Fresh Start, page 32
“Oh, sure.” Alyssa answered, but didn’t move to stand.
“I was thinking that we’d eat and if you were up for it, we could all watch an old movie or something. If you’re not, you can make some excuse and come back here. I’ll understand.” Hannah moved to sit next to her.
“Why would I do that?” Alyssa looked into Hannah’s concerned eyes. “I want to hang out with you guys.”
“I know today has been an interesting day for you. I’d understand if you want to spend some time alone tonight. Lindsey probably won’t even notice.”
“She won’t notice I’m missing?” Alyssa squinted at her and then let her off the hook with a wink.
“With how quiet you were in the car on the way back, I doubt it.”
“I’m sorry.” Alyssa put her hand on top of Hannah’s.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I understand. Linds and I will be fine. If you want, I can bring some pizza over and you can stay here.”
“That’s weird and I’m sure she already thinks I’m weird enough.” She reasoned.
“No, she doesn’t.” Hannah laughed. “She thought you were being great earlier. She said she wanted to meet you, but that she also wanted to spend some time with me and that you’d been great about allowing us to do both.”
“She did?”
“Al, she likes you. She was worried at first when I told her about us, but now that she’s met you, she likes you.”
“I’d like to eat dinner, but I might skip the movie. You have to take her to the airport tomorrow. I think you guys should have tonight.” Alyssa let a small smile show and Hannah leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Can I still come over and stay though?” Hannah asked with an adorable, puppy dog expression that had Alyssa laughing.
“Yes, you can. You have a key now. Let yourself in.” Alyssa pointed out and stood, bringing Hannah’s hand with her causing Hannah to stand. “Come on. Let’s eat.”
***
Waking up the next morning, she discovered Alyssa was missing from the bed. Hannah wiped her eyes and went to the bathroom and then out to the living room where she expected to find her girlfriend, but instead found a note. Alyssa had gone to the leasing office to do some work.
“It’s eight on a Sunday.” Hannah said to herself.
She didn’t bother making coffee since Alyssa had left her there and returned to her own apartment to find Lindsey packing her small suitcase for the trip back.
“Good morning. How was the hot sex last night?” She asked as Hannah walked into the bedroom.
“You’re annoying.” Hannah replied.
“What’s wrong with you today?” Lindsey put one of the shopping bags from their trip the day before inside the suitcase.
“Nothing. Alyssa’s being weird.” Hannah sat on the end of the bed and flopped down, leaving her legs hanging over the edge.
“She seemed fine yesterday.” Lindsey suggested.
“She ran into someone from before and I think it threw her off. She wasn’t in bed when I woke up.”
“So, no hot sex then?” Lindsey tossed a pair of socks in her direction.
“Gross! Are those dirty?” Hannah grabbed at the socks with her thumb and forefinger and tossed them into the suitcase.
“Where is she if she’s not in her apartment?”
“She went to work.”
“On a Sunday?”
“She left a note saying she was going to the office. I figured I’d come check on you and then text her.”
“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” Lindsey picked up her suitcase and set it on the floor, pulling the handle up and rolling it toward the living room.
“I guess I am.” Hannah admitted. “Just when I think things are going good between us, something like this happens.”
“Her past keeps haunting you guys.” Lindsey sat on the edge of the bed and flopped backwards, following Hannah’s example.
“I love her.” She smiled at the ceiling as she stared up at it. “I fell in love with her so fast; faster than I’ve ever fallen for anyone.”
“Leave it to you to fall for someone with issues.” Lindsey patted her leg.
“She doesn’t have issues.” Hannah objected. “We met right after she got out of prison.”
“That sounds weird.”
“She wasn’t in there because she should be. I mean, what happened to her-” Hannah sighed. “I sometimes wonder how she came out of it intact. She lost everything, Lindsey. She lost everything.” She repeated.
“Did she come out intact though?” Lindsey’s tone had changed from playful to serious. “Has she talked to anyone about what she went through?”
“You mean like a therapist?” Hannah turned to face her.
“A professional, I guess.”
“I don’t think she’s seen anyone. She would have told me, but it’s weird because I was worried about it in the beginning. She had nightmares and had to have sound to fall asleep. She woke up screaming sometimes, but she’s been fine lately. She’s been happy.”
“Has she been though?” Lindsey lifted an eyebrow.
“What do you mean?”
“Han, I’m sure you two are great together. I’ve seen it and I think it could work, but you can’t fix what’s going on with her. If she’s still going through stuff, it doesn’t matter how happy you make her, she has to go through it.”
“I know, but she’s been getting better.” Hannah’s stare returned to the ceiling. “She’s in this, Linds.”
“Of course, she is. I can see how much she cares about you. I can see how much you care about her. I’m only saying that if running into someone from her past yesterday has thrown her off this much, she might need to deal with things that don’t pertain to you.”
***
Alyssa had been nervously waiting for the detective to arrive and decided that she might as well grab the key to Hannah’s place so she could hand it to Hannah and then Hannah could hand it right back to her. She smiled at that thought and then the smile disappeared as she recalled waking up next to Hannah and feeling the need to flee before Hannah woke up to ask her how she was or talk about their plans for the day.
She loved her. She wanted to make plans for their day. She wanted Hannah to join her with Judy for dinner tonight just like last week, but she couldn’t get Derrick out of her mind and she didn’t want to subject Hannah to her mood. She’d left a note, but she’d been surprised that Hannah hadn’t tried to call or text her by now. Maybe she was still sleeping, she thought as she saw the car pull up in front. She made her way to the glass door and met the detective before closing it and locking it behind them.
“I was surprised to hear from you.” The detective shared as he sat down in the office chair he’d previously occupied.
“I wanted to know if you’d found anything out about the case.” Alyssa told a half-truth.
“You called me this early on a Sunday, asked me to drive here so we could talk in person. I could have told you that on the phone.”
“So, there is something?” She leaned in expectantly.
“Why don’t you tell me why I’m really here, Alyssa?” He leaned in as well and she knew she’d been caught.
“I shouldn’t have made you come all the way here. I wasn’t expecting a cop to believe me and then you showed up and you did believe me and you’re trying to find out who really did this and I had something happen yesterday that made me just-” She sighed. “I want to help. I didn’t think I could before, but I think maybe I can now. I don’t know how. I know I need to do something productive with this. I want to move on with my life. I have someone that’s important to me now and I don’t want this to keep getting in the way of that. So, I’m ready.” She finished.
“Well, I’m glad you want to help. I’m not technically a part of the investigation so anything you and I work on, I can get to the officers in charge, but it’s off the books. You understand?”
“I do and I don’t even know what I can do, but I would like to help.”
“I do have an update if you want to hear it. Maybe we can start there.”
Chapter 34:
“Can I come inside so I can say goodbye?” Lindsey asked as Hannah pulled her car up to the leasing office entrance.
“Give me a minute with her first, okay?” Hannah climbed out of the car and headed toward the glass door, which she pulled on and found locked so she knocked and pressed her hands and face to the glass to try to see Alyssa.
A few seconds later, Alyssa popped out of the office and walked, confusingly toward the door.
“Hey, what’s up?” Alyssa asked.
“What’s up? You left me a note that said you’d be here.”
“I know. I had to take care of something.” Alyssa looked back toward the office.
“Is someone in there?”
“Can we talk about this later?”
“I’m taking Lindsey to the airport. She wanted to say goodbye. Can you at least do that?” Hannah was growing frustrated and she no longer cared if it showed.
“Are you mad at me?”
Hannah looked back at the car and then at Alyssa who was still standing there, holding the door open, but not allowing her to come inside.
“I’m not really happy with you right now. Please just say goodbye to Lindsey so I can take her to the airport. We can talk about this later.”
“Han-”
“No, Al. Not right now, okay?”
“What is going on?” Alyssa reached for her hand, but Hannah pulled it away.
“Lindsey can see us.” She had no idea why she was so frustrated, but seeing Alyssa standing in a doorway as if she couldn’t or wouldn’t let her in when someone else was clearly inside, made her mad. “Please, Al.”
“Okay. Okay.” Alyssa exited the office and walked toward the car.
Hannah watched Lindsey get out, they exchanged smiles, hugs and goodbyes and Hannah hopped back into the car without a goodbye in Alyssa’s direction. Alyssa, however, didn’t seem to understand that she was trying to make a not so graceful exit and knocked on the window. She leaned down and Hannah turned to look at her.
“We should go.”
“I love you.” Alyssa told her.
She didn’t lean in for a kiss and Hannah knew she wanted to. Hannah turned to Lindsey for a moment before putting the car in drive and looking toward Alyssa.
“I love you too.”
***
“Why would Ty have bought that?” Alyssa asked as she and Hartley continued discussing what he’d discovered.
“I was hoping you could tell me. He purchased it online and with a credit card, which makes no sense.” Hartley went on. “He would have known that could have been traced. He was a lawyer for crying out loud.”
“How could he buy an illegal drug online?”
“People run this scam all the time. They list a product for sale, but there’s a code that people interested in purchasing the illegal product know and they buy it under the legal description. The seller then changes their selling name or spoofs an IP address to make it difficult to track them. I only found it because I got ahold of Ty’s credit card bills before the murder. I noticed a strange online purchase.”
“Ty never bought anything online. He hated that I did.”
“Exactly. That was the thing that caught my attention to begin with. I had one of our techs track the seller, but she lost him after a few spoofs, but based on that seller’s history, I know that what Ty purchased was GHB and it was a large enough quantity to knock twenty people out.”
“Why would Ty drug me?”
“I don’t think it was Ty and neither do you. Someone used his credit card and made the purchase. They probably figured that we wouldn’t look at his credit history or that if we did, it would look like a normal online purchase.” He swallowed hard. “The question we need answered is who had access to his credit cards.”
“Well, me obviously, but I had my own. We didn’t share accounts or anything. I never had any reason to use his credit cards.”
“Okay. Who else?”
“Anyone that came to the apartment. Ty put his wallet on the counter next to his keys whenever he was home. I know he had some of the account numbers saved to his computer too. Anyone that had his computer password could have logged in, went to order it and typed in a number and it would have popped up. I guess technically, I did use his accounts sometimes when I’d order pizza online. I just had to hit four, which was the first number on the account and the rest auto-completed.” She explained. “It could have been anyone at his office if they had his password or anyone at home too.”
“That doesn’t help us narrow it down, but the purchase was made two weeks prior to the murder. Maybe that will help. I can see about getting the activity logs for the computer and for his office. Can you tell me who would have had access to the apartment during that time?”
“I can try.” She shrugged, trying to remember the last two weeks of Ty’s life. “Wait. Where was the GHB sent to?”
“What?” Hartley looked down for a moment and then back up. “The shipping address? It’s a dead end. It’s a place that has post offices boxes for rent. The box was rented only for a week and the person paid in cash. The security cameras have all been recorded over and no one there worked there at the time of the murder. It changed ownership six months ago. Even if I could track down the person who rented the box, they wouldn’t remember one man or woman from over two years ago that paid for a box in cash when that’s something they do every day.”
“I don’t know if I can remember everyone. We weren’t living together until that day so people could have come and gone and I never would have known, but what I remember is just Ty’s parents, his ex-wife, my friend Rachel, Derrick and I think there was a maintenance man that came in and fixed the garbage disposal, but I don’t remember exactly when that was. It might have been a month before it happened. I only remember it even being around that time because he hit on me while Ty was there and Ty was pretty pissed about it. He complained to the property manager. I never heard what happened though and I never saw the maintenance guy again.”
“That’s very helpful, Alyssa.” He pulled out his notebook and made a note. “Do you remember this guy’s name?”
“No, sorry. He was in his forties maybe. White. He had a mustache and brown hair. That’s all I remember, but why would he have drugged me, killed Ty and Lizzy and then left me there?” She gulped and looked down at her clasped, sweaty hands in her lap. “I know that if I had been drugged I likely wouldn’t remember, but I don’t think… I don’t feel like I was… touched in any way.” She paused. “I woke up fully dressed and in the same position I do actually remember falling asleep in.”
“I know, Alyssa.” Hartley stopped her when he realized it was getting difficult. “We don’t have any reason to believe you were raped. The officers didn’t do everything I would have done in this case, but I do believe that if they thought you’d been assaulted, they would have ensured you were taken to the hospital and it’s likely you never would have been arrested to begin with.”
“So, you’ll check on the maintenance man?”
“I’ll follow up. The property manager should have a record of the complaint.” He folded up his notebook and put it back into his pocket. “This just pisses me off.”
“I’m sorry?”
“They could have looked into this back then. If this guy was some crazy who got pissed at Ty for filing a complaint, but had a thing for you, they could have found him back then. He’s probably moved on by now. He may even be hard to track down. If they would have done their fucking jobs instead of just arresting you because you were there, we wouldn’t be having this conversation and the real killer would be in prison right now.” He shook his head. “Ty and Lizzy deserved better than this shit show.”
“Yes, they did.”
“I’ll find out about the maintenance guy, but you mentioned some other people too. Obviously, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Ty’s parents, but what about your friend?”
“Rachel?”
“She was with you the night it happened. She was questioned during the initial investigation, but I’d like to talk to her again.”
“You can, but Rachel would have told you everything she knew back then.”
“You told us everything you knew back then too, but sometimes after the shock of an event like this wears off, people remember something else.”
“Well, I can tell her you want to talk to her.”
“You two are still in contact?”
“Not still. She disappeared for a while, but I ran into her in LA and we started talking again.”
“She disappeared?” He seemed extremely curious.
“Not like that. She’s been in LA since before it happened. She just disappeared from my life. It’s complicated. We have a history.”
“What kind of history?”
“Rachel and I were friends in college, but we also dated.” She waited to catch his reaction.
“I recall your sexuality being mentioned at the trial. For the record, I don’t consider that evidence.”
“Thank you.” She replied. “She ended things and we stayed friends. She helped me move that day.”
“She helped you move in with your new boyfriend?”
“We were friends. Rachel and I were close with Derrick. That’s how I met Ty. They both helped. She and I will always have a history, but she’s my friend. So, if you’re thinking about some scorned lover type scenario, Rachel wouldn’t have hurt Ty and she loved Lizzy. She’d spent a lot of time with her since Lizzy was around so much. Those two were around the same maturity level sometimes.” She smiled at the thought.
“I’m still going to talk to her. Sometimes, we think we know people, but we can’t ever know a person fully. There are things people hide and some people are very good at hiding.”
“Can I ask you a question?” The truth was that Alyssa had been waiting for a chance to ask this question.
“Sure.”
“What happened to Ty’s family after?” She felt the sweat on her hands again and rubbed them along her thighs. “I only saw them in court and I was just wondering what happened after.”
