I’m pretty sure that the man from last night is the one who’d been seen in the truck Catalina had a picture of. It would be too much of a coincidence if he wasn’t. That would mean we had more than one predator in such close proximity and my mind wasn’t ready to deal with that. I didn’t say anything to Todd about my suspicions though, but waited until he left to go to daddy’s office like he usually does these days and headed for Catalina’s room to have a talk.
She was on her computer as usual when I walked in. “Whatcha doing kiddo?” I sat on her bed and patted the dog that is always by her side. “I thought daddy took your computer?”
“He did, but we had a talk yesterday and he agreed to give it back if I’m good because I can’t get most of my work done without it.”
Dang it. I can never got daddy to go back on a punishment that easily. “Is something wrong?” She opened the door and I walked right in even though I’d all but changed my mind after I got here. It had suddenly struck me as wrong to get my little sister any more involved in this mess than she’d already been.
But since she asked, I told her, and she told her friends who she was online with. Then she asked me the weirdest thing in the conversation so far. She asked me to describe the man. She repeated everything I said to her friends and half an hour later printed out an exact copy of what I remembered.
“What the…how did you do this?”
“Nia did it. Does it look like him?” I could only nod in stupefaction. It was like she’d been there and saw what I saw, spooky as heck. I ended up talking to her and her friends for a bit and realized how truly amazing her mind is by the questions she asked.
I left her bedroom and headed downstairs in the hopes that daddy would release my boyfriend sometime soon, but they were locked away in there for hours, which left room for mom to ask me all about the prom.
I realized then that I had never really lied to my parents and found that odd for a teenager. I lied to her today though and felt like crap when she bought my story of how fun the prom was. Still, in my heart it was better than telling her the truth and watching her freak out.
She’d probably feel guilty because she’d pushed so hard for me to go and she didn’t deserve to live with that. My grandparents came over just after noon so grandmas Tina and Elena could help with Sunday dinner which was usually shared with the whole extended family, and I had to tell the lie again.
When the men finally left the office I asked daddy about it, quietly of course. He understood how I felt and even praised me for being the kind of kid who didn’t like lying to my mom, but he asked me not to tell her about what happened the night before, and said that he’d find a way to tell her about it later down the road.
All through dinner I couldn’t wait for it to be over. It’s the first time I’ve been in such a hurry, since I don’t usually have much to do after dinner until it was time to Facetime Todd. Now I couldn’t wait to go for our evening drive.
I thought for sure someone would pick up on my nervousness but I was able to hide that very well too. Even Catalina seemed too preoccupied to stick her nose in, and thinking of her only reminded me of poor Leslie who I waited until Todd and I were alone in my car to bring up.
“She’s back home with her family. She doesn’t remember anything about the night before. Her last memory before waking up in the hospital is of going to the hotel bathroom. She does remember being served a Shirley Temple by the bartender but she doesn’t remember if she left the drink unattended at some point or if it had been served to her with the drug already inside.”
“That’s awful, what…”
“Caitlin, I’m only discussing this with you because you were there, you saw. But that’s as far as your involvement goes.”
“How can you say that? Do you want me to just pretend that I don’t know what happened?”
“No, but I already told you before, you’re not to go anywhere near this shit and I mean it.” That quickly I wanted to bash him in the head. Why can’t he see that I don’t want to live my life like that? Shut away from everything like a wounded bird who needs to be protected from the world?