Mind Games (29 page)

I take a long bath, then listen to my messages. Most of them are from Cubby last night, and my heart shrinks with each one: Cubby wondering where I am, why I’m not at the dinner party, his increasing tone of hurt and annoyance. The last one tells me not to bother coming. Clinking in the background. The Silver Widow. Three messages from Packard—one from last night, two from today, exhorting me to call him right away. I don’t bother. I’ll see him soon enough to give my report on the Alchemist, and to warn him about the skeleton
and the business about being in there for eternity. I don’t get the sense that he realizes it, and he deserves to know. Just as I deserved to know what I was getting into. Packard didn’t care to warn me, but two wrongs don’t make a right.

I pull my bathrobe tight around me and step over the glass shards in the kitchen. Maybe it was stupid to think I even belonged in Cubby’s happy life with him. Maybe goodness really is an illusion, and reality really is just stupid and grim. Or maybe it is just for me.

But somewhere I know this isn’t true. I try to think of things that are good and worth believing in, and I think about Foley, and how he supposedly won’t hurt anybody anymore, how he bounced back good. Thanks to the disillusionists. Isn’t that positive? And I think about Chief Otto Sanchez, who never made excuses or gave up on getting the Brick Slinger, and eventually he got him. Sanchez believed; he kept moving forward. He went after the guy when nobody else would. That’s what I have to do: just move forward. Keep believing. There’s a way to get free of Packard, and I’m going to find it.

   I knock on the Mongolian Delites door just a bit past four, an hour and a half before the place opens for dinner. I’m wearing brown velvet shorts with white sandals and a white cottony top with a necklace made of silver circles. In my cosmology of outfits, this is a hopeful one.

Packard flings open the door. “Oh. Justine.”

I pause on the other side of the threshold, where we can’t touch.

Packard regards me intently, black jacket hanging crookedly over an untucked white shirt. He hasn’t slept. “People say you’re all right. You’re all right, right?”

“Everybody keeps asking me that, Packard. I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Look, of the smorgasbord of horrific things that could have happened to me, most did not. Only the minorly horrific ones. I’m here to give my report. Jay has him now.”

Packard’s green eyes shine with angst; he’s barely listening. He opens the door farther, shirt cuff flopping free, beckoning me in. He looks distraught and piratey. In a good way. “Don’t be mad. Just for a little while. Just, for this moment—”

As soon as I cross the threshold, he grabs me and pulls me to his chest; I relax into the warm, strong circle of his arms in spite of myself.

“I was so worried,” he says.

Being enveloped like this, like somebody cares—it’s nourishment I didn’t know I needed. It’s what I craved from Cubby. I was so scared for so long at the Alchemist’s cabin!

I can’t pull away.

“The idea of you with that monster …” He holds me tighter.

I rest my cheek on his bare triangle of chest, breathing in the clean, slightly spicy scent of his skin, so close I could lick it. It’s almost like I’m breathing in our kiss again—breathing it into every nook of my body.

“It’s not your fault. I ignored a lot of signs with him.”

“Nevertheless.” He releases me and looks into my eyes. “It is my fault.”

“I’m okay.” My pulse pounds in my ears, and I try to fumble my way back to my righteous anger. But all I can locate is our easy intimacy, and how alive he makes me feel.

“I’m going to make this work out,” he says.

“Forget it. You’ve done enough.” I take a step back.
“Since you’ve enslaved me, I’ve lost my autonomy, my morality, now my relationship.”

“Cubby left you?”

“I left him. And not because I wanted to.”

“Cubby could never appreciate you. He only appreciated the part of you that fit into his world.”

“I wanted him, and I wanted that world. And not because I’m a misfit.” I press my finger to his chest. “I’m going to be free of you soon. But I came here to tell you something, because unlike you, I believe people are entitled to all the choices and information they would want and deserve.”

“When,” he whispers hoarsely, “will you forgive me?”

I remove my finger, unprepared for the thud of raw emotion in his words. Part of me desperately wants to forgive him. “Maybe when you say you’re sorry.”

He regards me with those dazzling eyes, skin slightly flushed. Slowly, he brushes his fingertips up my arms, leaving trails of what feel like sparkles, allowing his hands to come to rest on my shoulders. My skin is way too alive wherever he touches. “You’re finally free,” he says.

“I used to be imprisoned by hypochondria, but now I’m imprisoned by you.” I reach up and grab his wrists, pull his hands off me. “Packard, I need to tell you about something we found yesterday, and it’s very bad.” I struggle to be clear and objective. “You need to be serious and hear this.”

“I meant, you’re finally free of that relationship.”

My heart beats way too fast and loud in my ears. “I’m less free than ever.”

“There’s more than one kind of freedom.” His words contain a lewd promise that sends shivers sliding over me.

My gaze falls to his kissable lips, and down to the pale triangle of skin again.

He says, “Can you imagine, Justine, how it would feel to be with somebody who sees you completely? Who appreciates you completely?”

I place my hand over that bare triangle of chest as if to say
stay away
, but really I just want to touch him. Everywhere. It’s like I’m unmoored in the middle of a surging ocean and I want to hold on to him. His eyes soften as he curls his fingers around my arms and draws me to him with a steady force that’s intensely satisfying, and he kisses me hard and strong. I melt to him, lost and found all at the same time, and then my hands are on his shoulders.

Oh, God
, I think,
what am I doing?
But I don’t care anymore.

He cups the back of my head with both hands and pushes me against the door with a thump that’s hard and good and takes my breath away, and he kisses me deeply. The firm muscle of his tongue overwhelms mine until I don’t know whose mouth is whose in our mix of lips, heat, and breath. My fists fly to his hair, knuckles against his scalp, pulling him nearer until my canines bite against my tender cheeks, the cool wall flat on my back. And this crazy sense of both of us lost, unmoored … it’s intoxicating.

Fighting my hands up under his jacket and shirt, I push my fingers into his muscular back. His cheek slides rough on my lips; his neck tastes salty. I have to devour all of him.

He breathes soft and warm against my ear, scratching his fingernails up my thighs, which makes me squeeze my pelvic muscles together into a kind of sensual wave that rises to the top of my head. This is all I want.

A new invasion, his unyielding tongue in my mouth, making me desperate to feel more of him, and I pull him
and his erection closer to me, right up against the nerve bundles that seem to have multiplied between my legs. He’s a rock against me, and I pulse to the movement of his tongue, or maybe he does. I’m panting to the pulse of us, on and on like an ocean.

“Oh,” he says, slowing, pushing his hands through my hair. “Oh.” He kisses me, fingers at the back of my head, then drags them down heavy and smooth over my shoulders and to the front of my shirt. Slowly he undoes a button, another, and then I feel one pop. I laugh softly at that, and he does, too. Gently he pushes my shirt off one shoulder. I feel the coolness of the air in the dark restaurant. With a finger, he traces the line of my bra strap down to my bra strap bulge, a little pillow of skin I’m always embarrassed of; then he runs his fingernails light as whispers over the lace that covers my nipple. I gasp; the sensation is electrifying. He knits his fingers into mine as we kiss some more; then he kisses my shoulder, and then that dreaded little pillow of skin. I open my eyes and watch as he kisses the plump side of my breast that my bra doesn’t cover, and then he moves his attentions onto the lace part of my bra, drawing near to my nipple, which fills me with excited anticipation.

My eyes being open makes my mind start up again, however, and it’s just about here that it hits me that he never said he’s sorry. I told him I’d forgive him if he said he was sorry. And he wouldn’t say it.

I stiffen and he feels it. “What?”

“You never said you were sorry. You’re sorry for what you did, aren’t you?”

He straightens up and releases my hands. “Please …,” he says softly, touching my cheek. And he
still
doesn’t say it.

Everything in me starts to reverse. “Oh my God!” I
push him away. “You’re not sorry for making me a servile minion?”

He looks dazed.

I pull my shirt back over me. “It’s simple. Yes or no? Are you sorry?”

A beat. Two. Then, “No.”

My breath falls out of me.

“I’m talking to you straight here,” he says. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry for a thing I’m not sorry for.”

He’s not even sorry. The pain of this nearly knocks me over. I’d at least thought that he regretted it. “Thank you, Packard,” I say hoarsely, “for reminding me why
this
can never happen.”

I storm over to the bar area. He’s not even sorry! I go behind, pulse racing, and pour a glass of water and drink, hoping to stave off the tears. Can I be any more of a dupe? Kissing him, wanting to fuck him, wanting to love him, when he took control of my life from me?

He’s leaning back against the door, eyes closed.

I pour and drink another glass of water. I suppose it was upstanding of him not to lie. Did I want him to? In the moment, I guess. But now I’m grateful he reminded me of who he really is, and what’s really between us. It hurts like hell, and suddenly I feel very tired.

What am I doing here? Why have I come? Then I remember the skeleton in the gas station. The glimpse into Packard’s dark future.

He needs to know, but does it help, when you’re lost in the desert, if somebody points out the skeletons of the people and animals who were once lost like you?

I go over to him. “You have to get out of here, Packard.”

His expression is steely, the planes of his face hard. “I know.”

“You might be in more danger than you think,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“Simon and I found something last night. Coming home from the Alchemist’s, I happened to be staring out the car window and I saw a face sort of etched into the side of an abandoned gas station—a face identical to the one out there.”

“A face like on the door?”

“Etched on an exterior wall. Out on 47 near Surrey Springs.”

“Tell me.”

I hold my water glass with both hands. It makes a kind of barrier between us. “I was staring out the window, and noticed it when our headlights hit it, and pointed it out to Simon and we decided to stop in and look around.”

“And? Who was there?”

“Well, it wasn’t really—”

“Who?”

“There was a body,” I say. “Dead.”

Packard goes still, like the actual molecules in his body have ceased to move. Finally he speaks. “Man or woman? What did the body look like?”

“I think it was a guy, but I’m not sure. The person was a skeleton. You could see he had short hair, brown maybe. When he died he was wearing a bomber jacket—it was sort of in with the bones.”

Packard grabs my arms. “Brown leather? Fur collar?”

I hold my breath. It never occurred to me he might know the victim. I should’ve thought of that, been more sensitive. “Yes. And a little plastic airline-wings pin.”

“Justine, did you see any—?” He squeezes his eyes shut. He’s going to ask a question, and he doesn’t want the answer. I wait. “Was he wearing any distinctive jewelry?”

“A blue metallic bracelet. Blue chain links around his wrist.”

He stares at me strangely—through me, really—and lets me go.

“You knew him?”

He just stares. Then he bursts off into the middle of the dining room and overturns a table. Glass breaks. Silverware clatters. He lifts a chair and brings it down with a loud crack. Then he smashes another chair into the wall, destroying a pair of brightly painted plaster horse heads, and then he hurls it into the pagoda mirror. Shards explode out over the dining room, and still he doesn’t stop. I have this impulse to do something, comfort him somehow, but when a person needs to break a lot of stuff, it’s best to let them do it. I wrap my arms around myself as he casts another chair across the room, taking down the bejeweled scabbard.

I didn’t expect he’d know the man. Know and love him, obviously. I feel his rage so acutely at this moment—trapped, limited, isolated from his tribe. Finally he crumples into a chair, elbows on knees, head in palms. I wander tentatively past overturned tables, chair parts, and broken glass.

“Packard,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

He gazes up, face red, eyes wild and shining. “That man was my best friend in the world. A brother to me. Diesel.”

I don’t know what to say. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he lets me. “I am so sorry.”

“He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

He stands, shedding my comforting hand. “I want him brought here. I want to give him a proper funeral.”

“You can’t.” I swallow. “The body can’t be taken out of there.”

Packard gives me a bewildered, nearly feral look, like I’m not speaking intelligibly.

I try to think how best to put it. I say, “Simon thought to move the body. But the force field …”

I don’t need to say any more. Packard gets it. He says nothing for a very long time. Then, in a calm, flat voice, “I see.”

The calm, flat voice is far more frightening than him smashing things.

          Twenty-six