The Comfort of Black

by Carter Wilson

  “What the hell is happening?” she asked.

  “I’m guessing your husband wasn’t happy with how yesterday turned out, and somehow they found us.” He paused. Hannah heard what he did from the woods: silence. “We have to get to the van out there,” he continued. “It’s our best chance.” His voice was closer now, in her ear, his warm breath sweeping through her. “I saw the shooter—he’s fifty meters away, maybe more. He’s going to come in closer. I want you to get up and run to the van. I’ll cover you. Open the side panel door and get down on the floor. There’re no seats in the back so you’ll be able to lie flat.”

  She nodded, but Black seemed to sense her fear. “Hannah, listen, I’ve been in some bad situations before. I know this is scary, but our best chance is to do what I’m telling you, okay? I know you have a whole trust-issue thing, but now’s not the time to be defiant.”

  “I’m not scared,” she said. The weird thing was, she meant it. She felt oddly in control, perhaps for the first time since Dallin had uttered those words in his sleep. Hannah had no choice but to take action, and even if that action for the moment was running for her life, at least she was doing something.

  Black pressed his thumb against her cheek, wiping off some blood.

  “Good,” he said. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go, Hannah. Now.”

  She jumped up, hesitating only a moment before running. In that instant, she wondered if, like in a dream, she would run but go nowhere. If she would scream without making a sound, be shot but feel no pain. If she would wake before she died.

  In that same instant, another shot lasered from the trees, another soft pop of a noise that seemed incapable of representing instant, powerful death. So much quieter than Black’s gun, she thought. She heard a bullet whiz by her head, but that was all just part of the dream, wasn’t it? And in this dream she saw movement behind a tree, saw the man who was trying to kill her. But she didn’t really see him, she merely detected a shape briefly shift into view and then disappear.

  The percussion of Black’s gun firing back into the woods made her run even faster. She closed in on the van in seconds, and if the shooter fired more shots in that time, she had no idea. Black aimed and shot twice in rapid bursts. This time Hannah didn’t flinch.

  She grasped the faded chrome handle on the van’s side panel door and yanked hard before sliding the door open. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind Hannah realized this was where she’d been briefly a passenger trapped in a large storage container, just a day ago.

  She scrambled inside. As she turned to close the door, she saw Black running toward her, gun pointed up, left arm swinging, legs pumping. He didn’t look panicked. He didn’t even look worried. He moved with purpose, speed, and the seeming certainty that all would be fine, as long as they kept moving, and moving fast.

  Black opened the driver’s door and threw himself into the van. He turned the engine over, shifted into gear, and slammed down the accelerator. The van lunged and Hannah fell back in the empty cargo area, sliding against the bare metal floor.

  “Hold on!”

  But there was nothing to hold on to.

  Black yanked the steering wheel to the left and turned away from the direction of the bullets. Hannah slammed against the right wall of the van and felt a sharp pain in her shoulder. She yelled out as she tried to brace herself, which was pointless.

  “Sorry!” Black shouted. He steadied the direction of the van and accelerated. The road was unpaved, choppy, but relatively straight. Hannah lay flat on the floor of the cargo area, her arms spread wide, her body thumping with the bumps in the dirt road. She closed her eyes and just wanted him to keep driving, faster and farther away. She didn’t even care where they went as long as it was somewhere else.

  She expected to hear the sound of bullets thunking through the metal of the van’s back door, releasing beams of bright dusty sunlight through fresh holes, but those shots never came. Seconds passed, then a minute.

  She craned her neck and looked up at Black, who simply stared straight ahead, both hands on the wheel, silent as he sped them over bumpy earth into an increasingly uncertain future.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The road changed from bumpy to smooth. The van slowed, and then stopped.

  Hannah looked up. “What’s going on?”

  Black said nothing. He opened his door and stepped outside, leaving the van idling. Hannah heard scraping around the vehicle, one section at a time. A couple of minutes later he got back in.

  “Just what I figured,” he said. “I was sloppy not to have assumed it before.”

  Hannah rose to her knees, steadying herself with the palms of her hands along the metal floor. She could feel beads of sweat glaze her forehead.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s no built-in GPS device in the van, so I figured we were safe. But there was a planted GPS unit under the front carriage. That’s how they found us at the cabin, which is now totally compromised. It’s my fault. I should have checked.” She caught his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Better yet, I shouldn’t have taken this van at all.”

  “You had to,” she said. “I was in it.”

  He nodded, but it didn’t seem like agreement. “I think I found the only one, but I can’t be certain. I tossed it in the woods, but we need to ditch this thing soon.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Seattle. Need to get my car.” He looked at her again in the mirror. “Okay by you?”

  “You still think it’s a bad idea going to the police after someone just tried to kill us?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but it won’t do any good,” he said. “We can’t ID the shooter, and the second you file a police report you make yourself visible, which means they can get to you again. But if you want me to drop you off at a police station, I can do that. I’m not holding you.”

  Hannah reached up and pressed her fingers against her cheek, feeling the sting of the cuts from the wood splinters. She moved her hand in front of her eyes and saw the red of the blood mixed with the grime on her hand. She didn’t respond to Black. Instead, Hannah climbed forward to the passenger seat and stared out the window and into the side view mirror. Her face was smeared with blood and dirt, her hair a mess of tangled thatch, and she thought distantly of the savage boys from Lord of the Flies.

  Hannah saw Billy’s eyes in that mirror, and they seemed to glow even brighter than usual against the dark haze of her muddied complexion.

  Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.

  They didn’t speak as Black drove them from forest to civilization, as trees gave way to billboards, and finally to buildings. The cabin in the woods was located roughly a half-hour east, maybe southeast, of Seattle, somewhere in the density of Tiger Mountain State Park. Or at least close to there, she figured. Hannah tried to calculate the route back from where they’d come and knew she could never do it exactly, nor even knew why she would need to bother with it, but the idea of being able to find Black’s cabin from her own memory gave her some sense of control.

  When they reached downtown Black pulled the van into a surface parking lot and used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe down the steering wheel and door handles. Hannah stood outside and looked around, knowing the area intimately but never having felt so much like she was in some other country. It was still morning and she heard the city murmur with activity as people went on with their daily lives, repeating their usual routines, ordering their same cups of coffee from the same Starbucks as they had the day before.

  It was just yesterday afternoon Hannah had met with Dallin. She turned her head and noticed the edge of the Four Seasons sticking out from behind an apartment building. Right there, she thought. It had all started right there.

  No, she corrected herself.

  She turned her head the other direction and saw her own apartment tower a few blocks away, rising above the buildings in front of it. That’s where it all started
.

  Black spoke. “Get back in the van and wait for a minute.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just hang on,” he said.

  She watched him jog to a nearby 7-11 and disappear inside. Hannah returned to the van. She saw flashes of Black through the store window, and the last time she saw him he was on his cell phone. A few minutes later he came back and opened the passenger door. He handed her a bottle of water and a roll of paper towels.

  “Clean the blood off your face,” he said. “You shouldn’t be walking around like that—it’ll attract too much attention.”

  She opened the bottle and took a long draw of cold water, which tasted better than any martini she’d ever had. Then she poured some on a wad of paper towels and wiped the blood until the towels were streaked in red. She looked in the rearview mirror at the cut on her face. Black was right, it wasn’t bad. About an inch long on her right cheek, not too deep. She had certainly had worse.

  “Who were you calling?” she asked.

  “It was business,” he said. “Nothing about you.”

  “Why would it be about me?”

  “Like I said, it wasn’t. This little side excursion has delayed some of my other business dealings, so I had to let one of my clients know I need to postpone an appointment.” He surveyed her face. “Better,” he said, and then handed her a hair tie. “They didn’t have brushes.”

  Hannah put her hair back in a ponytail.

  “Police station is just a few blocks away if you still want to go there,” Black said. “I’m guessing your ID is in your purse, though.”

  Hannah instinctively reached for her purse, finding nothing. “Shit. My purse is still at the cabin.”

  “I know. Well, it’s gone now. No doubt they swept it up after we left. Probably combed through every piece of that place. They won’t find much, but they’ll take apart my laptop trying to figure it out. They won’t find anything they can use, but they’re probably expecting you to contact the police.”

  “So if it’s such a bad idea to go to the police, what are my options?”

  Black lifted his chin up just an inch, like an antelope suddenly sniffing out a lion hiding in the tall grass. “Let’s walk,” he said. “We can discuss your options when we aren’t standing out in the open.” Black started across the parking lot and she followed, and for a brief moment she had the sense of trailing Dallin through the lobby of the Four Seasons. Hannah had had about enough of men leading her to unknown places.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “What?”

  “When I got back in the van, I had to use the door handle. My prints will be on there. Shouldn’t we wipe the handle like you did before?”

  He stopped. Turned. Considered.

  “It’s okay,” he replied. “We just need to keep going.”

  “Why the rush?”

  “Not rushing,” he answered. “Just not backtracking. Backtracking is usually a bad idea.” He turned and kept walking away.

  They walked the downtown streets, the buildings looming over them. Hannah felt a thousand eyes from the soaring windows all directed at her, watching her, a multitude of human security cameras, all relaying information to those who wished to harm her about where she was. On the corner of 4th and Seneca, heading west… She knew it wasn’t true. No one was following her movements. No one cared about the blond woman with the small cut on her face.

  Then she saw the cop.

  Street cop, on foot. In uniform. Long sleeves, midnight blue. Brimmed cap. He had been staring at Hannah when she noticed him. He was on the other side of the street, walking parallel with them. Looking at them the whole time. Black turned right and led them into a side alley, away from the cop.

  “Don’t look back,” Black said.

  She ignored him and looked directly at the cop. The cop was staring intently at her. Then he began crossing the street.

  “Keep following me,” Black said.

  “No,” she said. “Goddammit, just stop. I’m going to talk to him.”

  “Hannah.”

  She turned and walked slowly toward the cop as he approached them at a faster clip.

  “Fine,” Black said. “Stop walking and let him come to us. And let me do the talking.”

  Moments later the cop approached them. They were fifty feet into the alley, flanked by dumpsters and back entrances to coffee shops and retail stores. A few pedestrians walked along 4th Street, but no one else other than the cop came into the alley. They stood and watched him approach. He maintained a distance of ten feet.

  “Morning,” he said. The man’s face was scarred by a smattering of ancient acne pits. His eyebrows were jet black and perfectly shaped, looking like they were drawn on with Sharpies. His voice was calm but his body rigid. “I need to ask for your IDs, please.”

  “Is there a problem?” Black said.

  The cop took one step forward. “I just need to see your IDs.”

  “We have a right to know why,” he said.

  “Are you refusing to produce your identification, sir?”

  “I’m asking to know why.”

  Hannah interjected. “I don’t have my purse.”

  The cop flicked his gaze to her and studied her face. “Where’d you get that cut on your face from, ma’am?”

  “Accident,” she replied.

  Black approached the cop, who put his hand up. “Please remain where you are, sir.” Back to Hannah. “Are you in trouble, ma’am? Do you require assistance?”

  There were so many answers to that question, and Hannah just wanted to say the first one that came to her mind. Hell, yes, I need assistance. I need you to arrest my husband for assault and attempted kidnapping, maybe even attempted murder. I need you to conduct a thorough investigation that will tell me how everything in my world became so fucked up in so short a time. So, yeah, you could say I require assistance.

  In her peripheral vision, Hannah saw Black leaning toward the cop.

  “I can’t read your badge number.”

  “Sir, I will give you a card with my information on it in a moment. In the meantime, I need you to stay back and remain silent while I speak with Ms. Parks.”

  The sound of her name coming off this man’s lips sent a rush of ice water through her belly. “How do you know my name?” she asked.

  “You both need to come with me,” the cop said.

  “Why?”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Black said, this time taking a pronounced step forward.

  The cop moved his right hand to the butt of his holstered gun. “Stay right there.”

  “Are we under arrest?” Black asked.

  “Ms. Parks is wanted for questioning in conjunction with an embezzlement charge.”

  “What?”

  “Ma’am, everything will be explained at the station. Now I need you both to come with—”

  It happened in an instant. Hannah didn’t even see Black move. All she saw was his body slamming into the cop, knocking him onto the ground. The cop reached for his gun but had no chance. Black removed it, held it by the barrel, and slammed the butt into the man’s forehead. The cop shouted and reached for Black’s arm, grasping for the weapon.

  Hannah stared at the men struggling on the ground, and her instinct was to do something. She could kick. She could scream for help. She could stomp on the face of her enemy. But who the hell was her enemy? The cop? Black? Or maybe she should just run. Run and keep running. Stopping only when either her legs or her heart gave out, when she was at the point where nothing mattered anymore.

  A gun spilled onto the ground, the metal and plastic clacking on the concrete. It was Black’s gun, and it must have fallen out in the struggle. The cop, still struggling despite the blow to his head, seized the weapon. At this point, everything Hannah saw happened frame by frame, like a child thumbing the pages of a flip-book, making the animated figure dance.

  The cop moved his arm from the ground. The gun in his hand slowly turned toward the m
an on top of him.

  Black darted his eyes and saw the threat. Hannah saw a flash of something move over his face. Resolve. Decision. Instinct.

  In one smooth movement, Black spun the cop’s gun in his hand so it was no longer the barrel in his hand but the butt of the gun. Then, as easily as if stapling up a string of Christmas lights, Black pushed the tip of the gun hard against the cop’s chest and fired.

  The explosion was deafening.

  This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t—

  Black sprang from the ground and grabbed her by the hand. “Come on!” he yelled. He yanked her arm so hard it pulled the darkness away, but not the disorientation. She saw people come into the alleyway. A woman screamed. Another woman yelled for someone to call 9-1-1. A young man just stood and stared, his Seattle Mariners cap crooked on his head, his t-shirt displaying the image of a jack-o’-lantern with blood coming from its eyes. He lifted a white phone in the unmistakable gesture of I’m capturing this on video.

  Hannah ran.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Black’s car sat in a surface lot three blocks from where a cop was shot. They reached the sedan without anyone following them, and as they sped through downtown, Hannah stared out the window. Buildings lasted just moments in her field of vision before vanishing. Pedestrians were little more than plastic toy figurines set upon a city canvas play set. Beams of sunlight burst through holes in the clouds, spotlighting large swaths of street and structure.

  She spoke first. “You shot him. No matter what happens now, we’re criminals. You shot a cop.”

  Black kept his focus on the road. “Hannah, listen to me carefully, okay? Yes, I shot him, but I knew what I was doing. I didn’t hurt him, at least not badly. He had a vest on, and I shot into it. He’s probably got a couple of broken ribs, but that’s it.”

  Relief passed through her, and she tried to suppress it, hesitant to believe him. She wanted to ask him if he was sure, but she knew Black’s answer would be of course I’m sure.

  “But you still shot a cop,” she said. “That’s a problem.”