The Good Kind of Bad (42 page)

Where would I
not
look? Where would Evan hide something he’d never want found? A loose floorboard? Too clumsy. A wall safe behind a painting? Too obvious (though that didn’t mean I didn’t look behind his Jackson Pollock print). In London, Will used a hollowed-out encyclopaedia to store my jewellery and our passports. He’d seen it on one of his true crime shows and thought it was the best idea
ever.

I had nothing to lose. I headed back to the lounge, running my fingers down the book spines like I had over six weeks before.
Atonement
,
Shutter Island
,
Fight Club
,
Cliff’s Police Sergeant Examination Guide
and . . . a Webster’s English dictionary, a dictionary at the end of the row that looked remarkably page-less. Pulling it off the shelf, in the bottom I found a sliding plastic opening. Jackpot. Will and Evan weren’t so different after all.

I carried the plastic dictionary to the coffee table, my fingers trembling as I upended it and shook out the contents. Inside was a rattling medicine pot ‒ no label ‒ a USB memory stick and a well-handled piece of note paper. As I unfolded it, I realised it was a handwritten list.

ANGEL DUST DOSES / PRESCRIPTION TABS TAKEN

TUES JULY 26
TH
– 1 DOSE, ORANGE JUICE / MISSING TABLETS / 1

THURS JULY 28
TH
– 1 DOSE, CHINESE, WAN’S GARDEN / 1

FRI JULY 29
TH
– 2 DOSES, TOMATO AND BASIL SOUP, LUNCH / 2
PLANNED

SUN JULY 31
ST
– 2 DOSES, SLUSHIE, CINEMA; 1 DOSE, SOUP (DIDN’T EAT?) / 2

TUES AUGUST 2
ND
– 2 DOSES, FRUIT SMOOTHIE (DIDN’T EAT) / 1 / 3 DOSES – TOMATO AND BASIL SOUP/ PLANNED/ JUICE

WED AUGUST 3
RD
– 3 DOSES, PORRIDGE PLANNED / DORALIA MEAL? / 3

I read it five times. Then I read it again. The numbers jumped over the page, the letters turning to teeth that bit and bled me dry.

When my hands stopped shaking, I checked the medicine bottle. It was full of unremarkable-looking beige pills, similar to aspirin. Folding up the paper, I replaced it and the other contents meticulously, but there was something else inside, something stuck at the bottom. Peering inside, I realised it was my key.

After replacing the dictionary, I ran to the door, about to shove the key in the lock when I heard a voice on the other side. It was Evan.

‘Yeah, something must be working on the CLRB.’ He spoke quietly. I could barely make him out. ‘Call me tomorrow on this number, but don’t leave the room. They have five hundred channels. I’m sure you can find some porn in there somewhere. Later, man.’

There was no time. As the door opened, I wedged myself in the gap between the door and hall wall, flattening my back against it and sucking in my breath. I bit my fist, squirming in pain after Evan swung the door open and whacked me on the knee.

I could hear him breathing. Those rhythmic calm breaths. Evan’s profile in the hall lamp was centimetres from me as he began humming, flicking through a pile of mail he’d carried in. His aftershave bit at my nostrils, he was that close. Still holding in my breath and screams, all he had to do was turn thirty degrees to greet my panic-stricken face, but he didn’t. Instead he turned his back to me while closing the door and headed down the hall, disappearing into the kitchen.

‘Honey, you awake?’ he called blindly.

I fell forward like I’d been released from the starting gate, my lungs snatching at the air as I caressed my grazed knee. I had the key. This was my chance. I could make a run for it, leaving Evan knowing I’d figured it out; but that story had one ending, and it didn’t end with me seeing tomorrow. He’d traced me to the Star Lounge Café easily enough.

I was so close, within touching distance of taking him down. I could show the police the list, get them to drug test me, but it wasn’t enough. I had to stay. He had to believe I was still in the dark until I could expose him as Victor too.

I tiptoed back to the bedroom, but dared myself to stop at the kitchen door. It was ajar. I could see him inside, busy with something. There was more out of tune humming as he poured something into a bowl. Soup? Was he making soup? Then, taking a medicine bottle from his pocket, he selected three unremarkable-looking beige tablets and placed them on the chopping board. With the blade of a fish knife, he ground them into a fine powder, collected the dust, and stirred it into the soup.

I crept my way back down the hall, the tears flowing as I crawled beneath the covers, shaking in fear. It was there that I waited for him.

‘Honey, are you awake?’ he soothed. ‘I made some soup to ease your head. Are you hungry?’ The knock was quiet, polite.

I rolled over and pulled myself up out of the covers. Evan’s eyes were warm and sincere, a gaze full of affection. It was a look I’d seen so many times before, with every bowl of soup, every excuse, every goddamn manipulation.

‘What kind is it?’ I asked, closing my eyes in weary disbelief.

‘Tomato and basil. Your favourite.’

3 DOSES – TOMATO AND BASIL SOUP / PLANNED.

‘Put it on the dresser, I’ll have it in a minute,’ I managed to croak before trying on a smile, but I wasn’t fooling anyone.

He sat beside me, this time finding my cold hand, bolts of electricity shooting up my arm like that first day at Faith.

‘I’m sorry about the bank. I was a dick. God, I’ve been a dick all day. I’m on edge with this Mickey crap is all. I’m meeting one of his guys tonight. I’ll explain he’ll get the money soon, all right, baby? Eat your soup and you’ll feel better, I promise.’

Everything Nina had told me was true. Victor was real, and I was looking right at him.

After I failed to respond, Evan left me alone, ordering me to sleep. Once he was safely down the hall and I heard the terrace door slide open, I scrambled across the covers, ripping the drawer off its runners and snatching out my tub of round pink pills. With trembling hands I stumbled to the bathroom, forced open the tub lid and tipped them into the toilet, every last one.

I’d puked until I was empty, until there was nothing more to give, before tipping the laced soup into the bathroom sink and washing the traces away. Panting in the mirror, grabbing the sink bowl, I realised all the guilt tripping and desperation over Mickey, all the talk of blackmail and Nina and denying he was Victor . . . everything had been one fat Evan-shaped lie. If it wasn’t for my father’s forethought, Evan would’ve walked out of that bank and pocketed a cool one million, and once he discovered the balance of the account, the sky was the limit.

According to the list, he’d been flavouring my food with Angel Dust, and as a bonus, had relied on me getting high on my own supply. The path of least resistance to the money looked like me drugged up to the eyeballs. He’d wanted me here. He’d wanted me at his house, so he could play doctor-slash-god. At least now my pills were gone. At least there was one thing in my life I had control over.

And
how
did he get me here? How did he persuade me to move in? By sending a stalker to engineer a threat, one that made his offer of a safe house so appealing. He’d had it all planned out. How convenient Brandi disappeared just when I was vulnerable enough to trust him.

As my fog dissolved over the next twenty-four hours, the world became iridescent. Going cold turkey from Evan’s drugs gave me diarrhoea and chills, but at least I’d only taken them since moving in with him, a week at most. At least, I assumed that’s how long he’d been drugging me. Now I’d seen the spoilers, escape was not only a sensible option but a viable one, though after making it this far I couldn’t give up on taking Evan down, on bringing him to justice. It was the least Nina deserved, the least I did, too, so I faked it. I faked my addiction.

I no longer ate anything Evan prepared. I picked at my lunch and dinner the following day and ensured I replaced the key in the dictionary, retrieving it only when needed. We didn’t go to the Doralia (my quite-real headaches ensuring we took a rain check) and after Evan left for his evening shift (or other Victor-based criminal activities), in the CVS Pharmacy beside the Radisson Blu Hotel I searched for pink pills to match the ones I’d (stupidly) tipped away, shrewdly anticipating Evan’s inspection of my supply seeing as his list kept track of that too. Sleepeeze’s pink sleeping tablets were the perfect doppelgänger. I bought as many packs as was permitted, while the pharmacist gave me enough second glances.

‘It’s for my insomnia.’

‘No kidding. Take all these, and you’ll be lucky if you wake up again,’ she warned.

As if to raise her suspicions further, I asked her about Angel Dust. Phencyclidine she’d said, otherwise known as PCP; a dangerous street drug, potentially lethal taken in large enough quantities. It came in tablet or liquid form, usually white, brown or beige aspirin-sized tablets or capsules. And where would Evan get his hands on hard street drugs? Nina had mentioned it, months ago, something on the news about drug hauls. Hadn’t Evan said Mickey was being investigated for missing narcotics? Nina said Mickey had taken his cut. Now Evan was Victor, it was likely he’d done the same, or it was Evan who’d ordered Mickey to take it in the first place?

Though to Evan, nothing had changed. I remained reliant on him to survive. I appeared in a daze, hanging on his every word, except I wasn’t. I watched him while he was distracted and listened to his phone calls when I was supposed to be unconscious. I was building a case. I knew about the list, I’d checked the USB stick (which contained details for houses and random plots of land in Vegas) and Evan was surely on the security cameras trying to withdraw money at the bank ‒ with me at the bank, granted, but the clerk could testify, if Evan didn’t get to him first. Then there was Joe’s body, which I remembered the rough location of, even though the thought chilled me, of leading Zupansky through the overgrowth to what remained of my husband.

Evan was beginning to make mistakes. Now the cops only had to believe me and I could take Evan and Mickey down. Now Evan thought my mind had well and truly turned to mush, he’d slip up again, reveal more than he meant. It wouldn’t take long, and I’d have Victor right where I wanted him.

‘Damn,’ Evan cursed around lunchtime the next day, checking his watch in the living room. ‘I have to go meet a guy. Will you be all right here by yourself? Of course you will. Remember to be ready when I come back. There’s a stand-in Bill Heller all lined up. It looks like we’re set.’ He leant down to where I lay on the sofa, cupping his hands around my face. ‘We give him the money and he’ll leave us alone, huh?’

If only I could tip-off the police when the fake Heller, Evan and myself rocked up at the bank. If only the money wasn’t stolen to begin with.

‘Have a nice day,’ I squeaked as he sauntered out.

Once I was sure he was gone, I made my own lunch after tipping the soup he’d prepared away (always with the soup). I was all ready for taking a bite of my pastrami and mustard bagel when my phone vibrated in my pocket ‒ caller withheld.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that Mrs Petrozzi?’

‘Speaking?’

‘This is Detective Zupansky of the CMP. I came to see you a couple of weeks ago about your husband.’

My voice began to tremble, along with everything else. ‘Detective Zupansky, how nice of you to . . .’

‘You got a few minutes to talk, ma’am? I’ve been looking into your husband’s file, and have some information which may interest you.’

They’d already made it to the woods. They’d discovered the body, dug him up, and from his wallet identified him as the missing Joe Petrozzi. They’d scooped the bullet from his chest, found the gun, matched Evan’s fingerprints then interrogated him until he’d confessed all, until they offered him a deal and protection, in exchange for my name. Now they’d tracked me down, Zupansky calling to say the police were on their way with handcuffs for my arrest, and before I could tell them the truth about Evan.

‘Mrs Petrozzi?’

‘Yes. Sorry. I’m here.’ The one place I didn’t want to be.

‘I was wondering if your husband’s been in contact since he resurfaced.’

For all I could comprehend, Zupansky was speaking Swedish. ‘I, I don’t . . .’

‘It’s not clear where he’s been for the past month or so, but I received a phone call from his father. It looks like Joseph’s been to see him.’

I crashed down on the kitchen chair to save my shaking legs. ‘But that’s not possible.’

‘We’re closing the file on your husband after the confirmed identification. I’ll attend this week to talk to Mr Petrozzi Senior, to collect information for the file. Look, I know it can be difficult to adjust, especially if your husband’s been out of your life for some time.’ Zupansky almost sounded like he cared. ‘My advice is to find out how your husband feels if you don’t hear from him yourself. A talk with his father is the best way to gauge Joe’s state of mind.’

‘Yes, yes I’d like . . .’

‘I spoke to Mr Petrozzi only a half hour ago, quite a character in his day according to some of the old boys around here. You know the address, don’t you? The Abbey Nursing Home in Skokie?’