Needing Her

  It gets to the point I tune her out sometimes. It’s the only way I can keep my sanity.

  “Adam stopped by the other day,” she says. My mom loves Adam. She wanted us to get married, even after I lost the baby.

  “Why was Adam there?”

  “Because he wanted to ask about you.” Her voice lifts, like she’s excited for me. “He said he never hears from you.”

  “I’m not dating him anymore. I have no reason to stay in touch with him.”

  “He has a bright future. I heard he plans to open his own accounting firm. And he’s very handsome.”

  I roll my eyes. “Mom, I’m not interested in him. Set him up with someone else.”

  “I gave him your phone number.”

  I sigh. “Why did you do that? I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “He’s a nice young man and there’s no reason why you two can’t still be friends. And who knows? Maybe it’ll turn into more. Just talk to him, Rachel.”

  “I should go. I have a lot of stuff to do.”

  “Okay, honey. I’ll call you later this week. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  That wasn’t too bad of a call. Usually my mom goes on and on about what I need to be doing with my life. I swear she makes a list before she calls so she doesn’t forget anything. And now she’s adding something new to the list: Get back together with Adam.

  I never told my mom the truth about why Adam and I broke up. She thinks I was the one who ended the engagement. She doesn’t know Adam did. If she knew, she wouldn’t like him so much. But I don’t want to tell her. I still have a hard time accepting the reason he broke up with me. I know he didn’t love me, but I wish he’d just said that instead of telling me I was useless to him because I can’t have kids.

  That still hurts. And it hurts even more that Adam moved away after he broke off the engagement. He didn’t even stick around to help me get over the loss of our baby. He never called me after that. He knew I was devastated when I lost the baby and was told I’d never have children, and yet Adam never even tried to comfort me. Instead, he treated me like damaged goods. So why the hell does he think I’d want to talk to him? If he calls, I won’t even pick up the phone. I don’t want to talk to him ever again.

  What if every other guy is just like Adam and rejects me when he finds out I can’t have children? Would Pearce do that? I’m not sure. I don’t know him well enough to say. He’s an only child so I’m sure his parents expect him to have children. They need someone to pass all that money to and carry on the family name. And I’m sure Pearce wants a child, at least one. Maybe not now, but in the future.

  That’s another reason I shouldn’t have pursued a relationship with him. Even if he wanted to be with me, and wanted to get more serious, I can’t, because there could never be a future with us. I can’t give him a child.

  In the afternoon, I study some more, then go knock on Shelby’s door to see if she wants to have dinner together. She’s not there. I don’t know where she goes all the time. It seems like she’s always gone. She doesn’t have many friends and she doesn’t have a boyfriend. She must’ve gone to her parents’ house.

  I’m not that hungry so I just make a peanut butter sandwich and eat it in front of the TV. It’s 5:30 and I thought by now Pearce might’ve called just to say hi. But the phone hasn’t rung all day.

  I already miss him. I miss talking to him. I miss making him laugh. I miss the feel of his arms around me.

  Not seeing him anymore is going to be hard. Really hard.

  There’s a knock on the door and I pop up from the couch, assuming it’s Shelby. She probably just got back and is coming over to ask if I want to eat dinner with her.

  “I already ate,” I say as I open the door.

  But it’s not Shelby at the door. It’s an older man with thick white hair. His skin is tan and he’s wearing light-colored pants and a white polo shirt.

  He gives me a big, wide smile. “I wasn’t planning to ask you to dinner, but maybe some other time.”

  I smile back. “No, I thought you were someone else. Do I know you?”

  He looks kind of like a professor, but he doesn’t teach any of my classes.

  “We haven’t met, but you volunteer for the literacy program I run at the homeless shelter. Actually, I don’t run it. I just fund it.”

  I shake his hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Rachel. I’ve been working with the program for a year now.”

  “Yes, that’s what Laura said. She told me a little about you.”

  So he knows Laura, the woman who runs the shelter. Then why didn’t she tell me about him? And why didn’t she tell me he’d be coming over?

  “Laura didn’t mention you,” I say. “What’s your name?”

  “Jack Ellit.”

  “Hi, Jack. Would you like to come in?”

  I step aside and let him in. I’m not sure why he’s here. At first I was leery of him just showing up at my door, but I feel better about him knowing that he funds the reading program.

  “I can’t stay long,” he says. “And pardon my appearance. I just finished a round of golf.”

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.” He’s glancing around my apartment, his eyes pausing on certain spots. “So Laura said you’re a student.”

  “Yes. At Hirshfield. I’m in graduate school.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “American History.”

  “And what interests you about American History?”

  “I like learning about the past, especially the time when our country was forming. I like learning about how cities were made. How industries grew.”

  “That was an interesting time, wasn’t it?” He walks over to my bookshelf.

  I don’t want to be rude, but I need to know why he’s here. His questions are starting to make me uncomfortable. “So why did you—”

  “You’re a swimmer?” He holds up one of my medals.

  “I was on the swim team in high school and college. Now I just swim when I have time, which isn’t very often. So anyway, why again are you here? I’m not sure you said.”

  He turns to me and smiles. “Forgive me for not explaining. I came by to meet you. I’m trying to be more connected to the literacy program, rather than just writing a check. I wanted to get your feedback on how the program is run.”

  He came all the way here for that? He could’ve just showed up at the shelter on Saturday. If he’d done that, he could’ve met all the volunteers at once. It’d be better than showing up at their homes, unannounced.

  “I think the program is good,” I tell him. “I guess my only suggestion would be to have an actual classroom for us to meet in rather than the dining area, which can be really loud. The building next to the shelter is vacant. Maybe part of it could be renovated and turned into classrooms.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll look into that. Anything else?”

  “This isn’t related to the program, but it would be good to install better lighting along that street. I know that’s the city’s responsibility, but if you were able to make some calls to the right people, maybe they would listen. It’s a very dangerous area and better lighting might help deter crime.”

  He’s quiet, his eyes on mine. I don’t know why, but it’s kind of creeping me out.

  Finally, he says, “I’ll see what I can do.” He does another quick glance around my apartment. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I should be going.”

  I escort him to the door.

  “Do you have a business card you could give me?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.” He smiles. “I don’t usually carry them with me when I’m golfing.” He puts his hand out. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  I shake his hand. “You as well.”

  I watch as he walks away. That whole encounter was very strange. I’m not sure what to make of it. He seemed like a nice man, but he asked me a lot of questions that
had nothing to do with the literacy program. He was trying to get information about me, but why? Was he just being friendly? Making conversation? Or was it more than that?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  15

  PEARCE

  When I dropped off Rachel this morning, I was in such a hurry I don’t even remember telling her goodbye. And I haven’t had a chance to call her all day. Since the moment I arrived at the office, I’ve been in a conference room with my father and three of the company’s lawyers, trying to finalize the contracts I’ve been working on.

  I have no interest in reading through contracts, which is why my father makes me do it. He thinks it builds character to do things you don’t want to do. My father is not a happy man and he doesn’t want others to be happy either. He knows I’d rather spend my Sunday doing anything but be here, and yet here I am, doing as the boss ordered.

  It’s now eight at night and I haven’t had dinner. I know it’s late but I’m going to call Rachel and see if she’d like to get something to eat. We’ll have to go to a place where people I know won’t see us.

  Dating her is going to be difficult, but it’s what I want. I never thought I’d meet someone like her, but now that I have, I plan to do everything in my power to keep this relationship going. Which means I need to make time for her. Given my work schedule, I don’t know how I’m going to do that yet, but I’ll find a way. Because I have to spend more time with her. Whenever we’re together, it’s never enough. I’ve thought about her ever since I dropped her off this morning. I miss her and I need to see her.

  I get up and shut the door to my office so I can have privacy. But just as I’m about to call her, my phone rings. Not my regular phone, but my cell phone. We can’t possibly have another Dunamis meeting this soon. We just had one yesterday.

  I answer and hear the recorded voice ask for my member number. I punch it in, then hear the recording again.

  “This is an assignment notice. An assignment has been issued to you. You will receive your assignment within the next six weeks. Please be aware that you should not travel during these weeks as you need to be available in case the assignment cannot be carried out by the freelancer. Details of the assignment are forthcoming. This concludes the message.”

  “Fuck.” I say it out loud as I slam the phone on my desk. I haven’t had an assignment for months but the last one I did still haunts me. I’ve only had five assignments so far, one for each year I’ve been a member. But now that I’m out of college and being mentored, I’ll be getting more assignments. A lot more. Some of our older members, like my father, get one a month.

  The assignments vary, but the end goal is the same; to maintain the power and influence we’ve worked so hard to achieve. Much of our power is derived from controlling key political positions, so during election years, assignments often involve feeding fake stories to the media to make our candidates look good. On non-election years, our focus is finding and grooming candidates for future elections. We also work to grow the companies owned by our members so that we dominate every industry.

  Accomplishing these tasks almost always involves illegal activities; bribes, blackmail, theft, falsifying of documents. To make sure we keep our hands clean, we usually don’t do these things ourselves. Instead we hire freelancers, a whole underground network of people willing to do most anything for money. Most of them are criminals, but some are just ordinary men desperate for money.

  Sometimes an assignment doesn’t go as planned and a freelancer is called in to clean it up. That’s what happened with my last assignment. One of the other members was assigned to recruit a man for a possible Senate position. The man was a partner at a law firm in Atlanta. He had no experience in politics, but we’d been watching him. He had the right look, the right demeanor, and a complete lack of ethics—key attributes for a candidate. If he passed all our tests and met our criteria, we’d place him in office. We’d make sure he won the election so that he’d do what we needed him to do.

  The member who was assigned to recruit this man had already met with him and he’d agreed to move forward with the plan. A memo was sent to his office, which outlined the next steps in the process. It was highly confidential and never supposed to be seen by anyone but the lawyer. But one day, his secretary was going through his mail and accidentally saw the memo. When we found out she’d seen it, a new assignment was made: Kill the secretary. I was the one who got the assignment. And I completed it. I had to. I wasn’t given a choice. I didn’t do it myself. I arranged to have it done by one of our freelancers.

  When I got the assignment, I received a folder about this woman. Her name was Cheryl. I was given photos of her, which I handed over to the freelancer to make sure he got the right woman. But after seeing those photos, I felt like I knew her. I felt sick knowing what was about to happen to her. She’d done nothing wrong. She was just an innocent victim.

  Right before the kill was supposed to happen, I tried to stop it. I couldn’t go through with it. I called the freelancer, but it was too late. He’d already completed the job.

  Later that week, I did more research on the woman and found out she was married and had a teenage son. I was devastated. I broke down. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I’d destroyed an entire family. The thought of that haunted me day and night for months. I barely slept. I felt immense guilt over it. I still do.

  Two of my other assignments also involved killing people, but they were freelancers who threatened to tell our secrets. One of the men had served time for second degree murder and the other served time for sexual assault. I didn’t feel as bad getting rid of them, but they were still lives. Two lives cut short because of me.

  Again, I didn’t do those jobs myself. I hired freelancers to kill those men. But sometimes hiring freelancers isn’t an option. If a freelancer doesn’t complete his assignment, it’s your job to finish it. The organization considers that your penalty for not managing your freelancer effectively. The assignment becomes yours to complete, even if it’s a kill assignment. In the past, some of the members weren’t able to do it. When that happens, you’re punished and the other members look down on you for not being strong enough or committed enough to the goal.

  My father wanted to make sure that never happened to me, so he decided to prepare me for this task at a young age. I was 19 and home on summer break. I was working at Kensington Chemical, as I was forced to do every summer since the age of 16.

  One day in July, my father sent me to Hartford to deliver a package to one of our clients. I asked why we couldn’t just mail it instead, like we did with all our other packages. He said it contained sensitive information and he couldn’t risk it getting lost in the mail.

  The client’s office was in a bad part of town, surrounded by old abandoned warehouses. My father told me to take my gun, just in case I ran into any trouble. I was trained to use a gun when I was just a child because my father had a lot of enemies who might come after me.

  When I got to the building, I went to the back loading dock, which is where I was supposed to meet the man who was waiting for the package. But he wasn’t there. It was six at night and the loading dock was closed up and the door to the building was locked. I turned around to go back to my car and saw a man standing about ten feet away from me. He had a gun pointed at me. He was around 30, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. He had a scruffy face and his blond hair was sticking up in all directions. His eyes were bloodshot and he was very fidgety. I assumed he was high on something.

  “Give me your wallet,” he said.

  I slowly reached around to my back pocket where my wallet was. I was wearing a suit. A black suit, white shirt, and a gray silk tie. My father had just bought me the tie and given it to me the previous day. He never gave me gifts so it surprised me, but I didn’t question it.

  I took my wallet and held it out to the man.

  “Toss it over here,” he said.

  I purposely threw it long and to his side. As he watched it go past hi
m, I whipped out my gun, which I had clipped to my waist, hidden by my suit jacket. When he turned back around, I had the gun pointed at him.

  “Fuck!” he said when he saw my gun. He started shaking, the gun still in his hand.

  “Go!” I yelled at him. “Get out of here!”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. I promised.”

  “Promised what?”

  “If I don’t do it, he’ll kill her.”

  He was making no sense, which I attributed to the drugs. I assumed he was hallucinating or paranoid, making up stories. But the words ‘he’ll kill her’ stuck in my head for some reason.

  My heart was thumping hard and fast in my chest, adrenaline pumping through my veins, sweat trickling down my forehead. I forced myself to keep breathing at a normal pace in order to keep my hand steady, just like I’d been taught.

  “Who’s going to kill her?” I asked him. “Who are you talking about?”

  He didn’t answer. He just stood there, getting a firmer grip on his gun.

  “Just take the wallet and go!” I yelled at him.

  “I can’t. I have to do it.” He raised the gun until it was pointed directly at me. And then, just like when I witnessed my father shooting that homeless man, everything seemed to be in slow motion. I watched the man’s finger pull back on the trigger, and out of pure survival instinct, I did the same, shooting directly at his chest.

  The man stumbled back and hit the ground. But I remained standing. I quickly glanced down at my shirt. Nothing. Not even a trace of blood. How could he not hit me from just a few feet away?

  Moments later I heard a car pull up behind me. I thought it was the police coming to arrest me after hearing the gun go off. But when I turned around, I saw that it wasn’t a police car. It was a black limo. The driver got out, went around to the side, and opened the door.

  My father stepped out of the limo and walked up to me. “Congratulations, son. You finally did something right.”

  He had a wide smile on his face. He never smiles.