No One Knows

by J. T. Ellison

They entered through the front door, and Aubrey smelled something she couldn’t identify.

  “Josh?” she called. Total silence. “Josh? Where are you?” Nothing. Not even the sound of nails scrabbling on the hardwood floors, a noise so natural, so normal, that not hearing it made her tense immediately.

  “Winston? Wiiiinston. C’mere, boy!” The dog didn’t respond to her, and she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

  “What’s that smell?” Arlo could scent it, too, apparently.

  “Arlo. Stop where you are, okay?”

  He listened without question, and she stepped into the living room and turned on the lamp.

  It took a moment to process what she was seeing. Winston was lying by the fireplace, unmoving. There were smears of red along the hardwood floor.

  Arlo was staring at the floor and his hand, in turns. He looked up and met her eye. “Aubrey, we need to call the police again. They’ll have to listen to you now.”

  Aubrey whirled to him, eyes wide, then dashed from the room, flipping on lights as she went. “Josh? Josh? Oh, God, Arlo, there’s blood everywhere.”

  She stopped in the door to the kitchen. Viscous fluid covered a large area, about four feet wide, in a strangely configured puddle that looked a bit like the outline of Italy.

  “Holy fuck,” Arlo said, joining her in the doorway. “Don’t go in there, Aubrey. Don’t disturb the evidence.”

  She wheeled on him, her voice a screech. “How can you be rational at a time like this?”

  She tore back into the living room, to Winston. The dog was breathing, but out cold. Aubrey collapsed next to him, frantically petting his unmoving head. She heard Arlo on the phone, all traces of drunk gone from his voice. He sounded so old, so serious, so grown up.

  “This is Arlo Tonturian. We called earlier to report Josh Hamilton missing. We’re at the Hamilton home right now, and there’s blood everywhere.” His voice dropped to a whisper, cracking on the last note. He thought she couldn’t hear, but she could. And the words cut a knife through her soul.

  “I think he’s been murdered.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Chase

  Once he hung up, he at least felt like he could sleep tonight. Even her voice made him calm. His earlier doubts were gone—he thought he might actually be in love.

  This was not how he’d expected the story to go. He’d never felt like this, not as a grown man, at least. She was everything he’d ever wanted, even as messed up as he knew she was.

  He would tell her the truth tomorrow and hope she’d forgive his subterfuge. And pray like hell Josh Hamilton really was dead as a doornail. Because he didn’t want anything to come between him and Aubrey. Not ever again.

  But he had to go carefully. He still had questions, questions he didn’t want to ask Aubrey. He didn’t want to ruin what he had with her.

  He pulled the card out of his pocket.

  Dialed the number. Got voicemail. Debated hanging up, then steeled himself. You have to do this, Chase. You can’t quit now.

  “Sergeant Parks, this is Chase Boden. We met at Aubrey Hamilton’s house earlier in the week. I was hoping you’d have time for a quick chat. Please call me back.”

  He was surprised when the phone rang five minutes later. The caller ID showed a 615 area code. Parks.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Boden? This is Sergeant Bob Parks. What can I do for you?”

  CHAPTER 38

  Josh

  Six Years Ago

  Josh Hamilton was drinking coffee in the Starbucks across the street from Vanderbilt’s campus, as was his daily habit once his time at the hospital was finished. The coffee shop’s clientele was mixed: young, shiny-haired coeds and jeans-clad, sunglasses-wearing country music stars; aging, exhausted doctors and beautiful young trophy wives. It always gave him something to look at.

  He settled into his favorite seat by the window near 21st Avenue. It had been a hard day. He’d just finished his first set of rounds on the surgical floor, and he was so tired his hands were shaking, and so exhilarated it would take hours to come down from the high.

  Medical school was challenging, hard on the brain and on the body, even with a little bump here and there—they all did amphetamines; it was like mainlining caffeine. He’d resisted when they were first offered around but soon gave in. You had to do something to stay awake forty-eight hours straight. He’d known school would be difficult, had even desired that a bit, but he’d had no idea how taxing it would be on the body, and the mind. And today, he’d been faced with a wholly new challenge.

  He’d always known what he wanted: to be a family practitioner. An old-fashioned make-house-calls, get-involved-in-patients’-lives, deliver-three-generations-of-babies-out-in-the-woods doctor. He’d seen Doc Hollywood when he was a kid and the message stuck. The idea that people who had less than he did deserved to be taken care of in exactly the same fashion as people with millions was intoxicating. He knew it would take a special man to be that kind of doctor. And he was certain he was up to the challenge. Made of all the right stuff. Honestly, he’d dreamed about it for so long he already felt he was.

  But rounds this morning, his first surgical tour—he’d been completely seduced. With the slash of a knife, people could be made whole again. It was a skill he could bring to bear on his practice. If he was trained in surgery, he could be the only doctor those people would ever need. He’d be able to fix everything they had wrong himself.

  The surgical resident had encouraged him to think long and hard about coming on board. His scores were fabulous; he’d be welcome in whatever residency program he chose. Chances were he’d be able to land a slot here at Vanderbilt, with the right words in the right ears.

  But to specialize in surgery meant another five years of training, at a measly salary that wouldn’t begin to pay off his student loans.

  He couldn’t afford that. They couldn’t afford that. He wanted to give Aubrey the moon and stars. She’d grown up with next to nothing, basically the clothes on her back and little else. He wanted to give her indulgences, luxuries—jewelry, cars, houses, art. Trips to exotic locales, richly woven clothes. He had to start earning, now, to meet his lofty goals for their life. He didn’t want to do this because he thought she’d love him more, not in the least. She’d had so little beauty in her life; he wanted to give her back some sparkle.

  His haunted young love had grown into an exquisite young woman, one he was proud to call his wife. They were a perfect match. She was strong and loving and smart and selfless.

  And patient. Aubrey was one of the most patient people he’d ever met. He didn’t know if that was a result of being brought up without parents, having to share all her belongings with practical strangers, or whether it was ingrained in her personality. He wished he’d known her parents, could judge how much of them she’d gotten. Nature, nurture, all that.

  But they’d died when she was so young, and he wasn’t the kind of kid who hung around parents at that time. Which changed. When Aubrey’s parents died, something shifted inside him, and he became a grown-up. Ten, and as mature as a twenty-year-old. He needed to be strong for her. Even then, he had an affinity for the curly-headed girl. There was something so incredibly different about her.

  Different, and beautiful, and—as she was exposed to new, not-so-nice things—a quiet strength. Though she flouted the rules when they weren’t to her liking, she was a good girl. Deep down inside, she was pure.

  Unlike him. He was just a man. Just a man with a dream, and a wife he’d put up on a very high pedestal.

  He sipped his coffee and pondered his life. He’d committed to paying for school himself, through a series of student loans coupled with savings—he’d started saving for college the day Aubrey’s parents died, knowing somehow, inside of him, that he’d need to do this himself. He scraped and scrimped and saved every dim
e of his allowance, not indulging in records or candy or video games like his friends, approaching his growing stash with a miser’s eye. But that money had run out at the end of his undergraduate career, and the loans were piling up. More training meant even more time before he’d even start making enough to begin paying off the loans.

  He could ask his father for help. Tom had some money stashed away—he’d told Josh that before he left for school. Pulled him aside, told him he loved him, that he was proud to be his father, and that he’d been saving for him just like Josh saved for himself. It was an emergency fund of sorts, all slated for him. If he didn’t need it now, he’d inherit it when Tom died. Daisy didn’t know about it. It wasn’t for her—God knew if she found out about spare change lying around, it would be spent immediately. But it was Josh’s whenever he felt he wanted or needed it.

  Becoming a surgeon, fulfilling a dream, this would certainly qualify for raiding Tom’s funds.

  What was he thinking? He needed to save that money for an emergency. A real emergency. No, he would find a way to pay off the loans himself. He needed to find a source of income on the side, most likely from a part-time job. He barely slept as it was; medical school wasn’t exactly a restful experience, and the uppers meant he’d go for days, then crash, hard.

  He could probably go to work somewhere like the medical examiner’s office, as a tech. He’d done his pathology rotation, hadn’t minded it much. And he knew a guy who worked over there; he had an in. The money wasn’t insanely good, but the hours weren’t bad. He didn’t see himself slinging hash or drinks, though bartending could help things add up very quickly.

  Then again, he was the one who held lives in his hands every day. Perhaps it would be better for Aubrey to take on the extra work. Maybe she could do some tutoring on the side, just a little extra to pay for groceries and the like. Or work in that coffee shop near their house that she loved so much. He’d seen the owner around, a pretty elfin thing, dark hair in a pixie cut, drinking at Sam’s after the store closed. He could always approach her, see if she’d be willing to take on his wife for some part-time work. Then they’d be comfortable enough while he dedicated himself to a surgical residency.

  She would do it if he asked. Aubrey would do anything for him.

  His coffee was empty. He needed a refill. He went to the counter and scored some more, then returned to his seat and cracked his shiny new surgical text.

  Normally he was great at blocking out the conversations around him. But when two men sat next to him, he couldn’t help but overhear them. They were whispering, which drew his ear in the first place. People talking at normal levels weren’t trying to hide their conversations—in fact he sometimes suspected such people wanted to be overheard. These two were being furtive, and it piqued Josh’s curiosity.

  He shifted his body so he could be a few inches closer. They didn’t seem to notice. One was black, gently accented, and the other was an older white gentleman, impeccably dressed, who seemed much more relaxed and merely listened, encouraging information as it was needed.

  From what Josh could ascertain, the black man needed a doctor. A specialist. So he must be sick. The white guy just smiled and nodded and said, “We’ll find someone for you. Someone good who you can trust. Don’t worry. I promise it will be okay.”

  The black man obviously didn’t feel he was being taken seriously. He grew more and more frustrated until he finally stood and set his coffee on the table, said, “Mark my words.” And left.

  Josh stifled an internal giggle—the “Mark my words” had sounded a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger saying, “I’ll be back.”

  He glanced at his watch: 7:30 p.m. He needed to get home to Aubrey, to Winston, to dinner, to sleep. To get up and do it all again.

  He began to gather his things. The white guy sitting next to him had crossed his legs and was staring into space. Josh debated with himself, then shrugged. Why not? What did he have to lose?

  “Sir? Excuse me.”

  The man tore his gaze from the deep space universe he was studying and glanced at Josh with an annoyed sigh.

  “Yes, I’ll watch your things. Go, go,” he said.

  Josh laughed. “Oh, no, sir. I’m actually leaving. It’s just that I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. Your friend is ill and needs a specialist? I’m a doctor here at Vanderbilt. Fourth-year medical student. I know most everyone on staff. If you tell me what’s troubling your friend, I could give you a recommendation.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Josh Hamilton, by the way.”

  The man studied him with his right brow raised ever so slightly. As if making a decision, he finally smiled, politely, and said, “Well, isn’t this just serendipity.” He accepted Josh’s hand in his. “Derek Allen. Your offer intrigues me. Would you like to grab dinner and discuss things? Perhaps my colleague could be talked into joining us, and he can hear your suggestions firsthand.”

  Josh glanced at his watch.

  “I should really be getting home.”

  “Oh, surely you have a few minutes. At least let me buy you another cup of coffee. You may be just what the doctor ordered, pun intended.”

  Josh had a feeling about the man. Something told him to call Aubrey and tell her he was going to be late.

  “All right, Mr. Allen, let’s go get some dinner. I’ll just let my wife know I’m going to be gone a while.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Aubrey

  Today

  The sun was high in the sky when Aubrey reached Dragon Park. Sweat ran between her breasts and down the small of her back, but she pushed on, passing the mosaic dragon, until she reached the oak. She stopped short about one hundred feet from the tree and looked around.

  Would he be here, waiting? Would he know that she’d figured it out?

  She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, just the usual accumulation of parents and kids, dogs and plaid blankets and Frisbees, spread out across the grass. Still, she approached cautiously.

  Two feet away, she could tell something was different.

  She shoved her hand into the darkness and instead of feeling the note she’d secreted inside, she felt nothing. Emptiness. Something compelled her to reach in farther, and this time, she did feel something. It was soft, and square, and attached to a hard piece of parchment. She eased it out gently.

  The parchment was an envelope, good Crane stationery, the old-fashioned kind.

  And the soft square was a blue velvet box.

  She closed her eyes. Recorded every movement, every sound, every smell. Honeysuckle on the wind, jasmine, mud, sweat, blueberries, the crying of a child, the bark of a dog.

  When she felt like she would be able to remember the moment forever, she opened the box.

  In it was a large diamond. Loose. The pointed end was pushed into the velvet liner. She was afraid to take it out, but having seen some of the sparklers her friends sported, she knew this had to be in the three- or four-carat range.

  Her heart beat mercilessly. She slid the box closed and opened the note.

  It had two handwritten words, handwriting she more than recognized.

  Josh’s handwriting.

  I’m sorry.

  She looked at the stone again, and suddenly it wasn’t perfect. A large crack began, running across the surface, and with a rending creak, the diamond split in half and inside was the photograph of Josh, wound around a stranger, and the photo began to move, bucking and thrusting in her hand, and his face came from the black-and-white and said, “I’m sorry, I had to, I didn’t have a choice.”

  Let no man tear them asunder.

  Oh, God. She knew what this meant. She knew . . .

  • • •

  Aubrey woke, sweating, crying. Betrayed. Five years of hell, five years of worry, and he was alive, out there. Letting her suffer. Letting them all suffer.

  Aubrey
didn’t remember her dreams often. It was something she’d turned off when she was a child, effectively muting her brain when she woke in the mornings. She had enough nightmares that she needed something for self-preservation, something to protect her and keep her whole. So she’d trained herself to forget.

  It worked 90 percent of the time. So long as her life was on an even keel, the bad dreams stayed at bay. But things were on anything but an even keel now, and Aubrey had been dreaming extensively for the past few days, and they were staying with her long after she turned back the sheets.

  The morning after seeing the email, she woke exhausted, like she’d been running for hours. As she thought about it, she realized she had: that was a whopper of a dream.

  Winston must have heard her crying in her sleep because he was wedged firmly against her side. When she woke and shifted, he moved with her, a low woof questioning if she was okay.

  She wasn’t.

  When she’d cried herself out, she rose and washed her face. The clock said 6:40 a.m.

  Tyler.

  She went downstairs and realized she was alone. Sometime in the night he’d crawled away—whether to give up and score a hit or because he was actually feeling better, she didn’t know. She hadn’t even heard him. After she’d seen the email, she’d collapsed, taken a couple of Ativan, and just huddled in bed, weeping.

  She felt empty.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  Chase was coming today. How was she supposed to face him? How was she supposed to function, knowing that Josh might actually be out there somewhere? Or that someone was trying to make her think he was? He’d think she was crazy. He’d run so fast and so far she’d never see him again.

  Maybe she was.

  She made a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table. Put her head in her hands. Ran her mind over the details of the past week.

  The cab, the man’s walk. The confusion on his face when she turned him. The happiness he radiated when she’d seen him in the coffee shop. The caressing touches at the bar. The overwhelming sex.