They made seven mistakes after that over the next two months, each time amazing, each aftermath tinged with guilt and growing feelings for one another. It was more than a fling, they both knew. There was a relationship that existed which they could not easily dismiss. She cared for him more than she would probably ever let him know, and she had told Tommy their affair was his to end. She wouldn’t put up a fight or ask him to leave his wife. She just wanted to be near him, working with him, learning from him, and she was happy to do that platonically.
When Tommy decided to tell Becky about the affair, Sofia realized her time with Tommy Devereaux was over. She hadn’t expected him actually to tell her, but she had to admit it made her respect him. As a woman, she would want to be told, after all. She assumed when Becky found out, Sofia would be fired, and the next phase of her life – whatever that meant – would begin. Sofia held some bitterness about that outcome, and she tried to feel anger for Tommy. Sometimes it worked. Most times, she just felt sad.
But Tommy never told Becky who the woman was. He said she was someone Becky didn’t know, some fan from a book tour. It was then Sofia realized Tommy didn’t want his assistant to go away, and theirs was a relationship that could exist without the sex. Even flourish. For the next two years it had, though rare was even the hug between them. Truth was, Sofia and Tommy depended on each other, like old friends who had been through war. They simply needed each other in their lives, though they could exist in silence about things in their past.
Still, there were the mundane tasks of her job. Like Becky asking her to return a wooden bowl to Crate & Barrel. That kind of thing hadn’t happened before the affair, and Sofia saw the change in Becky in regard to women in Tommy’s life. Becky now exerted control in areas she hadn’t before. Tommy said she trusted him, but Sofia knew that kind of thing never went away. Becky would never be the same with regard to her husband.
Sofia was crossing the parking lot when someone walked into her from behind. Sofia stumbled, turned, and saw a woman struggling to keep her balance.
‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ the woman said. ‘Sometimes I get lost in my own world and I don’t even bother to look where I’m going.’
‘You OK?’ Sofia asked. She wondered where the woman had come from. Sofia hadn’t noticed her at all until the woman walked right smack into her.
‘Oh, yes, dear. You’re kind to ask. Just embarrassed.’
Sofia guessed her in her fifties, though the use of the word ‘dear’ made her seem older. Hard to tell her age owing to the extreme amount of makeup and the bad hair-dye job. Sofia bent down to help the woman collect her purse when she noticed a copy of Tommy’s last book jutting from it.
‘You enjoying the book?’ Sofia asked.
‘Excuse me, dear?’
‘The book. How do you like it?’
‘I love it. I’m on my second read.’
‘Wow.’
‘Have you read it?’
Sofia was the fifth person out of millions to have read it.
‘Yeah, I’ve read it. It’s my favorite of his.’
The woman’s eyes shone. ‘Mine, too. Have you read all of his?’
Sofia smiled. ‘Actually, I work for him.’
‘You do?’
‘He lives in Denver – did you know that?’
‘Oh, I know. But I’ve only ever seen him at Tattered Cover signings. Never about town. What’s it like working for him?’
‘It’s … it’s really good.’ Sofia picked up the book and flipped through the first few pages. ‘Want me to get it signed for you?’
‘Would you?’
‘Be happy to. Give me your address and I’ll mail it back to you. I mean, if that’s OK. You might have to wait a few days to pick up where you left off.’
‘No, that would be just amazing.’ The woman dug through her purse and pulled out a pen and sales receipt. She scribbled her address on the back.
Sofia took the receipt and wedged it in the pages of the book.
‘What a coincidence,’ the woman said, beaming. ‘I literally run into someone who works for my favorite writer in the whole world.’
It was at that moment Sofia sensed something a bit off about the woman. Maybe it was the way her eyes widened a bit too much as she spoke, or how her lips pulled back just a bit too far over her gums as she smiled. Whatever it was, Sofia was no longer certain that any of this was coincidental.
Sofia took a step back and offered a meek smile. ‘It certainly is. Well, I’ll take care of this and send it back to you. Goodbye.’
She turned and started to walk away.
‘Wait,’ the woman called.
Sofia froze and turned her head back. ‘Yes?’
‘Don’t you want to know who to sign it to?’ She pointed at the book in Sofia’s right hand.
Sofia turned around and exhaled. ‘Yes, sorry. Of course. What’s your name?’
‘Elizabeth,’ she said, her voice noticeably sharper. ‘My name is Elizabeth.’
‘OK, Elizabeth. Thank you.’
Sofia turned once again and walked toward the store, feeling Elizabeth’s gaze on her the whole time.
When she reached the front of the store, she opened the door and glanced back to the parking lot. Elizabeth hadn’t moved. She remained standing in the middle of the parking lot, her eyes tracked on Sofia, her mouth open in a vacant, wide smile.
Still beaming.
EIGHT
Saturday morning. Tommy stared at the espresso dripping from the silver machine into the small porcelain cup. He didn’t even want any, but he hoped keeping his morning routine would alleviate even a small amount of the guilt and the desperation he felt.
It didn’t.
Becky stood at the kitchen counter, flipping the pages of the Denver Post. The pages slapped down, one after another, and he could tell she wasn’t even reading anything. Just slapping. They were just a few feet away from each other and the silence between them was deafening.
Ever since he first fell in love with her, Tommy had wanted to tell Becky about that day when he was fourteen. About how he was an unwilling accomplice in the cover-up of a little boy’s murder. Tommy swore an oath that day he’d never say anything, but his bond to the oath was gone. What kept him quiet was the certainty that, no matter what he said, he had committed a horrible crime by helping to bury Rade. By not saying anything. By letting Rade’s parents lose their sleep and sanity to the demons of uncertainty that made them wonder every minute of the day if their little boy was suffering. Such crimes do not expire. Tommy could go to prison. Tommy could miss his kids growing up. He had risked losing his family when he told Becky about the affair. In that case, he would at least have had the kids half of the time. There would be no such arrangement if he went to prison.
For the first half-decade after the murder Tommy remained quiet mostly out of fear and denial. In his early twenties, his silence was fed by guilt and shame. He combated this by beginning to write, writing about women who kill, discovering both a natural talent and a means of therapy at the same time. The writing freed him, and the more he did of it the more he hoped the past would simply become another story. Fiction. Over the years this technique worked; when the riches poured in from his writing, it became much easier to shove the memory further back on the top closet shelf, near the dark corners where dust motes collected into feathery layers.
Every now and then he suddenly yearned to tell Becky. But Tommy was simply too scared ever to speak of it. Prison was a distinctly possible consequence of the truth coming out. Though he had never told anyone about the crime, he had done enough research around his type of scenario to know there were a multitude of crimes associated with his silence, some of them carrying no statute of limitation. With the evidence that was surely still along with the body, there was no way Tommy could convince a jury he wasn’t there that day. Which made him guilty. Which meant he could go to prison, even after all this time. It was no more complicated than that.
It ki
lled him to lie to Becky, but he had to. He had already lied too much.
He turned to her.
‘Becky …’
She didn’t look up.
‘Mmmmmmm?’
‘There’s something I need to show you.’
Now she looked up. Her expression was as plastic as a mannequin’s, but Tommy saw the storm beneath.
Here goes.
He handed her a note. Not The Note, but one typed on similar paper and folded as the original had been. She took it from his hand and kept her gaze on his, questioning. He simply nodded.
Becky read, and then paled. Tommy wondered if he had gone too far.
‘Oh my God,’ she mumbled.
The pain in her voice sickened him. He immediately wanted to tell her the note was a fake, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He didn’t look at her as he spoke.
‘I know. That’s why I didn’t want to show you, but I realized I had to.’
She kept staring at the words Tommy had written last night.
I read your first chapter you sick fuck. How much money you hoping to get writing about that shit? You going to buy another manshen writing about child murder? You will burn in a fiery Hell, Mr Deverux. What if that was your boy getting killed? You think it would be funny to write about then? Or your little girl. I know where they go to school. It would be easy. But they shouldn’t have to suffer for your sins, those lambs. Its you who needs to feel the pain of punishment.
‘It was the person who called me as well,’ he said, relieved and revolted about how convincing he knew he sounded. ‘A woman. Basically said the same thing as the note.’
‘The woman from last night? Who asked for your autograph?’
‘Yes.’
She rattled the paper in her fist. ‘Tommy, we have to go to the police with this. I mean … holy shit. This is disgusting.’
‘I know. I’m going to give it to the cops. In the meantime, I … I was thinking. I don’t know. Based on what I know about crazy people – and you know I know a lot – I think this is a pretty empty threat. And, even in the way-off chance it’s not, it doesn’t make sense to send a note threatening our kids. I think the real threat – if there is one – is to me, not to anyone else.’
‘Tommy …’
Elizabeth’s words flashed in his mind.
Contact Mark. Go to him.
He pushed on. ‘So I was thinking about going away for a few days, maybe a week. You know, go hole myself up somewhere and finish my book.’
Becky squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. ‘What good would that do? It doesn’t feel right that the family isn’t together right now.’
He reached out for her hand. ‘If someone is out to get me, I’d rather not be near my family. I couldn’t take the idea of something happening to any of you. Let me go away for a few days, and, just to be safe, I want to hire some private security for the house.’
‘Private security? What does that mean?’
It was easier for him to stand on firmer ground with this argument, because his desire for a security detail wasn’t just part of some ruse; Tommy truly believed his family was more in danger if he remained around them now.
‘Just a couple of guys to sit tight and make sure nothing out of the ordinary happens.’
‘The kids will freak out.’
‘Are you kidding me? Chance will love it.’
He knew there was nothing she could say. If she refused and something happened, she could never live with herself.
Becky’s eyes widened, and the crow’s feet around their edges stretched smooth as she leaned across the table at him. ‘Tommy, what the hell is happening here? You’re just supposed to go hide out somewhere while some goons pace back and forth in our house all night? That will keep us safe? And for how long? When will you judge this threat to be over? A threat, by the way, that you just said you don’t put much stock in.’
All damn good questions, Tommy thought. Ones he really didn’t have good answers for.
‘Tommy,’ she continued, ‘we can’t just change our lives because some lunatic wrote a nasty letter.’
‘And called me on my private line.’
When she spoke next, Tommy heard calm in her voice. There was also fear, but above all there was calm, and Tommy loved her for it. ‘Are you really worried about this? You’ve had your crazies before.’
‘I … I don’t like the feeling of it.’
‘I don’t know, Tommy. I mean, this is insane. It’s just a book.’
‘That’s what Rushdie said.’
He let the moment linger until he felt the timing was right.
‘Becky, I’ve made up my mind. It’s what we’re going to do. And you can be pissed off and angry at me, but it won’t change anything.’
He reached over and took the letter from her hands, then folded it over neatly along its creases.
Becky said nothing, because there was nothing to be said. Tommy knew she was scared, pissed off, and confused. There was too much to be said, so she just kept silent.
‘I’m going to the office and arranging for the security. Then I’ll book my travel.’
Finally she spoke, her voice hollow.
‘Where will you go?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Tommy, tell me this isn’t about something else.’
The words forced his gaze to the ground. ‘Something else like what?’
‘Anything else,’ she said. ‘Just tell me this isn’t about anything else.’
Tommy couldn’t look her in the eyes.
‘It’s not about anything else,’ he said, his gaze to the floor.
She nodded, but it wasn’t in acceptance. She was dismissing him.
NINE
Tommy was in the office by ten. Being in the office by that time in the morning was rare. Being there on a Saturday was almost unprecedented.
But he needed privacy to call Mark Singletary.
Tommy leased nearly fifteen hundred square feet in an office building in downtown Denver. He rarely wrote here, but it was a good place to escape or catch up with the business side of things. Sofia also had her office here, and there was some open cubicle space when contract workers were needed for help with PR campaigns, website upgrades, or any of the other number of essential business tasks successful authors never thought they would be dealing with. A conference room overlooking the mountains provided the perfect place for Tommy to sip coffee and panic about running out of ideas.
He picked up the phone and called Mark, dialing the number from the website. It being Saturday, Tommy held little hope anyone would pick up.
Yet on the fourth ring, someone did.
‘Senator Singletary’s campaign office. This is Susan.’
Hearing Mark Singletary called Senator jolted Tommy. You’d think they’d have to say State Senator at least, he thought.
‘Hi, Susan. I’m trying to reach Mark. This is an old friend of his.’
Her voice was clipped. ‘I’m sorry, Senator Singletary isn’t available right now. Would you care to be transferred into his voicemail?’
‘I know it’s Saturday and all, but I was really hoping to reach him. It’s important that I speak to him.’
‘Sir, you’ll just have to—’
‘Can you at least give him a call and tell him Tommy Devereaux wants to say hi?’
That stopped her.
‘Tommy Devereaux. The author?’
‘That’s right. Mark and I went to school together as boys back in Oregon.’
Susan’s voice deviated from her previously scripted tone. ‘Oh my God, I love your books. I read The Blood of the Many after a bad breakup and it totally made me want to be the main character … what was her name?’
‘Gillian.’
‘That’s right. Gillian. The scene where she killed her boyfriend and dumped his body in that filthy river. That was amazing. I t
hink that was the first time I smiled in weeks.’
‘I’m glad you found her a sympathetic villain.’
‘She was a villain?’
That was a first.
‘So, uh, any chance you can give him a quick call?’
‘Heck, Mr Devereaux. I’ll give you his cell phone number. He’s just out golfing this morning. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.’
It was better luck than Tommy had expected. She gave him the number and Tommy promised her a signed copy of his next book. If he ever finished it, that was. He started to key Mark’s number into his phone when Sofia appeared in his office. He hadn’t even heard the door open.
He froze, mid-dial. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Me? What the hell are you doing here? I think the last time you came in on a Saturday was after the last launch party. And that’s because you were drunk and slept on the couch here.’
Her words surprised him. It was the truth, but all he could think of in the moment was the launch party two books before that one. The one where he called Becky from the Ritz and told her he had slept on the couch at the office.
Sofia.
There were moments where he found himself holding his breath at the sight of her. Just for a few extra seconds, and it was usually when Sofia was the least put-together, her hair thrown into a loose ponytail, her lips pursed in concentration on something, her smooth cheeks – free from any makeup – just the perfect hue of femininity. This didn’t happen often, and Tommy always caught himself, exhaled, then went on with whatever he’d been doing.
He never told Becky it was Sofia, even when she had outright asked him. Was it Sofia? Was she the one you fucked? And the answer had been no: a lie, yet another lie, but it was the answer he gave. He told Becky it had been a fan on a book tour, and Becky was always cold now when Tommy traveled, which was far less often than it used to be. Sofia remained in her job and Tommy couldn’t think of anyone better for the role. She dealt with things, and she knew Tommy well enough that they often communicated in partial sentences, half-words, and body language. Tommy was able to confide in her, bounce ideas off her, learn her perspectives on things he had never even considered. In a weird, fucked-up way, Sofia was Tommy’s best friend, and he wanted her around him. But it was Becky he loved, and he had learned, mostly from his affair, that Becky and his kids were the only things he was not willing to sacrifice. Not for anything. There was a time he hadn’t realized this, but not anymore.
The Boy in the Woods Page 5