Chapter 12 (1/2) - Detective Ella

POV - ELLA

I was in my car on my way to Pilates, stopped at a red light as I fumbled and dropped my hairclip as I was trying to put my hair up. As I reached for it on the floor by the passenger seat I scrunched my eyebrows as my hand touched something else. I picked it up along with the hairclip. A lipstick? Huh? But I don’t wear this brand or lipstick in general, I’m more of a lipgloss girl… The light turned green and I drove to my Pilates studio, confused about the lipstick, but having to concentrate on driving first. 

I parked the car, but didn’t get out. I looked at the lipstick I had found on the floor. It wasn’t a brand I used nor a shade I would ever buy, sort of a cool-tone with a hint of purple. None of my friends would ever wear it either, so whose could it possibly be? And why was it in my car? I didn’t exactly drive people around in my car that much. The only people using my car were me, Connor and Austin. Austin hadn’t been in my car for awhile, but Connor did borrow it to meet up with friends not that long ago. But he doesn’t wear lipstick was my first thought before it clicked that maybe he had had someone who did wear lipstick in my car with him. This sent me into a spiral and I was definitely cancelling Pilates to get to the bottom of this. 

Going through my texts I found the message I had basically begged him to send to me back then. It was in his usual snarky humor and not very helpful, I had let it go back then as I was having a good time with Austin.

Connor: Reporting live to my police gf - I’m at this new gastropub with Alex, Sam and Taylor. Happy now? 

The text didn’t tell me exactly what pub he was referring to which frustrated me to no end. But maybe I really had been a detective in a past life, because I had the brilliant (or crazy) idea to check the log for the GPS in my car. Connor never drove anywhere without using the GPS, he was sort of “directionally challenged” so to speak, so I checked it and as a quick search online did not yield any results for gastropubs near the address I felt I had to see the place for myself. 

I left the Pilates studio’s parking lot in a hurry, almost scratching my car and definitely drove over a curb accidentally. It took forever, I hit every read light on the way, and my thoughts were all over the place.

The GPS did not lead me to a gastropub, but instead to a hotel. Why would Connor lie about where he went? Was it a secret? Was he planning a surprise for me? No… That didn’t really seem like his style… Maybe there was a pub inside the hotel? 

Sitting in my car outside a building, biting my nails and a head filled with paranoid thoughts was bringing back bad memories, and a sense of deja vu. A smart-watch notification is all that was missing. I was a fool. Why was I doing this again? I should trust my boyfriend! I did trust my boyfriend. Connor might seem a bit rough, but he wouldn’t do anything bad. Hadn’t I defended him a million times to my friends, telling them not to judge him so easily. This was clearly a me-problem, I was being paranoid and foolish, right? Connor had done nothing wrong. I had no proof and I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes. I was not an irrational and crazy girlfriend - I was chill, super chill and nonjudgemental. Totally. But… since I had driven all the way here, I might as well check out the hotel and see what kind of place it was. 

At first the hotel didn’t seem familiar, but as I entered and found out there was rooftop bar open for anyone, not just hotel guests, I was getting a sense I had seen this place before. The sense of familiarity heightened when I saw the spectacular view from the rooftop. It seemed like a nice place. I ordered a drink and sipped it as I looked around.

And then it clicked. I had seen this before, just not in person. I pulled out my phone and started going through Connor’s social media and there it was a picture of this very same view. I drowned my drink and ordered more. The only logical thing to do was to really put my detective cap on and get to the bottom of this. I looked back at the message. I didn’t really know all his friends, he never really wanted me to hang out with them, but the more I looked at the three names in the message the less certain I became that they were guys. But they had to be, right? Because hadn’t we literally fought about girls and guys being able to be friends or not while we were on the way to my hang out with Austin back then? All the names were gender-neutral now that I looked at them with new eyes. Alex. Sam. Taylor. 

I stalked Connors account, looking at likes, comments, followers and posts. Downing drink after drink as I tried to match the names to their social media accounts. They were quite common names and so it wasn’t easy to narrow it down as it turned out he knew many people with those same names.