From Yesterday

by Miriam Epstein

  I see her in the bedroom. She is sitting in a desk chair with her back to me. I rush over to her.

  "Elyse! What are you still doing here?"

  She doesn't answer and now I see it is because she can't. Her eyes are wide open and so bloodshot that the whites aren't even visible. Bruising around her throat says she's been strangled to death. I touch her neck to check her pulse like they do on television, but the second I touch her ice cold skin I realize there is no point.

  Elyse is dead.

  And I don't even get a chance to mourn her because my cell phone rings and once again it is Elyse's name on the caller ID.

  I pick it up immediately. "Garrett?"

  "Yes, how did you know it would be me?"

  I take a deep breath. "Because I'm looking at your dead girlfriend right now. Why did you have to kill her? It's me you wanted, not her."

  "I came home and found her looking through my private things, Paige. Or can I drop that act and call you Rebecca? She saw things she couldn't know about, Rebecca. Such a genuine woman like that? She would have turned me in."

  Every time he says my name, my real name, I hear his brother Turner instead. It makes me sick.

  "Turner was your brother?" I ask.

  "Yes, he was my younger brother. He wasn't right in the head, and he made some crucial mistakes, but he was family and you and your bitch sister destroyed him. Now I'll take care of you. Come and meet me in the old men's locker room on campus. The one they don't use anymore since they built the new one."

  I scoff at him. "Are you kidding? Why would I do that? I don't have a death wish. I think I would prefer to call the police and let them figure you out."

  Now it's Garrett who is laughing. "Sure, you can do that, but there are consequences for your actions. Get over here in the next 15 minutes and don't call the cops or I will kill your father and your boyfriend."

  He ends the call.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The old locker rooms are next to the abandoned stadium on the far side of the campus. It was supposed to have been torn down last year, but there was some kind of delay with the funding of a new project. The place is a complete shambles; the track is worn and cracked, the stadium benches are in pieces, and the grass hasn't been cut in so long that the blades reach past my ankles as I trek through it. I make it to the men's side of the locker rooms within seven minutes of Garrett's phone call.

  There is no door, just an entrance that curves around so that no one can see inside the room until they have turned two corners. When the room comes into view, I am struck by such a sense of familiarity that I almost lose my grip on my gun, which is in my right hand at my side.

  Brady and my father are bound at the hands at feet, but not with rope. Garrett, obviously smarter than his brother, has secured their limbs with plastic twist ties. There is no slipping through those things, as far as I know. Duct tape around their mouths just like Nicole and I had, though. Brady seems unharmed, but my father has blood running down his forehead from a cut that is possibly up on his scalp because I cannot see the source. They both look at me as I enter the room; identical horrified expressions on their faces. They know what I know: I am probably going to die and tied up like that, there will be nothing that they can do to stop it from happening.

  "Stop there, Rebecca. That's far enough,"

  Garrett steps out from behind a row of lockers and yanks Brady up to his feet. He puts Brady in front of him like a human shield.

  "There, now we can talk without you trying to shoot at me. Wouldn't want to miss me and hit your boyfriend, would you?"

  I keep my trigger finger straight; it's never smart to touch the trigger unless you are ready to shoot, but I move it closer so that I can get the gun off faster if I need to.

  "I have had a lot of time learning how to properly use guns since I was a kid, Garrett. Because of your brother. I wouldn't be so sure that you're safe just yet."

  I hear him click the safety on his gun. It looks like a Sig, and I hope so because the one time I used one it kept jamming on me. It would be great if that would be the case now. Wishful thinking, I suppose. They are supposed to be pretty reliable weapons.

  "I'll take my chances."

  I am tired of his games. "What are we doing here, Garrett? Tell me what you want from me and I will give it to you. Just let my father and Brady leave."

  "Can you give me my brother back?"

  "This is just about revenge for you? Nothing to do with money? Because your scum brother let that little secret slip out that night. He told us all about your little kidnapping scheme. How the two of you planned to take Nicole hostage and ask my parents for five million dollars to get her back. Too bad he jumped the gun and ruined your plan. He never mentioned he had a brother, only that he was supposed to wait for someone, but I have figured the rest out today. I knew there was something I didn't like about you when we were at dinner the other night."

  Garrett hits Brady in the ribs with the butt of his gun and Brady falters. He wheezes through the tape and goes down to the ground. Hard. Garrett points the gun to his head as I raise my arm and hold my gun out with both hands.

  "Watch it. You won't be able to hit me before I put a bullet in his skull. You dumb bitch, you don't know anything. That money was going to change our lives. Our family had that farm in it for at least a hundred years. When the economy took a nose dive we lost everything and it was your father and his business partners that refused to go in with my parents on their plan to develop a new crop that could have saved our farm. After the bank seized the land, my parents had to get minimum wage work that barely paid the rent in our crappy two bedroom apartment. They certainly could no longer afford the medication that Turner needed for his Borderline Personality Disorder. So, I blame you."

  He isn't facing me when he talks about placing blame. He has turned to my father.

  "No!" I scream, too late.

  Garrett shoots my father. It hits him in the chest, on the right side. My father's eye close and he slumps over, blood pouring from his wound.

  Garrett turns back to me. "There, that's better. Now as far as the money goes, well, you're going to pick up that pen and piece of paper over there and write down the account number and password to your trust fund. Isn't online banking amazing? I'll verify that this is the correct information, and if it's not, I will shoot Brady in the head. Do it now."

  There is little fight left in me. Most of it ran out of the hole in my father's chest. I write down the information.

  "Good, now take out that pretty cell phone of yours and login to your account. Unhide the password so that I can see you are typing what you wrote down on that piece of paper."

  I do what he asks. When I'm in my account and he's satisfied that I have given him the correct information, he tells me to close the banking app and put the phone away. I have just enough time to hit button in my campus police app before I get the phone back in my pocket. Now I can only pray that it worked.

  "Good job, Rebecca. Now let's address the topic of revenge. Because I already have mine. I took it for my brother, who's life your sister took. Don't look so surprised. My brother had a camera set up in that barn. I saw when you fired that shot and missed. I saw your sister get the gun from you and not miss. I know she was the one who killed him. That's the real reason she shot herself, isn't it?"

  I nod. "I have always thought so, yes."

  "And I'm sure you already know it was me that started messing with your head back in Ohio. And obviously here. That was for my parents. They started drinking when we lost the farm. My father was drunk the night he lost control of his car and crashed into a tree. My mother died instantly, but he lived for a few hours before they found him. I'm told he suffered horribly until he finally died, pinned in that car. It was a major bonus that you were institutionalized because of the stalking. I didn't intend to make them think it was you, but I ran with it afterward. Good job with the name change, by the way, but next time don't use names associated wit
h your family. It took me a few years, but I found you."

  I am surprisingly calm now. I want to keep him talking in the hope that campus police got my signal. "So, was it you that finally went to my father and told him where I was? Why didn't anyone know who you were?"

  "It was me. I flew to Cleveland yesterday, went to see him and let him know how to find you. I needed him here so that I could make you suffer more by watching him die. People knew who I was, Rebecca, they just didn't know what I looked like because I was offered a full athletic scholarship to school and was able to remain there even after my parents lost their money. Garrett is my first name, but no one ever used it. Everyone used to call me Tate, because the only thing I would eat as a baby was potato."

  My arms are getting tired. I don't know how much longer I can hold the gun at him. The left one is especially sore from using only that when I was giving him my account information.

  "Now it's your turn to answer a question, Rebecca. Why did you let everyone believe that you shot Turner and not Nicole?"

  I glance at Brady just to make sure he is still breathing. He is, but it looks painful every time he sucks in a breath. He must have a broken rib.

  "Nicole was the confident one. She watched out for me. I looked up to her. Our roles were reversed that night. She could not handle having shot your brother, and she did it to save my life. While we waited for the police to get there, I told her. I said, 'just forget what happened. I shot Turner, not you'. I repeated it over and over until I think I had actually convinced her that was what happened. Obviously not, but I tried. She tried to apologize in her suicide note, but only I knew what she meant and I never told anyone."

  Brady and I lock eyes. I am losing my grip on the gun and he can see it.

  An opportunity presents itself just then. I hear a noise from outside the locker room. Garrett hears it, too.

  "What did you do?" he yells. "Did you call the cops, bitch? I'll kill your boyfriend."

  When he started yelling at me, Garrett took the gun from Brady's head and pointed it at me. As he goes to move it back, I take my shot. He sees it coming and fires back at me. I miss the kill shot, only hitting him in the shoulder and not even the one he's using to hold his gun.

  I drop to the floor. Pain, white hot and searing spreads throughout my abdomen. My vision gets a little cloudy, but I can see Brady trying to move toward me, but Garrett is already standing over me. He puts the gun to my head and I close my eyes and wait to die.

  I hear a gunshot.

  And I continue to breathe.

  I see Garrett hit the floor next to me. Shot in the head, he's gone.

  I pass out.

  I'm in and out of consciousness while I try and piece time together. I see the campus police and some county officers. Obviously the police app worked. At some point, I'm placed on a stretcher and am taken out of the locker room to an ambulance. I wake up again and feel that ambulance moving and hear the sirens wailing.

  An EMT is sitting with me. "You're okay," he says. "The bullet passed right through and was far enough to the side that it didn't hit any major organs."

  I try to speak but my voice comes out a whisper. "And the others?"

  He smiles. "I know the one guy with the rib injury is okay. Just a fracture. It will heal. The gunshot to the head is gone. And the older man with the chest wound is touch and go. Hey, the pain medication I gave you is kicking in so just relax."

  I pass out again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I am next to be called. I'm sitting in my seat, sweating under the heavy graduation gown in the Miami May heat. And then I hear my name.

  "Rebecca Levkin."

  I jump up and get to the podium where I shake hands with the Dean and take my degree. This is what I've been waiting for my whole life and it's every bit as spectacular as I thought it would be.

  After I take my seat again, I look out into the crowd and find my parents. My father spent almost six months in the hospital after he was shot and required several surgeries to repair all the damage surrounding his heart. Initially, he had trouble getting around because his heart could only take so much. He would get tired quickly and it frustrated him. Eventually, he healed up quite nicely and my mother even convinced him to retire.

  My parents come down and visit me so often that they finally caved and bought a condo in nearby Sunny Isles. I tease them about being so Russian that they have to find all their friends, even in a different state. My mother finds it less funny when I refer to the people in their area as comrades. I remind her that she should be happy we have managed to repair our relationship. And we really have. In fact, it's probably better than it ever was. We even call one another one the phone and talk about things I never thought I would discuss with my mother. Like my boyfriend.

  Brady sits next to them. He graduated last semester and has already been accepted to Miami University for his Master of Social Work. The school is far, all the way down in Coral Gables and I'm nervous that we won't see much of each other. We'll deal with that as it comes.

  Once the ceremony is over, I run to Brady and he lifts me up in the air and spins us around. We kiss, but keep it mild because my parents are watching us.

  "Congratulations, Bec!"

  It took him a while, but Brady eventually stopped accidentally calling me Paige. Once the secret was out, I wanted to go back to my real name. Rebecca was too long for him, he said, so he started calling me Bec and I'm fine with that. My mother not so much. She gives Brady the side-eye.

  He notices. "Sorry, Mrs. Levkin."

  "Ignore her," I say. "She loves you."

  And it's true. My parents are happy with me and happy with my choices, including my choice of boyfriend. I have wished for this kind of happiness my entire life. The only thing that dampens the joy I feel is the absence of my sister. Even though I'll never stop missing her, I have finally learned how to cope with her death and stop looking for her in everyone I meet. We honor her every year on her birthday. I also started doing the same for Elyse. We were friends for a short time, but she still made an impact on my life.

  "I also love you," I tell him.

  He smiles. It took me a long time, way longer than when he said those words to me, but I finally did. How could I not love someone who stuck by me through some of the worst moments of my life, yet managed to make even those times better? He was patient with me while I kept secrets from him. He never even pushed me for the full details of that night; not until he was sure I was ready to tell him

  Now I find it easy to love people. I have finally learned the importance of family. I have finally stopped running.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  First and foremost, I have to thank Dr. Michael Hettich. It was his Creative Writing that inspired me to start writing again. Without his encouragement, I would never have decided to do something with my writing. You have my undying gratitude.

  Arijana Karcic, who designed my beautiful cover and then basically gave me a self-publishing 101 course. You're truly invaluable.

  Bryan Rietter, who gave up his time to make sure this book didn't have too many typos.

  Christa Cervone, who let me ask her a million questions about publishing on messenger many nights.

  Ana Zaun, who also let me ask her a million questions.

  My friends, I wish I could list you all individually, but I cannot. You know who you are. You have supported and encouraged me all along.

  My family, these poor people have to put up with a lot!

  Thank you to all of these people. Without you, I am nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Copyright © 2014 Miriam Epstein

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