High Risk

by Rick R. Reed

  She flipped a page of a book, The Hours, and wondered how her eyes managed to actually accomplish the act of reading while her brain registered nothing.

  Perhaps he’s done enough. Maybe he’s satisfied with the little scare he’s thrown into me. It’s possible. Who knew? The guy is obviously nuts. Beth flipped another scanned, but unread page. And that’s what worries me.

  She put down the book when she heard the mailman’s step outside, the sound of the mailbox closing. She got up, remembering with dread that Abbott also had this avenue to torture her, opened the door, and took the stack of envelopes from inside the box. She sifted through them. A ComEd bill, an American Express bill, an invitation from the Steppenwolf Theater, a circular from Nordstrom, and…a letter.

  Beth paused, then turned over the letter, looking for a return address. The enveloped was almost illegibly written, but it was clear enough that it was addressed to Mark Walsh. Fullerton was spelled with only one “L.” The envelope was cheap; she could see the green-lined steno paper inside.

  She put the bills on the vestibule table and took Mark’s letter into the kitchen

  It could be anything. A letter from one of his clients. Something from a relative. A friend from college. There’s no reason to think it’s from Abbott. Oh really? No reason? Don’t be stupid.

  She stared at the envelope, turning it over and over, noting the Chicago postmark.

  Finally, she set it down and took the teakettle from the stove, added a little water and set it back on one of the burners, turning the gas to high. I feel like some soap-opera housewife. If this is something that’s none of my business…

  Then a wonderful thought occurred to her: maybe the letter was from someone with whom Mark had fooled around. Wouldn’t that make everything easier? She could confess then, effectively removing Abbott’s power from him, because Mark couldn’t very well be too overwrought if he was doing the same thing.

  But somehow Beth knew, for sure, that the letter was from Abbott. She didn’t have psychic abilities, wasn’t even sure she believed in such things, but she had no doubt it came from him.

  If you really loved your husband, you wouldn’t be in this position. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

  When the steam emerged from the kettle’s spout, Beth held the envelope over it, turning it until the glue began to moisten and the flap began to curl. Beth loosened the edge so the steam could do its work, completely unbinding the closure.

  She sat at the breakfast table and pulled the single sheet of paper from its envelope. The writing was sloppy, a jumble of childish blue ink jumping out at her from green paper, at first making no sense.

  But the name on the bottom made perfect sense.

  Abbott Lowery.

  She had to give him points for honesty…using his real name.

  Her throat went dry and her temples began to throb, but she began reading anyway.

  Dear Mr. Walsh,

  Your wife is a slut.

  Beth closed her eyes. What if this letter had come tomorrow, Saturday, when it might have been Mark who retrieved the mail?

  She didn’t know if she wanted to continue reading, but she really had no choice. Could she really stop?

  You probly know, from the other day, what she’s been up to when you been working downtown. You probly saw the beer bottles and the whore clothes she had on. I know you saw them, because I was just leaving when you got home.

  Beth crumpled the letter, feeling numb. It was proof enough. In just a few short lines, Abbott had managed to prove and confirm the suspicions she knew had to be lurking at the back of Mark’s mind.

  She took the paper and envelope to the sink, found a book of matches in a drawer, and lit it all aflame. She watched the flames eat the paper.

  Abbott was getting closer all the time.

  * * * *

  “Did we remember to get dishwashing liquid?” Beth called over her shoulder as Mark kicked the back door shut behind him. Both were laden down with groceries from Whole Foods.

  “Was it on the list?” Mark set a bag on the kitchen table.

  “No, but I told you in the car we needed it.”

  “I guess we forgot.”

  She waved her hand. “I’ll pick up some tomorrow.” She took off her jacket, set it on the back of a chair and began unloading groceries. Mark slid out of his leather jacket, and picked up Beth’s from the chair. “I’ll put these away and be right back.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She smiled and pecked him on the cheek. “Go relax. It’ll take me only a few minutes to get these put away and then I’ll join you. It’s a good day to watch a DVD. Maybe we can finally get around to The Apartment.”

  Mark went toward the bedroom.

  “Beth? Can you come in here?”

  She stiffened when she heard an odd quality in his voice. What was it? She put down the box of Special K and headed into their bedroom. Why was she suddenly feeling dread?

  The first thing she noticed was the way he was looking at her. Eyes wide. Mouth open.

  The dread intensified, becoming a small, clutching animal grabbing her innards and squeezing.

  “Someone’s been here.”

  And then she looked at the bed.

  All of her lingerie, every bra, every pair of panties she owned, were spread across the white comforter. It was a confetti of silk, cotton and lace…in pastels, creams, and whites. Each pair of panties had the crotch cut out. The centers of all the cups of each bra were also missing.

  Beth rubbed her forehead. She wanted to sit; the room started spinning. But she didn’t want to go near the bed. She leaned against the wall, slid down it until she rested on the floor.

  Abbott has been here.

  Had she said the words aloud? She didn’t know; she was too stunned. She looked at Mark to see any reaction.

  But his face remained numb. He looked down at her. “Who would do this?” A smile played inappropriately about his lips; its lack of mirth made her feel sicker.

  Beth shook her head, tried to summon some saliva. “I don’t know.” She stood up on quivering legs. “Excuse me.” She brushed by him and went into the adjoining bathroom, making it just in time to vomit into the toilet.

  Why is this happening? Beth flushed and moved to the sink, where she splashed cold water on her face, then cupped her hands and drank greedily from them. When she raised up, she saw Mark’s reflection in the mirror.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think so. Just shook up.”

  “You know something about this, don’t you?”

  She felt a gagging sensation at the back of her throat once more, but held down the bile. “Why would you ask a thing like that? No, of course not.” She couldn’t stop trembling. Why not just tell him the truth? It was all going to come out anyway. The truth was lurking, just around the corner.

  Mark came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…it’s just that I need to find a reason. It’s my nature. But sometimes there isn’t a reason. Sometimes people are just nuts.”

  Beth turned and buried her face in his chest so she wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. Insanity, yes. But there was a reason.

  Mark gently moved away from her. “I’m going to call the police.”

  And Beth immediately thought of the police arriving and somehow deducing the culprit. After all, his name had been on their caller ID. It wouldn’t be that difficult to make the connection, even if it was only circumstantial. Once Abbott was apprehended, as they said in the crime shows, the whole story would come out.

  And she wouldn’t come across well.

  She latched onto Mark, clung tightly. “What would they do? Take down a report? File it and forget it?”

  Mark sighed. “You’re probably right.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “But I don’t feel safe, now. Now that someone’s been into your…things.”

  “We’ll change the locks.”

  “Yeah…I guess we need
to do that right away.”

  “Give me a second to calm down and I’ll find a locksmith.”

  Mark sat on the bed, picked up a pair of panties and stared at it. “I don’t get it. What would someone gain from doing something like this? We’re good people.”

  “That’s right,” Beth whispered. “Good people.”

  * * * *

  Beth pressed the phone to her ear, trying to make sense of her mother’s words. But the vision of her cut-up underwear from the night before kept rising up, like a movie playing of its own will, over and over, until she could no longer stand it. Until she was left—again—feeling helpless and violated.

  “I tried this recipe for sole last night. You use sour cream and Tabasco. It was delicious.”

  “I’ll have to get that from you and try it,” Beth said. “Mark’s always saying we need to eat more fish.” The words came out without inflection, as if she’d read them off a page. Her mother didn’t seem to notice. Her mother didn’t seem to notice much when talking about food.

  “Well, the sour cream kinda negates some of the health benefits, but you could use plain yogurt.”

  Each pair of panties had had the crotch cut out.

  “It tastes almost the same, and there’s a lot less fat.”

  “Sure.”

  Had he looked like a crazy man when he had done it? Wild? Slashing and slashing, his handsome face screwed up in rage?

  “I made a salad with oranges to go with it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Or had he done it slowly? Cutting with care and precision, savoring the moment when she would come in and see his handiwork, knowing Mark would be with her?

  “For dessert, I made this chocolate mousse that just uses egg whites. Low cal, but you’d never believe it from the taste.”

  “Really?”

  He had been in their bedroom, gone through her things.

  She wanted to move.

  “Call Waiting” interrupted her mother’s menu.

  “You want to get that, Beth?”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  Beth looked at the display. It was him. She pressed the flash button and didn’t say anything.

  After a pause, he said, “Good morning.”

  She twisted a lock of hair around her finger, released it. She felt cold. “Why are you doing this? What can I do to get you to stop?”

  “You mean like a good, hard fuck?”

  I deserve this. Guilt washed over her. “No,” she said weakly. “It’s just that…haven’t you punished me enough? What are you getting out of all this?” The question was as crazy as he obviously was. She already knew the answer. Still, she listened to his reply.

  “Teaching you a lesson, Beth. That’s all. You’re a bad girl.”

  “I know.” She stared out at low-hanging clouds. Dark and bruised, it felt as though they were pressing in on her. “You’re right. I realize that now. I’m ready to make a new start. Really.”

  “You’re so full of shit, Beth. But you know what? I am gonna give you a chance to start over.”

  Her pulse raced. Could this be coming to an end? Could he finally be tiring of the game? “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is, I’m gonna end this. Now, Beth, how do you think would be the best way to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said dully, knowing things were far from over.

  “I’ll tell you. I’m going to let your pretty-boy husband—what’s his name? Mark?—in on the lesson. Then I’m sure he can finish my work for me. I’m sure he already suspects—hell, I’m sure he knows—something.”

  Beth listened as he took a drink of something, swallowed.

  “I’m all dressed up right now, Beth, ready to head downtown. I think I look good enough to walk into that fancy law firm downtown your husband works for. Gonna pay him a little call.”

  “He’s in court all day!”

  “Now Beth, don’t add lying to your sins. I already called his secretary.” Abbott snickered. “I even made an appointment. 11:30.”

  Beth glanced at the kitchen clock. 11:30 was only an hour away. She pressed her fingernails into her palms until it hurt. There was no point in trying to reason; he would just enjoy her distress even more.

  She hung up the phone, then stared at it, daring it to ring again.

  Waiting.

  But it didn’t.

  * * * *

  A short while later, Beth headed down Lake Shore Drive, pushing the vehicle to go faster, faster…75, 80…whipping in and out of lanes, until the little car shook with her demands. The engine let out a high whine, audible even through the wind shrieking off the lake.

  Up ahead, brake lights and orderly lines of traffic. All stopped.

  “Oh no,” she whimpered. “Not an accident. Not now.” The next exit was a couple of miles off. A couple of miles that could take a half-hour to traverse. Beth glanced at her watch: 11:05.

  She gritted her teeth. She had to get to his office before Abbott, had to do what she could to prevent this from happening. She would do anything.

  But the traffic didn’t move.

  And she was in the far-left lane.

  Trapped.

  11:07. 11:08.

  Beth glanced to her right. Just this once…She put on her most dazzling smile for the driver next to her, a middle-aged, balding man in a suit and a Lexus. She signed to him that she needed to edge in front of him.

  It worked. When the traffic moved a little, he let her in front of him, smiling and winking.

  She wanted to give him the finger, but she smiled back: gratitude.

  She used a distressed expression for the woman in the next lane. Blind luck allowed her to pass finally into the far-right lane, where she could get onto the shoulder and whiz to the next exit: Irving Park Road. There would be lights, stop signs, and traffic to deal with on the local streets, but at least she would be moving.

  Twenty minutes to get downtown, park, and race up to Mark’s office.

  And what was her plan, anyway? She would have to think of some pretense to lure Mark out of his office before Abbott arrived.

  And what would be the point? Abbott could just come back the next day, or the next, each time without a warning to her.

  She flew down the inner drive, dodging taxis and pedestrians, and rocketing through intersections on the tail ends of yellow lights. Maybe she could talk her way out of this. It wouldn’t be hard to show Mark what a lunatic Abbott was. Yes! She could even say that he had come on to her and that when she wouldn’t respond, he vowed to “get” her. It would be Abbott’s word against hers.

  But there was the matter of the way she was dressed that day when he came home, the beer bottles and wineglass…

  She would make something work. She had to. She couldn’t imagine losing Mark. She exited onto Michigan Avenue, merging with the traffic heading south. Mark would take her word. Of course he would. Why would he side with some crazy bartender, pitting his words against those of his wife? And then Mark would have to know he was the one making the prank calls and, worse, breaking into their house.

  11:25. Floes of traffic ahead frustrated her. She would never make it. She would walk into Mark’s office and be greeted with a knowing, winking grin by his secretary. And in his office, Mark would be waiting, his face crumpled with hurt. Betrayal. “Why, Beth, why?”

  She pressed harder on the accelerator, dangerously swerved into the left lane and just made it back into her own before colliding with a gray BMW; the blare of its horn wailed by her ears. She surged ahead, almost running over a pedestrian, almost rear-ending a taxi.

  Almost. Almost.

  At least she was far enough down the inner drive that she could see the John Hancock clearly. It wouldn’t be long now. But would it matter?

  The dashboard clock now read 11:30. Shouldn’t alarms be going off somewhere? Shouldn’t there be a chorus of shrieks?

  Denial, Beth thought, could be a powerful thing. She would have to trust in her husband
’s desire to want not to believe, in spite of some very convincing evidence to the contrary. Hey, it could happen…

  * * * *

  Beth could feel every nerve synapse in her humming as she rode the elevator up to Mark’s office, drumming her hand on the rail, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other. She felt a slick sheen of sweat on her face. Her stomach churned. The other people on the elevator regarded her out of the corner of an eye.

  She pushed through the glass entrance to the law firm, made a left, and headed breathlessly down a hallway to Mark’s office. Just as she imagined, the mahogany door to his office stood closed.

  Angela, his secretary, glanced away from the monitor screen in front of her. “Hey! What a nice surprise. Lunch with the hubby? Just have a seat. I’m…”

  Beth brushed by her, a sick smile her only response.

  “Beth? He’s with someone.”

  Beth opened the door, stomach churning, knowing what she would find.

  Mark was behind his desk. He looked up in surprise when the door opened.

  So did the man and woman sitting in the leather guest chairs in front of him. The man was older: salt-and-pepper hair, wearing khakis and a sage green jacket. The woman, with straight black hair, turned to regard her, eyes rimmed in red, a Kleenex in her hand.

  “Oh…I’m sorry,” Beth whispered, backing. “I didn’t know.”

  No one said anything as she backed out of the door, closing it. Her heart pounded. She grinned at Angela, who stared at her, mouth open.

  “I didn’t know,” she stammered and began to walk briskly down the hallway toward the exit. She felt dizzy, as if she might collapse. Too much had happened. This game was too much for her.

  You could end it, you know, if you’d just come clean with Mark. Tell him the truth. Beg his forgiveness. Promise to get help. You’ve thought it before: what you’ve got is an addiction. And for addictions, there are treatments. Besides, maybe you could convince Mark to believe this was the first time you’ve done anything like this…

  “Beth?”

  Mark’s voice caused her to freeze. She took in a deep, quivering breath and turned. He stood a few feet behind her in the hall. His jacket was off, his tie was loosened, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He ran a hand through his corn-silk hair. He was such a handsome man. She almost wanted to burst into tears. What was wrong with her?