by Jill Winters
“How...how could you do this to me?” she blurted then, as more tears spilled over her lids. Not that it mattered what he said anyway; if she lived another fifty years, she would never understand. How could anyone be that good of an actor, to contrive the kind of intimacy and friendship that they shared?
“I never thought it would go like this,” he said. “I thought it would be easy.” Up close, his eyes appeared contrite—but he could barely make eye contact with her.
“It must have been horrible for you,” she went on. “Having to go through all that 'sleuthing' with me? All those dead ends? When you knew all along this was about a painting.” He didn't deny this. “Were you going to take it when you found it?” He didn’t say anything. “And then what?” she asked.
Frighteningly, his only response was a stoic shrug, as he slipped the cord from her wrists.
For the first time in her life—as she would later think—she acted suspiciously, forcefully and angrily, all at once. She burst out of the chair. Out of his reach, before he could stop her. And she ran.
“Nicole—wait!” she heard him call after her. “I'm not gonna hurt you—”
But she kept running. Through the house, toward the front door.
Vaguely, she heard him on her heels, but she kept on, her heart pounding like a drum in her ears, her adrenaline driving her with such a force, the pulsing need to survive, to push out of this insipid bubble of her own design that had helped to trap her, and to save herself from something truly corrupt. Once she made it to the foyer, she lurched on the front door, unbolted it and bounded forward.
She was moving so fast, she wouldn't even know what had happened until later.
In a heartbeat, she crashed into the loose railing that Mac was supposed to fix and she went flying down off the top of the porch and collided with the ground. Her head hit one of the heavy flat stones that bordered the walkway.
“Nicole!” Michael shouted seconds later, dropping down beside her.
The desperation and fear in his own voice scared him. They were almost foreign to him, but not quite. There was something familiar here, a kind of deja vu about this feeling that he didn't care to place.
Anxiously, he felt her neck for a pulse. Nothing.
His heart raced in his chest as a fury grew inside him. If he couldn't save her—fuck that, he would save her. If he did one thing in his pathetic life, he would save her.
He reached for her arm and then felt a pulse in her wrist. With a renewed hope, he scooped her up in his arms and went back into the house.
Lucius was still conked out on the kitchen floor. Michael dug inside his coat pockets for the keys to Lucius's rental. Michael had been ringing the bell earlier when he'd spotted the rental parked across the street.
Now he took the keys, still balancing Nicole's soft, warm body in his arms. Her head was bleeding by her ear, but still, he was not going to contemplate worst-case scenarios. He would get her to the hospital. Maybe he shouldn't have moved her, but he was frantic to fix this, and too driven by his own will to patiently wait for help.
Meanwhile, left behind on the kitchen floor was Craig Lucius. As well as the little girl in the blue dress, snug in her frame.
Chapter Forty-six
A long time later, Michael watched Nicole's chest rise and fall, talking to her as though she were awake. They were on the fourth floor of True Heart Hospital, a few miles outside of town. Suddenly a nurse came into the room to check the IV. “Oh...I was just talking to her,” Michael explained needlessly. “I thought maybe it might help...you know, maybe if I kept talking at her, she'd finally be like, 'shut the hell up already.' ”
At that, the nurse smiled, gave a little laugh. “Can't hurt,” she said, as she fluffed Nicole's pillow and straightened her blanket.
From the little that Michael had been told, Nicole was sleeping deeply now due in part to a shot she was given, but she was not truly unconscious. When she awoke, she would probably have the worst headache of her life. And the doctor would like to keep her in the hospital for a day or so to monitor her head wound.
Now, with his chair against the wall, Michael wondered why he was still sitting here. He couldn't do anything more, and even if Nicole were awake—what would he say? He thought about how she had looked at him today when his association with Lucius was revealed, and just that wounded, almost disbelieving emotion he saw in her glassy green eyes. Michael got the feeling that perhaps Nicole had never been betrayed on a significant level by anyone she cared about; it did something uncomfortable to him to know that he had initiated her into that dark, embittered aspect of life.
Once the nurse left and the door clicked soundly behind her, Michael continued to talk. “So where was I?” he said, sitting up a bit in his chair. One good thing he remembered about his childhood was the way his father would tell him stories before bed. When Christopher Corso had died, Michael's mother, Eliana, had grabbed the torch right away, trying to tell the same stories, but it was never quite the same. Though soon Michael had believed himself to be too old for stories anyway.
But maybe it wasn't really a maturity issue, he realized. Maybe sometimes it was just a desperate kind of effort—like now.
“So I was telling you about this guy,” Michael continued, resting his forearms on his thighs, as he leaned forward and resumed his story. “A guy...from my block when I was growing up. Just a regular kid, I guess, but the type you see who's usually alone, kinda pissed off all the time,” he said, with a hint of a laugh like he had just realized that detail, himself. “I mean...the guy had friends, don't misunderstand. But he was just one of those solitary people, you know?”
Nicole lay there, sleeping softly. Or quietly listening, if that was what one wanted to believe. “So this guy was working at a garage.” Michael shook his head at the memory. “His hands were always dirty. I remember that his mom would take them in her own sometimes and just look up at him and shake her head. And I remember one time she said, 'You're too young to have such dirty hands.' And his mom...she had started spending time with a guy named Ben. And I know you'd think that her son would hate that, hate his mom getting together with anyone after his dad had died, but it had been years and years, and this Ben, well, he was a good guy. Nice to her...really nice to her...” Automatically, Michael suppressed a rise of emotion that came with the memory of Eliana. He continued:
“The kid didn't realize it then, but he was about to get in on something that was over his head. But you know, when you're nineteen and poor, you don't think far enough ahead. You don't think enough, period,” he reflected simply.
“Ben tells him about a business opportunity. To open a car wash and tire shop. Doesn't sound too appealing to you, I'm sure, but hey, you've gotta understand—to a kid that's been working at a garage, cars are comfortable. And the thought of running his own place, making real money, well it felt like a step somewhere. Something more than the same old regular mechanic shit. Stuff, sorry,” he said, correcting his language.
“Before he'd met Ben, it never occurred to him to try for something big like that, but the way Ben explained it, Ben would use his business contacts to get the shop started up, and then the kid would take over and run the place. Why would Ben want to help the kid do this? you ask,” Michael said to a sleeping Nicole. “Good question. Well. It was because he supposedly loved the woman. Wanted her to be happy, wanted her son to have something, be successful. Yeah...Ben was a real good guy.” His tone had changed then, bitterness singeing the edges of his words.
“The only thing Ben needed from this kid was some good faith money to help start up the place. Well, all the kid had was a meager savings account and the gold jewelry pieces that had belonged to his dad. Yeah, his dad had some big clunky gold watches that had been his father's, and a few other gawdy, jeweled-up things. Hey, they were Italian—don't judge,” Michael threw in kiddingly.
Then, with a resigned conclusion, he nodded. As if anyone could see where this was going, even a girl who was sound asleep. “So
he turns this over to Ben, who promises him that all this will be put down as 'good faith money'—kind of a security deposit was how Ben explained it. That they'd need that for the initial bank loan, but that the kid would get it all back once the shop was up and running. He was so young, so stupid...or maybe it was just that he trusted the guy.
“When he and his mom didn't see or hear from Ben in a few days, the kid stopped by Ben's apartment. Found it vacant. The door just swung open. The place was furnished and decorated the same as it had been. The only difference was, Ben wasn't there, and when the kid looked around, he found that all of Ben's clothes were gone, too.” With a wondered kind of recollection, Michael shook his head. “I couldn't believe it...I mean—he couldn't believe it. Ben was gone. The money and the jewelry—gone. There never were any business contacts that were going to help them, there was never going to be any bank loan. I—he had been a fool. Oh, by the way, he'd soon discovered after asking around in the building, that the apartment actually belonged to some consultant who was away on a four-month assignment in Chicago. To this day, I don't know how Ben knew him, or if he knew him, or how he managed to use his place to set himself up.
“The worst part was having to go home, back to that cramped run-down apartment in Jersey City and tell his mom that Ben was a fraud.”
He fell silent. Didn't say out loud the rest of what was running through his mind. It would all sound trite anyway. That you can't trust people. That everyone has a price. Watch your back. Strike first if you can. As he'd already told Nicole during their poker lesson: Play the players.
The difference between him and Ben was that Ben was swindling decent people. Michael, on the other hand, was a card shark, a hustler; the people he'd scammed were shady hustler-wannabes that he’d met at the tables. This con with Lucius was a total departure. Surely that distinction had to matter...
Who was he kidding? It was all a moot point now, with Nicole lying in a hospital bed. What right did he have even to try to talk to her after what he had done? First he'd broken his mom's heart and now Nicole's. God, when had he become such a selfish asshole?
Michael rubbed his face roughly. He wanted to evaporate this guilt sitting heavy on his chest. Bringing his chair closer to the bed, he reached out and touched Nicole's bare hand. Slid it into his. Images of the little intimate moments they'd shared streamed through his mind. They shouldn't mean so much, but suddenly they did.
“Nicole,” he said, his voice soft and low, “are you awake yet?”
Just then, the door opened. Michael turned his head, and saw a cop enter the room. His gut tightened, but he kept his poker face. Nodded hello and stood up. This was it, he thought. I'm busted. He knew he should have left as soon as he brought Nicole to the ER, but he'd stayed and now here was the downside of that choice.
Nosy neighbors must have phoned in some disturbance and then the cops had found Lucius and the paintings, and hell, maybe Lucius had even implicated Michael to throw the cops off his own scent, and now here they were—
“Mr. King?”
That surprised him. King, not Corso. Maybe Lucius hadn't talked to them after all. Was he still lying unconscious?
Waiting to see how this played out, Michael simply nodded.
The cop introduced himself and shook his hand. “I'm hoping you might be able to help me. One of Miss Sheffield's neighbors called and reported her fall. Said she took a nasty spill over the front banister—and appeared to be running? Neighbor wasn't positive, didn't get a perfect look.” The officer tipped his head. “Any idea why she was running? Or if she was running from someone?”
Michael paused, hesitated really; he hadn't been expecting this. What about the thug criminal on the kitchen floor? That would be the first clue.
“Some kind of domestic disturbance?” the cop asked.
Now Michael could see where the guy was going with this. It stood to reason that the nosy neighbor watching from the window had interpreted the situation as Michael chasing after Nicole, especially since he'd come out of the house only several paces behind her.
“No, nothing like that,” Michael assured him. “She was upset, yes, but not about me. I would never hurt her.” Not physically, he thought with disgust. “It's really not my place to say more. I think you should wait until she wakes up and let her tell you,” Michael added, knowing that the sentiment would work in his favor. After all, a person with something to hide would have used this opportunity to spin the story.
After a beat, the cop nodded. “Okay, I'll do that. We took a look around the place, just in case. Because the back and front doors were unlocked. We found the dog sleeping on the back porch. She woke up and seemed a little groggy. We didn't want to leave her alone, so we left her with a next door neighbor to watch. Ginger Bloomingdale. Hope that's okay.”
“Of course, yeah,” Michael agreed.
“But other than that, we didn't see anything disturbed. From what we could make out. No signs of a break-in. No 9-1-1 call, either, but we just thought we should follow up.”
With increasing difficulty, Michael kept his expression neutral. What the hell was going on? How was it possible that they'd looked around the house and found nothing unusual? What about Lucius? What about the paintings? The shattered glass on the floor?
“In the meantime,” the policeman added, “if you wouldn't mind staying in town for a few days, just in case I need to talk to you some more.”
Standard issue request and Michael knew that he didn't have to abide by it anyway, because—as the cop said—there was nothing official being investigated here. “Sure, no problem. I'm not going anywhere.”
Chapter Forty-seven
“A motel?” Vickie said.
Todd said nothing, just gave one of his gentle smiles. His wife responded to it with an eye-roll. She slammed the car door shut with an audible whap that broke the quietness of the afternoon. It was a cold, still day, but a sunny one. A perfect day for the Harvest Parade, to be sure—but not a bad day for other celebrations, as well.
“A motel,” Vickie said again, obviously impatient. “Todd, what is going on?”
“A special surprise,” he replied, locking the car behind him.
“Oh God,” she whined, her voice drawing out in a kind of horrified revelation. “Please tell me you're not trying to put some 'magic' into our marriage with this little stunt. You think after all these years, I'm going to go for a nooner with you? Forget this, I want to go back.” Alarmed, Todd watched her stomp back to the car. Angrily, she tugged on the door handle. Then she flipped her head to face him, sending her red curls bouncing over one eye. “Open the friggin' door,” she snapped.
While he normally bent to her will, this time he couldn't. It would disrupt everything he had put together for today. A nooner with him? That was what she thought was his big surprise? It was so much more than that. Just wait until he opened the door and showed her. This would be a whole new start for them.
She would just have to be patient a few moments more; after all the years of love and support he'd given her, she owed him that much.
“Todd, I'm serious! Unlock the friggin' door!” Vickie was yelling now. “I'm not in the mood for this crap! Just take me back to Chatham!” There was a thready kind of anxiety in her voice all of a sudden; she sounded shrill and uncertain, almost panicked.
“Just relax, please, relax,” Todd coaxed, coming toward her. “I promise you...you're going to love it.” When he tried to put his long arm around her, she seemed to squirm under his touch. Her shoulders tightened palpably as he held on to her anyway, and pushed her forward, toward the bungalow he had already rented. Vickie must have realized that it would be more expedient to “get this over with” than to continue her temper tantrum in the parking lot. That was good, because one of his wife's tantrums would likely attract attention—and that was the last thing Todd wanted today. Today was a day for private revelations.
Her open-toed shoes were practically kicking up gravel dust as she went. Ho
w she could wear sandals like that on a cold day like today? Undoubtedly, it was to show off her bright red nail polish and serpent toe ring. That was his wife, all right. Or the women she had evolved into, anyway. The flashy, provocative one. Willfully, Todd tamped down the stirrings of an angry, bitter emotion, as he had done so many times before.
“Hey, wait a minute...” Vickie began, as they passed another car parked in the lot. Obviously she recognized the car. But it was no matter; too late to turn back now.
Todd turned the key in the lock and opened the door to Bungalow 6. The Cape Cabins was a surprisingly expensive strip of adjacent bungalows, all of which had the quintessential gray clapboard shingles, weathered and beaten by years of salt air. It was secluded enough to provide Cape residents with privacy, if needed.
“Wait, what's going on here,” Vickie started to say and then gasped. “Oh my God!”
The man waiting on the bed was obviously just as shocked as she. “What the hell...?” he said, coming to his feet.
“Danny! What the hell are you doing here?”
Just then, Todd shut the door, sealing the three of them inside the room. He set his keys and wallet down on the nearby table. Danny Keegan looked like a trapped rodent, shifty-eyed and greasy. Honestly, Todd was still perplexed as to what his wife saw in the man. However, if this was what she liked...
“Vick, I thought you invited me!” Danny said, looking from one to the other. “You left a key to the bungalow in my mailbox with a note to meet you here.”
At that, Vickie started to freak. Too speechless to blurt out any acerbic or emasculating remarks, she just seemed to writhe in place, not knowing how to respond—her mouth hung open and her head bobbed, as if she were struggling to find her voice.
“Actually, that was me,” Todd said to Danny, realizing he needed to clarify this right away or else the mood would be ruined. The last thing he wanted was for his wife to run out of there, mortified, thinking that Todd had simply contrived the confrontation as a way to call out her adultery. That wasn't his intention, but he could understand if she interpreted it that way. So he explained, “Just listen, please. It's not what you think.”