Double Cross

by Carolyn Crane

  He pulls out his phone, and I sneak a look at the clock tower. Forty minutes to get to the rendezvous spot.

  “I need you out here,” Otto says to whomever he’s dialed. “Lakefront.” He turns and waves at the street.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m handling this.” He gestures Avery over. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  Did he have guys sitting in an unmarked car up on the road? Is he going to send them to investigate the destruction? “Otto, I want you to help Avery because it’s the right thing to do. I’m not going to change my mind.”

  Avery comes up. Otto doesn’t say anything, and there’s this long, weird silence where Avery scuffs his foot against one of the boulders.

  “I understand I owe you,” Otto says to him.

  Avery pushes his hands deeper into his pockets.

  The tips of my ears are starting to freeze. Why are we standing out here? “We should go in soon,” I say.

  Otto casts a glance around. “Soon enough, my sweet.” Slowly and casually, as if he’s extracting a cigar, he slides a hand into his breast pocket, pulls out a gun, and points it at Avery.

  “Otto!” I say, thinking he’s playing some sort of joke.

  Avery puts up his hands and steps backward, losing his footing in the boulder bed.

  Pop! The sound sends a jolt through me. Avery falls into the rocks. Shot. In the chest. Then, Pop! His head jerks.

  I gasp. Avery stills.

  “Stop it!” I scream as Otto steps closer, casually shooting him two more times. Pop. Pop. A silencer.

  Otto lowers the gun, eyes on Avery, sprawled in a crevice between two boulders.

  And then there’s just the wind.

  “Oh my God!” I clamber over a boulder, near as I can get to Avery. Wave spray soaks his clothes. I grab his arm and his hair and pull, trying to get him unstuck from the crevice. I let go when I see that his face is half gone, all bones and brain. I clap my hands to my mouth. “Avery!”

  I turn to gape at Otto, who stands stiff as a statue, eyes on the horizon. “What the fuck?” I search for Avery’s hand, thinking to hold his hand, just in case there’s life still in him. “Fuck!” I find it and grab on. Still warm, but his body is twisted all wrong. I don’t know what to do. Did this just happen? I can’t think what to do. I hold his hand.

  A hand on my elbow. Otto. “Come out of there.”

  “Fuck off!” I yank out of his grip, but he grabs me again—hard—and hoists me off the boulders back to the dirt. I try to shake him off. “Get away!”

  But he has his good arm clamped around me. It’s like an iron vise around my chest, holding my back to him. I feel the hard outline of his cast on my shoulder blade.

  “You killed him!” I claw at his forearm, kick his legs. “You fucking killed him!”

  And then Sophia’s in front of me. “Sophia!” I say. “He shot Avery!”

  She smirks.

  “It’s not a joke. He shot him!”

  She just gazes at me weirdly and says, “Maybe Avery shouldn’t have had that antihighcap chip implanted in himself.”

  “What? He was a friend to highcaps.”

  She keeps gazing at me. Is there something wrong with my face?

  Shit!

  I clamp my eyes tight, trying to jerk out of Otto’s grip. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she says. I feel her fingers on my eyebrows, my cheekbones, spreading the skin around my eyes to make my eyelids come open. I fight her with all the facial power I have, but she’s digging into my eye sockets, forcing my lids open. I try to jerk my head around. “Get away from me, you freak!”

  “Shh.” Otto’s chin comes down like a pike in the top of my head. “It’ll be over soon.”

  “Fuck off! Fuck!” I squirm as Sophia comes closer, brown eyes and sharp womanly brows blotting out the lake and sky behind her.

  “You can’t do it!”

  I can feel her breath on my lips. “I am doing it.”

  I jam my elbows back into Otto’s chest—there’s a broken rib there somewhere—fighting to get my eyes shut. Sophia’s fingernails gouge the tender skin around my lids. Air on my eyeballs. I can’t shut them!

  “An hour?” she asks.

  “Take the day,” Otto says.

  “An hour would probably do it.”

  “Take the day,” Otto commands.

  “No!” Frantically, I picture Packard, the way he looked when I told him I loved him. Our kiss. “I won’t forget,” I say.

  Otto’s voice sounds distant; something about my having coffee in the lobby. I start to feel fuzzy. I cling on to the vision of Packard. Fingers around mine. Happy for once. I love you. I love you. You know that, right? For so fucking long, Justine.

  Sophia’s giant face starts to blur.

  Chapter

  Twenty-six

  THE 9-1-1 OPERATOR wants me to stay on the line, but I don’t want to talk anymore. I hang up, hazy with shock. How could he? I climb over a boulder to get nearer to Avery’s bloody, twisted body, clichés about dead people looking like broken dolls running through my mind. He does look like that, and I have this urge to right him. I pull on his arm, thinking to unwedge him, but he slips down farther, and I almost fall right into him.

  What am I doing? I move back to the flat dirt and crouch, hugging my knees, tears cold in my eyes, or maybe that’s the spray from the waves.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper. But it’s far from okay. I guess I’m saying it to his soul, like, Things will be okay, don’t be scared. Not that I really believe it. I don’t know anything. I don’t trust anything.

  For the millionth time, I picture him shooting Avery—the chest, the head. Twice more once he’s in the rocks. I remember screaming, and then he turns to me. You love to remind me that I’m a villain, but when I actually do something the least bit villainous, you act outraged.

  A giant wave sends spray up over the boulders onto Avery, a little onto me. His hair has a coating of ice. How long ago did I call 9-1-1? Why aren’t they here?

  Shelby.

  With shaking hands I take my phone out of my purse, hit her number, fingers clumsy as frozen steaks. Voice mail. I leave a message: “You have to get down to the lakefront. It’s Avery … just hurry. The section of lakefront parklands across from the Royal Arms.” I look around for a landmark. “Down from Kotton Krazy. You have to hurry. Wait—don’t drive crazy, though. Don’t hurry. Wait … shit. Just hurry up and get down here.”

  I hang up and dial Otto, squinting across the parklands tundra at the upper windows of the Royal Arms. Are the lights on? Which room is ours? God, please, let him be awake.

  My heart lifts when he answers.

  “Otto, thank God. I’m across the street. Lakefront parklands. By the shore.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Avery, he’s—can you just come out here?”

  “What are you doing out in the parklands?”

  “Otto—Packard shot Avery!”

  “What? Packard? Avery?” Muffled movement. “Hold on, I’m heading out the door. Are you okay?”

  “I am, but Avery’s dead!”

  “I’m coming,” he says. Noise in the background. A slam. A ding. “Is Packard still there? Do you think you’re in any kind of danger?”

  “No, he ran off. Why would he shoot Avery? I don’t understand—I just came out here and Avery was there and …” I stare at Avery’s body.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “The boulders past Kotton Krazy.”

  Sirens.

  “Looks like someone called it in,” he says.

  I look up toward the road. “I did.” Two police cars and an ambulance bump right over the sidewalk and head across the empty expanse toward me.

  Frantically I wave. It’s like they’re coming in slow motion. Or maybe my mind is in slow motion.

  I click off as two uniformed officers get out of the first car, and I point the phone toward Avery’s body, twisted in the rocks.

  He tried to hel
p us. And Shelby loved him.

  One of the officers asks me what happened. I don’t know what’s shock and what’s temperature, but I’m totally numb as I retell the scene: Packard comes out of nowhere. He reaches into his jacket pocket, takes out a gun, and shoots Avery. The chest, the face. I feel sick as I think about Avery’s intense eyes. His fear. Him and Shelby at the lunch counter.

  More questions. What I was doing out here? Did the victim know the shooter?

  I talk through my sniffles, eyes clotted with warm tears, as I recount every step of my morning—coffee in the hotel lobby. Afterward I’d wandered around the hotel, killing time, not wanting to wake Otto. Then I came out to get fresh air and ran into Avery. We’d taken a long walk. At one point, suddenly Packard came up behind us out of nowhere. Avery accused Packard of following him. Packard pulled out a gun—right out of his pocket!—and he shot him. The chest, the face. And then when Avery was lying there dead, Packard shot him twice more!

  Even as I tell it, I can’t believe it.

  A burly officer wants me to describe the gun. An EMT tucks a blanket around my shoulders while I talk.

  “Any idea why?” he asks.

  Wiping my eyes, I shake my head. “Packard goes, ‘This ends here.’ And then he shoots Avery dead. And then he says to me, ‘I hate those glasses.’ ” My vision starts to blur. Nothing’s right.

  The officer asks about the glasses. “Avery had a factory that made these glasses,” I say. “Antihighcap glasses.”

  The burly officer says, “Hmm.”

  The officer taking notes looks up, seemingly bemused.

  More police cars roll up, and Otto gets out of one and lopes over, one sleeve flapping free, his broken arm a lump in his coat.

  “Otto.”

  Suddenly he’s by my side, a safe, warm presence. I’ve never been so happy to see him. He wraps his right arm around me. “Come here,” he says, kissing the top of my head. His coat is warm and soft on my cheek, and I shut my eyes tightly. I just want to burrow into his warmth and safety as he solemnly greets various officers. He knows most of the force by name from when he was police chief. They speak in low tones. “Give me a second with her,” I hear him say.

  He kneels in front of me. “Look at me,” he says. “You’re okay?”

  I gaze into his deep deep eyes. “I’m so cold.”

  He rubs my arm through the blanket. “Packard shot Avery? There’s no question in your mind on that?”

  “Two feet in front of me. He just shot him. I don’t understand. Just because of the glasses?” I can feel a kind of hysteria creeping over me. “It doesn’t make sense!”

  He stands, clutches me to him again. “You don’t have to make sense of it. You don’t have to speculate on a motive. Just tell the officers what happened, all right? That’s all you have to do.”

  I say, “Packard goes, ‘You love to remind me that I’m a villain, but when I actually do something the least bit villainous, you act outraged.’ Like it’s all a joke. And then he fucking takes off.”

  “Goddamn him.” Otto rubs my back. “Goddamn him.”

  “Should you be out of bed?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Justine.”

  Avery’s sheet-covered body is on the shore now. Uniformed officers shine lights over the boulder wall. Searching for bullets? Clues?

  The burly officer and his partner are back, slower with the questions. Like a machine, I answer. What I saw. What Packard said. One, two, three, four shots. When I actually do something the least bit villainous, you act outraged, Justine. The whole world spinning out of whack.

  Commotion up by the police line. A pink, red, and black blur.

  Shelby.

  Officers hold her off the shore. She’s seen his black work boots poking out of the sheet. “Avery!”

  “Let her through,” Otto says.

  Shelby rushes to Avery’s side. I break away from Otto and go to her and touch her back. She wouldn’t want more than that, but I need her to know that I’m there. That I’m always there.

  “Let her ID him,” Otto says.

  An officer lifts the sheet from Avery’s half-blown-off face, one intense gray eye still intact.

  “No!” Shelby sinks to her knees, rests a glove on his chest, and just stays there, silent as a portrait, tears streaming down her cheeks. I sink down next to her.

  “Who would do this?”

  “Packard,” I say.

  “Packard?” she says. “You saw him do this?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  Her gaze seems empty. “Packard.”

  “Yes.” I tell her what happened.

  “I will kill him,” she whispers. “That is my message to you.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-seven

  CANDLELIGHT FLASHES in Otto’s dark eyes as he reaches across the table, palm upturned. I lay my hand on his, and he closes his fingers around mine. His hand feels warm and good and safe.

  We’re at Ciappo’s—a grand old classic Italian restaurant in the basement of an ancient brownstone; it’s where we had our first dinner date last summer.

  This is just what I needed. The past three days with Shelby have been a wrenching series of funeral activities and posthumous introductions to Avery’s relatives and friends, many of whom had heard about her, which made things more painful. He’d told his family about her. He’d adored her.

  Three days of long silent walks. Nights at her place, trying to make her eat and sleep. Trying not to look too hard at her new, darker brand of grimness.

  These days have given me a new appreciation for Otto. He’s been my rock, my ally. I squeeze his hand. “Thank you.”

  He smiles.

  It took us some doing to get to our table, like an obstacle course of beaming, tuxedoed waiters and glamorous well-wishers. People have been stopping by all through our meal to express their admiration and gratitude. Kidnapped by the Dorks. Survived their grueling torture. Helped to subdue them. He’s a hero all over again.

  There’s no longer any point to keeping our relationship a secret. That’s impossible since the kidnapping and shooting, and anyway, the disillusionists are no more. Or at least, with Packard vanished and the deal off, none of the disillusionists are working to crash and turn Otto’s highcap prisoners. We can’t do it without each other. Or without Packard.

  “You are such a good friend to her,” he says.

  “I wish I could do more. I wish I could’ve stopped him. How did I not see it coming? How could I have read things so wrong?”

  “That’s Packard’s genius, Justine. It’s not your fault.”

  “Again and again he fooled me. Even now—”

  “Stop! Nobody can warp a person’s understanding as Packard can. Packard could make people believe the world was flat if he wanted to.” Otto squeezes my hand. “He’s brilliant and deadly dangerous. I certainly wouldn’t have let him out of Mongolian Delites if I’d known what he was still capable of. I would’ve put him somewhere deeper. Once I apprehend him, I will put him somewhere deeper.”

  I drink down the last of my wine. Everything’s dark now. Otto. Shelby. Even her energy dimension has changed. Instead of the cool, smooth surface, she feels thick and grimy. I sometimes get the sensation of being slightly coated when I pull away, like her loathing of Packard seeps into my pores.

  Of course, I have dark feelings of my own toward Packard, but I’m not planning on killing him like she is.

  “She’ll repair,” Otto says, as though he’s read my thoughts. “We all will.”

  “I feel almost guilty having a nice night.”

  “You can’t be a strong friend to her if you don’t take care of yourself.”

  The waiter comes with the dessert selection. We choose the truffle petites to share.

  “An excellent choice,” the waiter says, backing up two steps, and then spiriting off.

  “A no-brainer,” I mumble.

  Otto raises an eyebrow. I smile.

  “There it
is,” he says, meaning my smile.

  “Stop.”

  “We’ll all repair.”

  “You’ve been great,” I say.

  Otto’s been laid up himself with his injuries from the kidnapping. I would’ve stayed with him, but he’d insisted I stay with Shelby. He put his car and chauffeur, Jimmy, at our disposal, he sent food, and of course, assigned bodyguards to both of us. He’s constantly reminding me that Packard’s out there somewhere, and we don’t know what he’ll do next.

  The coffees come. Otto moves our waters aside, helps make a place for the cream.

  It really is like my world has turned upside down. Life is unpredictable and frightening, just the way it used to be. They say you don’t notice gradual improvement—the fading off of an annoying hum, the subsiding of an ache. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed that I’d started trusting in life, trusting in myself.

  And then the rug went out from under me. It wasn’t the Dorks or the sleepwalking cannibals who did it. It was Packard shooting Avery.

  Or who knows, maybe that was just the last straw. Now I just want to snuggle into Otto, stay warm with him, have him wrap his arms around me. Well, he only has the one arm to wrap around me at the moment, but that’s enough. My noble, patient, strong Otto.

  “It still seems like a dream,” I say once the waiter’s gone.

  He tips a packet of sugar into his coffee. “It’s jarring when you realize you can never really know people,” he says. “And how that makes this world a dangerous place.”

  I nod. But I’m safe with Otto. If you don’t have safety, you have nothing. That’s something both of us understand. Again I think of the shooting, and I get this stabbing pain behind my eyes. Sometimes I get that when I think about it too hard. “Stop.” I put up a hand. “Stop. We can’t talk about that.”

  “We’ll talk about something else.” He takes my fingers, kisses them. “How about that you look beautiful.”

  “That’s all that matters,” I joke.

  He smiles, eyes swathed in warm crinkles. It’s almost like his old smile. Maybe things will repair.

  I take a deep breath. “Thank you for this,” I say. “All of it.” I splash in the tiniest bit of cream. Cow brown. Packard’s phrase. I think of Packard too much now. It’s just so outrageous. Like one plus one suddenly equals three. I put my hand to my head. I can’t think about him. I smooth the skirt of my gown, pure black velvet except for ruby buttons where the straps meet the bodice. The gown was a gift from Otto—it arrived at my apartment via courier in a silver-wrapped box along with the dinner invitation for tonight. All just an hour after I’d called him to complain that Shelby had kicked me out, insisted on being alone.