Chrissy had accompanied Melanie to visit Drew. When they’d met for the first time, Chrissy had flirted, toying with his boyish-cuteness and laughing when Melanie warned her that Drew was not her type. Melanie had enforced her disapproval by casting a firm, hands-off glare in her brother’s direction, but they both seemed to be feeling reckless that day. She couldn’t wait for the visit to end. Melanie did not pretend to understand her brother. In fact, most times, she was embarrassed to call him family. And Chrissy? Well, she sometimes left Mel feeling outdated, old-maid material.
Melanie figured that leaving his apartment would end their little game, but, the next day, when Chrissy had said she had an errand to run before they left, she’d wondered if Drew had been that errand. She couldn’t prove it, but the questions Chrissy had fired at her on the trip home caused her to suspect the worst – that her roommate’s interest in Drew had increased. They’d only been back in South Carolina for two days before the kidnapping, so where the relationship would have headed was anyone’s guess.
She thought back on the last couple of months, feeling regret that she hadn’t addressed Chrissy’s closed off stance. She’d grown more restless by the day, snappy and not her usual joyful self. Melanie had been so preoccupied surviving the pressures at work that she’d ignored the signs of change taking place in her own apartment. Now, she saw it, but it was too late. Chrissy was no longer there to talk to, and Melanie feared she was lying dead at the bottom of the river. The screams and the shot that had silenced them still tormented her mind.
Melanie heard a door slam, jolting back to the present. Both Drew and the woman had left the main room, and by the sounds of it, they had left via the apartment’s door. She heard the deadbolt snap into place. That left Melanie free to go inside, but her legs remained fixed to the cement.
She pushed past the memories of the night before and opened the patio door. A stagnant, closed-up odor greeted her, and she longed to open the windows to freshen the air, but she would not be staying long.
Melanie hurried into her bedroom and reached for the top closet shelf for a suitcase. She threw clothes and toiletries into it and added personal papers and cards into the zipped pocket. She emptied the contents of her clutch purse on the bed and searched in the bottom drawer for a larger bag with a shoulder strap. In it, she put her laptop, cellphone, and passport, just in case. Who knew where this adventure might take her before it ended? She dumped in the remaining contents of her small purse and headed for the closet.
Standing on tippy-toes, she made contact with the metal box stashed in the far back corner of the shelf, inched it out, and placed it on the bed. A key dangled from the necklace tucked under her shirt, and she used it to unlock the box. Inside were neat piles of cash, each stack held in groups of ten twenty-dollar bills with a clip. She could thank her Mom for that. Sylvia Braxton had given her the money box many years ago with strict instructions that it should only to be used in case of an emergency, like the collapse for Wall Street, or the end of the economy as the world knew it – that woman was forever the profit of doom.
Born on the other side of the tracks, her mother had experienced a rags-to-riches story, and her husband had repeatedly thrown it in her face. She was the result of his drunken mistake, one that refused to leave in the morning. How she ever managed to get a ring on her finger in one night was a mystery to them all, or so the story went. Then came the children and their twisted display of happily-ever-after continued until her unexplained passing.
Now, Melanie faced similar questions; to be or not to be, rich? Mother had chosen the chains of wealth with its upper-class expectations, whereas Melanie hoped to find fulfilment in the middle class. It required her to knuckle down, obtain a post-secondary education and specialized training as a law enforcement. There was a certain satisfaction resulting from the career preparation, and when she earned her first paycheck, she thought there was no better feeling in the world…until the bills started pouring in. It appeared that changing locations – the job, the apartment – had done nothing to settle the unrest in Melanie’s spirit. Discontentment reigned in both worlds and naïve disillusionment had tainted her success parading through life as the eternal penny-pincher in designer clothes.
Melanie whispered a thank you into the great beyond, having determined that she was now facing the end of her world as she knew it. She tucked the money into a pouch and tossed it in the bag before zipping it closed. Freedom from credit cards would provide the anonymity she required as a breathing-dead-person.
She threw the bag over her shoulder, wheeled the case into the living room, grabbed her cell and charger, and called a taxi for the second time that day, instructing dispatch to have the driver meet her at the store.
Melanie strolled into Chrissy’s bedroom and glanced around. Nothing appeared out of place, but she seldom had reason to loiter in there. They’d respected one another’s privacy. She did, however, notice a drawer half-open in an otherwise perfectly clean room. Curious, she walked over. Inside, in full view, was a Ziplock bag filled with a white powdered substance.
Drugs? Surely not. Chrissy was a
