by Britney King
Jesus, Charlotte. Why didn’t you mention you had a cat?
“Here kitty, kitty,” I murmur when my breathing returns to normal and the hairs on the back of my neck are once again at ease. I scratch the spot between its ear and its neck. I hate cats.
As soon as we’ve both had our fill of one another, which luckily doesn’t take long, I get down to business, unpacking the four motion-activated digital cameras I brought, each no larger than the average shotgun cartridge. Once I’ve placed them where I want them, I’ll connect everything up, and with a few clicks on my laptop, I’ll have the live audio/video feed streamed directly to my phone. And then I can see you whenever I want, darling Charlotte. I can watch you sleep. I can watch you bathe. God, I hope you’re into baths. If nothing else, I can watch you simply breathe. What a wonderful world this is. How lucky I am to be in it with you.
Before I leave, I do a quick sweep of the desk and laptop in the office. It belongs to Michael, and I’m assuming—no—I’m hoping I’ll find some dirt.
What I find amounts to nothing. No iffy-looking emails. No hidden folders. No porn. His history hasn’t even been cleared in months. I feel sorry for you, Charlotte, being married to such a boring man.
My wrist twitches, and I check my watch. 6:52 p.m. Double-checking my bag, I look to see that I haven’t forgotten anything, that I haven’t left evidence behind.
I reach the back door when the lights in the front room come on. “Mom? Dad?”
My fingers pause on the door handle. I could stay, slip into one of the closets, hide under one of the beds. Parents shouldn’t leave their kids home alone. Terrible things have been known to happen. The footsteps move closer. “Hello?”
The voice is pure and sweet. And very young. I think I probably ought to stay. But then, I remember the cameras. The Joneses really should be grateful they have me to keep an eye on things. Slowly, I turn the knob and slip out into the cold dark night.
Chapter Twenty
Charlotte
Michael grips my waist, digging his fingers in as he moves me back and forth, back and forth. I think of the swings on the old play set in the backyard. The way you can move and move without going anywhere.
We may be fucking, but we certainly aren’t speaking. In the midst of our worst fight in years, we’re communicating our displeasure with heavy hands and long sighs, sweaty sheets and short tempers.
The argument, at the basketball game, which was not about just one thing but about every thing, left a sour taste in my mouth. But not enough of one to turn down sex.
It’s all I can think of. And it had better help. This is shaping up to be one of those long and drawn out disagreements, the kind that could take years to resolve, and very well might— the kind you can only truly understand if you’ve been married long enough to wonder just how in the hell you could possibly have ended up in a relationship with a person you don’t even know.
Slamming my hips into his pelvis, I realize he’s right. It’s infuriating how someone can be so familiar and yet so foreign at the same time. That’s what he said when he saw the suitcase come out. I leave for a trip tomorrow, despite the fact that I’d promised to take the week off.
I hadn’t lied. I did plan to take some time off. But that was before Henry passed on a lead on Dunsmore, from a very credible source. Besides, it’s not like my husband is completely innocent either when it comes to work.
Just this morning he informed me that he invited a client to our home this afternoon, which he never does. Given the circumstances, especially with the reporters still camped on the lawn, I don’t blame him. It proves a point. It gives me leverage. Work will continue to encroach, business does not stop. No matter the tragedy, the world still spins, life goes on.
Michael halts my movement abruptly, which would be annoying under any circumstance, but now that I’ve fallen into a comfortable rhythm? Really? This is the time he chooses to speak to me? He repeats his question a second time. “Why did you marry me?”
“Because you asked,” I tell him earnestly, grinding my hips. Perhaps I should elaborate more, tell him what he wants to hear, but I can’t bring myself to do it. He has to focus. He has to let me focus. I need this.
Ever since the shooting, each day has been a carbon copy of the one before. Nothing ever happens. And when something does happen, like the argument we’re in, it seems like the only thing that has ever happened.
This isn’t what I signed up for. I need space. I need room to breathe. I need to come. “Fuck me,” I say, thinking of the knife tucked in the mattress, about how far I might be willing to take this if he refuses. “We can chit-chat later.”
He backs away and then plops down on his back. Using my hands to press against his chest, I climb on top. His eyes close, and when they open, he looks up at me like he’s never seen me before. “I don’t understand you.”
I roll my hips, shifting into a more comfortable position. “There’s not much to understand.”
“You’re not like other women. I’ve always known this,” he says with a sigh. “But it’s suddenly become more apparent—and I don’t know…”
I don’t say anything in response; I simply raise up and lower myself onto him, the two of us falling into an easy cadence. Eventually I let my head fall back, but I am not altogether unaffected by his words. Were they meant to be a compliment? “Most women,” he continues, “they want to talk about things. They want to fix them.”
He’s right. I’ve never understood women who rattle on incessantly, insistent on discussing every single bit of the minutiae life has to offer. They’ve always seemed strange to me—women who lunch with girlfriends, volunteer at school, women who spend their time running back and forth to endless appointments. But now, I’m starting to get it. I’m starting to understand what it feels like to fill a whole day up with nothing. “Is this good?”
When he sighs heavily, I know I have him.
“Goddamn it,” he says, gripping my hips, reminding me not to take score too soon. He holds me into position.
“What?”
“That’s all you have to say—you married me because I asked?”
This is what true cruelty feels like. “What do you want me to say?”
“Oh—I don’t know—how about that you were in love with me? How about that you’re still in love with me—that you can’t imagine your life without me?”
I smile down at him. Something’s up. Michael has always been a bit needy. But not like this.
“You swept me off my feet,” I say, taking his hands from my hips. “Now, if you’ll let me finish what you started.”
“Do you still want to be married?” he whispers softly, after I’ve come. It was an incredible orgasm, earth shattering, the kind that’s meant to solve things, and sometimes does. “To me?” It’s a strange question, but also a perfect one.
Searching his eyes, taking him in, I lay my head on his chest. As I count his heartbeats, it occurs to me what I have to do. I realize that the only way to get what I want, to get on that plane, to do my job, to kill Dunsmore, is to hurt Michael in the process. So I say the only thing I can say, the only thing that makes sense. I tell him, “I’m not sure.”
Chapter Twenty-One
JC
It is evident that I have interrupted something, and thanks to the video recording sent directly to my phone, I know exactly what. I couldn’t have planned the timing of our meeting any better, not even if I tried.
She looks radiant standing in the center of her kitchen. Barefoot, wearing jeans and a sweater, her hair is longer than I recall. Slightly wavy, it hangs loosely around her shoulders, accentuating the fact that her makeup is done tastefully. She belongs on the cover of a magazine.
“This is JC Clements,” Michael says. “The client I told you about.”
With a curt nod, I extend my hand. It’s quite the quaint affair, being here in their home, all of us together. I imagined this to be exciting, thrilling even, but it feels nothing like t
hat at all. Lips move, but I hear nothing, only a loud thrumming in my ears. My vision narrows, and all of a sudden, the air in the room seems insufficient to keep me alive.
“Charlotte,” she says, taking my hand. “A pleasure.” The warmth of her skin and the sound of her name forces air into my lungs. The room stops spinning. Her voice anchors me. Everything I’ve ever wanted comes into vivid focus. She is beautiful. I want to fuck her. I want to marry her. I want her to have my children. I decide it then. I love her with the kind of mad passion that I reserve for only one other thing in my life.
“Mr. Clements wanted to see the house, in person,” he says to her.
Her eyes crinkle at the corners, and she sort of tilts her head and smiles. She’s curious about me, but she doesn’t force the questions that need to be asked. She doesn’t say that she knows me, does not suggest that we have flown together several times. If she recognizes me, she does not let on. If she is surprised to see me in her kitchen, she is very good at not showing it.
“How wonderful,” she tells him with a tight smile, before turning her attention back to her phone. We could be great together, I think, staring at her nails. Unpolished, they’re trimmed neatly, rounded and filed, perfect in an unassuming kind of way. She looks up suddenly and catches me staring. “Wait…” she says, clicking her phone off. “I think we’ve met before.”
I look over at Michael Jones. His brow is raised.
“I think you’re right.” If there’s one thing a woman likes to hear, it’s that.
Her head tilts as her eyes narrow. The way she sizes me up feels like floating in the ocean on a warm day. “Where?”
“Um…in the air, I think…I’m a flight attendant.”
“Ah—yes,” I say, pretending to place her. “You were on the flight to New York…?”
“Geneva.”
“Oh—right. Forgive me. I fly a lot.”
Another tight smile. “Me too.”
She turns to her husband. “I’m giving an interview,” she says. “Here, in the kitchen. We’re on in five minutes.”
“An interview?” he echoes, brow furrowing.
“Yes.” She chews at her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry.” Then she glances my way as though she’s just remembered me standing there. “I forgot to mention it.”
“I see.” Michael Jones scans the kitchen. He stops when his eyes land on me, making it clear that he does not, in fact, see. “I’m afraid we might have to make this quick.”
Her eyes shift between the two of us. They contain entire universes. Unnamed galaxies I’d like to explore. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“JC is building. He thinks he might like something similar up on the lake. I thought I’d give him the grand tour.”
She sort of nods like she isn’t listening or she doesn’t care.
“It’s just a vacation home,” I say, and how does love even work? “Not my main one.” I should shut up, but she makes me want to talk.
I’m thinking— no—I’m hoping that she’s going to ask me what I do, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t get the chance. One of their daughters, the oldest, wanders in. She says something to her mother, which I don’t hear because I’m struck by how much the two look alike, now that I am seeing them up close, side by side.
“Shall I show you around?” Michael Jones asks, catching my attention.
“I can always come back.”
“Would you mind?” Charlotte asks, and I love that she’s extended the invitation. At the same time, Michael says, “We’ll be quick.”
The Joneses’ place doesn’t look much different in the light than it did in the dark. Although, with him in it, it looks worse than it does on camera. But maybe everything looks better from a distance, artificial and foreign. I follow Michael as he prattles on about features I don’t care about. The only feature of this home I came to see is in that kitchen. Narrowly, from the living room, I can see her getting mic’d up. “It’s terrible what happened,” I say.
“Yes,” he tells me, a sad tinge to his voice. His eyes dart toward the kitchen. “My wife has been quite shaken up.”
“I can imagine.”
“Forgetful, too,” he says, almost embarrassed.
I watch the camera crew and the reporter as they countdown to go live. They ask questions about social media and copycat accounts and whether this Charlotte Jones is the same Charlotte Jones who has been rallying, asking for others to step up and take matters into their own hands.
She reminds me of a brunette version of Princess Diana sitting there opposite the hungry reporter. Charlotte has a pureness about her, a fair amount of charisma resides in those large doe eyes of hers. So demure, she is. Almost shy. Excellent at manipulation. Part victim, part instigator. But then, that’s what makes the story so compelling. Dark and untimely, a tragic fairytale. “No,” Charlotte says for the camera. “I would never.”
“What do you think about all of this? The latest developments? The instant fame?” the woman asks. “You must have heard about the fan clubs cropping up.”
“I try not to pay attention to any of it. To be honest, I’ve been very busy with my children. We’re all still a little in shock.”
The reporter’s voice lowers. “This must be a very difficult time for your family.”
“It has been—it is.”
“Do you have anything you want to say—to these men and women who are committing criminal acts—to those that are setting halfway houses on fire—that are kicking in doors of parolees?”
“Not really.”
You can see by the woman’s face this is not what she expected, and definitely not the answer she was hoping for. Ambiguity hardly makes good television. “Not really?”
“Well—,” Charlotte says. She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth like it’s a maneuver she’s practiced. “It’s just that you have to be careful. I suppose that’s the most important thing to remember. When I hear these reports—it reminds me…you have to think like a criminal—and most people don’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Charlotte
It’s highly probable that this time tomorrow, I will be dead. That means, if I’m lucky, I have twenty-four hours left to accomplish an entire lifetime of work. This is why I’m camped out on Hayley’s floor watching her sleep, plotting my next move. Turns out, there’s a lot to think about when considering the end of your life. It’s like packing for a faraway vacation, just one you don’t return from.
I always knew this was in the realm of possibilities for me. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. But then, no one does. Death usually sneaks up on you that way.
Within the past six years alone, the agency I work for has lost eight agents, five of them not to attrition. They were inside jobs. I know.
I handled three of them.
This gig is not a zero-sum game, nor is it a fair one. That’s not the way the world works, no matter what people want to believe.
This is the problem with society. If the average person knew that what are likely my very last hours walking the earth will be spent on scum like Geoffrey Dunsmore, instead of my family, they’d say I was the crazy one. It’s obviously no secret that most people are fucking idiots.
But still. I do not like to leave things unfinished. And, sure, I’ll admit it. It’s a little bit of a personal vendetta. If it had not been for Geoffrey Dunsmore bringing his prey onto my flight, I never would have been in that grocery store in the first place, and then none of this would have ever happened.
My life would not have unraveled. I would not have been exposed.
Even without extreme time constraints, when handling a job, there is a lot of room for error. It isn’t like you see in the movies. Sometimes you don’t get the kill. Not right off. Even if you have an entire lifetime, which after the latest series of events in my life, it is pretty clear I no longer have.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about for hours tonight as I moved back and forth between the girls’ rooms, st
aring at them as they sleep. I don’t like to think that this is the last time I’ll ever see them, but the reality of the situation—the nature of my work— has always meant that each trip very well could be.
I picture them as babies, the endless nights, almost like this one. I imagine them as toddlers, the days that once felt like they’d last forever, now long gone. And while I feel something akin to sadness, more than anything, I feel incredibly grateful that I’ve gotten this long.
I never wanted to be a mother. But then Sophie was born, and I was surprised to find that I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t instant. I never quite got the overwhelming feeling I’ve heard other mothers describe. I didn’t think that she was something I couldn’t live without. But the fierce protectiveness, the desire to see her excel in life, that was always there.
My phone vibrates next to me, a reminder that another video has cropped up. More girls being held against their will. More girls being traded and sold like animals. More girls being raped. More girls dying. Balancing my laptop on my knee, I power it on, lower the brightness, and slip my ear buds in.
The video begins with a shot of an empty bedroom. There’s a twin bed and a lounge chair, a dresser and matching nightstand. The comforter is pink, the pillowcase trimmed in lace. It is evident I am looking at a child’s bedroom. The camera moves shakily, panning outward, and then there is only darkness. When the image comes into focus again, it moves swiftly through a bush. A bedroom window appears. The camera pans backward and zooms out as a girl dressed in her underwear comes into view. She is naked from the waist up. A blue towel is wrapped around her head.
The room fills with soft light as she switches on a lamp on the nightstand. There’s a painting of a white horse on the wall and a book on the foot of the bed.
The camera pans in as she drops the towel. She seems to consider something for a moment and then moves to pick it up. She lays it over the lounge chair in the corner. Closer to the light, I can see that her underwear are purple, her breasts nonexistent. Sandy blonde hair, long angular face. She can’t be more than eleven.