by L. C. Warman
“I want a lawyer,” Whitney said, standing tall.
“You’ll get one,” one of the detectives replied, strolling up to her. “Hands behind your back, please.”
“Hospital,” Rick managed to choke out, motioning to one of the detectives. He pointed at Becks.
“Yes, we’ll get you to the hospital, Mr. Fales.”
“With Becks. He comes, too.”
The detective looked at the tall ex-footballer, who now seemed lost, looking around the living room that was being infiltrated with cold night air, covered in shattered glass, and swarming with detectives, all as his best friend was tended to by an EMT and his wife was led out in handcuffs. “You, Mr. Becker,” the detective said. “You come with Mr. Fales, okay?”
“We’ll ride together,” Rick said. Except his throat was still raw, and it came out more as wi-righ-tether.
Becks stared at him, eyes wide and unfocused. Finally, he nodded.
Chapter 44
The headlines followed rapidly. Football star’s wife tries to frame him for murder, and Athlete’s wife and best friend commit murder to cover up their affair, and Is this the real reason Daniel Becker went crazy?
Rick contributed to none of them. He never sent the article to his editor and was prepared to spend a month in his van in consequence. Except, when he told his landlord he would be late that month, the usually surly man had declared that this was “Absolutely understandable!” and asked if, in the meantime, Rick wouldn’t mind taking a picture with him?
For somehow, by stepping out of the story as a writer, Rick had stepped into it as a character. So many of the news articles mentioned that a “friend” and “well-known journalist” had helped piece together the case. No doubt some of this was self-absorption on the part of these journalists, believing that only a fellow writer would have the skills and tenacity to solve such a complicated crime. And no doubt the rest of it was pure storytelling: it was more exciting that, in the end, Rick had almost been murdered, and Becks had saved his life.
The police, it turned out, had already known that the DNA under Gina’s fingernails was a plant: it was too perfect, a single hair of Becks’, without any skin cells. They had been trying to ferret out who had framed him—Rick’s risk that night had only sped up their conclusions.
Evan and Whitney opted to be tried separately. Whitney threw Evan under the bus: her lawyer claimed that Whitney had no idea that he had murdered Gina, and that she had not been poisoning Becks, but only practicing some alternative medicine. Evan, for his part, claimed that it all had been Whitney’s idea, and that he had only been the muscle behind her schemes. Rick believed neither of them, though he sometimes worried whether Whitney’s account would be more believable, if Whitney would play the grieving, beautiful, loyal wife well enough to garner sympathy.
At least, Rick would think then, the police have my recordings.
As for Rick, he was ready to move on from the circus that followed. He had to lay low for the weeks after, but it gave him time to plot out his next move. For he was certain of one thing in particular: he did not want to go back to reporting. It was time for a change, and he had an idea in mind of what that change could be.
Rick felt a flutter of nerves at the thought. But if the past few weeks had taught him anything, it was to follow his gut.
And also maybe to have a six-eight footballer around for backup. Just in case.
Chapter 45
Sam O’Nally had mixed thoughts about the arrest of Whitney Becker and Evan Miller.
On the one hand, he felt a bit pleased that they hadn’t gotten away with anything, after all. He was sick of their smug faces, acting better than him and refusing to help him, as though he were the bad guy. Disgusting hypocrites, that’s what they all were.
On the other hand, he was disappointed it meant that the secret was out, that Sam would, in fact, get nothing from Evan to keep him quiet about what he saw that night. And oh, how Sam had tried to make a little something from it! He had gone to Evan and Whitney, of course, but also to Eliza, thinking that perhaps Eliza would want to protect her best friend. In a moment of desperation he had even tried Aaron, thinking Aaron wouldn’t want Becks involved, even tangentially…but of course none of it had worked out. No money for him, because Evan and Whitney couldn’t keep their mouths shut, and because they hadn’t had the sense to pay him from the start.
And Sam had been surprised that night. He didn’t like Gina himself, no one did, but what a shock it was to see the woman being pushed from the window! Sometimes, Sam still had nightmares about the crack that her head had made against the pavement. It was Evan who had leaned out, who had peered down with hard, beady eyes to see if she was dead. Evan who had come out to the deck (as Sam hid nearby) and slipped something under the woman’s fingers.
And then he had seen Evan talking to Whitney later, right before the police arrived. He had watched as Evan held onto her arms and she pressed his hands. They had spooked when Becks had joined them, though Sam didn’t think anyone else had noticed but him. Interesting, Sam had thought. Very interesting.
The police had been relentless in their questioning. “Why didn’t you bring this up before?” they all wanted to know.
“Well, I must have forgot.”
They weren’t satisfied with this, of course. A few of them even guessed that Sam had been trying to get something out of Whitney and Evan in exchange for his silence. But when they threw such accusations at him, he only sat back and smiled. They couldn’t pin it on him—that was the long and the short of it.
“You could have helped out your friend Becks,” one of the detectives said during one such long bout of questioning. “If you knew his wife and his best friend were conspiring to frame him. You didn’t think about that?”
“I didn’t know they were framing him.” Sam shrugged. “I feel sorry for the guy, but it’s not my problem. I have enough of my own.”
He hadn’t liked the expression on the detective’s face after that, and had scowled and asked to go. He gave a formal statement to the detectives about what he saw, and after a long talk with one of them, where charges were mentioned offhandedly and different “options” discussed, agreed to go to a rehab facility two hours upstate.
“I think you’re making the right decision,” the detective had said solemnly.
Sam had snorted. “We’ll see.”
At least, Sam thought, Becks had an end to his nightmare. Sam wasn’t sure he would ever wake up from his.
Chapter 46
Becks used a shoehorn to shove his feet into the black loafers that Eliza had picked out for him for this day. They were shiny, almost embarrassingly so, and Becks felt like the novice football player who went on the field with brand-new, unbroken-in cleats. But when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he stood a little taller. This was a different Becks. A new Becks.
His headaches were almost gone now, one year later. Occasionally he would still have one, or wake up in a hot sweat, but his doctor told him that this was likely psychosomatic. “So, made up,” Becks would say, and his doctor would shake her head vigorously and go into a long explanation of the “great power of the brain.”
The divorce papers had come in one week before, a rather pleasant surprise before his first day. Becks had been warned that such things could take a long while, especially given that his estranged wife was in jail. But Whitney, perhaps on the advice of her attorney, had signed in exchange for a small lump sum—maybe something, Becks thought, that would help her start over after the fifteen-year sentence was served.
Most days, when he let himself think of what had happened, he hated Evan more than Whitney. Which was unfair—he knew how smart Whitney was, knew that she was likely the mastermind behind the scheme (no matter what she had said in court), knew that it was Whitney who had poisoned him, and Whitney who had originally figured out how she could part Becks from most of his money—and likely leave him for his best friend. But to Whitney he could only m
uster a cold indifference now; she had been his closest confidante and greatest support for so many years, and then he had discovered that what he thought of Whitney was but a strained veneer. He didn’t know the woman beneath: he could pity her, and that was it.
But Evan? Evan had wept in front of Becks in court. He had begged for forgiveness. He had said that he didn’t know why he had done what he had done, that he was sorry, that he deserved to go to jail. And Becks hated him. He hated the friend who had so willingly betrayed him for money, for Whitney, for a chance to usurp part of Becks’ life. All the more so because Evan had once been someone Becks could rely on. He could not even trust the remorse, though he wanted to. He thought that if Evan could erase it all and go back to the night of the party, Evan would do everything exactly the same way (except, maybe, be a little more tight-lipped around Gina Tiller).
Becks swept the thoughts away. Onward and up. That was what the therapist had said to him, in one of the few sessions he promised Eliza he would attend.
“Looking sharp,” Aaron said, emerging from the condo’s living room and clapping Becks on the shoulder. “You look like you could fit in with those business school dweebs now.”
“That’s the plan,” Becks said, grinning.
“Eliza is coming over with wine tonight. You good with red? We’re going to celebrate.”
“Whatever’s fine. What can I pick up?”
“Nah, this is on us. We have to celebrate your big day.”
Becks snorted. “Let’s wait until I graduate, maybe, to get excited.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” Aaron said. “Tonight, seven sharp! Unless you’re getting drinks with your business school buddies—then we’ll have a rain check. Networking is ninety-nine percent of it, am I right?”
Becks smiled.
The nerves hit him again as he was walking to his car. Becks had applied to the nearby business school on a whim—it had a top-notch reputation, was in the city, and was exactly what he had wanted to do before Whitney had talked him out of it. He had done it as a sort of personal rebellion and never believed he would get in, not until he held the acceptance letter in his hand. He had tested all right, after the poison had worn off, his recommendations were solid, and his interviews had gone surprising well, but even then…part of Becks still expected everyone and everything to reject him at some point.
A fresh start, though. That was what it promised. He shivered a little as he climbed into his car, rubbing at a nonexistent spot on his chin. On the whole, the past year had been one of great fortune, though it was hard to appreciate it all, coming off of the events of the past spring. He had moved into Aaron’s place last summer, in what was supposed to be a temporary situation as Becks sold his house, until both of them found that they liked the company more than their independence. And Becks tried to be of some help to Aaron, too, now that Aaron was retired and moving on to his own sales job in the city.
Eliza had been another pleasant surprise. At first, Becks hadn’t known how to treat her: she had been Whitney’s friend, after all, and Becks had always had a cordial but respectfully distant relationship with her. But Eliza had supported him immediately; she had visited Whitney in jail, “to see if she expressed remorse,” Becks heard her tell Aaron later, but beyond that was supportive and even forceful in setting up Becks’ doctors’ appointments, and checking in with him about his business school application deadlines and required court dates. The three of them—Eliza, Aaron, and Becks—made a strange sort of family, eating dinner together two or three nights a week, carefully avoiding talk about the past as they settled into their new routine. Becks was sometimes surprised that Eliza and Aaron were not together, but he never commented on it, lest he say something too caustic or cynical about love.
Becks had gone on dates over the past year, of course—often instigated by Eliza. She had set him up on two blind dates, and one of them had become a two-month long fling, a woman who was sweet and bubbly but who seemed to Becks to be more interested in him as an ex-footballer than as a man. Becks had been relieved when it had ended: mostly he had wanted to prove to himself that he could still get back out there, whatever “out there” meant.
His thoughts drifted as he drove towards the business school campus for his orientation. In some ways, Becks still felt fractured beyond repair. He had seen a brief surge in sympathy after the arrest of Whitney and Evan, because the press seemed to love a sad sap story. Some had even suggested that Whitney had poisoned Becks during his football career, blaming her for the tackle. Becks had been the recipient of dozens of fan letters from women who told him that they “knew for a fact” that it had all been Whitney’s fault and that they would show him how a man should be treated, et cetera et cetera. Becks had felt sick to his stomach.
But when the news cycle had ended, and when Whitney and Evan were finally sentenced, everything died down once more. Becks became just another ex-footballer who was no longer welcomed in the NFL’s circles. The only person who still spoke to him was Aaron, and whichever of Aaron’s friends deigned to talk to him when they saw him. Nothing had changed, except Becks was stripped of the life he had had before: of a wife and a best friend and a future that had been perhaps not what he had envisioned, but had promised something of happiness.
Now, what did he have? A new future, a new promise, but mostly a blank slate. It could hold happiness, or it could hold heartache and betrayal. Becks no longer had faith that everything would work out for the best, not when life had taught him otherwise.
The silver lining, the only positive, had been the realization that he did not have CTE—at least, not yet. His symptoms cleared in the weeks and months after Whitney went to jail, and the numerous doctors who examined him assured him that he was as healthy as any other 29-year-old man. Becks no longer woke up with the looming fear that his mind was betraying him and that he might one day hurt the people he loved. He no longer felt the window of his future closing in on him, promising madness, hallucinations, and destruction.
Becks felt his stomach flip over as he pulled off the exit to the campus. The problem with blank slates was that they were blank—empty and foreboding. Part of him still worried that he would spend one week in classes and realize he didn’t belong, that the other students would stare at him wide-eyed and refuse to work with him, or be kind to his face and cruel behind his back.
Becks could no longer stomach anyone who was even a little two-faced.
He parked and checked his phone. Rick had texted him with a picture of Becks’ puppy (a rescued German Shepherd mix, adopted at Eliza’s encouragement). I’ll bring him back tonight? Aaron said we’re doing drinks.
Yes, please, Becks said. Thanks for watching him.
Rick had been a surprise. The weaselly reporter who first seemed to want to write a story on Becks’ insanity had turned out to be the one who had saved him. Becks had been far from grateful at the start—in fact, he had resented the man who had torn down the façade of his life. But they had seen each other in court a few times afterwards, and Rick had mentioned that he was finished with journalism and looking at other jobs.
It was loneliness or desperation that caused Becks to blurt out, “I need some help, actually. Temporary. It’s simple work.” He had blushed and explained that he wanted someone who could oversee the breakdown of his old house, who could sort through Whitney’s things and his clothes and their furniture, saving the bare minimum and disposing of the rest.
Becks had been embarrassed almost instantly that he had asked, but Rick was interested, and not overly so. They had been tentative with each other at first, texting only, all business, Becks wiring the money over to Rick at the end of each week. After a month, Rick was offered a teaching job at the university, no doubt in part due to the fame of the recent case. Journalism for dummies, Rick had said. Guess we’ll be neighbors, once you get in. The jobs between them ended, but they stayed in touch. Eventually, Becks worked up the nerve to tell Eliza to invite Rick over. He had been worried his frie
nds would see his friendship with Rick as some sort of weird fixation on what had happened months before—but if they thought so, they never said, and Rick became a regular fixture at the apartment. It turned out the journalist was funny, when he wanted to be, and never sycophantic (though he, like so many others before him, had to get over an early crush on Eliza before he became really comfortable).
Becks placed his phone back in his pocket and let his hands rest on the steering wheel. Then, wrenching himself out of the seat, he climbed into the warm fall light.
He felt self-conscious as he joined the streams of students walking towards the auditorium. Fall had come early that year; whirls of red and brown leaves peppered the paved walkways that snaked across the green quads. Becks’ eyes rested briefly on a statue of a man on horseback wielding a spear, and then on the wide steps leading up to the campus library.
He could feel eyes on him as he walked and told himself it was just because of his height, and not because anyone recognized him. He was much skinnier than in his football days, and his hair had grown darker, less sun-kissed. He had shaved his beard, too, and nowadays it was rare for him to hear the curious “Daniel Becker?” of a passing stranger.
He loped into the auditorium, double-checking the map in his orientation packet. He felt a few people smile at him as they walked in, the bland, friendly smiles of people who are beginning something new and looking to make friends. Becks tried to muster a smile back. His jaw felt tight.
He sat near the back—old habits, he never liked anyone being behind him—and folded himself down into one of the chairs near the aisle so that he could stick his legs out the side. The auditorium filled up quickly as the minutes counted down, and Becks could see the administrators fussing with the podium on the stage. He tapped his foot on the side of the stairwell, and with an effort stilled it.