When She Left: A Thriller, page 19
He climbed the ladder.
“Renee,” Lucky began decisively, “I haven’t felt right for a while. I was doing fine for so many years. It was like I had one secret part of my life, and you and Marybeth were another, and I kept them separate. Far away from each other. And that felt like the right thing to do.”
He could see the removed patch in the insulation that the Rusu twins had yanked away, his duffel bag inside. Lucky pulled out the bag.
Of course, they’d taken his weapons. The Glock 22 was gone, as were the knife and Mace. All that remained were bullets. He placed the square of insulation back into the wall, walked to the other side of the attic.
“Kept us separate from what?” Renee asked from below. “Is this about William? Was one of those women married to him? Why are you in our attic?”
Lucky pulled his key chain from his pocket, unfolded the tiny Swiss Army knife blade attached to it, plunged it into the insulation, and cut it open.
Pulled out a second duffel bag. Unzipped it.
The Henry AR-7 rifle wasn’t Lucky’s ideal choice, but he was out of options. His only other hiding spot was in the outdoor office, and the Rusu twins had already gone through it. He used to keep an emergency bag of weapons hidden in the garage, but once Marybeth had learned to drive, he didn’t trust that she wouldn’t stumble upon it.
“This isn’t about William,” he said. “It’s someone else.”
“Who?”
The good thing about the AR-7 was that the rifle was small, lightweight, and easily assembled. It only took Lucky about a minute, kneeling on the floor, opening the stock pad to pull out the receiver, barrel, and magazines. He quickly inserted the receiver into the stock, screwed it in place. Threaded the barrel to the action, tightened it, and replaced the stock pad. Pushed in a magazine. Racked the bolt back.
Renee had climbed up the steps and was staring at him.
“Why do you have that gun?”
“It’s a rifle,” Lucky said and hooked a strap to it.
“Then why do you have that rifle?”
“We need to call Marybeth,” Lucky said. “She needs to come meet us.”
Panic overcame Renee’s words. “Why do you have that rifle?”
Lucky slung the AR-7 over his shoulder. Lifted his pants leg and wrapped a sheath around his calf. Pulled out a steel-black Tanto knife from the duffel and slid it inside.
“Let’s go,” Lucky said.
Renee climbed down the attic stairway, clumsily, losing her grip and catching herself. Lucky jumped down after her, didn’t bother with the ladder. He didn’t land as smoothly as he’d hoped, stumbling on the floor, knees aching.
Renee was hurrying out of the closet. He caught her arm, turned her toward him.
“I told them I want to walk away,” he said insistently, “and it felt so right, Renee. And they agreed. Even after all the years I’ve worked for them, they were just going to let me walk away after this job. But I’d have to give up an old friend of mine. And I don’t want to do that to her. I don’t want to lie anymore.”
“Let me go.”
“If I let you go, you’ll run away. And they’ll find you and Marybeth and kill you both.”
“Who!” Renee stopped struggling.
“The Winterses.”
“As in Victor Winters? Those people who were in the news?”
Lucky loosened his grip on her arm. And he noted that the more information he gave Renee, the less inclined she seemed to run.
“Grab some clothes,” he said. “Take some for you and Marybeth. Enough for a week. You have ten minutes. And I’ll explain everything.”
Lucky heard her frantically rummaging upstairs as he walked into the living room. His Lemax Christmas Villages were sprawled out on the fireplace hearth and the living room table, and Lucky knelt between them. He tried not to have a favorite, but Lucky loved the village on the hearth. It had been built on three long tiers, each covered with blankets of fake snow, hiding the wires underneath.
There was another reason he was always fixated on this village. One of the pieces didn’t belong to it. This misplaced figurine was similar to the others, plastic and about two inches tall, but it lacked the reddish cheeks, the stocking cap and scarf, the depicted cheer from assembling a snowman or tugging a sled. This piece had a grim countenance and a cape, and Lucky always kept it carefully hidden in the village, so that it wouldn’t disrupt the tableau. He’d had this tiny superhero since he was a child, and Lucky had no idea what its name was or anything about it—his father had given it to him, and Lucky suspected it was a knockoff. But he’d kept this toy with him ever since, deep in his pocket or backpack during his school years, in his car’s glove compartment after graduation, even tucked in the breast pocket of his rented tuxedo the day of his wedding.
Lucky debated taking this nameless superhero with him now.
But no, this was where he belonged.
Twenty minutes later he and Renee were driving out of their neighborhood, the afternoon sun dropping like a coin into a piggy bank when he spoke again.
“So there’s obviously a part of me I’ve never told you about,” Lucky said, his eyes everywhere on the road, scanning the cars parked on the side of the street, glancing back into the rearview mirror. “And it’s never been a problem before.”
Something caught his eye.
“Did you know the Petersons are selling?” he asked, pointing to a colonial with a Realtor sign in the front yard.
“You were selling houses for the Winterses?” Renee guessed.
“No.”
She waited.
“I found people they wanted me to find.”
“What?”
Lucky said nothing.
“And then what?”
Lucky still didn’t reply.
“But these are bad people, right?” Renee asked in his mind. “These are people who deserve it? I know this was a secret you kept from me, but I guess it was for the best. And I know we’re in danger, but Marybeth and I will do whatever you say to keep us safe. Thank you, Lucky.”
Lucky shook his head.
Renee was screaming and her door was open and her right foot was outside and bouncing on the pavement.
“Wait!” Lucky shouted, and he swung the car to the side of the road. Renee unfastened her seat belt and ran into the golf course bordering their neighborhood. Lucky grabbed the rifle from the back seat and ran after her.
Renee was faster than he expected, although Lucky knew her speed was motivated by fear. He’d chased people down before, and, once their adrenaline left, once they’d fled a short distance, they dramatically slowed. Even trained runners found their energy emptied by fear, bent over, hands on their knees, saying variations of “please . . . please, just hold on,” as Lucky approached.
Renee stopped at the edge of a man-made lake, now nearly black this late in the day, as if she was debating jumping in.
“Renee, that water’s filthy.”
She turned toward him. Lucky had never seen her eyes so wild.
“This is a joke,” Renee said. “This is a joke, and you don’t mean any of it.”
Lucky didn’t approach her, didn’t respond.
She was staring at the rifle. Lucky lifted off the strap and set the weapon on the grass.
Renee took a step backward.
“Careful,” Lucky warned her. “The lake’s behind you.”
How weird it would be, he thought, if Renee accidentally fell in? What an odd moment that would be in this surreal evening. Lucky imagined them discussing it years from now, laughing on the porch of a cabin. “I fell right in!” Renee would exclaim, and Lucky would tease her, and they’d laugh at her silliness.
“This isn’t true, is it?” Renee asked.
He didn’t respond.
“My God.” Renee sat abruptly on the grass, her legs sticking out before her like roots that had been yanked from the ground.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” Lucky said. “All you have to do is believe me.”
“Why are they after you?”
“Like I said, those women think I have information about someone they’re looking for.”
“And do you?”
Lucky considered it. “Yes.”
“So why not tell them, if you’re putting us in danger? Why not just tell them?”
“Because they’ll kill us if they don’t need me. And because I can’t do that to her.”
“Her?”
Lucky detected the different note in Renee’s voice, the one-word question that was on the verge of something deeper, like the tip of a spear protruding from a cave. And a part of him marveled that, even with what he was telling Renee and everything she was learning about him, his faithfulness to her still, in some way, mattered.
“I met her when I started working for them. And I helped her when she left, because no one escapes Win . . . I’m sorry, that’s such a terrible slogan. She was a friend, nothing more. I’ve never cheated on you.”
“I don’t care about that right now,” Renee said.
“I know where she is. And she probably knows how to find who they’re looking for. When I came home today and found those two women in our house—”
“Those women broke into our house?”
“Then I knew I was out of time. Once the Winterses know I can find her, they’re going to come after me. And not just me. You and Marybeth too.”
Renee looked out over the darkening lake. But she didn’t turn her face away completely. As if she had to keep watching him.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” Lucky told her quietly. “I just wanted to lie to you.”
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
A stranger’s voice. A man’s voice.
It came from somewhere behind him, Lucky guessed maybe twenty feet or so.
The rifle was lying on the grass in front of him.
The Henry AR-7 wasn’t a very powerful rifle. It was mainly used for hunting small animals. Lucky kept it sentimentally; it had been one of the first weapons he’d trained on, shooting squirrels and sparrows in his backyard as a teen while his parents drank in the kitchen.
If Renee called out for help, if she suddenly let the panic edging into her face overcome her, then he’d have to turn and run down this man and use the knife strapped to his ankle. Lucky hoped the stranger didn’t have a weapon of his own . . . but he probably did. This was the exact situation men craved. A woman in need of protection. A seemingly threatening assailant. And the advantage of starting a fight, so men have the time to summon their courage.
But Lucky knew what truly awaited this unseen person standing behind him.
Because sometimes a man opened a door and didn’t realize what waited on the other side.
Lucky waited for Renee to respond to the stranger.
To open that door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JAKE
“Hey, Jake,” Eric said, “Do you mind moving? I want to play pool.”
There was a dryness to Jake’s voice he hadn’t expected when he laughed, the sound hoarse, scabbed. And the throbbing in his shoulder increased, threatened to break beyond his control. The pain was already close to something worse, like a sword was lodged in his shoulder, and too much movement would drive the blade through.
“I’m lying on a pool table?” he asked, weakly.
Melissa leaned down, holding back her hair in a gesture Jake found comforting, and gently kissed him.
“There’s a huge board covering it,” she told him. “But it still looks more comfortable than that mattress you had.”
“I kept having these dreams,” Jake said. “I couldn’t wake up. I was here, in this room. And I could hear people talking. But I couldn’t wake up.”
“Jake,” Eric said softly. “That sounds like the most boring dream.”
“Yeah, I’ve had better.”
“How do you feel now?” Melissa asked.
“Tired.”
“I think Dr. Steve gave you a lot of meds,” Melissa told Jake, “since he doesn’t have anesthesia. He went to get more.”
“What am I on?”
Eric and Melissa looked at each other.
“Morphine?” Melissa guessed.
“Helium?”
“We don’t know drugs.”
“Is my camera okay?”
No jokes now, Jake noticed. Just solemnity from Melissa and Eric.
And something about their staid response saddened him. Guilt rose, so strong that the pain in his shoulder intensified, guilt that he’d demanded anything from the people he loved, including their devotion to his art.
“The bullet didn’t hit it,” Melissa said.
“Just you,” Eric added, and that offhand humor he’d been trying to keep, that detachment, slipped. He blinked fast, touched his eyes.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Jake told him.
Eric looked like he wanted to say more, but stopped himself.
“How’d you find us?” Jake asked.
“I followed Ruby.”
Jake’s arm jerked, and pain and worry flooded him. “Ruby’s here?” He tried to rise, but the injury to his shoulder and Melissa’s hand on his wrist kept him in place.
“She came to see me,” Eric said uncomfortably, “to ask about the Winterses. I told her what I told Melissa upstairs. That they made me talk, made me tell them about Wharfside. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Jake didn’t care about that. “Is Ruby here now?”
“She was,” Melissa said. “I think she stepped out.”
“We need to go. You can’t trust her.”
Melissa’s hand hadn’t left him. “She saved our lives.”
“We are leaving,” Eric told him. “Tomorrow. We’re going to head south or west. Find a small town with a tiny hospital, get you patched up, and then figure out the best way to disappear from the Winterers.”
“I think it’s Winterses,” Melissa said.
“I don’t trust Ruby,” Jake said flatly. “I don’t. We need to go now.”
Eric and Melissa stayed silent. The harshness of his words hung in the air.
“Well, we can’t leave right now,” Melissa told him. “Dr. Steve said he needs to take out the bullet. It’s still in you. He’s going to do it later today.”
“He is?”
She nodded. “That’s why he’s getting more drugs.”
Jake shifted, grimaced. “Watch Ruby until then,” he urged. “Closely. Please.”
“We will,” Melissa said, and her eyes met his.
Jake couldn’t look at Eric. He was too worried his expression might somehow reveal everything he knew, the truth he’d kept from his friend for years.
The next time Jake woke, the pain was deeper, jagged.
And Ruby was with him.
“Where’s Melissa?” Jake asked, alarmed. He struggled to sit up, but his shoulder hurt too much to allow him even that freedom. “And Eric?”
“They’re upstairs.” Ruby was perched on the stool Melissa had been sitting on, peering at him curiously.
“Why are you here?” Jake’s voice still held a rasp, but he didn’t mind it now. It felt like spewing poison.
“Steve told me to come down. He said I should talk to you first.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You may not, Jake,” Ruby told him, and now he noticed the redness in her eyes, the tightness around her mouth. “The bullet’s close to an artery. Steve’s worried.”
Her words were like another weight on his chest, forcing him to stay in his place, and Jake hated this trapped feeling, impotency and agony that left him helpless on the table.
“But Steve’s a good doctor,” Ruby went on, as if she was trying to reassure both of them. “That’s what Victor always said.”
“I don’t really care about Victor Winters’s Yelp reviews.”
Ruby smiled at that, and Jake suddenly remembered how he could sometimes make her smile.
“You should cut your hair.” Ruby touched it, fingered a curl. “It’s getting too long.”
He flinched, and that imaginary blade in his shoulder cut deep. It took him a moment to say, “Don’t touch me, Ruby.”
She looked like she wanted to touch him again, but instead she brought her hand back to her lap. “They told you what I did? Saved you from Seth?”
There was something different in her tone now, far from what he remembered. “Are you still drinking?”
“I am not.”
“So you waited till I left.”
“When you left,” Ruby said slowly, “that’s when I knew I had to stop. I’d lost too much.”
“I can’t trust anything you tell me.”
“I know why you’re afraid.” Ruby’s voice dropped a tone. “You’re worried I’ll tell Eric what I did, and he’ll find out you knew. All this time.”
Jake didn’t respond.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I had a dream,” Jake said as a way of testing her. “A lot of dreams. And in one of them I heard you shouting. Was that real?”
“It was,” Ruby assented. “I was calling Melissa a whore.”
“She’s not a whore.”
“All people are sinners, Jake.”
“Are you still working for them?”
Jake studied her closely, his gaze searching her face like a metal detector scanning the ground.
Her eyes met his. “I stopped years ago.”
Their stares held, until Jake and Ruby simultaneously let out small sighs and turned away.
Jake was irritated that he’d had the same reaction as Ruby, even more annoyed that it seemed to make her happy.
“What?” he asked huffily.
Ruby quickly, gently, ran her fingertips over his face.
“You’re still my boy,” she told him.
And then she left. Jake watched her trudge up the stairs, like a heavy axe slowly being lifted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LUCKY
Lucky felt good.
No, he felt wonderful.
A burden was swept off his shoulders, and he hadn’t realized its full weight.
Renee sat in the passenger seat, stoically staring forward.
She’d held her tongue on the golf course. I’m fine, she’d called back to the concerned man watching them. We’re just talking. He’s my husband. And Lucky had known, with those three short sentences, that there was a way forward for their relationship.
