Spiders in a Dark Web

by Emily Senecal

  “That’s… convenient,” I said, startled by how simple it was to find out. I’d imagined we’d have to go through some difficult and time-consuming rigmarole. Costumes and back stories might be required. It goes to show how very ignorant I was about incarceration in general.

  “They’re specific about what you can wear and bring with you, if you want to take a look at the list later. Seems straightforward enough. We’ll be able to go in together, if we get in at all. There’s a direct shuttle that leaves from Harlem at twelve fifteen, I say we plan to take it. We can catch the 4 train down the street, it’ll take us straight there.”

  “That’s… yeah, that’s great.” Again, I was surprised at the effortlessness of the arrangements. There was even a shuttle. “So I guess Wednesday’s settled. We can’t do much more until then. What do you want to do this afternoon?”

  “What sounds good to you?”

  I considered the various options. Museums and sights would be crowded at this time of day. I wasn’t quite hungry yet, though I would be in another hour or two. There was really only one place that I wanted to go, if Peter agreed.

  “How about the park?”

  Central Park had been one of my favorite outings from my previous visit. I could have spent hours just wandering through it. But though my friends had exclaimed over it and taken dozens of photos, it hadn’t been as interesting to them as the flashy energy of Times Square or Rockefeller Center, so we hadn’t gone back. There were no clubs, no stores, no theatres, just miles of twisting trails, statues, bridges and trees interspersed with fountains and lakes. I wouldn’t presume to try to describe it as a non-New-Yorker, but if you’re into parks, and history, and nature, it’s fantastic.

  Our hotel wasn’t far from the southeastern corner of the park, so we walked, hand in hand, wearing the lightest clothing we’d packed. I’d bundled my hair into a bun and taken a minute to dust some powder over my face and swipe fresh mascara on my lashes, but didn’t have the energy for any more elaborate primping.

  I felt kind of floaty with a mixture of weariness and happiness, content to let everything go for the time being and just enjoy the present for what it was. The park was as green and inviting as I remembered it, with long shady paths leading from one part to another, wide bright vistas showing views of the surrounding city blocks.

  We wandered at will, not taking any pictures, not even talking much except to point things out to each other. We sat on benches and watched people walking by or sitting around us. We bought hot dogs and Cokes and ate them by the Carousel. We looked at the plaque by Strawberry Fields, Bethesda Fountain, the Zoo, the Shakespeare Garden. We circled the Alice in Wonderland statue and crossed the Bow Bridge.

  Peter was so restful. Maybe because he spent so much time either with a dog or in a bar full of people talking to each other—by now I was convinced that womanizer was off the table—he was often quiet, keeping his thoughts to himself, but was always present when I spoke. It wasn’t that he didn’t talk; he asked questions and made comments and suggestions, but in between were comfortable silences. His friend in Queens, who had since moved back to Colorado, had collected old maps of the city along with interesting historical facts, a few of which Peter remembered and shared with me. But there was no need to talk, if we didn’t want to.

  It was the loveliest afternoon I’d spent in longer than I could remember, even with the lack of sleep and ever-present awareness about our improbable quest. I could mentally step away from that and just drift, my arm around Peter, my eyes and ears on the beautiful scenery around us.

  It was on our way back to the hotel that we noticed the man following us.

  ■ ■ ■

  Sometime before that, we decided to go to the Loeb Boathouse for a drink and a snack. I wasn’t sure I wanted anything more to eat after the hot dogs, but found I did once we were seated at the outside bar, our table close to edge of the lake. The sun had finally broken through or burned off the cloud cover, and a fresh breeze softened the sultry heat of the day to a temperate warmth. Over crab cakes and white wine, watching dusk fall over the wide expanse of water, Peter asked me about my job in LA, was I sorry to leave it, what did I want to do next.

  “It’s been awhile since I even considered that,” I admitted, after briefly describing just how not sorry I was to be done with the sterile tedium of my last position. “I liked working in Silicon Valley, but I’m not sure I’d want to go back to doing that again. The problem is that I’m not really trained for anything in particular, not since I graduated. I’ve got a lot of experience in database programming, but… I don’t know if that’s what I want to keep doing.”

  Our appetizer arrived at that point, interrupting the conversation as we quickly devoured it with little to say for ourselves but a few murmured “yums.”

  “Do you think you would’ve quit your job if Marianne hadn’t shown up?” Peter asked, putting down his fork and picking up his glass.

  We both leaned back in our chairs, sipping wine, relaxed and replete.

  “I… don’t know,” I said slowly. “I wasn’t happy, but I was so used to it that I didn’t really notice. My life was kind of… I was kind of on autopilot, not paying much attention to what was going on with me.”

  “Did you make a lot of friends? It always seemed like a social kind of town.”

  “Social… yeah, it is—but it’s also lonely, in a way. I met a few women at workout classes or through work, we’d go out together to clubs or lunch. It wasn’t always easy to connect, though. And I dated a lot, but that was more like a habit than anything else. I think I’d given up expecting to find someone I liked who actually liked me. They were into it, or I was, but not both of us.”

  “Mm. Define ‘a lot?’” he requested, raising an eyebrow.

  I laughed and ignored my slight blush.

  “Not a lot a lot. I was on a couple of dating sites, and would meet guys for a drink or coffee a few times a month. It rarely got to a second date—and third dates almost never. Normally one of us would just fade out after it was clear that we weren’t getting together again. It was usually obvious after the first couple of minutes, though sometimes I’d find somebody interesting and think he might be interested too, and then wouldn’t hear from him.”

  “It sounds exhausting,” he said frankly. “I hate dating.”

  “It could be kind of draining, but you get used to it. It becomes part of your routine, you know? Like exercising, or having your teeth cleaned.”

  “As fun as that?”

  “Sometimes much less fun than that. The thing is, it doesn’t work if you take it too seriously. I just went with it, kept my expectations low, had a good time when I could. So you don’t date much, then?—I mean, didn’t date much?”

  He shrugged and made a face.

  “Not really. I’d sometimes talk to women at the bar, and we’d meet up for coffee or something like that. I didn’t… I mean, I wasn’t exactly celibate, but opening and running the business has taken up so much of my time the past couple of years, I didn’t go out a lot. And then lately—with the Hal situation—it’s been easier to just lay low, which isn’t great for your social life.”

  “What about in Tucson, before you moved out here?”

  “That’s… It was a different scene, I guess you could say. When Kathe and I first split up, I went out a lot—and I do mean a lot. Every night, or close to it. I wasn’t dealing well, so there were some… it’s embarrassing to admit. I had a few one-night stands and… partied pretty hard. That went on for almost a year, and did some real damage to my life. I got one DUI and then only a couple of months later I got another one—driving without my license with a small amount of drugs on me. It was… I wasn’t in a good place, but that’s no excuse. I’m just lucky nothing worse happened.”

  I didn’t say anything, but met his eyes sympathetically. I knew he was ashamed. There was no point in dwelling on how wrong he’d been.

  “Anyway, after I was arrested for the secon
d DUI, Kathe helped me out. She arranged for me to start therapy and smoothed the way for a misdemeanor charge and sentence of community service. I quit my job—I’d been a bartender at a really wild place—and got hired as a manager at a hotel lounge, which was a crappy job but actually paid pretty well. I didn’t like the therapist, much, but I think he helped me straighten myself out.

  “I hung in there for a few years, got my license back—and had zero desire to go back to the party scene. I tried one of those dating apps and hated it. I cancelled my account after a month. And then Delia and Hal made their offer, and I figured, why not? It seemed like a good chance to start fresh, and I’d always liked the idea of living in California.”

  As I listened, I could see it, just like I had before. I could see his loneliness and desperation after his divorce, see the desire to lose himself in whatever seemed to offer the most distraction. The darkness of that time, the stricken, sobering recognition of how close he’d come to endangering himself and—even more disturbing—others, the slow determined struggle to get to a healthier place. His ex-wife had remarried, but he’d been alone.

  Alone. Like me.

  “I can relate,” I finally said. “I understand wanting a fresh start—and feeling lost and overwhelmed and… doing reckless things to get away from it. Things that don’t work, but you do them anyway.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.”

  “It’s also true.”

  “I know.”

  We ordered second glasses of wine. Dusk crept quietly through the park, muting the noise and movement of the city around us.

  “It does explain one thing that I’ve been wondering about,” I said in a lighter tone.

  “What’s that?”

  “How you managed to stay a bachelor with hordes of single women around ready to snatch you up.”

  “Hordes?” he repeated skeptically.

  “I saw hordes,” I stated firmly.

  “I’m not sure I’m such a great prospect,” he said ruefully, with a laugh.

  “Why not? You’ve got a lot going for you, the Hal mess aside. I think you’re a fantastic prospect.”

  “Don’t you think you’re a little biased? Besides, you’re one to talk—you were in town, what, a week? And already caught the eye of our fine young deputy.”

  “That was unexpected,” I reflected, not bothering to deny it. “Nobody like him would pay any attention to me in LA. Poor Tom. Though come to think of it, he never made a pass at me, so it’s just speculation that he was interested.”

  “It’s more than speculation. And it’s just as well he didn’t.”

  His voice was neutral, but I caught the edge of something that surprised me.

  “You aren’t… jealous, are you? Because—”

  “No, not at all,” he assured me. “But I was. That first night in the bar, when he gave off that ‘stay off my lawn’ vibe—about you. It was incredibly hard to walk away and not drag you with me.”

  “Pleasant as that sounds, you wouldn’t have had to drag me.”

  “Tom would’ve loved that,” he grinned appreciatively. “You know,” he continued, absently reaching for my hand and playing lightly with my fingers, “as much as I hate—and I really mean hate—that you’ve had to go through hell the past couple of weeks, and am going to do everything I can to help you get out of it, if it hadn’t happened…”

  We looked at each other. No meeting on the beach. No nights together in the camper and breakfast with Osiris. No New York.

  No us.

  “Yeah,” I said, and we smiled.

  Chapter 10

  We first noticed the man near the Bethesda Fountain. I doubt we’d have spotted him at all among the crowds of people out enjoying the mild evening, except that one of Peter’s shoes became untied as we crossed Bethesda Terrace. He knelt to retie it, while I stood and looked idly around. The man was about twenty paces back, and staring fixedly at me.

  When he caught my eye, he looked away and continued to walk in our direction, veering slightly as he passed us and continuing toward a sweeping set of stairs to the left, over the top of the Terrace Arcade. Other than noticing his stare when I met it, I barely registered him—just an average-looking man in a dark suit on his way somewhere for the evening. We moved more slowly, walking arm in arm straight down the center of the Arcade, under the decorative arches and through the tiled tunnel. It wasn’t close to full dark yet, but the lights were on inside.

  On the other side of the Arcade, we continued straight on until we joined the tree-shadowed Mall, following that down toward Center Drive and the southeast corner of the park where we’d entered. Not far along the Mall, Peter stopped again, needing, as so often happens, to retie the other shoe, and again I paused and glanced behind us.

  And again the man was there.

  Forty paces back now, but more noticeable since the lane happened to be fairly empty. He wasn’t looking at me this time, but was staring straight ahead. I still probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it—except that, out of my peripheral vision, I could tell that as he approached, he slowed his pace. Just a slight slowing. Just enough to show that he didn’t want to catch up with us.

  And that did catch my attention.

  There are plenty of reasons you might adjust your pace while walking somewhere. Slowing down, speeding up, passing someone or allowing them to pass you. People don’t always walk at the same consistent speed. The man might not have wanted to intrude—though it was completely obvious that Peter was kneeling to adjust a shoe, there wasn’t any mystery to that. He might have had a completely unrelated reason for slowing down, which had nothing to do with us at all.

  But a crinkly feeling went up the back of my neck, all the same. Maybe because for the first time in my life, I’d been warned to watch out for people behind me. Or because I knew there could be some danger of being followed—but not here, not in New York. I hadn’t been consciously thinking about it for days, had taken no precautions.

  And Marianne did say not to use my credit cards. Not to use my name at any hotels. I’d done both in the last twenty-four hours, along with a plane ticket stamped Lola Bright.

  All of this took less than a minute to pass, and then Peter straightened again and we were on our way, the man behind us. It was my turn to change our pace, moving faster and pulling Peter by the hand along with me. I didn’t want to run, so I kept it to a fast walk. Not hurrying-to-catch-a-train fast, but fast enough.

  At Center Drive, I turned to the right, Peter following without comment. Using his shoulder and neck to shield me, I managed to sneak a quick look down the way we’d come. The man had dropped back some—but not far back enough.

  He’d had to have increased his own pace to be as close as he was.

  As the drive curved past the Carousel, now closed for the evening, I turned us quickly down one of the tree-lined paths beside it, circling around the Carousel buildings and heading northwest. A little way down, I stopped, pulling Peter off the path so that we were out of sight behind a bush, but could still see the gap of the drive where we’d turned in.

  “What’s up?” he asked quietly, holding onto my hand.

  I didn’t say anything, watching the gap with wide, anxious eyes. At first I didn’t think it would happen. I started to feel relieved—and extremely silly—at my overreaction. He was just some guy walking through the park, some businessman on his way to drinks or dinner… and then he was there, in the gap.

  He stopped, hesitating, looking down the way we’d gone, looking the other way, not seeing us in the deepening shadows. I realized I was holding my breath, as if it would help, and gave a quiet gasp. Peter was still beside me, not speaking or questioning my actions. After only a few seconds, the man continued down the path toward us.

  I drew back in alarm, into the shadows—then froze in shock when Peter didn’t join me. Instead he moved out to meet the man on the path, asking calmly, “Were you looking for us?”

  I jumped—as did the man
, though his surprise was more moderate, and more quickly controlled. He paused, staring angrily at Peter.

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked stiffly, in a fair imitation of someone who’d been wrongfully accused. I saw his eyes flicker to me, probably just visible as a lighter shape in the gloom, before resting again on Peter. He was Caucasian with dark hair and regular features and no distinguishing marks or facial hair, but I thought I’d recognize him if I saw him again.

  “Just wondering if you wanted something,” Peter said in a deceptively helpful voice. “You seemed to be following us.”

  The man eyed him, and for a split second I wondered if he was going to break character and explain. But then the impression was gone.

  “You’re crazy,” he said flatly. “Get the fuck away from me.”

  “No problem at all,” Peter said with steely politeness, standing his ground.

  Looking genuinely annoyed, the man turned and continued down the path by the ball fields, not looking behind him. He disappeared up ahead, turning left where the path met another of the streets that crisscrossed the park. Peter watched him go, and then fluidly pulled me with him back toward Center Drive, not running but moving at a rapid pace down through an underpass beneath the street, which even in my anxiety I recognized from movies and TV, down a series of darkening paths, past trees and small buildings. With steady speed, we passed the Zoo at the edge of the park, making a sharp right onto 5th Avenue.

  We didn’t talk until we were on the wide street, comfortingly bright with the last glow of daylight augmenting the streetlights, busy with late commuter traffic.

  “You saw him too?” I asked breathlessly, holding tightly to Peter’s hand.

  “When we left the restaurant, he was standing by the bar.”

  I shivered, though I wasn’t cold.

  “Why do you think he was following us?”

  “Maybe to see where we were going,” Peter suggested, very kindly not pointing out what a stupid question it was.