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But there was another side to the rusty shit-covered coin. One that glittered with a substance I couldn’t quite name yet. Something undiscovered until now. It was a side that intrigued me in a way I’d never felt before. Which, considering I never really felt anything before, had to mean something.
Why do I want him back here?
It scared me, blocking any kind of relief that I’d been expecting. I couldn’t understand why I felt such a draw toward the detective, even though he clearly thought I was some kind of weird panty-sniffing troll.
I closed my eyes, rubbed the bridge of my nose. This was bad.
Hazel. I had to call her. Had to do it before Rocky did.
I ran to my bedroom, the pink underwear practically shouting at me as I entered. I ignored it and snatched my phone off the dresser.
“Hey, Sam.”
“Hazel, where are you right now?”
“At work. I can only talk for like three minutes.”
“We’re going to need way more than that.” I looked at the underwear, my stomach churning. “Tell your boss I’m having an emergency. You’ve got to come home.”
Thankfully, Hazel’s boss was one of the most considerate human beings to have ever walked this planet.
Sure enough, Hazel texted me three minutes after we had hung up saying that she was on her way.
It took her another fifteen to get home. In that time, I paced something that could only be described as crop circles into the tan living room carpet. So many different emotions were colliding inside me, the two main ones being anxiety and dread. But there were others, too. There was a calm assurance in thinking that Hazel would never believe I’d do something like that. I’d feel brief waves of peace, knowing that it would all get figured out in the end. And then I’d feel a sharp pang of excitement, imagining the stern-looking detective, with those ice-storm eyes of his, apologizing to me. I pictured him saying sorry and that he should have chased after Jesse from the start.
Because I know it’s him. It has to be him.
The excitement I felt picturing the apology would then morph, shaping into something else, something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. All I knew was that it made my body temperature shoot up about twenty-five degrees. It made me lick my lips without thinking, and had me feeling an ignition at the base of my spine.
So yeah, I was going through a torrent of emotions by the time Hazel walked in through the door, her expression a mix of worry and confusion.
“What happened?”
I dove headfirst into the explanation, starting from the underwear and working my way down to the detective knocking on the door. Hazel stood there, her face shifting but only barely, her lips turned down into a disbelieving frown.
Was she not believing me?
“Where’s Jesse now?” she asked, looking around the apartment.
“No idea. He just stormed out.”
“Can I see? Your bedroom?”
“Of course.” I walked with Hazel to my room. She stepped in first. Her gasp was immediate.
“And the rest are under the mattress.” I felt terrible. Hazel must have felt so violated.
She lifted up the mattress. “Jesus.” Dropped it back down. She turned to me, her eyes wide, her mouth open.
“You believe me, right? I didn’t do this.”
For a fraction of a second, I thought her answer was going to be no. Instead, she nodded, offering a weak smile. “Of course I believe you, Sam. I know Jesse has to be behind this.” She ran a hand through her wavy brown hair, the thick locks glistening like they were straight out of a shampoo commercial. “I’ll talk to the detective. I’ll tell him he has to focus on Jesse. The creep must have heard you two talking and ran into your room to dump these in here. Hell, I’m sure if we search his room right now, we’d probably find the rest.”
I straightened my back. “So why don’t we?”
“What? Search his room?” Hazel waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I don’t want to give him any more reasons to hate us. What if he finds out?”
“How’s he going to find out?” I didn’t give Hazel a chance to answer. “Just stay here. I’m going to take a look. We all pay rent, don’t we?”
She cocked her head and gave me a “this is such a dumb idea” look, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I felt like I had a solid chance of finding evidence that Jesse was the sick perve behind the thefts. I grabbed my phone and started to record, wanting to get every step on camera, from me walking out the bedroom and across the hall to Jesse’s closed door. He never locked it. Most of the time he barely even closed it. I reached for the doorknob and turned, immediately finding resistance.
