by Jamie Mason
I shouldn’t be here.
She was down almost a quarter of a tank already by the full swell of daybreak. It seemed wrong that everything was this bright and dewy. As if everything were better than fine.
She’d crossed the town line at every compass point in the night, and the longing to just keep going crested to nearly unbearable every time she did.
She was so tired that her thoughts slipped into almost dreamlike snippets of her old life—her forehead against her cat’s gray fur; the clink of champagne flutes after a big sale; shampoo in her short hair; her sister’s hands shuffling a deck of cards on poker night; a New Year’s party at the gallery; her corner of the electronic world pinging with messages from people she knew, from people who knew her . . .
A shriek of car horns snapped her focus onto the road. She’d drifted far out of her lane into the next turn. She was jangling awake now, trembling. She took the exit and pulled into the parking lot of a church. She called Samantha.
The phone rang and rang. Emma kneaded her bottom lip between her teeth, her throat working to hold down the cry that wanted out.
The line clicked. “M?”
She lost the fight with her voice and all she could do was cry.
“M? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Her hitching would barely let the words past. “No. Not hurt. I’m okay.”
Samantha blew out a relieved breath into the phone. “Okay. Okay. What’s going on?”
Marcelline sobbed into her hand to keep from howling over the connection.
Samantha’s voice was gentle. “What happened?”
“It’s not going to work.” She saw Roy’s face in her mind and stifled another wail. I shouldn’t be here. “I can’t do anything. And Roy’s dead because of me. It’s over.”
“Nothing’s over. This didn’t work out. Come on back. We’ll find another way.”
Marcelline’s phone doubled-beeped. An incoming text. She pulled the phone away to look. It was from Carly.
Are you there?
Marcelline typed as Samantha kept talking, her voice distant, calling to her. “Emma?”
Marcelline texted back to Carly, Yes. Everything okay?
I don’t know. Another message came up immediately. No I think maybe not.
“Samantha, I have to go.”
“No!”
“I’ll call you back. I promise.”
“Em, please, don’t hang—”
“I’ll call you back!”
She pressed the call dead and texted Carly, Call me?
Nothing. Marcelline wanted to move, to pace, to crawl out of her skin. As she started to text again, the phone rang.
“What’s wrong?”
“John’s acting really weird,” Carly spoke fast, breathless. “Did you think he was kinda bizarre last night?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “And it sounds stupid, but I thought he was kind of hiding his face in the coat closet. I thought he didn’t want you and Mom to see how worried he was. It was sort of like that. But not really like that. He was moving stuff around, and it was weird.”
“What are you talking about, honey?”
“But then I heard him in the closet again this morning, and he was moving stuff again, and I wondered if maybe he’d put something in there. Like hidden something. Like maybe he had something from that guy who died. Like maybe he’s actually bad. Do you think John might be bad? I wanted to ask my mom, but she was with him that night. But she didn’t do anything. Marcelline, I swear she wouldn’t. I don’t want her to be in trouble. . . . I just didn’t know who to call. But you’ll help my mom? Right?”
Marcelline held her breath, the air washed in ozone like the smell that was almost a flavor before a sudden, violent storm. “Yes. You did right. I’m glad you called. It’s okay. What’s going on?”
“So John had to go out this morning, right? And I waited and then I went through the closet. There was nothing there. I mean just usual stuff. Except he’d hidden that painting that used to be hanging in the front hallway. It’s so weird. My mom thought he got rid of it. He got rid of everything. But not the picture. It’s zipped up in a bag with his dress suit. That’s not normally in the closet either. I saw it last night hanging up when he was in there. But today he moved it to the floor and covered it up with a blanket and stuff.”
The runaway monster of Carly’s teenaged imagination was pieced together from what she’d seen and heard. It had been jolted alive by the electricity crackling between all the adults in her life. And it was so close to the truth.
All the lies and omissions, a death, the manipulations—Jonathan’s and Marcelline’s, too—everything they had pretended to be to Carly, and in the end it didn’t look that much different from the real story. After all their best efforts, Carly could still plausibly worry that John had killed Roy for something he’d had to hide in the family coat closet.
Marcelline managed to speak past an entirely dry tongue. “It’s in the closet? Where my jacket was?”
“No,” Carly said. “I took it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
Nobody said anything about his impromptu late grocery run after “Emma” had left. Donna and Carly ate the ice cream he bought after dismissing Marcelline, though he’d blindly grabbed a brand they never ate. The conversation fell thin and strained as the strangeness of the past days seeped back into the foreground of everyone’s thoughts. Carly disappeared into her room. Donna wouldn’t look at him and went up to take a bath. She was asleep, curled tight against the farthest edge of the mattress by the time he came to bed. It was a long night.
Jonathan gave up trying to sleep once the sky lightened from black to gray. He waited until seven to text Owen. Do you want it or not?
After half an hour, he had to send another message or throw the phone against the wall. Going once . . . Going twice . . .
Owen let that hang in the air for another ten minutes before he called. “Are we in a hurry?”
Jonathan had expected him to be like this, straightaway pissing a perimeter around the exchange. But the urge to throw the phone didn’t lessen. “I’m not having any more conversations about this. It’s a simple yes or no question.”
“You think this is simple?”
Jonathan thought he heard something like the clink of silverware, a muted whir, maybe cars going past where Owen was. Outdoor café? He wished he knew more about exactly where that might be.
Jonathan wanted this too much. He wanted to be out of limbo, wanted it right up to treading on the line of wishing he’d never seen the painting at all. But nearly just as much as everything else, he wanted to be done dealing with Owen. Jonathan wasn’t good around him. It was embarrassing. Owen made his hands go clammy.
He wiped them, each in quick turn, on his jeans. The aggressive silence routine was getting old. “Okay. Tell the Anningers I’m sorry it didn’t work—”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, they want it.”
“Were you going to let me know that at some point?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“When I got around to it.” Owen was maddeningly mild. “You realize I exist between our conversations and do other things sometimes, right?”
Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose and willed himself to get through this phone call without losing it.
Owen continued. “So, yes. They want it and they’ve made the arrangements. Same type of setup as before—some cash up front, then a wire transfer after authentication. Although I still have a problem with calling it simple.”
Jonathan hoped Owen took everything in this world that he had a problem with and shoved it up his ass, but didn’t say so. His pulse sped up. “Great. How much?”
“Five million. So, minus the two hundred and fifty thousand you took four years ago, four point seven five.”
“That’s bullshit. It was seven and a half before.”
“Well, Jonathan, wh
at can I say? Your urgency is their coupon.”
“What’s your cut?”
“I don’t get cuts. Stop trying to get in my shorts.”
“I just . . . Nah, that’s not enough. Go tell them it’s too low.”
Owen sighed. “I’m going to give you a second to play that back in your head.”
“Goddammit, you know I meant pretty please with sugar on top. You have to know this isn’t fair.”
“I do? I don’t think so. I don’t care about this silly little decoration, remember? Are you really going to piss your diaper over having to settle for five million dollars for something that isn’t yours?”
Everything that Jonathan had ever gotten wrong tallied to that sum. The shame of it was in all the moments lost to laziness and distraction. In his lack of stamina. In getting too comfortable. He hadn’t applied himself as well as he could have. And he could only hate Owen for paying attention enough to make the point.
It could be worse. He could be in prison. At least there was that. So he let the jab go unanswered.
“What’s next, then? When can we do this?”
There was a smile in Owen’s voice. “Ah, great. Back to the beginning of the carousel ride. So, once again, are we in a hurry?”
“I’d just as soon get it over with.” Especially if I’m being screwed to the tune of two and a half million dollars. But he didn’t say that part. He swallowed the pout. It was a small triumph, a warm touchstone of who he was, a reminder that he’d gotten far on being careful with words and tone.
“We can do it today, if you like,” Owen said.
“Well, I’d need to have enough time to go get it.”
“Lucky us. My schedule is wide-open. So whenever suits you, suits me fine.”
“Where do you want to meet? The same place as before?”
“I don’t care where we do it. You can handle that, if it worries you. Tell me when and where. I’ll be there.”
Jonathan didn’t like that. He set the meeting for twelve thirty in the same restaurant they’d met before. It would be busy and anonymously so. It felt solid.
Owen hadn’t suggested any adjustments to what Jonathan proposed. That was either because the transaction was going to be all the way straightforward, or that Jonathan had missed something. He knew, on a cellular level, that despite all of Owen’s protestations of not caring about the painting and the double cross, he cared about something in this, and in some way that was bad news for Jonathan.
So he made coffee and got comfortable in his desk chair. Jonathan threw a saddle on that paranoid feeling and let it take him where it might.
The restaurant wouldn’t be a place for trouble. Too many people with cell phones. Too many security cameras. And all of it too buried in a shopping plaza on a Saturday to get out quickly.
Although Owen was certainly built for it, Jonathan didn’t figure him for a blaze-of-glory kind of guy. The Mercedes gave him away. Something in him liked living. No full-on nihilist kept his car that clean.
So it—if there was any it coming—would be before or after. It was the same problem, both ways. He was in real trouble if Owen followed him. The only thing Jonathan had after he turned over the painting was Owen’s ill will.
Buying him off seemed unlikely. Owen was very proud that he had all he needed. Even if Jonathan offered him every bit of what the Anningers were going to pay, it wouldn’t interest Owen Haig. And if Jonathan was going to do that, he might as well have given it to Marcell—
Jonathan grabbed up his phone. Did you really know she wasn’t dead?
His phone lit up immediately. He let it go four rings in before answering.
“Oh, Jonathan, what are you playing at? Things were going so well.”
“You know, I’m not sure they were. I didn’t have what you might call a strong sense of security in our arrangement. Not like I would’ve hoped.”
“That hurts my feelings.”
“I’m sure. But seriously, did you know she was alive? Because I didn’t.”
“I can only advise you to get to the point.”
“Something weird happened last night.”
“As I was saying . . .” Owen’s words were still clipped and cool, but the strain was coming through in a slightly strangled grip in his voice.
“She showed up at my house last night. None too pleased, but playing it ice-cold. I had to keep a straight face in front of my wife and stepdaughter, because as far as I knew, she was long since in the ground. I almost had a heart attack.”
Owen said nothing.
“Hello? Really? She was bleeding like crazy. Pouring. From her neck. How could I know she made it?”
Owen’s breathing was now coming through the handset with little huffing breaks forced in at the pace of hard footfalls. Owen was walking somewhere, and fast. He still managed an exasperated sigh.
Jonathan reworked the basic math of what had happened that night. “So you did know. You’ve known the whole time that Marcelline is alive.”
Owen regained his breath and his regular voice. “Where is she?”
Jonathan heard Owen’s car start in a walled roar, the engine noise ringing off cement. The car door slammed. A parking garage.
“So here’s the thing,” said Jonathan. “You and I have a meeting at twelve thirty. I don’t want it to take beyond twelve forty. By twelve forty-five I will be hard at work on getting far away from here. As soon as everything is authenticated and I get the rest of my money, I will put you and Marcelline in touch.”
“You’ll put us in touch?”
“Sure. It seemed important to you. And what are friends for?”
“And why do I believe this? Why do I not just show up at your house and convince you—however that needs to happen—to tell me everything now?”
“You believe it. I can hear that you do. And you can hear me. You believe me because it’s true. This is the only thing I have to get on your good side. And I’m not going to lie, I’m glad there’s something I can use. You have to know I wouldn’t risk it by getting tricky with you now. But all of it hangs on the fact that I haven’t told her you’re here. Which I could still do. And if I do tell her, I’m thinking she’ll bolt. Seems like you might not want that. It’s simple, but fragile.”
“You and your simple.”
“See you at twelve thirty.” Jonathan hung up and grabbed his keys.
• • •
Jonathan didn’t entirely trust Owen not to show up anyway. In his worry version of the day, where Owen wanted the painting without paying, Jonathan had said he needed time to go get it. If he was being watched, he could go somewhere anyway, miming the misdirection. It would be the best time to discover whether he was being followed.
Freedom was just on the other side of lunchtime. But the painting was still his problem for a few more hours.
He listened for Donna and Carly, but the house was sleeping-in quiet.
He took the bag with the tuxedo-padded painting out of the closet and put it into the trunk of his car. It felt wrong. The back seat seemed safer, but either way, it felt as if he was inviting the most ironic car crash ever. And it would leave him more vulnerable than even that.
If his fantasy of Owen bearing down on him before the meetup was more than just paranoia, Jonathan’s not having the painting with him in a bad spot might be the only thing that let him live long enough to make one more plan.
So he put it back in the closet. But this time he folded the bag over in a loose roll and tucked it off to the side on the floor. He admired his handiwork and slid it under the two folded picnic blankets. That looked better. But he leaned the rolls of birthday wrap up against it as more camouflage, anyway.
Carly startled him in the kitchen when he went in to put his coffee mug in the sink, one of his rituals of leaving—everything set in its place. In the back of his mind, it was for the last time. He wouldn’t pass through this room again.
He hadn’t known Carly was already downstairs, but the surprise w
as in how glad he was that she was there. He flattened his hand against the cool stone of the countertop and ran it back and forth, feeling it to remember it and let it go.
“Hey, Carlzee.”
“Hey.”
She was looking at him funny. Again. This is how he would remember her. And, of course, this is how she’d remember him. Everything that had made her look at him like this in the last few weeks would become part of the mythology of when John disappeared.
If all went well, they would never know why he’d gone. Donna wouldn’t be able to say much after what they’d done with Roy’s body. Jonathan would never know how often they wondered about him, or how quickly they might move on.
When Donna had said she was in love, he liked her enough to play along. But it had been more than that. There was no reason not to admit that. The longer he was here, the more he’d wanted to be here. The illusion held together with attention, so he gave it attention. It felt secure and a little bit real. Eventually, the second possible avenue had come into view—sell the painting and stay. Why not? The choice was his. Except that it wasn’t.
The choice, it turned out, didn’t have anything to do with anyone in either version of his plan. And it was made in the open, caught on video for all the world—and Owen and Marcelline—to see. It was the decision of a rotten, twisted kid whose compulsions drove him right over the wants and needs of anyone who fell into his sights.
Jonathan shoved back on the urge to think of the people who might say the same of him. Truth was a composite.
He wanted to leave it with Carly on a better note, in case he didn’t see her when he came back for the painting. He wanted to be friendly, as they’d always been with each other. “Kinda thought you might sleep in. You must be so tired. It’s been a hell of a few days, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve got to take care of yourself, you know.”
“I know.” She didn’t look up from her cereal bowl.
“Hey. Don’t let all this stuff get to you. Don’t let it do anything to you. The world doesn’t make you. You make yourself.”
She nodded. “Out of what?”
“Out of what you want.”