The Darkest Joy

by Marata Eros

  He looks down at me. “What the hell,” he mutters and swoops me up into a hug.

  I hug him back. It feels good to be liked. I soak in the act of affection like a flower starved for the sun.

  I know in my head that I should keep people at a distance. I can’t stand the mere suggestion of more loss. But I let him hug me anyway.

  Evan pulls away and whispers, “His bark is worse that his bite.”

  Oh.

  “Okay,” I reply, more off-kilter than ever.

  “Catch ya later, Brooke,” Evan says and walks off.

  I look after him, wondering why his expression was tinged with sadness.

  Is it catching? Is my bullshit contagious?

  “Brooke?”

  I swing around and Chance is leaning against the door frame. The short sleeve of his shirt rides up just enough for me to catch another glimpse of his tattoo.

  My eyes drift back to his.

  He smiles. It’s so real I can touch it, as if it were the sun, sliding through rain clouds.

  And I know it then, though I try to deny it. Resisting the inevitable.

  I’m falling for Chance. How could I not? I feel like I’m beyond fixing, but in that cold, wet heart of an Alaskan night, he saved me. And those floating pieces of my heart have begun to find each other again. Chance has begun the mending of it. Whether he meant to or not, it’s happening.

  But he’s most definitely not falling for me.

  “Let’s talk,” he says, all business, and my stomach falls like a stone in a lake.

  Great.

  He pulls open the door and the bell tinkles as I walk through it and pass by Chance, getting the slightest hint of his scent.

  It’s not rank seawater either.

  I find myself wanting to know exactly what it is, when I’m busy seeing where the tat ends. Yeah.

  I turn and he sweeps his palm toward the chair.

  I sit and hold my breath.

  “I’ve already hired you. However,” he spreads his palms wide and away from his body, leaning against the beaten boards of the wall behind him, glass windows flank his form, his ankles crossed. “I think we have to talk about . . . what happened.”

  I look down at my hands. I can’t tell him. He can’t know . . . if he does I’ll have to face his pity, or judgment. Or whatever.

  I look up. “Listen, I’ve been through something and I drank too much last night . . .”

  “So you decided to swan dive off the pier?” Chance asks, his brows rising to the short dark hair that frames a hard face: square jaw, cleft chin, yesterday’s stubble.

  A beautiful face.

  Gawd. “Well . . . no. I mean,” my eyes flick to his and they’re leveled on me. Not going anywhere. “I’m trying to make a new start.”

  “I can’t have you on my boat if you think you’re going to”—his intense eyes stay steady on mine—“do a repeat,” he finishes softly.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

  There’s a long pause and he exhales, raking a hand through his dark hair, those deep eyes nailing me . . . boring holes deep inside me, carving up my soul with the pathway of their intensity.

  “You don’t think or you don’t know?”

  We stare at each other and I say, “I don’t think.”

  “Shit, that puts me in a tough spot.” He puts his hands on his hips and paces in front of me.

  “I know,” I reply in a whisper. I just can’t lie . . . not to him. I put a hand over my heart. Trying to hold in my misery through the hole that’s there. My emotions are all over the place.

  He stops in front of the window and gazes out at the sea. The whitecaps look like whipping cream against a green that mimics the grayness of the sky, the water reflecting the turmoil of my day.

  He spins around and pegs me with those eyes. “I can’t . . . let you go. God knows I should. But I want to try to help. And I think . . . I think this will be a good job for you.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say. I don’t need the money, I need to heal . . . but he doesn’t know that.

  But maybe he’s not blind.

  Chance walks to my chair, his hands wrapping the armrests.

  “I know,” he says. Suddenly he jerks the chair so close our faces are inches from touching. “I don’t do shit I don’t want to.”

  “Then why . . .” I start, my mind filling in the blanks, do you want to? My mind finishes my own question.

  “Because I want to,” he whispers in answer, his crisp, minty breath filling my nose.

  SIX

  Chance

  I told myself never to get involved, really involved.

  And here I am, hiring this beautiful, fragile, emotionally vulnerable girl, just to keep her close to me.

  I don’t even know why I feel this need to protect her. I don’t even know what I’m protecting her from. Maybe I can’t protect her from herself?

  Not okay. I stand there indecisively for a minute and then Brooke gives me those big doe eyes and that’s when I see her, really see her. God, her eyes are some kind of purple, lashes like black lace setting them off like jewels of tanzanite.

  I stuff my hands into my pockets to keep them off her.

  Then, suddenly, all I want is to feel my lips on hers again. Without thinking, I move in for the kill. I place both hands on her face, looking into those deep eyes and feel my own close as I barely brush her lips and Brooke gasps and flinches away. My eyes pop open and I drop my hands from where they’ve captured her. I see emotions flow over her face, but the one I don’t want to see is there in living color.

  Gravity. Like a slow-moving avalanche her face shuts down. “I can’t,” she says in a breathy whisper and I feel like kicking my own ass. Of course she doesn’t . . . she just tried to kill herself and here I am, her boss . . . trying to, I don’t even know. I straighten, raking a hand through my hair, and back the fuck off. I shouldn’t have done that. Knowing it didn’t stop it from happening though. What the hell is wrong with me?

  I struggle to recover. “I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . I really do want you to feel . . . like you can work these eight weeks of the season without . . . fear of, whatever,” I say, scrubbing my face, trying to wipe it clean of my lapse.

  “It’s okay, Chance,” she says and I see a flinty sort of resolution in her eyes. It replaces the soft desire I’d seen before and I miss it as I watch it slide away. But I’d set the tone and she’d followed it.

  “I never really said thank you,” she says so quietly that I lean forward over my cluttered desk. Brooke isn’t looking at me and misses my unguarded expression. I’m glad, since it sorta belies my words when I say back off and my face says I want you. And it does. My body wants her, the desk being more of a barrier than she knows.

  No relationships, my mind reminds me like a threat. No entanglements of any kind. I exhale loudly and her eyes snap to mine.

  Then I remember what she just said instead of struggling to tamp my awakened libido like noxious weeds. “You’re welcome,” I reply, shrugging.

  There’s a beat of awkwardness between us, a clock’s tick ringing out in the silence. Then I say, “So, the job . . .”

  “Okay,” Brooke replies, her shoulders slumping a little. Her expression makes something unexpected constrict in my chest. Feels like my give-a-shit meter just came online. I don’t want to care.

  The hell with it. “Do you want to talk about what the problem is?” I feel my brows rise, my hands resting on the thick wood desk.

  Brooke shakes her head, that black hair sliding around her shoulders like watered silk.

  I remember what it felt like between my fingers. I pause, collecting my shit.

  “No,” then her gaze locks with mine, “ever.”

  Okay. Broken I don’t need, I decide. The phrase rings false even when I hear it in my own head, but I power through my bullshit.

  Fine, it’s all business. “I need you here at 4 a.m.” Brooke just nods and I continue. “We put in about
ten hours of flat-out, balls-to-the-wall fish time then we hightail it back to the harbor, clean our catch, pack . . . clean the boat . . . then you go home.”

  I watch Brooke’s eyes get wider with each detail of the hard life of a deckhand.

  Here’s the breaking point. This is when the weak will jump ship.

  I wait.

  Then Brooke surprises me. “Okay, I’ll be here.” I watch her small hands clench the armrests of my ancient oak chair.

  We look at each other. So many unspoken words remain unsaid.

  “Good,” I say in brusque dismissal. I’ve not had much fear in my life. I’ll take the swell, the weather . . . beating a two-hundred-pound halibut that wanted to break my leg with its tail.

  I’d never felt anxiety of this variety.

  The woman variety. It’s a singular flavor of oh shit that I don’t want to taste.

  Brooke stands and puts her hand out and I break into a cold sweat. I want to touch her again.

  Haul her against me and never let go.

  The watery memory of her floating below me in the sea rises to the surface of my mind. I blink the visual away, trying to grip the reality before me.

  What scares me the most is I want to wipe away that despondent edge she wears like clothes in the wrong size. I want it gone.

  Instead I take her hand in mine, and that zing like a conduit buzz of electricity goes off between us.

  I shift subtly. My body’s such a traitor.

  She keeps it together, but I can’t. Won’t.

  “Feel that?” I say, calling it out, the zing.

  “Yeah,” she admits in a tentative whisper.

  “What do you think it means?” I ask, wanting to kick my own ass for posing the question.

  Brooke gives a sad little lift of her lips and answers as she turns for the door, “Something I don’t deserve.”

  Well fuck me if that’s not a sucker punch. I feel it like she just struck me in the bread basket. Her words are the weapon.

  I feel like a dick as Brooke makes her way to the door, her fingers trembling slightly as she twists the knob and closes the solid spruce behind her.

  I want to kick the thing. I want to go after her.

  Tell her how I feel.

  Trouble is, I don’t fucking know myself.

  Brooke

  I practically run to escape that office . . . my embarrassment.

  I veer, taking a sharp right and racing across the busy road, dodging tourists, fishermen. My bright bus stands in the empty lot of the Salty Dawg.

  I tear the door open and slide inside, taking great swooping breaths of old car mixed with the sea. The side window, like a pie wedge of glass, was left open and the misty filter of sea air drifts through. The salt of my tears is masked by the thickness of the air, the two mingle like coconspirators.

  I can’t do it.

  You will do it, my mind whispers. That tenacious form of self-preservation will stubbornly not be put to rest.

  I place my forehead on the steering column. My mind turns over the last twenty-four hours. I need to come to some kind of decision. I can’t continue inside this excruciating limbo. Either I choose life and live as my family would want or I throw in the towel.

  I need to learn to love another human being again, though the threat of their death hangs over me like a noxious cloud, smothering my intent.

  I have to make the decision to move on.

  My tears fall to my jeans, forming dark splotches, speckling the denim with my indecision.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket and I lift my head off the wheel, digging in my jeans to retrieve it.

  Decatur Clearwater.

  A little icon flashes with the ringing—FBI logo. I exhale somewhere between a huff and a rush.

  My finger hovers, then I lightly brush over the icon.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Miss Starr.”

  Oh my God, that voice. The memories threaten, triggered. They push to get in, demanding to be seen. I shove them away. A light sweat coats my body instantly.

  Panic attack.

  “Miss Starr?” Concern radiates from his voice, that light accent he has threading through the vowels in my name, and I swallow.

  I can do this. I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly.

  “Hi.” Start simply, work from there.

  “Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for almost a week . . .”

  I don’t respond. There’s no lie that will sound like the truth.

  He ignores my silence, moving forward. “There’s been . . . another murder.”

  “I know.”

  A pause. “Okay. I’m certain this is difficult to hear about and I’m not calling to hash through it and drag you through things that are painful.”

  Then why are you calling? “Okay,” I reply listlessly. When can I end this phone call?

  “There are similarities between these most recent murders and . . . those of your family members.”

  My chest tightens. I repeat the deep breathing method, disallowing the panic that’s a knot of cement in my chest to take over.

  I see the rain.

  The wet grass.

  The crime scene tape; the garish yellow floating ribbon a banner of death forever.

  My mother’s hand, slash marks like red stripes proof of her efforts to ward off death.

  “We need to warn you. You might require protection from our Anchorage division.”

  The constriction in my chest notches tighter. My breaths are starting to whistle.

  “Miss Starr. Please, don’t be . . . frightened. I’m just phoning to alert you that this is not the last of these tragedies and we’re treating it as a serial.”

  “A serial?” I ask faintly.

  “Absolutely. The VanZyle family was killed . . . and there’s one more that took place last month, near Portland.”

  “Oregon?”

  “Yes.”

  Oh my God. “So . . . is the other family . . . ?” I couldn’t say it.

  “Yes, all the families were related to pianists. We have a profiler working full-time on identifying who might be responsible for this.”

  “My family’s already gone, Agent Clearwater. This killer can’t hurt me more than he already has.” It’s the truest thing I’ve articulated since my family’s death.

  Silence.

  “That’s not true,” he says carefully.

  “What . . . ? Listen to me, Clearwater. This is worse than death.”

  “What is worse than death, Miss Starr?”

  “My life.” I enunciate the angry words that seethe between us like brackish water.

  Silence.

  Then, “Okay.” Clearwater sighs. I can just see him nervously tightening the band that holds that black hair of his, discreetly combed away from his face and neatly tied at his nape. The raw scar at his throat is a healing pink slash. It makes me feel like a trout gasping for air. Or a salmon, I think grabbing on to the thought with shaky humor.

  “I thought you went to Alaska to move forward?” Clearwater says as a flat statement.

  “I did, I am.” I say it like smooth candy, tastes great as you suck on it, but when it’s crushed crystals in your mouth you regret that brief taste. Moving forward won’t be without challenge, I think.

  “I’ll keep in contact. I just wanted to touch base and let you know that you’re not alone. And I will reach out if we feel the need to place protection.” He pauses, then continues, each word spoken deliberately, “You should contact Marianne VanZyle and Kenneth Thomas. You can help one another.”

  Kenneth Thomas. This monster is killing all the Juilliard finalists, I think and blurt before thinking, “It’s someone that wants in.”

  More silence. Then, “We’ve thought of that. In fact, it’s such a glaring coincidence it seems almost too pat.”

  I rummage around in my addled brain to figure it out. Oh yeah, too obvious, I translate.

  “If the killer wants to take out the competition, wha
t better way to do it than by emotionally incapacitating us . . .” I whisper, angry that I’m afraid . . . and frightened by my anger that’s beginning to boil to the surface.

  My heart rate begins to speed. Suddenly, the noise of my environment rushes inside the bus, like a reverse vacuum of noise. I can hear the seagulls, the people, and the white noise of their murmurings. The sun pierces my windshield and splashes its heat against my skin. A layer of numbness peels away and I feel a dim purpose begin to ring like a bell. The Band-Aid I’ve put on myself is torn away in that moment in a painful, swift pull.

  I feel that stage of grief slip away, my sadness replaced by anger. Just like that, I embrace it like an old friend. That small part of me that wants to live swims up to the surface of my consciousness.

  The anger is like a call to arms. I’m present and alive, swimming freely in my own skin for the first time in five months.

  “. . . Reaching out to these survivors . . .” Clearwater says and I realize he’s been speaking while I’ve been Having a Moment.

  “Yeah . . . give me their names and numbers and I’ll . . . talk to them,” I promise.

  Clearwater sounds relieved, reciting the numbers, and I write them on my hand, scooping a pen off the floorboard of the bus where it has rolled underneath the pedals.

  “I’m glad we could talk, Miss Starr.”

  I smile; it feels rusty. “Brooke.”

  “Okay . . . Brooke. We’ll keep you posted as updates are needed. And the possibility of protection . . .”

  I don’t need that up here, I think, but don’t say. I look around at the wilderness as far as the eye can see, encroaching my surroundings with its frozen presence.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I begin to say good-bye and he interrupts me. “And Brooke?”

  “Yes?” I ask, my mind already running to all the things I want to accomplish.

  “You take care . . . and thanks,” he says, and I can hear a smile in his voice.

  “For what?”

  “Your trust.”

  I sit there for a second and hold a phone that’s now dead. I look at the cell battery. Dead as a doornail. I shake it. Like that’ll help. Dumb thing.