Quinn’s eyes nearly bugged from his head.
“What?”
“She’s just a kid,” Ben said. “You’re doing more harm than good.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ben smirked, shaking his head.
“You don’t lie well when cornered,” he said. His eyes met Quinn’s. “Angel.”
Anger bubbled in Quinn’s chest.
You absolute fuck.
“What are you talking about?”
“You really want me to spell it out?” Ben laughed a little shaking his head. “You know, I admired you. For years. Writing intensely fascinating stories of deep romance. I was so impressed. I couldn’t understand how the hell a man like you could come up with all that. How you could make them so believable.” He half laughed again. “Now I know. It’s because you do it every day. You sweep them up, make them lose their breath, you carry them along on waves of passion so strong they can’t help but fall deeply in love with you. And then you get bored. Like your wife, Virginia. So boring. So dull. You need the excitement of the chase. Catching your prey. Cornering them. Giving them no choice but to fall into your bed. While you juggle two or three more on the side.” He shook his head. “When they say romance novels give women impossible expectations, I have to say, to me, they’re talking about men like you.”
“I think we’re done here.” Quinn stood.
Ben smirked, looking down at the table.
“Yeah,” he said. “I had a feeling you’d be that way.”
He looked up at Quinn, his mirror-like blue eyes sparkling.
“So let me explain the story behind this box.”
He reached in the crate hefting out a very large, ornately detailed shadow box of a historical scene.
“The Declaration of Independence,” he said. “One of Miranda’s school pieces. She did this one every year, but this was one of her earlier ones before she started simplifying them.”
He launched into a speech, pointing out different things as he talked. Quinn set his jaw and sat, eventually relaxing and asking questions.
***
Two hours later, Quinn had photos and two long recordings of Ben talking about the boxes. He had brought two of his neighbor’s over as well and explained them just as thoroughly. Quinn’s belly growled loudly just as he finished.
“Oh, I’ve made your tummy a bit angry by delaying your dinner,” Ben said. “Allow me to order something for you.”
He pulled his phone from his jacket.
Quinn waved him off.
“It’s fine. I’ll make something.”
“Ah, of course. I know I’m not your first choice as a dinner companion,” Ben said, with a little laugh.
He turned to the door, silent for a moment. When he spoke his voice was small and quiet.
“Tamara just rode by the house, but she saw my car here.”
Of course, she did. And you ‘felt it’.
“Will she know your car?”
Ben’s eyes met his.
“Worried she’ll think you’re cheating on her?”
Quinn huffed, shaking his head with irritation.
Who does this fuck think he is?
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Ben said with a shrug. “You need to break her heart in any case. She’s too young for you.”
Quinn tensed, anger bubbled inside him.
Ben’s head tilted to the side.
“You did try to turn her away though,” he said in a very distant quiet voice. “You tried to get her to leave. More than once. But she’s too clingy and you’re too weak to stop her. Unless there’s something in it for you.”
His eyes met Quinn’s again.
“Let me give you some motivation,” he said. “She’s gonna end up pregnant. Not by you, obviously, as we both know those days are gone for you.” He made a scissor cut with his fingers. “But she’s gonna think it’s you.”
“Who?”
“Haha, there it is. The jealousy. Yeah. You won’t know him. One of Megan’s friends in the city. Refused protected sex and Tamara gave in. Her first time aside from you. But since she’s fallen in bed more than once with you and only one time with that boy, she’s gonna think-”
“But obviously that’s impossible.”
“Yeah. But that won’t stop the scandal.”
Quinn groaned.
He’s right.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Ben said. “I’ll break it off. I’ll go to her, make her understand you are not the man she’s looking for. But of course, I’ll also have to tell her you’ve been clipped. And you back me up. Block her number. Ignore her when she knocks. Walk away when you see her in town. Go to the store when Bill’s working. Stay away from her. Forever. Deal?”
“Pfft.” Quinn raised his hands, leaning back in the chair.
“Should be a relief,” Ben said. “Letting someone else take the hit for you, seeing how much you’ve corrupted her.”
“I haven’t corrupted her. Her friend Megan-”
“Is being dealt with,” Ben said. “She’s worse for her than you are. You did at least try to stop her.”
He smirked, shaking his head.
“Though I think a lot of that was you enjoying being her ‘daddy’.”
Quinn sneered at him, but Ben stood. He put the shadow boxes back carefully in the crate.
“With all that said, I suppose it’s time for me to go.”
He stuck out his hand. Quinn stared at it a moment, but finally took and shook it.
“No worries, yeah? I’ll get it all handled.” Ben smiled at him as he hefted up the crate. “Just stick to Carol for a while. She needs it more than anyone else I think. And she’s got a clear enough head not to fall in love with you. The only thing you have to watch out for is Tim. Carol will keep everything in check between the two of you. One thing she’s not is impulsive. She just has no idea how far Tim will go. Of course, I could say the same thing about Tim. He has no idea how far his wife will go.”
He smiled at Quinn.
“As for me,” he said. “Nothing you and I discuss will ever be repeated to anyone in the living world. So if you need a confessor, give me a call or even a text. I live two minutes away. I’ll be here in a flash.”
Quinn opened the door for him and closed it as he left. Ben knocked once more, shouting from the other side of the door.
“Have a good night, Mister Tilman.”
Quinn listened as he walked down the steps, speaking to the old woman across the street again. He watched from the window as Ben put the crate in the trunk, still talking to the woman and slipped in his driver’s seat. He stared back at Quinn and half saluted before backing out of the driveway and disappearing over the tracks.
What the fuck was all that?
Chapter 16
JUST WHAT I NEEDED
After a small dinner, Quinn sat again at his laptop and typed furiously for a few more hours, finally closing everything down and heading to bed.
The whole time he got ready for sleep Ben’s words kept rolling around in his head. He stared into his own eyes in the mirror over the sink in the bath.
He knew too much. Though I guess I wasn’t really hiding anything. What’s the point?
He wasn’t too upset about no longer seeing Tamara. He already felt different about her, not sure what he really saw in her in the first place.
Just a kid. And too easily influenced.
He finished up his nightly routine and climbed in the bed, unwrapping his ankle.
Can sleep without the bandage tonight I think. Looks like it’s getting better.
He laid down on his back, checking his phone. There were no new messages. He sighed, again looking at Megan’s photos.
“Kitty,” he said to himself. “A tramp, but damned easy on the eyes.”
He sighed and dropped the phone on the table by the bed, hugging a pillow to himself and closing his eyes, the faint creaks and little soft noises of the night
lulling him gently to sleep.
***
Laughter drifted to him from far away. He tilted his head and it was gone. A few moments later, it was back again. He shook his head very slightly and rolled over.
A man’s voice made him perk up just a little. His brows crushed together, even though he was still deep in sleep. He blew a long breath away and drifted back off.
Megan. Kitty.
Her photos shimmered into his mind, like curtains covering a bright window, translucent and glowing in the blackness. He kept trying to catch them, to hold them closed, but the wind would blow just as he reached out, the soft, silky fabric slipping through his fingers.
Lily walked in a field thick with white flowers and several gravestones. The shadow of a giant cross fell across her and the field, making a huge gray X. She turned her nose up and avoided his gaze.
Tamara giggled and ran away through the field past Lily, her fingers running through the flower petals, her clothing looking like a young girl’s. Too young. Her hair was done up in pigtails. He winced.
“Catch me, daddy,” she said, her voice hollow and echoing. “Spank me, daddy! I’ve been a bad girl.” When she said ‘bad girl’ the sky went red, the flowers turned blue and tubular, becoming phallic-shaped. She faced him with growing fangs, her eyes glowing blue in the growing darkness. Her belly glowed and grew. He reached out and touched it.
“Feel him kicking?” She smiled up at him again, as if inside her phone in a photo, Megan beside her, and then both faded away.
“Angel?”
“Angel or devil?”
Ben stepped in, his white suit pressed and perfect, his blond hair flawless, his blue eyes reflecting everything. He stared at Quinn as if he could see right through him. He pointed at Quinn’s chest, making threads burst from him and expand away.
“Mister Tilman, you are neither angel nor devil. You are stuck forever in between. The lesser of other evils and yet still the corrupter.” The threads grew outward, piercing into Tamara’s heart, then Lily’s, the Carol’s. It spiraled around twisting and turning before plunging through Megan’s finger and wrapping around Gin’s throat. It looped around and zoomed fast, plunging into Kate’s mouth, screwing up into her brain before turning and burrowing deep inside her heart through her body. Her eyes met his before rolling back in her head. She fell backward, dragging all the others with her. Quinn lost his footing and screaming, dropped after her, falling into an open grave in the cemetery, as Dean Christmas stood over him, shovel in hand.
He scrambled, clawing at the dirt as it fell on his head, crawling at last out of the hole in the ground into pure whiteness. When he stood, he saw a long straight wall made of blue bottles on wooden pins. Vines and hedges seem to grow in place around them. The ground covered in grass by zig-zagging rows, growing so fast his eyes almost couldn’t keep up. Familiar voices chatted and giggled, a horse snorting in the distance. He looked over the fence.
Ben sat in a child’s chair at a small table with a red table cloth. Across from him sat the old woman, Mary Bitters. Between them rested a child’s teapot and dishes. Mary poured Ben a tiny cup of salt. She lifted hers and they tapped them together before raising them to their lips.
“Come and join us, Quinn.”
Ben looked over his shoulder at him. The old woman turned, her hair exploding into wild tendrils, her mouth open in an O as she screamed at him in rage.
He jumped backward, falling through whiteness, drifting and breathless.
Carol appeared in a pale gown, taking him in hand and kissing him. He lay beneath her as she moved, both of them sweating, out of breath, their mouths on each other, their hands exploring. He moaned a long slow sigh of relief.
***
He felt the bed beneath him and sat up, still in his room in the dark. A frantic knock on the front door shattered the silence. He sprung to his feet and limped to the door.
“Quinn? Quinn?”
Carol?
He opened the door. She burst in, wrapping her arms around him. He peered out into the night and shut the door, locking it up tight. He turned to her. She wore nothing but a very thin, almost sheer long nightgown with fluffy slippers and a hooded jacket. As she moved closer to him he caught the smell of alcohol on her breath.
“Quinn.” She touched his face, holding him there with both hands. Her eyes were bleary and bloodshot. “He’s having a thing with the hostess.”
A flash of horrible makeup and cigarette smoke made him wince.
“Her?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s her. She’s the one who’s been trying to get him to change the store. I caught them in the storage room tonight. He was late getting home and I was getting tired of waiting. I knew the restaurant was closed and he usually never lingered, but…”
“Carol, take a breath.”
She looked into his eyes. He breathed in deep with her.
“I caught them in the storage room. Fucking, Quinn. He was fucking her. Like an animal. Grunting and groaning. She was shouting obscenities. They kissed like… well like one of your books.”
She sat hard in a kitchen chair wringing her hands.
“So it’s over,” she said. “It’s all over. I’ll lose everything I worked on for so many years. And my marriage too.”
He walked to her, hugging her. She laid her head on his stomach.
“I’m a little drunk,” she said. “My head is just spinning. I’m not even sure how I drove here. I never do things like this. Though I never check on him at the restaurant when I haven’t been there either.”
“He’s done this before?”
“He’s stayed behind to get some cleaning done before. I never thought anything of it. I’d go home, cook dinner and then he’d show up.” She shrugged. “Then he’d criticize my cooking, stuff himself and fall asleep.”
Quinn rubbed her back.
“How long has it been since the two of you-”
“Oh, Quinn, I’m too embarrassed to say.”
“How long, sweetheart?”
He felt her shoulders tremble.
“At least ten years. Maybe more.”
That’s a crime. A woman this passionate wasted.
“Stand up,” he said. “Let me look at you.”
She turned her tearful gaze up at him. He took her hands and pulled her up to stand and then helped her remove the hooded jacket, draping it on the back of the chair. She kept her eyes on his the entire time. He held her hands, pulling them apart, holding them out away from her body.
The gown was pale, with a softly blended rainbow of faint colors, pink, red, blue and purple. Her body stood out behind it when the fabric was still and stayed hidden when it moved. His mouth dropped open a little as he took her in.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. He heard her catch her breath, her eyes so wide and staring up at him. He saw the glassiness from the drinking, the wetness from the crying but a tiny spark of something more shined back at him.
You’re wrong, Mister Clairvoyant. Carol is falling in love with me and she’s far more spontaneous than you or I ever dreamed.
He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed her.
“Tonight, then,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “You belong to me. It may not mean a thing tomorrow, Carol, but tonight, I hold you. I care for you. I make you feel like the woman you should always be.”
He walked her down the hall to his room. She helped him remove his clothes and he removed her gown, the two of them falling into bed.
Again, she surprised him in so many ways.
***
He opened his eyes to the now-familiar whistle of the morning train. Carol’s arm draped across him, her head pressed into the side of his upper arm. He sighed, closing his eyes again.
The dream flashed back at him in a series of still images. He gasped seeing Carol in the dream, wearing the gown she arrived in during the night. He broke out in a cold sweat.
Just a dream. What else would you expect the woman to wear?
He took a deep breath and tried hard to relax, eventually letting go of the stress and enjoying the feel of her pressed up against him.
She stretched and yawned, rubbing his chest a little. She breathed in deep and fluttered, blinking awake.
He smiled at her.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
She sat up with a gasp.
“Oh my god! What time is it?”
He reached over and grabbed his phone.
“After nine.”
“Oh my god! Quinn! How did I get here?”
He sighed, watching as she scrambled to stand and pull her gown over her head.
And the magic is gone.
“You came to me last night, banging on the door. Drunk apparently. Told me you caught Tim with the hostess in the storage room.”
She closed her eyes with pain and sat hard on the edge of the bed.
“Oh,” she said, her voice barely a croak. “I did.”
She seemed to deflate. He sat up and hugged her.
“I came to the only man to show me any affection in the last ten years.”
“You need to leave him.”
“Oh, it’s over now. I told him so last night.” She sighed. “Gonna piss off his little girlfriend. She wanted all my money.”
“But it’s your money,” he said. “Not his.”
“He knows that, but she doesn’t. She’s not from here. She doesn’t know the money is mine,” she said. “And he let her think whatever she wanted so he could get in her skirt.”
“So he’s using her.”
“For sex,” she said. “Yes. What he could’ve gotten from me for free.”
“I assure you, it’s completely his loss,” Quinn said. He leaned in close and kissed her neck. She patted him but shook her head.
“I can’t right now, Quinn.”
He backed off and sighed.
Lasting Shadows Page 20