The Comfort of Black (8 page)

“What is going on?” Justine asked.

“I'm going to find out.” Hannah began walking toward him. She was in the mood for confrontation, even though she had no idea who this man was or what, if any, threat he represented. Justine followed.

They were dwarfed by him. A waiter carrying a tray slipped deftly around the small circle the three of them formed in the middle of the restaurant.

“Can we help you?” Hannah asked. Her tone didn't suggest helpfulness in the least.

The man looked down on Hannah with a barely restrained
smile, a parent amused by a child's defiance. “Most women wouldn't have come up to me,” he said. His voice was deep and purposeful. “So you saved me from having to follow you outside.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Because it's my job. My name is Peter. I work for Echo.”

“Dallin…” Hannah said.

“That's right.”

“I've never seen you,” Hannah said.

“It's a pleasure to meet you.” Peter stuck out his fielder's-glove-sized hand. Hannah took it without thinking. His fingers consumed her entire hand as he gave it a light pump. “I certainly didn't mean to interrupt you.”

“You just said you were going to follow us outside,” Justine said.

Peter ignored her. “Is there a place we can go to talk?”

“About what?”

“A favor.”

Justine said, “We can talk here.”

Peter studied her for a moment. Finally he nodded, then pulled a chair from the table where he had been sitting. He motioned for Hannah to sit. She looked to her sister, who sat first. Hannah followed suit. Peter slid back into the chair he'd been in, defying its delicate wood frame to withstand him. He looked directly across the table to Hannah.

“I'm in charge of Risk Management for your husband's company. Simply put, I make sure everyone is happy in their jobs, and if there's a problem, it's my job to handle it quickly, efficiently, and to an agreeable end.”

Justine said, “You're a thug for Echo.”

His black gaze shifted to her. “I'm not a person you want to make simple assumptions about, Ms. Parks.”

Hannah looked at her sister. Peter's use of Justine's last name was effective in further unnerving Hannah, though Justine herself didn't seem fazed in the least.

“You still haven't told us what you want,” Justine said.

“I mitigate risk for Echo. This, of course, is the primary objective. Company first.
Your husband's company
, Mrs. Leighton.”

“I don't go by Leighton,” Hannah said. “I kept my maiden name. Parks.”

“My apologies.” Peter held a hand up. “Bad intelligence on my part. Ms.
Parks
.”

That's purposeful, Hannah thought. He's telling me Dallin owns me. This is about Dallin.

“I want to know everyone with whom you discussed your recent altercation with Mr. Leighton,” he said. “I assume your sister is one of them, which is why I feel comfortable bringing this up in front of her. Have you called anyone?”

Hannah only said, “What altercation?”

“I believe you know to what I'm referring. Do I need to specify it?”

“Yes,” Justine said. “Tell us what he did. I want to hear you
specify
it.”

Peter didn't seem the least bit bothered to comply. “Very well, two hours ago, give or take, Mr. Leighton slammed Ms. Parks against a wall, squeezed her throat, and made threatening remarks before releasing her and walking away.” He looked at Hannah's neck and, for the first time, a small crack of emotion—
was it pity?
—appeared on his face. “The marks on your throat are consistent with that story.”

“So you admit it?” Justine interjected. “He admits it? That he tried to kill her?”

The pity disappeared as Peter set his face blank once more, as if willing himself back into his dispassionate corporate role. “I can't opine if he tried to kill her,” he said. “My professional opinion is if that was his intent she would be very much dead by now. Nonetheless, he told me the events as described, so he certainly acknowledges assaulting and threatening Ms. Parks.”

“So I assume you're going to the police, then?” Justine asked.

Peter seemed both genuinely surprised by her question and
oblivious to the sarcasm Hannah detected. “No, Ms. Parks. That would be contrary to the primary objective of my position. I would never go to the police with this, and if confronted by them, I would deny everything I've said here. I'm quite good at denying.” Peter pulled a small piece of lint off his jacket sleeve and let it drift to the floor. “My job is to find a reasonable solution.”

Justine said, “How the hell are you supposed to find a solution that makes her happy? Her husband is a
monster
.”

“I admit I'm not always able to solve a problem to everyone's satisfaction. Nonetheless, there is a problem that needs solving. So I'll ask you again: aside from your sister, who else knows about your altercation?”

“First, it's none of your business,” Hannah said. “Second, your
boss
nearly strangled me. Doesn't that concern you?”

“It does, indeed. Which is why I mobilized so quickly.”

“So he called you right after this happened? I left him watching the news, then his first thought was to call his Risk Management manager?”

“Apparently, yes.”

Hannah felt like screaming at the insanity of it all. “How did you even find us here?” she asked. “I didn't tell anyone where I was going.”

“Again, that's part of my job.”

Hannah felt a tapping on her arm.

“Hannah, let's go.”

Peter kept on. “You went to your therapist the day before yesterday. Dr. Britel. Clearly, the incident hadn't happened yet, but perhaps you were having some other concerns about Mr. Leighton of late. What did you tell her?”

“I'm not telling
you
. Now leave us alone.”

“Any other friends? Family? I believe your only living parent is your father, is that correct?”

More poking. “Hannah, let's
go
.”

Peter said, “Two nights ago, you had intercourse with Mr. Leighton. You are in discussions with him—
trying
—to conceive
a child. I realize this is very recent, but do you have any reason to believe you are, or could be, pregnant?”

Heat flashed through Hannah as she leaned across the table. “He told you about our
sex life
?” She said it loud enough that a diner at the table to her left turned and looked.
Good, let them hear me. Let them see the petite blond getting harassed by the hulk
. “Fuck you,
Peter
.”

Now Justine grabbed her arm. “Hannah,
let's go
.” Justine stood and pushed her chair back. Hannah stood, but slowly. The anger within her made her want to stay and fight.

“He can't send you to make sure everything just disappears. He has to pay for what he did. And he will.”

Peter gave another look of confusion. “I'm not here to buy you off, Ms. Parks.”

“And I'm not asking to be bought.” Anger coursed through her. “I'm telling you he can't just pretend he didn't hurt me. He can't just make it all go away.”

“I'm simply collecting facts about the situation. Wise decisions are rarely arrived at hastily. Without complete information, it's often necessary to err on the side of caution when formulating a conclusion. In war, an appropriate analogy would be opting for a carpet bombing rather than a surgical strike.”

“Is that what this is, Peter?” Hannah felt her arm being yanked by her sister. “Is this war?”

For some reason that comment seemed to make an impact. A small crack in the mighty exterior of Peter's face. A twitch on one side, just below his left eye. If this were a boxing match, Hannah would have just scored a point.

Hannah finally succumbed to her sister's pleas and followed her out of the restaurant, to the sidewalk, and into a cool, gray October day. Zoo shuffled with apparent glee as Hannah unwrapped his leash from the tree. They walked toward Justine's car at a pace faster than normal, and the dog, sensing something wasn't quite right, gave out a long, low whine as his small legs struggled to keep up.

D
AY
5

She's having the Billy Dream.

Hannah feels it coming on and deep in her mind, beyond the sleep, she tries to tell herself to wake up. Sometimes this works, but not tonight. Tonight that small part of her brain with the power to wake her or steer her mind toward more pleasant images instead ignores her. Perhaps even laughs a little.

It's Thanksgiving night, 1995. Hannah is fifteen. Outside the small house, a cold wind bites and scrapes at the clapboard siding, taking with it flecks of decades-old peeling paint.

Billy is drunk again, and not the sloppy kind of drunk. That's not how Billy was when he drank. Billy got quiet, though there was nothing about his body language suggesting relaxation.

Every sip he takes out of his longneck seems to take more of his words away, until he just sits back in his favorite ripped-fabric chair and looks around at his little world, surveying, waiting for something to require his judgment. It won't take long. Billy is a strong, lean man, ropy veins always bulging from his constantly tensed arms. His deep olive skin seems perpetually tanned, and his dark complexion makes his eyes glow from his face. They are a washed, transparent blue, the color of ghosts in the snow. Despite the pervasive scowl on his face, he is a handsome man—model-like, even—which makes the reality of him all the more ugly. A beautiful monster.

People used to say the same thing about Ted Bundy.

Hannah has her mother's blond hair and pale skin. She doesn't
have any of her father's physical traits, but she knows she has more than a touch of Billy's blood inside her.

That fuckin' bird done yet?

In the dream, he takes another swig from the bottle and lets his arm dangle off the chair, spilling a trickle of beer on the cigarette-burned rug.
Dinner's ready
, Hannah hears off in the distance. It is her mother's voice. Hannah floats to the kitchen where the Thanksgiving meal is beautifully presented, the dream version an exaggeration of the reality from that actual night. The turkey, glowing in a golden hue, is surrounded by a multitude of side dishes of various colors and textures, together creating a perfect Rockwellian image of a holiday feast. Of warmth and abundance. Thankfulness.

Billy pulls his chair out and sits down before anyone else. Then he dips into his torn shirt pocket for a Pall Mall and lights it, coughing out the first puff.

Where's the goddamn carvin' knife?

Hannah's mother walks—no,
scurries
—across the kitchen and hands him a long silver blade and a sharpening stick. Hannah thinks she sees hesitation in her mother's face as she passes the knife over, as if handing a loaded gun to a child. Billy takes the knife in one hand and with slow, practiced movements he scrapes the blade against the sharpening stick, alternating sides.

Ssssskkk. Ssssskkk
.

Hannah sits at the table next to her father. Justine is not there. In the dream, Justine is never there.

Billy looks up from the blade, his long, soft hair dangling down to his nose. He glares at her, the cigarette perched on his lower lip, a small fleck of ash drifting like a leaf falling from a dying tree, floating and falling onto the deep-brown skin of the turkey.

Your momma overcooked this thing, I just know it
.

Back to the blade.

Ssssskkk. Ssssskkk
.

Billy stops, tests the blade with a calloused thumb, then rests
the edge of the knife against the crisped flesh of the bird. He sets down the sharpener and picks up a fork, then slowly pushes the tines into the flesh. His right hand draws the blade back along the skin, and Hannah watches the heat rise from the open wound like steam from an urban sewer grate. He peels back the meat and peers inside. After a few seconds of silence, Billy draws his gaze up to his wife, and Hannah sees the pupils in his eyes constrict into little black dots.

You ruined our Thanksgiving, you worthless bitch
.

* * *

Hannah woke to a familiar ringtone. It took her a moment to orient herself, to realize she wasn't in the past but having a dream. Sweat glazed her face and chest, and as she pushed herself up in bed, the sheets fell off her, her skin instantly cooling in the bedroom's midnight air. She'd been having the Billy Dream but didn't make it to the really bad part. Thank God for small favors.

Hannah reached over to the bedside table and seized the phone. The glow cast a shallow spotlight on Zoo, who slept next to her on the bed.

She was in her sister's house, in the guest bedroom. For a half a second she didn't remember why, but it all flooded back to her the instant she saw the name on the screen.

Dallin
.

She didn't answer, and a few seconds later the ringing stopped. The name on the screen disappeared, replaced with the time. Just after two in the morning. Hannah stared at the phone and waited to see if the voice mail icon appeared. It took her a moment before she realized she was holding her breath. As she exhaled, she was aware of how rapidly her heart was beating.

No voice mail. Either he was leaving her an exceptionally long message, or none at all. Hannah released a more controlled breath, grounded herself in her thoughts, and loosened her grip on the phone. Minutes passed, and as her mind raced with the possibilities of what he wanted to say to her, sleep began to creep
up over her once again. She fought it weakly, powerless against her fatigue but not wanting to return to the dream.

Hannah reached a hand out to Zoo and rested it on his side, wanting to feel his bristly fur, his warmth, as she drifted back into the void. Finally, the long fingers of sleep reached out and pulled her underneath the surface.