Sara K. Parker - Shattered Trust

He wasn’t going to investigate. Not with Natalie stepping into the room behind him.

“What—” she started, but he grabbed her arm, tugging her back over the threshold and into the hall. The room was silent and still—no sign of an intruder lying in wait. He eyed the closed closet door and the one that opened into the bathroom, then fixed his attention back on the balcony. The perp had entered that way. Or he’d entered through the door and left that way. If he’d left. Luke reached into the room and flicked off the light, watching the shadows play on the balcony curtains.

“Do you—”

“Shhhhh,” he whispered in Natalie’s ear.

She stilled, and he knew she was watching the curtains, knew she was seeing what he did—a subtle shift in the shadows that seemed out of sync with the fluttering fabric.

A person? Or just the exterior lights playing tricks on his eyes? There. Gone. There again. He thought he heard a soft thud, a quiet rustle of fabric. Then the wind shifted, the curtains fell back into place and the balcony went still and silent once again.

It was closing in on midnight as Natalie finished sorting through her belongings. The police had taken photos and dusted for prints, and had been hovering with notepads ever since.

Luke didn’t hover.

He helped, lifting the heavier items, asking questions about what she’d brought and what she still had. So far, it appeared the thief had stolen her passport, her cell phone, the two-hundred dollars she had stored in the room’s safe and her small stash of jewelry. Everything else seemed to be accounted for, including her laptop, along with the barely-used bottle of Gucci perfume Kyle had given her for her birthday.

Natalie gave the room a final once-over. “I think that’s all.”

“Can you describe the missing jewelry?” Officer Perez asked. He’d been the first police officer on the scene, and his demeanor was empathetic and professional. His suit was a crisp clean tan, a contrast to the weathered lines on his face and his disheveled graying hair.

“Diamond studs.” Her dad had given them to her when she turned sixteen. “A few pieces of costume jewelry that aren’t worth much. A single strand pearl necklace.” Her great-grandmother’s. Aside from the earrings, it was the only thing she was really going to miss.

Natalie’s bottom lip trembled and she turned away, busying herself with collecting a few more articles of clothing from the floor.

“And the value of the items?”

“The earrings, under five-hundred dollars. We had the necklace appraised a few years ago for twelve hundred.”

“Everything else is accounted for?”

She remembered tucking a few pieces of jewelry into her makeup bag, and she walked into the bathroom to see if the thief had gotten to them, too.

“Yes,” she said, pulling out two silver-chained necklaces and a handful of beaded bracelets. Not valuable. “That’s everything.”

“We will need you both to come to the station for fingerprints in the morning.”

“How about we just drop by after we go to the hospital?” Luke suggested, looking to Natalie for agreement. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can deal with the missing passport and get you out of here.”

“Right.” Her passport. She’d need it to get home—and it went without saying that home was where she needed to be.

She grabbed a pair of sandals and snagged the first outfit she saw. “I need to change. Then we can go.”

The four officers in the room filed out the door and into the hallway. “We will wait outside,” Officer Perez said.

Luke didn’t follow.

Natalie waited.

He still didn’t leave.

“You can wait with them,” she nudged.

“No. I can’t.”

“But—”

“Natalie, I’m not leaving you in the room alone. There’s no exterior entrance to the bathroom. You can change there.”

That was it. Just a pronouncement, which in normal circumstances would have made her bristle. But tonight the words were a comfort, a source of security. Since getting on the airplane this morning, Natalie had never felt so alone in her life. But Luke wasn’t about to leave her alone for a minute.

She walked into the bathroom and shut the door, her hands shaking as she changed out of her beach clothes, her shoulder throbbing under the bandages the hotel staff had rounded up. Sand scattered from her clothes onto the cool tile floor, and she changed quickly into a clean pair of jeans and a white tank top, splashed water on her face and then patted her skin dry with a towel. Her hair was a wreck, but there wasn’t much she could do about the now-limp curls her hairdresser had carefully styled early that morning. She plucked the pearl hair pin out of her hair and ran her fingers through the tangles, noticing the deep pink along her nose and cheeks. Reapplying sunscreen had been the furthest thing from her mind earlier. She’d just been relieved to have snagged a flight out early that afternoon, and happy to have some time alone. Otherwise, she would have been stuck in a hotel room back in Maryland until her scheduled Sunday-morning flight, with no excuse not to answer her phone or open her door to concerned friends and family.

Luke knocked. “You okay?”

“Yes, I’ll be right there.” Leaving her hair for later, she scooped up her discarded clothing from the floor, reaching for the door. But the distinct clink of metal on tile stopped her, and she glanced at the ground to see her engagement ring rolling to a stop near the shower. She bent down to retrieve it, light flashing off the stones, the gaudiness of it reminding her of the lavish wedding Kyle had insisted they plan. The bigger, the better. That’s what he’d said, and she’d agreed because it had seemed easier than arguing.

She glanced at the trash can, but knew she couldn’t just discard the band. She might not like it, but throwing it away would be a selfish waste.

She grabbed a silver necklace chain from her makeup bag, replacing its heart pendant with the ugly ring before clasping the necklace behind her neck—for safekeeping rather than sentiment. Letting the heavy weight of the ring drop beneath her shirt, she opened the door and found Luke standing right at the threshold. He stepped back to let her pass, his dark brown eyes searching hers.

“Ready to go?”

Something about the way he looked at her, genuine concern in his gaze, made Natalie look away. “Almost,” she said, sidling past him and shoving her beach clothes and toiletry bag into her suitcase.

It was a lie. She wasn’t ready. She could handle the sympathetic looks from her family and friends. She could handle returning all the gifts and packing away her gown. But seeing Kyle again?

Her face burned at the thought as she and Luke grabbed her strewn belongings and packed them away. She never would have thought Kyle could be so heartless. So selfish. How dare he go through the motions of the elaborate rehearsal dinner, enjoy a night on the town with his buddies and then send her a text to cancel the wedding?

She zipped the suitcase and then her backpack carry-on.

“Is that everything?” Luke asked, slinging the carry-on over his shoulder and grabbing the suitcase by the handle.

She nodded.

“We’ll ask at the front desk to have your luggage transferred to the new room.” He reached with his free hand and opened the door for her.

Officer Perez stood just outside the door, the others having already dispersed. He nodded in greeting and led them down the hall toward the hotel lobby. The corridor was silent, the only sounds the tap of their shoes and the rolling of the suitcase along the tile. Natalie shivered, fear crawling up her neck as the entryway came into view. Her attacker was out there somewhere. Had he stuck around? Was he following them? Watching?