TORMENT (3 page)

“Pizza is on the island,” she said, leaning into the fridge for a beer. She took two and handed one to Margo, who already had her hand out. She placed her bottle on the counter next to the pizza box, which she opened with gusto. “Voila! Extra cheese with
olives,
peppers and ham.”

“That’s gonna taste like shit,” Liz said.

Mia couldn’t help but laugh and Margo spit out her first swig of beer. “You see?” Mia said, motioning to Liz, who was laughing now too.

The phone rang.

“Clean that up,” she said to Margo, and headed for the phone. She pointed at Liz with a grin. “And you!”

Liz laughed. “Open mouth, insert soap,” she said, placing her hand inside her mouth.

Mia was laughing when she answered the phone. When the man on the other end spoke, she stopped.

There was no controlling her shaking hands now. She nearly dropped the phone. Margo stopped cleaning. Liz stopped smiling. “Auntie Mia?”

The phone conversation ended with Mia silently placing the phone down and stepping back. A mix of emotions—despair, anger, and guilt—consumed her.

“Who was it?” Margo asked,
then
got very serious. “It wasn’t?”

Mia was already nodding.

“Is he?”

Mia shook her head, no. “Missing in action,” she whispered. “For ten days.”

Before Margo’s comforting hand could reach her, Mia ran for the sink, clutched the sides and vomited until there was nothing left in her stomach. Missing in action left some room for hope, but MIA in Afghanistan could easily end with a videotaped beheading.

“What’s wrong, mom?” Liz asked her mother. “Is Uncle Matt not coming home?”

“He’s coming home,” Margo said, trying to sound confident.

“When?”

“I don’t—”

The phone rang again.

Margo sprang for the phone and answered it before Mia could remove herself from the sink. “Hello... Oh my God. Okay, I will.” As though moving through sludge, she placed the phone on the receiver and turned to Mia, who was still bent over the sink.

“Who was it?” she asked.

“Mom.”

Mia looked confused. “She knows?”

Margo nodded slowly. “It’s on the news.”

After quickly rinsing out her mouth, Mia made for the living room.

Margo caught her by the arm. “Mia, wait.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment as Margo attempted to find a gentle way to break the news. She couldn’t let her sister learn the truth from a newscaster. “Mia...”

“Just spit it out!” Mia shouted.

“They’re saying Matt’s a traitor.
An assassin.
They—”

Mia had heard enough. She ignored the rest of her sister’s words and pounded for the TV. She turned it on, changed the channel to a news network and was greeted by a service photo of her fiancé. She staggered back and fell into one of the old La-Z-Boy chairs she and Matt had picked up at a yard sale. Her hand went to her mouth as she heard the words, “...accused by Russia of being an assassin—an elite sniper—sent to kill President Misha Alexandrov.”

It wasn’t possible. Matt drove trucks. In and out of the military, it’s what he loved to do. He drove them for work. He drove them for fun. He drove them for his country. But the Russian military accused him of being an elite sniper?

The words, “act of war” filtered from the newscaster and cut through her chaotic thoughts.
I’ll never see him again
, she thought.

“My orders were to assassinate President Misha Alexandrov.” Matt’s voice hit her like a wrecking ball. She pitched forward and let out a moan. They were playing a recording.
His confession.

“You are a sniper, yes?” an interrogator asked.

“Yes.”

“One of your country’s best?”

“Yes.”

“Elite?”

“Yes.”

The ridiculousness of the statements made her laugh with rage, but her mind swirled with doubts.
Is Matt a sniper? Could he have hidden something like this from me? Why the hell is this happening?
As the questions built and the news replayed the audio recording again and again, she listened to his voice, hearing the fear tinged with desperation, and she wept. She cried for him, knowing what it would take for him to betray his country like that.
Hell
, she thought,
he endured hell, and broke
.

Who wouldn’t?

And I was here.

Safe.

Feeling sorry for myself.
 

Feeling alone.

And justified for fucking his best friend.

He’ll never know
, she thought, and for a brief moment she felt a new emotion.

Relief.

It sent her running back to the sink where she dry-heaved some more of her soul.

New Hampshire

“Shit!” she yelled,
and pushed the button to hang up the portable phone. Mia missed the days of slamming down a corded phone and hearing the clang of the bell inside. It was much more satisfying. The best you could do with a cordless was
throw
it across the room, but then you’d be out thirty bucks. And she had more calls to make.

Two weeks had passed since she and everyone else in the world learned about Matt. She felt sure he was dead, and spent the first week at her sister’s house, mourning his loss and her betrayal. There was no funeral, however, because there was no body and officially, no one knew Matt’s fate. Maybe never would.

Her anguish became anger. Anger became a thirst for justice.
Then for answers.

Was Matt really an assassin?

Who was responsible for his death, or capture?

What was being done about it?

Her guilt became a perpetual motivation. She needed to tell him the truth. She needed him to forgive her.
To love her, despite her failings.
She had no idea if such a possibility existed, but she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t get the chance.

She pursued the cause as a reporter. Because she and Matt had yet to marry, her relationship with him was easy to hide. His name was on the mortgage and utilities. They had separate checking accounts. So no one questioned why a small town crime reporter was asking about the biggest story of the year. Then again, everyone was asking the same questions.

The problem was
,
no one was talking. Not the president. Not a single senator or congressman.
No one.
Aside from denying all accusations, the United States government had gone silent on the issue.
Business as usual.

Hear no evil.

See no evil.

Speak no evil.

But Mia didn’t buy it.

A plane crash yesterday had distracted the media. They could only stay focused on a story so long with no official sound bites. They’d played and replayed the audio of Matt’s confession so many times most of the country could probably recite it. The standard group of ex-military, ex-political and ex-presidential candidates had ranted and debated until their voices grew raw.

But the media’s distraction didn’t keep the government from stonewalling her. The reporter angle wasn’t working.

She looked down at the phone. She’d made nearly one hundred phone calls in the past few days. Most had been answered by full voice mailboxes. The few human beings she spoke to had simply said, “No comment,” and hung up.

“No luck?” asked Chris Kuzneski, a photographer at the paper and one of the few co-workers she considered a friend. He knew the score and didn’t believe Matt was an assassin.

“No one’s talking,” she said, leaning back in her office chair. Her desk was clutter free, in part because she was a neat freak, but also because no one used paper anymore. Everything she needed, from phone books, to press releases, to word processing could be found on her slender MacBook.

“Have you played the fiancé card?”

She nodded.
“Seems I’m not the first person to try.
No one’s buying it.”

“Damn. Have you said please?” Kuzneski flashed a smile, but the look in his eyes posed a question.
Is it okay to joke with you?

She smiled, happy for the distraction. “I’ve said a lot of things.”

He chuckled. “I bet.”

“Shut-up, Kuzneski.
What kind of name is that, anyway?
Kuzneski.
Sounds like Was Pesky.”

“Hey, don’t take your frustration out on me,” he said, raising his hands in mock defense and stepping back. Not watching his step, he tripped over a trash barrel, toppled into an office chair with a too loose back and tipped ass-over-tea-kettle onto the linoleum floor.

Mia burst out laughing, and everyone in the office turned in her direction. When Kuzneski hopped back up, they seemed to understand what had happened and went back to work.

“Thanks for helping me up,” he said, straightening his shirt.

“What are friends for?”

“Honestly?” Kuzneski said. “Friends need to be honest with each other.”

The uncommonly serious tone of his voice held her attention.

“You look like shit. Go home. Get some rest.”

She looked unsure. Giving up wasn’t in her blood.

But before she could respond, he held his watch out in front of her face. “Besides...”

At first she had no idea what he was trying to tell her. She read the time on his watch. 4:10PM. Normal work hours were until 5PM, but she often stayed late and—

“Shit!” Mia closed her MacBook and shoved it into her briefcase.

“Ten minutes late,” Kuzneski said. “Some aunt you are.”

“Bite me, Peski,” she said as she rushed for the door.

His singsong voice chased her down the stairwell. “You’re welcome.”

It turned out Kuzneski was being a good friend. He’d set his watch twenty minutes fast so she would arrive at Liz’s school on time.

“Hi Auntie!”
Liz said as she swung open the door, hopped into the back seat and buckled herself in. Liz’s hair bounced as she bobbed her head back and forth for a moment before meeting Mia’s eyes in the rearview mirror. She smiled, barely containing her energy.

Mia turned around in her seat. “What’s got into you?”

“Nothing,” Liz said, but the way she bit her tongue after speaking said otherwise.