Soulmates Read Online Free Page B

the day and the fifties at night.
    I rifled through my wardrobe to find some appropriate clothes. I wanted to fit in at the Zuni Retreat. I searched for leggings and colorful tank tops, anything that resembled what those yoga girls had been wearing in their Instagram pictures from Zuni. I found a long wrap sweater that Beth bought me for Christmas a few years ago that had been languishing in the back of my closet.
    That reminded me that I should probably tell Beth where I was going.
    â€œDana, are you okay?” Beth said before I could even say hello.
    â€œI’m fine,” I said tersely. I didn’t want her sympathy right now; I felt like it would slow me down, make me sad instead of determined. “I’m calling because I’m going to New Mexico today so that I can talk to the police about Ethan in person.” I didn’t tell her my ulterior motive. Beth would lose it completely if I told her that I was going to creep around the retreat where Ethan had lived. Visiting his final home was about fifteen levels up from just Googling him obsessively.
    â€œWhy the fuck would you schlep all the way out there? Don’t they have Skype?” Beth could sniff out the obsessiveness in this trip, of course, even with my trying to hide it.
    â€œThey think Ethan killed Amaya,” I explained. “And I know that’s not possible. That’s not Ethan. I think it will be more convincing if I go out there in person and tell the police everything I know about who Ethan really was.”
    â€œSo you’re going to tell them that he’s a coward who left you as soon as things got a little difficult?” Beth asked. She was always so tough on me.
    â€œI knew you’d be like this,” I said, trying to keep myself from yelling. Fighting with Beth always made me regress to our childhood dynamics of screams, tears, and threats. “I wasn’t going to tell you I was going because I didn’t want to hear this shit. But I didn’t want you to worry.”
    Beth sighed and said nothing for a few beats. Then she said much more gently, “I get it, you’re grieving.” She paused again, then said, “And I guess I don’t think Ethan could kill someone, either. But I just don’t think this is the right thing for you to be doing in this moment.”
    â€œI understand where you’re coming from,” I said, trying to be conciliatory. “But it’s something I need to do. I’m doing it for Ethan, but I’m also doing it for me. I want to know more about his last days. For closure.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œOkay?”
    â€œI know that arguing with you isn’t going to work, so I’m saying okay because I don’t want to fight with you. But I want to go on record saying that I think this is a bad idea. I thought you were finally getting over Ethan, and now you’re going to plunge back into all that old news. Are you sure you’re doing this for closure, or is it because you don’t want to think of yourself as someone who could have loved a killer?”
    â€œTell me how you really feel, Beth,” I said, stung.
    â€œI won’t say it again. But I wanted to put it out there. Have a safe trip; call me if you need me.”
    â€œI will,” I replied, and I even half meant it.
    The Zuni Retreat was a little more than three hours’ drive from the Albuquerque airport. Everything in the landscape looked bright and white and new. The desert sky was clear in a way it rarely is in New York or Minnesota, and the sandy hills reflected the sun so it was constantly blinding me. I kept adjusting and readjusting my visor in the rental car to keep the glare out, but it was mostly futile.
    I was in a daze anyway. I kept turning Beth’s words over while I drove, to the point where I imagined the proper, female British voice that came out of my GPS telling me, “This is a bad idea.” But I snuffed down my doubts.