Better Than This (42 page)

But in the end I fell silent. I was spent. Lack of sleep as much as anything overcame me with numbing fatigue. I sat down heavily.

“I want to see her,” I said at last, heavily, into the phone.

“Nick…” Marcus began hesitantly, and faltered. Then he gathered resolve. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

“Just tell me where you are.” I didn’t sound angry any more, only beaten, almost pleading.

“Nick…”

“You owe me that much dammit! She’s my wife. I want to talk to her.”

He was taken aback by the abrupt change in my tone. “Wait a second,” he said, and in the ensuing silence I gathered he was

repeating my request to Sally. He came back on the line after a few moments.

“Okay, but not now. Later. Tonight. You’re tired, you need to rest. And we’ll come to you.”

How the hell did he know I was tired I wondered, but of course Sally must have spoken to her mother by then and she would know I’d been to Oregon. No doubt Ellen had given a vivid description of the state I was in. I wanted to argue, but he second guessed me.

“Tonight, Nick. And don’t try to find us. You won’t.”

“Where?”

The boat. We’ll come to the marina.”

Before I could say anything else he hung up. I told Alice what he’d said and she offered me a sympathetic look.

“Why don’t you get some rest. You look beat.”

I started to protest that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and besides I needed to think, but even as I spoke I knew that if I was going to think clearly rest was exactly what I needed. My eyes felt grainy, and I was a little light headed. The slight motion of the boat on the water made it worse.

“Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll wash your clothes. You’ll find everything you need in the bathroom,” Alice suggested.

I gave in. “But wake me in a couple of hours.”

She promised she would so I went back through to one of the cabins where I undressed and found a towel to wrap myself in. I stood under the hot jet of water in the shower for a long time, leaning my head against the wall and letting it run off my back. I heard Alice come into the bathroom and when I was finished I found she’d left me out a razor and a toothbrush. I felt a lot better when I was done, but when I looked at my reflection the gaunt character who stared back with red and bleary eyes came as a slight shock. When I went back through to the cabin my clothes were gone, and the curtain was drawn so that the room was dim, the bed turned back. The sight of fresh clean sheets was suddenly incredibly inviting. Alice appeared in the doorway.

“I’ll take your clothes to the laundromat and then I’ll be right back.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and nodded.

“You’ll feel better when you’ve slept,” she told me.

She looked tired herself, the strain showing in her face. I knew she had to be worried. “It’ll be okay, Alice. When I wake up we’ll figure out what to do. It’s going to work out.” I told her that I’d call Morgan later who would be back from New York. We both needed something positive to hang onto, and the money was all there was.

She attempted a smile. “Go to sleep.”

After she closed the door I lay down. My head hit the pillow and in seconds I was gone.

I woke with a start. I was immediately alert, though it took a moment before I remembered where I was. I’d been dreaming, but as the images fled from my mind I couldn’t remember what they were and I didn’t try to hang onto them. The cabin was darker than when I’d lain down and I knew it must be late in the day. I started to get up, looking for my watch beside the bed.

“You’re awake.”

It was Alice. She was sitting in a chair near the door, her legs curled up underneath her. I had the impression she’d fallen asleep there.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“About six.”

I found my watch and saw that it was twenty after. I’d been asleep for almost nine hours. “I told you to wake me,” I said.

“I didn’t see any point. You were in such a deep sleep I figured you were exhausted. I thought the best thing was to leave you alone.”

She was probably right, I acknowledged. “How long have you been there?”

“A couple of hours. I must have dozed off.” She anticipated my next question before I asked it. “I’ve been listening to the news all day. There’s been nothing else about Brinkman.”

I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved about that or not, since it meant whoever killed him was still out there. “Has anyone called?”

“Marcus. I told him you were still sleeping. I didn’t know when you’d wake so he said they would come later, around ten.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He asked if I knew about Brinkman. He sounded worried.” She knew what I really wanted to know though, and she added, “He didn’t mention Sally.”

I didn’t say anything, and after a moment Alice got up and came over to sit on the edge of the bed.

“You love her a lot don’t you?”

I wasn’t sure of the answer to that any more. Before I knew about Sally and Marcus I would have answered without hesitation, but then I never would have believed she could do what she had. When I thought she was having an affair with Garrison Hunt I felt partly responsible, and if I blamed anyone other than myself it was him. But Marcus, that was different. I blamed them both for betraying me. What the hell could Marcus give her that I couldn’t?

“It’s funny in a way don’t you think?” Alice said when I didn’t answer.

“What is?”

“Perhaps funny isn’t the right word. Ironic then. You and I ending up here like this. Perhaps we’re more alike than we realized.”

“Alike?”

“Don’t you think so? We both want the same thing in the end don’t we? I used to resent you because Marcus wouldn’t stand up to you. I was afraid you’d destroy the business and then where would I be? A failed artist, painting pictures nobody wants to buy. I know what it’s like not to have any money, and I didn’t want to be in that position again.” She paused. “You were right about me. I was jealous of you in a way.”

“We’ve got something in common then,” I said, at which she looked puzzled. “You were right about me too. I did wreck the business.”

She smiled. “That makes us even then.”

“How long have you known about Sally and Marcus?” I asked.

“I suspected he was seeing somebody months ago. But I didn’t know for sure who it was.”

“How did you find out?”

“I saw them together.”

“Where?”

“Here. When I confronted Marcus he said there was nothing between them, that they were just friends. He claimed they were both worried about you.”

“So they thought it might help if they started screwing each other,” I said bitterly. I imagined them lying naked in bed together. Maybe even the bed I was lying in. Consoling each other with tales of what an asshole I had become. Alice looked away, and I wondered what she was thinking. “Did you believe him?”

She took a moment to answer. “I wanted to. I suppose I was afraid of what it meant, where I would go. And I loved him.”

To hear her claim that she loved Marcus surprised me, though I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because I’d always assumed the worst of her. But now I saw that she too had been hurt and was angry, only she’d had longer to deal with it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“I almost did. A couple of times I called your house.”

I remembered the occasions when I’d picked up the phone and nobody had answered.

“But I thought if I did then you might leave Sally.”

“And then she and Marcus would have each other…”

“Something like that,” she admitted. “Then after you went to Mendocino, Marcus said that Sally had decided to give your marriage another chance.”

“But you moved here to the boat?”

“Yes.” She looked me in the eye. “I realized then how Marcus felt about her.”

I think that hurt me more than anything. I thought about what Alice had said. Perhaps she was right. She and I were alike. It was Alice who’d gone along with my scheme to sell the program to Morgan, and it was her that I’d turned to when I needed somebody to help me get rid of Dexter’s body, and now it was Alice who was my ally. Maybe we deserved each other.

In that moment of understanding, what happened next seemed inevitable. I reached out to touch her face. She didn’t move at first, though our eyes were locked together. She’d asked if I loved Sally, and despite everything I did, but nothing was the same any more. I was a different person. I had killed a man, and Sally would always revile me for that. I wasn’t proud of it myself, and I wished it hadn’t happened, but it had and there was nothing I could do about it. Alice understood that. Right then we needed each other.

I drew her onto the bed and we kissed. What started tentatively became quickly passionate. We were driven by the need to forget, for reassurance, for blind physical satisfaction. Revenge even. Who knows? A lot of things we probably were only dimly aware of. The sheets fell away. I was already naked. I pulled and tugged at Alice’s clothing in my haste to undress her. She lay beneath me, eyes half closed, lips partly open, her breathing heavy. She stared up at me. Lovemaking with Sally had always been a slow sensuous affair. It was the caress of her hand through my hair as I kissed the hollow of her neck that thrilled me. The whisper of her breath against my cheek when I entered her, the soft murmurs we exchanged as we moved together in an almost languid embrace. But as I looked down on Alice I felt a different need. She was beautiful, in a pale almost too perfect way, and I desired her. But I wanted something from her. I wanted to possess her, I wanted to fuck her and take something for myself, sate some vengeful lust, and I knew she wanted the same from me.

I knelt between her thighs gazing at her breasts and the pale hair below her belly. She was so unlike Sally physically and that excited me. She reached out and drew me towards her, locking her legs around my back as she thrust her hips upwards. I uttered a groan as I pushed myself hard into her. We clung to one another, our movements urgent and demanding. In the heat of the enclosed cabin our bodies made sucking sounds as we slid together in our combined sweat, panting from our efforts. Alice screwed her eyes closed, her expression intense with concentration. I moved faster and harder like a runner sprinting for the line and sensing that I was reaching the end Alice bucked her hips upwards furiously, uttering savage animal-like grunts. Our coupling was almost painful. We slammed our flesh together, each of us desperate to reach our own end regardless of the other. I looked down as Alice’s eyes flew open and she glared at me, then abruptly shifted herself sideways with a violent motion uttering a guttural exclamation of impatience as she did so. Then as she thrust upwards to meet me one more time she suddenly stiffened and gasped. Her teeth were clenched, eyes screwed tight as if she was suffering intense pain, and she gasped in shuddering breaths. I continued pounding into her even though she tried to still me, and then when I thought my strength would give out, that my lungs would burst, I climaxed and we collapsed in a sweating tangle of limbs.

Twenty minutes later I was showered and Alice was in the bathroom. She had folded my freshly laundered clothes on a chair, and when I dressed I found my dad’s gun placed underneath my jeans. I picked it up, wondering what she’d thought when she found it. After I’d checked that it was still loaded I tucked it into the back of my jeans and covered it with my shirt.

I was making a call when Alice emerged, fully dressed again. She hesitated, then came over and kissed my cheek, her eyes questioning. I slipped my arm around her hip. It seemed we had made some kind of pact, the nature of which was uncertain, but Alice was satisfied with my response.

“Who are you calling?”

“Morgan,” I said.

She sat down to watch and listen. We understood this much about each other. Whatever else happened, we were going to get the money because now there was nothing else left. The phone was answered by a man and I asked to speak to Morgan and gave my name. I waited for a while and then the same voice came on the line again.

“Mr. Morgan isn’t available at the moment I’m afraid.”

There was something about this I didn’t like, though I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. “He’s back from New York isn’t he?”

There was a pause before he answered. “Mr. Morgan has guests this evening. He wondered if you might call again tomorrow.”

It was a reasonable enough request. What difference did it make whether I talked to him then or in the morning, and yet a sixth sense warned me that something didn’t feel right. I thought about the pause before he’d answered, and I suspected that Morgan was in the room, listening to the conversation, though if that was so I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t want to talk to me.

In the end, because I didn’t know what to make of it I agreed to call again in the morning and I hung up.

“What is it?” Alice asked.

“Nothing. At least I think it’s nothing.” I told her what had happened.

“You think something’s wrong?”

I shook my head, dismissing my suspicions. “No. Everything’s fine.”

All the same, I decided it was time I had the program where I could keep an eye on it. There was time to go to the office and fetch it before Sally and Marcus arrived

Traffic was light into the city, and it didn’t take me very long to reach the office. I parked in the basement and let myself in the building. It gave me the shivers to be in there alone, bringing back as it did unwelcome thoughts of Dexter. It took me just a couple of minutes to retrieve the disc and lock up again.

When I was done I headed back towards the basement. I hadn’t noticed before how quiet it was. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a car turning the corner onto the street outside and then it slowed. The beam of its headlights lit the wall by the entrance to the courtyard and stayed there, and above the faint background sounds of city traffic ten blocks away I heard the low idling of a motor. Instinctively I took a step back merging into the shadows beneath the high brick walls. My heartbeat grew faster, and sweat prickled my palms. I waited, counting to twenty, and nothing happened. It could be anyone out there, I told myself, it didn’t mean anything, but an unbidden image of Brinkman flashed in my mind, tied up and tortured to death, and I recalled that the police were looking for a green car with darkened windows.