by Lisa Gardner
All through dinner, Ree giggled and Jason smiled and I sipped champagne. I thought of my husband and his lack of family and friends. And I sipped more champagne. I remembered how easily he’d convinced me to adopt a new name when we’d moved to Boston—all to help protect me from my father, he’d claimed at the time. And I sipped more champagne. I recalled his late nights hunched over the computer. The websites he frequented that he had gone to great lengths to hide. And I thought of that photo. I finally, six months later, fixated on that lone black-and-white photo of a terrified young boy, the hairy black spider clearly visible as it crawled across the boy’s naked chest.
And I sipped more champagne.
My husband was going to kill me.
It was so clear to me now. I didn’t know why I hadn’t realized it sooner. Jason was a monster. Maybe not a pedophile, maybe something worse. A predator of such miswired proportions that he remained indifferent to his beautiful young wife, while lasciviously cultivating terrible images of frightened young children.
I should’ve listened to Wayne. I should’ve told him where we were going, except I had never thought to ask. No, I trusted my husband, let him lead me straight to slaughter without pressing for a single detail. Me, the very person who spent her entire childhood learning you can’t trust anyone.
I sipped more champagne, moved the seared scallops around on my plate. I wondered what he would tell Ree when it was all over. There had been an accident, Mommy won’t be coming home anymore. So sorry, baby, so sorry.
I poured Jason a second glass of champagne. He wasn’t a big drinker. Maybe if I could get him drunk enough, he’d miss me and fall into the harbor himself. Wouldn’t that be fitting justice?
Jason finished eating. Ree, too. The black-vested waiter appeared, ready to whisk our plates away. He gazed down at me with great consternation.
“Was it not to your satisfaction? May I present you with another choice?”
I waved him off with vague excuses of having eaten a big lunch. Jason was watching me, but he didn’t comment on the lie. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked rakish, the open collar of his dress shirt, the rumpled waves of his thick hair, the deep impenetrable pools of his eyes. Other women were probably admiring him when they thought I wasn’t looking. Perhaps everyone was admiring us. Look at that beautiful family with that gorgeous little girl who is so well behaved.
Didn’t we make a pretty picture? A perfect little family, if only we survived the night.
Ree wanted ice cream for dessert. The waiter took her to the gelato case to pick out a flavor. I topped off Jason’s glass with the last of the champagne. He had barely touched his second glass. I thought that was grossly unfair of him.
“I propose a toast,” I declared, definitely tipsy now and feeling reckless.
He nodded, picked up his glass.
“To us,” I said. “For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.”
I tossed back a quick hit. Watched my husband take a more conservative sip.
“So what else are we going to do on family vacation?” I wanted to know.
“I thought we’d visit the aquarium, maybe take the trolleys around town, check out Newbury Street. Or, if you’d prefer, we could do the museums, book a spa appointment or two.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you doing this?” I waved my hand around the restaurant, sloshing champagne. “The extravagant hotel, the fancy restaurant. Family vacation. We’ve never done anything like this before.”
He didn’t answer right away, but twirled his own champagne flute between his fingers.
“Maybe we should’ve been doing this before,” he said at last. “Maybe you and I spend too much time surviving life, and not enough time enjoying it.”
Ree returned, clutching the waiter’s arm with one hand and the world’s largest bowl of gelato with the other. Apparently, picking one flavor had been too hard, so she had settled on three. The waiter gave us a wink, distributed three spoons, and quietly disappeared.
Jason and Ree went at it. I just watched them, my stomach churning, feeling like a condemned woman stepping up to the chopping block and waiting for the ax to fall.
Jason called for a cab to take us back to the hotel. Ree had hit the point where the gelato sugar rush was colliding with the late hour to form one hypercranky child. I wasn’t moving so steadily on my feet by then. The three glasses of champagne had gone straight to my head.
I thought Jason seemed less than razor-sharp as he opened the cab door and attempted to load Ree in, but I couldn’t be sure. He was the most self-possessed man I’d ever met, and even two glasses of alcohol barely seemed to affect him.
We made it to the hotel, managed to find our room. I got Ree out of her fancy dress and into her Ariel nightie. A maid had magically transformed the sofa into a bed, topping it with thick blankets, four pillows, and two gold-foiled chocolates. Ree ate the chocolates when I went in search of her toothbrush, then tried to hide the wrappers by sticking them under the pillow. Her deception would’ve worked better if not for the smear of chocolate ringing her lips.
I herded her to the bathroom for face washing, tooth brushing, and hair combing. She squealed, whined, and complained for most of it. Then I corralled her back to her sleeping quarters, tucking her into the bed with Lil’ Bunny snug in her arms. Ree had packed twelve books. I read two of them, and her eyes were already heavy-lidded before I finished the last sentence.
I dimmed the desk lamp, then crept out of the room, closing the door to a small crack behind me. She didn’t complain, a sure sign of success.
In the master bedroom, I found Jason lounging on the bed. His shoes were off, his jacket tossed over a chair. He had been watching TV, but turned it off when I came in.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Tired.”
“She did very well tonight.”
“She did. Thank you.”
“Did you have a nice night?” he asked.
“Yes. I did.” I moved closer to the bed, feeling awkward, unsure of what to do, of what was expected of me. The champagne had made me tired. But then I looked at my husband, his long, lean body sprawled out on the expansive white comforter, and the emotion I felt wasn’t exhaustion at all. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so mostly I stood there, twisting my hands over and over again.
“Sit,” he said presently. “I’ll help you with your boots.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. He got up, kneeling before me and taking the first boot between his hands. His fingers worked the zipper, sliding it down the inside of my calf slowly, careful not to snag the skin. He eased the right boot off, went to work on the left.
I found myself leaning back, feeling his fingers whisper down my calves, cup the heel of my naked foot as he stripped off my sheer stockings. Had he ever touched my legs? Maybe when I was nine months pregnant and couldn’t see my own feet. I swore it hadn’t felt like this back then, however. I would’ve remembered this.
My stockings were off, and yet his fingers remained on my skin. His thumb brushed down the inside arch of my foot. I almost jerked away, but his other hand held my foot in place. Then, both his thumbs were moving, doing positively delicious things and I found my back arching, my breath expelling in a little groan at the decadence of a foot massage after a long night in tight leather boots.
He moved from my right foot to my left foot, then his fingers were working their way up my calves, finding small knots, kneading. I felt his breath behind my knee cap, the whisper of his mouth brushing the inside of my thigh. The sensations kept me transfixed, unable to move, reluctant to break the spell.
If I opened my eyes, he would disappear and I would once again be alone. If I said his name, it would bring him back to consciousness and he would bolt downstairs to the goddamn computer. I mustn’t move, I mustn’t react.
Yet, my hips were beginning to writhe
on their own and I was keenly aware of each touch of his rough-padded fingers, the tickling sensation of his wavy hair, the silky smoothness of his fresh-shaved cheeks. The champagne warmed my belly. His hands warmed my skin.
Then he got up and walked away.
I bit my cheeks to stop the moan. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and in that moment, I felt my loneliness more acutely than I had during all of those nights he’d left our bed. It isn’t fair, I wanted to scream. How could you?
Except then I heard the click of the door shutting between our room and Ree’s sleeping area. Another rasp as he tended the chain lock on the main door.
Then the bed sagged as he returned to me, stretching out beside me. I opened my eyes to discover my husband of five years looking down at me. His dark eyes were no longer so calm, no longer inscrutable. He appeared nervous, maybe even shy.
But he said, in that calm voice I knew so well, “May I kiss you, Sandra?”
I nodded yes.
My husband kissed me, slowly, carefully, sweetly.
I finally figured out that my husband had heard me the other night. He wasn’t trying to kill me. He was granting me a second child instead.
There are things you always wished you had known sooner versus later. If you had spoken up earlier, before the lie grew too big. Or if you had braved the conversation in the beginning, before by its very omission it became too much to handle.
I had sex with my husband. Or rather, we had sex with each other. And it was slow, delicate, careful. Five years later, we still had to learn the feel of each other’s bodies, the way one gasp meant I had done something well, and another gasp meant it was time to ease back.
I had the impression that of the two of us, I was the one with more experience. Yet it was important for him to take the lead. If I pushed too hard, moved too fast, it would be over. A switch would be thrown and we’d be right back where we had started, strangers who shared a bed.
So I let his fingers dance across my skin, while discovering the lean outline of his ribs beneath my fingers, the ripple of muscle on his sides, the taut feel of his butt. There were indentations across his back, markings of some kind. But if I tried to touch them, he drew back, so I contented myself with threading my fingers through the light whorls of hair on his chest, the broad, solid feel of his shoulders.
I reveled in the feel of his body, and hoped he found some kind of satisfaction in mine. Then he loomed between my legs and I parted them gratefully, arching my hips, taking him into me. At the first moment of penetration, maybe I cried out, maybe I had wanted him that much.
Then he was moving, and I was moving, and we didn’t have to be careful anymore and we didn’t have to be awkward anymore. Everything was as it should be and it all felt right.
I held him afterward. Pressed his head against my shoulder and stroked his hair. He didn’t speak, and there was moisture on his cheeks which could’ve been sweat or maybe something else. I liked lying with him like this, our legs entwined, our breaths co-mingled.
I may have had sex with a lot of men, but I have slept with very few of them, and it felt like I should grant my husband that much.
I fell asleep thinking that family vacation was a positively brilliant idea.
And woke up to the sound of a guttural cry.
My husband was rocking beside me. In the dark, I could feel his movements more than I could see them. He seemed to be rolled into a tight ball, caught in the throes of a nightmare. I reached out a hand to his shoulder. He jerked back.
“Jason?” I whispered.
He moaned lower, rolling away from me.
“Jason?” I tried again, voice louder now, but not too loud, as I didn’t want to wake Ree. “Jason, wake up.”
He rocked and rocked and rocked.
I placed two hands on his back and shook him hard. He went shooting out of bed, scrambling across the room, crashing against a wingback chair, tripping over a standing light.
“Don’t you fucking touch me!” he screamed, careening into a corner. “I fucking killed you! You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead.”
I was up out of the bed, hands out as if to brace myself. “Shhh, shhh, shhh. Jason, it’s only a dream. Wake up, sweetheart, please. It’s only a dream.”
I reached for the bedside lamp, clicking it on, hoping the sudden infusion of light would snap him back to his senses.
He turned his face away, grabbing the curtain and holding it across his body as if to shield his nakedness.
“Go away,” he whimpered. “Please, please, please just go away.”
But I didn’t I took one step closer to him. Then another. Willing my husband to wake up, even as I willed my daughter to remain asleep.
Finally, very slowly, he turned his face toward mine.
I sucked in my breath as I gazed at his oversized dark eyes, still dilated by fear, wild with terror. Something clicked in the back of my mind and all the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place.
“Oh Jason,” I whispered.
And I realized at that moment that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
| CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR |
The taxi pulled up in front of Aidan’s house slightly after ten P.M. Aidan didn’t step out right away. He took his time counting out a wad of wrinkled bills, while covertly studying the surrounding bushes for signs of trouble. Was that hulking shadow Mrs. H.’s rhododendron or another goon from Vito’s garage? What about that dark spot over to the right? More photogs hidden in the trees? What about the entire darkened block, yawning behind him. Maybe somewhere, out there, Jason Jones was ready to finish him off.
Screw it. Just move.
Aidan tossed twelve bucks at the driver, grabbed his laundry, and scrambled from the cab, house keys clutched in hand. He made it up the walkway while the taxi was still idling in place. Aidan dropped the trash bags, jammed the key in the lock, and managed to twist the door open the first time, though his hands were trembling now, and he was so overloaded on adrenaline and fear he could barely function.
He could hear the taxicab revving up, pulling away. Gotta move, gotta move, gotta move.
He forced the door open, swinging the laundry bags inside, then using his leg to kick the door shut behind him, leaning against it for good measure while he struggled to work the lock, finally firing it home.
He sagged then, sliding down the door, overcome with relief. He was still alive. No goons had jumped him, no neighbors were picketing his front door, and no photogs were peeking into his windows. The lynch mob had yet to arrive.
He started to laugh, hoarsely, maybe a tad hysterically, because, honest to God, he hadn’t felt this strung out since prison. Except he was a free man now—meaning, what was there to look forward to? When would he ever complete this time served?
He forced himself to stand, picking up his laundry, schlepping the bags down the hall. He needed to pack. He needed to sleep. He needed to get away from here. Become a new person. Preferably a better person. The kind of stand-up guy who could actually sleep at night.
He made it to the family room, dropping the trash bags on the floral love seat. He was just turning toward the bathroom, when he became aware of the wind on his face. He could feel a draft, floating into the tiny sitting area.
The sliding glass door was open.
Aidan realized for the first time that he was not alone.
D.D. was finishing up paperwork when her cell chimed at her waist. She recognized Wayne Reynolds’s mobile number, placing the phone to her ear.
“Sergeant Warren.”
“You have the wrong computer,” Wayne said. He sounded slightly breathless, as if he were running.
“Excuse me?”
“Got an e-mail from Ethan. Kid’s smarter than we thought. He sent Sandy an e-mail infected with a Trojan Horse—”
“What?”
“It’s a kind of virus that allows you access to someone else’s hard drive. You know, a friendly little e-mail that allows the sender to
be accepted inside the gates …”
“Holy crap,” D.D. said.
“That’s my nephew. Apparently, he didn’t think I was moving fast enough to protect Sandy from her husband, so he took steps to expose Jason’s online activities himself.”
D.D. heard the rat-a-tat of feet on a stairwell. “Where the hell are you, Wayne?”
“At the lab. Just got off the phone with Ethan, however, and am bolting out to the car. Told him I’d pick him up, we’d meet you there.”
“Where?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Here’s the thing: Ethan still has access to Sandy’s computer, and according to him, in the past forty-eight hours, over a dozen users have utilized the computer to conduct various online searches.”
“Is that part of the forensic evaluation? The computer techs tracing Jason’s online tracks?”
“Absolutely not. You never work on the source. If your guys had Jason’s computer, we should be seeing no activity at all.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have his hard drive. He switched it on you. Replaced either the guts of the computer, or maybe the whole damn thing. Don’t know; have to see it to believe it. In the meantime, he hid the real computer in a flipping brilliant location.”
“Where? Dammit, I’ll have a warrant in the next twenty minutes!”
“Boston Daily. Ethan can read the e-mail addies of the users, all of whom are Boston Daily accounts. Best guess: Jason stuck his computer in the newsroom offices, probably at some random desk. I’ll grant him this much—the son of a bitch is clever.” From the background came the groan of a steel fire door being forced open, then the corresponding slam as Wayne exited the building.
D.D. heard the jangle of keys, the longer thump of Wayne’s stride hitting the parking lot. She closed her eyes, trying to process this news, foresee the legal implications. “Crap,” she said at last. “I can’t think of a single judge who’d let me seize every single computer at a major media outlet.”