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.