“Mr. and Mrs. Carlson.” He stood and offered his hand.
Roberta Carlson squeezed his fingers in her fleshy grip. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Burnes,” she said, pumping his hand, the skin beneath her chin wagging in unison. “We heard lots of good things about you.”
It was Carl’s turn now. He placed his right hand in Quinn’s, permitting the briefest contact before pulling it away. “Mr. Burnes,” he mumbled.
“Sit down, please.” Quinn motioned to the two wingback chairs across from his desk and then worried the Carlson’s might not fit. It took a little repositioning but they managed to squeeze themselves into the chairs. When they stopped moving around, Quinn leaned back in his own chair and delivered his standard line, “How can I help you?”
Carl glanced at his wife and she patted his fleshy hand, his right one because the injured hand rested on the injured knee like separate, immovable body parts. “You helped our friends, Henry and Greta Sandsren a while back.”
She smiled at him and her beady eyes shrunk beneath folds, reminding Quinn of the pig his father once kept penned at McCallister’s farm. Betsy, they called her. Big, old Betsy, who loved anything. Corn, potato chips, cabbage, M&M’s. Roberta Carlson reminded Quinn of Betsy, in the eyes, the jowls, the nose. If Betsy had a voice, it would sound high and squeaky, like Roberta Carlson’s.
“Greta said you really helped them. A Godsend is what she said. She don’t look at a travel mug that she don’t think of you. You settled her up real nice, she don’t need to worry about a thing for the rest of her life. So, when Carl had his accident at Wendy’s, we thought of you right away.”
The Carlson’s wanted money, other people’s money, because somewhere down the line they were too late, too slow, too lazy, to make their own opportunity. They had opted for the easy out; take someone else’s money.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Quinn didn’t really care what they said. Most of it would be blown out of proportion but so what? Better to scare the defendant, and corporations hated being classified as a defendant. Most of the time, they just settled up unless it was a ridiculous claim for an outrageous sum of money. Then they suffered negative press coverage and potential boycotting, all bad publicity for companies who made their living on public image.
Not surprisingly, it was Roberta who spoke. “Well, Carl and I were at Wendy’s one day for lunch.” She paused and tapped a finger against her chin and for a brief second, the fleshiness of her face swallowed the finger. “Tuesdays we go to Wendy’s. Double Bacon Cheeseburger, extra pickles, it’s to die for. Anyway, we had our meal like we always do and part way through, Carl has to go to the bathroom.” She lowered her voice, let out a gurgled chuckle and said, “Like he always does. So, I’m eating and waiting and ten minutes later, I’m getting worried. I go get the manager and he finds Carl on the floor, all curled up in so much pain he can’t even cry.” Tears sprouted in Roberta’s eyes and Quinn wondered how many times she’d practiced in front of a mirror.
“What happened, exactly?” The bizarre picture assembled itself in Quinn’s brain. He blocked it quickly and turned to Carl.
Carl Carlson flushed a dull red, fidgeted in his chair and shrugged. “I was just . . . tending to my business . . . and I leaned over to get more toilet paper when I fell right off the commode. I tried to catch myself but I landed hard, on this here knee.” He pointed to his left knee. “Doc says I cracked it up pretty good. Needed surgery and been going to therapy the past six weeks. Doc says it’s never gonna be like it was.”
“And how do you think I can help you?”
Fell off a toilet seat?
Carl Carlson glanced at his wife and she said, “A body should be able to use a public facility without having to worry about injuring themselves. Public restrooms should accommodate the public, right? No different than handicapped bathrooms catering to the handicapped. They should have had larger seats. They didn’t.” She said this with such smug satisfaction Quinn thought she’d beg him to use those words in an opening argument.
“You want them to enlarge the toilet seats?”
“Too late. They didn’t. We suffered. They pay.”
“I’m not sure you have a case.”
“‘course we do. If you could get Greta and Henry two hundred thousand for a leaky travel mug, you can get us twice as much for Carl’s banged up knee. And look at his hand. He can’t do nothin’ with it. And then there’s pain and suffering, that’s the term you lawyer folk use, right? Well, Carl’s in pain, I tell you, horrible pain. Every day. That’s worth something, too.”
A toilet seat.
“So, what do you think it’s worth? Greta and Henry say you’re the money man. If anybody can get it, you can.”
***
He was coming for her. She sensed it, pulsing just below the surface, threatening to choke the life from her. It didn’t matter that she’d run two thousand miles away, changed her name, lived in a basement these past three weeks. He was coming for her, just like he’d promised. And he would kill her, just like he’d promised.
Logic said he must be dead. She’d seen the blood, so much of it. He couldn’t have survived. Hadn’t she made sure of it this time? She had to get away from here. It was too risky for Arianna. Everyone was fair game, even the innocent, even the unborn. He deserved to die and she’d earned the right to kill him.
Hadn’t she?
He was dead.
Wasn’t he?
Quinn Burnes was her only hope. He could find out for certain if the police were looking for her, or worse, the Maldonando family. Then she’d know if she could gulp fresh air and daylight without fear. She’d been so painfully close before, but he’d always found her and yanked her back to her old life, but not without exacting a punishment. What would it be this time? A broken nose? Cracked ribs? Locking her in their bedroom for five days?
He must be dead. She prayed this simple supplication each day, beseeching God to grant her this one request, even if it meant damning her soul to hell. She would have a life again, not the old one filled with feigned pleasantries and cowardice, but a real one, even if it were under a name that wasn’t her own. It would be a new start. Alexander said people disappeared all the time, seamlessly, permanently . . .
into the fabric of a society that prides itself on anonymity.
As long as no one is searching for them, anybody can vanish . . . or be found . . . for the right price.
Those were his exact words the last time the State Police picked her up two hundred miles from home for driving a vehicle he’d reported stolen. Of course, he’d crushed her to him so hard it bruised her ribs, and thanked the State Police for doing such a fine job. How could he have known his wife had decided to take a nature drive, he’d said, gathering a chunk of hair at the base of her neck and twisting. He’d thought she’d been abducted or car-jacked. Or worse. If there was annoyance at being involved in a domestic misunderstanding, the policeman quickly forgave the incident when he saw how relieved Alexander was to be rejoined with his wife. The hitting started after the patrol car pulled back onto the highway. It didn’t stop until her nose was broken and her left eye swollen shut. Quinn Burnes was her last hope and if she had to lie to get his help, she would.
Two days later, he sat in the basement of
The Silver Strand
, his watchful silver-blue eyes on her. She didn’t like it when he looked at her that way, as though he could see straight through her defenses, to the truth she kept carefully hidden. Why did it have to be this man who was the only one who could help her? Why couldn’t it have been an older, gentler,
kinder
man?
“I don’t like liars, Mrs. Maldonando.”
His words stopped her pacing, and threatened to suck her under. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and fought the urge to vomit. “I didn’t think you’d take the case if you knew.”
“Ah, the woman utters her first truth.”
“I’m sorry.” Heat ripped through her skull, pounding against each temple. He’d never take the case now.
“What are you sorry for?” He was behind her now, close. “That you lied? Or that I found out?”
There was no use pretending. “Both.”
Anger smothered his next words. “Did you think I wouldn’t put two and two together? Did you think I’d hire some gumshoe who didn’t know anything?”
She shrunk further away with each word.
“Answer me, damn you!” He grabbed her shoulder and she stiffened, a whimper escaping her lips as she tucked her face into her chest, making herself small, smaller still. His hand fell and he moved in front of her. “I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said in a voice used to calm scared animals. “I’ve never hit a woman in my life.” He placed his fingers under her chin and eased her face up. The tenderness of the gesture almost made her cry. “He hit you, didn’t he?”
No one had ever asked this question straight out. Others guessed; the cleaning woman who washed the bloody towels, the sister-in-law who saw the bruises on Eve’s stomach and chest when they shopped, the family doctor who took care of her clumsy injuries, a broken arm,
she fell off the treadmill
, a cracked rib,
a tumble down the steps
, a broken nose,
ran into a
wall
.
Alexander made explanations and excuses around the truth and everyone believed him, or if they didn’t, they wouldn’t admit it. He was rich and powerful and charming with a United States Senator for a father. They remembered this when she wore dark sunglasses at night, simply attributing her odd behavior to the fact that she was an artist and like all artists, she was different. But this man standing beside her wasn’t afraid, though perhaps he should be.
“Danielle, answer me. Did he hit you?”
He didn’t call her by her real name and for this she was grateful. Eve opened her mouth to speak the truth after years of silence but the words wouldn’t come. There was too much fear, too much
shame
to admit it. She shook her head no.
Quinn released his hold on her and stepped away, breaking the intimacy of the moment. He didn’t believe her and she wondered for a second if he would call her a liar. But when he opened his mouth, all he said was, “Your husband is dead.”
Chapter 5
His words sucked the life from her, more forceful than one of Alexander’s fists. She stumbled back, caught herself and made her way to a chair. “How do you know?” What she really wanted to ask was
how can you be sure?
Quinn Burnes was the one pacing now, his tall, leanness spanning the room with agitated energy. “The man I hired faxed me a report last night. It’s all hush, hush right now, until they get their suspect.” He held up a hand and said, “Don’t worry. They’re looking for some cocaine dealer he put away ten years ago. Seems the guy swore he was coming after him when he got out.”
“Randall Wentz.” Even Alexander had worried about him.
“That’s the name.”
“He promised he’d come back.”
“Looks like he was too late.”
“He’ll be charged with murder.”
A murder he didn’t commit.
“There’s a dead body
and
probably cause,” Quinn said. “If he doesn’t have an alibi, I’d say you’re right.”
“You’re sure Alexander’s dead?” She wished he’d offer a picture for proof.
“My guy sent me the coroner’s report. He’s dead.”
“Then, maybe I can go back, tell the police someone was in my house and I shot him in self defense.” At least she could make recompense in some small way.
“You think they’ll believe you? Didn’t you tell me you were going through a nasty divorce, that your husband said he’d kill you if you tried to leave? You really think the police aren’t going to consider that probable cause? If you go back and tell them that story, they’ll have you in handcuffs so fast your head will be spinning.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
Alexander’s dead.
He can’t hurt me anymore
. Someone else was going to take the blame.
“What do you mean you don’t know what to do? Nobody’s looking for you. They think you flipped and took off after you found out about your husband, seems you’ve done that before, the flipping out and leaving part.”
How could a man who had been so gentle seconds before turn so cruel? She mustn’t let his words affect her. She needed him now. Eve settled her gaze on the edge of the coffee table and waited.
“No comment? You should have told me you had a habit of taking off, going here and there, maybe even stopping for a little vacation in a psych unit.”
Her resolve to remain calm exploded. “Have you ever lost someone you’ve loved more than your own life? A child maybe? A wife? A parent? Do you know what it’s like to have that person ripped from you and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it? Do you?” The tears started coming but she didn’t try to stop them. “I lost my baby girl when I was six months pregnant and not a day goes by that I don’t think about her and grieve for her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was going to name her Danielle.”
He killed her, Alexander pushed me down the steps and killed my baby.