The Sunset

She slammed the door in his face. It didn’t really matter though because there was no glass in the window. She couldn’t think. Though there had to be a logical explanation, she couldn’t come up with one. She’d have to listen to Carter; his words might hold the truth. And right now, her world was spinning out of control without it.

“How did you know,” Rosie said to him quietly. She found the words slipping out of her mouth. “How did you know this was going to happen? You tried to warn me.”

“We need to leave soon. But I’ll tell you what I know. Just please let me inside.”

Rosie’s gut said Carter wouldn’t hurt her. Why would he have left the note if he didn’t intend for her to be safe? She let him in and they went upstairs to her bedroom, walking in silence.

“What’s going on?” Rosie demanded. “You took off and left a note and now my house is broken because you said I needed to stay away last night. I really don’t understand.”

Carter was looking at the frames on Rosie’s desk that once held pictures, but were now empty.

“I hear a lot of things, when I sit at the bar. Town gossip, banter between customers, how much people hate their lives and are drinking to forget,” Carter explained. “But a few weeks ago I overheard a plan. I don’t tend to eavesdrop but the group wasn’t trying too hard to whisper. I guess they thought I was too drunk to notice.”

“Did this plan involve me?” Rosie didn’t really want to know the answer, but the events of the past24 hours told her it might.

“I thought you might be the target of the group’s plan,” Carter said, putting down the empty photo frame and walking over to the half-empty closet. “The group didn’t always show up together, but usually one or two of them would pair up at the same time on the same day. So I stuck around and listened.”

He had found a suitcase in the closet and insisted Rosie pack up the remainder of her clothes.

“Can you skip to the part where you leave me a note? Because that’s the part where I come in,” Rosie said as she began gathering what wardrobe she had left. She was becoming irritated with the idea she was a target and had to leave her own house. What had she done to deserve this?

“I slipped you the note because I knew a break-in was going to happen,” Carter said. “I had a strange feeling that it was going to be at your house. Even if I had been wrong, I didn’t want to see you hurt at the expense of knowledge I overheard. Leaving the note in the money was the closest thing I could get to an anonymous tip-off.”

Rosie was in the bathroom collecting the remnants of her make-up, leaving the spilt bottles on the floor. If she had to leave, what was the point in cleaning it up?

“Anonymous? I knew you left it. I spent half the night wondering if the note was for you or me,” Rosie said. She was growing frustrated with a lack of logical explanations she had hoped listening to Carter would have. “I went to your house, screaming your name until a pair of cops showed up saying you were missing.”

“You came to my house? I was there all night and I never heard you yelling and I didn’t see any cops,” Carter looked confused.

 “I went to Shooks Pond Lane,” Rosie said. “That’s the address you told me the first time I called you a cab home. But the cops said you didn’t live there— that the house had been foreclosed on last week.”

This is really starting to not make any sense, Rosie thought.

“Wait. You went to the house I lived in as a kid. When I’m drunk though, that’s usually the first address that pops to mind.”

Rosie didn’t like admitting the cops were right, but Carter said he was home all night.

“Your truck. The cops said they found it abandoned on the other side of the hill. They said they were looking for you.”

Carter stopped short.

“These cops, what did they look like?” He asked, suspiciously.

“Why does everyone seem concerned about what the officers looked like?” Rosie asked. “One was tall, one was a lot shorter. It was dark and I couldn’t see their faces.”

Carter seemed bothered by her lack of description. He zipped up the suitcase and headed down the stairs. Rosie called after him, but he was already out the back door. She followed him to where his truck was parked in the back alley.

“You can’t come back here,” Carter said, taking her hand in his as they sat in the truck. “But you can trust me on this: I will keep you safe.”

The engine roared and they were off. Rosie didn’t know where the man from the bar was taking her, but she had a feeling she’d be okay. He was the only one who knew what was happening.

The sun was setting in the rearview mirror and even though tomorrow brought a new day, she knew the end of the journey wasn’t going to come with daybreak. She had only just started.

The Shadow

Her house was marked in police tape, but the media had left. Rosie suspected they would be around later to get her account of the situation, but she didn’t want to give one. She had parked down the street and wasn’t planning on going inside, but her feet were on autopilot and she was heading for the front door.

“Ma’am, you can’t go in there. It’s a crime scene.”

Rosie had passed under the police tape and was headed up the brick walkway when an officer called out to her. He was standing with a small group of fellow police; one had a cell phone out and appeared to be making a call. Rosie wondered if he was leaving another message for her voicemail.

“This is my house,” she said. She didn’t want to talk to more police. She didn’t see the two men that had shown up last night in front of Carter’s house. But maybe they weren’t needed here, she thought.

The officer had followed her inside and began informing her of the details. She was only partially listening.

“And what about Carter?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, who?” the officer asked. It was now blatantly apparent that Rosie had not been listening to the officer at all. He seemed to be saying something about Rosie staying somewhere else when she interrupted him with her concerns for her note writer.

“Carter. Carter Jenkins. Last night two of your officers told me they found his truck abandoned on the side of the road. Did you find him?” She wasn’t so much requesting the information as she was demanding an answer.

“I wasn’t aware there was an abandoned vehicle last night,” the officer said. “You said there were two officers who spoke with you? What did they look like?” He seemed intrigued Rosie had spoken with his peers.

“I was up on Shooks Pond Lane. One was kind of tall and the other was a lot shorter. I couldn’t see their faces.”

The officer excused himself, which Rosie thought weird, but she didn’t mind being relieved of his presence and continued to look around her house.

The damage was obvious. Picture frames were shattered, lamps lay on their sides, and books were taken off shelves with pages ripped out. The debris of her life was scattered across the living room floor, leaving a trail that went upstairs. But nothing here seemed to be missing. She was devastated that her home had been the playground of an intruder. Her belongings were touched by hands she didn’t know, stomped on by feet that didn’t leave their shoes at the door.

There were muddy tracks that led up to her bedroom. She was careful not to smudge them with her own steps. The only room upstairs that showed a disturbance was hers. The bathroom and guest room were untouched.  Her bedroom window was open, or broken, and the curtain swayed with the wind. Her bed was unmade, but she never made it anyway. Rosie’s closet doors were open wide, half of her wardrobe missing. The picture frames on her desk were intact, but the photos were gone. Her make-up collection was strewn across the bathroom tile floor, open and spilt.

“Ms. Lawrence?”

A different officer had joined her upstairs and introduced himself as Chief Brown.

“Ms. Lawrence, the officers you told Officer Garcia you spoke to last night, did their uniforms fit?” Brown asked.

Well this investigation took an unexpected twist, Rosie thought.

“It was raining, I don’t know. What does this have to do with…?”

“We can’t share the details at the moment, but we might need you to answer some questions about it later,” Brown said.

Rosie was confused, but before she could ask again about Carter, Officer Garcia called up the stairs and said the press was back and wanted a word with her. She declined. When the news van had finally pulled away, Rosie waved Garcia and Brown out of her house, turning down their offers to stay for surveillance. She needed time to herself and a pair of watching cops was not going to help.

She sat down on the floor in the middle of her living room. After investigators had taken pictures of the break-in, they had it cleaned up. Her house still showed signs of a burglary, but the fragments were swept away.

But then Rosie thought she heard footsteps on her back patio. The media had left and the last squad car had sounded its siren in goodbye, so no one should be in the backyard, Rosie thought.

“Unless the thief didn’t get what he came for the first time,” she whispered to herself.

The footsteps were heavy and hadn’t stopped, as if the body they belonged to was pacing, indecisive on whether to attempt a second break-in. Rosie’s car was still parked down the block, so it might look like she wasn’t home because she hadn’t parked in the driveway.

Rosie crawled on her hands and knees from the living room to the back door in the kitchen. The glass in the door’s window was gone; the shattered remnants had been cleaned up by the police. The curtain billowed in the slight breeze, threatening to expose her loudly beating heart to whoever stood on the other side of the threshold. Her hands had begun to shake. Surely the thief couldn’t see her from such a low angle. But the footsteps outside had stopped.

Now would be a good time to have that gun, Rosie thought.

She reached the door and pulled the curtain enough to see what her intruder looked like. This time she’d at least be able to provide the police with a physical description so they could line up suspects.

Rosie saw the shadow first. Cast long across the cement patio, the dark silhouette concealed any weapons the intruder might be carrying. She visually connected the shadow to its shoes, dark pants, a black leather jacket and face. One quick look was all Rosie needed to identify the man in a crowd of criminals.

She gasped when she recognized his profile. It was Carter.

Rosie dropped the curtain, but was frozen to the spot. Carter had heard her gasp and he moved closer to the door.

“Rosie?” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Rosie found herself standing and turning the knob at the sound of Carter’s concerned insistence that she was out of harm’s way. But even still, she opened the door just a crack.

“I meant what I said in the note,” he said. “You’re not safe here anymore.”

The Lamppost

There was a single lamppost lit in the back alley that led to Rosie’s destination. It flickered in the dark, casting strobe-light shadows in the rain puddles that danced with ripples as drops fell from the sky.

“What do you want?” said a voice from inside. “I have a shotgun, a bat and a hungry Rottweiler!”

Rosie had expected this kind of greeting and knew there was no threat of gun, bat or dog behind the door.

“Irene, it’s Rosie. I need a place to stay.”

The door opened immediately. The woman stood in her nightgown, with a cigarette in her mouth, her gray hair falling past her strong shoulders. Irene had been a bartender in her younger years, but now she owned one of the breweries on the boulevard and lived in the apartment above it by herself.

“Where’s the dog?” Rosie asked jokingly as she walked into the foyer. “I take it you make to intimidate late night knockers in hopes of getting to bed early?”

“You know I can’t sleep before 3 a.m. All those years of closing the bar, my circadian rhythm has never recovered,” Irene said with a smile. “Maybe next time I’ll bark before I mention the Rottweiler to make it seem more menacing.”

“That would be a nice touch,” Rosie agreed.

“You know I’m not one to ask questions,” Irene said. “The extra bedroom is down the hall to your left. Clean sheets and towels in the bathroom. Make yourself at home.”

It was well known that Irene had an extra bedroom for guests, but only bartenders were welcome to stay. If for any reason a bartender couldn’t get home late at night or needed a nap between shifts, Irene’s was the place to go.

Rosie collected her sheets and towels and stripped off her layers of soaking wet clothing. Her curly brown hair was frizzy and disheveled. She crawled under the covers, setting the alarm clock early enough to get to work before the boss in order to clean the mess she’d left behind hours ago.

“I think you need to see this.”

Rosie’s alarm hadn’t gone off, but Irene was shaking her to wake up. It was dark in the hallway as she followed Irene to the front room where the television was showing the 5 a.m. news. Despite her grogginess from little sleep, Rosie slowly understood what the newscaster was saying.

He was at the scene of apparent burglary; the glass storm door of the house behind him was shattered. Only shards of glass rimmed the edges, like an open mouth with jagged teeth.

“Police were called to the scene after neighbors noticed the damage this morning on their way to work,” said the reporter. “It appears no one is home and police found no one inside when they arrived. Police have been unsuccessful in reaching the victim. The name will not be released until the victim has been notified.”

But Rosie didn’t need the reporter to tell her the victim’s name. She already knew. He was standing in front of her house.

“I need to go,” Rosie said as she headed back to the room to gather her things. She looked at her cell phone for any missed calls, but the battery was dead. This is why they couldn’t reach me, she thought. But then she remembered Carter’s note. It had been for her.

Did he know her house was going to be burglarized last night? How had he known that and what had happened to him last night? Rosie had planned on going back to work this morning, but after seeing her home on the news, she knew her boss would understand.

“Do you need me to go with you?” Irene called from the front room.

“Unless you really do have a shot gun, a bat and a dog to chase down whoever broke into my house last night, I think I’ll have to do this alone,” Rosie said as she opened the front door. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Rosie.”

Irene saying her name forced her to stop in her tracks.

“Did you know this was going to happen? Did you know you were in danger?” Irene asked carefully. Irene never questioned her guest’s motives for needing a place to stay. But the severity of the scene of a broken house on TV brought her to question the safety of her friend.

“I had no idea.” And Rosie closed the door behind her.

The Creek

“Has Carter ever lived in this house?” Rosie asked the taller police officer. As far as Rosie knew, Carter didn't have any kids, or a wife for that matter. He simply existed by himself and kept to himself most of the time. He never spoke about having relatives in the area, let alone any kind of friendship with someone other than the Brewery Boulevard bartenders. And even with the bartenders he barely spoke.

“Not that we know of,” the officer responded. He took a step towards Rosie, who was still standing in the driveway. Rosie stepped back.

Why would the police have stopped to ask her where Carter was in the middle of the pouring rain? Rosie asked herself. And how would they know she was yelling out for the same Carter they were looking for?

“Why don’t you just go home and leave it to us to find Carter?” the shorter officer suggested.

Rosie didn’t trust these police officers, or police in general, and was glad for an excuse to leave the scene.

“We’ll call you with any information we have,” the short one said. “Can we have your number in case we need to reach you?”

Couldn’t he just look it up in the system? Rosie thought. But she didn’t say it out loud.

“I’m sure Carter will turn up, he usually does. My number is in the phone book,” Rosie lied. Her number was unlisted. “I don’t give out personal details to strangers.”

Rosie made a beeline for her car, not meeting the officers’ eyes, gunned the engine and took off down the road that no longer belonged to Carter. The flat tire was just going to have to wait until morning. She had forgotten all about calling a tow truck.

She had stopped trusting the police after her father died, or rather, after he was murdered.

Rosie had lived in the same town all her life. One night a cop came to the house, Rosie was sixteen. Her mother slammed the door in the officer’s face and Rosie knew. The women sobbed as her mother recalled the incident. Her father was gunned down in a back alley and left for dead. The investigation said it was an accident. Her father was caught in the line of fire by a rookie officer who was too scared to report he’d shot the wrong man. Months later the rookie confessed. He was discharged immediately.

As Rosie crossed over the swelling creek, she realized where she was and she wasn’t supposed to be there.

The note from Carter clearly said ‘Don’t go home tonight’. And without thinking, Rosie had put herself on auto-pilot and was now minutes away from turning on to her own street. It was approaching one o’clock in the morning and there was plenty of night left. If the message had been for her, she should heed its warning and turn around. Wherever Carter was now, he had intended to keep her safe.

The image of his abandoned truck and her unease with the cops earlier had her questioning the credibility of the whole story. The officers said the truck was on the other side of the hill. But she didn’t want to cross paths with them again tonight, planning to return back in the morning.

Rosie thought about the places she could go instead, but at this late hour, most of her friends would not appreciate a doorbell ring.

There was one place where she was always welcome though, regardless of the time. And she wouldn’t have to answer any probing questions.