by Bryan Smith
Mary tapped ash into the plastic cup. “A bunch of us got to talking after work. Everyone was upset about what happened to Shane. We decided to meet up for drinks over at La Mesa. You know the place?”
La Mesa was a Mexican restaurant. He’d been there exactly one time, several months ago. With Mary. Who apparently hadn’t found the occasion memorable. No surprise there.
“I know it.”
“You should go sometime. They have awesome margaritas.”
Pete grunted. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
Mary dropped her half-smoked cigarette in the plastic cup. There was a faint fizzle as the lit tip hit the water at the bottom. She leaned back in her chair again and folded her hands primly in her lap. “Someone called Shane and invited him. We all thought he’d be too embarrassed about being fired and wouldn’t show up, but he did. He was in kind of a surly mood, as you might imagine, but all the girls tried to make him feel better and it seemed to work. He had some drinks and started to loosen up. We were there for hours. Everybody was joking and having a grand time. Jake showed up at some point. Things started getting blurry after a while. I kept having to go out to the patio to grab a smoke. Jake and Shane were sort of huddled together the last time I went out there. It was obvious they were trying to talk privately. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the anger in their voices came through loud and clear.”
Pete’s heart started beating a little faster again. “And they were talking about me?”
Mary lifted one shoulder in a little half-shrug. “I couldn’t hear what they were talking about at first. Too much noise. That little patio is right outside the bar. I was feeling a little mischievous after six or seven of those giant margaritas and decided to creep up on them and eavesdrop.” Her expression darkened noticeably, every trace of the mirth that had been there fading away. “If I’d known what I was about to hear, I would have stayed away. Because it was scary, Pete. Really, really scary. Later on, I just felt lucky they didn’t seem to notice me. And, yes, they were talking about you. Shane was convinced you had something to do with his firing. They were hatching a plan to get back at you. And I don’t mean some harmless little prank.”
Pete couldn’t help thinking about the corpse in his living room. If Mary was telling the truth—and he was inclined to believe her at this point—the dead woman had to be a part of Shane’s revenge plot. The body showing up in his house the morning after Mary had heard those two assholes conspiring against him couldn’t just be coincidence.
“What else did they say?”
Mary picked up her cigarette pack and tapped it in a seemingly nervous way against the table. “Shane wanted to kill you. I heard him say that. My heart almost stopped, Pete. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wanted to run and hide before they could notice me, but it was like I was paralyzed. They were both so drunk, though. Drunk and oblivious. They just kept running their mouths about how they wanted to hurt you. Shane seemed to decide killing you the same day he got fired might not be such a good idea. He’d be a suspect, seeing as how the way he treated you at work was brought up as a factor in his termination meeting. He wanted to do something sneakier. Maybe get you in trouble somehow.”
Pete got up from the table and started pacing about the little kitchen. He ran a hand through his hair and made anxious little huffing noises. Hiding his anxiety from Mary was something he no longer cared about. She didn’t know the woman on his couch was dead and would believe his fretful behavior stemmed solely from what she had told him. In reality, it was the combination of those things that had him feeling like he was ready to crawl out of his skin. An impulse to come clean with Mary and tell her about the dead woman flitted through his head. He was terrified of what might happen in the wake of the revelation, but there would also be relief in telling someone about it. Given the things she’d overheard last night, it couldn’t come as a complete shock. Mary remained where she was as he continued to pace and think about it, eyeing him in a curious way from her seat at the table as she took another cigarette from the pack.
He was within seconds of blurting it all out when he thought of something that made him abruptly cease pacing and direct a frowning look at Mary. “If you were this worried about me last night, why did you wait until now to warn me about it? And why come to my house? Why not just text or call me?”
Mary sighed and held the unlit cigarette pinched between her fingers. “I guess I was in a state of shock. Not a good combination with drunkenness. I got out of there and called an Uber to take me home. I told myself what I’d heard was just drunk talk. That they’d forget that foolishness when they woke up the next day.”
Pete returned to his seat at the table. He eyed the pack of cigarettes and considered asking for one. Maybe they’d help with his nerves. Probably not, though. That probably only worked for people who were already regular smokers. “But you reconsidered this morning, apparently.”
She nodded and belatedly lit the second cigarette. “I did. And I came to your house because … well, because I no longer had your number stored in my phone. I deleted it after … well, you know.”
Pete did know.
He had no desire to take even one more step down that conversational path, though. The uncomfortable subject of his brief dating history with Mary belonged in the past. He still found her incredibly attractive, which made the situation all the more uncomfortable. The sooner she was out of his house, the better.
He stood up again and pushed the chair he’d been sitting in under the table. “Well, thanks for letting me know about this. I’ll take it under advisement and figure out what to do.”
Mary puffed smoke and raised an eyebrow. “Is that my cue to leave?”
Pete sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to rush you. It’s just that I just got up and, well …” He directed a meaningful glance in the direction of the hallway. Mary gave him another of her quietly curious looks and waited for him to elaborate. He’d hoped she’d just take the hint and go. She appeared in need of an extra nudge, however. “My friend will probably be waking up soon. I’d rather there not be anyone else here when that happens.”
Mary took a long draw off her cigarette, holding the smoke in for several seconds before softly exhaling another white cloud that drifted slowly toward Pete. The second cigarette followed the first into the plastic cup. There was another soft fizzle as it hit the wet bottom. Pete couldn’t help noting she’d again only smoked half a cigarette. He wondered if it was her way of trying to cut back. He was almost curious enough to ask her about it, but he held his tongue, not wishing to give her even the slightest excuse to draw things out and keep talking.
She looked him in the eye and held his gaze for another longish moment, her expression devoid of the smirking playfulness that had been there throughout their conversation. At last, she got to her feet and took her time smoothing out her skirt. She then grabbed her little purse and tucked it under an arm. “You need to take this situation seriously, Pete. Hopefully Shane will reconsider doing anything stupid once he’s sobered up, but you should keep your guard up for a while. Stay aware of your surroundings when you go out. Keep that alarm on when you’re at home.”
Pete forced a smile. “I will. And, uh, thanks for the concern.”
Mary smiled. “No problem. I do still care, believe it or not.” She brushed past him and approached the alarm keypad, glancing back at him with that smile still in place. “In fact, I’ll just go ahead and take care of this now in case you forget.”
Pete’s smile faltered as he watched her punch in his alarm code. “Um …”
She stepped back from the keypad as it began to emit the steady series of beeps that always preceded final arming of the system. “I’ve got thirty seconds, right? I’ll hurry on out of here so it doesn’t go off. Call me if you need to talk. I know you still have my number. Goodbye, Pete.”
She turned away from him and walked hurriedly out of the kitchen.
SIX
Pete was s
till standing in the kitchen with his mouth hanging open when he heard the front door open and then swing solidly shut. The sound snapped him out of the momentary mental paralysis. He rushed out of the kitchen and through the little hallway into the living room. Seconds later, he was at the front door, lifting a blind slat to peer out the window.
Mary’s Mazda convertible was parked behind his car in the short driveway. The little red car’s top was down. Of course it was. It was a nice day. Mary looked even more strikingly attractive in the bright sunlight. The way it brought out the highlights in her hair triggered a faint ache of longing somewhere inside him. The feeling was tempered, however, by the shock he was feeling in the wake of the revelation that she knew his alarm code. The code he’d never shared with her or anyone else. He supposed she must have surreptitiously observed him entering the code at some point while they were dating and had committed it to memory. It was the only thing that made any sense.
His head was buzzing with the implications, which ranged from merely disquieting to outright scary. At the center of it all was the realization that her knowledge of the code provided a possible partial explanation for why he hadn’t heard the alarm go off when the dead woman’s body was brought into his house. Maddeningly, it also left him with many new questions, the majority of which were related to Mary’s possible involvement in this mystery woman’s death.
She paused to don sunglasses as she reached the convertible’s driver’s side door. After opening the door, she again paused and looked at the front door to Pete’s house, smiling in a way that told him she knew he was watching her. Then she got in behind the wheel, closed the door, started the car, and backed out of his driveway. Once she was out in the street, her head again turned toward his house. She lifted a hand and waggled her fingers at him. After that, she tossed her head back and laughed. In the next instant, she stomped down on the gas pedal, causing the Mazda’s tires to squeal for a moment on the pavement before the car shot off down the narrow residential street at high speed.
As soon as she had disappeared from sight, Pete locked the door and started pacing around the living room, repeatedly running his hands through his hair. He was unsettled by every aspect of what had just happened. There was a telling deliberateness in the things she had done. She had wanted him to see that she knew his alarm code. That was the only reason she’d entered it in front of him, not out of any fear that he would forget to do it himself. The same went for her demeanor after leaving the house, those not-so-subtle moments of mockery.
She was involved.
Maybe she hadn’t personally murdered the woman on his couch, but she’d definitely had something to do with it. And the real reason she had come here this morning—possibly for the second time this same morning—had been to play with him. To make him uncomfortable and see how he was handling the situation with the corpse. That was what all that smirking had really been about. All along she’d known the woman was dead and it had amused her to watch him desperately scramble to cover and explain.
Even in Pete’s agitated state of mind, he knew what he was thinking would sound crazy to anyone he tried to tell about it. And yet he sensed it was all true. There were some glaring major puzzles pieces, things he hadn’t figured out yet, but he knew in his heart his ex was a participant in a bizarre scheme against him.
Her story about overhearing a troubling conversation between Shane Watson and his pal had almost certainly been a total fabrication. He didn’t doubt Shane was involved. Those ugly bruise marks around the dead woman’s throat had to be his handiwork. However, it now struck Pete as possible that Mary had been the instigator of this thing rather than the other way around. Perhaps it was even probable rather than just possible.
He thought about the cold and abrupt way Mary had broken things off with him all those months ago. Up until this morning, her behavior since then had been right in line with that. She hadn’t seemed to care one bit about him all that time, but now he was supposed to believe she was so worried about him she just had to pay him a personal visit to warn him of an imminent threat?
Bullshit.
She had sneakily committed his alarm code to memory and hadn’t forgotten it after more than half a year. This implied a disturbing level of calculation. She had wanted to know the code for some future use. The code was one thing. He could grasp how she’d acquired that knowledge. To get into his house, though, she would also need a key. His only house key was still in his possession. It was where he left it every night at bedtime, on a ring with his other keys in the top drawer of his nightstand. He’d checked to confirm this during his earlier tour of the house checking for signs of forced entry. He couldn’t imagine how he ever could have unknowingly lost track of the key long enough for some ill-intentioned person to secretly have a duplicate made, but it was the only real possibility. Mary must have pulled it off somehow, and, again, it must have happened during the period when they were dating. The biggest part of it he couldn’t understand was why she would have done any of these things. Why do them and then wait all this time to enact this next-level psychopathic plot against him?
His phone rang.
He stopped pacing as his gaze snapped toward the coffee table, where he’d left the phone while he’d been engaged in the process of trying to conceal the truth about the woman on his couch. A name appeared on the screen.
Mary.
He snatched up the phone, accepted the call, and put the device to his ear. “Why are you doing this to me?”
She giggled. “I wish I could see your face right now. I bet your expression is priceless.”
Pete started grinding his teeth in frustration and anger.
He said nothing.
Another giggle came over the line. “Ooh, I can sense how mad you are even through the ether. So I guess you’ve started figuring some things out. But not everything, Pete, my dear. Not even close to everything, I’d wager.”
Pete forced himself to unclench his jaw. “Why are you doing this to me?”
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “God, you sound like a broken record. To get to the root of the mystery, you’ll have to ask better questions. With luck, you may eventually come to understand why I targeted you. It’s complicated. At the root of it, though, is a simple concept. Fun.”
Pete frowned. “What? You decided to kill a woman and fuck with me for fun? Are you insane?”
She made a tsk-tsk sound. “Now, Pete, don’t go making crazy accusations. I haven’t killed anybody. And you should probably be careful about saying such things on a cell phone. You never know who might be listening.”
Pete felt a flicker of paranoia. He dimly recalled hearing of devices one could purchase to monitor cell phone calls. He also was pretty sure they were illegal, at least for use by anyone not working with the FBI or other high-level law enforcement agencies, but that wouldn’t matter much to the morally unscrupulous.
The bottom line was Mary was right. He was angry and frustrated and wanted to know exactly what was happening to him and why, but there were certain aspects of this ordeal he shouldn’t be talking about on a phone. He would have to be more vague in general and definitely not mention the dead woman again.
He sighed. “Does this have anything at all to do with what happened to Shane yesterday or is it all some weird-ass vendetta you have against me?”
Her laughter was louder and wilder this time, more like a cackle. “Ooh, ‘vendetta’. I like that. It makes me sound like some kind of crazy badass chick in a movie. Which I totally am, by the way. Except for the movie part. And, yes, Shane’s a part of this. But only a little part. I’m the brains. The one in charge. I’ve had you in mind for this for a long time.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you—”
“That’s all the information you get for now,” she said, cutting him off. “I’m not giving the whole game away all at once, silly boy.”
Pete grunted. “You know what? Maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and go to the cops with this. I�
�m a human being, not some goddamn plaything in a lunatic’s game.”
“You may want to rethink that attitude, you slimy little worm of a man.” Mary’s tone was frostier when she resumed speaking, the playfulness displaced by a simmering rage. “Like it or not, you’re already in up to your neck in this thing. There’s so much you don’t know yet. You think you have a choice, but you don’t. If you try to get out of it, things will get worse for you. Much worse.”
Pete frowned. “Worse? How could things get any worse?”
A protracted silence from the other end.
A knot of dread formed in Pete’s stomach as he pondered the meaning of her statement. He had a feeling his life had just been threatened. Mary simply hadn’t made the threat explicit for the same reason she’d admonished Pete for his reference to the dead woman.
Mary icily said, “I promise you this, Pete. I don’t say such things idly. If I tell you not to do something or else, you better damn well not do it. Understand?”
Pete swallowed a lump in his throat and again started to slowly pace about the living room. He felt helpless and afraid. And alone. There was no one he trusted enough to reach out to for advice or assistance. He felt like he was on the verge of curling up in a fetal ball and bawling like a baby. Given his increasingly bleak state of mind, total mental collapse was a real option.
Except that it wasn’t and he knew it. That was the side of his personality that had held sway for far too long in his life. The weak side. The side prone to capitulation in all things. He couldn’t afford to let it dictate his actions in this matter. And he would have to be as canny and calculating as his adversaries.
“I asked you a question, Pete. I expect an answer. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Pete cleared his throat. “I understand.”
“Good. As long as you behave and do as you’re told, you might yet come out of this okay. Here’s the main thing you need to keep in mind for now. The, uh … item we left for you in your house is not to be moved or disposed of until we say so.”