Page 6 of Dark Ugly Places

My right temple thumps, and I know I have only a few minutes until I’ll need an Imitrex. I try to imagine the blue sky and palm trees overhead, like Dr. Constance tells me to, but today it doesn’t work. Instead, the images of the accident play over and over like a reel in my mind. My chest constricts. Things start to blur.

“Nubia, can I borrow your key card?”

She gives me a once-over. “It’s only ten. Are you okay?”

I nod and give a weak smile. She’s starting to catch on. Usually, I can make it through the morning and wait until lunchtime before a panic attack sets in, but not today. “I just need some air,” I say, raising my eyebrows.

She silently hands me her key card. We have an understanding now. She knows I’ll return in a few minutes, and I won’t do anything stupid. Shannon glances my way, taking notice, but says nothing.

Back in the elevator, I swipe the key card for the eleventh floor and hold my breath, heart racing. My feet feel like liquid in my shoes, and the back of my neck is cold with sweat.

Breathe.

Breathe.

The elevator stops abruptly at the ninth floor. My nerves prickle, and I inhale a tight breath as the doors slide open. I flatten myself against the wall, unable to speak.

I feel him before I see him. His presence. Sunglasses and a tight jean jacket. The scent of musk and peppermint. He’s shorter in person and not quite as attractive as he is on the screen. A sandy waft of hair, a clean jawline covered in dark stubble, a glimpse of a wedding ring. Jason Redfern.

He stands squarely in the center of the elevator and pulls out his phone. I realize I’m part of the background to him and invisible for now.

The elevator pauses, waiting for him to swipe his room card for the eleventh floor. “Going up?” I ask, the burn of panic taking hold, the key card slippery in my fingers.

He looks up and around with surprise. “Yeah. Eleven.”

I re-swipe my key card and push the button once more. The doors close, eerily slow, and the elevator ascends. He finishes typing something into his phone and re-pockets it, suddenly aware of me, the other person in the narrow, little box.

“You’re going to the Garden?” he asks, a note of confusion in his voice that I could possibly be headed to the exclusive rooftop membership club on our Club Level floor. It has the best views in the city and is frequented by a wealthy and famous clientele.

“Yeah,” I answer, my heart racing.

I need air. Fresh air. And sky. Natural light. In the tiny space of the elevator, all I can feel is an inner darkness taking hold.

He takes me in then. “You work here?”

Two quick breaths. It’s as though the air is gone from the elevator entirely. “Yes. Reservations.”

He turns to me, and for a reason I cannot place, the slow burn of my panic starts to rise.

I wipe my palms on my trousers and stare at the floor. “I really need to get out.”

The elevator jolts to a stop, but the doors don’t open.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just—I can’t breathe,” I reply, my mouth going dry, my armpits sticking.

My face flushes hot. I long to escape into the fresh air, the quiet corner of the Garden with the little patch of green that seems to exist nowhere else in the city. I long to breathe …

The panic attacks got worse when I started working in the windowless room of the Reservations Department. Dr. Constance says it presented too much of a contrast with my prior role at Regency PR, as if my entire life wasn’t one big ball of contrast now.

My second day, it was so bad that Nubia grabbed my hand and led me up to the eleventh floor herself. She stood with me against the cool glass railing that overlooked the Beverly Hills Triangle and Wilshire, with views of the entire city. “It’s okay,” she calmed me. “My sister gets these sometimes.” Then she showed me her white key card. “You can have this when you need it,” she told me, her voice low. “All you have to do is ask.”

I feel my legs buckle and give out. In seconds, I’m on the floor of the elevator. Jason Redfern mutters something under his breath that sounds like a string of curses and starts hitting various buttons on the elevator panel. Nothing happens.

That’s when I clock it.

Shoes. Black and heavy.