by Gregg Olsen
“Good luck,” she tells me.
I need it, I think.
As I walk across the carpet, my feet stick a little. It’s quicksand. Flypaper. No, a glue trap for rats. Something is slowing me as I work my way toward the cacophony of bells and flashing lights that defines the row of my old love, the Double Diamonds machines. My eyes scrape over the large room: men at card tables, pretty girls hooked to their sides. The older crowd at the penny slots, watered-down collins drinks in hand, are only there to pass the time rather than change their lives with a windfall. And the people like me, hunched over slot machines or the keno table, thinking that they are one hit away from a new car. A new house. A dream vacation. A new life. A big fat do-over for all the mistakes that can be undone with an influx of cash.
Every pore in my body is oozing sweat. My mascara runs, and I dab at it with a tissue from my purse as I settle in next to a man who is pressing the button on his machine as if he’s about to ejaculate. His eyes are fixed. His mouth is agape. He looks as desperate as I feel.
I could call someone from the group. I could throw my player’s card into the trash. I could get up and make my way out of here. I could. I know I can. Then I hear her.
It’s Stacy.
She’s in my head:
You are always so predictable, Nicole. You always did the right thing. You’re even a police officer. Seriously, what did any of this get you? Nothing. Nothing at all.
I push the card into the opening. I feel a shudder run down my arm.
Being predictable is good for people like me, she says. We like it when people are simple like you and Dad. Never any question that you’ll do the right thing. And when you do the wrong thing, it’s that much sweeter.
I press the big red button, and the machine comes to life. I feel the impulse to hold my legs together to feel the vibration that pulses through me. My heart rate accelerates, and my face becomes flushed. I’m on top of a nameless lover. I’m controlling him. I’m riding him. He’s not in charge of me. I’m not lying on my stomach, putting up with his assurances that this is exactly what I want. Yes, it feels good. But it’s weird. It’s anonymous. I can’t see his face. I can only feel him heaving and pushing and his whiskey voice telling me that I want more.
You like this.
You want all of it.
This is what you’re for.
You want it deeper?
Hold on.
Hold on.
I’m coming.
The machine doesn’t do that. It’s passive until I command it with a swipe of my card and the touch of the big red button. I don’t lie there compliantly with my face pressed against a hotel room bedspread, pretending to writhe in ecstasy until a guy that I picked up on the casino floor acts like his semen is God’s gift to me.
All for me? Thanks so much!
Here, in front of this machine, I’m the one in charge. I shouldn’t be here. God, have I missed it. God, have I missed being in control of the uncontrollable. I’m giddy. I feel as if I could fly right up to the ceiling, do a flip, and then land like a feather on this same orange vinyl high-backed chair.
First spin, nothing.
Second spin, the same.
Third, a loser.
A man two machines down twists on his seat and looks at me.
“That’s a cold one there,” he says, making a disgusted face. “You really should pull out and switch to the one right here.”
Pull out. I’d heard that before too.
I give him a cursory smile. He’s been there awhile. Players know what chairs are hot and what are cold. “All right,” I say. “Thanks. You doing all right?”
He shrugs a little. “Not really,” he says. “I mean, in the end we lose anyway. We can’t win. If we won every time, then the Quinaults would have to scalp us.”
“They don’t do that,” I say as I move to the seat next to him. “You’ve got your indigenous people mixed up. Scalping was a construct from back east. Not that common, really. Northwest coast clans didn’t do that.”
He nods. He’s a nice-looking guy. Early forties, I guess, though the older I get, the more generous I am about ascribing youth to people around my own age. His bushy eyebrows could use a trim. His teeth are slightly crooked, and I know by the way he lowers his jaw when he speaks to me that he’s a little self-conscious about it. I also know that he’s sitting there to get lucky on something other than a slot machine.
“I’m Cal,” he says. “Up here from Portland. You staying here?”
Of course it’s Portland. His vintage Pabst Blue Ribbon T-shirt and dark-dyed denim jeans scream Portland. His black leather sneakers look so new, I imagine they were out of the box for the first time this morning.
When I don’t answer right away, he covers his nervousness up by pretending to be interested in the machine in front of him.
I’m so messed up and so lonely, but not that messed up and not that lonely. No matter how angry my sister makes me, no matter how bitter I am about the state of my life and the choices that I have made, I’m not about to make things worse. I’ve done that before. A stranger in a casino hotel room can never make a heart as lonely as mine feel less so.
“Yeah,” I lie. “My husband and I had a fight. I left him in the room to cool off. Going to go back upstairs in a few.”
Cal looks deflated right then.
“Oh,” he says. “Sorry.”
I nod and look back at the screen in front of me. The diamonds are begging for another spin. I deny them. I take my casino player’s card and hand it to Cal.
“This is your lucky night,” I say. “I’m getting out of here.”
He takes the card and nods. Not a word. At least, I don’t hear one. I get up and walk toward the door. The pulsing of the lights, the smell of alcohol and sweat, and the feeling of hope and disappointment that clings to everyone as I pass by them is palpable. I nod in the direction of the young woman with the long black hair. I’m so done with all of this.
From the minute Stacy reappeared in my life, I knew she had only one purpose in mind. With her it has always been the same one. Stacy is about Stacy. Stacy gets off on other people’s misfortune.
I’m so done with Stacy. This time. Really, I am.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Friday, August 25
I’m beyond beat. The long day isn’t over. It’s after eleven when Carter and I return to the Red Lobster and find a place at the bar. He’s agreed to meet me because, well, he’s Carter and he can hear the stress in my voice, even when I hide it. He orders a beer this time, and I get a glass of wine. I am trying my best to avoid considering this “our place” or anything like that. And as much as I like him, I have learned from my mistakes. That’s the part of me that feels solid now: the knowing that I won’t ever fall so low again.
Even so, after my visit with my sister, I still need a friend. Not a shoulder to cry on. I’m not really a crier. I just need someone to listen to me.
“My sister’s back,” I blurt out as our drinks arrive.
“Oh, really,” he says, taking a drink of his beer. Foam clings to his upper lip. I ignore it.
I sip. “Yeah. She’s staying up at the Quinault.”
Carter has a decent read on my whole backstory. I’ve never mentioned all the gory details, but the information superhighway is an easy route to amplify what I’ve said about her.
“What does she want?” he asks.
He knows her type, I think. He doesn’t ask how she’s doing. If she’s well. How the reunion went. He knows that someone like Stacy only makes a move when she’s after something. Or someone. She’s cunning like that. Pretty on the outside. Beguiling, even.
Carter has read between the lines. That’s what makes him a good friend and a great investigator. He listens, observes, and then assesses.
“Emma,” I say. “She wants Emma.” I set my glass down. I can feel my hand tremble a little.
“I thought she wasn’t the mommy type,” he says.
U
nderstatement. Big-time.
“She’s not. She says she just wants to see her. Talk to her. I don’t know why. She hasn’t specifically said she wants to take her away from me, but my sister is a stealthy troublemaker.”
“She’s legally yours, right?” he asks.
“It’s a little complicated,” I say. “I am her guardian. It’s legal. But the reality is that my sister can revoke my guardianship anytime. It was an arrangement we made after her husband died and she was completely out of sorts.”
He knows that I’m not being completely honest. He knows that my sister didn’t want her daughter. I’ve been oblique about it since returning to Aberdeen, but Carter is a good detective. He sees things even when they aren’t obvious.
“So what’s the problem?” he asks.
“The problem is that I lied to Emma. I told her that her mom died. I just didn’t want her waiting for her because I was absolutely certain that Stacy would never come back.”
“But she has,” he says, signaling our server for another round.
I nod.
“She’s not here to stay,” I say. “She’s probably here to regroup after Julian’s death.”
Carter knows the name, though I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it. I didn’t want him to think that after Danny Ford I picked an even worse lover in Julian Chase.
“What happened to Julian?” he asks, studying the bar menu now.
I wait a beat. If I wore glasses, I’d take them off with a flourish before making the big reveal. But I don’t. So I can’t.
“He died in a boating accident in Mexico,” I say, with just a little sarcasm, because a lot isn’t needed.
Carter shakes his head. “Let me guess: your sister and Julian were alone when the accident happened.”
“That’s what she says.”
“Tempura shrimp?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say to the app choice. But I’m not going to have dinner.
“Sure is an unlucky woman,” Carter says. “She’s buried two husbands before she’s thirty-five.”
I want to say everything that I’m thinking. Things about our childhood. Questions that have always lingered about what my sister really was. But I don’t. I’ve always felt embarrassed about my sister’s true nature, the layer of ugliness under her stunning, perfect veneer.
I look into Carter’s eyes. It’s strange how there can be something so deep in someone’s eyes. He actually looks into mine. I look away.
“I can’t lose Emma,” I say.
“You can’t go against the law,” he says as the server brings the shrimp.
“What if she tells me she wants Emma?” I ask.
He takes a shrimp and dips it into some honey goo. “You have to give her back. But really, Nic, you don’t know what she wants.”
I do.
My sister wants to hurt me.
She has never seen any person, including her own baby, as something she couldn’t manipulate for her own twisted purposes.
“I won’t give her back,” I repeat.
Carter doesn’t say anything for the longest time. He sits there searching the foam in the bottom of his beer glass as if there were some solution there. He eats another shrimp. I make a defensive move and take one too.
There were only four with the order.
“You could turn her in,” he says.
He keeps his eyes cast downward.
“For what?” I ask.
“For killing her husband, Cy Sonntag.”
“It was ruled an accident,” I say, my pulse rate quickening.
“Yes, I know,” he says. “But you could turn her in, Nicole. You know that she killed him. I mean, that’s how you really ended up with Emma, isn’t it?”
The Red Lobster bar is spinning. I’ve only had two glasses of wine. I keep my elbows planted on the bar top. I don’t want to fall. I don’t want to sink into the floor. I’m being swallowed up by the truth spoken to me by Carter Hanson.
“Yes,” I say.
“Turn her in, then,” he says. “That’s what you need to do.”
I don’t say anything more, because I can’t. I can’t tell him that I knew of my sister’s plot to kill Cy. I can’t say that she showed me how she was going to do it and that when she did, I used Cy’s murder to wrestle away Emma. It was wrong. I know it. I traded the sanctity of my badge for the life of a little girl. I love my job. I want to help people. I know that if I ever told the truth, I would lose everything that matters to me.
I’d lose Emma.
“Turn Stacy in,” he says.
“I can’t do that,” I say. Then I lie. I give him a line that I know rings false. “As much as I can’t stand what she’s done,” I tell Carter, “I love my sister in some weird way and I can’t do that to her. I can’t put her behind bars.”
“She’s a killer,” he says. “You know that, right?”
I answer right away. “Yes, but she’s also Emma’s mom.” I swallow the last of my wine in a big gulp. I feel a compulsion to do what I’ve always done. Lie for my sister. Make excuses.
“There are some good things about her, Carter,” I tell him, though it’s hard to really be convincing. I detect a trace of upspeak in my own voice, turning a statement into a question.
He leans closer to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. It’s a kind gesture. Not a move. As lonely as I am, I know the difference.
“I know you, Nic,” he says. “You will do the right thing.”
I feel like another drink, but when the server asks if I would like another round, I decline. I need a clear head. I need to decide what the right thing to do is and, more importantly, what the cost might be for doing it.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Saturday, August 26
At home the house is dark. Soundless. But my feelings are a Vitamix on full speed as I look at Julian’s photograph on my laptop screen at home. He’s so handsome. His eyes sparkle with an intensity that I knew so well. The look he gave me when he “found” me in the shelter and brought me home. I was so stupid. So gullible. I mistook treachery for sympathy. Who does that? And now I look at the photograph posted on the Puerto Vallarta Daily News website. The article is brief. The way a lot of articles are now in a world rife with two-second attention spans. It matches my sister’s story with one notable exception.
Yes, they were out sailing.
Yes, he fell overboard and hit his head and drowned.
The seas, however, were calm.
Stacy said there had been a squall. I know she lied because she needed to sell me on the idea of an accident. She had to come up with something more convincing than what she needed to tell the authorities in Mexico. Who knows? She might have had help. She was always good at getting someone to do her dirty work. My mind flashes to Marilyn Morton, Stacy’s best friend in high school. Stacy had Marilyn shoplift for her all the time. Marilyn got caught at the Tacoma Nordstrom store but never implicated Stacy.
I heard my sister on the phone yelling at Marilyn.
“Nobody will ever talk to you again, Marilyn. You burn me and you’re done. Do you understand? You’re my friend because you’re stupid and useful. I can make things really bad for you. Remember Donna Lewis?”
I’m sure Marilyn did. I did. Donna Lewis was my sister’s best friend in middle school. She, like Marilyn, was a follower, a Stacy devotee. I doubt my sister ever had a single relationship with anyone that was on equal footing. She was the star. Everyone else was a nameless, faceless backup dancer with the sole purpose of making Stacy more beautiful, smarter, and intelligent in comparison. It’s funny how all those things are so clear to me now. Back then, whenever someone said something about her callous behavior, my dad said, “Well, that’s just Stacy.”
I wonder if the Bundys said, “Well, that’s just Ted,” when he was convicted of multiple murders?
I’m not exactly certain what led up to the incident that ended Donna’s life. I know that she and Stacy had a huge blowup over some boy at school. I don�
��t really think Stacy was interested in the boy, but she was sure that Donna wouldn’t have him. The day after their big row, Donna ended up eating a bottle of her mother’s pills and overdosing. I remember how shocked everyone was.
Everyone but Stacy.
“I knew that girl was weak,” she said at the time.
“That’s really harsh,” I said.
My sister shrugged it off. “You can call it that, but it’s the truth. Just because someone is dead doesn’t mean they get some kind of character makeover and all of a sudden are an amazing person. Donna was a dud.”
Stacy never wasted a tear on her friend. That’s not to say she didn’t cry. She cried only when she needed to. At Donna’s funeral, the floodgates opened. Grand Coulee tears, for sure. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis spent most of their time comforting my sister.
She loved attention.
Always did.
I look some more at Julian’s photo. He was smart, rich, and charismatic, but he was no match for my sister. I’ll play along with her and I won’t ask what really happened. I already know it. She got rid of him because she was done getting what she wanted. Like Donna. Like Marilyn. Like Cy.
I imagine Stacy’s performance for the Mexican authorities as they retrieved her from the emergency call. I picture her flailing around in gorgeous agony over what happened in those iconic blue waters. How she just turned away and heard a thud. How she tried to get to Julian, but the current was too strong. I imagine she’s wearing a bikini with thin straps that slide down accidentally as she reaches over to find comfort in one of the investigators’ arms. Even in the throes of an ugly cry, my sister knows how to reel in a man. Instead of thinking of arresting her, they’ll want to take her out for dinner.
Stacy would go if she thought she had to.
I turn off my computer. I know my sister. She knows me. She knows that I’ve looked up the article about Julian’s death. I won’t mention it, though. Neither will she. So much of our relationship is unspoken. I learned long ago not to pry too deeply into her affairs. Not so much because Stacy would push back, but because she’d tell me things that I couldn’t unhear. Though I can’t explain it—part of me loves Stacy. Or wants to. She’s my sister. I just don’t want to know more because, despite all of it, I still want to love her.