Reckoning and Ruin

by Tina Whittle

  “I said, I know.”

  “You’re not going to argue about it?”

  He started typing. “No. I’m resigned to it at this point.”

  “But you don’t approve.”

  He kept his eyes on the computer. “Whether I approve or disapprove is immaterial. I have a meeting in the morning with Phoenix legal to discuss the lawsuit, then another meeting with HR, and then another meeting with the new account. Before that, and probably after as well, I’ll be in the FBI office putting together a LINX report. Which means that even if I wanted to go to Savannah—which I don’t—I can’t. So do whatever you need to do, because that’s what you do. And I’ll stay here and do what needs to be done, because that’s what I do.”

  It was the most words I’d ever heard come out of his mouth at one time, and it left me momentarily thunderstruck. Lots of words, yes, but every single one flat and monotone. Ice Trey surfacing.

  I sat on the edge of his desk. “You’re mad.”

  “I’m simply stating the facts.”

  “Okay then. Here’s a fact for you. I was handling this situation just fine until you barged in—unasked—with your motorcycle buddies and scared off the one lead we had. And now Hope’s gone, and John’s vanished, and the people who trust us have told us everything they know, and the people who don’t trust us have clamped shut like snapping turtles!”

  “That’s what criminals do. You should know this.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  He didn’t answer, but the staccato keystrokes hit with the rhythm of gunfire.

  I stood up. “Hope came to me, which meant she came to us. And she was cooperating until you had us surrounded—”

  “She was lying and concealing evidence and manipulating—”

  “—and then you started throwing your weight around, which is why she ran, and that, Former Senior Patrol Officer Seaver, is on you.”

  He kept typing. “If you’d listened to me and followed my instructions, she wouldn’t have had a chance to run.”

  “And if you’d listened to me, you wouldn’t have pulled your weapon on your boss when the only threats in the room were an empty shoe and a puddle of coffee!”

  Trey stared at me, hard, then shoved his chair back and went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. I waited for him to come back. I tapped my foot. Give him time, everyone always said. So I waited. Five whole minutes I waited. Then I went after him.

  I found him standing at the bathroom mirror, hands braced on the sink, shirt unbuttoned. He’d peeled off most of the therapy tape and was examining his shoulder, flexing the tendon, testing the recovery. There was an open bottle of oxy on the counter.

  “And so now you shut down,” I said.

  “I’m refusing to argue. There’s a difference.”

  “You’re refusing to engage.”

  He rolled his head to the right, wincing, not looking at me. “What do you want me to do? Tell you I don’t want you to go? I don’t. Tell you to stay? I would if I thought you’d do it. But you won’t. Because once you decide on a course of action, you don’t listen to anything that anyone else has to say.”

  “I took up for you this morning.”

  “No, that was something else. It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with…whatever it was you were trying to accomplish.”

  “Is that what this is about? You’re mad because I said you deserved to be protected?”

  He snatched up the pills and shook two into his palm. “I can take care of myself and will do so until you return. So unless you’re going to listen to reason, further discussion is pointless.”

  I searched his expression. Yep. Ice Trey all the way. Which meant he was right—further discussion was absolutely and utterly pointless, as useless as arguing with an iceberg.

  I kicked the door jamb. “Damn it, Trey, why can’t you be—”

  I bit down on the word that almost flew out of my mouth. Trey didn’t take his eyes off the mirror. I stomped out of his apartment, fighting tears. But it wasn’t just anger that had the world going swimmy in front of me. It was also the piercing guilt of what I’d almost said.

  Normal.

  Why can’t you be normal?

  Chapter Sixteen

  I cursed to myself all the way down the elevator, all the way through the doors and into the parking garage. I refused to look at my phone, refused to see if Trey had called. Not that I wanted to talk to him, I only wanted him to call so that I could righteously ignore him. But I wanted…I wanted…

  I snatched my keys from my bag. I didn’t know what I wanted.

  I walked faster, feeling even more solitary as my footsteps echoed against the concrete. My Camaro gleamed like a red beacon across the deck, and I itched to get behind the wheel and put Buckhead behind me. I had to pack, find a place to stay in Savannah. Adjust Kenny’s schedule to full-time, redo the research I’d left with Marisa…

  And then I stopped.

  Parked next to my car was a silver Mercedes convertible, and propped against that was Gabriella. She was dressed as if it were still winter, in black stiletto boots and a light gray tunic, her red curls spilling over the fabric like blood trails.

  I stood right in front of her. “I am one hundred percent not in the mood for this right now.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “So you lie in wait for me in Trey’s parking garage?”

  “The cards said you would be here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And now begins the woo-woo portion of our evening.”

  She ignored the insult. “After our little brouille the other night, I asked the tarot what I needed to know about the situation with you and Trey. And there it was, in the center. The Tower. And crossing it, Death.”

  I almost laughed. Even a tarot skeptic like me knew the cards she was referring to—the lightning-struck Tower, crumbling into the sea as its hapless inhabitants tumbled down with it, and Death in all his skeletal glory, complete with pale horse and scythe. I’d seen them when Trey practiced memory work with his own seventy-eight-card deck, one of the brain training exercises she had him do, but there was nothing mystical in those pretty pictures. Gabriella, however, believed otherwise.

  “That’s why you drove over here?” I said. “To accost me in the parking garage with a tarot reading? Couldn’t you at least have waited until there was a thunderstorm brewing? Some rain and wind to spooky things up?”

  She glared. “You act as if this is nothing, that death surrounds you. Real death, not the death of metaphor or transformation. Flesh and blood death. This is what you are bringing to Trey’s life, and it has to stop.”

  “For your information, he’s up there right now, all alone, totally not dead. So your cards are wrong, and you’re wrong. But go on up there and show him all the mortal danger he’s avoiding by staying here while I’m in Savannah.”

  Confusion flitted across her face. “You’re going to Savannah? Why?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The point is, Trey is staying behind in his airless, absurdly secure apartment. So spare me the reckless endangerment lecture.”

  For a moment she seemed nonplussed, not quite sure of her next move. “Does he know you’re leaving?”

  “He told me to go. Told me he could take care of himself, his exact words.”

  “Non, I do not believe that. He would never send you away.”

  I pressed my fingers to my temple, which was starting to throb. On the other side of the lot, I heard footsteps and conversation. A family, headed for the park perhaps, or to get a nice ice cream. Not trapped with a deluded French chick babbling about death and towers as she plotted how to get back in my boyfriend’s bed.

  “Well, he did,” I said. “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

  Her expression hardened. “Trey has built himself a f
ine tower. And it will come down some day, but it must be dismantled brick by brick, with great care. Not pulled down because it suits your purposes. And if he falls, if he breaks on those rocks…” Her voice cracked, but her eyes stayed fierce. “I will hold you accountable.”

  My voice was soft, low. “Oh, now that is a threat.”

  “It is, yes. You may count on it. You do not know what I went through those months after the accident, what Trey went through.”

  “I know enough.”

  “You know nothing!” Her voice echoed against the concrete. “You weren’t there three years ago when he wouldn’t even speak, when he did nothing but stare at the wall. He was dying right in front of me, five days dying, but then he crawled back to life, he crawled back to me!”

  My memory flashed hard and fast to a different night, one five short months previous, in Savannah. Trey, bloody and beaten, lifting his head at the sound of my voice. He’d crawled back then too, on hands and knees. To me.

  “I know things you haven’t got a clue about,” I said. “So back off. He’s with me now, not you!”

  “That is not the point!”

  “Damn sure is. Because I’m thinking you realize what a good thing you lost—”

  “You don’t know my losses!”

  “—and maybe you don’t feel obliged to limit yourself to one man, but I am giving you fair warning. Hands off Trey!”

  She stared at me, her nostrils flaring, eyes crackling with rage. I thought for a second she was going to slap me, and I was ready for it, eager even. Instead, she snatched open her car door.

  “Very well. Go to Savannah. I’ll be here. And if Trey needs me, he knows where to find me.”

  She slid behind the wheel, checked her make-up in the mirror. After a hasty reverse that almost ran me over, she peeled out for the exit. I stood there until I couldn’t hear her engine anymore, then checked my phone one more time. No calls. No texts. I almost went back up. Almost. But eventually I made myself get into my own car and drive myself back to Kennesaw.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I sat in my car for a long time before I went in, sucking down the weakest cigarette I’d ever put between my lips. It was the best I could find at the corner store, and it was like smoking a dust bunny, but it eased the jitters and soothed the pounding in my head. I’d kicked the habit once, I would kick it again. Tomorrow. Not today. Today the sky was brilliant blue, the sunlight tart as lemonade, and since I didn’t have a blanket I could crawl under, a haze of smoke would have to do.

  My phone still hadn’t rung. Normally Trey called within five minutes of an argument, sometimes before I’d even exited the lobby. Suddenly going to Savannah felt like a desertion. A necessary one perhaps, but a desertion nonetheless. Rationally, I knew he was better off in Atlanta, that Marisa would keep him in line at least from nine to five, and that he had the apartment and the Ferrari and the suits.

  And Gabriella.

  I took another drag and thumbed him a quick text: I’m sorry. And then I waited. And waited some more. Trey never took more than a minute to text me back—he kept his phone in hand all the time. Unless he was showering or sleeping or…

  I checked the phone again. Still nothing. I jammed the pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment, shoved open the car door. I took one final hit, letting the smoke linger in my mouth, then dropped it to the asphalt.

  Inside the shop, the only sounds were the humming of the fluorescents and the quiet chirp of the security system. The square was deserted except for Raymond Junior’s barbecue joint. He was hosting a birthday celebration for someone in his reenactment group, and I could hear laughter and country music. He’d invited me to come, and I’d declined, but suddenly wandering over and grabbing a beer or two, maybe something stronger, seemed like a fine idea. I opened the front door….

  And an envelope fluttered to the mat.

  It was cream-colored, rectangular and innocent, my name written on the front in a flowing feminine hand. My heart skipped a beat. It was the same kind of envelope I’d gotten in February at the History Museum. I looked left, then right. The square was empty. I listened hard and heard nothing except the sound of Waylon Jennings across the grass. No retreating footsteps. No car screeching away with squealing tires.

  I tore open the envelope. Like before, there was a photograph, only this time it wasn’t of me—it was Hope. She looked nervous, her shoulders hunched. Another person was speaking with her, back to the camera, blurred and out of frame. Short brown hair streaked with sunlight, a brown leather jacket. Male? Female? Hard to tell from the half-shoulder. One thing was clear—neither Hope nor the person with her knew they were being photographed.

  A single line was written on the back: She liked what ’ere she looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

  “What in the double hell?” I whispered.

  The last envelope had been handed to me by a woman, her black hair cut in a sleek bob. She’d disappeared before Trey could pull to the curb, so I was the only one who’d seen her. And now this, also anonymous…unless.

  I scurried behind the counter, sparing a look at the deer head with its covert camera. Its glass-eyed gaze was dull and lifeless. No red light. I suppressed a surge of disappointment and snatched at the keyboard. I typed in my password and logged into the system, then pulled up the archived footage. I scrolled backward until I saw a figure at my door. Someone I recognized, all right, but not from the History Center.

  I grabbed my phone. “Raymond, you came over here and stuck an envelope in my front door.”

  “Yeah?”

  I could barely hear him for the noise. I raised my voice. “Who gave it to you?”

  “Nobody.”

  “What do you mean, nobody?”

  “I mean, I found it on my car. Had your name on it. I took it over to your place, but you weren’t there, and I had this shindig to deal with, so—”

  “So you left it.”

  He hesitated. “Yeah. Was that a bad thing? I swear, I didn’t know, I thought it was just one of your customers got the address wrong or something, I didn’t—”

  “It’s okay.”

  I looked across the square at his ramshackle restaurant, bustling now. Lots of people coming and going, reenactors and spouses and parents and children, noise and commotion.

  “Hey, you okay over there?” he said. “This ain’t some stalker, is it? I promised your uncle I’d look after you.”

  “I’m fine. Just let me know if you see anybody unusual over here, especially a woman. Short black hair, slim.”

  “Pretty?”

  “I guess so.”

  He laughed. “I’ll keep an eye out then.”

  After he hung up, I stared out the window at his party for a while. Then I went upstairs to my bedroom and pulled a plastic storage bin from under the bed. The original photo was right where I’d left it. I shook it free from its matching envelope and held it side by side with the new image. The handwriting was a perfect match. First the New Testament and now poetry of some sort. Vaguely familiar poetry.

  I picked up my phone and typed the line into the search box. Bingo. “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. It was a short poem, a monologue, and I had no idea what it meant. For the first time, I regretted skipping literature class in high school. But I knew how to fix that. I may have missed most of senior English, but my best friend Rico hadn’t.

  I sent him a quick text: Call me, poet man. ASAP.

  And then I waited. But no return texts came from any direction. I thought of going back to the car, getting the rest of the cigarettes from the glove compartment. Instead, I stuck both photographs in my tote bag. Then I went to the closet and got down a cardboard shoe box. I took off the lid, brushed aside the dried wrist corsage from prom and the tassel from my mortarboard.

  The photograph was on top, rubber-banded with others from th
e same afternoon. It was a shot of me on the beach at Tybee Island, denim short-shorts and a halter top barely containing my more illicit parts. I sat on the hood of my Camaro, the chrome glinting and gleaming. I grinned…but not for the camera. For the man beside me.

  John. With his stormy eyes and rock star hair and wicked grin. Even in the photo I could see myself preening in his gaze, happy to be looked upon with such ferocious desire. His eyes were like the sun, and when he turned them on me, I felt myself stretching and reaching and growing like a flower. But all suns eventually disappear below the horizon. Night always comes, one way or another.

  I thought of Trey, back in his black and white apartment. The man I loved, something I could say in my head even if it didn’t trip lightly off my tongue. He loved me too, with a love that was sturdy and deep-rooted. The girl in the photo would have been crushed by it.

  I put the photo in my bag next to the ones from my mysterious informant. It was the only picture I had of John, and I knew I’d need something to show people. Have you seen this man? When I got back downstairs, I saw the red lights behind the deer’s eyes flare to life. My phone vibrated almost simultaneously with an incoming call. I snatched it up.

  “Trey?”

  “I’m sorry too. Very much.”

  His voice was calm, but not flat. Back to himself again. I knew the other Treys were there, though, that one or the other was only a swing of the pendulum away.

  I hopped up cross-legged on the counter. “It seems like we’ve been saying sorry a lot recently. Like every day.”

  “I know. I’m sorry about that too.” He hesitated. “Are you still going to Savannah?”

  “Yes. But only for one night. Just long enough to check in with a few people who know John, see if they can shed some light on his current absence. See how Hope’s story pans out.”

  Silence at Trey’s end. I thought of my latest mysterious delivery, but kept that development to myself. Nothing good could come from throwing such a thing in his lap, not now anyway.