Misery Loves Company (15 page)

There was obviously no getting out of this, short of running to the suspended deck and flinging herself off the edge. So she tried to “see.”

The cop had responded to a call. The Dershires reported their boat stolen from their cabin. No witnesses. Jules closed her eyes and tried to imagine the scene.

“Good. Good.”

She wasn’t sure what good this did, but she might as well play the part he wanted her to. She didn’t want him throwing a fit again.

After a little bit, she looked up. Patrick had sat down on the couch again.

“I’m going to need some coffee.”

He grinned. “Spoken like a true writer.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Captain Perry said.

But he did. He knew he did. He’d taken off the shirt of his
police uniform to try to stop the bleeding. Now he just wore a white T-shirt. It was cold outside, but he was completely numb.

He walked the sidewalk up to her house. The door opened before he got there. He stopped short of the porch. Behind him, the captain had begun following. He could hear his footsteps stop too.

He locked eyes with her. Hers were wide, filled with dread and disbelief. Her gaze fell to his T-shirt and then to his pants. He glanced down. There, smeared at his thigh, was a dark, shiny patch of blood.

“No . . . no . . .” She started to step back, tipping like there wasn’t any ground for her foot to land on. Chris raced up to hold her. “No! Nooo!”

“Chris!
Chris
!
”

Chris jolted awake, gasping for breath. It was dark and his skull cracked with pain. He jumped as he looked up to see someone hovering over him. A hand clasped his shoulder.

“Chris, it’s me. Addy. You were . . . having a nightmare.”

Chris looked around. He was at the kitchen table. He must’ve fallen asleep here. The paperwork he’d been going through was strewn across the tabletop.

Addy sat in the chair next to him. “Are you okay?”

Chris rubbed his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“You were saying Jules’s name.”

“I was dreaming . . .” Chris looked down. “That night, when I had to tell her Jason died.”

“You’ve never told me about that night,” Addy said softly.

Her scream. He couldn’t explain it. He’d never heard a
human being scream like that. It sounded like . . . He shook his head. There were almost no words. But maybe it sounded like a soul trying to escape a body.

“I have worried about you so much ever since Jason died. You watched your best friend die in your arms. And then you had to tell his wife.”

“I didn’t have to. The captain was going to do it. But I felt I should. I think she’s hated me for it ever since. Or maybe she just hates me because I didn’t save Jason’s life.”

“She doesn’t hate you, Chris. She hates life. She hates that Jason is gone.”

“Now she’s gone too.”

Addy rubbed his arm and looked over the clutter on the table. “What’s all this?”

“Some files I found in Jason’s garage. There was a piece of the hull there too, hidden behind some boxes.” He pointed to the box. “Look what’s written here. ‘Trophies.’”

“Trophies. Okay.”

“But there aren’t trophies in here.”

“No, but people put stuff in different boxes all the time, right?”

“Not Jason and Jules. Everything is always precisely labeled with them. He mislabeled it on purpose.”

“What’s in here?”

“A lot of police reports on stolen boats. A couple of years ago, there was this big string of thefts just outside of Wissberry. It never hit us, but then we got the call to go check out a possible stolen boat . . .”

Addy leaned in. “And?”

Chris’s attention locked onto a small piece of paper peeking out from underneath all the others. He pulled it out. It was scrap, torn around the edges, with a faded name and number on it. The name simply read
Roy
.

Chris jumped from the table and hurried to get his keys.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to go up to the station. I need to pull Jason’s phone records.”

IT WAS LATE
in the evening when Jules finally finished sorting through the paperwork and notes. Patrick’s handwriting was terrible, so it took a while to decipher any notes he’d written. Mostly about what he wanted to put in the story
 
—ideas, plotlines, character details, all written down randomly.

He’d fed her dinner: roasted chicken with mashed potatoes. Now they sat quietly together as they both finished decaffeinated coffee. Her brain was mush. She’d gathered from the information that he intended to write a book centered around boats or boat theft.

Jason had been gunned down by thugs after he’d received a call about a boat being stolen. That’s what Chris Downey
had told her. She couldn’t make out what Patrick Reagan was trying to do, though. There was nothing specifically about Jason in all the paperwork she’d gone through.

“Tomorrow you will continue reading what I’ve written on
The Living End
.”

“Okay.” Under any other circumstance, the prospect of reading his unpublished work would be beyond thrilling. Tonight it was just one more thing to try to unravel.

There was another stretch of silence. She liked that Patrick was comfortable with it, as though it was essential to his routine. She’d feared silence ever since Jason died. If she wasn’t working on her computer, she had the TV on. Its drone made her feel less lonely. Jason used to hum softly
 
—usually something he’d been listening to in the car
 
—sometimes for well over an hour. It would kind of get on her nerves then, especially if she was trying to concentrate, but now she would give anything to hear it again.

Patrick set his coffee cup down and laced his fingers together. “When did you throw away his toothbrush?”

“What?” Jules blinked back into the moment.

“Jason’s toothbrush. When did you throw it away?”

Jules couldn’t answer.

“I haven’t thrown Amelia’s away,” he said, staring blankly into the center of the room. “I don’t know when you’re supposed to do that. How many months? How many years?”

Jules didn’t look at him. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

More silence. Jules wanted desperately to go to her room, to sleep. She wasn’t sleepy, though.

“She asked me to kill her, you know.”

Jules’s weary gaze snapped sideways toward him. “What do you mean?”

“She didn’t want to suffer through the living decay.”

“So she asked you to assist in her suicide?”

“No. She didn’t believe in suicide. That was the point.”

Jules processed his words.

“
Murder
is too strong a word. Ending someone’s suffering isn’t like taking a hacksaw to the streets and slaughtering every person in sight,” he said. “It seems inhumane that we should decay before we die, doesn’t it? Jason was lucky in that way. His decay came after death.”

Jules didn’t bother wiping the tears that welled in her eyes. She was starting to really hate this man. Once again, he’d broken her.

Her tone was terse. “Jason wasn’t lucky in any sense of the word.”

“I suppose not.”

“So you killed your wife. Is that what you’re saying?”

Patrick’s expression turned cautious. “You can’t judge me. You’ve no idea.”

“Did you kill her to end her suffering or yours?” Jules threw her hands up when Patrick’s eyes turned angry. “I’m sorry. Am I offending you? Maybe I’m mistaken, but I believe it was you who wanted me to drown in deep thoughts, so I’m jumping in feetfirst here. Toothpicking my way straight to the heart of the matter.” Jules leaned forward, engaging his
eyes. “Because you and I both know, Patrick, that the dead one gets all the peace.”

His demeanor began to change. He stiffened. He stopped blinking. His sights were set on her. “Did Jason suffer?”

“I’m not going to tell you. I can’t imagine what kind of sick mind would want to know that. What am I? Some bizarre research project for your book? Is that it?”

“I believed,” he said quietly, “we could understand each other.”

“How can I understand this?” Jules said, gesturing wildly at random points in the room. “How does any of this make sense?”

He stood, walked to the table where the documents were piled. “If you work hard enough, Juliet, you will find some answers.”

“Maybe I don’t want answers.” She swiped at her tears. “Maybe I just want to be left alone, to live my life however I want.”

“You’re too wonderful to be left alone.”

The room spun when Jules tried to stand. Her ears burned as her blood pressure shot up. She stared him down as she walked to the door that led out the front of the house, the opposite of the deck. She grabbed the knob, turned it, wondered if it would be locked. But it wasn’t. The door came open.

“What are you doing?” His eyes narrowed.

“I’m leaving you.”

“It’s nighttime. Where do you think you’ll go?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s below freezing. It’s been snowing.” Patrick stepped forward, and she backed up, one step out the door. “You’ll die out there.”

“Then I’ll be the lucky one too.”

“Don’t be stupid, Juliet.”

“Don’t you get it?” she said, taking another step onto the small porch. “I’m unfixable. I’m broken, and the piece I need to be fixed is permanently gone.”

“Get back in here.” His voice boomed the demand.

With one swift pull, she slammed the door, turned, and ran. Her feet, shod only with thin leather shoes, plunged into the snow, the cold jabbing into her ankles like spikes. With each step, it felt like shards of glass were cutting into the tops of her feet.

No moon or stars were out. A whisper-thin blanket of clouds seemed to hold the darkness captive against the mountain. She stumbled, tripping over rocks, then small trees. But she ran frantically, sure she heard him close behind, running after her.

Suddenly her bare hands plunged into the snow. She fell hard, and her face also hit the earth, the snow folding around her cheek, then up her nose. She coughed and wheezed, trying to scramble to her feet. But they slipped underneath her, unable to gain traction.

She stopped and listened. Footsteps? Or the wind? Rising to all fours, she was able to stand slowly. Her wrist had scraped against a piece of wood, and the blood gushed down her arm, pooling and sticky at her elbow and against her sleeve.

Run. He’s going to kill you.

She took off, straight into a dense population of trees.

Her lungs resisted the cold air. And the altitude didn’t make it easier. Before long, Jules was out of breath, slumped against a tree, shivering uncontrollably. She fell to her knees, tucked her hands under her arms. She wanted to cry, but she shook so violently that it was like all her emotions were being jackknifed out of her.

She knelt there for a while, so cold she couldn’t move. Her feet were numb, except for the occasional slicing pain at her ankles.

Her eyes began to adjust better. The forest around her became clearer. She could see the bark. The twigs. A haunting, whistling sound was distant as if the wind were playing with ghosts in the valley below.

Jules slumped to a sitting position, leaning against the tree behind her. Every part of her body was numbingly cold. But thoughts, as haunting as the wind, drove her attention inward.

Had he really killed his wife?

What was this man capable of?

It didn’t matter anymore. She closed her eyes and begged for death to come quickly. She prayed to Jesus because that was what Jason would’ve wanted her to do. She believed in heaven, more for Jason than she did for herself. But sometimes that made it harder, knowing he was alive but unreachable. That his life continued on without her, and that he hadn’t managed to send even a single message back that he loved her. He was just gone, into a life somewhere else.

Jesus, take me to him.

Jules no longer felt her feet or her hands. The sharp pain was gone. A moment of alarm blew through her. Maybe she should try to run back to the cabin. But she knew she was unable to walk. She’d sealed her fate the moment she ran out the door. Her mind whisked through thoughts and feelings even as her body froze. Her hand tingled with warmth as she saw Patrick reach for it in the cabin. Jason’s lips brushed against hers as she saw their wedding day. She tasted the sweet buttercream frosting of the cake. The bubbly champagne burned her throat.

A sense of regret shook the delight away as she remembered having to tell her daddy he wasn’t invited to the wedding. He would come drunk, she knew, and embarrass her and everyone there. It was as if he knew. He didn’t resist, but she’d never seen sadder eyes in her whole life.

She walked herself down the aisle. It wasn’t as hard as she thought because she knew she was walking into the arms of the man who would take care of her for the rest of her life.

Jesus, take me.

She waited for death to come.

Instead, her eyes slowly opened. Far above her, tree limbs cracked and swayed in a cold wind that she was not shielded from. She heard an owl. The clouds parted, and a shimmering moon peeked through, bathing her in cold light.

Maybe Jesus was coming to get her, parting the sky, reaching down.
Jesus.
She repeated His name over and over, hoping to be taken, hoping to really believe.

Her teeth chattered and her eyes closed against her will.

Time had passed, she knew, when she opened them again. The moonlight was gone and the forest was inky black. She couldn’t move and everything was blurry. Her jaw seemed cemented shut.

Then she heard hasty footsteps and her name being called.

“Jason!” Her voice was unmanageable. Hoarse. “Jason, I’m here!” She knew her mouth moved, but whether she was saying anything audible, she wasn’t sure.

Her eyelids were becoming heavy again. The shadows all around her swelled in size, like she was viewing them through the glass of a marble. But out of the swells of darkness he appeared, running toward her, swiping at the limbs that got in his way.

“Jason . . .”

“I’m right here,” he said, stooping. His strong arms lifted her. Her head fell back. She couldn’t hold it upright anymore.

But she smiled, feeling as if she were floating. “It was nice of Jesus to send you to take me to heaven. What’s it like? I bet it’s like snow, but warm. Warm snow.” She giggled, sounding like herself at nine years old. “How long does it take to get to heaven?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. She was with him again, and that was all that mattered anymore.

“You get it, right? I mean, this number was the last call he received before he was killed.” Chris jumped up and smacked
the table. Addy sat with him, sipping coffee, glowering at the time.

“It’s also going to be the same number tomorrow at, say, 8 a.m. But what’s important about the number? Who made the call?”

“I don’t know. It was a burner phone
 
—a phone that is untraceable, unregistered.”

“So what does it tell you?”

“It tells me that whoever this Roy guy is, he knows something.” Chris scratched his head, his eyes heavy with the burden of sleepiness. The adrenaline was fading. “They missed it.”

“Missed what? Who?”

“In the police report. There is nothing about this number in the police report. It could’ve easily been found if they’d pulled his phone records.” Chris sighed. “But with the theory we were all going on, nobody probably thought to pull them.” He glanced at his sister. “Addy, go to bed. Please.”

“I can’t leave you here by yourself. You’re too wound up. And bad things happen when you’re wound up. Remember the time you jumped off the roof at Mom and Dad’s, onto the trampoline?”

He sat down at the table.

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something. “So a guy named Roy called Jason right before he was killed.”

Addy nodded, trying to understand. “On an untraceable phone. That’s got to suggest some illegal activity, right?”

“What are you saying? Jason was into something illegal?” Chris shook his head. “There is no way.”

“I know you love Jason,” Addy said, “but to be objective, don’t you at least have to consider the possibility?”

“There’s no way. The guy was a saint. He didn’t even cuss. He never drank. He wouldn’t gossip about the most gossip-worthy cops at the precinct.”