A Faint Cold Fear

by Karin Slaughter

  She walked into the living room, dropping the phone in the charger. A dark figure was standing at the front door, the outline of his body showing through the curtains. She called, “Just a minute,” her throat straining from the effort.

  In Nan’s bedroom she looked for something to cover herself. The only thing on offer was a pink terry-cloth robe, which was just as ludicrous as the blue pajamas. Lena walked to the hall closet and took out a jacket. She put it on as she walked to the front door.

  “Hold on,” she said, removing the chair. She unlocked the dead bolts and opened the door, but no one was there.

  “Hello?” Lena said, walking onto the front porch. No one was there either. The driveway was empty.

  She could hear the alarm keypad beeping inside and remembered that Nan had set it before she left. The alarm was on a twenty-second delay, and Lena ran back into the house, entering the code into the keypad just in time.

  She was walking toward the kitchen when the sound of breaking glass stopped her. The curtain on the kitchen door moved, but not from a breeze. A hand reached in, feeling for the latch. Lena stood, paralyzed for a few seconds, until panic took hold and she darted into the hallway.

  Footsteps crunched across the kitchen floor. She ducked into the spare bedroom and hid between the open door and the wall, watching the hallway through the crack. The intruder made his way across the house in purposeful strides, his heavy shoes thunking across the hardwood floor. In the hallway he stopped, looking left, then right. Lena could not see his face, but could tell he was wearing a black shirt and jeans.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, holding her breath as he walked toward the spare room. She pressed her back into the wall as hard as she could, trying to make herself invisible behind the door.

  When she dared to open her eyes, he was turned away from her. Lena could only stare. She had been sure the man was Ethan, but the shoulders were too broad, the hair too long.

  The closet was packed floor to ceiling with boxes. The intruder started pulling them out one by one, reading their labels before stacking them neatly onto the floor. After what seemed like hours, he found what he wanted. Sitting on his knees in front of the box, he offered his profile to Lena. She recognized Richard Carter instantly.

  Lena thought of the Glock in Nan’s room. Richard had his back to her, and if she walked carefully, she might be able to clear the door and lock herself in Nan’s room.

  She held her breath, stepping out from behind the door. She was retreating slowly from the room when Richard sensed her presence. His head snapped around, and he stood quickly. White-hot anger flashed in his eyes, quickly replaced by relief. He said, “Lena.”

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, trying to sound strong. Her throat scratched with every word, and she was certain he could hear the fear in her voice.

  He furrowed his brow, clearly confused by her anger. “What happened to you?”

  Lena put her hand to her face, remembering. “I fell.”

  “Again?” Richard gave a sad smile. “I used to fall that way myself. I told you I know what it’s like. I went through the same thing.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sibyl never told you the stories?” he asked, then smiled. “No, of course she wouldn’t tell secrets. She wasn’t that way.”

  “What secrets?” Lena asked, reaching behind her, trying to find the doorway.

  “Family secrets.”

  He took a step toward her and Lena stepped back.

  “It’s a funny thing about some women,” he said. “They get rid of one wife beater and run right to the next one with open arms. It’s like deep down that’s what they really want. It’s not love unless they’re getting the shit beaten out of them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Not you, of course.” He waited long enough to let her know that was exactly what he meant. “My mother,” he provided. “Or, more specifically, my stepfathers. I had several of them.”

  Lena took a small step away from him, her shoulder brushing the doorjamb. She bent her left arm, keeping her cast clear of the leaded glass knob. “They hit you?”

  “All of them did,” Richard said. “They would start off with her, but then they always came to me. They knew something was wrong with me.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you.”

  “Of course there is,” Richard told her. “People sense it. They know when you need them, and what they do is they punish you for it.”

  “Richard—”

  “You know what’s funny? My mom always protected them. She always made it clear that they were more important to her than I was.” He gave a sad laugh. “And then she turned around and did it to them. None of them were ever as good as the one who got away.”

  “Who?” Lena asked. “Who got away?”

  He inched closer to her. “Brian Keller.” He laughed at her surprise. “We’re not supposed to tell anybody.”

  “Why?”

  “His faggot son from his first marriage?” Richard said. “He said if I told anybody, he would stop talking to me. He would cut me completely out of his life.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lena said, taking another step back. She was a few feet into the hallway now and she had to fight her instinct to run. The look in Richard’s eyes made it clear that he would chase her. “I’m expecting the lawyer here soon. I need to get dressed.”

  “Don’t move, Lena.”

  “Richard—”

  “I mean it,” he said, standing less than a foot away from her. His shoulders were squared, and she sensed that Richard could really hurt her if he put his mind to it. “Don’t move an inch.”

  She stood still, holding her left arm to her chest, trying to think of anything she could do. He was at least twice her size. She had never noticed what a large man he was, perhaps because she had never seen him as a threat.

  She repeated, “The lawyer will be here soon.”

  Richard reached past her shoulder and turned on the hall light. He looked her up and down, taking in her cuts and bruises. “Look at you,” he said. “You know what it’s like to have someone preying on you.” He gave her a sly smile. “Like Chuck.”

  “What do you know about Chuck?”

  “Only that he’s dead,” Richard said. “And that the world’s a better place without him.”

  Lena tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “Cooperation,” he said. “We can help each other. We can help each other a lot.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “You know what it’s like to be second best,” he told her. “Sibyl never talked about it, but I know that your uncle favored her.”

  Lena did not respond, but in her heart his words rang true.

  “Andy was always Brian’s favorite. He was the reason they left town in the first place. He was the reason they abandoned me with my mom and Kyle and Buddy and Jack and Troy and every other asshole who thought it was fun to get drunk and beat the shit out of Esther Carter’s little faggot son.”

  “Did you kill him?” Lena asked. “Did you kill Andy?”

  “Andy was blackmailing him. He knew that Brian didn’t come up with the idea on his own, let alone implement the research.”

  “What idea?”

  “Sibyl’s idea. She was about to submit her research to the committee before she was killed.”

  Lena glanced at the boxes. “Are those her notes?”

  “Her research,” he clarified. “The only proof left that it was hers.” A look of sadness crossed his face. “She was so brilliant, Lena. I wish you could understand how truly gifted she was.”

  Lena could not hide her anger. “You stole her idea.”

  “I worked with her on it every step of the way,” he defended. “And when she was gone, I was the only one who knew about it. I was the only one who could make sure her work was continued.”

  “How could you do that to her
?” Lena asked, because she knew that Richard had cared for Sibyl. “How could you take credit for her work?”

  “I was tired, Lena. You of all people should understand that I was tired of being the second choice. I was tired of watching Brian waste everything on Andy when I was right there, ready to do anything for him at any cost.” He pounded his hand into his fist. “I was the good son. I was the one who translated Sibyl’s notes for him. I was the one who brought it to him so we could work together and create something that—” He stopped, his lips a thin line as he tried to hold back his emotions. “Andy didn’t give a fuck about him. All he cared about was what car he could get or CD player or video game. That’s all Brian was to him, a cash machine.” He tried to reason with her. “He was blackmailing us. Both of us. Yes, I killed him. I killed him for my father.”

  Lena could only ask, “How?”

  “He knew Brian couldn’t do this,” Richard said, indicating the boxes. “Brian’s not exactly a visionary.”

  “Anyone would know that,” Lena said, getting to the heart of the matter. “What was his proof?”

  Richard seemed impressed that she had worked it out. “The first rule of scientific research,” he said. “Write it down.”

  “He kept notes?”

  “Journals,” Richard said. “He wrote down every meeting, every phone call, every stupid idea that never panned out.”

  “Andy found the journals?”

  “Not just the journals—all the notes, all the preliminary data. Transcripts from Sibyl’s earlier research.” Richard paused, visibly angry. “Brian wrote down every goddamn thing in those journals, and he just left them lying around for Andy to find, and of course Andy’s first reaction isn’t, ‘Oh, Dad, let me return these.’ It’s, ‘Hm, how can I get more money for this?’ ”

  “Is that how you got him to meet you on the bridge?”

  “Smart,” he said. “Yes. I told him I was going to give him the money. I knew he would never stop. He would just keep demanding more and more money, and who knows who he’d talk to?” Richard gave an exasperated snort. “All Andy ever cared about was himself and how he was going to get his next high. He couldn’t be trusted. It was always going to be take, take, take for him, and everything I worked for, all the sacrifices I made to help my father, to give him something to work on that he could be proud of—that we could be proud of—would be smoked away by that little ungrateful piece of shit.”

  The hatred in his voice took Lena’s breath away. She could only imagine what it must have felt like for Andy to be trapped on the bridge with Richard.

  “I could have made him suffer.” Richard moderated his tone, obviously trying to sound reasonable. “I could have punished him for what he was doing to me—to the relationship I worked to build with my father—but I chose to be humane.”

  “He must have been terrified.”

  “He was so huffed up on Tidy Bowl he could barely see,” Richard said, disgusted. “I just steadied him with my hand here”—he put his hand a few inches in front of Lena’s chest—“gently leaned him against the railing, and injected him with succynilcholine. Do you know what that is?”

  She shook her head, praying he would move his hand away from her.

  “We use it at the lab to put down animals. It paralyzes you—paralyzes everything. He just fell into my arms like a rag doll and stopped breathing.” Richard inhaled sharply, his eyes wide in surprise, illustrating Andy’s reaction. “I could have made him suffer. I could have made it horrible, but I didn’t.”

  “They’ll figure it out, Richard.”

  He finally dropped his hand. “It’s not traceable.”

  “They’ll still figure it out.”

  “Who?”

  “The police,” she told him. “They know it’s murder.”

  “I heard,” he said, but he did not seem threatened by the information.

  “They’ll trace it back to you.”

  “How?” he asked. “There’s no reason for them even to suspect me. Brian won’t even admit I’m his son, and even if Jill didn’t have her head in the sand, she’s too afraid to say anything.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Afraid of Brian,” Richard said, as if that were obvious. “Afraid of his fists.”

  “He beats his wife?” Lena asked. She couldn’t accept that Richard was telling the truth. Jill Rosen was strong. She wasn’t the type to take shit from anyone.

  Richard said, “Of course he beats her.”

  “Jill Rosen?” she said, still incredulous. “He beats Jill?”

  “He’s beaten her for years,” he said. “And she’s stayed with him because no one’s helped her like I can help you.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Yes you do,” he said. “Do you think he’s just going to let you go?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  Lena stopped him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know how hard it is to get away,” he told her, putting his hand to his chest. “I know you can’t do that kind of thing on your own.”

  She shook her head.

  “Let me take care of him for you.”

  “No,” she said, taking a step back.

  “I can make it look like an accident,” he told her, closing the space between them.

  “Yeah, you’ve done such a great job so far.”

  “You could give me some advice,” he said, holding up his hand so she wouldn’t interrupt. “Just a little advice is all. We can help each other get out of this.”

  “How can you help me?”

  “By getting rid of him,” Richard said, and he must have seen something in her eyes, because he gave a sad smile. “You know it, don’t you? You know that’s the only way you’re ever going to get him out of your life.”

  Lena stared at him. “Why did you kill Ellen Schaffer?”

  “Lena.”

  “Tell me why,” she insisted. “I need to know why.”

  Richard waited a beat before saying, “She looked right at me when I was in the woods. She stared at me while she was calling the cops. I knew it was just a matter of time before she told them.”

  “What about Scooter?”

  “Why are you doing this?” Richard asked. “You think I’m going to offer this long confession and then you’re going to arrest me?”

  “We both know I can’t arrest you.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “Look at me,” she said, holding her arms out to the side, drawing attention to her battered body. “You know better than anybody else what I’m mixed up in. Do you think they’re going to listen to me?” She put her hand to her bruised neck. “They can barely even hear me.”

  He gave a half smile, shaking his head as if to say he could not be suckered in.

  “I need to know, Richard. I need to know I can trust you.”

  He gave her a careful look, trying to decide whether to continue. Finally he said, “Scooter wasn’t me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Richard rolled his eyes, for just a moment the girly Richard she knew from before. “I heard he was scarfing. Who’s stupid enough to do that anymore?”

  Lena resisted his cattiness as an invitation to let down her guard. “And Tessa Linton?”

  “She had this bag,” he said, suddenly agitated. “She was picking up stuff on the hill. I couldn’t find the necklace. I wanted that necklace. It was a symbol.”

  “The Star of David?” she said, remembering how Jill had clung to it in the library. That day seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “They both had one. Jill bought them last year, one for Brian and one for Andy. Father and son.” He exhaled sharply. “Brian wore it every day. Do you think he would do something like that for me?”

  “You stabbed Tess Linton because you thought she had the necklace?”

  “She recognized me somehow. I saw her putting it together. She knew why I was there. She knew I
had killed Andy.” Richard paused, as if to gather his thoughts. “She started yelling at me. Screaming. I had to shut her up.” He wiped his face with his hands, his composure slipping. “Oh, Jesus, that was hard. That was so hard to do.” He looked down at the floor, and she could feel his remorse. “I can’t believe I had to do that. It was so horrible. I stayed around to see what happened and . . .” His voice trailed off, and he was silent, as if he wanted Lena to say it was okay, that he had not been given a choice.

  He said, “How do you want to do this?”

  Lena did not answer.

  “How do you want me to get rid of him?” Richard asked. “I can make him suffer, Lena. I can hurt him just like he hurt you.”

  Lena still could not answer. She looked at her hands, thinking about Ethan in the coffee shop and how angry she had been when he hurt her. She had wanted to pay him back, to make him suffer for the pain he caused.

  Richard lightly tapped his finger on the cast. “I had more than my share of these growing up.”

  She rubbed the cast. The scar on her hand was still red, dried blood around the edges. She picked at it as Richard laid out his plan.

  “You won’t have to do anything,” he said. “I’ll make sure everything is taken care of. I’ve helped women like you before, Lena. Just say the word and I can make him go away.”

  She could feel the scar give under her fingernails, peeling back like the sticker on an orange. “How?” she whispered, playing with the edge of skin. “How would you do it?”

  Richard was watching her hands, too. “Will it do any good?” he asked. “Will it make you stop hurting yourself?”

  She clutched her right hand around the cast and held it low on her waist, shaking her head, saying, “I just need to get him out of my life. I just need to get away.”

  “Oh, Lena.” He put his fingers under her chin, trying to get her to look up. When she did not move, he leaned down, putting his hands on her shoulders, his face close to hers. “We’ll get through this,” he said. “I promise you. We can do it together.”

  With both hands Lena rammed the cast up into his throat as hard as she could. The cast cracked underneath his jaw, clamping his teeth down on his tongue, throwing his head back whiplash fast. Richard stumbled backward, his arms flailing as he fell hard against the doorjamb. She bolted down the hallway toward Nan’s room, slamming the door behind her, working the ancient thumb latch just before Richard turned the knob from the other side.