing in the opposite direction, continuing to lope, oblivious to everything but her own exertions.

I watch her from behind, noting her long, toned legs inside her tight, black, knee-length leotards, my eyes tracing the faint outline of her thong, her high round backside, her slender waist and wide shoulders. She is unaware of my gaze. Or maybe she knows I’m looking but doesn’t care. She’s used to being watched. Something else she’s used to.

The door to the exercise room opens, and a man walks in. He
is in his mid-thirties, reasonably tall and slim, clean-shaven, with brown hair and dark eyes. He is wearing black nylon shorts and a matching T-shirt. His arms are strong but not overly muscular. All in all, not bad looking, although perhaps not quite as handsome as he thinks. I recognize him as someone who hit on me several times when I first moved into the building, although I can’t remember his name. “Ladies,” he says, looking from Kelly to Sabrina and then back to Kelly. He seems not to have noticed me at all, for which I’m grateful. “How’s everybody doing this afternoon?”

Sabrina smiles but says nothing.

Kelly doesn’t break stride. “Doing great.”

The man watches her for several seconds. “I’m David Trotter. Suite 1402.”

Kelly offers neither her name nor her suite number in return, a sure sign she’s not interested in continuing the conversation.

David doesn’t take the hint. “That’s quite the routine you’ve got going there. You a dancer?”

“No.”

“Exercise instructor?”

“Just like to work out.”

“Yeah? Me, too.” As if to prove his point, David moves toward the selection of free weights on the floor at the far end of the room. He picks up two thirty-pound weights and begins hoisting them up and down over his head. Immediately, his face turns beet red, and beads of sweat break out across his forehead. He stops after six repetitions, trying to catch his breath as he watches Kelly. “So, what
do
you do? Wait—don’t tell me. You’re a model.”

Kelly all but groans. “Bartender.”

“No kidding. Where?”

“Blast-Off.”

“Hey. One of my favorite clubs. You gonna be there tonight?”

An almost imperceptible nod.

“Maybe I’ll drop by.” David resumes hoisting the barbells above his head. “You haven’t told me your name.”

Kelly turns off her machine and jumps off. “Sabrina, you almost done?”

Sabrina pulls the wires out of her ears. “Two more minutes.”

Kelly grabs the bottle of Lysol from the shelf, spraying it into a paper towel that she uses to wipe down the treadmill.

“So, she’s Sabrina,” David says, refusing to give up. “And you’re …?”

“Kelly,” she tells him, managing to keep her voice pleasant. Our eyes connect in the mirror. Help me, her eyes plead.

“You think you’d let me buy you a drink, if I were to show up tonight?”

“Sorry, but we’re not allowed to drink on the job.”