Broken Hope, page 4
A figure darts in my peripheral vision. A glance to the glass building on my left reveals only a cluster of thin trees and a nearby bike share. With growing unease, I increase my pace. At least the man who was stretching his quads moments earlier has started jogging. If I maintain his pace, he’ll serve as a safety net. A second ago, he looked back at me, but his face was nothing but shadows in the predawn light.
Who sent those emails?
Who could know of my…after-hours interest? My land is remote, the barn far from prying eyes or ears, the old house that initially occupied the property long since burned down. Between my salary and what my mother and father left me, she an investment banker and he a science professor, I was able to pay cash for the place.
And what, exactly, is the emailer’s motive? Blackmail seems the most likely, an ugly game that could go on forever, but the alternative—exposure—is unthinkable. My professional reputation is the only thing I have left. Besides my new cat, that is.
Mr. Richy Rich Wife Beater surfaces in my mind. I replay squeezing his chest with a pliers and stabbing him in the thigh. Vicious moves even for me. Is he my email stalker?
No. The look in his eye when I brought the knife down was pure terror. Seeing me again is the last thing he wants.
What about the cheating husband I exposed eight months ago, the one who got rough with his conquests? I treated one of those women in clinic for a torn perineum. I’d arranged for his wife to show up at the hotel he’d booked for us. I texted her the location from his phone while he was in the bathroom and then stalled him off with three whiskey sours. After enough time passed, I cracked open the room’s door. He was too drunk to notice and too busy drooling all over me, pinching me through my clingy dress and slapping my ass, asking me if I could feel how hard he was, how much he wanted me. When his wife stormed in and saw her husband lusting over another woman, grenades exploded from her eyeballs.
I hightailed it out of there and left him to her wrath. Judging by the howling and cursing that carried down the hallway, she was no shrinking violet like my patient is. She screamed she was going to kick his nuts to the curb and take all her money with her. She was tired of supporting his “waste of space as a man.”
So yeah, there’s little doubt he would love to blast some revenge my way.
But I was well-disguised. I even spoke with a French accent, my year in the Peace Corps after high school improving my linguistic ability, so it seems impossible he discovered my identity and has now decided to stalk me.
In the breaking daylight, the jogger up ahead looks over his shoulder once more. He wears a knit cap, and his running jacket is zipped high to his chin. His ongoing presence reassures me. There is safety in numbers.
With sweat trickling down my spine, my mind wanders back to my first tune-up, a woman in Target eighteen months ago. Inexperienced and green in the way of vigilantism, I acted impulsively, something I no longer do. My sessions now take place in the barn. But at the time, the woman’s actions infuriated me, and nothing silences my grief better than revenge. It’s that rush of satisfaction I get from knowing that at least someone is paying for their crime.
The woman in Target was forcing her daughter, who was maybe eight or nine years old, to shoplift, having her slip things into the large tote bag slung over the woman’s shoulder. It was clear the child didn’t want to. The fear and confusion on her face were easy to read, and I doubted it was the first time she’d been ordered to steal.
Angered by what I was witnessing, I grabbed a hat and sunglasses from the accessories department and made my way toward them. While pretending to run into the woman, I plucked her wallet from her gaping purse propped up on the cart and slipped it into my coat pocket.
“What’re you blind or something?” the woman snapped at me when I bumped into her.
After apologizing for my clumsiness, I notified security about the thefts. While a plainclothes guard confronted the mother, I retreated to the bathroom with her wallet and took a picture of her driver’s license and credit cards, my fingers shaking like an octogenarian’s. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I was terrified I’d get caught. When I finished, I turned the wallet in at the customer-service counter. Told them someone had dropped it near the toilet. Then I bolted out of there.
A week later, wearing a disguise of a blond wig, heavy makeup, and a padded suit from a costume shop under my clothes to boost my size-six frame to a size fourteen, I drove to the address printed on her driver’s license and waited for her to get home. A knife filled my hand, and my knees bounced in anxiety against the steering wheel. Yet I felt an unfamiliar thrill of excitement too.
When she pulled into the driveway, I confirmed she was alone and then wormed my way into her Volkswagen Jetta with a flimsy excuse. Once in the passenger seat, I held the knife to her neck and demanded she stop forcing her daughter to steal.
I wasn’t going to use the weapon, of course I wasn’t. Not only was I a novice back then, the punishment wouldn’t have fit the crime. But the sharp blade served as a good deterrent, and I reveled in the adrenaline rush it gave me. Nothing but pure electricity coursed through my blood.
I lied to the woman and told her I had access to her bank accounts. I swore I’d drain every one of them if she ever mistreated her daughter again. The mother’s freaked-out expression suggested she very much believed me, and I’d be surprised if she reverted back to her old ways after I left. I’d also be surprised if she’s the source of the mysterious emails.
But what about the guy—
Another scrape and movement to my left. Like before I see nothing. Just a building under construction. Up ahead lies the bridge to Charlestown, and I’m now on the sidewalk instead of the boardwalk. Even though foot traffic in the area has picked up, the street I’m jogging along remains deserted.
The runner is no longer in front of me.
Where did he go?
Thinking I should head back to the safety of my loft—I’ve jogged over two miles now—I turn around and quicken my stride.
Before I make it ten feet, someone pulls me off the sidewalk and yanks me over a two-foot construction barrier in front of a brick building.
I land hard on all fours on the concrete. Pain shoots through my kneecaps, and the cement rips my Lycra leggings. When I cry out, a hand covers my mouth. It tastes like metal and grime, and the person behind me reeks of body odor.
I bite down on the sour-tasting flesh. My attacker yelps but doesn’t release me, just forces my body all the way flat on the rough pavement. Beyond the construction barricades, cars pass by, but from our low position the drivers won’t be able to see us.
Restrained on my stomach, I jerk my head back to see if my assailant is the runner who was in front of me, but all I catch is blondish hair before he smashes my face into the ground. Tiny pebbles of concrete rip into my cheek.
Blond hair. No knit cap. Not my runner.
Lying on top of me, the attacker grabs at my leggings. Given my forced prone position, I feel this rather than see it. Whether he’s pulling my jogging pants down to assault me or to search for money, I don’t know. He could be desperate for either. Maybe he’s desperate for both.
But there’s one thing I know that he doesn’t.
I know myself.
I know what I’m capable of.
I stop resisting. My body falls limp. Using his surprise at my sudden laxity, his breath hot on the back of my neck, I crack my head back and aim for whatever part of him hovers behind my skull. Given the growing traffic, I hear nothing but car engines, but when his hold on me loosens, I assume I’ve struck something tender. A nose. A throat. Maybe an ear.
Under his weakened grasp, I free my arm, reach behind me, and squeeze his balls through the crotch of what feels like cotton chinos. This time I do hear a cry, and when he rolls off me, maybe realizing I’m far too much trouble, I leap up and kick his face while he’s down.
His lip splits from the blow of my sneaker, and blood pools out. His nose, too, is bleeding, probably the recipient of my earlier head butt. He curls into the fetal position. Although this appears to be a sign of surrender, I’m tempted to give him a punch to the throat just in case. In Krav Maga, they teach you to fight dirty. It’s a woman’s best defense, and it’s a skill a woman with my pastime needs. But my assailant looks so wasted and pathetic, his face bleeding, his clothes tattered and stained, that I stop short. As quickly as my fight-or-flight adrenaline surged when he jumped me, my empathy sends it packing.
Maybe he really did just want money. Hoping for a twenty, a ten, anything to get him what he needs. Booze? Drugs? Simply food and shelter?
I believe I have a good sense for people—Terrence, my colleague, calls me the character whisperer—and although I might be dead wrong about my attacker’s intentions, I’m convinced he’s not my mysterious emailer. Nor is he the jogger in front of me who seemed to vanish into the waterfront air. No knit hat. No jogging clothes.
Slowing my labored breaths, I dig into the hidden pocket of my legging’s waistband and pull out a twenty-dollar bill. Its purpose was to buy a breakfast sandwich after my run, but this disheveled man appears to need it more than me.
I drop it on the ground next to him, wishing I had more to offer. Then I hop over the construction barrier that hid us and limp off. I think about reporting the attack—know that I should—but until I learn what my online stalker wants, any police attention my way seems unwise.
As I hobble away, my heart still pounds faster than it should. My throat still threatens to close off. My nerves still jitter.
But that’s okay.
It’s nice to at least feel something.
5
Him
He grinds his teeth and crumples up the overdue rent bill, its threat of eviction one more kick to his already KO’d soul.
People like her never own up, he thinks. They destroy lives and go on living their own without a shred of remorse.
He tosses the wadded bill across the basement apartment, aiming for one of the crusted and stinking takeout containers on the kitchen counter. It bounces off the sink instead, inside of which dishes pile high like Jenga blocks.
She’s the one who should be paying my goddamn bills.
He thinks about his life. How it has spiraled down the toilet of his mildewed bathroom for the past six years. Hers, meanwhile, soars higher. Waterfront loft, respected medical practice, patients who think she’s Jesus reincarnated.
He visited her clinic once. Scheduled an appointment for his alternating bouts of diarrhea and constipation, which were sometimes so bad he worried he’d never shit normally again. He could barely take a walk after eating a meal without buckling over in a cramping spasm.
She diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome, mixed type—IBS-M per his printed checkout summary. Gave him a full bag of medication samples and spent an extra fifteen minutes counseling on nutritional changes so he wouldn’t have to fork over money he didn’t have for a dietitian.
“This should save you some cost, at least,” she said, smiling, both her chair and her attention swiveled toward him instead of her laptop.
Good bedside manner or not, he hated her. And okay, the treatment helped a lot. So what? Just because he plans to ruin her doesn’t mean he can’t benefit from her skills, skills she developed from the patients she practiced on along the way.
And the patients she killed. Or at least, the patient she killed.
He’s tried to let it go. For six years, he’s tried. Even saw a therapist when he could still afford it. Yet his inner turmoil grew. Still grows. First helplessness, then anger, then hatred. Wash, rinse, repeat. Over and over and over again.
He drops to his couch and buries himself face down on a cushion that smells like soy sauce and ass. A low-grade groan rumbles in his throat. If only he could find peace.
Soon. Maybe soon.
He finally started following her eight months ago. Although acting out on his obsession with her might be his final descent into madness, he can’t help it.
Then he caught a break. A break so startling he thought he was hallucinating.
She beat and stabbed a man out in the middle of nowhere in an old barn. He witnessed every incredible moment.
It was a Tuesday night. He’d been following her, just as he’d followed her several times before. After her SUV pulled out of her loft’s parking deck one evening after clinic, he maneuvered his old Chevy behind her and tailed her to a bar on the outskirts of Boston.
When she stepped out of her vehicle in front of the upscale nightclub, he got quite a shock. It wasn’t her form-fitting dress or high heels that surprised him, although they were an atypical choice from her usual style. It was the long auburn wig and the face full of makeup that startled him. They made her unrecognizable. Her usual vibe was an understated but professional Anne Hathaway. But that night? She was a sultry Christina Hendricks.
Intrigued, and for once not focused on his own internal pain, he waited in his car across the street from the club. An hour later she reappeared, but this time with a man in a tailored suit. One of his arms was around her shoulders. The other groped her like a guy who thinks everything is his for the taking.
When the two of them climbed into her Highlander and drove away, he followed behind in his Chevy, driving for the better part of an hour. Under a vibrant sunset, urban landscape morphed into suburban homes and then into rural and wooded terrain. Finally, her SUV pulled onto a dirt road and disappeared into a copse of trees.
Knowing he’d be spotted if his car followed her in there, he pulled over to the side of the highway and headed on foot in the direction she drove. After about three quarters of a mile, he spotted a barn, her SUV parked near it.
As he approached the outbuilding, he heard a man screaming and cursing. He froze, both in fear and confusion. Then, tentatively, he advanced and peered through a crack in the wallboards. Quietly, barely daring to breathe, he watched, transfixed. What he saw shocked him.
You’re not who people think you are at all, are you, Dr. Sullivan?
He fumbled for his phone and recorded what he could between the one-inch slat. For a few minutes, a mangy cat sniffed around his feet, but he didn’t dare shoo it away in case he’d be discovered. Finally, the animal gave up and pawed its way into the barn.
He recorded a little longer, and when it appeared the doctor with the sweet bedside manner and bag full of free medication was finishing up with her torture, he slunk away and prayed the snapping branches beneath his feet wouldn’t be noticed.
Once safely back in his car, he drove off. For the first time in six years, he smiled. He’d just been given a gift.
Now it was his turn for payback.
6
From the backseat of my Highlander, Diva’s sonorous breaths rise above the nearly imperceptible hum of the hybrid, which idles near the dog abuser’s home on a quiet but ugly street on the outskirts of an industrial suburb. Given Thursdays are my light day, the afternoon devoted to administrative duties, I bowed out of clinic early to stake out my next asshole tune-up.
Diva is in her cat carrier. I’m in a blunt-cut wig and massive sunglasses. Around us, the sun burns bright and hot, more like a July day than a June one. I’ve yet to see a soul exit or enter a home.
One might assume cats and cars don’t mix, but Diva shatters that myth. The steady drone of tires over pavement as we left Boston seemed to soothe her. Or maybe she was simply relieved not to be left alone in my condo. For a stray, not to mention a cat, she’s surprisingly social. Dog-like, even. Her urping has stopped, and her contentment with her new living arrangement is obvious.
I was smart to invite her into my life. We’re simpatico, the two of us. Two low-key feminine packages with agreeable personalities who prove looks can be deceiving.
I sip my spiced chai tea and scan the neighborhood behind my dark shades. Dying trees line the street and shield the widely spaced homes. Only my patient’s house and the dog abuser’s share any proximity. Hers, a one-story ranch, shows attentive care, with flower boxes in the windows and a trimmed lawn. His, a split-level modular, is rundown, and just like my sneak peek on Google Maps suggested, junk litters its yard. A gas can sits next to a rusted lawn mower. An aluminum shed leans to one side. A stack of old tires spills onto the driveway. Presumably, the dog is in back, hidden by the house.
I squeeze my door release but don’t yet open it. A hesitation holds me back. Not because I’m afraid the dog abuser will be home—my patient mentioned he doesn’t return until seven—but because I worry about unseen eyes watching me.
A week has passed since the strange emails popped into my inbox, so maybe the sender has grown bored. Moved on to new territory. It’s possible I misread the whole thing. Made it personal when it wasn’t. It could have been some anonymous emailer trying to get a rise out of a random recipient.
Still, the tightness in my throat, the churn in my belly, the dampness in my palms—they’re all there no matter how much I try to deep breathe them away. Maybe that’s what my electronic stalker wants. Me, looking over my shoulder like some slasher-movie victim, wondering when the whir of the chainsaw will come.
I glance up at my rearview mirror. Nothing behind me but the rutted and neglected road. No cars, no dog walkers, no delivery people.
Loosening my grip on the Highlander’s door handle, I remind myself I can only act on what I can control. Isn’t that what those dumb affirmations tell me?
Avenging a mistreated dog is something I can control.
Cooing a promise to Diva that I’ll be right back, I slip my cross-body purse over my head and exit the vehicle. I smooth my cotton pants and look around the still-deserted neighborhood. A name tag pinned to the left breast pocket of my understated blouse identifies me as a real estate agent. It’s generic, but so is my excuse if I’m encountered: I’m simply checking out property requested by a client but must have the wrong address.
