Stories We Never Told

by Sonja Yoerg

  The boathouse where she rows. Where she and Miles met.

  Jackie is suspicious of coincidences. Especially this one, so rife with meaning. Her thoughts swirl, one blending into the next, fact and conjecture mixing in a nonsensical slurry: Jeff, Miles, Harlan, Nasira. A kiss, a lie, a series of attacks, a pawn. So many coincidences, or apparent ones. She is a fly in a web. The more she twists and turns to see her predicament, to guess from which direction the spider might ambush her, the more entangled she becomes.

  She extracts her phone from her pocket and takes a photo of the alley without questioning her motivation. She doesn’t go up to the tape to see more, though. There might be blood.

  Her phone vibrates, startling her. A text notification appears on the screen.

  Harlan.

  Miles is at my house and in a bad state. Please come.

  It’s so damned perfect. Harlan is delivering her to Miles. Every single shitty thing that has happened to her since September leads to goddamn Harlan.

  Static fills Jackie’s head and she sways, dizzy. She closes her eyes to level herself. No choice; she has to go to Miles.

  On my way. She presses send.

  Harlan’s house is about a mile away, on Logan Street west of campus. Jackie checks for an Uber, but the closest one won’t come for seven minutes. She can’t possibly wait here that long, so she pockets her phone and retraces her route along the towpath, running along the flat and crossing under Canal Road into Jackson Valley Park. Out of breath, she climbs the hill as quickly as she can and resumes running after it levels out. A few runners pass her on the dirt path, and a woman pushing a stroller calls out, “Good morning!” Jackie is gasping and doesn’t respond.

  She reaches Pierson Road, turns left, and slows to a walk. Whatever is wrong with Miles, she needs to be as composed as possible. She wipes the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. Logan is the next right; she’s almost there.

  Jackie scans the street for Miles’s car but doesn’t see it. As she starts up the long front walk, her mouth is dry and her breath ragged. Sweat is pouring off her, and she unzips her jacket partway.

  The front door is ajar. Music is playing, some R&B she doesn’t recognize, loudly enough that there is no point in knocking. This strikes Jackie as odd. Who blasts music in the middle of a crisis?

  She texts Harlan. I’m at your door. Waits.

  Nothing.

  With no alternative, she lets herself in.

  “Hello?” Her greeting is lost.

  The stairs are in front of her. The original paneled wainscoting along the hall and stairwell gleams. The room to the left had been the parlor and is now Harlan’s study. The door is shut. To the right is an arched casing into the living room. The plantation shutters are closed, but sunlight leaks along the margins, bathing the dove-gray room in gentle light. The music is coming, she now realizes, from the kitchen, at the back of the house, and grows louder as she proceeds through the living room, passing the low-slung gray tweed couches, the wood-slat and black metal end tables, all spotless, nothing out of place.

  The dining room is in front of her. She pauses at the table, an expanse of stainless steel. Miles’s jacket is draped over the back of a chair.

  “Hello?” She’d have to shout at the top of her lungs to be heard, but feels compelled to announce herself.

  The harlequin flooring of the kitchen extends before her, the only element to break with the industrial styling. The kitchen table, a rough-hewn wood slab surrounded by black Lucite chairs, sits empty in the corner of the room. The kitchen proper is to her right. She turns. Sunlight streams through the transoms above the shuttered French doors.

  Miles is standing between the central island and the counter extending into the room. He has his back to her and is shirtless. It’s so odd, she thinks, to see him this way, half-naked, from a distance. She wonders if perhaps he has been swimming, but Harlan has no pool. A recent shower, then.

  Her brain is amassing the information, formulating scenarios, sorting possibilities.

  Make it fit. Make it sensible.

  For a half second, Jackie looks but she does not see. Then she does.

  An arm across Miles’s back, holding him tightly, stroking his flesh. A hand on the back of Miles’s head, which is tipped sideways, accommodating a kiss.

  The kiss ends.

  Over Miles’s shoulder, smiling at her, is Harlan.

  CHAPTER 26

  Jackie stares at Harlan, at Miles. Miles untangles himself from Harlan, swivels to face her.

  The floor falls away from beneath Jackie’s feet. She throws her arms out to catch hold of something, to steady herself. Her phone flies out of her left hand, skids across the floor.

  “Jackie!” Miles calls from above her somewhere, like he’s shouting down an elevator shaft. Her right hip hits the ground, followed by her shoulder. She pushes up to sitting, the black-and-white geometry of the floor dazzles her, swirling.

  A shadow across the tiles, the pattern resolving. A hand on her arm.

  “Jackie! Are you all right?” Miles’s face is in front of her.

  She closes her eyes, smells sweat, salt, heat. She breathes in through her mouth and her lungs expand. She opens her eyes; her vision clears. Miles. She pulls her arm free. “Get away from me!” Scrambling to her knees, she spots her phone by the breakfast table, crabs over to retrieve it.

  Miles follows her, reaches for her. She lunges back, hits a chair. It topples, clattering.

  “Jackie, please stop. Jackie, please.”

  Out. Away. She gets to her feet, glances to her left, at Harlan. He hasn’t moved, his grin now a satisfied sneer. His mask is off. He did this to punish her. The horror of who Harlan is beneath his cool, polished exterior sends shards of ice into her veins.

  Miles moves in front of her. She won’t look at his face. Whatever is there holds nothing for her.

  “Get away from me!” Jackie pushes past him, runs blindly through the house, throws the door open, flies down the steps. The cold air hits her, and her chest constricts. Gasping, she bends over, hands on her knees. Her stomach heaves.

  After a few moments, her gasping eases. She straightens and jogs down the walk, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

  She reaches the street, turns right, and breaks into a panicked run.

  The campus is deserted. At Wolf Hall she tries to insert her key in the door, but it jumps around the opening. Jackie groans with frustration, shakes out her hands, and tries again. The key goes in, turns. She calls the elevator, takes it to her lab. Cold sweat coats the nape of her neck and runs down the small of her back. She shivers.

  She unlocks the lab door. The hall light is on, and the door to the shared lab is open.

  Tears flow down her cheeks. She cannot go home. This is her refuge. Her space.

  She rushes toward her office, slips inside. As she is closing the door, Nasira appears in the hall, a startled look on her face.

  Jackie slams her office door shut, leans against it. She fights against the sobs mushrooming in her chest, but cannot hold them back, and doubles over.

  “Jackie! What’s wrong?”

  Jackie slides down the door and hugs her knees. Closing her eyes, she wishes that was all it took to disappear. The bliss of oblivion. Lights out.

  “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Nasira’s tone is softer. “At least open the door?”

  Silence, except for the ragged sounds of her own breathing. A knife blade is lodged behind her sternum.

  “Jackie? I have some water for you.”

  Water. She attempts to swallow but has no saliva. So much running, and now so many tears.

  Jackie pushes herself to her feet, opens the door. She can’t bear any more emotion, regardless of whose it is, and moves slowly around her desk and lowers herself into the chair.

  Nasira places the glass in front of her. Jackie drains it, wipes her mouth with her sleeve. Keeps her eyes trained on the surface of her desk.

  Nasira says, “Sh
ould I call Miles?”

  Jackie spits out a laugh. The release brings on another bout of tears. Nasira leaves the office and returns with more water. She takes a seat opposite Jackie.

  Finally, Jackie looks up at Nasira and remembers their conversation two days ago, during which she resolved to be honest, to listen to Nasira’s side of the story and let go of her jealous obsession. Because of that fragile trust, she and Nasira were able to discern a pattern. Harlan’s hand appeared to be at the controls of the disasters befalling Jackie—and Nasira. Nasira had reached out to Jackie just this morning to relate her upsetting encounter with Harlan, mirroring the trust Jackie had offered her. Jackie can’t think of a reason not to open up to Nasira now, especially since the odds of Nasira and Miles having an affair just lengthened considerably. Jackie shakes her head ruefully.

  Nasira says, “When I called you this morning, something was wrong then.”

  Jackie reaches for the tissues on the shelf behind her and blows her nose. “Yes. The problem is, I can’t think straight right now. My head is filled with sludge.”

  “Maybe if you tell me, I can think for you.”

  “Maybe,” Jackie says, but the truth is she wants to curl up in the dark and let the world spin without her for a while, for however long it takes for her to forget what she just saw at Harlan’s house, to forget what happened to Jeff. But she doesn’t have the luxury of oblivion; she has to figure out what to do. She faces Nasira and takes a deep breath. It rattles in her chest. “My college boyfriend came to my lecture on Monday, totally unexpected. We had drinks after, and dinner on Thursday evening. On Friday, yesterday, he was supposed to go to his parents for Christmas—they’re in Connecticut . . .” She stares at the ceiling, collecting herself. “He’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “The police came to my house last night. They asked about Miles, of course, assuming a jealous husband, but I said he was in California.”

  “You said? You mean he wasn’t?”

  “I thought he was, until this morning, when I found this.” She sits forward and extracts the boarding pass from her back pocket. She unfolds it and lays it on the desk. “Apparently he came back Thursday.”

  Nasira’s brow is furrowed. “Why would he lie to you?”

  “Exactly. Why? And that same night, Thursday, Antonio was arrested for drinking. Miles tried to get hold of me to pick him up, only I was already asleep.”

  Nasira cocks her head. “So Antonio is in jail?”

  “No, Harlan went to get him and dropped him at his friend’s house.” Jackie sits up straighter. Laying out the sequence of events is sharpening her mind. She drinks more water and returns her attention to Nasira. “I’ve tried again and again to contact Miles since then. He didn’t answer. I should’ve just gone to the police first thing this morning with the boarding pass. After all, I’m the one that gave them the mistaken flight information.”

  “But you wanted to give Miles a chance to explain.”

  “Right.” Jackie fingers the boarding pass. “And now I know why he lied about his flight.”

  Nasira looks confused. “You found Miles?”

  “I sure did.” Jackie’s thoughts pull up short. Thus far she has been caught up in the implications for her own marriage in seeing Harlan and Miles in a passionate embrace. She hasn’t thought of the impact on Nasira. She hesitates, thinking of what to say, and how. “Harlan lured me to his house with a text saying Miles needed me. I was down at the river, looking for the spot where they found Jeff. I didn’t want to wait for an Uber—the text sounded urgent—so I ran to Harlan’s.” She shakes her head at her gullibility. “When I got there, I found them together.”

  “Together? What do you mean?”

  Jackie’s throat closes. “They were holding each other, kissing.”

  Nasira covers her mouth with her fingers. “Oh my God.” She stays like that for a long moment, then returns her hand to her lap. “What did you do?”

  “I ran out the door and didn’t stop until I got here.” She bites her lip. It tastes of salt. “My life is destroyed, but at least today’s workout is taken care of.”

  Tears well in Nasira’s eyes. “Jackie . . .”

  The women stare at each other for a few moments, each in her separate pain, each considering the other’s. For the first time, Jackie appreciates Nasira’s reticence. Most people would launch into a series of questions. God knows Jackie has quite a few herself: How long has this been going on? Has Miles had other men? Has Harlan—even when he was with her? And why did Harlan orchestrate her arrival on the scene?

  The answer to this last question, at least, seems straightforward. He intended to injure her, to deal a blow engineered to level her.

  He nearly succeeded.

  Jackie’s eyes are trained on Miles’s boarding pass. Presumably her husband returned to DC Thursday night to be with Harlan. He couldn’t pick up Antonio because he was supposed to be in California, not rendezvousing with his lover. Jackie’s heart lurches. Had Miles been duping her all along? The idea that her marriage is a sham seems preposterous, but that, as it happens, is no criteria for rejecting an idea. Not if recent events are any indication.

  Her thoughts of Antonio spark a recollection of the words he tossed at her the night she encountered the dealer at the house, the phrase Grace wondered about and for which Jackie had no explanation. About lying to herself, about her life not being what she thought it was. No, not her life, she sees now, but her marriage. Antonio knew. Is that why Miles divorced Antonio’s mother?

  Nasira gets up, takes a tissue, and dabs at her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Jackie says.

  “I guess he fooled us both.”

  Jackie nods. Harlan played Nasira to get at Jackie and deceived Jackie into thinking he was over her, that they had segued into friendship. But none of that matters at the moment.

  She pulls her phone from her pocket. She’s fairly certain that Miles’s deception about his return flight had to do with wanting to see Harlan and nothing to do with Jeff. Still, she doesn’t have all the facts, precious few, in fact.

  “Who are you calling?” Nasira asks.

  “The police.”

  Detective Cash ushers her into a small conference room. Abandoned coffee cups litter the table, and the fluorescent fixture overhead pulses sporadically. He gestures to a chair and sits across from her, taps his pen on the legal pad in front of him. Over the phone, Jackie told him she had seen her husband at Harlan’s house. She didn’t go into detail about what she witnessed—she wasn’t sure it was relevant—but she mentioned the boarding pass. Jackie places it in front of the detective, and takes a seat.

  Cash uses his pen to drag it closer and examines it briefly. “Thanks for bringing this, Dr. Strelitz. I’ve sent a cruiser to Harlan Crispin’s house.”

  Jackie frowns, torn over whether to volunteer information about Harlan and Miles. The encounter (or relationship or whatever it is) does go partway toward exonerating Miles. Wouldn’t he be less likely to act out of jealousy while having an affair himself? She decides not to bring it up for now. “You just want Miles for questioning, right?”

  “I can’t answer that.” He leans back, gives her a long look, tapping his pen absently. “Is there something else you want to tell me?”

  “Yes. No.” Jackie’s temples are throbbing. She rubs them with the heels of her hands, then returns her attention to the detective. His expression is impassive. Jackie opts for transparency. Everything else takes too much energy. “Listen, Detective Cash. I’m sleep deprived and frazzled. I don’t know what’s relevant to you. I don’t know what to say or do or who to believe. I’ll tell you everything I know, but don’t expect it to make any sense.”

  He nods, but there’s little apparent sympathy. He has no real reason to believe her. “Let’s focus on what might be related to the death of Jeffrey Toshack.”

  “As I said yesterday, my husband can’t be responsible.”

  Cash leans his forear
ms on the table, hands clasped. “So how did you happen to find your husband?”

  “I received a text from Harlan, saying I should come to his house because Miles was in a bad state.” Cash scribbles on his pad. “Do you want to see the text?”

  “No, just forward it to me, please. So then you drove to Dr. Crispin’s?”

  She shook her head. “I was at the river, on foot. I’d been retracing where Jeff might’ve walked.”

  Cash raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

  “When I got the text, I ran to Harlan’s, through the park.” She explains about the door, the music, the embrace, running away.

  The silence in the room is leaden.

  Cash runs a hand over his chin. “You had a shock, I can see that. And maybe this changes the way we look at things.” He puts down his pen. “And maybe it doesn’t.”

  Jackie is oddly relieved by this—that what is monumental to her personally might have nothing to do with what happened to Jeff, or, more simply, that Detective Cash is as confounded by the events as she is. “Isn’t it possible the person who killed Jeff had nothing to do with me?”

  “Sure. We’re pursuing every lead we’ve got. We just don’t have many, and ‘random killer’ is an explanation of last resort. There’s almost always a reason, and it’s usually close to home.”

  Jackie nods. Close to home. But how close?

  CHAPTER 27

  Jackie leaves the station and checks her phone. A missed call from Miles, which she has no intention of returning. She gets in her car, a hot ball of anger establishing itself in her gut. As she drives home, the image of Miles and Harlan embracing flashes in her mind again and again, dry kindling to the fury building inside her. She grabs the wheel more tightly, focuses on the traffic, the stoplights, the crosswalks, anything other than the heat building behind her eyes like a fever. Good thing it’s a short drive.