It’s smashed. Its body has been bashed in with something. The wood is shattered. The strings are broken. The neck is cracked, with just a few splinters of wood keeping it from being completely detached.
No, no, no, no, no.
It’s utterly beyond repair. I’ve had the guitar since I was eighteen. It was a graduation gift and my most prized possession. I just had it restrung, and without it, my gig at Rusty’s won’t be happening.
Tears sting my eyes and the pain in my chest is almost too much to take as I fly into the hallway and straight to Lindsey’s room. I pound on her closed door, and when there’s no answer, I twist the knob. Locked. I yell for her, but there’s no reply.
Kelly’s door is open, but she’s not home. She always leaves before I wake up on work days. I start to search through the rest of the house for Lindsey, until it occurs to me to look for vehicles outside. Mine is the only one there.
Several minutes filled with both rage and panic pass before I remember that I need to get to work, but I have no way of locking my bedroom door and I’m afraid to leave my things here. But what choice do I have? Maybe I can drive home at lunch and put a padlock on my door, though my most valuable possession is already ruined, so I don’t know if there’s much point now.
I don’t remember the drive into the office, and I’m still trembling when I stash my bag in my desk drawer and stare blankly at my dark computer screen. What am I going to do?
23
Garrett
Jenny, the human resources officer, is going over the job descriptions I drafted for the two new IT positions, but I can barely focus on what she’s saying because I can’t stop wondering what went on in Autumn’s room after I left last night.
How long did Trevor and Adrian stay, and what did the three of them do before they left? I try not to speculate, because the images that come to mind when I do are very distracting.
I drag my attention back to the meeting, and just in time, because now Jenny’s saying that she’ll have details for me about my promotion when we meet again later this week. I’m way overdue for a raise, and for getting additional staff. Autumn and I have been working hard — and just like that, my poorly worded thoughts have me thinking of how I’d like to work Autumn hard over a desk after everyone else in the office goes home.
For fuck’s sake.All I need to do is focus for another minute, and then this meeting will be over, and I can go see if Autumn’s in yet. I can’t decide if I want her to tell me about last night, or if I’d rather not know. It doesn’t take long for me to decide that I want to know as much as she’s willing to tell me, but I won’t push for information.
I’ll be counting the hours until lunch when we can be alone.
Finally, the discussion is over. I nod my thanks to Jenny and make a quick exit, assuming my haste will look like I have a lot of important work to get to. Which I do, but it can wait a few more minutes.
I exhale an impatient breath when I don’t see Autumn’s head over the cubicle wall. She must be running late. Maybe she stayed up all night with the other guys and she’s taking a sick day. I’m about to pass by her desk when I stop in my tracks.
“Autumn?”
Sheisin. She’s in her chair, bent over her desk, her head down on folded arms. I smile at the sight of her, but my expression changes immediately when she lifts her head.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
Her eyes are red and her face is stained with tears, and my hands reflexively tighten into fists. What did they do to her? I wouldn’t have imagined Trevor or Adrian hurting her, but they must be the cause of her pain.
I kneel at her side, find her hand, and take it in mine. I shouldn’t be touching her at the office, but I couldn’t care less about workplace rules right now. “What did they do?” I demand.
“My guitar …” she says, before a sob escapes her.
Her guitar? I don’t know what I expected to hear. Maybe that the men forced her to do something she didn’t want to do, or that she got emotionally involved and they told her they didn’t want to see her again. Did I hear her right?
“Your guitar? What happened? Are you okay?”
She already has a tissue in her hand and uses it to wipe her nose before she says, “She ruined my guitar. Smashed it! And slashed my new clothes.”
“Who did that?” I ask. A woman from accounting stops just outside the cubicle, clearly concerned, but I wave her off, mouthing, “It’s okay.”
“It had to be Lindsey,” she says. “It couldn’t have been anyone else.” She straightens in her seat, and after using two more tissues, she stops crying and tells me she found her guitar smashed on her bed when she got out of the shower this morning.
“Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” There’s an angry roar in my head — a muffled sound as if I’m underwater. Even though she’s sitting right here apparently unharmed, I need to know that Autumn hasn’t been physically hurt.
“She didn’t hurt me. I haven’t even seen her, but I won’t be able to play at Rusty’s tomorrow.”
Her performance. The first step in her musical career.