Four Thrillers by Lisa Unger

by Lisa Unger

  “I wasn’t enough to keep him with us. None of us were.”

  He blinked, somehow knowing I wasn’t talking about Marc. “This is not about your father, Izzy. This is not the same.”

  I put Camilla’s bag over my shoulder.

  “What am I supposed to tell them, Iz? The police? Linda and the kids?”

  “The truth. Just tell them the truth. I pulled a gun on you and now I’m going after my husband.”

  “The police are starting to think you’re guilty, that you had something to do with all of this. How am I going to convince them otherwise if you run off like this?”

  “They’re right. I’m guilty, like any wife who is guilty for ignoring all the signs, all her instincts.”

  “You’re not yourself, girl. Don’t do this.”

  But I left him there and he didn’t come after me. And I left the building and ran up the street, then ducked into the subway. I wasn’t flying blind. I knew where to go, maybe where I should have been all along.

  15

  She never thought of that night anymore. It lived inside her like a room she never entered in a big, drafty old house. She might walk down the dark hallway might even rest her hand on the knob, but she never opened the door. She heeded Blue Beard’s warning, thought Pandora was a fool. There are some memories better abandoned. Common wisdom demanded examination of the past, probing of childhood pain and trauma. Then—acceptance, release, and ultimately forgiveness. But Linda wondered if this was always the best course. Maybe this was a philosophy that just had people picking at scabs, creating scars on flesh that might have healed better if left alone.

  She didn’t want to go back there to that night when she awoke with a start, and the room she shared with Isabel was washed in a moonlight so bright that for a moment she thought it was morning. But then through her window she saw the pale blue face of the moon low and bloated in the sky. She slipped from bed, not worried about waking Izzy who slept soundly like Margie, had to be vigorously roused in the morning. She was a buried ball under the covers, her breathing so deep, so steady, it almost seemed fake. Linda moved over to the window and looked out onto the backyard. The rusting old swing set they hadn’t touched in ages sagged dangerously, its frame crooked in the moonlight. The grand old oak towered, its leaves whispering just a bit in the very slight breeze. Off near the edge of the property, just before a stand of trees, her father’s work shed stood wide and solid, looking righteous, though it was as rickety as the swing set.

  A good wind, her mother said, and that thing will be in splinters.

  You wish, her father countered.

  She saw that one of the doors was ajar. Eagerly, she pulled on jeans under her nightgown, slipped her feet into a pair of Keds, walked quickly down the hall.

  The day belonged to Isabel. But at night, when Margie and Izzy were off in their deep, dreamless sleep, Linda was Daddy’s girl. Linda shared a minor case of insomnia with her father, where sometimes the night called them both, didn’t offer any sleep at all.

  “We’re the moonwalkers, my girl. Just you and me, alone with the stars.”

  She crossed the yard, the dewy grass soaking through the canvas of her sneakers. She heard a rustling and banging behind her, on the side of the house. Raccoons in the garbage. Margie was going to have a fit. Linda would tell her father and they’d have a laugh. It was another thing they shared, a mischievous pleasure in the things that got her mother’s “panties in a knot.” She couldn’t have said why at the time. But when the cool and measured Margie cursed and blustered over scattered garbage, or the same fuse that always blew, or the cabinet door that kept coming off its hinge, Linda and her father exchanged a secret smile.

  “Was that the only way you could connect with your father, over a shared disdain for your mother?” Erik had asked her once. Linda felt ashamed, chastised.

  “Disdain isn’t the right word.” She sounded like Isabel.

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. It was almost a relief when she lost her cool. Like, wow, she’s human after all—not some robot, always programmed for appropriateness. I think we liked it because—sometimes we wanted to see those frayed edges that everybody else has.”

  “Hmm,” said Erik. “I don’t see her that way, not stiff and robotic like that. I find her kind of warm, funny.” “That’s because she’s not your mother.”

  “Touché.”

  AT THE DOOR, she’d knocked lightly. “Dad? Daddy?”

  She thought she might find him dozing, sitting upright on his work stool, with his elbow on the table, chin resting on fist, eyes closed. Or he might be so focused on his work that he wouldn’t hear her come in. But then he’d look at her and smile.

  “Hello, Moonbeam,” he’d say. “Have a seat.”

  And she’d have him to herself. The day belonged to Izzy His eyes always drifted to Isabel first; he always laughed at her jokes loudest, was quicker to take her hand or stroke her hair. Not that he didn’t do those things with Linda, too. But it always felt like sloppy seconds, even if—and maybe because—he didn’t mean it to be.

  She pushed the door and it swung wide and slow with a mournful creeking. Her sinuses began to tingle with some foreign smell that wafted out—something metallic, something sweet. The scene revealed itself in snapshots: a cigarette still burning in an ashtray, a nearly empty bottle of liquor and a toppled glass, a frozen, mocking smile, a dark swath down the white of his shirt, a pistol on the ground. Everything existed in a separate frame, nothing coalesced. It was too dark to see the gore. He’d put the gun beneath his chin, an inefficient way to end your life, better at the temple where there’s no margin for error.

  At the time, she’d fixated on the cigarette. She’d never seen her father smoke; it seemed like an insult, a dirty secret he’d kept. She was angry about it. But years later what she’d remember, what she’d dream about, was that smile. She’d never seen that look on him in life, that derisive grin, that “Fuck you, world” expression. But maybe it had been there all along, waiting for the veil to fall away.

  There was a red wash of terror, mingling with rage that felt like a cramp; feelings she barely understood then as adrenaline rocketed through her frame. She wasn’t much older than Emily was now, and younger in many ways, less sophisticated, more sheltered. Nothing had ever prepared her for the sight before her; it was so utterly incomprehensible that it was nearly invisible. They’d find her vomit beside the door in the morning; that’s how they’d know she’d seen him first. She remembered a wash of numbness, a kind of internal powering down.

  A dream, she told herself. I’ll close the door and go back to bed. In the morning, I’ll have forgotten this.

  She told herself this with absolute conviction. In that walk from the shed, through the back door to the house, where she stepped out of her wet sneakers and wiped her feet dry on the mat, up the stairs and back into her own bed, she could believe that the power of her will might bend reality. She lay in a deep state of shock, mercifully blank until the sun rose and her sister stirred. She told her sister about her dream.

  “Dreams can’t hurt you,” Isabel said.

  Then Margie’s screaming, a horrible keening wail, cut through the silence of morning, ending the world as they all knew it.

  Why should she want to think about that? What good did it do? But there it was, as her children slept in the hospital bed next to Fred’s, wrapped around each other like a couple of monkeys. Trevor snored lightly. Every now and then Emily would issue a low moan or a deep sigh. Fred looked so still and pale that a couple of times she’d gotten up and leaned over him to detect his shallow breathing.

  Margie would be on a plane by now, on her way home. Linda had promised to wait at the hospital until her mother arrived. The kids didn’t want to leave her to go to Erik’s mother, so she’d made them as comfortable as she could. She was a little surprised when they drifted off quickly, clinging to each other.

  Linda sat in an uncomfortable chair, staring
at the ugly orange glow from the row of parking lot lampposts. It was a starless night, the moon nowhere to be seen. Another night when there would be no sleep. She would sit vigil, bear witness to whatever came next alone. Hours had passed since last she’d heard from Erik. She knew his phone was dead because her calls went straight to voice mail; the charge had been low when he left the hospital hours earlier. He had Isabel’s phone but that, too, went straight to the recorded message, her sister’s light, airy “Leave a message. I’ll call you back.” A sick dread had settled into her chest. Worry gnawed on her innards. Where were they?

  The fresh rush of anxiety caused her to step out into the hallway and dial Ben. She didn’t worry about disturbing him or arousing the suspicions of his wife. She knew if he wasn’t able to take the call, he wouldn’t. But he answered on the first ring.

  “Hey,” he said. His voice was soft, warm, and just the sound of it brought tears to her eyes. Was it just this morning that they’d been together, romping in a public restroom? Was it today that she promised herself she’d never see him again?

  “Hey,” she whispered, looking around. The hallway was empty. Somewhere a radio played “Silent Night” very softly. “Are you alone?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but didn’t elaborate. “Everything okay?”

  “Not really,” she said, leaning against the wall. “Not at all.”

  “Tell me.”

  She glanced at the clock on the wall over the empty nurses’ station. It was late, nearly ten.

  “Where’s your family?” she asked. Once, she’d been talking to him, flirting with him, talking sexy, and they were interrupted when his daughter asked him for some milk.

  “Daddy, milk in cup?” she’d said sweetly. She was so little, maybe two, just starting to put words together in her own way.

  She’d hated herself in that moment, felt so dirty and foolish. She didn’t want a repeat. He didn’t say anything for a second, and she thought they’d lost the connection. Then she heard him breathing, remembered how his breath felt on her neck that morning.

  “They’re home,” he said. Then: “I’m not.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I left,” he said, solemn, final.

  She remembered how he looked this morning. So sad and lost.

  “Ben.”

  “I know, Linda. You don’t have to say it.”

  “I can’t—” she started. “I don’t feel—”

  “I know,” he said. Was there an edge to his voice? Something angry? When he spoke again it was gone. “But that’s not the point. I can. And I do feel for you enough to leave my marriage and my kids. And that’s not fair to anyone, is it?”

  She put her head in her free hand. Why was everyone always going on about what was fair? What about life or marriage or having kids was fair? When did happiness become the goddamn Holy Grail? Didn’t you sometimes have to put up with a little bit of unhappiness for the sake of other people—like your kids, for instance? Who never, by the way, asked you to bring them into the world to put up with your issues?

  “When did you do this?” she asked. She found herself disappointed in him, somehow less attracted to him for his having left his family.

  “Yesterday.”

  She understood it now, his arrival at her doorstep, the desperate lovemaking. “Why didn’t you tell me this morning?”

  “You were so worried, so distracted. I didn’t want to add to your problems.”

  “I’m sorry, Ben.” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, or if it was an apology at all. Maybe it was more an expression of her sorrow at the situation they’d put themselves in.

  “You love him, don’t you?” he said, issuing a dry cough as though the words caused him physical pain. “Your husband.”

  Erik had wept today when he told her what he had done. She’d never seen him that way. She’d sat close to him and held him, rubbed the back of his neck like she did for the kids when they were upset—even though she could have righteously been screaming at him, even hitting him. She was so angry with him, so frightened about the future now. His actions had stripped them of something vital to her sense of well-being, their financial security. He’d deceived her, gone behind her back and gambled with their future. Just like her father had done to her mother. It sickened her to think that her whole life had been spent trying not to be like Margie and yet here she was. But as angry as she was at her husband, as stung as she was by what he’d done, she realized that she could never stop loving him, any more than she could stop loving Em or Trevor, or Isabel. It was that kind of love.

  “I do, Ben,” she said. “You know that. I’ve always been honest with you.”

  In the heavy silence that followed, she could feel how her words hurt him. Her cheeks started to burn—from shame or anger, she couldn’t say.

  “I should go,” she said. “I shouldn’t have called at all.”

  “You needed to talk,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Take care of yourself.” Did she sound cold? She knew she did. She couldn’t help it.

  “Linda, wait—” She heard his voice, but she pretended she didn’t, and pressed End, anyway. A second later, the phone, ringer off, started vibrating in her hand. It was him, calling her back. She pressed the button on the side of the phone that sent the call to voice mail and shoved it in her pocket. She slipped back into the darkened room and walked over to the window.

  Trevor, Emily, and Fred all slept peacefully, their breathing a chorus of whispers—a high note, a low note, the rumble of a snore from Fred. A freezing rain started to fall, the icy flakes scratching at the window. Worry started up again, a restless anxiety that they were out there, Erik and Isabel, unreachable. She was momentarily distracted by the frame of the window, how the rain made crystalline images on the glass, how the orange glow she thought was ugly before looked golden now as it reflected off the rain. The rectangle of light from the door behind her was luminescent on the window, looked like a doorway to another place and time. She judged the light too low for the effect she’d want but itched for her camera just the same. Then she saw something that made every nerve ending in her body freeze solid like the ice on the glass.

  A black Mercedes idled beneath one of the lampposts, its exhaust pluming up from behind, a filthy gray breath in the cold. She knew the car well, the dent and scratch on the driver’s side door, the custom rims he couldn’t really afford. She’d wept and laughed and made love and confessed in that car.

  She saw the shadow of him in the driver’s seat; saw a bouncing orange point of light, the burning ember of a cigarette. It was Ben.

  Was he out there watching her, waiting for her? Had he followed them here? She had been here for hours—had he been here all that time?

  The phone started to vibrate in her pocket. She took it out to look at the screen.

  Ben calling.

  16

  The cackling was really starting to grate on him. It sounded desperate and yet somehow cruel at the same time. He had observed women like this—wondering if it was a purely urban America phenomenon—older, the wrong side of forty, emaciated, their faces hardened masks, as if permanently set against the straining of vigorous exercise. Their small breasts looked flat and hard, their nails were square and deeply lacquered. They were often rude, crass, wearing their slim bodies like some passport for poor behavior. But despite all the deprivation, the starvation, the overexertion, they were still unattractive to the point of being repellent, with nasty sneers and cutting comments. They were still lonely, unhappy, unsatisfied—and hence bitter and mean.

  Grady Crowe thought that American women had been sold a concept that failed them miserably. Spend every free moment of your time fretting about your body, the media urged, exercise, buy diet books, primp, preen, pluck, wax, and a man will find you attractive and love you forever. Don’t ever for one second worry about being loving or lovable, about kindness or finding fulfillment on some spiritual level. Just try
to take up as little space as possible, be as small as possible, or you will be reviled and ridiculed by every industry posed to make a dime off of you—the fitness and publishing industries, even the medical industry. They’ll steal your money and your self-esteem. You’ll give it all and still be unhappy. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, they bought these ideas, believed whole-heartedly, built lives and lifestyles around them.

  The cackling continued; Grady couldn’t hear himself think. He stared at Camilla Novak’s body and wanted to feel the scene, wanted to take in all the details, but he couldn’t. Erik Book sat head in hands on the sofa, trying to call out on his cell phone and finally giving up. He looked miserable. Grady wondered what it would be like to have five hundred grand to lose; he couldn’t muster too much sympathy for the loss of funds. But he wondered if the guy knew his wife was cheating on him. He could see it in her, something restless, something deeply unsatisfied.

  He recognized it in hindsight in Clara, the way she had stopped looking at him in the same way. How she almost imperceptibly didn’t want to be held, how she slipped her hand from his grasp when they were out. He thought it was just the normal cooling of their years together. Yet another error in judgment. Like the one that caused them to go to Charlie Shane’s dump of a studio rather than to seek out Camilla Novak as Jez suggested. If they’d come here, maybe she’d still be alive. Shouldn’t he have better instincts than this? Lately it was just one mistake after another.

  He took Camilla’s hand in his, feeling its weight, the delicacy of her bones through his gloves. He peered at a faint blue mark, a club stamp. He could just barely make it out: The Topaz Room. Never heard of it. He pulled out his cell phone and opened the Web browser, entered the name into the search engine. There was a listing up in Queens. He bookmarked it and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  More cackling, louder, more grating. He walked over to the CSI team; they all turned to look at him.

  “There’s a dead woman here, show a little respect.” The cackler twisted her dried-up face at him.