Bad Judgment

by Sidney Bell

  It wasn’t that she didn’t understand about his ridiculous need to do everything right. She was Amy. She got it. She just thought he was wrong to cave in to the need as much as he did. Things were easier for her, he told himself. She knew she was enough. People only had to look at her to love her.

  Embry wasn’t like that.

  He got up even though he wanted to kill the alarm on his cell. He poured himself into the shower and then poured himself a bowl of cereal. He was back in the lab by seven.

  He surfaced at ten and spent an hour replying to Geiger’s increasingly freaked texts—there were thirty-seven of them now, Jesus—and then texted Amy.

  Had sugar for breakfast. Proud of me ? Won’t be when you find out you’re out of cereal. Disgusting.

  At noon he checked his phone. No response. So he sent her another one: You forgot your charger, didn’t you? Spaz.

  He didn’t think she’d get it until she got home, but any time now she’d realize they hadn’t talked yet and she’d call him on one of their parents’ phones.

  By three there was nothing, and he shook his head and sighed. The girl was hopeless. He called his mom’s cell, but it went to voicemail. So did his dad’s.

  For a second—no more than a heartbeat—something inside him stuttered. But then he decided that they’d all gone to Helen’s for tea or something. Any time now, she’d realize her phone was dead.

  Then she’d call him back.

  Except evening came, and she didn’t.

  * * *

  By nightfall, he was in a near panic. He’d called her several dozen times. He’d left ten messages for his parents. He’d left three for Helen.

  He was carrying his inhaler like a talisman as he paced back and forth in the living room.

  He told himself that she was fine. That there’d been a downed cell tower and the house phone had a frayed cord. That he was being ridiculous. But he didn’t believe any of it.

  They’d never gone this long without talking, never, and she would’ve plugged her phone in by now, would’ve noticed she hadn’t heard his voice, that he hadn’t heard hers, would’ve realized that he was bleeding out without her voice. It wasn’t codependency—it was a touchstone of his sanity and she knew that.

  If she was all right, she would’ve called.

  He called Helen again, but no one answered, and that was when he remembered that Helen was out of town for her daughter’s wedding until Sunday afternoon.

  Finally, he called the cops.

  He spoke with a dispatcher who didn’t have the patience for his emergency because she clearly thought it wasn’t an emergency, and even if it was, it wasn’t an emergency in her jurisdiction, and that was how he realized he’d called the cops in Boston instead of Salem and he hung up on her.

  His voice was shrinking again—it was the battle of his life, fighting this shyness, and now when he most needed his strength it was folding underneath him. He coughed, told himself to breathe, and went to the internet. When he found the non-emergency number for family services in Salem, he took a minute to calm down and remember that he didn’t have to be afraid of any of them. He just had to be calm and quiet and talk.

  It was more convincing when Amy said it.

  They were closed. He got an automated message.

  He searched again, still giving himself the spiel, but panic made his thoughts slow and his fingers clumsy, and he called a half-dozen numbers before finding a person who would listen. By that time his throat was a mess of dryness and the world had ballooned into an impossible place far, far too large for him and he wasn’t sure if he was shouting or speaking or silent.

  Embry went on and on about how Amy would have called, at least he thought he did, because it could just be the wild whirl of dread in his brain, but finally the man said okay, they would send a car to check, all right? He got Embry’s number and hung up.

  He stood there in their empty apartment, the phone silent in his hand.

  There were yelling students downstairs on the street. It was Saturday night. Like the officer had said, people were out partying. Amy could be.

  She could be, but she wasn’t. None of them were. Deep inside, a gaping black wound, infected and raw, scrabbled at him with clutching fingers, whispering that it was too late.

  He didn’t wait for the cops.

  He bought a plane ticket.

  * * *

  Airport security didn’t give him any trouble even though he was only seventeen.

  The red-eye from Boston to Portland would land at 6:38 in the morning. He didn’t sleep during the flight, and he barely breathed. He used his inhaler three different times. He’d be in the hospital by the end of the day for certain, but even that mild phobia—instilled by too many hours in an oxygen tent as a toddler—seemed small compared to the constant refrain of fear in his brain: please be okay, please, please.

  He vibrated in his seat, making his seatmate nervous. When the beverage cart came by, he couldn’t get out the words for what he wanted. He might as well have been ten years old again—he had to nod his thanks when the attendant gave him a cup of water.

  He hadn’t checked luggage, so he was in a cab fourteen minutes after touchdown. He stumbled through the address, flinched from small talk and checked his phone. One voice mail. It was from Community Officer Danner and utterly useless: no one was home. There’d been no signs of a disturbance from outside. If he still hadn’t heard from his family by noon today, he should give Danner a call back. Embry chewed the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

  He was in Salem by 8 a.m.

  By 8:20, he was shoving out of the cab, door hanging open behind him. By 8:21, he was running up the drive, his bag dropped on the sidewalk, the cab driver calling something he didn’t catch. He was wheezing heavily—it drowned everything out. His keys were in one hand, his inhaler in the other.

  The door opened.

  The entryway was dark, the house silent beyond the loudness of his own breathing.

  The rest of it came in flashes:

  The sitting room—lights off, beige couch, entertainment center, curtains drawn, no one there.

  The kitchen—lights off, white and yellow tiles, glass-front cabinets, sliding glass door to the backyard closed, dishes in the sink, Crock-Pot warm and half-full of desert-dry pot roast and potatoes, no one there.

  Dining room—lights off, dinner on the table, two places set, gravy crusted on the plates, carrots spilled across the table and the floor, a chair overturned, the dishes that Mom inherited from her Great Aunt Ellis lying shattered on the floor, spilled from the curio cabinet in the corner, no one.

  Upstairs, hallway, no one, Embry’s room, no one, his parents’ room—bed made, exercise bike loaded down with clothes, no one, Amy’s room, no one, no one, no one, then downstairs, cab driver standing in the entryway, saying something he couldn’t quite hear, but he didn’t stop, couldn’t stop now, down to the basement, where he stumbled down the wooden steps, went to his knees, and couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe.

  His father’s eyes were open. His hands tied. His fingers gone.

  His mother was naked. Carved and red.

  Amy was crumpled, a ball in the corner. His Amy. She had her knapsack over one arm. She was still wearing her coat. Dot of red-black right in the center of her forehead. Eyes gone flat and cloudy, still staring into him, seeing deep as ever.

  There was blood. And bone. And what little air he got carried the reek of wet decay.

  He felt hands on him now, a man’s voice saying “Jesus,” and then there was retching somewhere behind him. Time slowed down. He waited. Eventually he could hear the man saying something else. A hand scrambled at his fingers, wrenching them open. His inhaler was at his mouth but there was no space in his throat for the medicine. He was barel
y wheezing anymore. He was staring and waiting. More words, lots more words, but he was waiting, not listening.

  They were supposed to go together. She’d promised. Some far off day, in their eighties or nineties, querulous and exhausted and together.

  Later there was music, far away, but it was murky and diffuse, like a piano played underwater. The sound came closer, clarified, became sirens. The man at his side shook him, then abandoned him to clomp back up the stairs. The sirens stopped. Voices.

  Embry sat. He waited. The basement went dark.

  The world went with it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Up until the actual moment that Joel Henniton laid him back on the bed, Embry wasn’t sure he’d be able to let the man fuck him. Even then he wondered if he’d lose control in the middle, shove a blade through the smooth column of Joel’s throat midcoitus. He imagined the knowledge in Joel’s eyes, the hurt and betrayal. He imagined the blood raining down, spattering his face, getting in his mouth. It was a soothing thought.

  None of them would have recognized him now, not this thing that he’d become. He thought perhaps they wouldn’t love him as he was now, craving blood and pain. He dreamed of it sometimes. He’d lost whole days to the rage, coming back to himself outside of bars with drunk, angry men broken at his feet. It was a miracle he hadn’t killed anyone yet. The rage was a living thing inside him, hot and violent.

  The thought of spreading his legs for Joel made the rage sharper, like his insides were coated in fish hooks—no matter how he turned, he was shredded. Joel’s hands were branding irons on his skin. It had been easier to pretend before he knew for sure that Joel had ordered it done.

  But it’d been months and he couldn’t put it off anymore. The interest in Joel’s eyes long ago became frustration, and now it was turning into anger. If Embry didn’t move this forward he’d lose Joel, and he couldn’t allow that. Joel probably wouldn’t fire him, but he’d be transferred, and he still needed the job. He didn’t know who’d pulled the trigger yet.

  So he buried the rage deep.

  When it finally happened, he shuddered once, at the moment when Joel entered him, but he breathed through it. It hurt—Joel was eager in triumph—but Embry didn’t protest. There was nothing left of him, nothing of value anyway. What did it hurt to let Joel fuck him? It wasn’t Embry that mattered. Just the plan.

  Despite his fears, he didn’t lose control. The pain faded as his body adjusted, and soon it was just sex.

  He even came.

  After, when Joel was snoring, Embry vomited into the toilet as quietly as he could. When he was done, he was empty.

  That was the last time there was anything but cold.

  Until Brogan.

  * * *

  When Embry saw Brogan through the peephole on that Friday evening, his rebellious heart flopped in his chest. Which was stupid, because Embry knew better—he never quite had control around Brogan, and it made the other man a risk that Embry couldn’t stomach. So he hesitated for a long minute before opening the door, bracing himself for the now-familiar mix of emotions that bubbled up whenever he was in the same room with the man—and sometimes even when he wasn’t.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. He’d explained—and Brogan had agreed—that this was a bad idea since Embry wasn’t going to leave Joel. Not until he had everything he needed. What else could there be to say?

  Brogan swallowed. He was pale and his hands were locked together in front of him, knuckles white.

  Embry shouldn’t have worried, but he did. He had a frightening urge to step forward and soothe.

  “You’re going to be furious with me in a few minutes,” Brogan said, and like that, Embry knew that Brogan had gone behind his back. He felt stupid now for caring about Brogan’s distress, stupid for caring at all. He’d thought...it didn’t matter what he’d thought. His right hand twitched toward the breakfast bar and the pistol he’d hidden behind the laminate under the counter.

  Brogan hurried onward, adding, “But I want you to know that I’m here to talk. I want to hear your side. I haven’t... I’m not...fuck. I don’t know how to say this. I’m not turning on you.”

  “You can’t betray someone who doesn’t trust you,” Embry replied, and Brogan flinched. Embry didn’t care. He was too busy wrestling with the panic he well deserved for fucking everything up with his selfishness. The only thing that mattered now was how much Brogan knew and what he would do with the information. “Be specific, Brogan.”

  Brogan closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and when he looked at Embry again, his gaze was rueful, maybe even entreating. “It’s about Amy.”

  “Five minutes,” Embry bit out.

  He shut the door in Brogan’s face and went into the bedroom. He removed the false bottom of his armoire, and pulled out the small duffel containing his holster, his pistol, his passport, the five open-ended bus tickets under five different names, the three spare inhalers and the refills of his daily asthma meds, the three bundles of cash, the two sets of handcuffs with keys, the netbook and the two flash drives. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but in case he had to take action tonight, he’d be ready.

  He replaced the false bottom. He changed out of his T-shirt into a button-down so it wouldn’t look odd when he put on a jacket to cover the holster. After the gun was settled comfortably, he shrugged into the black wool blazer he’d had tailored to conceal it, then checked the lines in the mirror. Brogan would notice he was carrying, but if he knew about Amy, he knew enough that he wouldn’t be surprised. No one without that sort of experience would pick up on it, though.

  Joel wouldn’t see it.

  He also packed two nice shirts, eight pair of underwear and T-shirts each, a pair of trousers that wouldn’t wrinkle, and his toiletries.

  It was closer to three minutes than five. Brogan waited while Embry locked the door before trailing him outside.

  “Where are we—”

  “Your place,” Embry interrupted. “I’ll follow you.”

  Brogan stood there uncertainly for a moment, and Embry added, “The last thing I need is Joel dropping by and finding you here.”

  What he didn’t say was that—depending on how this played out—he might need to contain Brogan, and that couldn’t happen somewhere that Joel or Coop might go.

  Brogan nodded and headed for his truck. He drove slowly, making it easy for Embry to keep up, and it wasn’t long before they were pulling up in front of a small white house with a winter-brown yard.

  Brogan didn’t take the driveway. He parked in front of the house on the street instead, and hit the button for the automatic garage door to open. Embry refused to be touched by the gesture—not until he knew what Brogan had done and if his plans had been ruined. He backed into the garage so he’d be prepared for a quick getaway. There was little chance he’d been followed, but he’d have been dead months ago if he hadn’t treated every second of his life over the past five years with unending caution, and he wasn’t about to stop now.

  Obviously, Brogan thought he might run. It was equally obvious that Brogan didn’t intend to get in his way. If anything, he was assisting. Embry didn’t know how to take that, and he stood in Brogan’s garage thinking about it while he waited, listening to the tick of the Nissan’s engine cooling. A minute later he heard Brogan’s footsteps approaching the inner door, and then it swung wide for him.

  He brought the duffel, afraid to let it out of his sight in case something should happen and he couldn’t get back to the car.

  Brogan was leading the way through the kitchen when a mountain of a dog came tearing toward them, legs scrambling over linoleum. Brogan moved to intercept but the dog dodged him, racing for Embry.

  “Sit,” Embry ordered in a loud, firm voice. The dog planted its ass and skidded the last few feet on its rear, then squirmed
onto its belly before him, excited but obedient.

  He reached out a hand and let the dog sniff him.

  “Good boy,” Embry said more softly, and rubbed at the floppy ears. The dog melted, snuffling, and Embry praised him again.

  Brogan was openmouthed.

  “He did what you said,” Brogan stammered. “Gizmo did what you said. I took him to obedience school twice, and I still can’t get him to...he’s a terror. He has the manners of a warthog.”

  “You’re a fucking pushover,” Embry replied. “He thinks he outranks you. He’s right.”

  Embry stepped around the dog, not surprised when it trotted after him. Embry perched on the edge of the couch—covered in dog hair, disgusting—and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Gizmo lay down near his feet, big dark eyes watching him.

  “So you went behind my back,” Embry said. “Looked into things that aren’t your business.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did I miss?”

  “Helen Lowell liked me.”

  Embry clenched his teeth for a moment and looked away. “Surprising. She’s usually quite discerning. Of all my weak links, she was the one I was least concerned about.”

  “Maybe that’s a sign that you can trust me,” Brogan said, sinking into the recliner. If he was insulted by Embry’s implication about Helen’s bad taste, he didn’t show it. He was watching Embry as if he were a bomb that might go off at any second.

  “Trust you?” Embry huffed a hostile little laugh. “Is that supposed to be funny? You pawed through my personal life out of curiosity.”