Free Esme and the Money Grab: (A Very Dark Romantic Comedy) by Paloma Meir

died after arguing with his much put upon caretaker.”
      “You don’t know how the world works Landon. People, your kind of people, see me and think poor, desperate, lazy, criminal.”
      “My kind of people?” He asked with a trace of sarcasm.
      “Not your kind of people. I didn’t mean that. It’s just the way this city, maybe the world works.”
      “I would love to have spent my life with you, showing you how wrong your thinking is… but now…”
      “But now, what?”
      “It’s not important anymore.” He rubbed the top of his head, “In the living room, that’s Jack? The one who wasn’t taking the breakup well?”
      “Yes.”
      “Okay, well, that was an understatement. The way it looks now, is damaging. I’m going to call 911. When they get here, you’re not going to say a word, but you will listen to what I’m saying and when they eventually interview you, you will parrot back what I said to them. Do you understand?”
      “Yes.”
      “I’m risking my law degree, and possibly my freedom on you. Are you sure you can do this?"
      “Yes, but you don’t need—
      “Esme, you weren’t the cause of this, but what happened after? It doesn’t look good. I’m going to say some things about your maniac old boyfriend, who tried to kill you. It might get rough. Can you handle it?”
      I was going to say, no, you can’t do that, but I suddenly felt the spirit of Jack propelling me to say, yes. I swear I heard laughter from Mr. Galloway too. I blocked out the voices of my parents. My head was too busy with people no longer alive.
      “Yes,” I went back to Jack, sat down next to him and held his hand in mine. Within a few minutes paramedics and police swarmed around us. I couldn’t quite hear what Landon was saying to them, but I figured it out.
      Jack had been stalking and terrorizing me. Mr. Galloway, out of the goodness of his heart had let me stay with him, for my protection. Landon and I had gone away for a vacation and come back to this scene. We were just as baffled as to what had gone on while we were away as the police were.
      The paramedics told Landon that it looked at as if Mr. Galloway had died a natural death. They didn’t understand why Jack had wrapped him up. One of them muttered, drugs, as they carried Jack’s body away to the ambulance to take him to the morgue for an autopsy.
      The police tried to talk to me, to get my version of events. Landon told them they could do it another time, that I was clearly in shock to have two people who had meant so much to me die so suddenly. He was correct.
      The police left a few hours later after giving me their card and telling me they would like to speak to me the next day, if I were up to it. I think Landon had scared them with his lawyerly talk. And then it was just the two of us.
      “You okay, Esme?”
      “I’m fine.”
      He stared at me as if I were a stranger. If I weren’t so numb, it would have broken my heart. I looked away.
      “I’m going to go home now…”
      “I understand.”
      “Yeah… If you need me—
      “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
      I called a cab a few minutes after he left and took it to a small boutique hotel next to Whole Foods on Crescent Dr. I paid for the room with my ill-gotten money in the golden satchel. I had an impulse to give the bag of cash away to the bell-hop.
      I didn’t though. I’m a survivor.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Eleven
     
      I was wrong about earthquakes. The one we experienced had only been a 4.0. It hadn’t damaged the city, but it had ended Jack’s life. He was the only recorded fatality. The story of the Jack and Mr. Galloway hadn’t made more than a blip in the local papers.
      The detective called me the next day. He didn’t ask me for my version of events, just confirming what Landon had told them. I mumbled yes, and the phone call was over in a few minutes. They