Rude Awakenings: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 2)

Chapter Forty-Five: Al, Tuesday

Rachel strode back into the living room, where Al sat on the couch, so tightly wound he thought he might spring off at the merest sound. He overheard her one-sided conversation with Lauren, and from the look on Rachel's face he dreaded what she would say.

"All right, let's see it," she said, extending her hand.

"See what?" he asked.

"The photo. Lauren told me about it."

His stomach dropped as he handed her the phone. It might have been all well and good to have told her what had happened, and that they'd even used it as imagery in their lovemaking, but he thought it was entirely another thing to have photographic proof of infidelity shown to you. That made it all too real, and unlocked all too real jealousies and other emotions.

She stared at it for some time. Al felt the blood drain from his face.

Slowly, painfully slowly, Rachel's hand reached under the waist band of her sweat pants.

"Rachel?" he asked, a little stunned at the turn of events.

"Shush!" she hissed. "Let me do this."

She sat on the couch beside him and proceeded to masturbate while looking at the photo. Al could see it in full screen on his phone, and he felt very, very exposed.

She came quietly, with a great shudder, and lay curled on the couch with her hand still between her legs. After a few gasps, she sat up and said, "There. I've taken away its power to hurt me."

"Why did you want to see it?" he asked plaintively.

"Here's a better question. If you were so concerned about how I would react to it, why did you keep it?"

"Honestly? In case the police needed it for evidence."

She flinched as if slapped. "Evidence of what?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just thought, as soon as we got the police involved, I shouldn't delete anything."

She stared at him a while, and he could see she wasn't convinced by his explanation. He couldn't really blame her. His explanation was true in its way, but it wasn't the whole truth; after all, he could have deleted it before the police became involved, although Lauren was also convinced that they shouldn't. The other part of the truth was that the picture was the only record of what had happened; he didn't even have his own memory to depend on. Maybe he didn't delete it because he didn't have time after Rachel returned; he'd been fully involved in getting to the hospital, bringing her home and, to his surprise, making love to her, and then calling the credit card companies to report their missing cards. Maybe that was true, but he was beginning to suspect that he didn't want to delete it, even though it was now in the hands of the woman he least wanted to see it.

She looked back down at the picture, then back up at him, and her brow furrowed. "Huh."

"What?"

She raised it to eye height, arms outstretched. "There's something interesting about the perspective here."

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Can we try something?" She beckoned him back into the bedroom, and when he followed her, to his surprise he found her lying on the bed, still a little stiff from her injuries. She was looking out a camera view, adjusting her position to accommodate what she was seeing on the picture by flipping back and forth between the photo and the camera view.

"Get on top of me," she said.

"I'm sorry?"

"If the two of you took this photo together, it would have been a selfie, right? I want to recreate what you did and see if it's consistent with the picture you have."