Closing Costs

by Bracken MacLeod

  She nodded and jerked her head in the direction she’d left it. She grunted an answer as best as she could. “Nook.” It came out as a muffled, guttural sound. “OOH! OOH!”

  He stood stone still and glared at her. His cheek twitched. After a moment, he seemed to get it. It looked that way, maybe. She nodded furiously, tears streaming down her cheeks as if they’d somehow shared something deep. If they could do that, they could do more.

  He left her alone in the cellar again. This time he seemed to move slower, looking harder. His footsteps stopped where she guessed the kitchen might be. She hadn’t ever thought about the relationship of locations upstairs to those in the cellar. Then, he stomped off toward the far end of the dining room. By the nook.

  He returned, standing at the bottom of the stairs, her phone in hand. He looked at it for a long moment. His brow furrowed and his face reddened a little and he held it out and said, “What’s the code?” She grunted and shook her head to remind him of the gag preventing her from answering. “What’s the code?” he repeated. She widened her eyes. Why can’t you get it? I can’t fucking talk.

  He pointed at her hands, bound at her sides to the chair. “I haven’t broken your fingers . . . yet.” She understood and extended two fingers. Then, using both hands, seven, then four, and finally seven again. When he kept staring, she nodded to let him know that was it. Four digits. Two, seven, four, seven. He turned the device around and tapped on the screen. His face flushed deeper red, and he said in a low soft tone, “Don’t lie to me.” Nelle shook her head and tried signing the code with her fingers again. She didn’t know whether he’d seen the right combination. Could he see both of her hands? Was he entering the numbers in order? Two, seven, four, seven. Two, seven, four, seven. She started to doubt that she was even holding out the right number of fingers; her hands were tingling from the tight tape. She was too frightened to try to look and see if they were obeying.

  If she’d been able to say the numbers aloud, they wouldn’t be having this moment. Speech was something she took for granted, and the inability to utter anything but animal sounds left her feeling humiliated. Like a dog.

  Part of the plan.

  It took concentration, and she had a hard time mustering the will to do it, but she did it again until he turned the phone around and showed her the screen with the error message on it. His face was bright red, and he took a menacing step closer. “Fucking bitch just like all of ’em,” he said.

  She squinted her eyes shut hard and turned her face away, waiting for him to hit her again. When nothing happened, she opened an eye and peeked at the man. He was staring at her, face still red and mouth hanging open, not with astonishment, but a kind of blankness, like he just couldn’t comprehend why she was afraid of him and was trying to puzzle it out. Nelle raised her eyebrows and nodded hard, flashing the code with her fingers. Two, seven, four, seven. Two, seven, four, seven.

  “Two, seven, four, seven. Why didn’t you say so?”

  Because I have a fucking gag in my fucking mouth, you fucking moron. How can I tell you anything?

  She signed the code again with her fingers. He tapped it into the screen and smiled. He began scrolling through her phone. A sick feeling crept up in her stomach at the thought of him reading the private messages she and Evan sent each other. They weren’t explicit—they didn’t “sext” each other—but those messages were still private. What do you want for dinner? How’s your day going? I love you. Theirs, and no one else’s.

  She hadn’t noticed she was breathing hard again until the man looked up from her phone and said, “Calm down. I’m not looking for your nudes.” He glanced again at her chest, undermining his statement.

  She tried to calm herself.

  “Good girl. Keep it up, and I might take your gag off for a bit,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. But then, it wouldn’t be too hard for anyone to tell what she was thinking at that moment. It doesn’t take a mind reader to guess what desperate people want. They want to live through it.

  “You’d like that, right?”

  She nodded. He smiled. That expression more frightening than when he was angry. His red-faced rage was sincere, but his smile . . . He wore amusement like an ill-fitting mask. She’d seen that mask before. She knew him. Though she still couldn’t make the connection.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said, tracing a finger down her cheek.

  Gooseflesh rose on her arms. She couldn’t help pulling her head away. His smile disappeared.

  He turned back to her messages.

  Oh, where are you, Ev?

  II

  ◆

  Evan

  4

  Evan stood in line at the coffee shop feeling a little stupid for ordering a latte when there was a full pot of coffee waiting for him at home. But the clerk at the grocery store next door told him she couldn’t sell a bottle of prosecco before ten A.M., and he had time to kill. He could drive home and come back later for the wine—they didn’t live that far away, only a few miles—but it was unlikely he’d make it back out to the shops again once he returned home, and he really wanted mimosas to go with their eggs Benedict. He knew Nelle would too. He’d popped out while Nelle was in the shower for what was supposed to be just a trip for supplies. He’d filled a handbasket with a bottle of orange juice and three of prosecco (it was a holiday weekend, after all), along with a container of fresh raspberries and cinnamon rolls for tomorrow. Unfortunately, it was only nine forty when he got in line to check out, and the cashier wouldn’t break the law—even by as little as twenty minutes—just to accommodate a bougie, boozy breakfast. He paid for the berries, rolls, and juice, stashed them in the car, and ducked over to the coffee shop to wait for ten o’clock to tick by.

  “Devin? Is that you?” He turned at the sensation of a light hand on his shoulder. The woman standing behind him was familiar, but it wasn’t until she said, “It’s me, Brianne Maines,” that he placed her. He hadn’t seen her since high school, years ago, and even then, they hadn’t been friends. She’d gotten older—they were all doing that—and a little more substantial—again, a lot of them had gained weight, but she wore her late thirties a lot better than most of their classmates. He tried to picture the girl she’d been, but the woman she was blocked his recollection.

  “Evan,” he said. “Not Devin.”

  She blushed and laughed, a little too girlishly. “I’m so sorry, Evan. I can’t believe I did that.”

  “It’s okay. It happens. Better than what they used to call me in school.”

  She furrowed her brow. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember kids calling me Evelyn?”

  “They did that?”

  He nodded. Their classmates had teased him unrelentingly since he preferred music and theater to football or lacrosse. He had long hair and a slight build, and the in-crowd dubbed him Evelyn half the time. He tried to remember if Brianne was part of that clique. She had that used-to-be-a-cheerleader kind of vibe.

  “You live in Ripton?” he said.

  “I do. I moved here about five years ago, right after my divorce. I wanted to get a fresh start, you know. Are you living here now too?”

  He nodded and tried not to look uncomfortable at her overshare. “Just bought a place over on Wrightson Road, near Cabot Woods.”

  Brianne’s eyes widened, and she touched a finger to his shoulder and drew it away quickly, shaking it like he was too hot to touch. “Ooh, Wrightson. Fancy.”

  He forced a laugh. “No, no. That neighborhood is down the road and around the corner from us. We’re uh . . . rich adjacent.”

  Her expression faded from impressed to considerably less so, but still friendly. Evan thought it was his qualification about the neighborhood, but then she said, “We?”

  “Me and my wife, Nelle. We moved here a few months ago from Cambridge. It’s nice. Different, you know.”

  “Different is right. Ripton sure isn’t Cambridge.” Her tone changed from ebullient to pleasantly
conversational.

  He laughed. “For real. It’s been an adjustment. We’re used to taking the T or walking everywhere, and now we have to drive all over. Nelle still works in the city, so she has a heck of a commute.”

  At the mention of his wife, Brianne seemed thwarted, but she hadn’t moved away. She continued to touch him lightly, as if to punctuate her questions with contact. I’m here. I’m right here. “And you? What are you doing?”

  The barista saved him and called out, “Ewan.”

  “See what I mean? All the time. You’d think a name as easy as Evan . . .” He trailed off as he stepped away from Brianne to get what he assumed was his drink since everyone else ahead of them had been served.

  “Are you in a hurry? Want to have a seat?” she asked.

  He felt in his pocket for his phone to check the time, but it wasn’t there. Shit. His stomach sank at the thought of it sitting in the car where someone could just come smash the window and take it. But this was Ripton, not Crimebridge. He looked at his Fitbit instead. Nine fifty-two. He kind of wanted to linger. Just for a minute. Something about the way Brianne kept touching him. The barista called out her name and she slipped past him, a little too close, to fetch her caramel macchiato or whatever the frozen beige concoction waiting for her was. His stomach tingled a little at the close encounter with her body, and when she leaned over to reach for something past the pickup table and her vest pulled up from the back of her yoga pants, the tingle became a flutter. She turned and slid a long green straw into her drink and took a sip.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got to get home. My wife is expecting eggs Benny and mimosas. Some other time, maybe.”

  Brianne’s face fell, and her lips let go of the straw. “Sounds delicious. I’m jealous.” She held up a finger, turned, and grabbed a pen from behind the counter. If the employees had a problem with her invading their space, they didn’t let on. She scribbled on her receipt and handed him the scrap of paper. She’d written BAM 978-555-1369.

  He said, “BAM?”

  “Brianne Allie Maines. Always three initials. They made fun of me too.” She winked. “We can trade war stories some other time. I’m always available.” She smiled and took another sip of her drink.

  Evan smiled back and slipped the receipt in his pocket. “It was nice to bump into you, Brianne. See you later.”

  He shook her hand. She held on too long and said, “I hope so.”

  Evan left the coffee shop quickly but without seeming obvious that he wanted to both run as fast as he could and stick around just a bit longer. It felt nice and a little dangerous to flirt with a stranger, especially one who meant it.

  Who was he kidding? Danger was a thing both he and Nelle more than brushed against these days. Danger got them that nice house in a rich adjacent neighborhood in the suburbs. His stomach did another flip, and he resolved to drop Brianne’s number in the trash as soon as he got home.

  He ran next door to the grocery store; he didn’t want to waste any more time getting home. He didn’t want to waste the flutter in his stomach on a stranger. Not when Nelle would be just getting out of the shower.

  5

  Evan pulled around the tight corner and into the driveway as fast as he could without losing control of the car. Slowing down too much could be a little hairy. The speed limit along Wrightson Road was thirty-five, but everyone drove fifty, and their driveway was right around a semiblind curve. The BLIND DRIVE AHEAD sign didn’t dissuade anyone from opening up on that stretch of road, just like the double yellow line didn’t keep anyone headed in the other direction from cutting the corner. People came flying by their driveway without being able to fully see what was ahead. Nelle had almost been rear-ended twice coming home from work. He mused on the hidden flaws of a house that only appeared after you moved in. A dangerous driveway or a dead, widow-maker branch high up in a tall tree in the back yard. He was going to have to hire a guy to get to that before it fell and crushed his skull. Brained while mowing the lawn would be such a weak way to die.

  At the end of the drive, he angled around and backed into his spot beside Nelle’s car in front of the garage. After parking on the street for years, they’d been excited to have a garage, even if it was only big enough for one car. And then they filled it with stuff almost immediately, keeping either of them from parking inside. He’d promised to get it cleaned out so Nelle could park the Prius inside during the winter. Still, they had the long driveway, which meant a house set far back from the road and its noise. The peace was worth small inconveniences.

  He shut off the engine and grabbed the shopping bags off of the passenger seat, then he pressed the button on the garage door remote and got out of the car.

  It was a beautiful day. Later, after breakfast, he would suggest they take a drive up to the trailhead and go for a hike or maybe over to that sculpture park in Lincoln. It felt wrong to be cooped up in the house. He felt great and wanted that sensation to last.

  The garage door rose, rattling in its tracks. He ducked under and headed for the door to the dining room. Inside, he expected to find Nelle in her habitat, sitting on the chaise in the nook, reading. She wasn’t. He pushed the button that sent the garage door clattering back down and closed the door behind him. “Hey, Nelle! I got you something special,” he called out. No reply. He huffed and set the reusable shopping bags on the counter. “Where you at, minha querida?” He slipped a bottle of sparkling wine out of the bag and stuck it in the freezer to chill. It’d be ready to drink by the time he finished cooking.

  First, Nelle.

  He peeked out the window above the sink into the back yard, thinking she might be sitting outside in an Adirondack chair reading. She wasn’t there either. Behind him, Evan heard a muffled thump. He turned, expecting to see her standing in the hallway looking down at whatever she’d fumbled and dropped, but the hall was empty. He walked toward the next place she liked to occupy when she read. Since they’d moved in, she had found a favorite quiet spot in nearly every room of the house. Depending on the time of day and the light (or whether the music he was playing on the stereo matched her mood), she moved from room to room, living in the entire house. “We’re not going to be those people who never use the ‘drawing room.’ ” she’d said, stabbing air quotes with her fingers around the fancy words.

  Poking his head into the front room, he said, “Nelle? You in here?” It was empty as well. Another faint thudding sound came from behind him. He jumped and spun around. What was it his mother used to say when he was little? It’s the sound of the house settling. That had freaked him out. Creaks and groans were not the sounds of something that was supposed to be solid and safe.

  “Stay together, girl.” He patted the wall.

  The sound seemed to come from the basement. That wasn’t good. Since they’d bought the place, the furnace had kicked out twice and the water heater had had a small leak. Maybe Nelle was down there, futzing with whatever had gone wrong. Since she had been taking one of her marathon showers when he left, he placed his bet on the water heater.

  He opened the door and peeked down the stairs. From the landing at the top, there was nothing to see. Both appliances were over at the far end, beside the foundation wall. He turned back and grabbed the mini flashlight out of the utility drawer in the kitchen—the lights in the cellar weren’t bright enough to see into the tight spaces under appliances and in corners—and went back to get a better look.

  “You down here, Nelle? Everything okay?”

  Another loud thump. He climbed halfway down to get a better look. Nothing looked out of place. That was the insidious thing about these sorts of problems; they looked fine until you got close and saw the spreading water, dark on the concrete floor, or the alarmingly bright glow inside the furnace.

  He heard a squeal and a grunt like an animal.

  What the hell was that?

  It sounded big and upset and unlike anything he’d ever heard before. He wondered how an animal of any size could even
get into the cellar. Through one of those little windows? Why didn’t she text me? Oh yeah, because I left my stupid phone behind.

  Halfway down, he leaned out over the edge of the staircase and peeked around to get a look at it to see if it was something he could take care of himself or if he needed to call Animal Control. He hoped it was a cat. A racoon or a possum would be a totally different situation.

  “Jonesy. Here kitty, kitty. Meow.” He shined the light into the dim cellar.

  He nearly fell off of the end of the stairs when he spotted Nelle sitting in the guest chair under the dim glow of a fluorescent bulb. At first, he couldn’t process what he saw. It made no sense that she’d just be sitting there waiting for him. Their cellar was unfinished, and while not the ancient “haunted basement” they’d shared with the neighbors in Cambridge, it still wasn’t comfortable or even welcoming. It wasn’t anywhere she enjoyed being. There didn’t seem to be an animal. Only Nelle. His mind reconciled the various pieces of what he saw, one at a time.

  It’s not a cat.

  She’s taped to the chair.

  Is that tape over her face?

  She’s the one making the sounds.

  Nelle bucked in her seat and grunted louder, her eyes wide with panic. Evan leapt off of the staircase and rushed to help his wife. She was screaming behind the gag and shaking her head wildly. Her damp hair whipped around and stuck to her face. By the time he registered the sound of footsteps behind him and what they meant—what the whole thing meant—the blow to the back of his head made everything dark.

  6

  Nelle watched the man flow from out of the circuit breaker room like smoke. He’d heard the garage door open and Evan come in the house calling out for her, and faded into the shadows of the small room where they stored their holiday decorations. She tried to warn her husband. “EEH UHN OO! EEH UHN OO!” Behind you. Three syllables. Two words. One exclamation point. No use. Evan reached for her while she shook her head, but he didn’t understand. His head was full of other things that muted her message.