The Blade Itself (25 page)

Worse than any of the physical pain, though, was the image seared in his mind. The gun appearing in Evan’s hand like magic, the slow-motion effect of him leaning forward to press it against Tommy’s forehead. The boy’s little whimper, a sound he knew would forever haunt his dark moments. The feeling of being utterly trapped, knowing the right thing, wanting the right thing, and doing the wrong.

After Evan had made his point, seen the horror, the capitulation on Danny’s face, he’d lowered the gun. Tommy had fallen back on the sofa, panic breaths whistling furiously through his nostrils. Danny had considered jumping Evan then, but the guy kept the gun out. Never explicitly threatening, more like it just happened to be in his hand.

‘Don’t look so worried,’ Evan had said, as he led the way outside. ‘Everything’s under control. I’ll get Debbie back here to babysit. Tomorrow we call Dick, tell him where to meet us. Before the kids are done trick-or-treating, we’ll have a million in cash, and this will all be over.’

Danny had nodded, not believing, knowing now that it would never be over, that he’d finally woken into his recurring nightmare. And even so, trying to control the damage. An engineer on the
Hindenburg
. ‘I’ve got the meet location picked.’

‘Where?’

‘Union Station.’ He’d told Evan the logic, leaving out the hope that doing it in public would keep him calm.

Evan had shrugged, scratched his neck with the barrel of the gun. ‘Whatever. That’ll work.’ Then he’d dismissed Danny with a wave of his cigarette.

Now, back on his own block, Danny stepped out of the truck and closed the door quietly. The air had grown chillier, with a breeze that blew through his shirt to cut at the skin beneath. His street radiated the easy calm of a place where monsters only came out on Halloween. He shouldered his bag and started down the sidewalk, trying not to see Tommy’s face in every shadow.

As he passed the weathered steps of his neighbor’s porch, a high-pitched shriek burst from the graystone. The scream gave way to an evil-genius laugh, and a strobe flashed on in the bay window, where a medical skeleton loomed amid drugstore cobwebs. After a moment the recorded sound track shut off, but harsh white light kept splashing up every few seconds. Danny stood in front of the window, watching as the beam flared, died, flared, died. In the periods of darkness, the streetlights were enough to turn the window into a dark mirror, and within it he could see himself reflected. A normal-looking guy with a few scrapes on his face and the beginnings of a shiner under one eye. Other than the bruises, not the kind of face that earned a second look.

A month ago, he would have said the skeleton was the scarier monster. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

How had this happened? How had it gotten so far? He’d
done everything he could along the way, tried to think through every step, and still, here he was. Somehow, playing it smart just wasn’t enough.

The light was on in their window. Karen was home. He winced to think of his lies, of the betrayal and confusion she must be feeling.

There was still one thing he could try and make right. He straightened his shoulders and walked away from the play monsters.

The outside of their own condo was minimally decorated, just some desiccated cornstalks the downstairs neighbor trotted out every year, the husks picked clean by the squirrels. The mailbox was full, and he opened it and took everything out, then shook his head and stuffed it all back in. No point pretending it was life as usual. He unlocked the stairwell door and took the steps quietly, trying to collect his thoughts. How to tell her?

Despite Karen’s intuition that something was up, this was way beyond what she would be imagining. The key would be to do it slowly. To tell her they needed to talk. Sit down at the kitchen table. Start small, let her see the way the thing had built up, the net that had been woven around him. Get to the kidnapping last, after she’d had time to grasp everything else. She was whip-smart, and a realist; if he could make her see the reasons behind his decisions, she might understand.

He stood in front of the apartment door, took a deep breath, slid his key into the lock. What he was doing was right. He felt good about finally coming clean. Even dared to hope things might work out.
Here goes
.

For a split second after opening the door he wondered if he’d somehow gone one flight of stairs too far and opened the door to the wrong condo. Things looked different.

It took his tired mind a second to figure out why.

Two suitcases and a half dozen moving boxes stood by the door.

‘Hello, Danny.’ She straightened from the cabinet she’d been packing. ‘You’re just in time to say good-bye.’

She’d practiced the phrasing, had run through it in her head, somehow knowing that he’d show up before she was done. Wanting him to? She couldn’t say. So when she heard the door open, she rose and said her line, calm as you please. No choked-back sobs, no trace of the crying fits prompted each time she opened a new cabinet, packed a coat he’d given her, weighed whether to take her books now or return for them later. She stood and said her line and only then looked at him. His face was a mess, a bruise purpling beneath one eye, scrapes across his cheek like he’d been jumped. He looked at her, and then at the boxes, and then he sagged, his shoulders slumping like something vital inside him had snapped.

Despite everything, she had to fight the urge to go to him, to hold him close and smell his skin and tell him that they would work it out, that everything was all right. But everything wasn’t all right, and instead they eyed each other like gunfighters.

When he finally spoke, it was in a thin, hoarse voice. ‘I didn’t know we had gotten this far.’

She looked away, undid her hair band to free her sweaty ponytail, then gathered it back neatly. She had planned to be furious at him, had every right to be, but it wasn’t coming. All afternoon her emotions had blown back and forth, and exhaustion was setting in. ‘You’ve been lying to me.’

He looked at her, looked away. ‘Yeah.’ He stepped into
the apartment, closing the door behind him and weaving his way through the boxes to drop on the couch. He shook his head, snorted. ‘It’s funny.’

‘What is?’

‘Just – I was right now coming to tell the truth.’

She shook her head, squatted back down in front of the cabinet to stack a photo album in the box beside her. ‘It’s too late. I already know the truth.’

‘You do?’

He sounded shocked, and that pleased her. She dusted off her hands, walked over. There was a box in the chair opposite him, and she moved it to the floor before sitting down. His eyes followed her, but she couldn’t be sure what she saw in them.

‘You’re back to it, aren’t you?’ She faltered, the words hard to frame. ‘You’re a criminal again.’

He looked away, hesitated. ‘I don’t know how to answer that.’

His evasion got the anger flowing. She slapped him, her hand just flying out to smack his cheek before either of them knew what had happened. ‘Don’t
lie
to me.’ She wanted to slap him again, to hurt him. To heap all the uncertainty and doubt she’d been feeling back on him. ‘It’s a simple question.’

His eyes blazed. ‘No,’ he snarled, ‘it’s not.’

‘I know the truth.’ Her voice had that shrill tone she hated in women in the movies, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘I met Nolan today.’

‘What?’

‘Your old buddy Nolan. The detective. I wanted to know what was going on, and you wouldn’t talk to me, so I called him.’

‘And what did my old buddy tell you?’

‘He told me Evan McGann was out of prison. That…’ She paused, forced herself to say it. ‘That you and he were partners again.’

‘He told you what?’ He leaned forward, surprise on his face.

‘He said that you had come to see him about Evan.’

‘That’s true. Did he tell you why?’

She thought about it, realized he hadn’t. Of course, she had stormed away before the detective had a chance to finish.

He laughed, a bitter, mirthless sound. ‘No, he wouldn’t. Better to stir you up, see if you knew anything. If you could contribute to his case.’

Now that she thought about it, there was something odd about what Nolan had said, something that didn’t add up. Why would Danny have told a cop about Evan? At the time, it had seemed to make sense, but she’d been stunned by everything, in a hurry to escape, and she hadn’t thought to clarify. ‘So why did you go see him?’

He leaned forward and put his hand on hers. The touch was so comfortably familiar that more than anything she wanted to curl her fingers up around his. She didn’t.

‘There’s a lot I have to tell you, and none of it is good.’

The earnestness in his expression siphoned off some of her anger. ‘Is it the truth?’

‘Yes.’

She took a deep breath. ‘Tell me.’

He gave her a smile like a lily beaten down in the rain. ‘About three weeks ago, Evan came to see me. He was out on parole, and wanted to go back to work.’

Even though she’d known it, the words stung. It was like Danny telling her he’d been visited by the tooth fairy – or the boogeyman. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I had. I was scared to even bring the
idea of Evan back into our lives. I guess I thought…’ He sighed, absently touched his bruised eye, then winced and pulled his hand back. ‘I thought I could get rid of him.’

‘But you couldn’t.’ It wasn’t a question.

He shook his head. ‘When I told him I wasn’t interested, he started pressuring. Showing up on the street, threatening us. I didn’t know it, but he was also following me. And then one day I came home and found him sitting in the kitchen.’

Her head went light, and she yanked her hand from under his. ‘He was here? In our house?’

Danny stared back. ‘Yes.’

She had a flash of Evan at the defense table, all those years ago, calm and peaceful while the prosecutor described the hideous things he’d done. He’d been here. Had touched their things, sat on their couch. Maybe laid in their bed. Her skin crawled. ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’

‘That’s when I went to Nolan.’

‘I mean the
regular
police.’

He sighed. ‘Because… you know why. I’m an ex-con. And I was in the pawnshop. They’d have started digging through all of that. At least with Nolan, I thought maybe he’d understand, help out. But I couldn’t tell him everything either.’

She looked at him appraisingly. ‘You couldn’t tell him why Evan was in our house?’

He shook his head.

‘Why not?’ She stopped as it began to click. ‘You couldn’t tell him because Evan wanted you to do something illegal.’ She tapped her fingers on the table. ‘And you were thinking of doing it.’

He nodded, his expression neutral.

‘Danny, what did he want you to do?’

He paused, looked away, and then back. ‘He wanted me to help kidnap Richard’s son.’

She laughed. The idea was so absurd, so beyond the pale. Danny was in construction. They had a regular life. They were talking about having children, for God’s sake. The whole thing was preposterous.

Except Danny just sat and looked at her.

Her laughter faded awkwardly. She stared at him, willing him to say something, to nudge her, to tell her it was a joke. But he didn’t. He just watched her, the bruise on his face swelling. ‘You mean…’ She squinted. ‘You didn’t.’ He said nothing. ‘Oh my God.’ Her voice came out a whisper. She rose, jerked away from him. ‘Oh my God!’ The room was spinning and she felt desperately ill. ‘You did it. You helped him.’

‘Karen.’ He stood, took a half step toward her, stopped when she moved farther away. ‘It’s not what it seems.’

‘Did you do it?’ She clutched her hands to her mouth. ‘Please tell me you didn’t do it.’

He sighed. ‘I can’t.’

She stared at him in horror. ‘Why? Why would you do that?’ She felt hysteria beckoning, her voice coming out almost a shriek, the feel of it cutting her throat.

‘I had no choice.’ He was on his feet now, hands out and his eyes wide. ‘You have to understand –’

‘Understand what?’ Her words came fast, trying to keep him from telling any more terrible truths. She couldn’t hear more of them, couldn’t stand it. ‘You’re going to get caught.’

‘Listen –’ His voice growing heated.

‘I can’t. I don’t want to.’ How could there be any explanation? ‘Oh God, and that poor little boy. What did you do to that poor little boy?’

‘Goddamn it –’

‘You’re a monster.’ The words slipped out, and the moment they did she wanted to grab them, to shove them back in her mouth, but it was too late.

‘You’re not listening to me!’ He turned, his hand balled in a fist, and lashed out at the mirror beside the couch. Their reflections shattered into a thousand fragments.

It was the most irrational, violent thing she’d seen him do in the eight years she’d loved him, and it stunned her into total silence.

He turned back to her, nostrils flaring. ‘I did it because I had to. Because I thought I could pull it off without anyone getting hurt. I did it because it was the only way I could see to make him leave us alone. But that’s all bullshit.’ He paused, sighed. ‘It’s all true, but it’s not the reason I did it.’

His hand was bleeding badly, the knuckles vibrant red. Ruby drops of blood fell to the hardwood floor. They were strangely pretty.

‘The truth is, I did it because he threatened you.’

The words jerked her gaze from the puddle on the floor. ‘What?’

‘Last week.’

And suddenly it came clear, all of the horror lurking behind the façade of the last few weeks. The strands of web that led to the spider. ‘The guy in the alley.’ She knew before he nodded. That had been Evan, sending a message. Telling Danny that he knew how to get to him. She remembered how spooked Danny had seemed, but how resolute, too. How he’d promised to do anything to protect her.

She stared at him. His mirror-smashing fury had drained away, and he looked like a soldier after a long campaign. His eyes were pleading, but not hopeful. She murdered half a dozen thoughts before they reached her lips. Finally, she pointed to his hand. ‘You’re bleeding.’