Blackbird by Anna Carey Read Free Book Online Page B

there. It was all . . . staged.”
    “Right . . . you were set up. . . . Okay. . . .”
    “Please . . . I don’t need the judgment, Mr. I-Sell-Pot-in-Supermarket-Bathrooms. It’s the truth. And now this man, some guy I’ve never seen before, is following me.”
    Ben glances behind him, out the restaurant’s front windows. “He followed you here?”
    “I’m not stupid,” you repeat his words. “I lost him. I’m sure, otherwise I wouldn’t havecalled you.” You’ve been puzzling it out, and your best guess is that the man started following you after you went to the office, that he trailed you from downtown to Hollywood, where he saw you at the diner. After that, you’re not sure. You thought you lost him at the record store, but what if he was there all along, following at a distance? Is that how he found you near the bus station?
    Ben pulls the salt and pepper shakers from the side of the table, sliding them back and forth between his hands. “Where are you staying now?”
    “Some motel.”
    His nose is sunburned. A dusting of freckles covers his cheeks. In his hooded sweatshirt he looks younger than you, which makes his tense expression a bit funny, like a kid trying to play grown-up. “If you’re not careful they’re going to find you,” he finally says.
    “Who?” Just the word they makes you think of the woman with the gun, the man in the silver car.
    “The police . . .”
    “They haven’t found me yet.”
    You glance around, making sure no one heard what he said, what you said. A pop song blasts from a speaker in the ceiling. You suddenly regret inviting him here, wishing you could have just fallen back to sleep in the motel room.
    “I didn’t do anything,” you say.
    “I didn’t say you did . . . but why do I feel like you’re not telling me the whole story? Is your name even Sunny?”
    You pause before answering and it gives you away. He lets out this low, rattling breath, his forehead falling to his hands.
    “I would tell you the truth if I knew what that was,” you say. “But I don’t.”
    “You don’t know your name?”
    “No. And I don’t know the man who was following me, and I don’t know why.”
    A man walks through the front door and you fall back against the seat, your hand jumping to the side of your face to hide your profile. He has thinning brown hair and a white button-down shirt. You watch the back of his head, waiting for him to turn, but when he does he has a beard and mustache. It isn’t him.
    “What’s wrong?” Ben asks.
    Your breaths are too short to reply. You don’t realize your hands are shaking until Ben’s staring at them, watching your fingers fold around one another, pressing down into the table to steady them.
    “This guy . . . you’ve never seen him before the other day?”
    “That’s what I’m trying to tell you—I don’t know. I don’t remember anything from before afew days ago.” Ben knows there’s more, you can tell from the way he grabs the shakers again, sliding them back and forth, back and forth. The waitress comes over and he shakes his head, telling her no, he won’t get anything.
    “So you’re just going back to that motel?” he asks after a long pause. “You’re just going to wait there until he finds you again? Or the police find you? What about your family? There must be someone looking for you.”
    You think again of the memory, the funeral, the few silhouettes in the front pews. Was that real? How can you be sure? “I’m going to try to get to the truth . . . I just haven’t figured out how.”
    “What if this guy comes back?”
    You shrug. You’re not afraid of the man anymore, not really, but how can you say the truth out loud? That after setting you up, after following you, he saved your life. That a woman was trying to kill you, and for some reason he killed her . “Like I said . . . I haven’t figured it all out yet. Or any of it, really.”
    You stand to go, dropping some cash on