One Week After the Flight
In my mailbox was a padded envelope addressed to me with no return address. The postmark said Atlanta. To my shock, $500 in cash was inside. I knew then it was from Jasmine. She had come through! How she got that much money, I had no idea, but she was true to her word and had paid me back. I tucked the money into a drawer until I could get to the bank and texted her a thank-you. She did not respond.
It was my day off, and I was just settling in on the couch, scrolling through TikTok, when my cell phone rang. It was Ed, the bar manager.
Hesitating with my finger over the answer button, I decided not to pick up. I really didn’t want to be called to fill in for someone tonight. I was beat from a long week, especially the stress over Glenn and stepping up at work to take on extra duties for Jasmine.
A few minutes later Ed called again. Ignoring it a second time, I turned my ringer off and flipped the phone upside down. I needed space. I deserved it. I was exhausted.
With my phone out of the mix, I popped on Netflix and settled in to binge-watch. When the first episode of my new series was done, I got up to make some popcorn for the rest of the marathon, and while it popped, I returned to the couch and finally flipped my phone back right side up.
There were twelve texts and ten calls, all from people at the bar. My body tensed up. What was going on?
Quickly, I opened Ed’s text first.
Have you been watching the news? Something happened to Jasmine. In Atlanta of all places. Call me. Where the hell are you?
The news? What did he mean? Frantically, I scanned the other texts I had from coworkers, which essentially said a variation of the same thing. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was in between the six and ten o’clock newscasts. The news? I called Ed.
“Jesus Christ, Anna. Where have you been? This is bad, really fucking bad. Sit down. Are you sitting down?”
“No.”
“Well, sit the hell down.”
“What are you talking about, Ed? Just tell me what happened to Jasmine.”
“Anna…” He took a deep breath. “Police in Atlanta just held a press conference. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Jasmine … is dead. Killed by some guy down there that she met.”
I was conscious that Rocky jumped off the couch and came to my side instinctively, but I was not conscious of much else. I couldn’t compute anything. “Ed, what did you just say?”
He laid it out for me as best he could, the little he knew, adding that he was closing the bar early and all coworkers were invited over together to talk and grieve.
We hung up, and I sank to the floor next to Rocky, burying my face in his soft fur. He began to lick my hand. I started to cry.
Oh, Jasmine, how could this happen? My thoughts went back to her first text to me about how she felt safe and beautiful, and then to her last text to me when she said this guy, Trent, was super sexy, but had a bit of a temper. Yet she insisted she was OK and didn’t need anything. That was just a few days ago. And he had killed her since then? My stomach roiled and I cried harder.
No, Jasmine, no. This just wasn’t fair. You weren’t dealt a fair hand in life. Your mom, Glenn, this. It was so unjust.
I should share what I knew with the police, I reasoned; maybe it would help them. But I’d deleted the texts. I wasn’t sure if police could pull up things that were deleted. I guess I assumed so. They were probably on a hard drive in my phone somewhere.
I reached for the phone to look up the number of the Madison police, hand shaking. Something stopped me, though. No, I shouldn’t go to the police. What new info would I be telling them anyway? And if they dug too deep, would I be implicated for Glenn being beaten up? I had to protect myself and Rocky. I would do what I could to honor Jasmine in other ways, a funeral, a memorial, keeping her memory alive. If the media asked me to talk about the Jasmine I knew from the bar, I would do that. But I couldn’t jeopardize my own safety.
Hugging Rocky tighter, I squinted my eyes shut, willing this whole nasty mess to go away. What kind of a monster was this guy Trent? He meets Jasmine, takes her to Atlanta, and kills her and some other woman within a week of knowing them? Was he a serial killer? Did my friend fall victim to a serial killer? Or did Trent maybe finance her trip and they knew each other already? Was that possible? Jasmine didn’t have a lot of money. How could she have gotten to Atlanta otherwise? Maybe he did bankroll her. Maybe that’s how she was able to pay me back.
Regardless, I couldn’t stop imagining Jasmine’s last moments with Trent. What did she experience at the end? How horrible was it? What was her last thought on this earth?
I hoped this monster Trent would rot in hell.