by Jack Kinsley
Her words had resonated with him — for two reasons.
First, he had never forgiven himself for letting his first fiancée, Marilyn, die alone in a hospital bed while he sat only miles away, drunk and riddled with guilt. He clearly remembered the phone call from the nurse telling him she was gone. The news had bored a black poisonous seed inside him that had flourished in the dark.
His second thought was his own selfish fear of dying alone himself. He had slave-driven himself for nearly two decades for the reward of creating a family, having his own blood beat in another's heart. He was an only child who'd lost his parents early, and now the only family left had disseminated and was getting ready to take flight from him. He could carry on without Ana in his life, but not his Bella. He wouldn't die alone.
Travis wanted to hear more of Betsy's story — his intuition told him there was some kind of lifelong confession she would eventually share with him when the time came, but it would have to wait.
To his left, on the nightstand, was Betsy's wedding ring basking in the light under the table lamp. It was encrusted with diamonds, the band barely visible behind all the gems. The glitter of light served to illuminate Travis's memory.
Bella's bedroom key!
He knew exactly where he'd left it — back in his condo, sitting in plain view on his own nightstand, also catching light from a table lamp.
All will be right in the world again come tomorrow morning, he told himself, and kissed Betsy's hand.
Chapter 11 / Shattered
Travis pulled into the back alley behind his Victorian home at 8:45 p.m. He'd taken the long way around the neighborhood and slipped into the tight street where neighbors were normally only seen taking trash to their respective bins. It was a quiet passage with few lights, and he parked the company Lexus twenty yards away. It was a safe distance while still allowing him a clear shot of the back and side of the house, so he could read the activity inside through the essential bedroom windows.
He had chosen to take the company SUV for its heavily tinted glass and the easily loadable hatchback. It also wouldn't be recognized by any nosy neighbors, but there were two sides to that coin: his Mercedes wouldn't be placed at the home the night she went missing, but the SUV could draw more attention for its unfamiliarity. Although, the SUV was due back for an expired lease for more than a week now, and he was incurring late fees which he would be happy to pay when he cut all ties from it. Everything seemed to be falling into place — but this made him even more uncomfortable. What if this was just the cool breeze before the shit hit the fan?
Travis wasn't too concerned about a parade of people running to alert the authorities about Ana's absence. She was an introvert by nature, made more of one since she was a foreigner. She had only made two real friends in the past six years in California; both were transplants from Romania and both were no longer in the picture. One had divorced and remarried, moving out of state and disappearing altogether, and the other had an incredibly jealous husband who viewed Ana as a threat — a bad example to his wife of a woman living freely. The man had all but put an end to their communication.
Aside from them, there was only her mother back in Bucharest and the occasional acquaintances around town, none of whom were of any consequence. Her casual run-into folks would most likely take no notice she was gone. If there were any inquiries, he was confident they would be satisfied with a story about her visiting Romania. As for her mother, she would know Ana was missing within a day — and that was a concern. But she was living on the other side of the planet and it was farfetched to think she could cause any serious legal trouble. She spoke little to no English and didn't have any money; Travis knew Ana sent her a portion of his child support checks every month.
Travis waited in the alley patiently, watching the lights in the windows for his cue to go in. Bella's bedroom light was on, which meant she was getting ready for bed, but not yet in it — although it was an hour past her bedtime. Ana's bathroom and bedroom were dark, telling him she was still in the kitchen, where it appeared every light was on. He imagined her doing dishes and cleaning up the evening's festivities. He checked his watch: nine-thirty p.m. The house was very much awake. A year ago, Bella would have been in bed asleep and Ana would have already bathed and been sipping her wine on the living room couch.
He couldn't help but think the two of them had evolved into their own separate family unit — without him. It pained him to be left out of the particulars: Bella growing and changing daily, adjusting routines, finding new ones while he slept in a strange bed miles away, forced to the sidelines. Ana had benched him, and now she was trying to do so permanently. But that would all change soon. As soon as the lights in the house went out, he would get the signal he was waiting for.
Suddenly, a car turned into the alley and washed the dim street bright with its high beams. It was coming in the opposite direction of Travis, illuminating his windshield as it rolled by. He ducked into the passenger seat and lay there holding his breath, hoping he'd parked far enough over to allow the car to pass. He watched the show of light and shadow slowly stretch and play across the headliner of his car as it crawled past. It seemed to stop for a second, then started creeping again. Once clear, the driver gunned it and Travis heard loose gravel slip from its tires. He sat up and watched the darkness swallow the vehicle's taillights until they were nothing more than a pair of red dots.
It rattled him, but it served to sharpen his focus. He popped an Adderall, chased it with a Starbucks Double Shot Espresso, and then interpreted the lights of the house again. Bella's room was dark now; she had to be in bed, hopefully entering la-la land. There was only a hint of illumination in the kitchen now. Ana had dimmed the spots. Travis knew she loved their low, orange glow — signifying the end of her day and time for her bath. It also meant the wine had been poured. As if on cue, a square of light shot from Ana's bathroom window and then swiftly went dark, leaving a flutter of bouncing light. Her candles were lit and she would be soaking within minutes. Travis knew from experience that she would never let a candle burn for too long without her presence.
The radio inside the SUV had been humming at a low volume, mostly regurgitating the usual string of commercials and the occasional decent, overplayed song, but then it started belting "Whole Lotta Love," by Zeppelin. The guitar riff came in like an army of swagger and steel, and Travis turned it up a hair higher than he probably should have.
It was time for the final preparation before he made his move. He pulled the fat bindle of meth from his pocket and railed one up for the history books on the console between the bucket seats. After a speedy roll of a twenty, he jabbed it into his right nostril and took it all up in one shot. It was a better job done than what his shop vac back at home could possibly do. Only a ghost-line of residue remained on the black leather, and with a hurried wet finger he ran its track and rubbed it diligently onto his gums.
The rush was like an electric spike to his brain; the shards of crystal seemed to lift up and out of his head. He could swear he heard the imagined tiny flakes of glass chime and fall down in their sparkle of dust in his vision. The powder instantly blasted into his vessels and sent his blood pressure rocketing with the energy of a drumline. At once, he became intensely focused and felt aggressively smarter.
He ran up and down his mental checklist, then up and down again, and all of it a third time, within the span of only a few heartbeats. He was confident and ready. He'd left nothing out, prepared for whatever might arise. He felt for the two single keys in his pocket, then shoved his hands into a pair of gloves and stood outside the vehicle, where he hooked the 9mm firmly into the back of his belt. From the passenger seat he grabbed the rucksack, looped the handles around his shoulders, and started for the back gate.
He walked carefully through the large crisp fallen maple leaves in the yard with the dexterity and awareness of a jungle cat approaching his prey. Up the porch steps and into a deep shadow, he peered through a crack in the blinds and
saw no signs of activity. He slipped the key into the back door, heard the faint click, and was quickly bathed in the warm orange glow of the kitchen. In the low light, his entire body seemed to buzz with power; he could hear himself vibrating.
His eyes darted along the countertops, searching, but he failed to find Ana's glass of wine. She normally kept it breathing on the kitchen island, but tonight it was a deserted, barren sheen of Baltic brown granite. There wasn't even evidence of an evaporated water ring. It had been polished clean.
Did she change her routine? Stop drinking? Where in the blue fuck is the wine glass?
His eyes chased along the rest of the countertops. There were bags of chips, packages of cookies, and a pair of canvas grocery bags standing in the corner. Plan B was beginning to manifest, but then a snap of light came from behind the bags. It was her wine glass, curiously hidden.
Could she be hiding it from him? Could she have known he was coming? No way.
He dismissed his paranoia and quickly got to work. He first looked in the fridge to see if she had put the bottle there. When he didn't find it, he checked the recycling bin in the cabinet under the sink. There he found it; same vintage, and he was comforted by the fact that it was the last glass from the bottle. Often, they contained a small amount of sediment that could produce a slight bitterness in the final pour. It was the perfect reason if she tasted something out of the ordinary.
He poured her glass down the sink, took the bottle from his backpack, and shook the tainted wine inside. He then turned the cork with his teeth and completely bit it off by accident; half of it stuck in the bottle neck. His superhuman strength produced by the meth had diminished his agility. He spat the piece of cork into his pack and then ransacked the kitchen drawers for a bottle opener. When he opened one drawer, a rush of metal utensils clattered out. He froze mid-search.
Upstairs, he heard a faint coughing — definitely Ana. But there weren't any other sounds or movement above.
He had to finish this — and quick.
He found an opener buried under a whisk and popped the half-eaten cork without any further complication. He refilled her glass, minding the same level of wine she'd had before (the meth was good for some shit), wiped the rim of the glass, and then hid it behind the bags. Before leaving, Travis went back to the trash under the sink. Something had caught his attention earlier. He took out an empty, discarded pill strip from it and read the back of it: TRI-SRINTEC. Birth control pills. Ana had never taken these before. He'd always gone commando; and if a lucky accident had occurred, it would have been welcomed — back in the day, anyway. Maybe she was just regulating her period, or had she met someone?
Whatever; it wouldn't matter in a few hours.
He tossed the strip back into the bin, scanned the kitchen for any evidence he had been there, and then slipped out the back door.
Back inside the SUV, he debated whether he would wait there or take a drive; he fired up the engine and crept down and out the alley.
— — —
His first stop was at his local Albertsons. There were two between his condo and the Victorian home, and he chose the one closer to his place as an alibi. The cashiers knew him well there and he would be certain to go out of his way and say hello; just an innocent man shopping on an average night. He was running low on cigarettes, but would buy those at a liquor store, and pick up his milk and eggs at the grocery store.
At the liquor store, he checked his eyes in the rearview mirror before going in and was shocked to see his eyes bloodshot and super dilated. He bought some Visine with his smokes, and in the parking lot washed most of his face trying to get the drops in properly.
By the time he arrived at Albertsons, the redness had gone and he looked relatively normal. But the meth was still kicking inside him; he felt as if his skeleton had turned to steel and was conducting electricity from the nearby telephone pole. He wished he had waited until he really needed it, but knew the extra edge may have been necessary in case Plan B had come into play. Not that there was much of a Plan B — other than whatever animal instinct materialized in the moment, surely ending haphazardly.
Travis combed the aisles inside Alberstons, knowing damn well where the milk and eggs were, but paraded around for the cameras. He said hello to the butcher and then stopped to talk with the cute deli girl. He'd spoken with her on several occasions; she couldn't have been more than twenty-five, but he justified the innocent flirtation by telling himself she was a quarter of a century — making her sound older. She gave him a slice of a new horseradish cheddar they were promoting. It tasted great, but the meth made him want to spit it up.
How do people eat on this crap? he thought — and then remembered: They don't.
He forced it down and politely refused the second slice she waved in front of him. Instead, he ordered half a pound to take with him, told her good night, and then headed for a sample juice booth he'd passed earlier during his walkabout — thinking a shot of all-natural apple juice would help him keep the cheese down. Before turning the corner of the aisle, he turned back and saw the deli girl give him a last wave and a sweet smile.
The juice stand was closed by the time he got there — it was getting late now — and so he finished his shopping and went to the checkout, where he engaged in some prolonged small talk with a familiar cashier. He found it way too easy to be a chatterbox while on meth. He even made up a stupid lie that he was making pancakes for dinner, as if that would somehow exonerate him if the cashier was called to a future witness stand.
He loaded his few groceries into the backseat of the SUV, drove back to the Victorian, and parked in the same spot in the alley again. He waited for about fifteen minutes before he realized he was starting to come down from the meth. He pulled the bindle from his pocket and was getting ready to rail up another on the console when the Victorian house lit up like a switchboard. The lights in the kitchen went incredibly bright and a beam shot out the custom round window like it was signaling a grand opening. Then the living room light burst on, followed by the office — it was a certainty there was a lot of action inside the house.
Travis sat dumbfounded, watching. Then his phone on the dashboard cried out and vibrated violently. Before he could get a handle on it, the phone jumped, bounced around the steering wheel, and landed face-down on the floor mat. When he finally had it turned right side up, the display read ANA.
Instinctively, he slouched in his seat, thinking she'd spied him outside.
He let it ring, wondering if he should answer it at all — and what the hell he would say. He finally opened the line and she began screaming incoherently, obviously panic-stricken. Something had gone terribly wrong.
"Slow down, Ana. I can't understand what you're telling me."
"I'm taking Bella to the hospital!" she yelled, and he heard a set of keys drop to the floorboards. "She's not responding and I'm not waiting for an ambulance!"
A rush of fear swept over him. "What happened? What's wrong with her?"
"I don't know. I found her downstairs on the floor. Wine and glass everywhere! She could barely look at me and then blacked out."
Her words gutted him. "What are you telling me? She was drinking wine?" His stomach knotted. There was a good chance he was going to vomit.
"No, well, yes...I think so. I don't know! I'm going now!"
"Where?"
"West Hills!" She hung up the phone before he could tell her it would be quicker to call an ambulance.
His world spun in a deafening silence, and he was suffocating inside the car. He bolted from the SUV and began sprinting toward the house. He stopped at the back gate. He couldn't be there already! She would know he'd been there — planning something. Then his stomach twisted and he heaved an explosion of bile through the chain-link fence. He hurled a second time and his head rang and pounded with blood, his eyes ready to shoot from their sockets. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand and found his equilibrium again. He was going in, no matter what. He busted thr
ough the back gate and up the steps, and heard Ana's car start up in front of the house. There was a chirp of tires and her engine revved, hissed, and dissipated down the street.
He dashed back to his SUV and flew down the alley at lightning speed.
— — —
Of course, he seemed to hit every red light along the way. He ran three of them that had less traffic, but for most he had no choice but to wait and watch the steady stream of cars crossing his path. It was almost eleven p.m. and everyone in Malibu still had somewhere to fucking be.
He hated hospitals, didn't know anyone who didn't, but it was particularly haunting for him. The last time he'd set foot in an emergency room was the night Marilyn Grove, soon-to-be Marilyn Martin, had died hours after being admitted.
Suddenly, Travis was eight years younger — in the parking lot of the Dume Room in Malibu with her.
"Can't you drive, baby?" Marilyn asked, holding the keys out to him. Her pupils were brilliant black holes, blown wide by the combination of coke, alcohol, and whatever else was in their systems after a night of hardcore partying.
"You know I can't. One more DUI and they'll throw me into a six-by-eight, ghetto penthouse."
"Yeah, but you're used to doing this. And I've got a PhD in biochemistry from Harvard... My career." Both of them were too whacked to think of calling a cab.
"You're telling me a sexy girl with a Harvard doctorate can't figure out how to keep the car on the road after a little partying?"
"It's not far," she told him, still holding the keys out to him.
"Exactly my point." He walked to the passenger side of the car. "Oh, come on. Quit being such a lab-rat chicken shit."