by Dete Meserve
She looks up at the ceiling as if her response might be written there. Then she stomps her foot. “I won’t have it. It’s hard enough on Zack to lose his dad but then his mom deserts him, days before Christmas, slipping away on some reckless mission that makes no sense to anyone. This isn’t fair to him.”
“He’s fourteen, not five. If I leave sometime around five in the morning, I can get there in a few hours, just as the sun is rising. And I’ll be back in less than twenty-four hours.”
“You’re not going to find him there, Sarah.”
“I know that, Rachel.”
Her voice is soft. “Then why go?”
“I think it will help me . . . figure out what to do next.”
“You should ask police or FBI or the bodyguard to go with you.”
I shake my head. “And do what? Ask them to hang out with me while I figure out what I’m going to do with my life? Look, if someone was trying to harm me, they already had plenty of opportunities all the times I drove to CIT or walked to the coffee shop.”
“True, but remember what happened last time you left.”
“Rachel, be logical. Whoever lured me out to Buckhorn Campground wasn’t after me, you, or Zack. None of us ever was in real danger, even if they said we were. They were after something in the house.”
“At least take someone with you.”
“I won’t be alone. Kate Bradley from Channel Eleven wants to interview me. I’ll ask her to meet me there tomorrow afternoon.”
That idea seems to bring her anxiety down. But only a notch. “If Mom or Dad were still alive, they’d say—”
“They’d say what? That I shouldn’t go to the place my husband talked about in his very last telephone message to me? The place where we got engaged?”
Tears slip out of her eyes again. “Mom would say stay home and spend Christmas with your son. And with me. And you’d probably have listened to her.”
I reach out and hold her hand. “I’ll be back before Christmas and I’m going to be fine.”
But even though I don’t think I’ll be in physical danger, I cannot imagine what it will be like to witness the Summer Triangle’s greatest celestial treasures—the Orion Nebula, the Milky Way, and the Andromeda Galaxy—without Ben beside me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
BEN
Where is she? How many days have passed since he left her the message about the Summer Triangle? Why hasn’t she come?
He feels panic rising as he realizes he cannot remember all the details of the accident or what happened after. There are giant potholes in his memory, gaps that confound him. Had the bullets come from a car? Or from someone on foot? He touches his fingers to his throbbing temple and feels the lump where it hit the windshield. Bruised. Crusted blood.
At least the memories are starting to flow together. Before, he could only remember fragments of moments that happened after he called her and told her his plan. It was as if darkness descended on his brain in the place where the memories lived.
His legs are heavy, like they’re filled with thick molasses, the kind his grandmother used to make in her kitchen in the heat of summer, the light breeze fluttering the lace curtains above her window, Ella Fitzgerald playing on the radio.
That’s how his legs felt that night, too, as he lumbered across the open field, his left leg dragging behind him.
He was lucky. The gunshot missed an artery. Instead, it grazed his leg, slicing off a layer of skin and muscle. The tourniquet he made from the sleeve of his shirt had slowed the bleeding but not stopped it.
His ragged breath came in big gulps as he ran, eyes scanning the shadows, wondering if whoever shot him was still hunting him in the field. Or while he trembled and heaved in the purple-flowered bush, had they seen no movement and assumed he was dead?
He spotted a street a hundred yards or so ahead, a row of small houses with their porch lights glowing. They become his destination. The adrenaline pumping through his veins dulled the sharp pain stabbing his left thigh, so he kept running, finding a rhythm, evading the pain as he plunged through the darkness.
He thought of Sarah. He had an image of her as she was bearing down, bringing Zack into the world with one final push. Her face was bright pink and glistening with sweat, yet everything about her was lit from within, more beautiful than physical appearances ever could be. When he saw his son for the first time, he felt a wave of emotion so powerful it nearly knocked him off his feet. He felt life.
Before the doctors handed her the baby, he wrapped his arms around her and she linked her arms around his neck. Her eyes met his and time slowed. No words were uttered, but a million were said.
Love. Powerful love burst through him.
His memories of Sarah carried him as he plodded past the row of houses and slogged down each city block, with every step the world becoming hazier as if someone was putting a shower curtain before his eyes. Sarah’s high, trilled laugh when we pulled the Santa out of the wedding-gift box. Sarah heaving telescopes into the back of the car on one of their many stargazing jaunts. Sarah’s lips, the warmth of her body against his, intoxicating him as they made love in Santa Barbara.
Then he recognized the streets. Aurora was not far.
It was only a mile—a distance he could normally run in under nine minutes—but it took another twenty to reach his car in the Aurora parking lot.
His lungs had turned to stone. Drenched in sweat, he rested his head on the steering wheel, pressed the ignition, and heard the familiar hum of the engine. The air conditioning blasted cold air on his face, but he couldn’t muster the energy to turn it down. He glanced at the wound, deep and jagged, blood gushing down his leg.
His mind raced to decide what to do. He’d told her he was headed to the Summer Triangle Haven. But that was before he realized how much the bullet had ravaged his thigh. Maybe he should drive to the police station or hospital instead. Or call Travis and get another bodyguard?
One thing he knew with absolute certainty. He could not go home and put his family in danger. They would be safer if he stayed away for the night.
As he glimpsed the pale moon rising in the evening sky, the plan made sense. He’d head to the Summer Triangle Haven. Rest up. In the morning, he’d formulate a strategy and put a new plan in action.
He glanced at his leg. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dark clouds have formed on the horizon, but there’s a light-gray chunk of the sky that illuminates my way into the desert. As that lighter section narrows with each passing mile, my anxiety begins to grow. I try to find comfort in the warm lights from the dashboard, the nearly full tank of gas, and the car full of food, batteries, Rachel’s laptop, and medical supplies.
Rachel and Zack had helped pack the car as though I might be headed into the Amazon: antibiotics, medicines for altitude sickness, two first-aid kits, and seemingly every antiseptic known to man. At the last minute, they’d thrown in some serious mosquito repellent and antimalarial pills, even though I’m more likely to encounter scorpions in the desert—for which we had packed no remedy.
I don’t know what kind of emergencies they thought I’d encounter on the highways and byways that will take me to the Summer Triangle Haven, but stuffing the car with everything I might need for any possible situation seems to persuade them to accept my journey.
Still, I wasn’t taking any chances. When Rachel was busy filling up several water bottles, I’d slipped the gun out of its hiding place in the telescope case, loaded it, and placed it in the console between the front seats. I’d also called Kate Bradley, suggesting that she meet me at the cabin in late afternoon for an interview, a redundancy measure in case anything goes wrong while I’m there.
After all this preparation, it’s the darkening skies that are troubling me.
An hour into the drive a bright light flashes across the sky. The low-hanging clouds rip open and, without warning, dump a massive amount of rain. I know from experie
nce these desert storms don’t last for very long, but that doesn’t stop my mind from imagining my car spinning out on the rain-slicked road with no help available for miles.
I clutch the wheel tighter, and as I hurtle in the dark toward the cabin, it feels surreal to me that only a week ago I was returning home to my family after celebrating the biggest discovery of my career. I was one of the first humans in the world to “see” an asteroid that’s been hiding in our orbit for thousands of years. And now I’m alone in a torrential desert storm on the way to a location deep in the Anza-Borrego Desert, trying to come to grips with the reality that my now dead husband was also a murderer.
As my windshield wipers struggle to keep up with the deluge and the wind, I feel like I’m being pulled back as much as I’m pushing forward. I know that I must accept the evidence that Ben killed Rebecca Stanton, but I can’t reconcile that with what I know he did for me in the days after her murder.
Somehow he’d bought and decorated the most beautiful of Christmas trees, a tradition stretching back to my childhood that he knew always made me happy. He’d rekindled our ritual of saying “I’m sorry” in the most unusual way, by etching the words—in code, no less—on a meteorite as old as our planet. He’d even scoured the rafters of the house in what must have felt like a futile search for the long-lost Wedding Santa, an icon of our early years of marriage. And he improved on my lost infinity engagement ring with a stone he knew was so rare and unique that I’d never stopped thinking about it.
The memories of our best moments come flooding back, and I feel a lump swell in my throat. I fight the urge to cry. None of the moments he’d helped me remember were particularly big or grandiose. They might seem insignificant to others, but they were small moments made big because we’d made them—we’d built them—together.
I wonder if he too was searching for a better way to be together. If all of this was his way of creating a new start, a blending of powerful old memories with new possibilities.
As the last bit of gray shrinks into the black skies, I realize I’ll never really know.
Thick tears fall from my eyes and roll down my face, echoing the raindrops on the window.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
BEN
If only he hadn’t pressed the doorbell. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be caked in blood and sweat or alone in a cabin with no food or water or contact with the outside world. He would not have been poisoned. Shot.
He remembers the sleek feel of the stainless-steel button outside of one of the most notable apartment building addresses in Manhattan. Pressing it firmly.
No answer.
Then he craned his neck to find the number somewhere on the brick facade. This was the 400 block of Madison Avenue, right? It was barely five in the morning, and in his intoxicated state he wasn’t sure. But he hoped he hadn’t pressed the wrong doorbell and some irate neighbor was now heading down with a baseball bat. Or worse.
He cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the brass-and-glass front door at the expansive lobby dominated by a crystal chandelier orb. Where was the doorman? In a white-glove apartment building like this, there was always one round-the-clock.
He knew she was angry. Probably spooked by his threats. She had good reason to ignore his insistent ring.
Suddenly the front door burst open and a woman with trendy lavender hair and two rambunctious French bulldog puppies on leashes sprang out.
“Morning,” she grumbled as the dogs took off down the stairs, dragging her behind.
He grabbed the ornate brass door handle before it shut behind her.
“Hello?” he called into the empty lobby.
He rode the elevator to the penthouse floor, and when he stepped out, his shoes sank into white plush carpeting. The sweet scent of lilies from the over-the-top hallway floral display wafted through the air.
The door to her apartment was cracked open a little. Enough to signal that he was welcome to come in.
He stepped inside and took in the breathtaking view of the midtown and city skylines, still glittering against the nighttime sky.
He called out her name. No answer.
He placed the purse on the white granite kitchen counter, then noticed two wineglasses and a bottle of red. 1985 Cheval Blanc. Expensive. An invitation? A peace offering?
He called out her name again. Then lifted the wineglasses, wondering if she expected him to bring them to her.
A Montblanc chronograph watch lay next to the bottle, as if it had been casually left there, even though he suspected she’d staged it. Where had he seen it before?
The wine bottle was light. Half-empty. He picked it up and headed to her bedroom door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Headlights in my rearview mirror. I don’t know how long they’ve been there, unnoticed by me. A few miles. Maybe longer.
The lights hang back about a mile, far enough that they appear to be just tiny starlike dots in my mirror. But they are keeping pace with me.
The car disappears for a moment, then crests the small hill behind me. The headlights are back.
A twinge of fear ignites in my belly. There is nothing—no street lights or homes—on this stretch of the road, and the dim lights I can see are in the distance, set back far from the road.
I press down on the accelerator, bumping up my speed another ten miles an hour and with it, my heart rate.
I place my hand on the loaded gun, feeling brave. I’ve watched enough YouTube videos on how this particular Glock works that I thoroughly understand the mechanics, even if I’ve never actually pulled the trigger.
The car behind me appears to keep pace with my uptick in speed. I try to imagine a reason for someone to be on this deserted byway into the desert just before dawn but none come to me.
I glance down at my phone. No signal.
Damn.
From the GPS map in the car, it doesn’t look like there are any markers of civilization—gas stations, truck stops, etc.—anytime soon, so I start scanning to find a place where I can do an easy U-turn. That way I can head in the opposite direction for a mile or two and see if they keep following me.
When I spot the dirt road on my right, I wrench the car in a tight turn, and pull a wide U, my tires spinning on the sandy dirt road before locking in on the pavement again.
As I head back down the road toward the headlights, I’m hoping I’ll see that the occupants of the car are an elderly couple or a family with a bunch of kids sleeping in the back seat. I imagine the relief of that discovery, knowing I’m not being followed after all. Then reality sinks in. Given how dark it is, I probably won’t be able to make out exactly who’s in the car.
I think about how Ben and his bodyguard had been shot while riding in an SUV. Was I in similar danger here?
It’s too late to turn back.
My breathing is shallow as the headlights get closer. Then just as the distance between us closes to less than five hundred feet, the car makes a sudden right turn down a two-lane road.
I can’t see the passengers or even make out silhouettes. All I can see are the red taillights barreling down the dirt road.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
BEN
He breaks into a smile as he sits up for the first time. Swings his legs over the side of the bed and places his feet on the floor.
He pushes himself up. Searing hot pain shoots through his thigh as he stands for the first time. Stiff. Wobbly.
In the moonlight that streams through the slats of the wooden blinds, he examines the white pills Leonard had lined up on the nightstand. The letter C is imprinted on one side and the number 94 on the other. Leonard had just referred to it as “leftover antibiotics.” Whatever they are, they’re most certainly the reason his fever has subsided and the throbbing pain has dropped a notch or two.
He swallows another pill and drains the water from the cup. This is the last of it. He’d also eaten the final dry morsel of the granola bars yesterday.
H
e takes ten shaky steps to the bathroom, each one easier than the first.
He has a plan to get water. It’s come to him over the last few nights. He’s even dreamed parts of it. Maybe it’s possible. Or maybe, like dreams, it only seems achievable.
At sunrise, he’ll walk the half mile to the well. One thousand steps, which he can count off in groups of fifty or a hundred.
Surely he can do a thousand steps.
There’s a campground about a mile—as the crow flies—from the well. He knows he won’t be able to reach it, but if he can break a shard from the mirror on the bathroom wall, he could catch the sun’s rays and flash for help. Someone might notice.
But Christmas is coming soon. Or at least he thinks so. Will anyone be at this remote campground this time of year?
Then he hears it. Twigs crackling outside his window. He’d heard the sound of small animals rummaging in the leaves outside his window before. But this sounds bigger. Deliberate.
He draws a quick breath and listens. Silence.
Two more loud snaps.
Does he dare hope it’s someone outside who can help him?
Or is it someone who wants to do him harm?
He glances at the moon through the blinds and can’t think of a legit reason anyone would be walking around these remote cabins in the middle of the night.
He takes a step, a shuffle really, toward the window but just as he reaches it, he hears a flurry of twigs breaking and the sound of whatever it is scuttling in the leaves and racing away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Summer Triangle cabins are actually named the Mescal Bajada, after a nearby mountain range and an enormous ranch that was located there years ago. They’re no-frills—one room with a fireplace and bathroom—and you can’t reserve them. Show up with cash, and if a cabin is available and the owner happens to be around, he’ll hand over the keys.
As the sun rises over the hills, I spot a campground and know I’m getting close to the Mescal Bajada. The campground is mostly empty this morning save for a few hardcore hikers whose tents and travel trailers dot the otherwise deserted area. My uneasiness grows as I pull off onto a narrow dusty road that meanders around boulders and through the tamarisk trees until it will eventually reach the Summer Triangle cabins. With each passing mile, images flash through my head, memories of being here with Ben.