by Dana Feldman
“This reminds me so much of a night many moons ago,” Gabe reflects, a chilling tone in his voice. “Amelia, she was my second wife. I met her shortly after your mother died.”
“My mother didn’t die. You murdered her.”
“Look, there simply isn’t enough time right now to go back and forth about all of this, ok. We can have a real conversation as soon as we’re done with this.” I catch his cold glare through the rearview mirror. He plans to kill me tonight, and our security detail has no idea where we are. I can just imagine Evelyn panicking now.
We pull into a parking spot, and I hear him pull the parking brake up. I don’t know what to do. Do I try and make a break for it and run? Or do I follow him and try to kill him? Neither option is looking very good for me. I’m not armed.
This moment is when I feel the cool metal of the gun Bob gave me on my lower back as Peter pushes it underneath me and into the waistline of my jeans. I look at him, and he shows me that he’s also carrying a gun that’s in the inner breast pocket of his jacket. He looks me in the eyes and we don’t need words. I know what he’s telling me to do. Fight.
Gabe is out of the ambulance, coming around back to the doors to open them for us. I feel groggy from whatever was in the mask that had been put over my nose and mouth.
In the split second that we’re alone in the ambulance, Peter tells me to follow his lead. “I’ll protect you,” he says to me just as the back doors open. “Just trust me and follow my lead.”
I have just enough time to nod my head, to let him know that I understand, before Gabe opens the doors and is standing directly in front of me. Everything is a blur as I sit upright and start to get up. He takes my hand to help me, and the touch itself, sends me reeling into the memories of a past that I’ve worked diligently to overcome.
The wounds, I realize, are still fresh in my mind. I cower at him before I even realize consciously that I’m doing so. There’s a look in his eyes that I’ve never before seen.
His rages with me were always filled with a hatred that would soon evolve into guilt. I’d learned to wait those out, until the apologies and tears would come, that were always filled with promises that things would change for the better.
This look that he’s now giving me is one that tells me that this isn’t a rage like any before. This time, I know, there will not be any apologies or promises. Perhaps tears, but those will come only when all is said and done.
The man I loved is no longer in there. He’s gone forever. He will kill me tonight, this I know. But will he also kill his son? I wonder how much sway Peter will have in changing his father’s mind about his plans for me.
I’m now up on my feet with an arm around Peter’s neck, and another around Gabe’s, as we walk towards the dock and down the ramp. I am feeling more and more exhausted with each and every step that we take.
I hold my head up. It feels heavy on my neck. I look towards the boat and see the name painted on the side, Cuts Like Glass, and I wonder how he ever managed to get it back.
“I thought it was sold at auction,” I say, my words becoming groggier with each passing second.
“Yes, and a wealthy man named Eddie McDonald purchased it.”
“Since I doubt that he gave it back to you of his own free will, I assume that you killed him?” Peter asks.
“I’m so terribly sorry that you think so poorly about your dear old dad, Peter. I don’t kill everyone that I come into contact with.”
“No?” he asks.
“No. I am Eddie McDonald. Well, in theory anyway and on paper.”
“Who are you, really? I mean, I do deserve to know who my father is, don’t I?”
“Yes, I do suppose that you’re correct. My birth name is Gregory Michael Anderson. My father, your grandfather, came from Texas. Oil was at one time the family business. We did well.”
As we get to the boat, the two help me up and onto the deck. I’m wondering when Peter plans to kill Gabe, and I’m also wondering what in the hell is taking so damn long.
As Gabe runs over to the foremast to prepare us for sailing, I notice another man standing close by.
“Don’t you two think of doing anything funny. Jay here will make sure it’s the last thing you do,” Gabe warns.
We both remain still, waiting to see what happens next. When I thought that we only had one man to kill things were a bit easier, but now with two, things are much more complicated. I watch as Gabe pulls the rope free that’s tying us to the dock, and he pulls the anchor up and into the boat. We’re beginning to slowly pull free of the dock, and I know I’m as good as dead if we leave here.
I can feel Peter’s fingers as they intertwine with mine. Covered in darkness, this show of solidarity remains a private one. It lasts a mere few seconds, but it’s all that I need to ensure that we’re together on this, whatever happens.
“Sit,” Gabe orders us both. We do as we’re told and sit as the boat pulls out of the channel. I look around at a sight that I’ve never before seen. The entire marina, other than a few flashlights and candles, is in complete blackness.
Gabe has now taken the wheel and is steering us through the channel. We pass the other boats and go out towards the open ocean. I can hear the voices of other boaters, many of which have turned this fiasco into a party.
I dare not scream or say anything. As Gabe just proved to us with the paramedic, he’s ready to kill anyone who gets in his way. With only his blood wanted on my hands, I keep my mouth tightly closed. I am also fighting to keep my eyes open, but my eyelids are becoming increasingly heavy with each passing moment.
“Did you do this?” I ask, my words drawn out and almost unrecognizable as all my senses dull and slow down.
“I believe that you’re asking if I did this? By this, do you mean the blackout, Ella? You were always like this, and it’s quite frankly driven me nuts for years. You act like you’re stupid, asking questions that any reasonable, half-intelligent person would have the answers to. A stupid question deserves a stupid answer. No, Ella, all of this is a complete coincidence. There just so happened to be a power outage in all of Marina del Rey and the twenty-mile radius that surrounds it. I just got extremely lucky when I decided to kill you the very same night that all of this graciously fell into my lap.”
“Dad,” Peter says, attempting to appeal to a softer, human side in his father, “you don’t have to kill us. We will give you everything you need. There won’t be any evidence left to give to the police.”
“Son, I do not plan to you kill you both. You and I have a lot of catching up to do. As for the evidence, I have my men in your place right now going through every single inch. We’ll find it. Oh, and Ella, you thought that you were so clever getting a safety deposit box at the bank, but I have someone there right now clearing the contents. Jay, the whole power outage idea was truly brilliant, if I do say so myself.”
I want to scream, but my throat is like sandpaper, and I can’t speak. I try to stand up, but as I do everything turns to black. I can see golden flecks of light shoot across my line of sight, as I look side-to-side.
Just then the ground comes up at me, almost making contact with my face as I fall forwards, my knees buckling beneath me. I feel Peter grab me just before I smack into the deck of the boat. The last thought I have: This is how it ends for me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE REAL DEAL
I feel my body being carried down the steps into the cabin below. I’ve been hurled over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I’m just aware enough to feel with my hands his arms. These are not familiar arms to me. They’re rock solid and bulky.
Peter is more on the lean side so it isn’t him. The other man on the boat with us, well he’s more on the thin, slighter side. This has to be Gabe. He flings me onto the bed with a grunt. As I look up at him, I try to focus my eyes but it’s dark down here.
“Gabe,” I say, trying to get him to talk. “Why are you doing this?”
“Yo
u forced my hand, Ella. You left me with no choice.”
It’s definitely him. I know there is a soft, human side in there somewhere. I’ve seen it. If I can just appeal to him on that level, I might have a chance.
I reach my hand back behind me, hoping that if I am unable to see him, then he’s also unable to see what I’m trying to do.
“It’s not there,” he says, just as I realize that the gun is no longer tucked in the waistband of my pants. “What were you going to do, Ella? Kill me?”
He starts to laugh loudly, obnoxiously. I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. He can do it now. Kill me. Peter isn’t here to save the day. No one is.
“Protect myself,” I answer. “If that meant killing you, then so be it.”
He sits down on the bed beside me. I can see his face in the moonlight as it lightens the room through the small window just above. Surprisingly, I don’t see the hate that I expect in his eyes. He looks sad. He doesn’t want to do this. I can hopefully use this to buy myself some time.
“Funny how life works,” he says. “I was once the man you ran to for love, protection. And now you feel that you have to have a gun to protect yourself from me. How did we get to this place, Ella?”
A chill runs through me as he puts his hand on mine. I don’t pull mine away because I need to use his vulnerabilities to my benefit. He then begins to run his fingers through my hair, slowly, gently, the way he used to do in the early days.
I remember countless times falling asleep as he did this. It now heightens my senses, putting me on full alert. I try and am somewhat able to fight the exhaustion that had a hold on me just moments ago.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “But it saddens me every day.”
“We were happy once, yes?”
“Yes, Gabe, we were. I remember thinking to myself that I’d found the real deal. True love. My soul mate,” I say, beginning to laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” he asks, sounding angry.
I immediately stop myself. “You’re right. There isn’t anything funny about any of this.”
“Then why did you laugh?” he asks, a demanding tone in his voice.
I have to think of a good reason why, or he might snap my neck the way he did the paramedic.
“I was just remembering the good times,” I say finally. I was really laughing at the complete absurdity of ever thinking that this man here could ever have been my knight in shining armor.
This seems to satiate his need for an answer though as his hand squeezes mine, and he leans down and kisses me on the forehead.
“There were many of those,” he says. “It’s a real shame that it had to end like this.”
A renewed desire to survive takes over, and I decide that if I play my cards right, I’ll be able to get out of here alive.
“It doesn’t have to end, Gabe. Look, we’ve both done things that we’d like to take back if we could. Agree?”
He nods his head. I watch as he wipes away a tear with the back of his hand.
“We’ve both been terribly wrong in all of this,” I say. His fingers are once again running gently through my hair. “We can start again.”
I wait for him to say something but at least a minute passes, which feels like an eternity. I know he’s thinking about what I’m saying. And then suddenly, his fingers are in a grip hold and he’s pulling at my hair, almost ripping it from my scalp.
“You fucked my son!” he screams, now straddling on top of me. “And I watched you. You never fucked me like that.”
There’s a fury in him that I’m no match for. I try to think quickly, to come up with something to say that will make him stop. The throbbing, burning pain in my head is making this a challenge. I was never good with physical or emotional pain. My threshold is surprisingly low. Now his other hand goes for my throat. If he starts to strangle me, I’m dead.
“I did it to get back at you, to make you jealous,” I yell. After a few seconds he stops pulling at my hair. “I knew you were watching us.”
He leans on me, pushing down with both of his forearms, which lay on either side of my face. His face is only inches from mine. I can smell the whiskey on his breath.
“Show me. Make love to me like that.”
My heart races, the thought of having sex with this man, of him this close to me, inside of me, makes me want to die. Maybe I should just let him strangle me and get it over with. Then that will to survive takes over again, and I know what I have to do.
“Prove to me that what you’re saying is true.”
I do as I’m told. I keep thinking of Peter. I imagine that I’m with him and not Gabe. I close my eyes and imagine that it’s him inside of me, making love to me.
“Open your eyes and look at me,” Gabe says. “The way you did with him.”
I do as he demands, and I manage to get through it by imagining Peter and I getting off this boat. I imagine living a life with him. Whatever he’s done, it’s nothing compared to this.
Peter and I can work through whatever has happened between us. I’m sure of it. So, I continue to look into the eyes of my husband, while I think of his son. The mind is an amazing thing. You can create any reality that you want if you just focus.
I’ll do whatever it takes to get through this.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
SITTING DUCKS
I awake to the sound of familiar snores. Gabe is sound asleep with his arms securely wrapped around me. I try to wriggle free, but even in his sleep he manages to hold onto me so tightly that I’m unable to get away. I still myself, not wanting to wake him. I do not want to endure anymore of what I’ve just had to live through.
Finally, after several minutes he rolls over onto his other side, freeing me to get up. He was always a toss-and-turner in his sleep so I knew that if I waited long enough, he’d eventually roll over.
Quietly, swiftly, I’m up on my feet. I look behind me, back at him, to make sure that he’s still asleep. A heavy sleeper, I know that I have at least a few minutes before he moves again, or reaches over to feel for me.
I grab my pants and shirt off the floor and quickly put them both on. And then I head to the door and as silently as possible, open it. I remember that this door used to creak, but we’d put oil on the hinges. I’m grateful that when I open it, it’s quiet.
Though I have absolutely no idea what to expect on the other side, I venture out. There’s no one in the tiny galley kitchen or bathroom so I assume that they’re both up top at the bow or stern. I carefully walk up the narrow steps and pop my head up to look.
And that’s when I see the shock of my life: Peter, the man that I trusted, sitting on the rail of the boat sipping coffee and casually chatting with Gabe’s accomplice. I’ve always promised myself that I wouldn’t trust easily again, that I’d be more careful from now on. And I’d been good, trusting no one. I always sensed that he was too good to be true, that he had to be bad. Oh how I didn’t want to be right this time.
Mid-laugh Peter looks up over the rim of his coffee mug as he takes a sip. “Ella, you’re up,” he says nonchalantly. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
Could he be angry with me for having sex with Gabe? Is there any possibility that he believed that was anything other than an attempt to save my life?
He doesn’t look angry though. He actually looks happy and carefree, as if he hasn’t a worry in the world.
“Care for a cup of coffee?” Jay asks as I see the bandaged hand and wrist motion me over to have a seat. I look at the dried up blood that has stained brown what was a white bandage.
“Dr. Bryer, what are you….I don’t understand this,” I stutter in complete horror. I always knew there was something off about him!
“I know. I’m sure this is all a lot for you to take in, especially this early in the morning.”
“Yeah, she’s not really much of a morning person, especially before her coffee,” Peter interjects. “I’ll go and grab you a cup, El. In fact, I’ll brew a fresh pot,” Peter sa
ys lightly, as if there isn’t anything at all wrong with this picture. “I think you two need to talk anyway.”
“Dr Bryer?” I repeat, after Peter has gone down into the cabin. “What in the hell is going on here?”
“You can call me John, or Jay, as Gabe nicknamed me years ago.”
“Ok, Jay, tell me what is going on here.”
“Well, your husband and I have been business partners for years,” he begins. “But I guess that I don’t need to tell you what we do. Looks like you’ve been doing some digging.”
“So, you’re not even a therapist?”
“Oh, yes, of course I am! I’m a licensed psychotherapist, and you should read the report that I wrote on you! Suicidal, homicidal, manic, depressed, unstable, bipolar. Ella, had you just shut up and not gone looking where you weren’t supposed to be looking things would’ve been so much easier on you. You really did make my job extremely difficult. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to save your life already.”
“You’re telling me that you saved my life? You’ve destroyed my life!”
“No, you did that all on your own. You were just supposed to come in and do your therapy, let me write a report on you. Look, Gabe isn’t someone to be messed with. If you’d have simply played your part right in all of this, you might have served a few years in prison for killing him. You’d have gotten out in a few years with claims of self-defense, whatever, but not you. You had to make things so hard for everyone.”
“Why would you do this to me? What have I ever done to you?”
“It isn’t what you’ve done to me. It’s what you’ve done to him,” he says, just as Gabe comes up and joins us. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, and when I look over at him, I notice the sick, twisted look on his face. He’s maniacal, thoroughly enjoying this renewed control over me.
“Did you include her admission to killing me in your final report, Jay?”
“Of course,” he says. “You were about to leave her, and she just wasn’t able to let you go. In a jealous rage she came after you out here on this very boat and shot you dead. She then threw your body overboard.”