_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

RACHEL
• • •
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2013
EVENING
The heat is insufferable, it builds and builds. With the apartment
windows open, you can taste the carbon monoxide rising from the street
below. My throat itches. I’m taking my second shower of the day when
the phone rings. I let it go, and it rings again. And again. By the time I’m
out, it’s ringing for a fourth time, and I answer.
He sounds panicky, his breath short. His voice comes to me in
snatches. “I can’t go home,” he says. “There are cameras everywhere.”
“Scott?”
“I know this is . . . this is really weird, but I just need to go
somewhere, somewhere they won’t be waiting for me. I can’t go to my
mother’s, my friends’. I’m just . . . driving around. I’ve been driving
around since I left the police station . . .” There’s a catch in his voice. “I
just need an hour or two. To sit, to think. Without them, without the
police, without people asking me fucking questions. I’m sorry, but could
I come to your house?”
I say yes, of course. Not just because he sounds panicked, desperate,
but because I want to see him. I want to help him. I give him the address
and he says he’ll be here in fifteen minutes.
The doorbell rings ten minutes later: short, sharp, urgent bursts.
“I’m sorry to do this,” he says as I open the front door. “I didn’t know
where to go.” He has a hunted look to him: he’s shaken, pale, his skin
slick with sweat.
“It’s all right,” I say, stepping aside to allow him to pass me. I show
him into the living room, tell him to sit down. I fetch him a glass of
water from the kitchen. He drinks it, almost in one gulp, then sits, bent
over, forearms on his knees, head hanging down.