by Megyn Ward
It’s a date.
I saw it on his face as soon as I said it. He was angry. Confused. I ended things. I’d been brutal. Mean. I didn’t deserve a second chance. I didn’t deserve him. Even if all I want is to hang out for a few hours and eat pizza.
It’s a date.
Jesus.
I’m on the verge of texting him and letting him off the hook, but then Miranda’s guy shows up, and I get busy directing him on which paintings to pack and which to leave.
“Not that one,” I say, my voice sharp.
The guy checks his list, his fuzzy caterpillar brows crumpling into his forehead. “The list Miz McIntyre gave me says—”
“I said not that one,” I repeat myself, pulling it out of his hands. “And not this one either.” I pick up the painting I did a few days ago of Patrick, sleeping in the sun.
He opens his mouth to argue with me.
“I’ll take care of Miranda,” I tell him, carrying them into the living room and stash them behind the couch before he can argue with me.
Before I can head back into the bedroom, someone knocks on the front door.
My first thought is that it's James and my gut clenches. Con shot me a text this morning, warning me that he’d been released from the hospital. Checking the peephole, I relax a little but not by much. It’s not James. In fact, I’ve never seen this guy before in my life. Tall. Swimmer’s body—powerful shoulders and torso that taper into narrow hips. Light-colored eyes framed by a pair of dark, thick-rimmed glasses. Hair so dark it looks almost black, sticking up and out in a way that could be considered styled but something about him says he’s not the type to bother.
Pulling the door open, I angle myself in the wedge, barring easy access. “Yes?”
“You Legs?” the guy says, reading the nickname off the envelope in his hand. Looking up, he gives me a quick once over before smiling. “Stupid question.” He thrusts the envelope into my hand. “I’m Logan.”
Flipping the envelope over, I rip it open.
LEGS –
This is Logan. Let him in, he has something to show you.
Con
Next to his name is a rough sketch of a penis towering over a tiny stick-figure. Next, to it, it says:
p.s. Just in case you’re doubting the validity of this note and who it’s from, I drew you a picture of my dick. Enjoy!
In spite of everything, I laugh. I suspect that’s what he intended. Shoving the note back in its sleeve, I look at the guy standing in front of me. “Are those cats?”
He looks down at his T-shirt. “No, they’re cats, shooting laser beams out of their eyeballs—” He adjusts the backpack hanging off his shoulder. “Way cooler than regular cats,” he says, scratching the bridge of his nose behind his glasses. “Can I come in?”
I don’t move. “How long have you known Conner?” I say. I have no doubt that Con sent this guy but I’m trying to figure out why.
“A long time,” Logan says, submitting to my questioning like he’s used to being interrogated.
Vague. “Where’d you meet?”
He looks like he’s choosing his words carefully. “College.”
I keep forgetting that for Conner, college was a long time ago. “MIT?”
Now he smirks. “Sure.”
Vague and cryptic. “If you’re friends, why haven’t I ever met you before?”
“Because Con likes everyone to stay in their own lane.” Logan laughs. “He’s the only one who gets to weave in and out of traffic. Get me?”
I did.
He sighs. “Can I come in now?”
“Oh—” I look over my shoulder. Miranda’s guy is still in my bedroom, packing, probably glad I’m not hovering over his shoulder anymore. “Sure.” I move out of the doorway, and he passes through, making a beeline for the couch.
“Alright,” he says, reaching into his backpack to pull out a laptop. Sitting down, he set the laptop on the coffee table and opens it. “The program’s only been running for a few hours, but—”
“Program?”
“Right. Sorry,” he says, fingers clicking across the keyboard. “It’ll be easier to explain if you come take a look.”
Skirting the coffee table, I perch myself on the edge of the couch. In the top, right-hand corner of the computer, there’s a post-it note stuck to the screen, hiding whatever’s underneath. I reach out to lift it, but he stops me.
“Don’t do that,” he says, shaking his head, moving my hand away from the screen.
I drop my hand. It’s not what he said, it’s how he said it that stops me. Whatever’s under that post-it, I don’t want to see it, and neither does he.
“Okay.” Along the bottom is a constantly revolving set of images, moving so fast it’s hard to get a handle on what I’m seeing. The rest of the screen is eaten up by what I’m pretty sure is computer code. Long strings of it, scrolling across the screen. “What is this?”
“A scrubber program,” Logan says. “Basically, this—” He points at the strings of code, streaming across the screen. “Is scouring this—” His finger moves to the row of images flashing across the bottom of the screen. Thumb-nail icons for internet sites. “To find and eat this.” His finger moves again, touching the post-it. “The video. Once the code finds it posted on a site, it scrubs it, and the video disappears.”
The video. My video. My heart is hammering in my chest. “For good?”
Logan grins, shoving his glasses up onto the top of his head. “Yup. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
“You did this for me?” I’m on the verge of tears which is stupid. “You don’t even know me.”
“Well, not me,” he says, giving me a perplexed smile. “Con wrote the program. I just ran the install.”
“Con did this?” Last night was Ladies Night. Conner never misses a Ladies Night. “When?”
“Who knows?” Logan says with a wide-eyed shrug. “He could’ve done it this morning while he was waiting for his toaster strudel to pop.” He laughs. “You do know Con, right?”
Do I know Conner Gilroy? Apparently not. Matter of fact I’m beginning to wonder if anyone really does. “Where is he?”
“He was wearing a suit when he dropped off the code this morning so...” Logan shrugs, perplexed. “Wanna see the rest of it?”
There’s more?
Logan splits the screen to show me another program that looks almost identical to the first. “So, getting the video off the net is fairly straightforward,” he says, scrolling his finger across the mouse pad, clicking here and there. “The real issue is getting it off personal devices.”
I hadn’t thought about that. All the people who downloaded the video to watch and share privately. James and his friends. Nameless, faceless pervs. “Conner figured out a way to do that?”
“Fuck yeah, he did.” Logan grins. “Some of the sweetest code I’ve ever seen.” He taps his finger on the screen again. “It’s a virus... triggered by the video.” I can tell he’s struggling to explain it to me in terms I’ll understand. “As soon as the video is viewed or shared—and as long as the device is connected to the internet—it attacks. Wipes the video and kills the device.”
“That’s possible?” I say, looking at the guy sitting beside me. “You can do that?”
“Me?” Logan laughs, closing his laptop. “No. I can’t do that. But Con can.” He leans in and drops his voice. Suddenly, he looks worried. “You know you can’t tell anyone about this, right? Like, no one.”
Because what Con did for me is illegal. Because for all his lecturing Patrick and Tess about following the letter of the law, he broke it. Went total Blackhat. For me.
I sit for a second, trying to figure out why he would do this for me. The last few times we spoke, we argued about Patrick. The way I treated him. The games I played. Why would he go out of his way to help me? Me—not Patrick and by extension, me. Just me.
“No one fucks with my family.”
I look at the guy sitting next to me. “Wh
at did you say?”
“You’re trying to figure out why.” He clears his throat, lowering his glasses back into place. “That’s what Con said when he gave me the program.” He stuffs his laptop back into his bag before he stands. “No one fucks with my family.”
Nineteen
Cari
My room looks wrong.
Empty, without paintings stacked in the corner. My easel set up in front of the window. My clothes strewn all over the floor. Dishes and coffee cups loaded on top of the table Patrick bought me to hold my paints.
Everything I own is stacked in a neat pile near the door, ready to go.
I haven’t even told my parents I’m coming home. I figured I’d call them from the road, that way I can minimize questions. When I talk to them, I’ll focus on the positive. I’ll tell them that I’m moving home so I can focus on my painting. That a gallery wants to show my work. It’s not forever. It’s for right now. Once my career takes off, I can move anywhere I want.
New York. Chicago. California.
Anywhere I want.
The thought tightens my chest. Floods my eyes with tears.
I hear the front door open, and I run my fingertips under my eyes, brushing away tears. Looking out the window, I see late afternoon sunlight glimmering on the bay.
Patrick’s home.
I stand in front of my closed door for a few moments. Wiping my sweaty palms on the legs of my jeans, I take a few deep breaths. It’s Patrick. Just Patrick. We’ll order pizza and watch TV. Talk. Laugh. Hang out the way we used to. Bring things full circle. Make things right between us again.
I plaster a smile on my face and open my door. “Hey,” I call as I walk down the hall. “I thought we could order from Gino’s—”
Stepping into the living room, it takes a second to process what I’m seeing.
Who I’m seeing.
It’s not Patrick.
It’s James.
He’s standing in the middle of the room, staring at me, the welts I clawed into his face are still there, deep and ugly. Marking him for the monster he is. I hope they never go away.
My gaze darts into the kitchen, landing on the counter where I always toss my keys. They aren’t there. “What are you doing here?” Somehow, my voice is calm. Steady.
He doesn’t answer me.
My phone is in my room, dead as usual. Behind him, the front door is closed. Even from here I can see that he’s locked it. Slipped the security chain in place. Behind the door, I can hear bar noises. Loud music and glasses clinking together. People shouting. Laughing. It’s Friday night. Happy hour. I can scream all I want. No one will hear me.
“You need to leave,” I say, taking a tiny half-step toward the kitchen. There’s a knife block on the counter. “Patrick is on his way home.”
“Patrick.” James says his name like it’s poisonous. Like he can’t feel the venom coursing through his own veins. “Your lovesick little puppy dog. Following you around, licking your fucking shoes... he got me fired. Howard will see to it that I’m disbarred by Monday.”
“You did that.” I take another half-step, inching my feet across the floor so slowly it almost hurts. “I didn’t ask for this. You were the one who couldn’t let things go. Sent Trevor to me.” The thought of it makes me sick. “To do what? Spy on me? Sleep with me?”
“He wasn’t the only one,” James says, a sickening smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “There were more before him... he’s just the one who stuck.” He moves now, strolling slowly, skirting the perimeter of the room, hands clasped behind his back. “I’ve been meaning to ask you—what was it about Trev that you found appealing enough to keep him around?”
I don’t know the answer, so I don’t say anything. I just wait for him to look away so I can take another step.
“I mean, they were all pretty much the same—rich guys who took you to expensive places. Drove you around in their expensive cars. Let you hang all over their expensive suits.” He stops in front of the painting of me, dress hiked over my ass, staring at my reflection in the mirror. “Made you feel like maybe you were worth something.”
Heat flares through my chest, burning me from the inside out, because it’s true. All of it.
“Maybe that was true before,” I tell him. “But that’s not who I am. Not anymore.”
“How sweet...” James bats his eyes at me. “Did getting fucked by the boy scout make everything better?” He turns away from me completely to leer at the image on the wall. “Did it make you a better person?”
Instead of answering, I lunge into the kitchen, bare feet slipping across the floor. I go down hard, hand reaching out to stop my fall. Unfazed, I grip the counter to pull myself up, the other hand reaching for the knife block, fingers wrapping around the hilt of one, sliding off as I’m pulled down again, practically thrown into the floor.
“You owe me, cunt.” James is on top of me, hands latched around my wrists, holding me down so he can scream in my face. “I was good to you. Put up with your bullshit whining, and you repay me by getting me fired? Ruining my life?”
“You want what I owe you?” I scream in his face. Borrowing a move from Patrick, I jerk upward, bashing the hard bone of my forehead against the soft flesh of his nose, sending blood gushing like a geyser.
I don’t stick around to assess the damage. Shoving him aside, I scramble across the kitchen floor, half-crawling, half-running before I finally find my feet. Gaze zeroed in on the front door, I’m halfway there when it bangs opens, stopping short on its chain.
“Cari?” My name carries over the din of noise downstairs. It’s Patrick.
I open my mouth to scream. Before I can make a sound, James tackles me from behind, slamming me into the coffee table. The force of it steals my breath and I’m under him again, his hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing while he hisses in my face.
“I told you yesterday, bitch—I’m going to kill you.”
Twenty
Patrick
I stopped at Gino’s and picked up her favorite—sausage, double olive, extra cheese—and gave myself a pep talk on the way home.
You’re going to eat some pizza.
You’re going to watch some TV.
You’re going to be her friend.
You’re going to let her go.
The parking lot is packed so I park down the street and make my way back to Gilroy’s, weaving in between groups of drunk college kids heading in and blue-collar types, heading out. Unlocking the side door, I use the mass of bodies squeezed around the bar as camouflage as I slip in and up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, I balance the pizza box in one hand to open the door.
It’s locked. Skin tightens at the back of my neck.
She never locks the door.
Digging my keys out of my pocket, I unlock the door. Push it open. It stops short, bouncing hard against the security chain. I can see the couch and chair in the wedge of open space. “Cari?”
Behind the door, in a space I can’t see, I hear a commotion. Harsh breathing. The rumble of a man’s voice and my gut clenches.
I told you yesterday, bitch—I’m going to kill you.
Dropping the pizza box, I take a step back and lift my foot, planting it hard against the door, snapping the chain like it was made of paper. The door flies open. Wood explodes across my field of vision.
James is on top of Cari, straddling her chest, hands locked around her throat while hers are wailing and clawing at his face and arms. Her face and neck are soaked in blood.
That’s the last thing I remember.
“You can’t remember anything after that?” The cop standing over me asks, skeptical glare aimed at my swollen, bloody knuckles. The blood stains on my shirt. The trail of it splattered against the stairs behind me.
I shake my head because I’m tired of repeating myself.
The cop sighs. “Alright,” he says scratching his head before looking at me. “Take me through—”
“Is he under arrest?�
�� Conner calls out from behind the bar. The place is deserted, the crowd cleared out by the police and EMS hours ago.
The cop standing over me aims a look at Con and shakes his head. “No.”
“Then take my client’s complaint, the forty-three witness statements you gathered—all of which attest to the fact that my client was acting in defense of the victim, the surveillance footage I gave you—” Con flashes his megawatt smile. “and get the fuck outta here.”
The cop narrows his gaze at Con for a second before reaching into the shirt pocket of his uniform. “If you remember anything, give me a call.” He flips the card at me and stalks off, stopping next to his partner who is questioning Cari on the other side of the pool table. She’s wearing a BPD t-shirt, Tess’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. The cops took her shirt as evidence. Took pictures of her. The busted door. The blood spatter in the stairwell behind me.
They talk for a minute or two, throwing me side-eye. They think I’m lying about remembering what happened after I found Templeton on top of Cari. Not that they can do fuck all about it.
Finally, one of them hands Cari a card. And then they leave.
As soon as they’re gone, Declan comes out of the office, Tess’s cat winding around and between his legs with every step he took. Interactions with BPD always go smoother if Dec’s not around.
“You alright, man?”
I look up and over to see Conner standing next to where I’m sitting, glass in one hand, bottle in the other.
I take the glass and slam its contents in one gulp. “I’d feel better if I’d killed him.”
I know that much. When they took James out of here on a stretcher, he’d been breathing. Broken and bloody. But alive.
Con grins at me, levering the bottle in his hand over my glass to give me another pour. “Nobody’s perfect,” he says before lifting the bottle to his mouth. “Not even you, Cap’n.”
I laugh, a short burst of ugly sound that burns my throat. “Suspenders?” I give him a look, starting at his shiny wingtips and ending it on his loosely knotted tie, the cuffs of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, his tattoos at total odds with the white-collar look he’s got going.