She snuck into the stairwell and plastered herself against the adjacent wall. A bell soon heralded the elevator’s arrival. The gate clacked open. The elevator operator called out a muffled, “Down,” waited a suitable time, and left without taking a passenger with him.
On the opposite side of the stairwell, the doorknob twisted and the hustler blundered through the door. Their eyes met across the divide. He stopped long enough to take a girding breath before escaping in a downward trajectory, his fingertips breezing along the banister.
Kendra pursued. Stairs tripped by. Doors rushed past. Deeper and deeper they fell into the abyss. Darker and darker the hole became. The walls closed in. The panic increased. Not hers, but his. She called down to him. “You can’t run from me forever.”
His paced slowed and eventually stopped. Kendra closed the gap to within speaking range. She stood on the landing halfway up from her quarry, her suede skirt swinging like a bell. He lingered close to the exit, his fist gripping the doorknob. A large numeral 3 marked the wall beside him.
He said, “How long have you been following me?”
The first time Kendra met Hunter Steele, he was no more self-conscious than a tiger studying the surface of a reflective pond and perceiving only an abstract array of black-and-white stripes against a backdrop of sky and vines. Since then, he had come out of the jungle and donned the mantel of guilt along with a new image. His hair was cut close. His clean-shaven face accentuated a strong jawline. His muscles had bulked up. His face was no longer soft but hard. And his expression was mean and angry instead of fragile and needy.
“An hour,” she answered. “Maybe more.”
“You stole the portrait.” The snippiness of his voice belied the placid expression.
“Claimed what was mine.”
“I want it back.”
“How can you tell them apart, anyway?”
The smile twisted like a corkscrew, bottling up his mouth. “They’re my trophy chest. I collect women the way other people collect Hummels.”
“There must be a hundred or more.”
“I want yours back.”
“Can’t have it.”
“I’ll file a police report. Take you to court. Sue you for damages.”
“I destroyed it,” she said. “Burnt it.”
“Why?”
“You trapped my soul in that painting.”
“I know.”
“Well ... I freed it.”
Bathed in stairwell lighting dusted with the grit of decades, his face became a ghoulish representation of the man standing behind it. “Go home, Kendra. To your husband. Your home.”
“I have no home.”
“He kicked you out?”
“Not in the way you think.”
“I heard you were you in the hospital. In the psych ward. Did Joel put you there?” His was a pitiless grin of satisfaction.
“Do you feel anything, Hunter? Anything at all?”
“Nothing.”
“Grief?”
“I feel nothing.”
“Regret?”
“Nothing, I said.”
“Not even when you’re screwing us?”
He climbed a single step. “You might as well be shish kabob.”
“But we feel, Hunter. We take you with us. How do you deal with that? With the love?”
“By painting the canvases black.”
“Even if you paint the canvases black, we still love you.”
“Don’t blame me. You knew who I was. What I was. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come with me. You were hoping to convert me. To cure me. I can’t be cured. Experts have tried.”
“You have it backwards. I was trying to cure myself.”
“Now we’re both sick.”
She took a step down. He backed away by the same measured distance, returning both feet to the landing. “When did you first meet Joel?” she asked. “In school?”
He reclaimed the lost step. “Who told you?”
“High school or college?”
“Kindergarten.”
“It fits,” she said. “How much did he pay you to wait for me in front of the restaurant?”
“I did it for nothing.”
“And for seducing me?” A fine prickling of needles stabbed her fingertips. “He must have paid you something.”
“He got off on the reports.”
“Did he want to know if I got off?”
“You did, didn’t you?” His smile was cruel. “Anyway, I told him you did, and he believed me.”
Brothers. They were like brothers. Boys growing up together. Gravitating toward each other because of what they saw in the mirror when they stood next to each other. The same height. The same wan expression. The same gangly posture. The same guarded suspicion of other boys, so unlike themselves. Over the years, they must have adopted the same mannerisms, speech patterns, smiles, and frowns. And the same way of moving their bodies, the way Hunter was moving his now. Skittish, unsure, and alert to danger.
“Joel introduced me to his other friends,” Kendra said. “Why not you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He climbed up to meet her.
She stayed put. “Are you as embarrassed of him as he is of you?”
His face relaxed. “There’s a difference between Joel and me.”
She was grasping for wispy clouds, high up, her fingertips reaching. “Tell me what.”
“He’s been raping you ever since he met you. I never did.”
They faced each other from one stair step apart. She lashed forward and dug her fingernails across his cheek, drawing blood.
He clamped onto her arms, twisted them behind her back. “Did you ever love him, Kendra? Or was he just an image you downloaded off the internet? A digital facsimile of a husband.”
Their lips touched. “I called you when I got out of the hospital,” Kendra said. “I wanted to tell you ...”
“What?”
“That I wanted you. I want you now.”
“How bad, Kendra? This bad?” He dragged her by a grappled wrist and forced her down the stairs. She should’ve screamed but didn’t. They burst into the deserted lobby. He scouted out the broken elevator, hauled her into it, and engaged the power. The lights flickered and steadied. He flung her to the floor and struggled with the grille. There was a trick to it, but once he put momentum into his weight, the gate slid home and engaged with a clack of finality. He didn’t bother with the inner doors. He had done this before, cornered women inside cages to satisfy their needs.
He heaved her to her feet. Mirrors lined the walls on three sides. He pushed her against one of them, smashing her cheek against the polished surface. With the grip of an encircling fist, he held her flush against her own reflection while he used his free hand to engage the power lever. The elevator skyrocketed to the top. The floor indicator spun like the hour hand of a clock, sweeping from number to number. The sensation of leaving her stomach on the ground floor sickened her. Hunter pulled back on the handle. The speed decreased. The car came to a jerky halt between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth floors. Beyond the grate, Kendra picked out the outer doors, the bottom half of the one above and the top half of the one below.
Hunter switched off the key. The lights doused. His confining hand came away, but she didn’t move.
“The first time you saw me,” she said into the dark, “outside the restaurant ...”
His fingers were clumsy as he hiked the sweater out of her waistband.
“You said ...”
He slapped her against the hindmost mirror, lampblack in the dark but slippery to the touch. She screwed her head around to look at him but couldn’t see the least of his eyes, his nose, or his beautiful mouth.
“You said I arrived earlier.”
He jammed his pelvis against hers.
“Stayed long enough to eat, left alone, and returned a few minutes later. Why would I do that?”
“You tell me.” He groped beneath her sweater, reached around,
and grappled her breasts inside hurting double grips. “Aren’t you scared? You should be.”
Excitement throbbed between her thighs. “I only went into the restaurant once that night.”
“Twice,” he said. “Like I said.”
“You’re lying. You’ve been lying about everything. Because Joel has some ... some sort of sick hold over you.”
“You were stunning. Exquisite beyond believe. I’d never seen you look so beautiful. Or fragile. Or wanting. What did you do? Something with your hair? Or did you just come into yourself, fulfilling the girl’s promise with a woman’s dream?” He grasped her arms, slapped them high up on the mirror, and pressed her flat against the glass.
Kendra realized something. “You saw me before? When?” She tried to glance around so she could look him in the eye, but he wouldn’t let her.
He hooked his feet around her legs and spread them apart. “I went to your wedding. As an uninvited guest. I wanted to see what kind of woman Joel was marrying. You were beautiful then. But not like now.”
Her cheek scraped the mirror. She saw what she looked like in the sepia-tinted reflection: a depraved woman who would submit to any degradation, so long as there was an end to the means.
He tore at the folds of her skirt. “When I saw you outside the restaurant, you just blew me away. Then, when we met at the art museum, you seemed different. The reality didn’t match the ideal. Don’t get me wrong. You’re beautiful still, but in a different way.” His fingers fumbled with the undergarments beneath.
She cried out, not from fear or pain but for release. “You called Joel on his cell phone. To let him know I was coming. So he could send Mrs. Santana away and make me think ...”
“Whatever happened or didn’t happen at the restaurant,” he said, “doesn’t prove you’re not mad. But it wasn’t that other woman. Your husband’s mistress. It was you, Kendra. No one but you.”
She had grown used to the dark. She saw her fingers splayed like spider’s legs across the mirror. He pulled her hips out at an angle while his breath blew hot on her neck and he took what belonged to his boyhood friend. “You’ll never go back to him now,” he whispered. “Not after this.”
She let out a final wail, not for rescue, but for continuance.
Sometime later, he collapsed against her, his weight heavy and his breath hurried and uncontrolled. “Do you want me to take you again?” he asked.
“Someone might come.”
“You’d like that.” He swung her around and pressed her to him. “Wouldn’t you?”
Her skirts fell back into place. She tasted blood on her lips. “Yes. I want you to use me the way Joel used you.”
He recoiled from her words.
“He’s always had a hold on you, hasn’t he?”
“A man who’d make his wife believe she’s crazy,” he said, “is capable of anything.”
She smelled his sweat. And his fear. Of Joel. “What did he do to you?”
“Leave me alone, Kendra. Don’t come looking for me again. I won’t be responsible next time. You can’t help me. No one can.”
He released her. The elevator lit up and blinded her. In the mirror, she saw him caress the controls the same way he had fondled her. As the car descended, the floors swept upward, a waterfall of steel defying gravity. He stopped the elevator on the second floor, flung open the doors, and stepped into the vestibule. His eyes painted her into his memory before he whisked into the fire exit and disappeared behind the door.
Chapter 32
THE SURFACE OF the silver key—poised between Kendra’s thumb and forefinger—was rough and tactile. She rubbed it with her finger pads as she traveled down rows of lockboxes.
The largest were grouped upfront. The smallest were in the back. She found the medium-sized ones arranged on the opposite side of the post office lobby and searched for the number 13739. The box was tucked in a corner where lighting was poor. She tried the key, first right side up, then notches down. The metal slid home and turned clockwise. The latch cleared. The door came away.
Unopened envelopes overflowed the box. She reached in and gathered up a handful. Everything was addressed to K Swain at the indicated post office box number. She tore open one, two, three envelopes. She didn’t have to open more.
After satisfying her greatest fears, she stuffed everything back inside and re-locked the box.
Chapter 33
OUTSIDE THE BUNGALOW, a FOR SALE sign swung from a yard sign. Kendra found a parking spot adjacent a corner fire hydrant and came running up the block. Her skin was on fire.
The flames leapt when she saw Joel. He was sitting at the Steinway, waiting for her, his fingers stroking dissonant keys. “You’re home early,” he said without looking up. He had removed his jacket and dragged loose his tie.
“Don’t you have it backwards?”
She threw her keys away. He watched them land on the wing chair, then hoisted a highball glass and drank. His grip was steady. Maybe too steady.
“You’re so smug, Joel. So self-assured.”
“Am I?”
She hurled herself into the chair farthest away from him. Her skin wasn’t on fire anymore. It was crawling with ants. “What were you thinking? You can’t put the bungalow up for sale without talking it over with me.”
He raked back his hair and resumed playing. “I knew we’d have an argument. Like we’re having now. Do you know what a house like this brings on the open market? We’ll make a killing.”
“And afterwards?”
“We’ll move into your father’s house.”
“Since my mother lives there with Birdie, I don’t think it’ll work out.”
A smirk marred his otherwise composed face. “The house belongs to the estate of Alan McSweeney. He specifically avoided transferring ownership to Emily. For obvious reasons.”
“You think I don’t know that? Everything comes to me.”
“But not necessarily for your mother’s benefit.”
“The language in the will ...”
“Is vague in that regard.”
“You’re talking like a goddamn lawyer.”
“Your father left explicit instructions. For as long as Emily McSweeney lives, she’s to be provided for. He didn’t spell out how. But we talked about the possibilities, Mac and me.”
It galled Kendra that Mac had discussed intimate family matters with Joel and left her out of the conversation. Then again, why wouldn’t he? She always avoided the subject of Emily. Mac was there to take care of her; Kendra didn’t want any part of it. But she still couldn’t forgive him for going around her, even if he had a legitimate reason for putting his affairs in order. And what better solution than a doting son-in-law who adored his daughter and took in stride the insanity of his mother-in-law. “What about Birdie? She’s looking after Emily. She’s devoted to her.”
Joel kept his voice unemotional. “Birdie has no legal status, but I’m executor of your father’s will.”
“Co-executor.” She didn’t recognize her voice. It was high and discordant, and on the edge of hysteria.
“A detail that can be easily rectified.” He glanced up from the keyboard. His eyes were shiny; his expression, lifeless; his attitude, deadly. “Do you want to read the will again? Do you want to examine your father’s signature? Anyway, isn’t that what we discussed? When Emily was gone, we were going to move into the house.”
Kendra sprang to her feet. “We discussed no such thing. And she’s not gone.”
“No,” he said on a prolonged breath. “She’s not gone. Yet.”
He concentrated on a string of notes. She recognized the melody as an Irving Berlin song. He struck a strident chord that jangled her nerves. Crazy. She was going crazy. “Emily will outlive us all.”
“God, I hope not. But you make the case. People like Emily have no stress in their lives. Half the illnesses in this world come from unresolved inner turmoil. Like yours, sweetheart.”
Repulsed by the absolute calm on
his face, she stepped back. “I don’t recognize you anymore.”
“How can you say that when I love you beyond reason?”
“Then you love me too much.” She collapsed into a chair and stared at the ceiling. Her heart was pounding. Her face burned red-hot. She wanted to scream.
“I don’t want to see you wind up like your mother, out of touch with reality and unreachable.” Once more, the keys began to ripple. “The necklace, for instance.”
Her broken and splintered heart stopped on a beat. Taking a girding breath, she sat up. Though she was afraid to ask, she said on a whisper, “What about the necklace?”
“You took it. In one of your fugues ... blackouts ... call them what you will. You took it, hid it, and forgot where you put it. I’m thinking it’s somewhere in the house but can’t be sure. You could’ve buried it in the yard. Hidden it in the attic. Only you know where. Or knew.”
She swallowed spittle. She could barely breathe. Her heart pounded harder, nearly bursting out of her chest. “You said it was a burglar. You called the police.”
“You gave me no other choice. If I said something then, you would have worked yourself into an emotional state, and frankly, I didn’t want another blow-up.”
She gripped the arms of the chair. She wanted to run away and never come back, but something held her. “You make it sound as if ...”
“It hurt me that you couldn’t accept a token of my love. But I won’t walk out on you, not when you need me. Did you know you sleepwalk?”
Dumbly, she shook her head.
“When it happens ... just about every night now ... I try to wake you up ... try to reason with you ... try to bring you back to bed. But most of the time ... well ... frankly ... nobody’s home.” He hoisted the glass. It wasn’t his first drink. Or even his second or third. He was drunk. “I’m making arrangements for Emily. Someplace where they know how to take care of people like her.”
Kendra bolted out of the chair. She wouldn’t be sitting again. “You can’t do that.” Her voice came from the opposite side of the planet. “I ... I won’t let you.”
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