The Deep End

by AM Hartnett

  ‘I told you this would happen,’ he finally said. ‘In the beginning, I told you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ she said firmly. ‘What you said, rather arrogantly, was that you’d bring me out here and use me, and I’d be left wrecked because of it. That’s not what this is.’

  He looked down at his knuckles, white where he made a fist against his stomach. ‘No, I don’t think it is.’

  ‘You came at me hard that night you told me about your son. You turned it around and made out like I was asking too much of you, and then you –’ She placed her fingers over her mouth and her next words burned to be let out. ‘You are so full of shit, you know? You say you can’t feel anything, but that’s not true. That’s impossible. You feel everything. I saw the look on your face after your father showed up here, and when you told me about your son, and when you talked about Bette. You feel, but you’re just so damned determined to feel only the worst, aren’t you?’

  When she had finished speaking, she sucked in a deep breath and buried her face in her hands until the nausea passed, and then she murmured against her fingers.

  ‘It was never about what I wanted, Jacques. It wasn’t even about what you wanted. It was about what we wanted, and now what are you going to do to keep me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to do anything.’

  Grace didn’t look up as he strode past her and down the corridor flanked by desks loaded with equipment. He returned seconds later with a disc in his hand.

  ‘No,’ she said as he tapped the front of the DVD player, then said it again when he popped the disc in. ‘Jacques, please, I don’t want to see it.’

  She stood and made a grab for his arm, but he shoved her back onto the loveseat and, remote in hand, stood over her.

  ‘You’ll watch.’

  Grace drew her hands up to her chest. She knew that if she tried to leave he’d hold her back, that if she tried to cover her face he’d hold her hands at her side. He’d put her on her knees and twist her neck to get her eyes on the screen if he had to.

  He pressed a button on the remote, and as the word PLAY blinked yellow on the blue screen, she braced herself, but knew there was nothing she could do to prepare for what she was about to see.

  The picture appeared, a sickly green. Night vision. Only the lights were on, and the camera was poised in a corner so almost all of the room could be seen. After about a minute, eerie shadows stretched across the floor, and three people entered the room, two men and one woman.

  Jacques Taureau, Jeffrey Brown and Bette Laurin.

  Bette twirled midway to the bed and gave Taureau’s hand a tug, then skipped back and quickly shimmied out of her dress. The men followed suit, down to sickly white-green skin.

  ‘You don’t need to see the sordid details. We might as well get to the grisly part,’ he said icily, and raised the remote.

  The bodies came together cartoonishly fast on the bed, and then Bette’s lithe little form zoomed across the room. The lights went out, and a few moments later everything went still.

  Grace’s pulse picked up when Taureau returned the speed to normal. Two figures sprawled on the bed while another paced at the foot. For a few moments Bette Laurin was out of the picture, and the young version of Taureau rolled onto his back.

  She came back, naked and brandishing a kitchen knife. She stood at the end of the bed, just staring.

  How odd, Grace thought as she watched Bette carefully straddle her sleeping boyfriend. She had pictured mayhem and carnage, not this slow stalk. Her skin crawled and her stomach rolled as Bette sat on Taureau’s torso. The only sound was the buzzing in her ears as she held her breath.

  At first it seemed as though nothing was happening. Bette was just sitting there, hunched over her lover. Next to them, Brown slept on.

  And then came the most grotesque scene Grace had ever witnessed. The position of the camera and Bette’s body prevented her from seeing the cuts, but she saw the aftermath, and it was hideous. Taureau’s body came to life beneath Bette, some twitching, alien thing. He was so much bigger than she was, but she was the succubus who had already taken his life’s breath. He grasped at her, but she merely swatted his hands away.

  The calm in Bette Laurin broke at once. She scrambled back. The knife fell, glinting as it caught some light, and landed in the bed. On her feet now, Laurin shook, standing over Taureau as he continued to suffer. She clasped her hands in her hair and doubled over as though cramped, then spun around.

  All of that, and this was the worst to see: the look of anguish on her face as she stumbled away. It was watching someone realise that the nightmare that had shaken them awake was real.

  ‘I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering why in the fuck she decided to do it,’ Taureau said, and turned the video off. ‘There was a doctor at the trial who thinks she believed that I was someone else, and a part of her woke up and she was a little girl again, waking up with a man asleep in her bed, and she took her chance. That I believe. That I understand. What I don’t understand is, why me? Who not Jeff? Why did she pick me? What did I do to her that, when she broke, made her come after me?’

  Grace shook her head and opened her mouth, but nothing came out, not even a breath.

  His back still to her, Taureau spoke: ‘Now do you have it through your thick skull that I can offer you nothing that I haven’t already given? You know everything and you’ve seen everything, and now you can leave.’

  I won’t, she wanted to say, but the need to be away from the hard man he had revealed himself to be and the thing that had turned him that way overpowered her.

  Her insides rubbery, she pushed herself out of the chair and just stood there for a moment until the rush of blood passed.

  Then she left.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘I read Those Bones some time ago,’ Grace said as Everly Ledger hung up her coat. ‘I enjoyed it, even if it did make me cry like a baby. I like how you don’t go for the salacious bits, but portray these notorious people like they’re human.’

  ‘They are human,’ he said gently.

  Grace had been nervous about meeting Ledger in real life. After two decades on television, he was known for his calm demeanour and a voice made for storytelling, but he could have been temperamental and gruff away from the camera, and she wasn’t sure she could handle such a strong personality when the purpose of her visit made her feel so fragile. She didn’t know what she expected to get from the author of Burnout, but, whatever it was, it would be more than she got from Taureau.

  At first, Ledger refused her request that he should speak with her, but, when she explained via email that she had been to Mont Carmel, he replied with his address and asked her not to come until after six o’clock.

  ‘I like stories of real people, ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances,’ he explained of his best-known book as he led her into his home, a two-storey Victorian in an old picturesque neighbourhood, and offered her a seat in the living room.

  ‘Did you meet her? Alice Husbands, I mean.’

  ‘I did, and at seventy she was as unapologetic about killing her mother as she was when she was seventeen. I can’t say I blame her. Martha Husbands terrorised her entire family and, when you come right down to it, she deserved to die the way she did.’ He tilted his head at her and his eyes twinkled behind his glasses. ‘That usually gives people a good shake, but you didn’t even flinch.’

  ‘Nothing makes me flinch these days.’

  He watched her for a moment, then a smile crooked his mouth. ‘Quite the mess the senator’s gotten himself into, isn’t it?’

  Grace rested her hands on her knees and smiled. ‘So we’re getting right to it, are we?’

  ‘It’s hard to avoid the subject, even if the Taureau family wasn’t the purpose of your visit.’

  Indeed, it wasn’t surprising that Ledger brought it up. They could have been sharing a line at the grocery store and a newspaper headline would have sparked his re
mark.

  Less than a week after her return from Mont Carmel the story had broken and it had been splashed over the national news ever since. Dominic Taureau had stepped down from his role in the Senate, citing personal reasons. The same day, the woman claiming to be carrying his child came forward, followed by three others. By the time the spending scandals came to light, he was done.

  Grace wondered if it was Taureau who was behind the exposure, or Reeve had gone rogue, or a perfect storm had simply hit.

  She watched the news and waited for references to his ‘tumultuous relationship with his son.’ They would usually show two pictures: one of Dominic and his teenaged son smiling alongside the then Prime Minister, and a photo of Taureau and Bette Laurin, hand in hand as they left a concert in Montreal.

  If she left the television on, the photos would be shown on an hourly basis. A strange fascination took hold of her. She couldn’t stop thinking about Laurin, and hearing Taureau say, ‘What did I do to her?’

  And so she had emailed Ledger.

  ‘I’m dying to know about Jacques Taureau these days,’ Ledger said. ‘All those stories and the rumours over the years, and now I have someone in my living room who can tell me.’

  Grace chewed the inside her cheek and wondered whether she should tell him anything. His expectation was reasonable – she wanted something from him, he should get something in return – but, when you got right down to it, Everly Ledger was still a reporter.

  He leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at her. ‘Did he tell you about Shane?’

  Grace’s hands and feet went cold, and Ledger chuckled. ‘There. You flinched, and obviously you know about Shane, or Gregory, I suppose.’

  ‘I never imagined that you knew. There’s nothing about it in the book.’

  ‘I was paid very well to keep it out of the book,’ he said, then leaned back and folded his hands across his chest. ‘I don’t think I would have put it in anyway. I wasn’t writing an exposé. The story I wanted to tell ended when they took Bette away still covered in blood.’

  ‘Was it Jacques or Bette who talked to you?’

  ‘Both. Once they knew I was writing it with or without their cooperation, they agreed to talk separately. I went to Taureau first. I think he wanted to keep me occupied while Bette finished her pregnancy, but she was eager to talk and we did so by phone at first. She, too, liked Those Bones, and so that was my in. She was about eight months along when we finally met – that’s when I was given the contract and a cheque. I donated half to charity, mind you.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain anything to me,’ Grace said. ‘Though how would you have explained yourself if I didn’t know about Shane?’

  ‘If you hadn’t gotten that look on your face when I mentioned it, I would have spun some anecdote about old Shane Werner.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’m sorry for my rudeness, I haven’t offered you anything to drink.’

  ‘I’m fine. I just … well, I really only have one question for you, Mr Ledger, and I don’t know if you can even answer it.’

  He wiggled his fingers and shrugged. ‘I can certainly try.’

  ‘Did she ever say why she did it? I know that there was some testimony from doctors and specialists, but did she ever tell you?’

  ‘Ah, yes, the belief that she struck out at him because she was too disoriented to know where or even when she was. That’s what she told the police and the doctors, and later me … at first.’ Ledger seemed to struggle with himself, and after a moment of trying to form words on his tongue, he sighed deeply and slumped back. ‘She did it because Jacques was going to leave her soon. He never said so. Bette told me during one interview that they were starting to move in different directions. She only knew two lives: the one before Jacques, where there was only misery; and the one after Jacques, where there was everything she could ever want, even if she wanted it to excess – including his love and devotion. She could have easily attached herself to someone else in his circle with the money, and God knows there were enough of them hanging around, but she did love Jacques and she probably would have stayed with him even if he ended up without two nickels to rub together.

  ‘Once his grandfather got sick, after his last stay in rehab, his outlook started to change.’ Ledger’s tone was almost soothing, that of a natural storyteller, and every word created a picture in her head. ‘To put it in the simplest terms, he wanted to be a better person. Those last few months before the attack, he still lived as dangerously as possible, but he wasn’t the same. He got high and he got quiet. He didn’t want to go out as much and they fought when she started having huge parties at his house. Bette could see the change coming. The most desperate part of her couldn’t take it. She woke up and just decided to kill him, simple as that. Once she thought she had done it, the panic hit.’

  Grace stared at the floor and in her mind she saw the Bette Laurin of the tape, that pitiful creature who had woken up from a walking nightmare and fled.

  ‘That wasn’t in the book, either.’

  He shrugged once more. ‘I thought how much better it would have been to leave it up to the reader to figure out Bette’s motivations. You know, Miss Neely, when you get right down to it, the best thing that ever happened to Bette Laurin was trying to kill Jacques Taureau. In the months that followed, all her demons were finally vanquished.’

  ‘And he’s the one in prison,’ she murmured, and then straightened up at Ledger’s curious look. ‘He’s a recluse. He spends his time at his home. He only leaves to ride his motorcycle. Everything else comes to him.’

  ‘That’s not surprising. He was adamant against any attempt to treat his PTSD, and he was too terrified to ever self-medicate again.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘You’re not here on his behalf, are you?’

  ‘I never said I was.’

  ‘No, you didn’t, but I just assumed so. He must be something to you if you’re off looking for answers.’ Grace decided not to respond, and Ledger went on. ‘I can offer you a transcript of my meeting with Bette in which she told me this. It’s just a few pages, but it’s all there is. I could also offer you the recording itself.’

  A few minutes later, Grace left Ledger’s home with a flash drive containing the transcript and video file in her pocket. Sitting in her car, she tapped the surface of her phone and sent an email.

  She’d repressed the urge after returning from Mont Carmel. On the outside, she merely resumed her life. Returning to Taureau-Werner, to her sentry post in front of Caroway’s office, she’d been hit with a barrage from her co-workers: friendly faces danced around, asking questions about the mysterious Taureau, and snide comments came from those so inclined. After a little over a week, the questions stopped. An email came from Reeve, whom she hadn’t seen since he walked her to a waiting car at the airport, simply informing her that the secret cameras had been disabled one night. A padded envelope stuffed with a bra and one sock, left behind at Mont Carmel, had been waiting on her desk one morning.

  Meanwhile, Grace couldn’t stop thinking about the tape and couldn’t tune out those words: ‘What did I do to her?’

  She’d even relented and gone to visit her mother down south. She had been miserable and hot the entire time, and it had done nothing to take her mind off what had happened.

  Taureau had hinged his whole being on what happened that night. He’d given up everything because of it: his son, all of his friends but Simon, his whole life. One could believe that Taureau treated people like objects to be collected and returned when he was done with them, but by now Grace knew better; he reached out for them when the solitude became too much, then turned them away when the living overwhelmed him.

  She didn’t know how he could stand to be alone with it. She’d only seen the tape, and she couldn’t stand to be alone with it.

  Her stomach rolled as she tucked her phone back into her purse and ran her hand through her hair.

  There wasn’t much that made Grace second-guess herself, but she felt like she had done the wrong
thing in contacting Ledger.

  * * *

  Reeve’s appearance at her apartment was very different the second time around. As she served him his tea, it struck her how odd it was between them. They’d engaged in an explosive night a few months ago, but without Taureau in the mix Reeve held no allure for her.

  ‘Were you telling me the truth about the cameras?’ she asked and poured her coffee.

  ‘I oversaw their removal myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So he won’t be tempted to watch you any longer.’

  Grace settled back on the sofa. ‘He could have fired me, or paid me off.’

  Reeve raised a brow as he blew on the surface of his tea. ‘Would you have been bought off?’

  ‘No.’ She took a drink and gestured towards the flashdrive. ‘So?’

  ‘Put it in the mail.’

  ‘If it went lost and ended up God knows where …’ She shook her head and stared down at the small storage device. ‘I’ve been struggling with whether to do anything with it.’

  ‘Then why are you doing it?’

  ‘Because even if he hates me for it, it might be the one thing to get him out of Mont Carmel once and for all.’

  Reeve drummed his fingers against his thigh. ‘Why is it so important to you that he leave?’

  ‘Because if he spends every second of his life afraid, what’s the point of living at all?’

  He chuckled and set aside his cup, then picked up the drive. ‘That’s exactly what I said once. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference. He really is taking this brooding fairy-tale beast persona a little too far this time, if you ask me.’ He held the drive between his thumb and forefinger. ‘This could be bad.’

  ‘The last thing he said to me was that he’d go to his grave not knowing why she attacked him that night. The lie gave him no peace, so give him the truth.’

  Reeve dropped the drive back onto the table. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea. I think you should just leave it up to him to decide where he wants to go with you and not force him with something like this.’