by P. J. Vernon
“Chives?” I ask. Oliver sits at the counter, phone on the marble, finger tap-dancing across its screen. The Ambien peace offering was against my better judgment. It’s not morphine, but it’s a scheduled drug, and once an addict, always one. But it’d also mean a deep sleep, a late start, and a chance to skim his phone again.
Because he’s still lying to me.
“Sure,” Oliver answers as I pull a tray of English muffins from the oven. I sit them on the empty side of the stove, spoon the first egg into swirling water, and recap the vinegar.
That’s the taste in my mouth this morning. Oliver had changed his PIN and it coated my stomach in sour vinegar.
“I’m taking call tonight.” Didn’t need more than five minutes to recover the new one. My card, my account. New PIN, sure, but new security questions didn’t cross his mind. I stir the hollandaise, start to plate up. “Got any plans while I’m out?”
“No. Why?” Because, liar, you’re back on MeetLockr. Like nothing has happened.
“Whole house to yourself.” Toasted muffin, poached egg, ladle of sauce. “Not gonna run? Maybe grab a drink with a friend or something?”
Oliver lets half a smile slip. “What friends?”
“Fair enough.” My knuckles whiten around the hilt of the butcher’s knife. Chives spread on the cutting board, I chop. Maybe too hard.
I sprinkle chives, turn, and pass Oliver a meal he’d have killed for back in Indiana. Now it’s all taken for granted. “What are you looking at?”
Finally, some eye contact. “News.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Nope.” He flips it over, pushes the iPhone aside to make room.
“Okay, then.”
When he cuts into his breakfast, a spoonful of golden yolk spills. I smile, privately congratulating myself on an egg well done because not much else warrants celebration. Not with Mother’s extortion—now drawn up as legitimate paperwork. Not with my husband’s return to MeetLockr. After coming to his senses and deleting it once already.
“Egg looks great,” he offers like lukewarm charity.
Cruising the app for sex like it’s not available right here. In a six-million-dollar Georgetown dream house that could be gone tomorrow. Barbie’s fucking dream house, and all she’s gotta do is snap her fingers for some dick. Anytime she wants it! I count the months in my head. Four, five? Has it been longer than that? Not some tepid jerk-off sesh while our shoulders touch but real sex? Pounding, bleating sex that lasts both too long and never long enough? SEX sex.
I saddle up at the counter, and anger pops like a live wire. Everything Oliver has is because of me. Including his own goddamn life. The least—the very least!—he could do is have sex with me. It’s not a want, it’s a need. A billion years of evolution for fuck’s sake. As biologically compelled as food and water.
It’s only reasonable, then, to conclude that he simply does not find me attractive. Nothing makes him go flaccid faster than predictable fucking stability, huh? Gay men age in dog years, and old Dr. Klein’s not so alluring any longer.
I drain my coffee. You know what else isn’t alluring? Cradling your sweaty, trembling body all through detox, all through the cravings, sitting through the NA meetings and revising all the cover letters to all the posted jobs on the curated list I diligently crafted on your behalf.
My empty mug strikes the table.
Oliver’s eyes flit to mine.
But my thirsty, thirsty husband’s gone back to the watering hole. Missing dog, home invasion, strangulation? None of it kept him away for long. And now Oliver’s got nudes saved on his camera roll behind a brand-new PIN.
Photos of himself.
And Tom Vogt.
32
OLIVER
“More coffee?” Nathan asks, pouring himself a fresh one.
“No, thank you.” I push the congealing yolk around my plate.
“You’re not hungry?” Nathan doesn’t look up. He doesn’t need to. He’s been watching me not eat throughout breakfast.
“Not really.” Nathan separates the pages of last Sunday’s newspaper—a local city paper more for pop culture than culture culture. Vibe. He loves getting it delivered to our doorstep weekly and I’d found this endearing once.
“You sleep?”
“Huh?”
“The pill I gave you. It get you to sleep?”
“Yeah.” A headache gathers behind my eyes. “Yes. I did. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He winks, and I’m back to brooding in silence. At least I’ve lucked out in one small way. Nathan’s on call overnight, so no need to come up with excuses for my absence. No need to lob yet another undeserved lie his way.
He’ll take off around five and won’t return until well after five the following morning. Haggard from playing god. Doing all he can to stop the bleeding from this gunshot. To suture the wounds from that stabbing. To inform frenetic parents their drunk daughter struck a lamppost. He’ll tell them her spine severed before the airbags even blew, so not to worry, she felt nothing.
That’s how we met. The trauma center in South Bend, Indiana, is regional. It catches rural cases from armpits like Tyre. Folks maimed by agricultural equipment. Horrific amputations at unnatural places. Hands and feet and fingers and toes gone ground beef. Kids doing stupid shit on oxy and meth, like diving headfirst into shallow creeks. South Bend is perfect for an emergency surgery resident. Why else leave a city like New York?
He collects his empty plate and my full one. He kisses my forehead and makes for the sink.
“I almost forgot,” he says with his back to me. Same as I’ve turned mine to him so many times. Whenever I’m lying, and again, I find myself bracing.
“Forgot what?”
“Tom’s redecorating his condo.” He opens the dishwasher, begins organizing utensils and flatware with a diligence bordering obsessive-compulsive. “He mentioned needing new art, so we’re meeting up this afternoon.”
“Before work?” Seems like I’ll have more time alone than I thought. “Where?”
“The gallery we love. The one in Frederick.”
Nathan says we but he means I. Still, it makes little sense. Frederick’s more than an hour away. “Really? Isn’t that kind of a drive?”
“It’ll be worth it.”
“Just before a long shift—”
“Called all the shelters again this morning,” he interrupts. The sudden switch of topic reads as avoidance, but it works. At once, I’m struck by an inescapable sadness. “No Tilly.”
No Tilly. Two words; two blows to the back of my skull. And to his.
He’s going to a gallery in Maryland because that’s less time spent at home without her. Guilt—unwelcomed and deserved—returns. I shouldn’t have questioned it. Not when I’ve got far worse questions to answer for.
Why do I do this to him? Why let him languish in the purgatory of the unknown? Jaunts to Maryland before fifteen-hour shifts are strange, but maybe that’s how he copes. The uncertainty is trauma too. As far as he knows, Tilly might turn up any moment. At a shelter or rooting through a neighbor’s garden. It’s a false hope, but hope is a powerful motivator. The strongest we humans have at our disposal.
As Nathan heads upstairs to get ready, I fast-forward to an evening I won’t ever be ready for.
No question, looping Detective Henning in would’ve been smart. Maybe she’d even be in The Jefferson’s bar too. Undercover to grab Kristian or pump him full of fucking bullets or something. But in what universe would she greenlight this? Kristian also had conditions.
I’m not into group things. No threesomes.
Besides, if Detective Henning had even the slightest hint of a heads-up, she’d go straight to Nathan. If Tilly wasn’t already dead, she’d be killed. Then I’d be killed. If Kristian didn�
�t do it, I would myself. After Nathan kicked me out into a world with no room for sobriety.
I breathe deep.
From here on out, every hour brings me closer to the moment when a fresh-pressed doorman gestures me into The Jefferson and the hungry thing that waits there.
And every hour I tell myself it is possible Tilly escaped.
After all, I did.
33
This is a fucking mistake.
A familiar feeling as I cross The Jefferson’s checkered floor like a chess piece. A pawn traveling the board for the most high-stakes game of his life. The lobby is elegant, like the White House foyer or the East Room. Esteemed things get announced from podiums in spaces this slick.
I swipe for the time with wet thumbs: 6:35 p.m. I’m early. Very early. I’d consider this a good thing if any part of my plan could be called that. I swallow. None of my plan is certain.
Majesty palms stand like sentinels. Wrought-iron gates cross doorways, and a glass atrium evokes a bygone era. Victorian—no, Americana. An ambiguous word with no tangible definition. Like porn, you know it when you see it.
It was supposed to feel safe, but my palms still itch. The hotel is somehow too sprawling and too intimate. A boutique labyrinth of unknown size and Tom’s territory through and through. If he weren’t with Nathan, he could be around any corner.
“Hotel bars are underrated,” Kimberly had said once. We’d been talking about her Tinder in the breakroom. “They’re moodier, never crowded, and way more convenient than cleaning up just to get laid.” She’d winked, but why didn’t I remember this?
Who else could be here that I know? A dangerous voice teases inside my skull.
I draw in breath, brush the front of a twill button-down, and pretend I’m Tom. Not Tom, specifically, but someone like Tom. Someone who belongs here. You can do this.
In my pocket, I finger the arming switch of the pepper spray Nathan gave me. Pulled left, the safety locks. Pulled right, it’s armed. I tug it left, and then to the right twice. Armed.
From the lounge entry, I scour the room. What I’m doing is ballooning into something too huge, and I can’t swallow it.
The bar’s even darker. Wood-paneled walls and Persian rugs over parquet. Low yellow lighting and a plushness that’s outlasted a stock market crash, a nuclear missile crisis, and god knows what else. I slide out a low-back stool from the counter.
“Hi there.” Bartender’s a blond woman in a pressed oxford shirt. She’d taken a minute or two to notice me. “Sorry for the wait. We just wrapped up a fundraiser for Senator Rucker in the ballroom.”
The name rings an alarm. Rucker as in Ted Rucker who Nathan calls Turd Fucker and who is also Tom’s boss. Shit. My cheeks smolder. If Rucker was here for a fundraiser, then Tom might—no. Stop, Oliver. Tom is in Frederick right now. With Nathan who, unlike yourself, doesn’t lie about where he is and when he’s there.
“Hello?” The bartender breaks my paranoia. “Something to drink?”
“Tonic water.” I’ve never wanted alcohol more. “For now.”
“What room are you staying in?”
“Cash, if that’s cool.” I slide a crisp twenty across burled walnut, exhaling. Can’t have The Jefferson popping up on Wealth Wallet.
“Room number was just in case you changed your mind. Water’s on the house.” Guess bars don’t charge for tonic, but she chuckles like my money’s no good here regardless. I should be breaking down tables in the ballroom with the rest of the event staff.
The bar top itself is small, and only a single seat faces the entry. A heavy man occupies it. A near-empty draft of lager before both him and his fucking cowboy hat. I will him to leave. Is he finished? Almost finished? I want that seat because Kristian doesn’t need to see me before I see—
“What are you looking for?” An unseen whisper. Scandi accent. Warm breath scales my neck like a string of picnic ants. I flinch, spin, but he’s already claiming the next stool over.
Kristian’s early too.
Cold eyes that somehow burn intensely. Staring into the sun is dangerous. Blindingly hot, but I steel myself. No, I think, molars grinding. Confront. “You.”
He says nothing.
I sharpen my tone into a box cutter, repeat: “I’m looking for you.”
His lips curve. Cheek muscles bend and tense and twist his wound as though it smiles too. An inflamed grin of stitched tissue, taut and damp and just for me. “You’re brave.”
Not true, Kristian. But we’re in a hotel. Posh and protected and you’re a caged leopard. I’m simply visiting the zoo. In the wild, you’d have sprung, wouldn’t you? Fangs tearing flesh. You’d want me alive when you start to eat me.
The snuff film—the man’s face, blurred and pixelated and dying—flashes. His face is my face. You’d make certain I was alive before you started.
“Get you a drink, sir?” The bartender’s distracted, stacking tumblers. She hasn’t a clue to whom she speaks. To the criminal, the killer whose drink she’ll soon prepare.
“Vodka,” he tells her in his thick accent. The one I’d found so seductive. “Neat.”
Her eyes find his, and she lingers there. Does he do it for her too? Or is she startled by his stitches? “Room number?”
“Seven-twenty-one.”
Bingo. If he has a room, he used a card to book it. Even if he plans to pay cash, he’d have to provide a card as a deposit. Is it his own? Stolen? Regardless, there’ll be a record for Detective Henning.
As a sliver of hope breaks, another thought dashes it to pieces. A dark thundercloud of a thought. Why does Kristian have a room? What does he intend to do with it?
He turns my way. Or inside it? His long forefinger runs the length of his thumb. Even his fidgeting is sensual. Carnal and calling.
“You’re a brave, brave little boy. Tell me something, Oliver.” He smells my fear. I reek of it, and he sips it like a neat pour of vodka. “Does Dr. Klein know you’re here?”
“Keep his name out of your mouth.”
“Of course he doesn’t, but,” Kristian teases, “if the good doctor doesn’t know you’re here, why are you? What do you want?”
The question’s a whirling curve ball. Its whistle, familiar. Detective Henning asked that, and I couldn’t answer because I’ve only ever wanted by the hour. I want a meal. I want oxy. I want to be safe. I want to be loved. I want to bring Tilly home. I want Kristian dead and I want to live.
I want Nathan, but I keep this to myself and ask the same of him: “What is it you want from me?”
He swallows the liquor now sitting before him. “The truth is, I want lots of things from you.”
“What—”
“Oliver, Oliver, Oliver Park,” he sings. “Lots and lots of things.”
“What the fuck do you want?” Bartender raises her eyes at fuck.
Kristian edges closer. His knee brushes mine, and he leaves it there. We’re touching; I don’t retreat. We’re connected for the first time since he strangled me. Since his hard, pulsing dick pressed the small of my back. Since I dragged a key through his shit-eating flesh.
“Your throat looks good.” He takes a second gulp. “Healing nice.”
I’ve yet to touch my tonic, and my mouth holds no moisture. My bottom lip quivers, and I stay it with my teeth. “Wish I could say the same. That cut looks infected. Gonna leave a scar.”
“I didn’t finish.” He skirts past my dig. “You gave me blue balls.”
This is a game to him. All a big fucking game. I am a wounded bird, battered and broken, and he’s caught me. Reveling, no, luxuriating, in my protruding bones and smashed beak. My tears lubricate his glee.
“The police know who you are. They’ve got your flash drive.” My sudden confidence is a thin veneer, but I lie about everything else in life. Why the hell stop when it might save me? �
�They’ve got your movie; they know where you work. They’re closing in.”
He tilts his knee up and down, soft against mine.
“They won’t come. I’m not findable.” He’s becoming an overwhelming force, unstoppable, flooding the space between us. He’s proving he really doesn’t care about the police. He really is unfindable.
“Everyone’s findable.”
“You’re a selfish date, you know that?” He tilts his head. “How about you get to know me a little instead? What do you think?” My groin swells with warm blood. I haven’t moved my knee, and why not? Why let him caress it? He smiles knowingly, his next words perfumed with vodka: “Aren’t you curious?”
“Fine.” I clench. He knows everything about me, so why the hell not. “Where are you from?”
“Bergen. Know it?”
I shake for no.
“Norway.” His room number, his place of birth, why is he so forthcoming? “Not so big a city, but lots of sea and mountains and fjords. Quite nice.”
“The video. Is it real?”
He nods for yes, and perhaps he speaks freely because I won’t be alive long enough to share anything with anybody. “Did you watch all of them?”
“No.”
“You afraid you might be on it?”
“Did you film me?”
“If I did, you should be grateful. It’s why you’re here now. Alive.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“The time it takes to pack up a GoPro”—he traces his wound—“while bleeding.”
“Why do you do this to people?”
“You want my story?” He laughs in a snickering, tittering kind of way. “Why I’m fucked up?”
My drink is well within reach, but turning from Kristian for any length of time is a harrowing prospect. Like flipping the lights off in a closet filled with vipers. The knot in my throat goes down like a baseball. “Yeah, Kristian. Why are you so fucked up?”