Last Run

by Hilary Norman

  He.

  ‘They laughed at me,’ Kez said, ‘but I laughed louder.’

  Cathy’s mouth was dry.

  ‘I screamed louder too,’ Kez said, ‘because I hated what I was doing, hated it. Do you believe that, Cathy? Can you understand that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cathy said.

  ‘I hated it, but I needed it, too,’ Kez said. ‘More than anything.’

  ‘Kez.’ Cathy tried again. ‘I have to go back soon.’

  ‘To your mom, the shrink,’ Kez said.

  ‘To Saul,’ Cathy said.

  ‘I know,’ Kez said.

  She began rolling another joint.

  Sam and Terri were exchanging periodic calls, the afternoon moving uncomfortably swiftly. Sam had already been in Naples for three hours with nothing to show, and Martinez had been doing as well as he could with Kovac almost glued to him, but everything he’d learned about Flanagan thus far, Sam had already pretty much learned from David.

  ‘Sad stuff, mostly,’ Martinez had told him a while back. ‘Only child. Joseph Flanagan, her dad, died of a heart attack when she was seven; Gina, her mom, seems to have dropped the parenting ball, there when she had to be, but no frills.’

  Kez, it seemed, had been no great shakes academically, but the running had made up for that, all kinds of prizes, and no major failures on that front, no serious injuries. Nothing, Martinez said, to grievously shake young Flanagan or wreck her confidence.

  ‘Relationships?’ Sam had asked.

  ‘Getting nowhere on that score,’ Martinez had answered.

  No big affairs or painful break-ups; no known discrimination because of her gay lifestyle.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ Sam said, ‘there has to be something.’

  ‘There always is,’ Martinez agreed. ‘Doesn’t mean we’re going to find it.’

  Stealing a glance at the front door it occurred to Cathy that Kez might, perhaps while she’d been asleep, have locked it.

  There was no key in the bottom lock now, and she thought – though she wasn’t certain – that Kez had left a key there after they’d first come in.

  If it was locked, that meant the only other way out was over the veranda.

  She told herself to calm down, that there was no need to think that way, not if this was all story-telling, all dope-induced.

  Except she wasn’t as certain of that as she had been. And one of the many curious things about this was that Kez had been telling these disjointed and incomplete tales as if she believed them commonplace, as if she believed that Cathy could listen to them and then say: ‘Hey, that was interesting, now let’s go get some food.’ As if there was no risk at all in telling Cathy – or at least implying – that she had done things to people who had ridiculed her.

  Unless she didn’t consider it a risk because Cathy was in love with her.

  Cathy was finding it harder by the minute to know how she felt about Kez, about her stories, about anything.

  Just one thing she was certain of.

  She wanted to get out of this place. The sooner the better.

  ‘Why don’t we go out,’ she said, ‘get something to eat?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to go home,’ Kez said, and took a drag of her joint.

  ‘I meant – ’ Cathy amended – ‘on the way home.’

  ‘You hate me now, don’t you?’ Kez said, suddenly flat.

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ Cathy said, stomach clenching.

  ‘So what, you love me?’ Kez asked.

  The irony alarmed Cathy.

  ‘Maybe,’ Cathy said. ‘I think I do.’

  ‘I’m glad you said “maybe”,’ Kez said. ‘I’m glad you can still be honest. It’s one of the reasons I chose you to share with.’

  Chose you.

  ‘Can I ask you another question?’ Kez said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Are you going to tell anyone what I’ve told you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Not quite as honest there,’ Kez said.

  ‘I am being honest,’ Cathy said. ‘And you haven’t really told me anything.’

  She wondered what would happen if she walked to the front door right now and tried to open it.

  ‘Food sounds good,’ Kez said abruptly.

  She put down the joint, stood up, went into the kitchen and picked up the bat and jersey. And then she walked out of the room over to the front door, slid the latch sideways and opened it.

  No key needed.

  The tension drained out of Cathy like air from a decompression chamber.

  The door had not been locked, and they were leaving this apartment. Which meant that Kez truly trusted her, had no hidden agenda. Had been sharing her deepest secrets with her, the woman she loved.

  Relief and warmth filled Cathy as they walked together downstairs and out into the warm, humid air.

  They turned towards the garage.

  Cathy looked at the jersey and the baseball bat under Kez’s left arm.

  Thought about the dark stains.

  Kez took the remote control from her pocket. ‘You do know, don’t you,’ she said, ‘that I’d never hurt you?’

  The door opened and Cathy looked into Kez’s eyes. The sun turned the irises almost golden, exposing the intensity of the hope behind them, making Cathy feel almost overcome by the enormity of her trust.

  They went into the garage and got back in the Golf.

  ‘You OK?’ Kez asked.

  Gentle and caring.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Cathy answered.

  More confused than she had been in a very long time.

  But with the woman she loved.

  Who loved her.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  At a quarter to four, Grace was making herself a late lunch. Not that she was hungry, but she owed it to the baby to eat, and anyway Lucia had called a little while back, apologetic for taking time out for an electrical problem at home.

  ‘I’ll bet you haven’t eaten anything,’ Lucia had said.

  ‘Not much,’ Grace had admitted.

  ‘You have to eat, Dr Lucca, you know that, for the baby’s sake.’

  Grace had made herself a small pasta salad, but now that she’d sat down to eat it at the kitchen table, Woody by her feet, she found she could hardly see the food for tears.

  Too much.

  Their son had been meant to come into the world with a young doctor-to-be for its uncle, and God only knew what would become of Saul’s plans now, his study on hold for many months, at least. The baby’s big sister was out somewhere with the person who had done that to Saul, who might even, it seemed possible, be a multiple killer.

  And what had happened to her own judgment skills? After this, after her awful, shameful suspicions of Terri, and even worse, much worse, her inability to help poor Gregory, maybe it was time she considered taking down her shingle and concentrating on full-time motherhood – and who was to say she was remotely fit for that?

  Grace pushed away her salad, unable to imagine being able to eat anything until Cathy was safely home, Saul through all his operations and Sam back here with her.

  Not just with her. Able to look her in the eye when he told her he loved her.

  Kez had relented, had let Cathy take over at the wheel.

  ‘You really can’t drive,’ Cathy had told her as soon as they were out of the garage, ‘not with all that junk in you.’

  And to her great relief Kez had said that she was right, and just being in the driver’s seat had made Cathy feel even better, more in control, and her thoughts were starting to clear a little.

  Whatever Kez might or might not have done in the past, Cathy felt they would find a way to cope with it together. Grace would help her, she was certain, or maybe David was the one they should approach first because he had, after all, once been Kez’s doctor, had said how much he had liked her. And once they saw how far back her problems had started, Grace and David would both want to help, and if not entirely for Kez’s sake,
then for hers. And yes, it would be hard for Kez, but she would have Cathy standing by her, proving her love for her.

  Now if she could just find the way to get back to I-75 . . .

  ‘I know you want to go home,’ Kez said suddenly.

  ‘I have to,’ Cathy said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I know,’ Kez said, ‘and it’s cool, but . . . ’

  Cathy glanced at her. ‘But what?’

  ‘I have one more thing to ask of you, just one more, before we go.’

  The dashboard clock read 3.54, and Cathy was acutely aware that she still hadn’t called home or the hospital, and she figured there was little point stopping to use a payphone now if they were on their way, but . . .

  ‘Let’s go to the beach,’ Kez said. ‘The sand here is amazing and we could run – we don’t have to go far, just run together one more time before . . . ’

  ‘There’ll be plenty more times to—’

  ‘No,’ Kez said. ‘There won’t.’

  Cathy sighed, checked the mirror, pulled over to the right.

  ‘I know,’ Kez said, ‘that what I’ve told you has to change things. And I know you meant it when you said you’d keep my secrets.’

  ‘I did mean it.’ Guilt was already rising again.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Kez said, ‘you won’t have to stick to that.’

  Cathy said nothing because she felt as if Kez had been reading her mind, and she didn’t know what to say.

  ‘If I turn myself in,’ Kez said, slowly, ‘and if they lock me up—’

  ‘They won’t,’ Cathy said. ‘You’ll get help and . . .’

  ‘When they lock me up,’ Kez said, ‘maybe in prison, maybe some institution, will you come see me sometimes, do you think?’

  Prison.

  Not storytelling after all.

  Cathy’s heart began to break.

  ‘Will you come see me?’ Kez asked again.

  ‘Yes,’ Cathy said. ‘Of course I’ll come.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Kez said.

  They sat in silence.

  ‘Want to hear the rest of it?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cathy said. ‘Do you want to tell me?’

  ‘In a way,’ Kez said. ‘It might help you understand a little more.’

  Cathy was silent again for a moment, and then she said:

  ‘Which way to the beach?’

  Terri had called the hospital again, and this time they had told her that Saul was still sleeping, which was the best thing for him right now. More than ever while Cathy was missing.

  She had asked them to send her love when he woke.

  She did love him, no question about that, and it had hurt so badly whenever they’d fought, but the trouble was, as much as she wanted to make a pact now with God or whoever, promise never to fight with Saul again so long as he made it out of hospital and was able to talk again, walk again, be him again . . . As much as she wanted to do that, she had realized that last day before the attack that they were too damned different, that as much as they loved one another, they were always going to fight.

  Maybe that didn’t matter.

  She certainly wasn’t going to bail out on him now. She was going to stay by his side for as long as he needed her, maybe even for ever.

  Maybe. The rub. The nub.

  She looked at her watch. Three fifty-seven.

  Where were they?

  ‘I always knew how wrong it was,’ Kez said. ‘How wicked.’ The old Golf moved slowly south down another lovely, peaceful residential street. ‘But they laughed at me.’

  She made it sound simple. Matter of fact.

  ‘When people do that to me, Cathy, it feels like they’re stripping me naked. All the ugliness gets exposed when they laugh, and I hate them so much for that. I hate them more than you could ever begin to imagine.’

  Cathy knew she had to say something.

  ‘I know something about hate,’ she said.

  ‘Next right,’ Kez told her.

  Directions in the midst of this.

  Cathy turned right.

  ‘That’s how it was with the janitor,’ Kez said.

  Shock juddered through Cathy, turning her blood to ice.

  The janitor. Muller.

  Sam’s case.

  ‘And that’s how it was,’ Kez said, ‘with the woman who came into the changing rooms at the gym I used to go to.’

  More to come, Cathy thought, more, dear Christ.

  ‘It was late,’ Kez went on. ‘I thought everyone else had left, so my guard was down, you know, so I came out of the shower and dropped my towel, and this woman was there cleaning, and she snickered when she saw me, and that was it.’

  Cathy stopped at a crossroads.

  ‘I got myself dressed and out of there. I can do that now, keep myself under control. I don’t fly into rages the way I did when I was a kid. I get away and I think about it, and if I’m sure I’m right – if I know they were laughing at me, mocking me – then I keep it all together and wait for the moment.’

  Cathy crossed the junction.

  Her brain was hurting. One minute the pain was soothed away, bathed in the novocaine of Kez’s trust and love, and then another brand new wound shocked her back into fresh pain and uncertainty.

  Fear now, above everything.

  She tried to stop listening, tried running lines in her head: ‘The beach, then home, a run, then home . . .’

  Kez was still talking, something about an aunt who used to help her, though it was hard for her, she said, hard for anyone to understand.

  ‘Which is why I always try to do it near the ocean so I can wash myself after.’

  Washing off the blood.

  Don’t think about that.

  Cathy had seen enough blood, more than enough for a lifetime.

  Don’t go there.

  There was a dead-end ahead, the road widening before it with spaces on both sides for two or three cars; a small, curved footbridge ahead, tall palms on either side.

  The beach ahead, the ocean.

  ‘The beach, then home . . .’

  She nosed the Golf into one of the spaces.

  ‘The woman in the mall didn’t laugh out loud – ’ Kez was still talking – ‘but she knew those jeans made me look ugly, and . . .’

  Get out of the car, run, find a cop.

  She couldn’t do that to Kez, not when she was so sick.

  You can walk away though, leave her behind.

  But then what would Kez do? Abandoned, betrayed, what would she do?

  What would Grace do if she were here? Forgetting about love, focusing on friendship and decency and what was right.

  Grace would probably go on listening.

  Angie called Sam at ten after four.

  ‘Martinez got a license number for Flanagan, and we just got a sighting. Eighth Avenue South, heading for the beach. Green VW Golf, two young women.’

  His pulse rate soared as he grabbed a pen, wrote down the number.

  ‘Blessings on you both.’

  ‘Blonde driver,’ Angie went on, ‘so probably Cathy.’

  Good and bad news. Cathy safe for now, but no easy way, if things got ugly, to persuade the Naples PD she’d been with Flanagan against her will.

  He called Terri thirty seconds later. ‘Meet you there?’

  ‘I’d say we start where we met before,’ she suggested. ‘Move up that way from there. Flanagan might be revisiting the scene.’

  ‘They might just be going for a run,’ Sam said. ‘It’s what they do.’

  ‘What they did,’ Terri said. ‘Could all be different now.’

  ‘You see them first,’ Sam warned, ‘keep your distance.’

  He was conscious of not asking if she’d brought her firearm along for the ride, thought he probably knew the answer, was maybe better off not knowing for sure, could hardly castigate her for something he was equally guilty of.

  ‘You’ll be there before me,’ she said. ‘Traffic’s pretty snarled
up.’

  ‘On my way,’ Sam told her.

  Kez got out of the car, the jersey over her left shoulder, the bat in her left hand, and came around to the driver’s side, waited while Cathy locked the door and tucked her right arm through hers.

  They strolled over the tiled paving and up on to the footbridge.

  ‘Hey,’ Kez said softly, stopping halfway across. ‘You going to leave me?’

  Cathy looked into her face, her lover’s eyes, saw the plea.

  Nothing matter of fact now. Nothing simple.

  She knew that the answer was no, even now. She was not going to run out on her. She was going to stay by Kez’s side for as long as she could, as long as they let her. And it wasn’t at all like novocaine now, not a numbing of judgment or common-sense; it was something else entirely, something wholly devoid of sense . . .

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.

  They walked on to the other side of the bridge and down past the long grasses on either side on to the beach. The sand was whiter, seemed softer underfoot than in Miami; the ocean looked and sounded and smelled wonderful, and the wind was high, whipping through their hair, a warm, sandy wind; there were people around living real, normal lives, and it felt just a little like being on vacation, except that Cathy had to keep forcing herself not to think about those dark stains on the bat that was still in her lover’s left hand.

  Trying to forget that Rudolph Muller had been killed on a beach.

  And then suddenly she realized where they were.

  On the beach not far from Naples Pier.

  Where Saul had been attacked.

  Stamped on. Bludgeoned. Almost destroyed.

  Cathy stopped walking, pulled her arm out of Kez’s and stared at her.

  Kez looked right back at her.

  Knew that Cathy had realized.

  She knelt down on the sand, laid the bat down on the ground before her like a samurai laying down his sword.

  ‘Come sit with me, Cathy.’ She dropped the 44 jersey by her side. The sleeveless black T-shirt she’d put on hours before was stuck to her skin with perspiration, her arms and shoulders and the tiny dragonfly tattoo glistening with it. ‘Come sit with me one last time.’

  Cathy sat, her movements very slow, and now this was numbness, and dumbness too. Though something that felt like a great scream of anguish was building deep inside her mind, walled up by disbelief.