Four Thrillers by Lisa Unger

by Lisa Unger

  I’d heard this speech before. I wasn’t sure why I was hearing it again. But I let him go on.

  “Getting this law passed was especially important to him,” he went on, “because he believed it got babies that were at high risk for abuse or neglect into the arms of people desperate for a child before any real harm could be done. As opposed to after the fact, like so many kids. It was important to him because there were things your uncle Max never got over. Not until the day he died.”

  I thought about Max, about that sadness deep inside him that nothing seemed ever to reach, even in our happiest moments together.

  “Is that what you wanted to know, Ridley?” asked my father.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know.

  “Trust me, kid, there are no dark secrets here for you to uncover. He loved you. More than you know.”

  I heard something in his voice, but when I looked into his face, I saw only the sweet smile I’d always counted on seeing.

  “He loved Ace, too,” I said, feeling bad for my brother, wondering why he’d always felt left out.

  “Naturally,” my father said with a nod. “But you two had a special connection. Maybe Ace sensed that and was envious.” He drifted for a second, looked out the window, exhaled sharply through pursed lips. When he spoke again, it seemed more like he was talking to himself. “I don’t know. Neither of you ever lacked for love or attention. There was always enough. Enough of everything for both of you.”

  I nodded. “I know there was, Dad.”

  “But of course, there’s the matter of the money. He may be carrying some bitterness about that, too.”

  “The money?”

  “Yes. The money Max left you when he died.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well,” he said with a sigh. “He didn’t exactly do the same for Ace.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.” I had always assumed that Ace was left an equal amount of money, though I guess I never really considered the logistics of it all. Ace disappeared for a long while around the same time I’d met with Max’s lawyer to discuss the terms of my inheritance; I assumed Ace had done the same at some point. We never discussed Max’s death or his money, or where he’d been during the months I hadn’t talked to him. In fact, we didn’t really talk about much except for Ace and his catalog of complaints and perceived injustices. Pretty sad, I know.

  “Your trust was unconditional,” my dad said. “The money was granted to you upon Max’s death. Ace’s trust was conditional upon his successful completion of a drug rehabilitation course and five years of clean living. He might be angry about that still.”

  I couldn’t really blame Max. It was a reasonable condition and one obviously designed in Ace’s best interests.

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  He shrugged. “Angry, jealous people do hateful things.”

  “Are you saying you think Ace has something to do with all this?”

  “I’m saying it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

  “No,” I said firmly.

  My father gave me the look you would give a kid who still believed in Santa Claus: sadly indulgent.

  “No way.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “Food for thought?”

  I nodded quickly.

  “I have to go,” I said, rising. He looked like he wanted to stop me. I saw his arms rise from his sides and then drop again, as if he wanted to reach out for me but changed his mind.

  “Call me tonight,” he said, “if you want to talk about this more.”

  “Is there more to talk about?” I asked, looking at him.

  “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “You tell me.”

  I embraced him quickly, not wanting to feel that pull to safety and comfort. Something about it drew me away from myself. I exited the room, leaving more confused than when I arrived. My father’s answers led to only more questions. I walked out of the building into the winterlike afternoon.

  “Ridley, wait.”

  I turned to see Zack standing outside the clinic doors. “Wait,” he said again. “Can we talk?”

  I looked at him and shook my head. The sight of him made my heart thrum with anger; the thought that he had betrayed so many confidences to my father, the mess in my apartment that morning…I couldn’t deal with him.

  “Please, Rid,” he said, moving toward me. Through the doors behind him, I saw his mother, Esme, in scrubs with a little bear print on the top. She was a petite woman with a pink complexion, her golden blond hair shaped in a stylish bob. She clutched a file to her chest and cast a worried glance in our direction, then disappeared through another doorway, tossing a sad smile my way.

  I didn’t say anything to Zack when he stood near me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “About this morning. I was out of line, I know that.”

  I nodded but couldn’t find my voice. His eyes were the palest blue; a light blond stubble shaded his strong jaw. His hand was on my arm. I remembered that not so long ago I thought I loved him. I felt the same pull to him that I’d felt to my father, as if in his arms, all would be well, life predictably safe and secure, and with him I would be cherished and loved. As long as I did what was expected of me, as long as I was the Ridley they wanted me to be.

  “It’s okay,” I said. It wasn’t true. I just said it to make us both feel better. “I’ll see you later.”

  I walked away from him without a word and he didn’t call me back again. The sliver of sky between the buildings was the same hard slate as the concrete around me. The traffic sang, a cacophony of horns and rumbling engines. I felt loneliness creep into my skin with the cold air that blew in through the cuffs of my coat and made a home in my belly.

  twelve

  I rang the buzzer beside the red door but there was no answer. I gave a dollar to a homeless man pushing a shopping cart filled with doll carcasses and tin cans while I waited, waved to a cop I knew from Five Roses as he and his partner cruised down Avenue A. Some kids were shouting on the playground across the street in Tompkins Square Park. I thought of Justin Wheeler and wondered where he was today. I rang the buzzer again and then tried the knob. I was surprised when the door pushed open.

  “Hello?” I called before stepping onto a tiny landing before a steep staircase that led into blackness. When there was no answer, I went back onto the street and looked around for another red door but saw that this was the only one. I leaned back inside.

  “Jake?”

  I heard a pounding then, the sound of metal on metal. I moved inside again and let the door shut behind me. I felt my way up the dark staircase, the plaster wall cool to my hand, the tall stairway so narrow that if I fanned out my elbows just a little, I could touch both walls. At the top, I stepped onto the floor of a gigantic loft, dark except for the far corner, which was lit by bright artist’s lights on giant tripods. He stood there, oblivious to my entry, bringing a large hammer down hard on a smooth arc of metal that stood twice as tall and twice as wide as he was.

  Writers are first and foremost observers. We watch. We lose ourselves in the watching and then the telling of the world we find. Often we feel on the fringes, in the margins of life. And that’s where we belong. What you are a part of, you cannot observe. I lost myself in the watching of this stranger who’d shared my bed the night before. I watched as the taut, defined muscles on his back tensed and writhed beneath his skin with each hammer strike, as the sheen of sweat on his body reflected the harsh light from the high lamps. I watched the way his fingers gripped the wooden handle of the hammer and how his knuckles were white and swollen, the veins as thick as rope. I felt the vibration, the heavy clang that filled the large space with each blow. I looked around the room and in the black saw dark forms lurking, born from the same hammer. I felt it electric in the air, coming off of him in waves. Anger. He was punishing that piece of metal. He was punishing himself. Something in my belly churned, some combination of fear and desire.

&nbs
p; He lifted the hammer and paused midswing, let it drop to his side, and turned around. His face was flushed and drawn. He wore a look of interrupted intensity, as though I’d walked in on him making love.

  “Ridley,” he said, though I wasn’t sure how he knew I was there.

  I was quiet a second, feeling embarrassed for standing there watching him as I had. “Hi,” I said finally, moving toward him. My footfalls echoed loudly off the walls and ceiling.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm and put the hammer on the floor.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, stepping into the light.

  “I forgot to tell you the buzzer doesn’t work,” he said, looking at me strangely. “I left the door open and hoped you’d give it a push.”

  I nodded. “I did that.”

  “I had a feeling you would.”

  He looked different to me. Something in his face was hard. In the harsh light, there was no mistaking the marks on his body, the line from his neck to his collarbone clearly the mark of something sharp and angry, the starburst of scarred flesh on his shoulder which looked like a gunshot wound, though I admit I’d never seen one before. Who was this guy? Why had I revealed so much of myself to this stranger?

  I took an unconscious step back from him, but he reached out for my arm, put a gentle hand on my wrist.

  “It’s okay,” he said, as if he’d read the sudden uncertainty in my eyes. “I go to a weird place when I’m working. I get lost in my head.”

  I nodded. I understood that, of course. I reached a hand for the scar on his neck and saw him flinch a little. I paused, looked him in the eye, and kept reaching for it. My finger traced the smooth white line. It felt softer than the rest of his skin, like a delicate gauze. I felt him shudder beneath my touch. He closed his eyes. I put my hand on the thick scar on his shoulder; a rubber ball beneath his flesh. There was just one word in my mind. Pain.

  I moved into him and didn’t care that he was covered with sweat. I didn’t ask him then how he’d gotten those scars. Partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know and partly because I could sense he wasn’t ready to tell me. Asking seemed invasive, seemed to violate an unspoken agreement that he’d tell me the things I needed to know in time. Is it possible to be wary of someone and trust him, too? He tightened his arms around me and held on to me hard, then released me, started peeling off my clothes, his mouth on my neck.

  The harsh white light gave me pause as he stripped me down. Not that I resisted. Not that I wasn’t tugging at the button on his jeans and sliding them down his hips with as much desperation as he was undoing buttons and clasps to get to my skin. There was no hiding beneath this light. Every flaw, every imperfection would be revealed. But don’t we all crave that as much as we fear it? To show ourselves completely, to be loved anyway. He took me hard and deep on the floor on top of the pile of our clothes, the zipper of my coat digging into my back. It was an earthquake.

  We lay there awhile, just quiet, looking at each other. Words seemed cheap, unnecessary. I could hear the faintest hum of street noise, could see his computer glowing blue in a little room off the loft that I guessed was his office. I was starting to get a little cold, even though he was beside me. I looked into his face; the softness, the kindness I’d seen there had returned during our lovemaking and I was glad of it.

  “Look,” he said, taking my hand. “We’ve got things to talk about.”

  I hate it when people say that. It’s never good.

  “Like what?” I said, laughing a little against my nervousness. “Wait, I know…you’re a Mormon Fundamentalist and you want to take me as your third spiritual wife.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “You work for the CIA and you’re taking off on a top-secret mission and you don’t know when we’ll see each other again?”

  “Wrong again.”

  “You really are a cabaret dancer?”

  “Seriously, Ridley,” he said, propping himself up on an elbow. “About your problem, remember? I told you I knew someone who might be able to help you.”

  I nodded.

  “I was going to tell you as soon as you got here but—”

  “My tongue was in your mouth?”

  “Right,” he said with a light laugh. He reached a hand out and pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. He’d done that before and I liked the way it felt, as if we were intimates already. I looked away from him. I had almost successfully put the whole mess out of my head, and now I braced myself as the waves of fear and sadness came crashing back. They washed over me and in a second I was soaked with dread.

  “Well…tell me.”

  “I’d rather show you. Let’s get dressed and head back to my place.”

  thirteen

  THE NEW JERSEY RECORD

  By Margaria Popick

  OCTOBER 27, 1972—HACKETTSTOWN, NJ

  Teresa Elizabeth Stone, 25 years old, was found dead today in her small apartment in the Oak Groves apartment complex on Jefferson Avenue. Police were alerted when neighbors reported that her television had been on at top volume for almost twenty-four hours. This was not usual for the young, hardworking single mother who worked as a receptionist at a Manhattan real estate office to support her 18-month-old daughter, Jessie Amelia Stone. Jessie is missing.

  Ms. Stone was found brutally beaten to death on the kitchen floor of her apartment. There were no signs of a forced entry and neighbors say she was in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend, Jessie’s father. Police had responded to calls of domestic disputes on several occasions since the beginning of the year. Ms. Stone took out a restraining order against him just last month.

  Neighbors describe Ms. Stone as being quiet, hardworking, and a loving mother. Maria Cacciatore, Ms. Stone’s neighbor, often took in Jessie free of charge while Ms. Stone worked. “We’re devastated. I never thought such a thing could happen,” she said. “She loved that little girl like crazy. Like crazy.”

  Police are looking for Ms. Stone’s boyfriend, Christian Luna, whom they believe might have Jessie. He is considered extremely dangerous and police urge anyone who sees him to contact the police immediately.

  “How did you find this?” I said, looking at the photocopy in front of me. A picture accompanied the article, the same one as in the clipping I’d been sent in the mail. I felt a mild wave of nausea and my throat was dry.

  “My friend, the detective, recognized the typeface on the second article, visited the newspaper archives online, and was able to track it down.”

  “How is that possible?” I said, interrupting him. I looked at the article in my hand. “It’s Times New Roman, indistinguishable from a thousand other papers.”

  “Hey,” he said lightly. “You can’t argue with results. It took him a couple of hours, but here it is.”

  “It just seems too easy,” I said, and my voice was doubtful, angry, as if I didn’t believe my own eyes.

  You may ask yourself here why I was being so belligerent. And it’s a good question. After all, hadn’t I asked him to do just what he did? But I was mad anyway, felt vaguely violated and defensive. I was mad at him for finding the article so fast; maybe I was hoping he wouldn’t be able to turn anything up. I remembered all the listings on LexisNexis, how I hadn’t had the energy to search through them. Maybe if I had tried harder, I would have found it, too.

  I walked over to his window and looked down at First Avenue, Pete’s Spice across the street, the Italian bakery that isn’t Veniero’s. They were the most familiar sights in all the world to me, but I felt as if I were on another planet, distant and cold. Some thugs with do-rags and sagging denims skulked on a stoop, reminding me of my brother’s building. I thought about the girl Ruby I had met, my mind wandering.

  “What does it mean?” I asked finally. He had seated himself on the couch, waiting patiently for me to figure out what I was feeling.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe nothing.”

  Silence. Then: “Th
ere’s more.”

  I turned to look at him, then walked back over to the table and seated myself, wrapping my arms tightly across my waist and leaning forward as if I had severe abdominal pain. I wished I did. I wished I would double over and pass out from a burst appendix right there so that I could avoid this whole thing.

  “My friend has a contact over at the Hackettstown Police Department, so he gave a call. The case was never solved. Christian Luna was never found, never questioned, and never charged. The little girl, Jessie, was never found.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “This friend of yours who did this for you.”

  He hesitated just a millisecond. “Harley. Someone I grew up with. He owes me a few favors. I’ve helped him out a lot over the years.”

  “He’s a detective? With the police department?”

  “No, he’s a private detective.”

  I nodded. Why did I care about that? I don’t know. Maybe I was just stalling, trying to find a reason why this friend of Jake’s was unqualified to have dug up all of this, trying to cast doubt on its veracity. It didn’t work. You can’t argue with the black and white in front of your face. Well, you can, but you just look like a jackass.

  I looked back over at the papers on the table. The printout of the article stared at me. In the picture, the woman and her child were so washed out they looked like ghosts. The yellowed piece of newsprint that I’d received in the mail lay beside it. Someone had kept that piece of paper for more than thirty years. A few days ago they’d decided to part with it and send it to me. I turned that around in my mind, imagining what would inspire me to part with something I had clung to for thirty years. The only possible motivation would be the return of the lost thing represented by the cherished item. For what other reason might we cling to objects, old photographs, tarnished jewelry, yellowed letters? They’re charms, little pieces of magic. When we touch them, we regain for a second what time has stolen or worn away.