The Empty Heart: A Collection

by Derek Murphy

She spoke softly when she said, "Maybe you’re right. I won’t ever betray you though, Dag. We owe each other our lives. What’s that thing about once you save someone’s life, you have to keep right on taking care of them? Does that mean that we have to stay together? I would like that. I could get used to having you nearby."

  Their eyes held each other for a few moments until he broke his gaze and stepped into his underwear, saying, "Don’t get used to it. If I go to Australia, I can’t see my kids. I’m ready to give up on Mary, but I can’t give up on my kids."

  She watched as he continued to get dressed without ever looking at her until she finally closed the bathroom door. Dag heard the water start and finished with his clothes before walking out to the kitchen to throw something together to eat. Within thirty minutes, he had cleaned up the kitchen and had a decent breakfast put together. He began eating, leaving Chloe’s plate on the stove to keep the food warm. When he had finished, he began to wonder what was keeping her and walked back to the bedroom after putting his dishes in the washer.

  The water had stopped running and he was about to knock on the door when he heard her crying. Hesitating, he frowned and thought for a moment, wondering if he had been too hard on her. It hadn’t been necessary for him to slam the door on her thoughts of him going to Australia with her, after all. Maybe a few weeks away from town was what he needed. Maybe Mary would be more likely to take him back if he was gone for a while. He listened to the sobs for a while before finally knocking. When she didn’t answer, he turned the knob and poked his head around the door as he opened it.

  The shower door was still closed and it appeared that Chloe had squatted down in the tub. Moving to the door, frightened that she may have fallen, he slid the door to the side and looked down on her. The remains of her makeup was gone and her face, though puffy from crying, seemed more wholesome and attractive than it had previously. Blinking up at him, she wiped the tears away with both hands and the lost, little girl look was there again.

  "Go away. I don’t want you."

  Bending, he grasped her under the arms while she tried to cross her arms to cover her breasts, and lifted her to her feet. He felt muscle under the loose skin and decided that all she really needed was a little exercise to get herself back into shape. Though her face was puffy from crying, now that the makeup was gone, the wrinkles and bags under her eyes were less pronounced. He did a quick calculation of her age, based on when he had first heard of her and decided that she was probably about his own age, give or take a year or two.

  "You’ll catch cold if you sit here all wet."

  Nastily, she asked, "What do you care? You don’t want me."

  He bent and slid an arm under her knees while he kept the other arm behind her back, and lifted her out to stand her on the bathmat. Taking a towel from the rack, he wrapped it around her and began helping her to dry off. He talked while he did it.

  "I never said I didn’t want you. You’re still a beautiful, desirable woman, Chloe."

  The tears began to come again as she said, "After the things they did to me; you don’t want me. After being what I was to Boris, you think I’m ruined."

  "I never said anything like that. He got you when you were weak and everything that’s happened to you since then is his fault; not yours. When you were strong enough, you got clean."

  She stopped sobbing and grabbed a corner of the towel, unmindful of her nudity, and wiped the tears away with it as she gazed up at him with something like worship in her eyes.

  "You don’t think I’m ruined?"

  "It was something that was done to you, Chloe; not something that you wanted to do. Oh, you may have enjoyed it at times, but from what you’ve said, I can tell that you wanted it to stop. That’s what counts."

  She smiled at him, speechless for once and he gazed into her eyes, surprised to find that he actually liked her. As a smoky look came to her eyes, he flipped the towel over her head and vigorously began to dry her hair for her to deflect the sexual tension that had suddenly cropped up. He hoped that with the towel over her face, she wouldn’t see the evidence at the front of his jeans that his sudden self-revelation had produced.

  After he had her hair more or less dry, he handed her the towel, saying, "You better hurry. Your food’s getting cold."

  Despite himself, he smacked her lightly on the butt, producing a girlish giggle and was pleased to see her blush as he left the bathroom to let her get dressed.

  Back in the kitchen, he poured himself another cup of coffee and stood leaning back against the counter with his eyes on the crayon pictures his kids had stuck to the fridge with magnets. It hadn’t been his intention to act as any sort of cheerleader or therapist for Chloe, but that was the way it had worked out. Despite her bawdy disregard for social conventions, she really wanted to feel good about herself and had found little in her life over the past few years to feed that need. Dag, hurting himself, and with a need to feel as though someone wanted and needed him, having been suddenly cut off from his children, found an outlet for his need to be needed. That the outlet was in pumping up a prematurely has-been model was beside the point; she provided what he needed and he would live with that.

  With that straight in his mind, he continued to regard his kids’ pictures and thought of what Mary had said to him as she left with the kids the other day.

  "You’ll never amount to anything, Dag! You let someone else’s problem ruin you! It’s not like your job was all that great, anyway! You weren’t ever going to move up in that company! No! You were too busy being just one of the guys! Well, my kids don’t need to be exposed to your childish need to be accepted by the people you work with!"

  Maybe she was right. Dag had never felt that he had fit in with any group that he associated with. Even in school, he had done everything he could to fit in and been alternately accepted and rebuffed. Maybe if his parents hadn’t saddled him with a name from the ‘old country’; Dag, he might have felt he had more in common with all the Steves and Mikes and Johnnys he had known in his life.

  So. What was keeping him here anyway? His kids. He knew Mary. She wouldn’t allow anything more than the bare essentials where visitation rights were concerned. He could look forward to every other weekend and a few days in the summer with his kids. Since her parents lived in Seattle; several hours’ drive away, she would find more and more reasons why he couldn’t come to pick them up for visitation. Sighing, he resigned himself to only seeing the kids on holidays for a few hours.

  With a new resolve, he lifted his head as Chloe entered the room, looking well-scrubbed and wholesome in Mary’s castoff clothes. At least she would look wholesome until she took a deep breath in that sweater; it fit her, but she was very much better endowed than Mary and was the type of person to call as much attention to herself as she could. The stretchy exercise pants fit her well and as she stood at the door to the kitchen, she pirouetted to show him how she looked and he had to admit that with a little something to hold in the slack muscles, she looked pretty good. With the pants tucked into the tops of the knee-high boots, she looked stylish and modern; much better than Mary had ever looked in the same getup. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail with her bangs hanging at the level of her eyebrows and though she wore no makeup, her eyes were almost hypnotic.

  He smiled at her, saying, "You look great, Chloe. Why don’t you get some breakfast into you so we can go get that money?"

  Dimpling, she sat down and attacked the food with relish and smiled up at him through a mouthful of food.

  "Have you given any thought to leaving with me for Sidney?"

  A thought came to him then and he asked, "What about your passport? They didn’t leave you with anything but the clothes on your back."

  Grinning, she said, "That one was in my professional name: Chloe Taylor. I have another at my place in my real name."

  Amused, he asked, "What’s your real name? All I ever heard you called was ‘Chloe’."

  Still grinning, she said, "Clotilde Ta
ylor. Chloe was a nickname my grandfather gave me. I think he had an old girlfriend named Chloe."

  "So, how much trouble will it be to get your passport?"

  Chewing on a bite of bacon, she swallowed and said, "Even though I lived with Boris, I kept my place out in the hills since it’s so close to his place. It’s not as grand as some of the mansions out there, but just being near all that ‘old money’ gave me a hint of respectability."

  Frowning, he said, "Out in the hills. You mean out there where Mrs. Mount and the Rundgren’s live?"

  A thought came to him then. "Butcher Rand lives out there, too. He’s not how you got mixed up with Boris, is he?"

  Shaking her head, Chloe said, "I wish I’d known ‘The Butcher’. He keeps to himself, him and his butler and housekeeper. I hear they all knew each other in school and stayed together all this time. There are all sorts of rumors about how he got his nickname, you know."

  Giving a shiver of mock dread, she grinned lopsidedly and said, "A regular man of action, that one!"

  Having heard a lot about Butcher Rand that he knew to be true and even more rumors that he had no way of verifying, Dag was relieved to hear that Rand wasn’t involved with Chloe’s deceased benefactor. Knowing Rand’s reputation, if he had been involved, Dag had been prepared to say to Hell with the money and simply run for his life.

  He said, "Let’s get on the road. The sooner we get the money, the less likely Boris’ friends and associates are to find where he kept it."

  Finishing up the food on her plate, Chloe rose and put a hand on his arm as he passed her on the way to the garage.

  "Thanks." She jerked her head toward the bedroom. "You know, for earlier. I was feeling pretty down."

  Shrugging, he said, "You needed it."

  Silently, she leaned in against him, putting her arms around his neck to pull him down so that she could kiss him lightly on the lips. She murmured, "You’re in for a treat when we get to Sidney."

  Dag had still not agreed to leave with her, and felt that by vocally assuming that he would go with her, she could enact a de-facto acceptance of her own desires. He had noticed Mary doing much the same thing during their marriage, but to a lesser extent. Those assumptions had led to any number of arguments in which she claimed he had agreed to do something when he had not. He hoped that Chloe wouldn’t do the same thing. Not wanting to light the fuse of an argument at this moment in time, he slid an arm behind her and lightly pushed her toward the garage as he lifted one of Mary’s castoff coats from the coat rack for her.

  Handing her the coat, he said, "Let’s just get started."

  * * *

  Getting his SUV through the snow to the little enclave in the hills where all the rich and powerful people of the city lived had been tough, but once there, Dag found that the roads had been recently plowed. They had also been treated with salt and sand to reduce the likelihood of any of the Bentleys or Maybachs that the rich and powerful drove skidding on the pavement. He wondered if the common citizens even knew of the care that was taken to prevent the rich among them from suffering inconvenience. Probably not. Or, if they did, felt that any objections to their preferential treatment would do no good.

  While most of the homes had gates and private roads, those had also been scraped free of snow and ice. As he drove past Rundgren’s home, he saw a pair of young girls cavorting along the private road, flinging snowballs at each other while an older man and a pair of obvious bodyguards walked along it. The older man, whom he recognized as Charlie Rundgren, carried a rolled up newspaper in one hand; the possible reason for the trek to the gate. Dag wondered how many of the people in town would go without their newspapers today because of the snow that had piled up all over town.

  As they passed Mrs. Mount’s property, he felt like scrunching down in the seat when he saw the three guards at the gate, stamping their feet to keep warm as they stood outside the guard-shack. He wasn’t sure that they would turn a blind eye to what he and Chloe were about to do. Sure, Chloe had been Boris’ guest on numerous occasions, but that didn’t mean that she had the run of the property.

  As they drove along, another gate came into view, next to a property that stood alone without a fence or a gate. Pointing toward the house without a fence, Chloe said, "Slow down. That’s my place. Turn in and go up the drive. We’ll pull into the garage. My car’s in town, so there’s room."

  The drive was well-kept, as all of them were, and when he stopped in front of the garage, Chloe jumped from the SUV and ran to the keypad beside the garage door. Punching in her code, she stood to one side and waved him inside as the door retracted to the top. Pulling in, he saw a bicycle, a golf cart and an old MG, much in need of repair. The hood, or bonnet, was missing and as he parked beside the little car, he saw that there was no engine. As he left the SUV, he pointed to the MG with his eyebrows raised.

  She waved it off, saying, "One of my old boyfriends said he would restore it for me, but never got around to it. He was more interested in spending my money. When I caught him with a teenager, boffing in my pool no less, I sent him packing."

  Entering the house, he followed her through it, amazed that a house that belonged to someone as rich as she had been could be so bare of furniture.

  He said, "I guess you were too busy to furnish the place."

  Stopping just short of her bedroom, she looked around, slightly embarrassed and said, "I was rarely here. So much of my time was spent in other countries that I just didn’t have the time or inclination to do much decorating."

  Dag decided that it was hard work being rich and shrugged for an answer, following her into the bedroom. Chloe went immediately to a closet and pushed a jumbled pile of shoes, clothes and other, less identifiable things aside to get at a floor safe. Spinning the knob as she input the combination, she lifted the lid and reached inside, coming up with a small, leather folder. Flipping it open, she checked the contents and closed it with a small smile.

  "Now we’ve got money for airfare. And, my passport."

  A frown came to her face for a moment and she asked, "What about yours?"

  He had secretly relented in his refusal to leave with her and slapped his breast where his own passport resided in an interior pocket of his coat. "I got it earlier. Now what?"

  Lowering the door of the safe, she spun the knob and rose from where she knelt on the floor, saying, "Now, we go to Boris’ house."

  Leading him from the room, she opened a patio door and stepped out onto the snow-covered patio. A heated pool steamed to one side with a cover over it and she led the way past it to a break in the stone fence that surrounded the patio. An unbroken expanse of snow stretched to the fence surrounding the next door, which he took to be Boris’.

  He asked, "How did Boris keep this place secret from his associates?"

  "This was his private getaway. He never brought business here and never told anyone about it. Whenever he came here, he drove himself and left his bodyguards at the penthouse. Not even his family knew about this place."

  "Family?"

  A sour look came to her face as she said, "A wife and kids, a brother and sister-in-law; they all lived with him at the penthouse. You never saw such a collection of Euro-trash. The wife and sister-in-law are about four feet wide and not much taller. The kids, a couple of girls, are pretty, but I’m sure they’ll end up looking like their mother. His brother always wanted into Boris’ business, but Boris didn’t trust him; claimed that Yuri stole his toys when they were kids."

  Still looking at the deep snow, Dag asked, "How do we get there? Traipsing through this snow will slow us down. A lot."

  She walked toward a small building built onto the side of the house and kicked snow away from the small door. Working the latch, she pulled the door open and grinned when he came to stand beside her. Inside was a snowmobile. Dag went to it, checking the tank for gas and lifted a set of keys from a nail that was driven into a stud on one side of the little building. Inserting the key, he turned it and listene
d as the engine turned over, twice, three times, before it caught and began to run smoothly. He straddled the seat and Chloe slid in behind him, her arms going around his waist.

  He looked back at her and her eyes sparkled as she cried, "Mush!"

  Gunning the engine, Dag started it out of the building and across the snow at a moderate rate of speed until Chloe’s words in his ear spurred him to accelerate.

  "Remember, we want to get there first!"

  She directed him toward the rear corner of the fence and once there, he saw an open gate, half-buried in snow and drove through it, angling toward a door at the back of the house. As he stopped, Chloe tumbled off the back and rolled in the snow, coming to a stop in a spray of the fine, white stuff. As she rose, she pointed toward the door and plowed her way through the snow to an urn that sat beside the door. She pushed the urn so that it leaned to one side and slid a hand under it, fishing there for something and when she brought her hand out, flourished a key. Opening the door, she stepped through and made directly for a room at the rear of the house. The room was paneled with a rich, dark wood that Dag took to be mahogany, and bookcases ranged along every wall but the one behind the desk where a huge fireplace sat, cold now, but he could imagine a fire burning merrily within it.

  Walking to the fireplace, Chloe pushed her pants down around her knees, including her borrowed underwear, which prompted Dag to remember where the key was kept. Shoving a hand between her legs, she grimaced at him for a moment before beaming a smile his way as she produced the key and he saw that it was gold. She stepped to one side of the fireplace and ran the fingers of one hand along the stone on the side until she felt what she was looking for and slipped the key into its hole. With an audible click, one stone popped out an inch and she pulled on it, swinging it to the side. Behind it, Dag saw a dark opening about two feet wide by a foot tall. It must have been comparatively deep as Chloe withdrew still another briefcase from it and quickly laid it on the desk behind her. Working the catches on its front side, she lifted the top and he saw a stack of paper, embellished with scrollwork and a great deal of decorative printing.