I studied his face, but I could see he wasn’t bullshitting me.
Nick continued, “I know why. You were a super mom, juggling your career as an accomplished FBI agent while being a wife and mothering two kids. You never said no to anything.”
“Are you calling me a Type A, Nick?” I raised an eyebrow.
“You’ve been called a lot of things, Alex. Some good, some not so flattering, mainly because you wouldn’t take shit from anyone,” Jerry said.
I shook my head and glanced back at the dark TV screen.
“Sorry if this isn’t easy, Alex,” Nick said.
“It feels like I’m standing at the pearly gates, and I’m having my entire life replayed, one judgmental segment at a time.”
“That’s the other thing.” Nick lifted his hat for a moment, then reset it on his square head.
“What other thing?”
Nick shifted his eyes at Jerry.
“What’s all this about?” I moved a finger between them.
“We just don’t want to upset you, Alex, that’s all.”
“I’m a grown woman. I can deal with it as long as I don’t have to ask ten times, and it’s the fucking truth.”
I stopped breathing for a brief second, and I wondered if I’d just said what I thought I’d heard.
“She’s baaaack…” Jerry curled into a ball of laughter, but I waved him off. I still didn’t feel like I was back. I was still as lost as ever.
“You and religion, and those pearly gates you mentioned, aren’t really on friendly terms,” Nick said, wincing a bit.
“Damn, you’re good at dancing around the facts. You act like religion is a cousin or a neighbor down the street.”
“I’m just saying that Mark comes from a more, uh, traditional family. His parents are Italian and Catholic. Oh, very Catholic. You? Not so much.”
I hadn’t thought to ask about my side of the family. Maybe later.
“What do I have against religion?” I couldn’t escape the surreal feeling of asking others about my opinions.
“It goes way back. You were raised, at least for a while, in a very strict environment. I think you’ve been rebelling ever since,” Nick said, his thin lips tight against crooked teeth.
“Hmm. That couldn’t have gone over well with Mark’s parents,” I said more to myself.
“Or Mark,” Nick said, quickly bringing a hand to his mouth.
I thought more about Mark and my current feelings toward him. He was a hard one to gauge. I could recall a few snippets of our past, laughing with him, maybe on our honeymoon. Mountains in the backdrop as we lounged on beaches, drinking frozen beverages that were teal and orange. Hawaii maybe.
In some respects, he seemed enamored by me, especially when I first woke up from my four-day nap. But then again, he seemed like he couldn’t wait to leave. I didn’t feel special. More like an odd combination of suffocated and empty. Then again, I was not in a normal state of mind. I had no sense of self, how I was supposed to respond to anything. I felt like a nomad searching for the invisible door where all of me existed.
Recalling my earlier interaction with Mark, I realized I never heard him tell me that he loved me. Not that I would have returned the favor—I just didn’t feel it…yet. But with all his fawning after me at first, I would have thought he would have provided a loving comment on his way out.
A crinkling noise stole my attention from my thoughts. As I turned toward Nick, I spotted a gum wrapper falling aimlessly to the floor, as if in slow motion. Then I heard lips smacking. And one slice of memory returned, just like that. “It’s you, Nick. I remember you now,” I said as the beeping sound from the heart monitor accelerated.
My former partner’s face lit up.
“You litterbug prick. Stop smacking your gums and pick up your damn trash. What do you think this is, a fucking landfill?”
Jerry looked at Nick. “Now she’s back.”
3
Hunkered in a corner wooden booth, the man slurped the foam off his beer three times, one of the forty-nine brews that the bar located in Back Bay claimed were handcrafted. Lifting his gaze, the collar from his peacoat brushed against his thick beard, yanking a few whiskers. It annoyed him, but he appreciated the feeling of cover. In some ways, it also excited him, although he knew his mission wasn’t a jubilant matter. It was serious. Life-or-death serious.
He took a quick glance across the room—many of the women, employees, and even a few customers were dressed in traditional garb from the colonial days: colorful hooped skirts, quilted petticoats, tall hair, and low-necked bodices. In other words, breasts were the highlight of the show. Some things never changed. A few tables over, he admired one young lady scooping up her purse from the floor next to her chair.
“You never seen a boob before?”
Startled, he nearly bit his tongue. A tall woman shaped like a lamppost hovered just to his left. He tried looking her in the eye. She started tapping her pen on her pad.
“Can you speak, man?”
Dipping his head below his coat collar, his eyes found the greasy, plastic menu.
“I’ll take some potato skins and some shrimp.”
“Gotcha. Can I get you some breast milk with that?” She giggled.
He accidentally swallowed his saliva and began to choke until his eyes watered. He gulped down a mouthful of beer, then slammed down the mug, sloshing some of the beer on the table.
“Dammit!” he said, grabbing a handful of napkins. He scrubbed, but somehow the liquid seemed to expand and some of it dropped to his lap. “Crap.”
“It’s okay, dear,” the woman said.
He refused to make eye contact.
She grabbed a rag from a nearby busboy and helped mop up the suds from the table, then she rested her hand on his shoulder. “Really, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Potato skins and shrimp, please,” he said through gritted teeth, disgusted at the way her bony fingers gripped his shoulder.
“Okay, okay,” she said, holding up both hands as if he held a gun. “I’ll have it right out to you. You must have had an anxious day at the office. Drink some more of that beer. It will help calm your nerves.”
“Whatever,” he said, picking up the beer and taking a sip.
She walked away, and he mumbled a phrase to himself six times.
Finally able to see straight, he walked to the bathroom and washed his face. When he returned, his appetizers were sitting on his table. Relieved he didn’t have to interact further with the waitress, he sat down and picked up one of the shrimp, inspecting it for a good five minutes.
“It’s not going to bite.” The curly-headed busboy snickered as he passed by with a crate full of dishes.
The man held up his hand, ready to defend his protocol. Screw that kid, he thought. The guy wouldn’t understand the impact of iodine on the human nervous system. He pulled out his phone, tapped his app of choice, and began reviewing a series of numbers. They filled his entire screen.
Slowly, his breathing calmed.
He ate the shrimp, then most of the potato skins. The same skinny waitress delivered another beer. She tried to make small talk again, but he refrained from any conversation, acting as if he was enthralled by the content on his phone. He actually was engrossed in his ritual, something he enjoyed several times a day. He viewed it as his own version of yoga—to find a place that brought him at least a sliver of internal peace in this chaotic, fucked-up world.
Glancing up, his eyes found the same girl he’d noticed a few tables over. Her elbows were on the table, her hands propping up her chin. The net effect created an avalanche of cleavage. She batted her eyelashes. Even from twenty feet away, he could see her extensions. Despite her rather slutty appearance, she had a sweet look about her, a caring soul. Maybe she’d grow up to be a social worker or a nurse. Really contribute to society.
But he wasn’t sure she’d ever get the chance.
His eyes shifted to the right about
three feet, toward the guy she was admiring. Actually, she was gushing over this tool. With his red and gold tie pulled away from his neck, he tossed a couple of cashews in his mouth, letting his designer watch dangle just enough to catch the eye. Who knew how much he sunk into that piece? Two grand, four grand maybe?
Wearing a Gucci suit, including a vest with custom-made buttons, Gucci dress shoes, designer money clip and belt, this guy was a walking decadence machine. Not surprisingly, he made a not-so-honest living as an investment banker, focusing on hedge funds, working out of the Prudential Tower just three or four blocks south of the bar’s Back Bay location. But it was his ultra-cool demeanor that created a stir inside the man still positioned in the corner booth. The way he lured any girl of his choosing at the wink of an eye. The jackass even had dimples to give the illusion he was as innocent as a baby boy. The girls typically couldn’t resist touching his face, and that was when the invisible pheromone leash would be attached.
Peering at the clueless couple, the man realized he had seen this situation play out a million times. And it always ended the same.
Shaking his head, he nibbled at the few remaining pieces of potato skins and tried to divert his attention back to the content on his phone. Typically, that would be enough to shut out the rest of the world and all of its flaws.
A few seconds ticked by, and he couldn’t help but glance back over at the fox hunt. The girl patted the investment banker’s knee, then began the slow crawl up his thigh. She thought she’d hooked a prize fish, maybe the biggest catch this side of Gloucester. But the man knew it was the investment banker who was pulling the levers at just the right moment. No hooks were needed. It was more of a tap-dance routine that would end up with the young girl waking up next to a cold pillow. Sure, there might be a follow-up rendezvous, possibly some words exchanged to make it seem like there was a common bond between them, maybe even a hint of a future—if this and if that occurred.
Halley’s Comet had a better chance of screaming across the Boston skyline tonight.
The man could see the arrogant dick’s hand. No wedding band. The girl with the push-up bra was nothing more than a part of a game. The thimble, or the car, maybe even the horse—just like the game pieces in Monopoly. Made of metal and with no soul—that’s how the cheesy asshole viewed this girl, and many more before her.
But she wasn’t the victim in this sexual coup. The real victim was at home as usual, busy changing the diapers of her four-month-old and spoon-feeding her three-year-old who had Down syndrome, both girls, all while dealing with decorators and architects for the new addition to the house. Her husband had already told her he expected two more kids in the next three years, with the hope that one would be a boy. The slut husband’s family lineage couldn’t end with a complete prick. His wife had also been convinced that her partner for life would need ample freedom to socialize with potential clients. He was, after all, the sole breadwinner and, therefore, could dictate every aspect of their relationship. Right?
“What a dipshit,” the man muttered, his eyes shifting between his phone screen and the pervert, who now laughed at the girl’s joke, something he surely couldn’t give two shits about.
The man watched her hand reach its intended target, and then her eyes went wide. Essentially, she believed she’d landed Boardwalk and
Park Place all in one bold move. And she had every intention of setting her roots down, creating a hotel or two. She’d probably already gone from envisioning a night of passionate sex to a jet-setting lifestyle that included homes on both coasts, lavish vacations to breathtaking destinations, butlers, and lawn boys. In some respects, her naïvete was almost deserving of how she would be used like a tissue. But what the hell did she know? She was probably no more than twenty or twenty-one. This prick, Christopher Barden, was a vulture wrapped in Gucci—whether it was made of snakeskin, eel skin, or in his case, foreskin—focused on nothing more than the ego-boosting conquest of bagging another ditzy girl who couldn’t resist his cute dimples and mesmerizing charm.
The man in the corner considered walking over to their table and sticking his finger down his own throat, so he could spew his rancid puke all over that loser. But it wouldn’t do him justice. Not even close.
He took in a breath, then finally released a filter in his brain. With his eyes studying the data flashing by on his phone screen, he casually stuck his hand in the right pocket of his coat, then pried apart the coat’s material until he touched the plastic encasing. It was long, thin, and for now, protected.
Ten cc of propofol would be enough to get the party started. Tonight, he was going to get some satisfaction for a change. It was difficult to hide his emerging smile. He knew he’d make someone very proud.
4
I flipped through the four pictures Mark had sent me, pausing on each one for a few seconds, hoping to find that emotional thread that connected me to my kids. My children— I’d birthed them, changed their diapers, rocked them to sleep every night, and woke up in the middle of the night when they couldn’t breathe, holding them in a steamed shower until their lungs opened up.
I’d done it all. At least that’s how I envisioned it.
The fact was I couldn’t remember a thing. Well, nothing that burst open the door to that part of my life.
Sitting cross-legged in my hospital bed, I glanced outside my window. I could hear horns beeping several floors below. The day appeared to be gray, like my mood. Sullen was more like it. I was angry at myself for having the crash, annoyed at the man who said he was my husband because he didn’t seem to care much—he’d shot me a text an hour earlier with the four pictures, saying that’s all he had time to find before his court appearance. But even more annoyed at myself for thinking I needed his attention and sincere love.
Come on, Alex. He is your husband, and the father of your two kids, even if you can’t recall them. Cut him a break. He’s been dealing with a lot of shit since you wrapped your car around a tree.
I pressed my fingers into the corners of my eyes. My head ached from the inside out. No surprise there, I supposed. I took in a slow breath, wondering if my first session with the speech therapist later in the morning would provide that magic moment when all my memories and thoughts and feelings would flood my body, like lifting the wall of a dam. I was ready for it, even if the Alex that Jerry and Nick had described wouldn’t be nominated for Miss Congeniality. That was work, I reminded myself. That had nothing to do with the kind of person I used to be…still was—my values, how I treated my friends, and most importantly, my family.
My kids.
My eyes gravitated back to the phone screen, and I studied the first picture. Luke with a huge grin, as if someone was tickling him. His thick, wavy hair seemed to have a natural part just left of center. He had a prominent nose, covered with freckles, but it was still cute.
Just then, I touched my own nose. “Whew,” I said out loud, then chuckled quietly to myself. Luke’s nose came from Mark’s side of the family.
Flipping to the next picture, Erin held up red and white pom poms, her face coated with more makeup than I’d thought possible on a fourteen-year-old girl. A cheerleader for a daughter. Hmm. Not sure what I did growing up, but picturing me, or what I knew of me, in a tight-fitting outfit, my sole purpose to cheer for the hunky, brainless football players…I wasn’t sure I wanted to recall that memory. Then again, maybe Erin had followed in her mother’s footsteps.
I must have influenced them in some way, hopefully for the better. I found another picture of Luke in some type of basketball uniform, then thumbed through to the last picture. I paused, allowing my eyes to take it all in. It was me, with Luke and Erin on either side. We were all soaked from head to toe. It looked like we’d just gotten off one of those log flume rides. I had an arm draped over the shoulders of each kid, drawing them close. We looked silly, but connected. We wore smiles that were unique to the closeness of a family. At least that was how I thought it worked.
They bot
h seemed so happy. I did too.
Where was Mark? Maybe he was the one taking the picture.
“Jesus H. Christ, woman, have you thought about taking a shower anytime soon?”
Jumping in my bed, I nearly bit my own tongue as I watched a new nurse marching into the room. She carried a tablet and placed her glasses on her nose to read from it.
While she was preoccupied, I tried to take a quick sniff under my armpits.
“It all blends in after a while,” she said, her head still buried in whatever she was reading. She walked around to the other side of my bed and started checking the machines attached to me, then tapping the screen.
“Uh, what blends in after a while?”
“The stench in this shithole, that’s what.”
I watched her punch a few buttons on my heart monitor.
“If you’re talking about this morning’s breakfast, I couldn’t agree more. They had to point out the eggs. They looked green on the edges.”
She cackled a couple of times.
“The food sucks. That’s a given. We’re a hospital, not a bed-and-breakfast.” Her wrinkled eyes peered at me above the tablet, then she went back to checking the IV bag.
“I actually woke out of my, uh, sleep and smelled the oddest combination of—”
“Rotten eggs?”
“Well…”
“I could tell you some stories,” she said, glancing at me again.
“I’m game,” I said, setting my phone next to me on the bed.
“Oh my. GI bleeds are the worst. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.” She used her coat to wipe across her face. Her head bobbed from her cackling. “Colostomies aren’t far behind. Especially those old farts who get really surly when you try to change them out. One guy was so rude his nurse refused to change the bag for two days. Then I had the honors. That was during my rookie year. Never again.”
Scrunching my shoulders, I covered my mouth, trying to hide my laughter. I’m not sure why, since we were the only two people in the room. Perhaps because it wasn’t how I thought a lady should respond?
BOOKER Box Set #2 (A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense): Volumes 4-6 Page 74