by Dana Feldman
Ever since Peter killed his father he’s seemed happier than I’ve ever seen him. On one level, I’m happy because we’re both finally free. On another, I’m disturbed by his joy while I’ve been haunted by that day. Seeing Gabe dead was horrible in and of itself. Killing Bryer was an altogether different horror, one that I’ve been desperately trying to deal with.
I’m a killer. I’m a person who has taken the life of another. There isn’t any part of that I find easy to live with. Yes, it was self-defense. Yes, I had no other choice. But the part that happened afterwards, that is the part that tortures me the most.
When I first met Peter, he told me about his best friend, Jason, being killed because he was too afraid to kill the enemy. Now, all of a sudden, this same man is a professional at not only murder but also the cleanup and cover-up that follow.
I haven’t been able to get a full night of sleep since, and he’s been sleeping like a rock. I don’t know how this is possible.
My phone vibrates. It’s a text from Evelyn. Need to meet.
Ok, when and where?
Killer Shrimp Café. One hour.
We no longer feel the need to meet in secrecy, in out of the way locales, now that the case has somewhat wound down. The sketches came back and as Peter had said, they looked nothing like either of us. So, we’re both out of the line of fire. For now, at least.
Though I cannot help but walk around wondering when the call will come in that they have something solid on us. It’s no way to live, but what choice do I have?
I can see her pull into the parking lot at the same time I do. We park side-by-side. I’m trying to read her face as we walk towards the café but her look is unreadable.
“Table for two,” she says to the hostess. We follow the long-legged brunette and watch as her long ponytail bops to and fro as she walks us to a table looking out over the water and the boats. I can hear the familiar sounds of sea lions and seagulls as we sit.
On the surface, life is perfect. Underneath, it is anything but. Guilt has consumed me, and I’ve lost a noticeable amount of weight. The dark circles under my eyes don’t do anything to help me support my claims that all is well.
“How are you?” she asks, concern etched on her face and in her tone.
“I’m good,” I say to unbelieving eyes. “I’m just tired.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is?”
“Yes.”
“You can talk to me. I’d like to think that after everything that we’ve been through that you know that you can trust me.”
“I do know that. I’m just overwhelmed by everything. That’s all. I promise.”
“Well, I don’t want to be the one to push you over the edge, but I do have news.”
Just then our waitress comes up and I order a Bloody Mary and she a Vodka Tonic.
“Ok, tell me,” I say. “It can’t be any worse than anything you’ve told me already.”
“Well, actually, one part is good, the other not so good. You tell me what you want to hear first.”
“I’ll take the good news.”
“Ok. The men that Gabe was working with are all believed to be dead.”
“That is good news!” I say, realizing that there are two still yet to be found.
“One body was just found a few days ago. Well, at least most of him was found. The group had reportedly turned on him. I’m not sure who the new recruit was supposed to have been, but that’s one piece of the puzzle that we may never find.”
I think of Peter, of just how close he came to joining that world.
“And the other two, as we all know, include my dear husband and the partner he was working with.”
“That’s the bad news part.”
Our waitress returns with our drinks. I take a large gulp of mine and wait while the vodka calms my nerves. I pull the celery stick out and chomp it in half.
“Gabe’s body ended up in some poor fisherman’s net yesterday so they sent a dive team out and found another body not too far away from where his was found.”
I swallow the celery, hoping that I don’t choke.
“I’m sorry,” she says, putting her hand on mine. “I know he was a bastard, but I also know that you loved him at one point in time.”
“I did,” I say, and feel the hot tears as they well up behind my eyes. The truth of the matter is that listening to her tell me that Gabe is dead somehow confirms it as fact. Hot tears pour down my cheeks. They’re real, not for effect. Nothing about any of this has made me feel any better for more than a few moments here or there. And then the awful reality of it all sinks in.
She squeezes my hand in hers. “We got a positive ID on the other guy.”
“That was quick,” I say.
“Yeah, well you know Adams and Thomas. Those two are obsessed with this case.”
“You mean obsessed with me, with pinning this on me.”
“Yes, that too. But they have nothing on you. And now they’re out looking for the two people in the sketches.”
“So, who’s the other guy?”
“His name was Martin Hagle. And then it was Douglas Hillman. And then John Bryer.”
I watch her as she watches me. She’s waiting for me to tell her that I already knew who the other body was. I say nothing for a few minutes.
“I always wondered about him,” I say finally. “Remember I told you how uncomfortable his questions often made me?”
“Yes, I do remember. But you don’t look as shocked as I thought you’d be.”
“I guess I’m at a point where there isn’t much that surprises me anymore,” I say, I think covering myself.
“Yeah, I can understand that,” she replies, taking a long sip of her drink. “Another round?”
“Sure, why not? I can have Peter pick us up if we have too much.” She motions to the waitress for another round.
“So, tell me, Evelyn. You spend so much time with your work helping people like me clean up their messy lives. What about yours?”
“I assume you mean dating?”
“Yeah, don’t you get lonely?”
“Of course I do. This job can be extremely difficult. I’d never want to date another cop or anyone in law enforcement. And that’s all I meet.”
“What about Chris? Maybe I can set you up?”
“Oh, Chris is in love with you, Ella. But you must already know that.”
I drain my glass as our drinks arrive. I pick up my now-full glass and take a sip.
“Easy does it. This isn’t a race,” she says, and I put my drink down.
“I do know. Chris is a good friend. That’s all.”
“Look, I don’t know what this thing between you and Peter is but I do know this, you don’t look happy and you deserve to be happy, Ella. I’m not sure that you believe that but I know it.”
“And so do you. So back to that, ok? You were married and got divorced. How long ago was that?”
“Few years.”
“And to the best of my knowledge you haven’t allowed yourself to find happiness, so how can you lecture me?”
“You’re right. I think it’s high time that we both do something to better our lives. You want to start that women’s shelter. What’s going on with that?”
“With everything else that’s happened, I’ve sidelined that for a bit.”
“Well, you of all people know how important a place like that can be. You can help so many people who’ve been down the same road.”
“I know and I’ll get back to it. I promise. What if I’m not the right person for that? I’ve done some things, I’m…”
She stops me. “Ella, whatever you’ve done I’m absolutely positive that you had your reasons. I know you and you’re a good person. You can do a lot of good in this world. I hope that you do it. I hope that you start that shelter.”
“So, I think that I should tell you something before you say that I’m a good person,” I start.
“Ella, even if you have done something that you sa
y is bad, I’ll bet that you had no choice. I have a feeling that whatever you’ve done, you did it because you had to save yourself. What I’m afraid of is that you’re going to get yourself right back into the same spot that you were able to get yourself out of.”
“You mean Peter? He’s a good man,” I defend.
“As I said before, you don’t look happy.”
“When have you ever seen me look happy?”
“I haven’t but I want to.”
It’s just then as I’m about to respond to her that I spot Peter out of the corner of my eye. He’s walking towards our table. A flash of a memory of Gabe comes to me. We’d been dating for a few months, and he’d not yet proposed. I was out with some clients for drinks and he happened to be at the same bar.
At the time I thought of it as a lucky coincidence, but I found out later that he’d been following me. I always have eyes on you, Ella.
The feeling that I have right now is reminiscent of the time that I finally realized that all those run-ins with Gabe were never by coincidence. I remember feeling trapped, the same feeling that I’m experiencing right now.
“Ladies,” he says. “Fancy running into the two of you.”
He bends down to kiss me on the cheek, and I play it off that I’m happy to see him. I can tell that Evelyn sees right through it all. Without either of us asking, he pulls up a chair and joins us. Was he watching us just now, noticing that the conversation had gotten too serious?
The waitress comes up to the table and he orders himself a beer. “And two more of whatever they’re having.”
She happily obliges and heads to the bar to get us our drinks.
“Are you alone?” I ask.
“Yeah, I was hungry. Didn’t feel like cooking and you mentioned that you were meeting Evelyn. I figured you’d eat out. It’s no fun cooking for one.”
“Well, this certainly worked out,” Evelyn says. I can tell she’s annoyed, but she’s doing a good job pretending to be happy. “The more the merrier.”
“Yeah, what a coincidence.”
When the waitress returns with yet another round of drinks, Peter asks for menus.
“I’m buying you ladies dinner,” he says, leaning over for another kiss.
I lean in and play the part of the happy girlfriend.
“This one is getting too skinny. I like a little meat,” he teases.
“Yes, I’ve noticed. El, you better take care of yourself,” Evelyn says, a questioning look on her face.
“Yeah, well, some of us eat when we’re stressed. And some of us don’t.”
“It seems like the investigation is going well,” Peter says, looking at Evelyn. “Did they ever find those two people who were spotted dumping the boat in Catalina?”
“Not yet but I’m sure they will,” Evelyn responds.
An awkward silence follows.
“I was just telling Ella about two bodies that were found yesterday.”
Peter looks at me.
“Yes, I was going to tell you later tonight when I got home. I’m sorry but one of them was Gabe.”
His reaction is played so perfectly that I feel sick to my stomach. He plays the saddened son just learning that his estranged father is dead so convincingly, that I wonder what else he’s been able to lie to me about. I hate this feeling in my gut.
And then when she tells him about Bryer, a man he claims to have never met in person, he plays off his shock that the two men were ever involved with one another. It’s an Oscar-worthy performance, one that I wish I wasn’t a witness to. He’s frightening me. I have no idea what, if anything that he’s ever said to me, is real.
After a while of talking about all this, we finally order some food. His hand is on my back, rubbing back and forth gently, comfortingly. I have chills. I feel as if I’m in a perpetual line of fire, waiting for the next enemy to show his or her face.
In lieu of killing off everyone that I know and starting a new life from scratch, I need to figure out a way to decipher who is safe and who is not.
I’m watching Evelyn, as well. She’s playing the evening off brilliantly, not letting on that she suspects anything.
“I don’t think I should drive,” she says after we’ve eaten. “I know the manager here and he’ll let us leave our cars overnight. Perhaps we should take a taxi?”
“Of course. And you can stay with us,” I say, before Peter can say anything to the contrary. “We have an extra room.”
“Great. Thank you,” she says, accepting the invitation. I know what she’s doing. She’s making sure that I’m ok tonight. Even with a few drinks in her she knows damn well that this was no coincidence.
As Peter pays the bill I think about Chris. After my earlier conversation with Evelyn, he’s all I can think about.
I could’ve had something with him, something solid, normal. But I’ve always been attracted to danger. I wish that I understood why. Well, I do actually know why. One thing that I’ve never told anyone is that my parents didn’t just leave me at a police station when I was a baby. I mean they did but that wasn’t the end of the story.
My mother came looking for me when I was eighteen. I spent a summer with her. It was the best summer of my life, until it wasn’t. But before things went bad, we had a wonderful time together. I’ll never forget the email, saying she wanted to see me, when I got it. It was signed, “Love, Mom,” and I had never read those words written to me before.
It felt wonderful. Like I was a part of someone else. So when she asked me to join her that summer between high school and college for a road trip across the country from New York to Los Angeles, I was beyond ecstatic.
But I watched her, and for every stop there was a new man that swooped her off her feet. She was in and out of love more times that summer than most people are in a lifetime. I never wanted to be anything like her.
So, I at first swore that I’d never fall in love with anyone. I casually flitted from guy to guy forming no attachments whatsoever, and then I decided that I had to find “the one” and settle down, live a normal life. We all know how that turned out.
“What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” Peter asks, pulling me back from the past into the present.
“Oh, nothing,” I say, and smile up at him. The look on his face tells me he isn’t buying it and that I’d better come up with something good. And fast.
“I was just thinking about this one summer I spent on a road trip with a girlfriend,” I say finally, hiding the fact that it was my mom. I prefer to keep that part to myself. Things between us hadn’t ended well and it’s a subject that’s still too painful to talk about.
“We drove from New York out to Los Angeles,” I tell them both.
“I’ll bet life was much less complicated then,” Evelyn says. I just nod my head. It wasn’t but I’ll keep that to myself.
“Shall we?” Peter says, pointing to the taxi just pulling up outside.
We all walk out and get in and head back to our place.
“We should call Chris,” he says, and my stomach drops. “It’ll be fun. The night is still young.”
There’s no point doing anything but going along with it. He’s already sending him a text.
I don’t doubt that this is some sort of a test. Peter is so much like Gabe it’s maddening. The only good part about father and son being so similar is that I had eventually learned how to master the many moods of Gabe.
I’m now learning that many of the same methods work with Peter. This must be my punishment for that day with Peter, Gabe, and Bryer. I’m paying for my sins now. Ironic, I think to myself, I rid myself of one control freak just to replace him with another who’s just like him.
I don’t even realize the wicked laugh that escapes me until they both ask what’s so funny.
“Nothing,” I say. “The night is young. Who knows what it’ll bring.”
Evelyn looks at me with an expression that reads of pure confusion and Peter looks at me like I’m crazy
.
As we pull up to our place I can see Chris parking just across the street. I get out of the taxi and walk over towards him, and he immediately wraps me in a bear hug. I can see Peter watching us.
“Chris,” Peter says, walking up. “Happy you could join us.”
“Yeah, thanks for inviting me over,” he says.
He’s carrying a case of Coronas in one hand and a bag of limes in the other. Peter is watching Evelyn and Chris, I think hoping the two of them will get together. That would solve his issues of jealousy.
But there’s no denying the way that Chris looks at me. I play it off as if I don’t notice but he’s not subtle. I cannot help but wonder why Peter did this. It’s almost like he’s trying to see if I’ll betray him.
The sad thing is that I never would have. But he’s too similar to his father and I’m starting to feel smothered. Trapped. Neither of them ever learned that if you love someone you need to give them space, not hold onto them so tightly that they can’t breathe.
As we sit on the patio drinking beer, I realize that there is no getting away from him now. He has too much on me. We’ve killed together. If I ever thought that I was trapped before, I had no idea what the word meant.
Peter sits down beside me on the lounge chair and kisses my neck softly.
“So delicate,” he says into my ear, running his finger gently down my neck. “So breakable,” he whispers, so that only I can hear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
SOMETIMES IN LIFE
“Hey, boy,” I say to Hank as he jumps up to greet me.
“He’s really taken to you,” Bob says, watching the two of us bond.
“He’s a golden retriever. Don’t they love everyone?”
“Hank is particular in his tastes. This one isn’t fond of just anyone.”
“Well, I do feel quite special,” I say, as I hug Hank, his large paws now on my shoulders.
“You should. You are.”
I’ve just gotten to Bob’s place and I, for some reason, feel quite at home here. I blink back the tears and am able to catch them just before they fall.
“Thank you, Bob. For everything.”
He nods his head. His way, I’ve learned, of showing affection is subtle.