Darkness & Shadows (9 page)

And then his vision adjusted, and he saw the notebook on the nightstand, offering him comfort—the wrong kind. Seductive and powerful, like a junkie’s fix kit.

And he needed it so badly.

He wanted to grab the notebook. He wanted to write
futile
over and over until his fingers hurt, until he couldn’t write it any longer. He wanted the pain—needed it—to shake him from this numbness, this sense of helplessness that was taking him over again.

He snatched the pen, snatched the notebook.

Bullet barked.

He looked at the dog. The dog was staring at him.

“What?”

Bullet barked again.

“Quit it.”

But as soon as Patrick’s attention returned to the pad, Bullet barked once more.

“Knock it off!” Patrick said. “Can’t you see I’m trying to get my fix?”

Bullet collapsed onto the floor, rested his head between his paws, and made the sad face.

“Oh, hell,” Patrick said. He could never resist the sad face. He could also hear Dr. Ready explaining that his compulsion to list was his child’s mind stuffing away the emotions. He smiled at the dog. Once again, Bullet to the rescue. The boy was reminding him of this in his subtle Zen-Dog way.

The doctor had told him to use physical activity as a positive coping tool, that it would help fix his screwed-up wiring and decrease his compulsion to list. He threw the pen and pad onto the dresser and said to Bullet, “Want to go for a run on the beach? Chase daddy’s demons away?”

Bullet scrambled up and barked.

God, he loved this dog.

It was, in native terms, what many would call a beach day in Southern California: unblemished cobalt skies and temperatures climbing into the high seventies. Patrick drove a few miles down the coast toward Dog Beach, specially zoned for canines. Humans were allowed, too. No leash required. Bullet stared out the car window with an expression that Patrick could only intuit as pure joy, mouth open, eyes wide and darting in every direction. A warm breeze shifted across Patrick’s skin, managing to bring his tension down some—he hoped the beach might take care of the rest.

On the way there, however, an unresolved thread got a hold of him, and his mind started clacking away. Marybeth’s death might not have been real, but the fire was, and so too was the body he saw that day. Someone had died in that building, so who was it?

He dialed the Medical Examiner’s office.

The guy in charge of records wasn’t available, so Patrick left a message. He wondered if anyone actually picked up their phones these days.

At the beach, as soon as they got out of the car, Bullet darted ahead to join the other dogs at play—it didn’t take him very long to pair up with a chocolate Lab friend, and the two ran along the shoreline, sometimes side by side, sometimes chasing one another, splashing it up, and having what appeared to be the time of their lives.

Patrick took in a satiating breath. A few years ago, this abused and beaten animal could trust no one; in fact, the dog had practically tried to kill him. Now he was the most loving friend Patrick had ever known. Such an amazing transformation, he thought, and such a privilege to have been a part of it. Anyone could rise from the ashes. There was always hope.

But what if you’re the exception?
the voice inside him said.
Some kind of freak? What if there’s no hope for you?

He told the voice to shut the hell up and focus on the dogs.

A basset hound joined the fray, but couldn’t keep up with the larger dogs on his short legs. He found an English bulldog more his size and speed, and they waddled along the shimmering shoreline, their heads moving from side to side, seemingly contented.

There’s someone for everyone
, Patrick thought, smiling.

Then the smile began to dim.
Maybe not everyone.

Bullet came to rescue him from his sinking thinking. He licked Patrick’s leg, then rested his head in Patrick’s lap. He rubbed behind the dog’s ears with a warm feeling in his heart. His urge to list was melting away, almost gone.

Almost.

“Come on, boy,” he said. “Let’s run.”

He and Bullet took off down the beach. The farther they went, the more he could feel the grip of tension loosening, dissipating like a thin mist into the beach breeze. Soon he’d found his center again. He was back to himself, ready to rock and roll.

After they finished, he picked up a morning paper and settled on a bench. Bullet was down for the count, tummy up, passed out cold in the hot sand.

“Even fun has a price, huh, boy?” Patrick said, reaching down to rub the dog’s belly.

Bullet snorted.

As he was straightening up, Patrick noticed a shell sticking out of the sand. He reached over to grab it. He studied it, and once more, without warning, the memories invaded.

Things continued to go up and down, and being with Marybeth was starting to feel like riding an upside-down rollercoaster. On the good days, it was simply mesmerizing. On the bad ones, it was simply horrible. Her moods could turn dark without a moment’s notice, and Patrick never knew what to expect.

On this day, everything was better than good. They’d just finished taking midterms and decided to blow off some steam at the beach. A spectacular sunset was on the way, the horizon painted in purple, red, and a thousand shades between.

Marybeth ran ahead of him. She knelt and picked up a shell. “It’s a conch,” she said, turning it over, examining it. “They’re my favorite. Supposed to be bad luck, but I never believed it. There’s no way something so beautiful could ever be bad.”

Patrick watched her in wonder. With the fading amber sunlight playing across her face, he was sure
he’d
never seen anything so beautiful. At that very moment, he could no longer hold back. He pulled her close, pressed his lips to hers, and they kissed.

Later that night Marybeth painted their initials inside the shell with nail polish. “Now it’s ours forever,” she said.

Hopes for a lifetime of love, turned into a lifetime of pain. Patrick regarded the shell with sadness. Marybeth had been beautiful—no
doubt about it—but now he wondered whether that beauty had blindsided him.

He tossed the shell back into the sand and let the memory fade.

He opened the paper, turning his mind to another heartache: the latest on the Clark case.

Charlene Clark’s Body Dumped, Burned in TJ

A source
close to the
Courier
has confirmed that Charlene Clark’s body was found burning on a hillside in the Tijuana neighborhood of La Azucena during the early morning hours after she went missing. Authorities are still in the process of arranging to return her remains to the U.S.

As of yet, Dr. Wesley Clark’s whereabouts are unknown, and no suspect has been officially named in the case.

San Diego Sheriff’s Homicide Detective, Steve Pike, refused to comment on the investigation.

The newspaper fell into his lap. He looked down at it but could only see one thing:

Fire then, fire now.

Patrick’s mind started spinning out, taking him into dangerous waters. He couldn’t help it. The parallel between past and present was hard to ignore. What if the first fire wasn’t an accident? What if it had been set by someone who knew about Marybeth’s fear and had tried to use it as a weapon to make her final moments on earth a living hell? What if she’d managed to survive and escape that fire, and now, after all these years on the run, she’d crossed paths with that someone again—and this time they’d covered their losses, making sure the job was done right? If that were true, then this fire wasn’t just about murder; it may very well have been an act of terror fueled by untamed rage.

They would have succeeded too, because there was nothing in this world that terrified Marybeth more. Patrick knew that from firsthand experience: he’d gotten a real-time glimpse, the size and scope of which he’d never forget.

It was their one-month anniversary, and for Patrick, a momentous occasion. His first girlfriend—his first love—had become everything to him.

Up until now, he’d never experienced the joys of intimacy with anyone; he’d never even dreamed they could exist. Growing up with no father and a mother who detested him hadn’t left him much hope. Finding Marybeth felt like an act of divine intervention.

He wanted to mark the occasion and make it memorable, because honestly, he wasn’t sure how long the joy would last; nothing good in his life ever seemed to, and Marybeth was better than good—she was amazing. He would savor every moment he could with this beautiful creature, for as long as he could.

On the eve of their anniversary, Patrick snuck into Marybeth’s dorm room while she was at night class. He covered her bed in rose petals, and on her desktop placed a bouquet bursting with white lilies—her favorite. To top it off, he’d saved his money working at an off-campus convenience store and bought her a necklace—amethyst and aquamarine, their birthstones, set in sterling silver—and put it in a special box with a red ribbon. To set the mood, he placed white candles throughout her room, lighting them when he knew she’d be on her way back from class. He wanted the timing to be perfect.

Patrick heard footsteps coming down the hall and rushed into her favorite chair. Nervously clenching the box in his hand, he imagined her look of surprise when she walked into the room and saw what he’d done.

The knob turned. Patrick stood.

Marybeth backed into the room, struggling with an armful of books as she pulled the door closed. She turned, and immediately
everything dropped from her hands onto the floor. Her mouth opened slightly, and her vision locked on the candles.

“Happy anniversary, baby!” Patrick said with a big smile, walking toward her, holding out the box.

Marybeth didn’t speak or move, her expression frozen, tears welling. Then something changed: her eyes turned cold and dark, and her lips began to tremble, and Patrick knew it wasn’t joy he was seeing—it was something else.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” he said.

She didn’t answer. She was still staring at the candles, trapped in a daze.

“Marybeth?”

She swung her head toward him. Her hands began to shake, and in a slurred voice he barely recognized, she mumbled, “And death and hell were put into the Sea of Fire. This is the second death…”

Patrick angled his head away slightly, holding his troubled gaze on her. “What?”

Her expression changed again, as if seeing Patrick there for the first time, and through a high-pitched shriek, she yelled,
“The Sea of Fire is hellfire!
”

Patrick was speechless.

Marybeth let out the most piercing scream he’d ever heard. She threw her arms out hard, knocking him in the face. The box dropped from his hand as he stumbled back. She ran from the room and down the hall. Patrick went after her. By the time he reached the stairwell, he could already hear her outside in the courtyard, screaming,
“Burning, burning, burning!
”

He found her standing on the ledge of the fountain, her eyes filled with a kind of terror Patrick was sure he’d never before seen.
“I’m burning!
” she shouted, frantically pulling off her clothes and throwing them into the water.
“I’m burning! Help me!
” Patrick tried to pull her from the fountain’s rim, but she elbowed him hard
in the chest, sending him down onto his back. Then she hurled herself into the water.

Patrick lay on the grass in horrified silence, his chest aching with both physical and heartfelt pain as Marybeth thrashed her naked body wildly in the pool of water through panicked sobs, moaning like some tortured animal.

After a while, she settled into a dull, disconnected state, still in the water, wet hair clinging to her face. With knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them, she rocked herself, staring off into some faraway place. Patrick stepped into the water and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder; he could feel her whole body trembling as she gazed up at him in injured silence.

After getting Marybeth back in her room and into bed, Patrick headed to his dorm.

And wrote the word
tangled
over 150 times.

The next day when he saw her, Marybeth acted as if nothing had happened. She wore the necklace he’d left on her dresser and gave no explanation for her outburst, but he knew what was wrong—he just didn’t know why or where it came from. Patrick later looked up the words she’d spoken, hoping for some kind of explanation. The phrase was a verse from the Bible in Basic English: Revelation 20:14.

It meant the incorrigible would be thrown to the fire and burned.

Patrick stared out at the water, shaking his head, once more remembering the despair he felt that night. Back then it seemed like a cruel fluke that she’d died in a fire. Now it felt like something more.