How would I even go about paying her? I have a couple of thousand dollars in my personal account, but I doubt that’s going to cover it. And I don’t have direct access to the foundation’s money.
I wish I could talk to my dad about it, ask his advice, but they’re still at the beach house and the last thing they, or any of us need, is for me to call them with this problem during their first getaway in years. Plus, he’ll be aghast that I’m even considering doing it and think I’m a fool and a failure and all those other, similar things he thinks of me, but never quite comes out and says. My parents don’t openly blame me for what happened to Ariel on my watch. But they do blame me for it. And I deserve it.
So when she walked back in to the sound of the shrill chime two hours later on the dot, I still had no answer for her.
She came into the office this time and sat in the same chair Chance occupied on Friday while I made us both coffee.
“So, you’ve decided?” she asks while the robot coffee maker is still whirring.
I turn to her, trying to find the word, any word to start this conversation.
“You have to understand how it is for me,” I say. “If I start paying for the interviews and the information I get, then people will just start selling me lies.”
She narrows her eyes at me, her full lips suddenly a very thin line. I really should’ve found better words to say to her, because now she’s clearly offended. I turn back to the coffee maker, take the cup off and bring it to her.
She takes it and wraps her hands around it. Some of the long multicolored nails on her fingers are gone, and the rest are all scratched up and brown for some reason. It’s totally out of place with the rest of her polished appearance, though not with the bruise on her face, I suppose.
“I chose to call myself Trixie for a reason,” she says. “Not many people trust me, and I don’t give them a reason to. But the information I have for you is legit. These men want me dead now and they’ll want me dead even more after I tell you everything, so I have to leave this town and never come back.”
Her eyes turn very sad all of a sudden and a sob escapes her, but she covers it up by taking a sip of her coffee. When she looks at me again, her eyes are glassy and her face composed.
“Twenty-thousand dollars, that’s my price,” she says. “I know you can afford it.”
She’s not wrong, the foundation can definitely pay out that much.
“How do I know you’re not just doing this to get back at these men?” I ask.
Maybe it’s too pointed a question, but she looks like she can handle it. That confidence of hers doesn’t look like an act that hides utter brokenness within, the way it does with the other women I speak to.
She takes another sip of her coffee then sets the cup down on the edge of my desk.
“I’m not just doing this for the money, or for you and your sister. Or myself even,” she says, her voice growing fainter and more strained with each word. “I’m also doing it for…for a friend…”
Another sob overtakes her and a tear runs down her cheek, revealing more of the makeup covered bruise there. This time it takes her longer to recover, but she does, wiping the tear away with an angry slashing motion across her cheek.
“Do we have a deal or not?” she asks.
I don’t know.
But I can’t say that.
“It’ll take me a few days to get that kind of money together,” I say to buy myself some more time to consider this.
“I don’t have a couple of days,” she says and stands up. “I could be dead in a couple of days if I stay here.”
“There are a few safe houses in Pleasantville—” I say.
“Not for me there aren’t,” she cuts me off and heads for the door.
“Wait,” I call after her. “You can… you can stay with me. At my apartment.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, and I very well might have.
But she has information to sell to me and I don’t trust her. Maybe a couple of days of living with her will tell me if I’m right or wrong about that.
“I’m not… I’m not exactly roommate material for a nice girl like you,” she says and chuckles, her face looking soft and unguarded for the first time since I met her, and somehow even prettier.
“I’m not much of a roommate either,” I say and smile at her. “But what do you say we try it anyway?”
A long silence follows my question, her face going through all sorts of expressions, even fear, I think.
“OK,” she finally says and I repeat it.
Then she tells me she has a few more things to do and we agree to meet back here at six tonight.
I hope I’m not making a huge mistake. But it doesn’t feel like a mistake. It feels like the start of something that I’ve been searching for all these years.