by Bryan Smith
“Good. I’ll look forward to reading them.” He glanced at the guard. “Eventually. Thanks for bringing them.”
She smiled again. “You’re welcome.” She sighed. “I hate that you’re in here. You didn’t do anything. Not really.”
Rob’s expression turned dour. “I know that. You know that. The problem is convincing a jury.”
“What does your lawyer say?”
“He says there’s no real evidence connecting me to any actual killings. Which makes sense, because I didn’t actually kill anybody.”
Lindsey’s eyes flared as she leaned forward. “Hell, you’re as much a victim as anybody. I can’t stand that you’re in here while that spoiled little princess plays at home. It’s total bullshit.”
Rob laughed softly. “Preaching to the choir here, sister.”
“So…does this lack of evidence mean you’ll probably get off?”
Rob shook his head. “He doesn’t think I’ll be convicted of murder, at least not first degree. But we’re looking at some time for lesser charges.”
“How much?”
“He says there’ll probably be a plea deal and that I should accept it when it comes, which I guess I will. And he says it’ll probably be a max of ten years, with a chance of parole in a few years.”
Lindsey’s eyes glimmered with fresh tears. “Fuck.” She wiped the moisture away with the heel of her right hand. “So unfair.”
“Yeah.”
Rob felt deflated. He’d so looked forward to the visit from Lindsey. He hated that he couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t upset her.
Or…wait.
Maybe there was something.
He smiled again. “I love you, Lin.”
He saw the surprise in her eyes and was pleased by how happy she looked. She grinned. “Really? You mean that?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I guess I always have. I was just too stupid to ever do anything about it.”
The hostile guard rolled his eyes. Rob wanted to flip him off, but the potential consequences made him think better of it.
Lindsey wiped away more tears. “I…love you…too. So much, Rob. You just don’t know.”
“I do, Lin. I really do. Trust me.”
They talked the maximum amount of time allowed. Some of it was small talk. Things about family and friends. Things she might take care of for him while he was in jail. There were several more smiling professions of love. Then, all too soon, the time was up and she had to go.
She stood and the guard who’d come in with her led her to the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Rob. I love you. Never forget that.”
His vision blurred as the tears fell. “I love you, too.”
Then she was gone.
The other guard came over and jerked him to his feet. “That was so sweet. You keep that pretty face in mind when you’re taking it up the ass in here.”
He laughed as he steered Rob out of the room. It was the mean, leering laughter of a born sadist. He’d heard its like before.
But Rob didn’t care.
As long as he had Lindsey’s love, everything would be okay.
September 7
He had one last demon to face and that day of reckoning had come round at last. Chuck sat behind the wheel of his 2010 Porsche 911 Carrera, staring at the entrance to Big Sam’s Bar & Grill.
The car was a gift from his father. A hundred-grand set of wheels. A big gesture, even for his dad. The old man thought money was the answer to everything. Spend enough of it, make enough extravagant gestures, and eventually any pain you might feel should go away.
Dad was wrong.
His dad was like a god to him. It was a weird thing to know that even gods could be wrong. He’d learned a lot of hard lessons this year, many much harder than that. It was harder, for instance, to face your dead girlfriend’s grieving parents and try to explain to them why you hadn’t been able to save her. Why you were alive and she wasn’t. And the real bitch of it was they didn’t blame him. They even told him he needed to stop putting the blame on himself and lay it right where it belonged, on the killers. But Chuck couldn’t help it. Zoe was gone and she was never coming back. He should have saved her. Somehow. He should have found a way. But he hadn’t. He’d come up short, and the only girl he’d ever really loved was dead. A part of himself had died along with her. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever be ready for any kind of intimate relationship again.
But today wasn’t about Zoe. Nor was it about finding out whether there remained the potential for love in his heart. This was about Chuck Kirby being a man. This was about fighting back. And it was about regaining some small measure of pride. Zoe’s killers were out of his reach. For now. But he could start smaller than that.
He got out of the Porsche and walked into Big Sam’s. The joint wasn’t exactly jumping. A few couples were dining at tables. Two old guys sat at the bar, nursing beers. Chuck approached the bar, pulled out a stool, and sat down. The barkeep today was a much younger man than the ones who’d attacked him. He looked to be in his midtwenties, not too much older than Chuck. He was tall and fit, with closecropped brown hair. He was polishing a glass with a towel, but looked up as Chuck sat down. “What can I get you?”
“Bud draft.”
“ID?”
Chuck almost smiled, remembering the high-quality fake he’d used last time he was here. It wasn’t necessary anymore. He was legal these days, having turned twenty-one over the summer. He pulled out his wallet, extracted his license, and showed it to the barkeep, who nodded and began to fill a pint glass from a tap.
The barkeep looked at him as he set the glass down. “There ya go.”
Chuck took a sip from the frosty mug. “Ah…”
“That’s two-fifty. Or you can run a tab.”
Chuck handed over his platinum card. “I’ll run a tab.”
“Cool.”
“Maybe you can help me with something.”
The barkeep arched an eyebrow. “Yeah? With what?”
Chuck took a longer sip of beer and set the glass down again. “I was in here a while back. Shit, almost six months ago, I guess. There was another guy working here. We really…hit if off. I’m wondering if he’s still around.”
“You remember his name?”
Chuck nodded. “Joe Bob. Kind of a big guy. Long hair in a ponytail. Receding hairline…” Chuck trailed off, noting how the guy’s expression had darkened as he spoke. “Something wrong?”
The barkeep shrugged. “It’s just weird, I guess. That long ago…” He scratched his chin and squinted as he thought. “Hell, you must have met him right before he died.”
Chuck’s hand was in the process of lifting the glass to his lips again. His hand froze for a moment. He set the glass back down. “Say that again?”
“Sorry, man. He’s dead.”
“Shit.”
One of the old men signaled for another round. The barkeep put a fresh glass under the PBR tap and began to fill it. “Yeah. It was pretty brutal, man. Joe Bob was the regular closer back then.” He set the PBR pint in front of the old man and leaned against the bar again. “He got jumped out back one morning after closing. Somebody really did a number on him.”
Chuck frowned. “What do you mean?”
The barkeep’s expression turned grim. “Sorry to have to tell you this, since you guys hit it off, but whoever killed him cut holy hell out of him. He was tortured.”
Chuck drained the rest of his beer in one pull and motioned for another. “Shit.”
“Yeah. No kidding, right?” The barkeep poured him a fresh mug and set it down. “They found him handcuffed to the wheel of his own truck.” He shook his head. “He was all fucked-up, man. Ears cut off. Eyes cut out. Cops figure it was a drug thing. Joe Bob was a distributor. The guess is he was moving in on somebody else’s territory. And that somebody decided to set an example.”
Chuck grunted. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
Chuck knocked back the rest of his s
econd beer. “I think I’m done here.”
“Sorry to bum you out, dude.”
Chuck shrugged. “Hell, I barely knew Joe Bob. It’s too bad, but…what can you do?”
The barkeep swiped his card and handed it back with the receipt. “That’s too true, bud. The lesson here? Stay out of the drug business.”
Chuck signed the receipt and passed it back. “Yeah. No shit.”
He walked out of the bar and got back behind the wheel of the Porsche. He started the car and drove around to the back of the building. There were two cars out back, a single small loading bay, and an overflowing blue Dumpster. A shiver crawled up his spine as he surveyed the back lot. Missy Wallace had been here. He could feel her presence. He experienced a mixture of anger and deep confusion. Killing Joe Bob, he was certain, had not been a case of exacting revenge on his behalf. It made no sense. She hated him. There had to be some other motivation. He thought about it some more and came to the only conclusion that made any sense to him. Missy Wallace was a lot of things, nearly all of them bad, but she was smart. And cold. She knew what men were like. She would have known how likely it was he’d return here one day for his pound of flesh. So she’d decided to take his chance at that away from him, too.
Just as she’d taken Zoe.
You fucking bitch.
Chuck sat there a while longer and wondered what his next move should be. There were some immediate and obvious impulses. He could get blind drunk. Go back in the bar right now and just get started. He could spend the rest of his life getting hammered and stewing in his anger, lamenting his powerlessness.
Or he could just let it all go.
He could accept that things were the way they were and go back to just living his life. And moving on. He thought of something his father had said over and over during the summer. It is what it is. A stupid, overused phrase. It had always annoyed Chuck, but hearing his father utter those trite words so often had pushed him to the point of near insanity. But maybe Dad had been on to something there. Maybe there was some small bit of wisdom in those words.
And maybe, just maybe, it really was time to let it all go. His grief. His bitterness at Emily Sinclair’s survival after playing dead. The deeper bitterness he felt every time he thought about Julie and Missy still being free. His regret and his self-loathing over his failure to save anybody.
Just…let it go.
He was pretty sure it was what Zoe would want.
And it would be the last thing Missy Wallace would ever expect.
For the first time in months, a genuine smile brightened Chuck’s face. He put the car in gear and drove away from Big Sam’s forever.
October 31
Early evening on Halloween, and the neighborhood was alive with a spooky vibe appropriate to the event. The leaves had turned and a strong wind was scattering brown piles of them across the streets and sidewalks. Adults and children wandered about in costume. One girl in a sexy nurse outfit staggered out of a house party and puked into the bushes as Lindsey drove by in her Pontiac Sunfire. An athletic-looking guy in a devil costume held her hair back as she heaved her guts out.
Lindsey had to chuckle.
Chivalry ain’t dead yet.
She turned down another street, went down a block, and turned in at the parking lot outside the apartment complex where she lived. There were more drunken revelers milling about here. More parties and more people in wild costumes. She lived in the shadow of Vanderbilt University, in the Hillsboro Village neighborhood, and here Halloween was mostly a really good excuse to get stinking drunk. Lindsey was thinking she might crash one of the many parties happening later in the evening. She was in a mood to celebrate.
The prosecution had finally offered its plea deal and Rob’s attorney had accepted on his behalf. And it was just like they’d been told. His sentence would be ten years, but he’d almost certainly be out earlier than that. When he got out, he’d still be a relatively young man in his late twenties. He would still have a shot at a productive life as a solid citizen.
More importantly, as far as Lindsey was concerned, he would be forever in her debt. She smiled as she got out of the car and threw the door shut, barely resisting the urge to skip along as she walked down the sidewalk in front of her building and climbed the steps to her third-floor apartment. The apartment she was still essentially sharing with Rob. His uncle was covering Rob’s portion of the rent for now, though lately he’d been making noises about helping her get a house. Lindsey was resisting, because she liked being in a place where she’d spent so much time with Rob. She liked to sleep in his bed and feel his presence. She could still smell him in the bedsheets and in the clothes that hung in his closet, especially in the collection of rock and roll and horror T-shirts he’d worn so often. That scent was there no matter how many times she washed them, and that comforted her. She slept in a different one every night, lying there in the dark as she stared up at the ceiling and thought about the future.
She entered the apartment and closed and locked the door behind her. After setting her purse on the dining-room table, she went into the kitchen and grabbed a cold beer from the refrigerator. She pried the cap off and took a deep swig. It was beyond refreshing. She carried the bottle out to the living room, curled up on the sofa, and turned on the TV. The local news was all over the story about Rob’s plea deal, but on CNN and Fox, at least at the moment, it only rated a two-sentence ticker alert. Which figured. The cable outlets were way more interested in the girls. Good. Her hope was that Rob’s story would continue to fade into the background over time. Then, when he got out, they could spend a relatively normal life together.
And again, it would be a life in which he could never forget or fully repay his debt to her. She would wait for him. She would see to his affairs. And she’d be loyal to him, with the small possible exception of the occasional one-night stand. Five years or whatever was a long time to go without getting laid, after all. Still, she wouldn’t give her heart to anyone else during that time and would be there for him when he got out.
Her eyes grew wet.
She’d waited so long for this chance. He belonged to her now. She saw it in the desperate longing evident in his eyes every time she visited him. Heard it in his voice every time he told her how much he loved her. It filled her with an intoxicating sense of power. She had a strong hold on him now and she would never, ever relinquish it. In fact, she meant to exploit it to the fullest. Among other things, he’d never be allowed to forget what a mistake he’d made in ignoring her all those years.
She finished off the beer, stretched, and yawned. Maybe she should take a short nap before heading out to one of the parties. She returned to the kitchen and dumped the empty bottle in the trash can. The beer had made her feel a little tingly. Pleasantly so. Maybe she’d hook up with some guy later. It’d been more than a month since the last time.
She was smiling as she entered Rob’s room.
That changed when she sensed the movement behind her and felt the hand at the small of her back.
She let out a yelp as she was shoved forward. The bedroom door slammed shut as she stumbled a few steps and dropped to her knees. Panic gripped her, made her heart race and her breath come fast. Someone had broken in while she was gone. She hoped she wasn’t about to be raped.
She bounced back to her feet and turned around.
It was her.
“You.”
Missy Wallace smiled. “Yes.”
Lindsey moved backward, retreating until her back met the wall. She looked different from the last pictures that had circulated. The computer-enhanced ones that showed her with blonde, spiky hair. Her hair was longer now and black again. But there was no mistaking that face. Lindsey glanced at the bed and noticed a discarded ball cap and oversized black sunglasses. A very minimalist disguise, but apparently it worked.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
Missy laughed. “So you’re Lindsey. Rob talked a lot about you.”
Despite
a terror level escalating by the second, Lindsey was interested. “He…did?”
Missy nodded. “He did. He said you guys were bestest pals and had been since you were kids. I thought he had to be fucking you, but he denied it. And I guess I believed him. Rob’s a sincere motherfucker.”
“He was telling the truth.”
Missy smiled again as she moved a slow step closer. Her hands were clasped behind her back and Lindsey had to wonder what she was hiding. “But here’s the sticky point. I knew you had to have some interest in him. And I guess I was right, huh? You see, I’ve been watching you a while. I know you visit him. I even found your blog online. So he says he’s in love with you?”
She moved another step closer.
Lindsey scrunched up harder against the wall. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run without having to get around Missy. The room’s lone window was on the opposite side of the room. Even if she could get to it and take a leap through it, she was three stories up. Her fingernails clawed at the wall as she took a step sideways. Her skin crawled as Missy’s eyes roved over her body, frankly appraising her the way a man would. Scoping out the competition.
She whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“You already said that, you stupid bitch. Now answer my question. Is Rob in love with you?”
Hot tears streamed down Lindsey’s cheeks. “He is.”
Missy nodded and came another step closer. “Well, that’s too bad. I have this thing. Personal quirk, I guess you could call it. I don’t like to share. But it’s okay. We’ll get past it. I know he’ll come back around in time. I guess I won’t see him for a while, but that’s okay, too. I’ve forgiven him for letting me down. I’m gonna give him a pass on that. But you, Lindsey?”
Her hands came away from her back.