The First Cut

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The First Cut Page 5

by Ellery Kane


  “Hello?”

  Above the static, someone breathes, and I watch Luke’s face watching me. The worry there makes me sad, knowing I can only hurt him. That must be how Ian felt when he looked at me. His pitiful, stupid wife.

  Luke grabs for the receiver, but I clutch it to my ear and step out of his reach. “Hang up,” he says.

  I want to, but the breathing holds me there, transfixed. Until a voice fills the void, the voice from yesterday morning. “I know what you did, Doctor Lawson. I know what you did.”

  “Who is this?”

  Luke yanks the jack from the wall, and the phone goes dead.

  “Wrong number,” I say, shutting him up before he can ask.

  Chapter

  Seven

  “It makes you realize how precious life is, you know, Doc?”

  I nod at David, my 9 a.m., but I feel half-asleep. Or half-awake in a never-ending bad dream. Not surprising since I’d tossed wide-eyed for hours listening to Luke snore, the ultimate not-so-silent treatment. After the telephone call, he’d retreated to the bedroom, too much of a choir boy to leave. Me, too proud to ask him to. But he’s a choir boy who’d dug through my garbage. And I can’t forget that.

  It doesn’t help that I can’t get that caller out of my head. I know what you did. It could mean anything. A disgruntled patient. A prankster. A reporter just getting a rise. But to me, it can mean only one thing. The thing.

  The thing Ian promised me no one would ever know. Another promise he couldn’t keep.

  David leans back against the sofa, resting his hands on his middle-aged belly. “One minute you’re here. And the next—bam!” I flinch, his voice sharp as a starter’s pistol. “You’re lying in a pool of your own blood, deader than a goddamned doornail.”

  He’s talking about his golf buddy, fifteen handicapper, and fellow member of the invitation-only Monterey Peninsula Country Club. Ian.

  “So, how are you coping?” I ask. “I know you and Doctor . . . uh . . .” I pretend to forget the last name that had been mine for five years. After Ian proposed, I’d practiced writing it, exaggerating the half-moon of the C, relishing the bold loops of the p. All three of them. My name.

  “Culpepper. Doctor Culpepper. You might’ve have seen him on that Love Doctored show. But he was just Pep to me.” His shoulders droop. Mouth sags. “I don’t know if it’s normal. But I feel numb.”

  Better to be numb than raw. That’s what I want to say. To not feel than to lose control entirely. But therapists aren’t supposed to say things like that.

  “Sudden tragedies like this are a shock to the system. It can be difficult for our brains to process. The way you feel is perfectly normal. But, your feelings may change over time. And that’s normal too.” Now that is therapist-speak. The perpetual reassurance of normality. “Did you see Ian recently?”

  I ask the question as if I don’t already know the answer. As if I hadn’t watched him through the Nikon, arguing with Ian in a parking lot on Valentine’s Day night. Truth, I’d been more interested in Kate. Ian had left her inside the restaurant, and I’d turned the lens to their window table, where she sat pecking away at her smartphone in an impeccable red dress. She’d lifted a finger to her cheek, wiped at something. A tear? An eyelash? I’ll never know.

  “Not since we played the course at Pebble last week.” A smooth liar. I’ll admit I’m impressed. Impressed and disturbed. But I can’t see David wielding a knife. Underneath the cool guy get-up Tara lays out for him every morning—the Hugo Boss and Burberry and Panerai—he’s still the geek who acquired his fortune selling SimuLife, a virtual reality video game company. Hardly a merciless assassin.

  “Tara’s totally lost it too. She just saw Kate a few nights ago at yoga. And get this—she thinks we should hire security. Crazy, right? Like I can afford that with Sophie’s private school tuition and ballet lessons. As it is, I can barely swing the mortgage.”

  “Slow down, David. It sounds like you’re feeling out of control, and I’m worried this kind of thinking could trigger a relapse.”

  He pulls a tissue from the obligatory box beside him—standard therapist issue—and wipes the sheen of sweat from his ever-expanding forehead. Give it a year, and he’ll be nearly bald. Unless Tara has her way. “Hair plugs,” he’d told me at our last session, rolling his eyes with contempt. “What’s next, Doc—Viagra?”

  “I can’t afford a relapse. Literally. I’m broke.”

  “Any urges?”

  He grunts. “Hell yes. I keep getting these text alerts with play vouchers from The Pearl. And I drove by Marina Club last Saturday. I told Tara I went to the gym. They’ve got that big poker tournament coming up with the one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize. It took everything in me to keep driving.”

  “Have you given any more thought to my suggestion about sharing your problems with your wife? I can help you do it. We can tell her here. Together.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “That sounds like a cognitive distortion. I think the word you’re looking for is won’t. I won’t tell Tara, because . . .”

  “I won’t tell Tara, because she’d drop my ass faster than you can say jackpot. Look at me. I’m no prize. Before I met her, a big night out was Star Trek and Dungeons and Dragons. Hell, I wore Crocs to work. I can’t even grow the balls to tell her—or anyone—that I’m seeing a shrink.”

  And thank God for that. He pays in cash. Two hundred dollars every week.

  “It sounds as if you’re afraid, David. You fear you’re only worthy of your wife if you can maintain the illusion you’ve created—even if it kills you. But you refuse to give her a chance to prove otherwise. She might surprise you.”

  A short burst of something like laughter dies as soon as it leaves his mouth. “Trust me, Doc. If you saw my wife, you wouldn’t say that.” And he’s right. Because I have seen her. Through the lens of the Nikon again, speed-walking with Kate down Cortez Road. Both of them swathed in Lululemon, their straight blonde ponytails ticking back and forth like the Newton’s Cradle Ian had bought me for my first office.

  “It must be hard to feel you have to be perfect to be loved.”

  He lowers his head, hangdog. “You have no idea.”

  I did, though. All those afternoons I’d snuck home after school, careful not to make a sound. Your father’s sleeping. Don’t disturb him. The smile I’d plastered on my face—big and toothy and fake as the Easter Bunny—thinking it might be contagious. That he’d actually be happy for once. To be that perfect required one thing. You had to swallow a shitload of rage.

  “But is it sustainable?” I ask David, trying for the precise mix of provocation and empathy. “This life you’ve so carefully constructed.” As tired as I am, I get it right. Because he takes a breath, looks up at me, and shakes his head.

  “Of course not. It’s a ticking time bomb.”

  ****

  Coffee—I need coffee. That’s my first thought after David leaves. Because the way I’m slogging, I’ll never figure it out. Someone knows. But who? And how? My mind is a complete blank, a hollow drum. But in my stomach, the Hydra is awake.

  I trudge down the sidewalk, a light mist peppering my face, and duck into Seaside Sweets. Marianne emerges from the back, a tray of freshly iced cupcakes in her hand. She deposits them in the display case and smiles up at me.

  “What a nice surprise. I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming by this morning. Luke said you weren’t feeling well yesterday.” I search her face—what else did he say?—but come up empty.

  “Probably too many of your doughnuts,” I offer, returning her grin. “Your chocolates didn’t help either. I’ve got your son to thank for that.” And for the sleep deprivation. But I keep that to myself.

  “So what can I get for you? No doughnuts, I presume.”

  Grimacing, I stick out my tongue at her, and she laughs
. It’s such a lovely sound I almost let down my guard, tell her everything. “Some of your strong coffee. ASAP. Unless you’ve got a caffeine drip I can hook up to.”

  “That bad, huh?” She pours a steaming cup and sets it on the counter in front of me. I wrap my hands around its warmth and imagine myself saying the words. That too-good-looking Love Doctor was my ex-husband. He wrote my name in blood. We did something bad together, and now someone knows. But wait, there’s more. Instead, I put the cup to my lips and take a small, careful sip.

  “Worse. I’ve got back-to-back retired CEOs till three.”

  “I don’t know how you do it, Ava. All these rich folks griping and moaning would drive me straight up the wall. Boohoo, my kids are so spoiled, and my conniving ex-wife got the beach house. Cry me a river.”

  Marianne sounds like my mom. Back when my mom sounded coherent. Now she can’t string a sentence together on her worst days, and those well-to-do clients she’d rolled her eyes at pay for her private room at the Cliffside Memory Care Facility.

  “They’re not all rich. I see a few clients on a sliding scale.” Really just one. Cleo. And only because she seemed so desperate and familiar. So much like my younger self, I couldn’t tell her no.

  “I know. I’m just teasing.” She gestures to the newspaper someone left behind. Another picture of Ian and Kate on the cover, folded in half so I only see Ian’s Cheshire grin. “Rich folks have problems too. Problems that get them killed, apparently.”

  I take another sip of coffee. Swallow too fast, my throat burning. “Has Jack said anything?”

  “Not much. He’s been even more cagey than usual. But . . .” Her eyes flit to the door and back to me. The shop is empty, and the spitting rain threatens to keep it that way. Still, she lowers her voice. “He let something slip last night. Pillow talk, you know. Something about evidence of an affair.”

  I stare at my hands, still strangling the cup. “Really?”

  “Isn’t it scandalous?”

  Ava. Ian had written it with his own hand. The way he’d penned me love letters in the beginning. My darling Ava. But this, a death note, inked in the life blood that ran out of him.

  “Do they know who he was involved with?”

  I wait for her to say it, for my name to drop from her lips like a bomb, exploding everything.

  “That’s just it. As far as they know, it wasn’t him cheating. It was her.”

  I gape at Marianne, force down another scalding sip. Along with it, the questions I want to ask but shouldn’t. She senses it though, mistakes my shock for morbid curiosity.

  “I’m sure you can pick Jack’s brain tonight at dinner. Maybe you’ll get him talking. You’re still coming, right?”

  The prospect of sitting across the table from a decorated homicide detective isn’t high on my list right now, but I’ve been doing the twice-monthly Donovan family dinners for a while—and if I back out now, Luke will only keep digging. And there are far worse things for him to unearth than a gas station receipt.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  ****

  Ten minutes and counting till retired CEO number one, so I log in to my Avenging Angel account. Just to check. Because that’s what you do when someone you blackmailed ends up dead. You check everything. Relentlessly.

  One new message. I take another swig of coffee from the to-go cup Marianne insisted on. It soothes, but not entirely. Turns out Hydras can swim.

  To: Avenging Angel

  From: Ricky Sherman

  Date: February 16, 2018 12:45 AM PST

  Subject: Re:WTF?

  What about the pics? I want to see them. I want the world to see them. There’s nothing stopping us now.

  I picture the Ricky I know typing those words. But the truth is, I don’t know him at all. He’s a collection of pixels. A projection of the real Ricky. And for the first time, I feel afraid. Of what will happen. Of what’s already happened. Of what I’d set in motion.

  I compose a reply, hit Send.

  To: Ricky Sherman

  From: Avenging Angel

  Date: February 16, 2018 2:53 AM PST

  Subject: Re:WTF?

  Think about what you’re saying. Now is not the time.

  My cursor hovers over the little x in the corner, plotting my escape. Close your browser. Delete the account. But something keeps me holding on, holding my breath. And then, the pathetic little beep that zaps like a cattle prod. New mail. He’s out there, right now, issuing his demands. Fueled by the insatiable hunger that is revenge.

  To: Avenging Angel

  From: Ricky Sherman

  Date: February 16, 2018 2:54 AM PST

  Subject: Re:WTF?

  Now is the only time. We had a deal.

  ****

  Luke is still mad at me. Because he doesn’t kiss me at all. Not after I open my office door and let him inside. Not after he backs me up against the desk and undoes the buttons of my blouse. Drops his pants to his thighs. Not even when he moans my name against my neck, making me shiver.

  And not after. When he rests his forehead on my shoulder, panting. “I have to get back to work.”

  Fine. Then I’m not over it either. He’d looked through my trash for God’s sake, accused me of lying. Never mind that I had. “I know you do.”

  “Mom said you came by the shop this morning.” I watch as he puts himself back together. Buttons done up again. Zippers zipped. Buckles re-buckled. It’s the only part of Luke that’s anything like Ian. The way he can compartmentalize, go from Romeo to no-nonsense cop in five seconds flat. I wonder how men do that. Flip themselves off and on like a switch.

  “She told me Kate was having an affair. Is that true?”

  Luke’s eyes narrow. And I see fire there, hurt too. “Is that why you texted me to come over here?”

  “You’re the one who brought it up.” He can’t possibly understand what it’s like to have a Kate. A younger, prettier version of yourself who’d detonated a bomb in the center of your life. Then floated above the rubble, a shimmering ghost, and took your place. Kate was supposed to be better than me. “I just didn’t like how we left things. And we’ve got dinner tonight. I didn’t want it to be weird.”

  “I know the last couple of days have been hard for you. But I don’t like being lied to. Whatever it is, you can tell me. We can deal with it together.”

  If I could, I would spit out the truth like a bite from a poison apple. But it’s too late for that. I’m too far gone. So I give him what I can. Who I can.

  “I saw something,” I whisper, disgusted at the sound of my barely there voice. The way it draws him in. “But I didn’t want to say, because—”

  The rest of it catches in my throat, and Luke is there in a heartbeat, pulling me to his chest. “Because?” He’s so gentle it hurts.

  “Because he’s my patient. David Fairfax. I was on my way back from the trail. I’d just finished my run, like I told you. And I saw him arguing with Ian in the parking lot at La Noche. But you can’t tell anybody I told you. It would—”

  Luke holds a finger to my lips. “I won’t.”

  And when he kisses me goodbye, he tastes sweet. Sweet and bitter.

  ****

  “She’s good today.” That’s what Head Nurse Patty Ellerby tells me as I head past the main desk and down the corridor to my mother’s room at Cliffside. Meaning she may remember me. Honestly, it’s easier when she doesn’t.

  I focus on the hollow click of my heels against the linoleum. Don’t make eye contact. That’s the trick to Wheelchair Row—the stretch of hallway where the worst patients sit, shuffling their feet, smacking their gums, reaching out their sticky hands like toddlers. One of them shrieks at me as I
pass, the desperate keening of a banshee. I know what she’s saying. She’s cursing me for all the things I’ve done.

  I deserve it. Because coming here gave me an excuse to drive by 151 Cortez Road, where the wrought-iron gate at the entrance had always drawn me in like a homing beacon. Ian thought cameras were too intrusive—we’d never had one at the rental in LA. So a few times I’d been bold enough to open their mailbox, stick my hand inside. Mostly, I’d just parked nearby, sunk low in my seat, and waited for Kate to return. By five o’clock, Madison would be finished with preschool and piano lessons, and Kate would cart her home, piloting the Land Rover like a battleship. I’d watch the gate open and wonder if she knew. That I’d been the reason Ian fell in love with Carmel. That I’d always told him I wanted a house here. That the life she’d claimed had been promised to me.

  Today, I didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow down. But a part of me had relished the gaudy crime scene tape strung across the gate. My gate.

  I keep walking, faster now, nearing the end of Wheelchair Row, and the woman howls again. See? That’s what I mean. I deserve it.

  Affixed on the wall outside my mother’s door is the shadow box we created together during her first week here. Doctor’s orders. Choose pictures and mementos with emotional significance. Those that are easiest to recognize can aid in recall. And so I had. Her and my father outside the Los Angeles Courthouse on their wedding day. Me, newly born and swaddled in a blanket on her chest. My father flanked by the mayor and the police chief, the LAPD Medal of Valor pinned to his chest. Who knew then that it was a death mark? There are other memories too, of course, the kind you don’t photograph. The kind too ugly for a shadow box.

  My mother sits on the bed, her back to the door. Though it’s already dark outside, she’s looking out the window. Her dull gray hair is braided and resting like a hanging rope between her thin shoulder blades.

  “Hello?” Not Mom. Because despite the nurse’s sunny forecast, I’m not completely sure yet how she’ll be. And it’s better not to assume. I’d made that mistake before—I don’t have a daughter!—and I can’t deal with the wounded animal inside her. Her confusion. Her anger. Her pitiful tears. Not today.

 

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