Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

She told him, “I thought it was Jasper, that he had seen me in the diner video, and he was coming after me.” Laura paused, again choosing her words carefully. “When I heard Penny’s voice on the phone at the farmhouse, I was shocked.”

  Nick was always good at ignoring what he didn’t like. He leaned his elbows on the table, rested his chin in his hands. “Tell me about the gun, Jinx.”

  She hesitated, anxiously shifting gears. “What gun?”

  “The revolver Laura Juneau found taped to the back of the toilet and used to murder your father.” He winked at her. “How did it get to Oslo?”

  Laura glanced around the room. At the cameras mounted on the walls, the microphones jutting down from the ceiling, the guards standing sentry. She felt her nerves rattle.

  Nick said, “We’re just having a conversation, my love. What do you have to worry about? Is someone listening?”

  Laura smoothed together her lips. The table next to them had emptied. All she could hear were the constant pops of the ping-pong ball bouncing across the table.

  “My darling?” Nick said. “Is our visit over so soon?” He reached out his hands to her. “We’re allowed to touch in here.”

  Laura stared at his hands. Like his face, they were almost suspended in time.

  “Jane?”

  Without thinking, she was reaching across the table, lacing her fingers through his. The connection was instantaneous, a plug sliding into an outlet. Her heart lifted. She wanted to cry as she felt that familiar magnetic energy flowing through her body.

  That Nick could so easily unravel her was devastating.

  “Tell me.” He leaned across the table. His face was close to hers. The visitation room faded away. She was in the kitchen again reading a magazine. He walked in, wordlessly kissed her, then backed away.

  Nick said, “If you keep your voice low, they can’t hear.”

  “Can’t hear what?”

  “Where did you get the gun, Jane? The one Laura Juneau used to murder your father. That wasn’t from me. I didn’t know about it until I saw her pull it out of the bag.”

  Laura shifted her gaze to the piano behind him. She had not played for Andy yet. First her injured hand, then her anxiety, had stopped her.

  “Darling,” Nick whispered. “Tell me about the revolver.”

  Laura pulled her attention away from the piano. She looked down at their intertwined fingers. Her hands looked old, the creases more pronounced. She had arthritis in her fingers. The scar from Jonah Helsinger’s hunting knife was still red and angry. Nick’s skin felt as soft as it had always been. She remembered what his hands had felt like on her body. The gentle way he had stroked her. The intimate, lingering touches at the curve of her back. He had been the first man who had ever made love to her. He had touched Laura in a way that no one had ever touched her before or since.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She had no choice but to give him what he wanted. Very softly, she said, “I bought the gun in Berlin for eighty marks.”

  He smiled.

  “I—” Laura’s throat tightened around the hoarse whisper. She could almost smell the cigarette smoke from the underground bar that Nick had sent her to. The bikers licking their lips. Jeering at her. Touching her. “I took a flight out of East Berlin because the security was lax. I brought the gun to Oslo. I put it in a paper bag. I taped it to the back of the tank for Laura Juneau to find.”

  Nick smiled. “The old girl didn’t hesitate, did she? It was magnificent.”

  “Did you send Penny to find Jasper’s papers?” Nick tried to pull away, but she held onto his hands. “You wanted the paperwork from the metal box. You thought you could leverage your parole. You sent Penny to get it.”

  Nick’s grin told her he was bored with this game. He slipped his hands from hers. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  Still, Laura tried, “Did you know what Penny was doing? Did you know she was going to kidnap my daughter? Try to murder me?” She waited, but Nick said nothing. “Penny killed Edwin. She beat Clara so badly that her cheekbone was broken. Are you okay with that, Nick? Is that what you wanted her to do?”

  He turned his head. He brushed imaginary lint off his pants.

  Laura felt her stomach drop. She knew the look Nick got on his face when he was finished with someone. Her plan hadn’t worked. The marshals. The earbuds. Andy waiting down the hall. Everything had gone to hell because she had pushed him too hard.

  Was it on purpose?

  Had Laura sabotaged everything because Nick’s power over her was still too strong?

  She stared at the piano, longing, aching, yearning, for a way to make this work.

  Nick asked, “Do you still play?”

  Laura’s heart flipped inside of her chest, but she kept her gaze on the piano.

  “You keep staring at it.” He turned around to look for himself. “Do you still play?”

  “I wasn’t allowed.” A nerve twitched in her eyelid as she tried not to give herself away. “Someone might recognize my sound, and then—”

  “The gig is up—literally.” He grinned at the pun. “Did you know, my love, that I’ve been taking piano lessons?”

  “Really?” Laura imbued the word with sarcasm, but underneath, she could barely breathe.

  He said, “It was collecting dust in the rec room for years, but then some fool started a petition to move it in here for the children, and of course everyone signed on for the children.” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t imagine how painful it is, hearing three-year-olds peck out ‘Chopsticks.’”

  She took a quick breath so she could say, “Play something for me.”

  “Oh, no, Jinxie. That’s not where this is going.” He stood up. He motioned for the guard’s attention and pointed to the piano. “My friend here wants to play, if that’s all right?”

  The guard shrugged, but Laura shook her head. “No, I don’t. I won’t.”

  “Oh, my darling. You know I hate it when you refuse me.”

  His tone was joking in that way that wasn’t joking. Laura felt the old fear start to stir. Part of her would always be that terrified girl who had passed out in the bathroom.

  He said, “I want to hear you play again, Jinx. I made you give it up once. Can’t I make you pick it back up again?”

  Her hands quivered in her lap. “I haven’t played since—since Oslo.”

  “Please.” He could still say the word without it sounding like a request.

  “I don’t—”

  Nick walked around to her side of the table. Laura didn’t flinch this time. He wrapped his fingers lightly around her arm and gently pulled. “It’s the least you can do for me. I promise I won’t ask for anything else.”

  Laura let him pull her up to standing. She reluctantly walked toward the piano. Her nerves were shot through with adrenaline. She was suddenly terrified.

  Her daughter was listening.

  “Come now, don’t be shy.” Nick had blocked the guard’s view. He pushed her down on the bench so hard that she felt a jarring in her tailbone. “Play for me, Jinx.”

  Laura’s eyes had closed of their own accord. She felt her stomach clench. The ball of fear that had lain dormant for so long began to stir.

  “Jane.” He dug his fingers into her shoulders. “I said play something for me.”

  She forced open her eyes. She looked at the keys. Nick was standing close, but not pressing against her. It was his fingers biting into her shoulders that fully awakened her old fear.

  “Now,” he said.

  Laura raised her hands. She gently placed her fingers on the keys but did not press them. The plastic veneer was worn. Strips of wood showed like splinters.

  “Something jaunty,” Nick told her. “Quickly, before I get bored.”

  She wasn’t going to warm up for him. She didn’t know if there was any value in trying. She considered playing something specifically for Andy—one of those awful bubblegum bands that she loved. Her daughter had spent hours watching ol
d Jinx Queller videos on YouTube, listening to bootlegs. Laura didn’t have anything classical left in her fingers. Then she remembered that smoky bar in Oslo, her conversation with Laura Juneau, and it came to her that things should end up where they had started.

  She took a deep breath.

  She walked the bass line with her left hand, playing the notes that were so familiar in her head. She vamped on the E minor, then A, then back to E minor, then down to D, then the triplet punches on the C before hitting the refrain in the major key, G to D, then C, B7 and back to the vamp on E minor.

  In her head, she heard the song coming together—Ray Manzerek mastering the schizophrenic bass and piano parts. Robby Krieger’s guitar. John Densmore coming in on the drums, finally, Jim Morrison singing—

  Love me two times, baby . . .

  “Fantastic,” Nick raised his voice to be heard over the music.

  Love me two times, girl . . .

  Laura let her eyes close again. She fell into the bouncy triplets. The tempo was too fast. She didn’t care. There was a swelling in her heart. This had been her first true love, not Nick. Just to play again was a gift. She didn’t care that her fingers were old and clumsy, that she lagged the fermate. She was back in Oslo. She was tapping out the beat on the bar. Laura Juneau had seen the chameleon inside of Jane Queller, had been the first person to really appreciate the part of her that was constantly adapting.

  If you can’t play the music people appreciate, then you play the music that they love.

  “My darling.”

  Nick’s mouth was at Laura’s ear.

  She tried not to shudder. She had known it would come to this. She had felt him hovering at her ear so often, first during their six years together, then in her dreams, then in her nightmares. She had prayed if she could only get him to the piano, he wouldn’t be able to resist.

  “Jane.” His thumb stroked the side of her neck. He thought the piano was canceling out his voice. “Are you still afraid of being suffocated?”

  Laura squeezed her eyes closed. She tapped her foot to keep the beat, heightened the pitch of her fingers. It was simple, really. That was the beauty of the song. It was almost like a ping-pong match, the same notes being volleyed back and forth.

  “I remember you saying that about Andrew—that being suffocated felt like a bag was being tied around your head. For twenty seconds, was it?”

  He was taking credit for sending Hoodie. Laura hummed with the song, hoping the vibrations in her jawbone would cancel out Mike’s recording.

  Yeah, my knees got weak . . .

  “Were you scared?” Nick asked.

  She shook her head, hitting the damper pedal to bring out the vibration in the strings.

  Last me all through the week . . .

  Nick said, “This is all your fault, my love. Can’t you see that?”

  Laura stopped humming. She knew the rhythm of Nick’s threats as well as the notes of the song.

  “It’s your fault I had to send Penny to the farmhouse.”

  The feel of his mouth on her ear was like sandpaper, but she did not pull away.

  “If you had just given me what I wanted, Edwin would be alive, Clara wouldn’t have been hurt, Andrea would’ve been safe. It’s all on you, my love, because you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  Conspiracy.

  Laura kept playing even as she felt the air begin to seep from the balloon in her heart. He’d confessed to sending Paula. They had him on the recording back in the dark little room. Nick’s days at Club Fed were over.

  But he wasn’t finished.

  His lips brushed the tip of her ear. “I’m going to give you another choice, my darling. I need our daughter to speak on my behalf. To tell the parole board that she wants her daddy to come home. Can you make her do that?”

  He pressed his thumb against her carotid artery, the same as he’d done when he’d strangled her into unconsciousness.

  “Or do I have to force you to make another choice? Not Andrew this time, but your precious Andrea. It’d be awful if you lost her after all of this. I don’t want to hurt our child, but I will.”

  Terroristic threats. Intimidation. Extortion.

  Laura kept playing, because Nick never knew when to quit.

  “I told you I would scorch the earth to get you back, my darling. I don’t care how many people I have to send, or how many people die. You still belong to me, Jinx Queller. Every part of you belongs to me.”

  He waited for her reaction, his thumb pressed to her pulse for the tell-tale sign of panic.

  She wasn’t panicked. She was elated. She was playing music again. Her daughter was listening. Laura could’ve stopped right now—Nick had given them enough—but she was not going to deny herself the pleasure of finishing what she had started. Up to the A, then back to the E minor, down to the D, then she was hitting the triplets on the C again and she was at the Hollywood Bowl. She was at Carnegie. Tivoli. Musikverein. Hansa Tonstudio. She was holding her baby. She was loving Gordon. She was pushing him away. She was struggling with cancer. She was sending Andrea away. She was watching her daughter finally grow into a vibrant, interesting young woman. And she was holding onto her, because Laura was never going to give up another thing that she loved for this loathsome man.

  One for tomorrow . . . one just for today . . .

  She had hummed the words to the song in her jail cell. Tapped it out on her imaginary bed frame keyboard the same way she had tapped it on the bar top for Laura Juneau. Even now with Nick still playing the devil on her shoulder, Laura allowed herself the joy of playing the song right up until the final, sharp staccato brought her to the abrupt end—

  I’m goin’ away.

  Laura’s hands floated to her lap. She kept her head bowed.

  There was the usual dramatic pause and then—

  Clapping. Cheering. Feet stamping the floor.

  “Fantastic,” Nick shouted. He was basking in the glow of the applause, as if it was meant entirely for him. “That’s my girl, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Laura stood up, shrugging off his hand. She walked past Nick, past the picnic tables and the children’s play area, but then she realized that this was truly the last time she would ever see the man who called himself Nicholas Harp again.

  She turned around. She looked him in the eye. She told him, “I’m not damaged anymore.”

  There was a stray clap before the room went silent.

  “Darling?” Nick’s smile held a sharp warning.

  “I’m not hurt,” she told him. “I healed myself. My daughter healed me—my daughter. My husband healed me. My life without you healed me.”

  He chuckled. “All right, Jinxie. Run along now. You’ve got a decision to make.”

  “No.” She said the word with the same determination she had expressed three decades ago in the farmhouse. “I will never choose you. No matter what the other option is. I don’t choose you.”

  His teeth were clenched. She could feel his rage winding up.

  She told him, “I’m magnificent.”

  He chuckled again, but he was not really laughing.

  “I am magnificent,” she repeated, her fists clenched at her side. “I’m magnificent because I am so uniquely me.” Laura pressed her hand to her heart. “I am talented. And I am beautiful. I am amazing. And I found my way, Nick. And it was the right way because it was the path that I set out for myself.”

  Nick crossed his arms. She was embarrassing him. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  “We’ll talk about it in hell.”

  Laura turned around. She walked around the corner, stood at the locked gate. Her hands shook as she waited for the guard to find his key. The vibrations moved up her arms, into her torso, inside her chest. Her teeth had started to chatter by the time the gate swung open.

  Laura walked through. Then there was another door. Another key.

  Her teeth were clicking like marbles. She looked through the window. Mike was standing between the two l
ocked doors. He looked worried.

  He should be worried.

  Laura felt a wave of nausea as she realized what had just happened. Nick had threatened Andy. He had told her to choose. Laura had made her choice. It was all happening again.

  I don’t want to hurt our child, but I will.

  The door opened.

  She told Mike, “He threatened my daughter. If he comes after us—”

  “We’ll take care of it.”

  “No,” she told him. “I’ll take care of it. Do you understand me?”

  “Whoa.” Mike held up his hands. “Do me a favor and call me first. Like you could’ve called me before you went to that hotel room. Or when you were in a shoot-out at the mall. Or—”

  “Just keep him away from my family.” Laura got a burning sensation in her spine that told her to be careful. Mike was a cop. She had been held blameless for Paula’s death, but Laura of all people knew the government could always find a way to fuck you if they wanted.

  “He’ll be in a SuperMax,” Mike said. “He won’t be writing letters or getting visitors. He’ll get one shower a week, maybe an hour of daylight, if he’s lucky.”

  Laura took out the earbuds. She dropped them into Mike’s hand. The burst of adrenaline was tapering off. Her fingers were steady. Her heart wasn’t quivering like a cat’s whisker anymore. She had done what she’d come here to do. It was over. She never had to see Nick again.

  Not unless she chose to.

  Mike said, “I gotta admit, I thought you had a screw loose when you told me to figure out a way to get that piano moved.”

  Laura knew she had to stay in his good graces. “The petition was a clever trick.”

  “Marshal School 101: you can get an inmate to do anything for potato chips.” Mike was preening, his chest puffed out. He clearly loved the game. “The way you kept looking at the piano like a kid staring at a bag of candy. You really worked him.”

  Laura saw Andy through the window in the door. She looked older now, more like a woman than a girl. Her brow was creased. She was worried.

  Laura told Mike, “I will do whatever it takes to keep my daughter safe.”

  “I can name a couple of corpses who found that out the hard way.”