The Empty Bed

by Nina Sadowsky

  “So how long are you here for?”

  “Ten days.”

  “Do you want me to take a look at that hand?”

  To her utter shame, hot tears scald Eva’s eyes. Her throat closes; her nose is suddenly clogged. She looks away from Alex and at his happy little boy busily constructing a Lego spaceship on the coffee table in the living room.

  I can’t get Alex involved in this. Whatever this is.

  “I should really be going,” she chokes out.

  “Don’t be daft. You need attention,” Alex replies easily. He escorts her into the kitchen. She drifts along with him limply, unable to resist.

  I do need attention. Attention’s exactly what I need.

  He winds the blood-soaked scarf away from her palm and drops it down in the sink. “Oooh. That looks nasty,” he says, inspecting her injury. “Want to tell me about it?”

  She’s not sure what to say or how to begin. Her suspicions seem ridiculously far-fetched on the one hand, but then again…

  She shakes her head. “No, not just yet.”

  She lets him run warm water over her wound and clean it with soap. He wraps her palm in a clean dishcloth and has her sit down on a stool at the kitchen counter while he opens a first aid kit. “Upside of that little lad,” he says, gesturing to the bandages, ointments, and swabs nestled inside the box. “I’m ready for anything.”

  The antibacterial ointment stings in that way that tells you it’s doing its job. Alex layers Eva’s palm with clean gauze and winds her hand in more gauze strips so it’s well padded. He secures the bandage with adhesive tape.

  The stinging subsides, but her hand throbs painfully in rhythm with her heartbeat. “Here, live large,” Alex suggests, as he hands her four aspirins and a glass of water.

  After she swallows the pills and drinks most of the water, Alex takes the glass away from her and sets it on the counter. He lifts her bandaged hand to his mouth and kisses the crescent of flesh where her thumb curves into her palm, a tender corner the gauze doesn’t cover. “There. A kiss to make it better.”

  A shiver of shameful desire courses through Eva’s body. If only his son wasn’t in the other room…My god. What is wrong with me?

  “So, Eva Bean. What’s going on?”

  The use of her old nickname chokes Eva up yet again. She wants to confide in Alex, but she suspects she will sound delusional, her suspicions that Peter wants to have her killed utterly absurd. She questions everything, including her own motives in seeking out her former lover. Did I manufacture a crisis in my head to send me back to Alex? But what if I’m right? Clearly something ugly is intruding into my life.

  “I don’t know how to begin,” she finally stammers.

  Alex gives her an appraising glance. “Okay. We’ve got to get out of here in about fifteen in any event, as I have to drop Ian at his mum’s. Then you and I can have a proper talk. Maybe involving alcohol.” Alex turns his head to call to his son. “Ian, mate, we’ve got to go. Start putting the Legos away.”

  The boy’s sunny disposition disappears. Ian thrusts out his lower lip in a pout. His bottom lip begins to tremble. He beats his small curled fists against his thighs as an ear-shattering howl escapes his throat.

  Alex is up and on his feet immediately, sweeping the boy into his arms. “Come along,” he soothes his son, as he turns his head back to Eva. “Sorry about this. We’re in a stage. I need to take him into his room and work through it with him. You’ll be all right for a few?”

  “Of course.”

  Alex carries the boy down the hall. Eva’s jumpy. Can’t sit still. She buzzes around the apartment idly noting both the changes and the things that have remained the same in the decade since she’s been here. I remember that antique chest. That lamp is new. All the while her mind fevers with a combination of fear, anxiety, excitement, lust, shame, and confusion.

  A framed photograph catches her eye. She and Alex, during their long ago summer fling, sitting side by side on a red silk loveseat. Eva remembers that loveseat with a pang. They’d fucked for the first time on it, and many times thereafter. A more practical brown suede sofa is now in its place. In the photo they are demure, fully dressed, no hint of the carnality they’d shared there so many times. They clasp hands. Both of them face the camera. Their thighs press up against each other’s, a hint of their fire. They look happy. And so young.

  Sadness wells up and will not be denied. Eva gives in to a deep, longing regret for roads not taken; relationships squandered or neglected, the futile game of asking what if? If she had stayed in Hong Kong, given her and Alex a real chance, who knows what might have happened? Maybe that could have been her little boy in the bedroom; her patient husband dealing with a tantrum.

  The doorbell buzzes, snapping her out of her unhappy reverie. She cocks her head to listen; is Alex going to answer the door? It seems unlikely; neither the boy’s cries nor his father’s calming murmurs have abated.

  The buzzer sounds again. Eva knows the building. If someone was coming from outside they would need to be admitted through the intercom system. She pads over to the front door and looks through the peephole. Two men stand outside, both clad in dark blue boiler suits with matching insignias in white on their breast pockets.

  “Yes?” she asks through the closed door.

  “We’re here to take a look at the HVAC,” one of them volunteers.

  “One minute.” Eva takes a second peek through the spyhole. Their features are distorted by the fish-eye lens, but she can make them out well enough. Both men are Chinese. One carries a toolbox. Eva walks down the hall and knocks softly on Ian’s door. “Alex, some men are here about the HVAC?”

  He comes to the bedroom door and cracks it open. Alex holds Ian balanced on one hip, the little boy’s face nestled into the curve of his father’s neck. Ian’s face is red, he gulps big mouthfuls of air, but he’s calmer.

  “What about it?” Alex asks.

  Eva feels the blood drain from her face. Alex notices. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t even understand what’s going on myself. But a man attacked me with a knife earlier today. That’s how my hand got cut.”

  “What’s that got to do with my HVAC?”

  “It wasn’t just some random mugging! Someone’s been following me. Since London! I came to you because I trust you, always have, but I can’t let you get involved.”

  “Involved in what?”

  “I don’t know. But if you didn’t send for repairmen…” She gestures to Ian. “On the off chance these men tracked me here, we should get out of the building and away from here as quickly as possible.”

  Alex shifts his boy to his left hip. “Let’s use the kitchen exit.”

  With a rush of pure gratitude, Eva remembers why she loved Alex: this easy acceptance, this calm and kind understanding. With a bolt of anger, Eva remembers Peter calling her paranoid. Or was that a mind fuck? Is Pete the reason I need to be paranoid?

  “Do you need anything? Or can we just go?” she whispers.

  “I’ve got wallet, keys, phone, and kid. I’m good. You?”

  “I’ve got my bag.”

  “All right then. Let’s go.”

  Eva and Alex make a beeline for the back door. A key hangs next to it on a hook on the wall and Eva remembers, plucking it from its perch and using it to unlock the door. Alex ushers Eva through and follows, his son held tightly in his arms. Eva closes the door behind them and turns the key in the lock from this side.

  They are halfway down the first flight of stairs when they hear pounding behind them. Fists. Feet. Eva can’t tell exactly.

  But whatever the source of the racket, it certainly doesn’t sound like a couple of routine maintenance workers thwarted in their attempt to fix an HVAC unit.

  Eva trips down the stairs even faster, glancing behind her to see Ian cling
ing to his dad, his recent misery transformed into delight by this sudden ride. The little boy releases a chortle of laughter. “Go, Papa!”

  As they come to the turn of the next landing, Eva draws up short and Alex bumps into her from behind. “Cover Ian’s eyes!” she whispers. There are two bound and unconscious men stripped to their underwear and bundled in an unceremonious heap. Eva notes the slow rise and fall of their pale chests and gratefully realizes they’re not dead.

  Alex cups one hand over Ian’s eyes, and they skirt past the men and down the next flight of stairs.

  When they reach the musty vestibule with the door leading into the alley, an entirely new round of fear claws its way into Eva’s belly. Who’s to say there aren’t other men lying in wait? What if it’s too late? What if I’ve already brought danger to Alex and his son?

  She pulls the door open a few inches and peers outside. Sheeting rain renders the alley a gray-wash watercolor painting, objects indistinct, their edges uncertain. They don’t know what’s ahead of them, but Eva knows danger is behind them.

  There is no other choice. The only way is out.

  BOUND

  Peter Lombard,

  Hong Kong Island

  When Peter emerges from the fug of unconsciousness, his first thought is much like his last thought before he blacked out. Hurt.

  He jerks and discovers he’s bound, legs tied at the ankles, wrists behind his back. His eyes pop open as he struggles against the ties binding him. He appears to be in his destroyed hotel suite, he can determine that much. He unsuccessfully tries to spit out the gag clogging his mouth.

  “Oh good, you’re awake,” says the man looming over him. It hits Peter like a bucket of ice water: This is the man who accosted him at the airport, the man Eva accused of following her. She was right.

  “I’m going to take that gag out and we’re going to have a conversation.”

  Peter nods. Take it one step at a time.

  The man reaches over and pulls the cloth from Peter’s dry mouth.

  Peter spits out shreds of cotton and croaks, “Where the hell is my wife?”

  “She’s a tough one.” The man smiles without any warmth whatsoever. “Look what she did to me.” He gestures to his swollen nose and scraped-up cheek.

  “Good for her,” Peter retorts.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  The man’s face contorts into a grimace of sick pleasure that makes Peter’s skin crawl. “What does she know, Lombard?”

  “About what?”

  “Okay. Let’s try something else. Where is it?”

  “Honest to god, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter stares at him, thoughts racing. I need time to think. “Can I get some water?”

  The man strolls into the bedroom of the suite. Peter’s cellphone lies on the floor mere inches away from his bound feet. Can I reach it? He strains to try. He hears the suction pull of the minibar refrigerator. Then the door slamming shut.

  “Here,” his captor says, lifting a plastic bottle of water to Peter’s chapped lips. Peter sips at the cold liquid, greedy eyes still on the cellphone. So close.

  “Just give me the camera, Lombard.”

  “What camera?”

  “And I heard you were a smart guy. Don’t make me hurt you more.”

  This is all insane. Peter thinks it. Then he says it out loud. “This is all insane. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  His assailant fixes him with cold eyes. Cracks his knuckles, the snap, crackle, pop sound of it unnaturally loud. He laughs; it sounds like sandpaper. “You don’t know what she has, do you? Am I right? Does she even know?”

  He takes Peter’s face between his hands and squeezes just hard enough to make every inch of Peter’s battered head screech in pain. “For a smart guy, you’re kind of a dumbass. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. At least she got away from you.”

  A ready fist connects with Peter’s nose and his head explodes. I’m literally seeing stars. Blood runs down into his mouth, hot and metallic. He spits. Spits again.

  “Stop making this harder than it has to be. Where’s her camera?”

  “With her, I presume. She has it with her all the time.”

  “Well then. We have ourselves a problem, don’t we?”

  WHILE PETER WAS STILL SLEEPING…

  Eva Lombard,

  Hong Kong Island

  Her heart pounding, Eva leads Alex out of the dank vestibule at the base of his apartment building’s back stairway and into the sheeting rain. Alex shields Ian from the downpour as they hustle through the back alley and load the boy into Alex’s old BMW, which is parked nearby.

  As Alex pulls into traffic and drives, Ian chatters happily, oblivious to the strained atmosphere between the adults in the car. Eva tries to catch Alex’s eye, but his gaze vacillates between the rain-slick roads ahead of him and wary glances in the rearview mirror.

  As they pass an elegant, doorman-attended apartment building, Ian squawks, “You drove right by Mummy’s!”

  Alex laughs it off. “So I did, silly me.” But the anxious look he slides at Eva tells her his drive-by was deliberate. “I don’t think we’re being followed,” he murmurs to her. “Still, I don’t want to take any chances. I’m going to circle around.”

  A lump forms in Eva’s throat. When she thought of seeking out Alex, she never suspected she would endanger him, or his son. Stupid twat.

  “I’m so sorry, Alex. Why don’t you just let me out? If anyone’s following us, they’ll stay on me and you and Ian will be out of it.”

  Alex’s eyebrow cocks archly in a way that is so familiar to Eva it hurts. That very raised eyebrow had punctuated the probing questions he’d asked her in his sexy London accent when she’d first been drawn to him.

  “I don’t think so, Eva Bean. What kind of arsehole do you think I am?”

  He grins at her then, and despite the fear and confusion that plague her, Eva feels a ray of hope. I have someone on my side.

  Alex makes a call. He arranges to drop Ian at his ex-mother-in-law’s antiques shop instead of at his ex-wife’s, claiming an unexpected work obligation will keep him near that part of town. There’s a well-worn and weary pattern to the rhythm of their argument that Eva can detect even listening just to one side of it. But Alex prevails. He disconnects the call. “We’re going to see Po Po,” he tells Ian. “Your mum will get you later.”

  * * *

  —

  Alex pilots the BMW through the Sheung Wan District and onto Hollywood Road. A turn onto a side street and Alex bundles Ian out of the car and into the waiting arms of a smiling, elderly Chinese woman.

  Once Alex is back in the car, Eva’s grateful that he doesn’t immediately pepper her with questions. They sit quietly for a spell, listening to the sound of the driving rain. Alex turns the ignition and pulls away from the curb.

  “Where are we going?” Eva asks him.

  “That depends on what you want to tell me, Eva Bean.”

  COLONIAL GEM

  Stephanie Regaldo, aka Stevie Nichols,

  Hong Kong Island

  Heavy rain sheets down, prettily but perilously blurring both light and sound through the windshield of their speeding taxi. The streets are slick and shiny with rapidly forming puddles. From the dry comfort of the backseat, Stephanie peers out the streaky window to check an address as the cab finally slows.

  The building’s a relic from another time, crammed between two towering columns of modern, glistening glass and steel, and much shorter than its neighbors at only six stories. The real estate sites refer to the edifice as a “colonial gem.” Stephanie found images of the structure online before they came over in person, so she knew not only the marketing term but what to expect: pale stuc
co with gracious archways, terraced balconies iced with wrought iron, mullioned windows, sturdy wooden doors. All dwarfed by two of Hong Kong’s most aggressive and modern towers, which encroach from either side. Alexander Blake’s apartment is on the top floor of the “colonial gem.”

  Stephanie turns to her partner. “Well, that’s the place. What now?”

  “Let’s see if anyone’s home.” John hands a wad of Hong Kong dollars to the taxi driver.

  Stephanie adjusts her hood and tightens the collar of her jacket. Here goes nothing.

  She plunges out of the taxi and into the downpour. Hustles to the arched portico surrounding the front entrance. Even though she was only exposed to the storm for a matter of moments, fat drops of rain roll off her as she shakes off her mad dash. Like a dog after a bath.

  She turns expectant eyes to the cab.

  John swings his legs out of the taxi and plants his shiny leather shoes firmly on the drenched asphalt. From this seated position he pops open an oversized umbrella, jackknifing his body up and out of the car only when the umbrella reaches full span.

  “Afraid of a little water?” Stephanie calls, baiting him. She can’t help it. He’s a pussy. “What? You gonna melt?” She snickers as one of his expensive shoes scuffs through a puddle deeper than it appears. He ignores her.

  A series of names in block type align against a brass-framed panel of buzzers. John presses the button reading: A. BLAKE. They wait. Nothing. He tries again. Shrugs.

  Stephanie extracts a chamois bag from inside her jacket. “Keep the umbrella angled toward the camera,” she instructs, nodding in the direction of the lens positioned on the front of the portico and aimed directly where they’re standing.

  Shielded by the circle of dripping black, she examines the options in her kit and selects a long skinny pick. With a practiced thrust she jams it into the lock securing the door. Two quick turns and the lock pops open with a satisfying click.