Bumped - Completed Novel

Bumped - Chapter Seven

The minute the sun started to stain the morning sky, I rolled out of bed. Not like I was sleeping anyway. Men avoided that phrase, "we need to talk," like it was the main cause of permanent erectile dysfunction. So to hear Diego volunteer it, I was on edge. We need to talk. In the shower, his voice tickled and teased my already frayed nerves. We need to talk...about my wife. Concentration was just as fleeting as sleep. I dropped a glass of water. Damn near took my eye out while applying mascara. Had to come back home because that gnawing feeling of leaving the iron on was actually correct.

When I left the condo the second time, a woman stepped in front of my car as I exited the side gate on Jefferson Boulevard. She walked over to my car and smiled. She looked like a college student with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and a warm-up suit. She tapped on my window. I rolled it down halfway.

"Are you Elle?"

"Do I know you?"

A sudden flash of light blinded me when some guy appeared out of nowhere and started snapping pictures.

"What are you doing?" Instinctively, I blocked my face with my arm as I tried to blink away the blindness caused by the flash.

"Your boyfriend swindled a lot of people out of money. How did you two spend it?" The woman asked as she shoved a digital recorder toward the open window.

Horns honked behind me. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a few cars lining up behind me waiting to get out. I peeled out of the driveway away from the reporter and headed east on Jefferson. I was starting to shake and the road was shimmying before my eyes. I was afraid to pull over; afraid someone else would start taking pictures.

My phone rang, it was Justine. Using Bluetooth, her voice filled the car.

"Are you sitting down?"

"I'm driving."

"Maybe you should pull over."

"I can't, so just spill it."

In a tone that could have been describing how to build a database to figure out HMO costs, she said, "Diego was on GMA. They called him a disgraced financial adviser because he stole more than $30 million from his clients."

Another chorus of angry horns blared at the same time like they were in a marching band as my car swerved into the other lane. I jerked the wheel to get back in my lane.

"You're kidding me, right?" I sucked in my breath. This had to be a mistake.

Hyperventilating, panic attacks, hives, they used to be foreign to me. I thought I was going to pass out at the wheel from the shallow breaths that came fast and furious.

By the time I reached our little out-of-the-way spot in Silver Lake, I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. I had fallen down some crazy rabbit hole and couldn't get back up. I sat there with my hands still gripping the steering wheel. My interview with Triad was Friday morning, tomorrow. It couldn't come fast enough. What were the chances that my name could stay out of the news until after the interview? Fortunately, I wasn't mentioned on GMA, but who did that female reporter at my gate work for? Was that the angle she was going to use for her story? Could I become a target simply because I was accessible or did she really believe it? I pinched myself. Hard. Just so I could feel something other than fear. A sharp rap on the window startled me. I almost peed on myself.

I scowled as I rolled down the window a crack; it wasn't Diego. It was a youngish guy, he could have 25 or 35, hard to tell. Men aged in the reverse of dog years, every seven years they would age one.

"Yes?"

"You ok? You don't look so well."

"I'm fine, thanks."