The Wild Zone

by Joy Fielding

  “Can Tom afford one?” Kristin asked gingerly. “Does he even have enough money for first and last months’ rent?”

  “He has enough money to go out drinking every night, doesn’t he?” Lainey burst into tears, buried her face in her hands.

  Kristin edged closer, put her arms around Lainey, half expecting to be rebuffed or pushed aside. Instead Lainey grabbed her tight around the waist and burrowed her head into the pillow of Kristin’s chest, sobbing without restraint.

  “It’s okay. It’ll be all right,” Kristin said soothingly. “I’ll talk to Jeff.”

  “Is Jeff here?” Will asked the pretty, young receptionist behind the desk at the entrance to Elite Fitness. He was winded from having run up the steep flight of stairs, and he smiled self-consciously as he looked around the gym for his brother. I should probably sign up for a few sessions, increase my stamina, he was thinking, watching several people working out with weights and a trainer in a sleeveless gray T-shirt instructing two women doing a series of push-ups. Where was Jeff?

  “I’m afraid he’s not in this morning,” Melissa said.

  “What do you mean he’s not in?”

  Melissa stared at him blankly.

  “He has to be here,” Will persisted. “His boss called first thing this morning and asked him to get here early. He rushed out so fast he forgot his wallet.” Will held out the wallet for her to see, as if this was proof she was mistaken.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Melissa said, looking toward the man in the sleeveless gray T-shirt. “Jeff called in sick this morning. Believe me, Larry wasn’t very happy about it.”

  “Jeff called in sick?”

  “I took the call myself.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe you should lower your voice,” Melissa urged. “I’m sure you don’t want to get Jeff in trouble.”

  “Is there a problem?” Larry called from between the two women now doing bicycle kicks on the floor.

  “What? No. No problem,” Will said, still trying to get his head around his brother’s absence. “I was just hoping to see Jeff.”

  “So were we all. He should be back by this afternoon.”

  Will handed Jeff’s wallet to the receptionist. “In that case, if you wouldn’t mind giving him this when he gets in . . .”

  “Of course.”

  What the hell is going on? Will wondered, barely noticing the scent of freshly baked bread as he hurried down the flight of stairs to the sidewalk. Where was Jeff and why had he lied?

  He knew three things for certain: Someone had phoned the apartment at six thirty this morning; Jeff had rushed out soon after; he hadn’t gone to work.

  So where was he?

  There was only one logical explanation, Will concluded, walking quickly down the street: Tom.

  It had obviously been Tom who’d phoned, talking the same crazy talk as last night, and Jeff had raced over to his house in an effort to calm him down. He hadn’t told Kristin or Will where he was really going because he hadn’t wanted to worry them. Or maybe Tom had specifically asked him not to say anything because he didn’t want Will tagging along. He wanted only Jeff.

  Just as Lainey had come over several hours later, also wanting Jeff.

  Everybody always wanting Jeff.

  The image of a lovely young woman with deep-water blue eyes, fading bruises marring her otherwise lustrous complexion, suddenly filled his head. He smiled, tried to get her attention, but she was looking just past him. Seconds later, Will watched as Jeff emerged from the shadows of his mind to surround her with his muscular arms. In the next second, he watched her willingly disappear inside his brother’s embrace.

  Will shook his head, trying to dismiss the image.

  Was it possible that Jeff, in a stupid, ill-advised effort to win Suzy’s favor, was at this very minute meeting with Tom, that the two of them could actually be on their way to murder Dr. Bigelow?

  No, it wasn’t possible, Will assured himself immediately. His brother was no murderer, no matter how many men he’d killed in Afghanistan. Jeff would never allow himself to be swayed by any of Tom’s idiotic ideas. Will checked his watch. Ten minutes after nine. In less than an hour, the stores would be opening, and Tom would be at work. Will decided he’d take a leisurely stroll over to South Beach, visit Tom at the Gap, find out exactly what was going on.

  He straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and started walking.

  BY TWENTY MINUTES after nine o’clock, Jeff had finished his bacon and eggs and was on his fifth cup of coffee. What the hell was he doing here?

  He looked toward the entrance to the no-frills coffee shop. No one had come in or out of the wood-framed glass door in the last twenty minutes. He’d been sitting in this oversize booth at the back of Fredo’s for almost an hour and a half. He’d finished the morning paper from first page to last. He’d read the daily specials handwritten on the half-dozen chalkboards along the wall so many times he could recite them by heart. His hands were shaking from all the caffeine in his system. It was all he could do to keep from jumping up and fleeing the premises.

  For the tenth time in as many minutes, he went over the events of the morning. The phone had roused him from an unpleasant dream, the particulars of which he could no longer recall. He’d answered it in something of a fog, snapping into consciousness only when he heard the familiar voice. Now he was wondering whether it had really happened or if he’d imagined the whole thing. Was it possible he’d still been dreaming?

  Except Kristin had heard the phone ring, too. In fact, it was Kristin who’d roused him from his sleep in the first place, he reminded himself, and Kristin who’d sleepily swallowed the series of lies he’d told her. Although she’d been alert enough to question that lame story he’d given her about Larry having a hangover. God, he’d have to be more careful. No, he amended in the next breath. He’d have to tell her the truth.

  Whatever that was.

  Wasn’t that why he was here? To find out?

  Again he glanced toward the entrance to the coffee shop. Maybe he’d gotten the name wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Fredo’s. Maybe it was some other coffee shop with a similar name, or maybe in his semicomatose state, he’d misheard the address. Maybe there was a competing Fredo’s on Federal, and he was sitting in the wrong one.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  Jeff checked his watch, noting it was less than five minutes since the last time he’d looked. Hell, it wasn’t that late. Not even half past nine. He had only himself to blame for getting here so damn early. The least he could do was wait another fifteen minutes. This wasn’t the easiest place to find. And Miami’s rush-hour traffic was the worst.

  He reached into his pocket for his cell, checked his voice mail for messages, but there weren’t any, so he returned the phone to his pocket, his hand stopping suddenly in midair. As if possessed of a mind of its own, it disappeared back into first his left pocket, then his right, then quickly into each of them again. “Shit,” he said, his eyes closing with the realization that his wallet was missing. He pushed himself out of the booth, searched his pockets a third time and then the red vinyl seat, before getting down on his hands and knees, his eyes scouring the white tile floor.

  “Everything okay here, handsome?” the waitress asked as Jeff clambered back to his feet. She was about fifty years old, with ash-blond hair she wore in a high bouffant, making her almost as tall as Jeff.

  “I can’t find my wallet,” he told her sheepishly, trying for his most charming smile.

  The waitress, whose name tag identified her as Dorothy, regarded him skeptically. Clearly she’d heard that one before.

  “I’m not trying to pull a fast one. Honest,” Jeff said, wondering if his wallet had somehow fallen out of his pocket in the car. “Look. Do you mind if I check my car? I’m parked just around the corner.”

  “You wouldn’t be trying to skip out on me, would you, handsome?” Dorothy tilted her head to one side, he
r hair following suit, threatening to topple over.

  “No, I would never do that.” He reached into his pocket, laid his cell phone on the table. “How about I leave this with you? That way you know I’ll be back.”

  “Not necessarily. You coulda stole that.”

  “I didn’t. Please. Look. You can come with me if you want.”

  Dorothy paused as if seriously weighing his offer. “Oh, go on,” she said finally. “But if you’re not back in three minutes, I don’t care how good-looking you are, I’m calling the cops.”

  “I’ll be back in two.”

  “Leave the phone,” she instructed.

  Jeff rushed outside, the sun shining in his eyes like a flashlight, blinding him to his surroundings, as the hot, humid air slammed into his face like a well-placed punch. For a second he was disoriented and thought he was back in Afghanistan. A bubble of panic burst inside his chest, ripping through his insides like a bullet. “What the hell is the matter with you?” he asked, breaking into a sweat and forcing himself to take a bunch of long, deep breaths. It was all that damn coffee, he decided, gradually regaining his equilibrium and trying to remember where he’d parked his car. He turned right, proceeding down the first street and picking up his pace as his car came into view.

  He quickly searched the front seat, the back, the floor, even the glove compartment, in case he’d put his wallet in there, then forgotten about it. “Shit,” he said, spinning around and catching his reflection in the polished side of the car’s exterior. He saw himself in his bedroom as he grabbed a pair of jeans from the closet, leaving the original pair—the pair with his wallet in the back pocket!—on the floor. “Shit,” he said again, imagining Kristin picking those jeans up off the floor. Had she found his wallet? Had she called the gym? Or worse? Had she tried to deliver it in person? “Shit.”

  “So what are you gonna do?” Dorothy was asking moments later. “That breakfast isn’t going to pay for itself.”

  Jeff looked around the brightly lit restaurant, still half-full of people, all of them eating, talking, laughing. “I don’t know what to do. It doesn’t look like my friend is going to show up. . . .”

  “Tall girl, dark hair, a little on the skinny side?” Dorothy asked as Jeff’s eyes followed hers to the far end of the restaurant.

  She was coming out of the ladies’ room when she saw him and she smiled tentatively, the corners of her lips turning down instead of up.

  “Hello, Jeff,” Suzy said.

  TWENTY

  “SORRY I WAS SO late,” she apologized when they were seated. “Dave took forever to leave the house, and then I got stuck in traffic. Were you waiting long?”

  “Not really,” Jeff lied. “I got here a few minutes early, had some breakfast. You sure you don’t want anything to eat? You’re paying for it, after all.”

  She smiled, the smile tugging at the mustard-colored bruise on her chin. “Coffee’s fine.” She took a sip, as if to prove her point. “When I didn’t see you, I assumed you’d gotten tired of waiting and left. Good thing I had to go to the bathroom, or we might have missed each other.”

  “Good thing.”

  “I’m glad you waited.”

  “Why?” Jeff asked.

  “What?” Suzy asked in return.

  “What are we doing here, Mrs. Bigelow?”

  Suzy winced at the sound of her name, as if Jeff had reached over and pinched her cheek. “I don’t know.”

  He studied her as she lifted her coffee cup to her lips and took another long sip. She was wearing a simple white blouse and her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail and secured by a jeweled clasp. Her fingernails were polished a faint pink, although several had been chewed to the quick. Makeup hid most of her bruises. Jeff longed to reach across the table and take her hand, stroke her face. He literally ached to touch her. Why? There was nothing all that special about her. Tall girl, dark hair, a little on the skinny side, to use Dorothy’s words. Oh, she was pretty enough, to be sure, but Jeff was used to pretty girls. They threw themselves at him all the time.

  What made this one different?

  Was it because she hadn’t thrown herself at him, had in fact chosen his brother over him, not once, but twice, that made her so unbearably attractive to him? That he had no idea where he stood with her, if indeed he stood anywhere at all? That she was equal parts mysterious vixen and vulnerable waif?

  “Do you always wear black?” she asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Every time I’ve seen you, you’re always dressed in black.”

  “Is that why you asked me to meet you? To inquire about my wardrobe?”

  “I was just curious.”

  “There’s no big mystery,” he told her, his voice purposefully sharp. “I wear black because I look good in it. Why did you call me?”

  “How do you know I was calling you ?”

  Jeff sank back in his seat, trying not to look too taken aback. The thought that she might have been calling Will had never occurred to him. “You saying you were calling my brother?”

  Suzy returned her cup to its saucer. “No,” she acknowledged after a pause. “I was calling you.”

  “What if Will had answered?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would he be sitting here now instead of me?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you call?” Jeff asked again.

  “Because I wanted to see you.”

  Jeff nodded, as if now that that fact had been established, there was no need for more questions.

  Suzy took a deep breath, released it slowly. “To clear up any misconceptions,” she added after a moment’s thought.

  “Misconceptions?” Jeff leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table and twisting one hand inside the other. He didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Yesterday, at your apartment. I said some things.”

  “What things?”

  “Things I shouldn’t have.”

  “I don’t remember you saying anything particularly regrettable.”

  “You weren’t there,” Suzy said. “It was later.”

  “You said something to Will?”

  “And your friend from the bar, I forget his name.”

  “Tom?”

  She nodded. “He came over. He was obviously upset. He had a gun that he kept waving around. I thought I better get out of there. He said something about shooting me in the foot to make me stay.” She cleared her throat, looked to the ceiling, then back at Jeff. “Which is when I suggested he shoot my husband instead.”

  Jeff nodded, not letting on he’d already heard all about this from Will and Tom. “Interesting suggestion.”

  “That’s just the point. I didn’t mean it, and I never should have said it.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t think anyone took you too seriously.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. The look on Tom’s face when I mentioned it . . .”

  “Intense, eager, slightly crazed?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Tom’s normal expression,” Jeff said with a laugh.

  Suzy looked unconvinced. “I don’t know. He seemed pretty gung-ho.”

  “Did you offer him anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Money? Sex? A gift certificate to McDonald’s?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Jeff. I’m really worried.”

  “Tom wouldn’t kill your husband just because you suggested it might be a nice thing to do,” Jeff said. On the other hand, he thought, if I suggested it . . .

  “I don’t know. I got the distinct impression he thought it would be fun.”

  “And fun it might very well be.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Are you saying you’d be upset if something were to happen to the good doctor?”

  Suzy looked away, mumbled something unintelligible beneath her breath.

  “What?” Jeff asked.

  “No,
” she admitted, her eyes suddenly welling up with tears. “To be perfectly honest, I’d welcome it. God, that’s so awful,” she gasped in the next breath. “I can’t believe I said that.”

  “Said what? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “How can you bear to look at me? I’m horrible. I’m a horrible, horrible person.”

  “You’re not horrible.”

  “I as much as told you that I wish my husband was dead!”

  “Which is completely understandable, considering the fact he uses you as a human punching bag.”

  “I have such terrible thoughts,” Suzy continued unprompted. “He’ll be sleeping, and I’ll think about going into the kitchen and getting one of those big, long knives and stabbing him right through the heart. Or setting fire to the mattress. Or running him over with my car. Sometimes I imagine how wonderful it would be if an intruder were to break into the house and shoot him. Sometimes, if I’m being generous, I just wish he’d have a heart attack and drop dead. I even have his funeral all planned out.”

  Jeff couldn’t help but smile.

  Suzy’s eyes acquired a distant glaze, as if she were looking into the future. “I’d invite everyone from the hospital, all those doctors who admire and respect him, who treat him like some kind of god, and I’d get up in that chapel and tell them their god was really the devil. I’d tell them the truth about their precious Dr. Bigelow, how he tortures me, and beats me, and rapes me. . . .”

  “He rapes you?” Jeff’s voice so quiet it was almost inaudible.

  “And then I’d have him cremated,” Suzy went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “And I’d take his ashes and dump them in the first godforsaken swamp I see.”

  Jeff reached across the table, took her hand in his. “Bastard deserves to die,” he said.

  Suzy nodded. “People rarely get what they deserve.” She withdrew her hand, wiped the tears from her eyes. “Anyway, I shouldn’t be laying this on you. It’s my problem, not yours.”

  “I won’t let him hurt you anymore,” Jeff said.

  Suzy smiled. “How can you stop him?” She paused, looked deep into his eyes. “Do you want to know why I really called you?”