What You Don't Know

by JoAnn Chaney

  “All you’d ever talk about was working for the Post,” he says slowly. His eyes are glowing with a fevered light, and when she tries to look away he pinches her cheeks and forces her to look at him. “About your work on Seever. I knew that if people thought Seever was back, the paper would let you write again. And they did, didn’t they? That’s exactly what happened.”

  “You didn’t have to. No one asked you to do any of this.”

  “No, no one did,” he says, grinning, his eyes rolling. “But I did anyway. And you got to write again, didn’t you? I’ve never seen you so happy. And I was the one who made you that happy. I was.”

  Ethan’s hair is stiff with gel and hair spray, his scalp is shining whitely beneath. It’s the same way Seever always wore his hair. When did he start doing it like that, and why didn’t she notice?

  She tilts her head back as far as it will go, until the tendons in her neck scream in protest. Maybe, she thinks, Seever was meant to kill her. She’d asked why he’d let her live, and he didn’t have an answer, there wasn’t an answer; he didn’t let her live, it was just delayed a little. She’d managed to put it off for a few years, but it’s all already been written, and a person can hide from fate for a while but can never be free of it altogether.

  Maybe, she thinks, she always belonged to Seever, and she always will.

  “I love you,” Ethan says, running his thumb down her exposed throat. It makes her shudder, in revulsion, and in fear, but with something else too. Anticipation? “I love you so much, so I gave you a story to write. I got rid of that Chris Weber. You hate him, you told me that. I did it for you. All of it.”

  He tilts his chin up at a childish angle, daring her to argue with him. She doesn’t.

  “This isn’t your grandparents’ house, is it?” she asks. Tries not to think about Weber, or Carrie Simms, or anyone else. She’s not going to ask, she’s not giving him the satisfaction.

  He blinks, twice in a row, hard. “How’d you know?”

  “You’re not in any of the pictures.”

  That makes him smile. “You caught me,” he says. “I’m staying here for a while.”

  “Where are the people who live here?”

  “Oh, they’re around,” Ethan says absently, and she has to bite her lip, hard, to keep from moaning. That’s what the smell is, she should have known.

  “If you love me, let me go,” she says instead. “Untie me and let me go.”

  “I do love you,” he says. “Seever loves you too. I saw one of his paintings yesterday, of you. Have you seen it?”

  “No.”

  “He made you beautiful.” Ethan ducks his head and smiles, a coy smile that makes her shudder, and then it disappears, and everything is dark. “And he made you dead.”

  “Please, let me go. I want to go home.”

  “No.” Ethan gives her a sly look. “If I let you go, you’d go to the police. You’d tell them everything.”

  He leans closer. He smells of sweat and piss, of food gone bad. It’s the smell of insanity, she thinks, as if his pores have opened up and bloomed with crazy.

  “You would tell on me, wouldn’t you?” he asks. “You’d turn me in?”

  He’s waiting for her answer; her life depends on it. She could lie and tell him no, that she’d never turn him in, thank him for everything he’s done. She’s been telling lies her whole life, she’s been weaving her stories at the loom and pulling the threads tight, she’s good at it, she could make Ethan believe, and he might let her go, but he might not. He has an eager look in his eyes; he’s waiting for her to say something, to tell him she loves him, to plead for her life, because he loves her, that’s what he says. It’s a boyish look, the desperate look of a man terrified of rejection, but there’s something else there too, buried deep under that charm but still peeking through, just around the edges but it’s enough for her to see.

  It’s nothing. Nothing at all. A screaming void that swallows up everything it can. He’s used her as an excuse, said that he killed all those people for her, that she’d wanted him to, and maybe he believes it, but it was really for himself; he’d probably been fantasizing about killing for a long time and needed an excuse to soothe what scraps of conscience he might’ve had, and he’d latched on to her. And even if she lies to him, it’ll be the same. He doesn’t love her. He’d been the one to call her, he knew she was coming over, he’d already had the twine in his pocket. He was prepared. It’s all the same to him. He wants her to beg and cry, but it’ll be the same in the end. Do you like it fast or slow? Seever had asked her once, and she’d found it funny then, but now it’s horrible, it has a completely different meaning.

  So she doesn’t bother lying. Not because she’s a hero, not because she wants to die, but because she’s so damn tired of it all. And she’s angry that she’d fallen right into this, that she hadn’t had a clue, and now here she is, and she wants to hurt him.

  “I would go straight to the police, I’d tell them everything,” she says. “I’d tell them that you killed all those people. That you’re a sick fuck.” She blinks, slowly. “I’d tell everyone that you couldn’t get it up, even when I was jiggling your dick in my hand.”

  He flushes, ugly red from his scalp all the way down his neck, and he leans over, pulls open the side-table drawer, and grabs a pair of wire cutters with bright-yellow handles. They could be brand-new, except for the dark spots on the blades. It could be rust, she thinks. Could be. But who does she think she’s kidding? They look sharp, and she knows they’ll have no trouble cutting through her flesh and bone.

  HOSKINS

  “Pause it, right there,” Hoskins says, leaning over Loren to get closer to the TV screen. They’ve been sitting in the front of the bank of video equipment for the last two hours, moving backward and forward through the recordings of the day before, in the ten-minute window when Weber was there. It should’ve been simple enough, but the owner had installed a lot of cameras, and there were a lot of pumps to watch—twelve of them total—and although the credit card statement told them when Weber was there, it didn’t tell them where he’d been. There was a lot of footage to zip through. But finally, Davey had found something. “That’s him. That’s our guy.”

  It’s Weber all right, alive and well, his head a few hours from being beaten in. He sticks the pump into his tank and starts it up, then looks up at the sky, shades his eyes with the flat of his hand. He looks disgusted, as if he’s completely disappointed with the winter weather, then turns and climbs back into his car.

  “He didn’t talk to anyone,” Loren says. “He filled up his tank and drove off.”

  “Rewind it a bit,” Hoskins tells Davey, who twists a knob and pushes some buttons. “Look. Right there. He stops for a second. See how his head moved? Like he’s listening. Someone at the next pump said something, and he nodded. He might’ve said something, but we can’t see his face from this angle.”

  “Can we look at this from a different camera?” Loren asks.

  “I can do a lot better than that.” Davey pounds on the keyboard, his fingers moving faster than Hoskins can see, and then there’s suddenly a new image frozen on the screen. It’s a still of a young man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, his face a ghostly smear on the recording. “This is the guy Weber would’ve been talking to. And there’s his license plate.”

  “I’ve seen him before,” Loren says, getting so close his nose is nearly touching the screen, the image is all pixelated at that distance, worthless, but Loren doesn’t back up. “He was with Sammie. At the mall. They were at dinner. He’s just a kid.”

  Davey passes a slip of paper to Hoskins with the license plate number.

  “Good work,” Hoskins says, patting the boy on the shoulder. “You should come work for the PD one day.”

  Davey shrugs, smiles. It’s a smile Hoskins knows exactly how to read: Thanks, but no thanks.

  DEAN

  He’d turned his phone off the night before, so he wouldn’t be tempted to answer when s
he called, and checked in at a motel. It was one of those extended-stay places, where there’s a whole living room setup, and a small kitchen table. A coffee maker with the smallest pot he’s ever seen and those tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner that’re never quite enough. Life in miniature. There’s something desperately sad about a place like this, because a hotel isn’t supposed to be a home, or even a shadow of a home, but he’d gone there anyway, checked in then went to the bar next door and picked up a box of buffalo wings and brought it back to his room, flipped through the TV and couldn’t find anything because the channels were all out of order and not what he’s used to, and ended up going to bed. But he didn’t sleep, not much, because Sammie’s not there beside him. They’ve had their problems, but they’ve always slept in the same bed every night from the beginning, and he’s used to the weight of her next to him, the smell of the perfume she uses.

  All of this, Sammie’s unhappiness, her infidelity, it’s because they didn’t have a wedding, he thinks. It’s not all of the reason she’s unhappy, but it’s part of it. They’d dated for eight months when he proposed, and she’d been so excited, so ready to look for a dress and a cake and then he’d had to tell her that they couldn’t afford it, it was silly to spend the money on a single day, just a few hours, really, and she’d agreed, and he’d thought that was the end of it. They signed the papers and ate a nice dinner and both of them went right back to work the next day, and he’d thought it was fine, being married was hardly different from dating, and he liked it that way. No bump in the road. But then, after they’d been married for two years, Sammie started bringing home magazines full of wedding gowns and floral arrangements, she said they could have a ceremony and renew their vows, but he’d still thought it was a waste of money, and she dropped it. Sammie didn’t nag; when she was angry she didn’t talk at all, she wanted to be alone, and he sometimes couldn’t tell when something was wrong until it was too late, and she’d scream until her face had gone an alarming shade of red and he thought she’d pass out from the effort.

  She was unhappy because they didn’t have a wedding, but it was more than that. It was because he was a disappointment. Like his job. He’d worked at the same marketing firm for the last ten years, he’d never been offered a promotion or even had interest in one, because he was good at his job, he was happy, he didn’t think life was all about work, but he knew Sammie saw it as a flaw. She had girlfriends whose husbands made a lot of money, guys who were lawyers or doctors or executives, and those women went on nice vacations and had nice cars, and Sammie didn’t complain, no, that wasn’t her, but he could see it in her eyes. The disappointment.

  She’d brought it up only once, when they were side-by-side in bed. The lights were all out and they weren’t touching, the blankets were tamped down between them, keeping them apart.

  “I thought you were a different man when I married you,” she’d said. “I didn’t expect things to be like this.”

  She wasn’t cruel about it, only matter-of-fact, and then she rolled over on her side, away from him, and went to sleep. He’d wanted to grab her shoulder, to see the startled look in her eyes when she woke up, and demand to know what she meant, that she explain how he was so different, tell him what she wanted.

  But he’d let her alone.

  And then she’d started sleeping with that cop, and later she’d told him that it wasn’t because of him, it wasn’t because he made her unhappy but because of work, that the pressure to get the story drove her to it, and he’d forgiven her, but forgetting is a completely different thing, and he sometimes still asks her about Hoskins when they’re having sex, asks what it was like to fuck Hoskins, if he went fast and liked to prop her legs up on his shoulders, if she let him push it into her asshole, and she never answers, just turns her face away, and sometimes he thinks she might be crying but if he runs his hand on her cheeks it always comes away dry. That’s why he finally asked for that promotion—because his wife is so disappointed in him that it doesn’t even make her cry anymore.

  He gets up after a night of broken sleep, and showers, brushes his teeth. The water coming from the tap tastes strange and there are tiny ants circling the drain.

  Maybe all this is my fault, Dean thinks. He’s always bringing up Hoskins, making Sammie think of him. He turns on his cell phone. Lots of missed calls, and a few voicemails.

  Nothing’s happened. I swear.

  And, Go fuck yourself.

  He decides to go home. They’ll fight, he thinks, and then they’ll make up. Things can go back to the way they’ve always been, because maybe she’s telling the truth. She’s been writing for the Post again, covering the Secondhand case, and maybe that’s the reason Hoskins had gone to see her at work. Even if it’s not, they can work things out, they always do. They’ve been married too damn long to just throw everything away.

  But Sammie’s not home. And she’s not at work. Not answering her phone.

  So Dean does what he does, he signs onto the computer and tracks her phone. It’s amazing, the things technology can do these days, and it pulls her up immediately—well, not her, but a blue dot that’s supposed to be her. It’s not that he doesn’t trust his wife, but it’s addictive, and he likes to sign in at random times and check in, see how accurate it is. Pretty damn spot-on, he knows that, even if she’s walking around at work with her phone in her pocket he can sit in front of the computer and watch the blue dot move.

  His phone rings as the screen finishes loading. She’s in a house, not too far away, and it feels like the blood is all rushing to his forehead, thundering through the veins there. She’s with Hoskins, he knows it, when he didn’t come home she ran right out so she could jump into bed with him—

  His phone rings in his hand.

  “Goddammit, Sammie—”

  “Mr. Peterson? This is Jenna at the Denver Police Department.” The woman is talking fast, so he can barely understand what she’s saying. “I’ve been trying to reach your wife—”

  “She’s with that goddamn detective,” Dean cries. “That’s where she is. Detective-fucking-Hoskins.”

  There’s a pause, a long one, and then the woman speaks again, sounding strange.

  “Actually, it’s Detective Hoskins who asked me to call you.”

  “She’s not with him?” There’s a heavy feeling settling on his chest, like he’s being slowly suffocated. Something is very wrong, because the police wouldn’t be calling otherwise, it’s bad when the police call a person; he knows that from Sammie. If I’ve been murdered, they’ll call you right away, Sammie had told him once. She’d been joking, and he’d told her to shut up, that he didn’t want to talk about those things happening, it was like a wish, in reverse. If you talked about it, it would come true. They’ll probably ask if you know where I am, because the spouse is always the main suspect, at least at first.

  “No, sir. It’s very important that we locate her. Do you happen to know where she is?”

  That blinking blue dot.

  “Sir?” the woman says. “If you know where she is, please tell me.”

  If I’ve been murdered. Sammie would laugh about things like that, make it into a joke, even after he asked her to stop. He doesn’t think those kinds of things are funny. They’ll call you right away.

  Dean hangs up. The blue dot isn’t moving, but it’s still blinking. He’s going to find his wife.

  * * *

  The blue dot has led him to a house that is small and brick, set far back from the street, and there’s Sammie’s car parked out front, the black car with the crack running through the left side of the windshield, he’d wanted to get it fixed but Sammie had said no, that it didn’t interfere with her line of sight, that she didn’t want to have to pay the deductible. He’s scared, his stomach is roiling in his gut but he still pulls right into the driveway and climbs out without bothering to turn off the car. The front door is unlocked and he pushes it open, expecting someone to greet him with a gun; he’ll be shot because he’s tr
espassing—This is private property, son, get out—and he wonders why the hell he’d rushed out of the house without bringing a weapon. Not that he owns a gun, but it would’ve been easy enough to bring a knife, or one of the golf clubs from the set Sammie had bought him a few years ago. He wishes he had something in his hands, anything, the weight would be comforting to hold, but the only thing he has with him is his wallet, and how could it possibly help, to clutch a square of leather in front of himself like a nervous woman holding a purse? In the end, Dean goes in with nothing but himself, and his fear.

  But no one meets him at the door, except for the smell, it’s bad enough that he has to press the back of his hand over his nose to keep from being sick. He’s trying to keep his gag reflex under control so he doesn’t hear it at first, he doesn’t hear her, it’s Sammie. She’s crying, and she’s very close, just in the next room, and he runs down the hall and is so surprised by what’s going on in the living room that he’s frozen for a moment, there’s a man kneeling over Sammie, busy and not paying attention, and Dean’s not sure what to do, there’s so much blood and he’s not a violent man, he’s not prone to action, he’s a cubicle jockey who sits at a desk and types ninety words a minute. Not a man who knows how to deal with this.

  But it turns out he doesn’t have to know how to deal with a situation like this, because instinct takes over and he grabs the floor lamp sitting by the door—it’s the kind of lamp old women seem to prefer, tarnished gold with a thick glass bubble halfway up, twinkling crystal droplets hanging from the shade—and he hefts it up like a baseball bat, the heavy bottom propped up on his shoulder. Dean went to college on a baseball scholarship, they called him Big D back then, and he swings the lamp easily enough, it’s much lighter than the old maple bats he used to practice with, practically flies through the air of its own accord. His muscles remember the familiar movement and slide easily against one another, even though it’s been years since he hit a ball. He swings that metal lamp hard enough that he feels something tear painfully inside his shoulder, and there’s a moment Dean will always remember, when time seems to slow down, to nearly stop, when the crystals that’ve come loose from the lampshade are turning end-over-end through the air, sparkling as they catch the light, and the base hits the man in the temple, right in the sweet spot. And then everything speeds up again, like a rubber band snapping into place, and the man is facedown on the floor, not moving.