by Fenton, Liz
He smiles sheepishly. “It’s just not the same at the place down the street.”
“For what I paid to have it shipped here, it shouldn’t be,” I quip, and I can see him hold back his laughter. Not ready to laugh at my jokes yet.
We stand there. The only sound the percolation of the Ninja coffeemaker I bought several years ago to celebrate selling his first book. Back when I was supportive of my husband’s career, when I believed in him and his ability to finish manuscripts. After he told me he had a book idea, rented an office space, and started actively writing, I’m still not sure I gave him the credit he deserved. I was still holding him accountable for all the time he’d spent lost and flailing. But maybe if I’d worked harder to help him see his way out of the fog. If I’d tried to understand his writer’s block. If I hadn’t written it off as laziness. Maybe he would have regained his confidence sooner. I’m taking in every line of Ethan’s face, the extra stubble hugging his chin, looking for signs he misses me. “Where have you been sleeping?”
“Does it matter?” He frowns.
“I guess not. But you look tired.” I hesitate, trying to find the words to tell him that I want to make things right again, that I need to acknowledge my part in breaking us down, to atone for my sins. To tell him how much I miss him. “Come home,” I blurt, instantly regretting the request as soon as it leaves my mouth. Before I can rectify it, Ethan starts talking.
“I’m tired because I can’t sleep, not because of where I’m sleeping,” he says. “Or have you forgotten that you blew up our lives earlier this week? Oh, wait. Maybe you’d like me to forget you did that. That’s why you wanted to meet, right? To put me in the jury box? Convince me what you did wasn’t wrong?”
I take a breath before speaking. How do you explain to someone that you hurt, someone whose trust you took and stomped on, that you’ll never do it again? How do you show someone that you can change if you’ve been the same way for as long as he’s known you? I don’t know how to make Ethan truly understand how profound my metamorphosis will be. All I know is that something inside me has shifted—that I will never be that person again. “Ethan,” I start as he pours the rich coffee into his favorite mug, one that I brought back from New York City last year with the city’s skyline painted on it. “There are no words that can make what I did go away.”
“Finally, we agree on something,” he says as he adds cream into his mug and stirs it slowly, taking me in. “This isn’t a courtroom. You can’t litigate your way around what you did.”
I realize suddenly that I may never get him back. I want so desperately to be different. I already feel so changed in so many ways, but it may be too late. I might have to accept that part of my path is to lose my husband. But as I look at him now, I want to fight. For him. For us. For me. So I tell him the thing that I know will make him happy.
“I quit my job.”
He stops stirring. “What?”
“I quit. I’m done.”
“Done with them or done being a lawyer?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure. I guess I’ll figure that out.”
“Why? Because of me? Sam?”
I tilt my head. “Not really. I mean, yes, I guess it’s all related,” I backtrack when his eyes widen. “I’ve done a lot of terrible things. And it feels like the only way to start over is to get rid of everything that made me that person. And yes, of course I want you to be a part of my new life. In fact, I would sacrifice almost anything for that to happen. But if I’m being totally honest—”
“Do you know how to do that?” Ethan interjects, and I look at my feet.
“That’s a fair thing to say,” I acquiesce. Because he has a point—the truth and I have a very complicated past. “But what I’m trying to say is that leaving my job is really to save myself.”
Ethan nods. “From what?”
“I think from my own fate,” I say instinctively, and goosebumps travel up my arm. I had been trying to put my finger on the feeling I’d been carrying around with me all week—the way certain things felt familiar when they shouldn’t, the way my choices had begun to feel as if their consequences were life or death—as if my fate depended on them.
“Your fate?” Ethan repeats. “That’s a little deep for you, isn’t it?”
I reach over and grab his hand, and he flinches slightly. “I can’t explain what has happened this week. To you. To me. To us. But I am profoundly changed. And if you give me one more chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that to you.” I swallow back the knot in my throat. “Please?” The look he gives me when I beg him is a cross between disappointment and pity. And I’m hit with a reality I hadn’t seen before. Or maybe one I hadn’t wanted to see. I need to ask forgiveness and know that I might not get it. That he may not think I deserve it. I have to let Ethan go and be okay if he doesn’t come back.
Ethan holds my gaze for several seconds, which feel like minutes. “You really believe you can change, don’t you?”
“I do,” I say. “But you don’t have to stick around to see it. As much as I love you and want to work this out, I understand if you need to move on with your life without me.” My chest burns after I say it, the idea that I’ve lost him forever sending waves of sadness through me.
We sit in silence for a long while, my heart breaking over and over again.
“Let me think about it,” Ethan says, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I can only hope he does what’s best for him. What he believes is right. I pray that path leads him back to me, but I know I’ll have to be okay if it doesn’t.
I’m stuck in midday traffic on the 101 Freeway on my way to the preliminary hearing when my mom calls. I have one more errand to run, one more bomb to detonate on whatever remains of my old life before I can return home to my new one, hopefully with Ethan.
“Hey, Mom,” I say. “What’s up?”
“How are you?” she asks, then continues before I can answer. “I’ve been worried sick about you since we spoke last. You have too much stress, Lila. Your job, Ethan. Whoever attacked you. You need to take a break.”
“That sounds really good,” I say.
She’s silent for a moment. That’s not how I usually respond to her demands.
“You want to go somewhere, Mom? Take a spa weekend out in Palm Springs? I have at least ten gift certificates I need to use at the Kimpton out there.”
“Lila? Are you all right?”
“I’m finally agreeing with you, and you are questioning my sanity?” I laugh. “I’m going to have a little more free time on my hands. And I’d like to spend it with you.”
“What’s going on?”
I glance at the clock. “I don’t have time to explain in detail now. I’m on my way somewhere very important. Can we meet for dinner? I’ll tell you everything then.”
“Okay, honey. But you are sure everything’s okay?”
“It is. For the first time in a long time. I’m finally going to be a daughter you can be proud of.”
I hear her sigh. “There has never been one moment of your life I haven’t been proud of you. You’ve always been your own person, and I admire that. No one tells you what to do. You’ve always put too much pressure on yourself. Thinking you have to take care of me.” She pauses. “Not that I don’t appreciate it. I just worry—”
I choke up slightly. “I wanted to take care of you, Mom. I never wanted you to struggle again. You deserve to be happy.”
“But so do you. And I don’t want you to trade your happiness for mine. I’m perfectly fine. I have everything I could ever want.”
“Mom, I haven’t been the best human. In fact, I might have been a terrible person.” This may sound strange, but it feels really good to say it out loud to someone I love.
“Stop. No one is all good or all bad. And life isn’t black and white. You of all people should understand that. We do our best.”
“But what if I haven’t? Done my best?” I whisper.
“Then go fix it,” sh
e says simply. “That’s all we can do when we make mistakes. Try to make them right.”
“What if it’s taken me a really long time to do that?”
“Still counts!” she exclaims, and we both laugh.
“I love you, Mom,” I say. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being you.”
“I love you too, Lila. I’ll see you later.”
We hang up as traffic lets up, opening a path that I’m now sure that I’m meant to take. I hope my mom is right, that it’s never too late to right your wrongs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
FRIDAY
CAPTURED
I try to stop the shaking, but I can’t. My entire body wants to collapse under the waves of fear rolling through me. There’s something about Chase holding the knife that scares the hell out of me. More than Q. Because Chase has much more conviction. His desire for my destruction literally oozes out of him.
“You’re trembling,” Chase says, a wry smile forming. “I thought nothing scared you, Lila Bennett.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You. You make me think that. The way you prance into court like you own the place. How you defend murderers the same way you would Mother Teresa. I’ve been watching, fascinated. Studied you, really.”
“You did have a front-row seat,” I say. “That’s why you of all people should know we have to make hard choices every day.”
“Was fucking your best friend’s husband complicated?” Chase whispers as he leans in with the knife. “Please explain to me that difficult choice.”
“I broke up with Sam that night. Before you took me.”
“Liar.”
“It’s true! If you’d only given me a few more days, you would have seen that I was ready to make some major changes in my life.”
Chase rolls his eyes. “Very convenient, Lila. You had plenty of time to change.”
He’s right, of course. But how could I explain the visceral change that occurred that night? That I knew it was a turning point? I swallow as I back up until I feel the concrete.
“Sit down. And, Lila? Don’t try anything stupid. Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”
I slide to the floor with a small thud.
“You poor thing, been wearing that for . . .” He stops before he tells me how long I’ve been in here. He likes that I don’t know. “You are for sure a ‘fashion don’t’ at this point. A great pair of shoes couldn’t help this ensemble.”
“Why now?” I ask him.
“The Jeremiah case. I knew Stephanie’s rage would make her the perfect scapegoat for your disappearance. And if not her, I figured Ethan would make a close second. Or sweet Carrie. She could have raged after she found out about the affair. But I also like the fact this all coincides with the ten-year anniversary of my dad’s case. Poetic, don’t you think?”
“Jesus, Chase. This seems . . .” I search for the words as I stare at his perfectly arched eyebrows, his crooked smile. I’ve always prided myself on knowing people, my gut all I needed to separate the good from the bad. But I never suspected Chase was anything but my friend. “It seems pretty insane.” I think about the few times we’ve grabbed a drink after a hard-earned victory. One of the things I liked best about Chase had been his loyalty to me. How wrong I was. My mind quickly shuffles through all the stories he had shared about his past—college roommates, bad breakups. Was any of it true?
“Does it sound insane?” He shrugs. “Sometimes things might appear crazy to others, but they aren’t. Our lives were destroyed by my dad’s death. My mom blamed herself, so she packed us all up, and we hid in this Podunk town in Michigan for years while she drank herself to death.”
I hang my head. “I didn’t know she had passed. I’m sorry.” For a moment, I forget that Chase has kidnapped me. That he wants to kill me. All I feel is sadness for my part in a ruined life. For a son who prematurely lost his father and then his mother.
“She couldn’t forgive herself. If she hadn’t had the affair, none of this would have happened.”
“And you? Did you forgive her?” I ask softly.
Chase laughs. “What do you think?”
“What about your brother?” I nod toward the door. “Does he feel the same way?”
“Doesn’t matter what Quincy thinks.”
“He seems less invested than you,” I challenge.
“Oh, don’t you worry about him. He and I learned a long time ago that we have to stick together. I practically raised him after my father was killed and my mom became a zombie. He does what I tell him to do. He can be soft.” He glances at my arm. “Although he did some good work here. With you.”
I ignore this, my eye flitting to the knife. “What’s your end game here? You really think you’ll get away with this?”
“By the time we’re finished, no one will ever know any of us were here. That’s one thing I’ve learned from working with you these past two years. All the stupid mistakes criminals make. Trust me, there’ll be no trace of you, me, or my brother. No body to find. No fingerprints to uncover. No DNA to run. It will be like none of us ever existed in this space.”
I feel something inside me snap, and I’m on my feet, lunging toward him. I knock him to the ground, and the knife flies out of his hand. I don’t know where the energy comes from, but I channel every ounce of it toward him, adrenaline firing through my blood. I pin him to the ground with my knees and grab the knife. I stand over him and start to back away.
His eyes are wide, and he looks stunned, as if he never imagined this possibility—that I would overpower him. “Lila, what the hell do you think you are doing? You know you won’t hurt me.”
He starts to move.
“Stay down,” I say in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine.
I back away from him slowly, my hand so wet from sweat, I’m afraid I’ll drop the knife. I inch backward toward the door.
“Quincy!” he screams.
“Shut up. Shut up.”
“Or what?” he challenges.
“I’ll use this if I have to,” I say, but when I look at him, he’s still Chase. The one who picked out my shoes, who brought me my favorite coffee. Who worked so tirelessly. It’s hard to believe none of that was real, that he put on an act for years. He’s so broken. The loss of his father changing him into this. I think of how my own loss changed who I was. Made me hard. There is a part of me that understands his anger. Empathizes with it intensely. Can I actually hurt him?
“Q!”
Suddenly he’s upright and coming toward me.
Adrenaline answers my query, and I kick him hard in the groin. He stumbles backward, losing his balance and falling over. I stare for a moment as he writhes in pain.
This is your chance, Lila. Go!
I put my hand on the door and pull it open, not sure what I’m going to do when I see Q. He has a gun. He’s also stronger. I hurt his brother. I’ll have to just try—try anything to get away, because this is my only shot. My heart is pounding as I pull on the door hard and start running as fast as I can. I have no idea where I’m going. And then I see a figure at the end of the hall. I know it’s Q, but I keep going. If he’s going to stop me, he’ll have to do it while I’m running at full speed with a knife.
“Lila, come back here. Quincy, where the fuck are you? Stop her!” Chase’s voice echoes through the hall. I can hear him behind me. His shoes banging against the concrete. “Q!”
I’m breathing hard; when I try to inhale, I gasp. The air is there somewhere, but I can’t get to it. My lungs are burning, and then Q comes into focus. I keep running. His masked face comes into view. His large looming body. But I keep racing. Chase is behind me, screaming my name, then Quincy’s name. And then I’m right next to Q; our eyes meet.
And he doesn’t try to stop me. Doesn’t move a muscle. He lets me pass.
I keep running as hard as I can. I push through a door and see a stairwell. I fly down it. My feet gett
ing cut on God knows what. I run down four flights of stairs, through another door, down a hallway, and find a door that looks like it leads outside. A hint of sunlight streaming through a boarded window. I pull on it. It’s locked. I turn down another hall, find another door. It’s locked too. I turn and run back the way I came and see a door I missed. I can still hear Chase screaming. Feet in the stairwell. I put my hand on the knob and turn it. It opens. The sun is sharp against my eyes, and I wince slightly but keep running, my lungs depleted. I crane my neck back at the building I was in. It’s blue with boarded windows. I see a street sign. I’m at the corner of Town and Fourth. I run down Fourth.
I get my bearings as I’m thrusting my legs forward, my feet now cut and bleeding as they hit the sidewalk. I’m on Skid Row. I look up and can see the skyscrapers that define downtown Los Angeles. I was so close to everyone who was looking for me. Who could help me. Which I’m sure was Chase’s plan—his final fuck-you. Holding me captive less than a mile from police headquarters.
I haul my body past camping tents that homeless people are living in. So many tents of every color. Some shiny and erect, many sad and sloping. Many connected as if they’d incorporated their own little villages. Shopping carts blocking the doorways as protection. People are staring at me, a madwoman running with a knife, but they remain neutral, neither moving in my direction or away from me. They’ve seen it all down here. My skirt is barely on, hanging low on my hips. I scream for help, but no sound will come out of my mouth, my throat raw and dry. Then I see a building. Something written on the side. I race toward it, praying. The words come into focus. The Los Angeles Mission. I dare to look over my shoulder for a moment, and Q and Chase aren’t following me. I push through the glass doors of the mission. I made it. I’m free. A man walks up to me. I drop the knife and hold my hands up in surrender.