The Mistaken (14 page)

“Tyler, do you think if you were to somehow get even
with her that you would actually feel…I don’t know...better?
Relieved maybe?” he asked late one afternoon.

“Hell yes,” I admitted. “Most days, it’s the only
thing that keeps me from drinking until I just fucking die.” I
shook my head, disappointed in myself, far removed from the man
Jillian once loved.

“Well then, maybe we should do it,” he suggested.
“Get revenge. Go Old Testament on the bitch.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Don’t get me started,
Nick.”

“Why not, Ty? I mean, we could probably do it,
figure out a plausible way to really get back at her, to completely
ruin her life. How hard could it be?”

“Nick, as good as that sounds, I don’t think I’m
actually up to killing someone. Even that rotten whore.”

Nick walked around with his head down, his finger
drumming absently along the sharp edge of his jaw, deep in thought.
He turned to me, rather excited at the plan forming deep within the
dark confines of his mind.

“We wouldn’t have to kill her, Ty. Just make her
wish we had. What’s the worst thing you can think of to do to a
woman, especially someone like her, to make every day of her life a
living hell?”

I thought hard for a minute then snapped my fingers,
leaving one raised in the air. “I’ve got it. We could sell her to
the Taliban.” I snorted with derisive laughter and took a long pull
on a bottle of beer.

“What? Come on, be serious, Tyler. The Taliban?
That’s ridiculous.”

I rocked my head from side to side. “Right. Okay
well, maybe not the Taliban, but you know what I mean.”

He shook his head. “No, actually I don’t. Enlighten
me, brother.”

“Haven’t you ever read those stories out of
Afghanistan or Pakistan? Women under the Taliban have no life of
their own. The men lord over every aspect of their miserable lives,
and when they break some tiny rule, those sick bastards set them on
fire, or cut off their nose, or beat them with a stick, right out
on the street for everyone to see. And no one does a bloody thing
about it.” I gave him a drunken smirk and took another long drink,
draining the bottle. I sighed then expelled a loud belch. “I saw it
on the news once.

“God, I’d love to see someone beat Erin with a
stick,” I continued. “I’d love to see someone snuff out the very
essence of who she is. She could be a fucking slave for all I care.
That bitch deserves to live in misery for the rest of her
insignificant life.”

Nick stared at me in disbelief. He’d never heard me
speak that way before. Neither had I for that matter. Nick had
always thought of me as the perfect son, a brother who was hard to
live up to, who could do no wrong. He’d told me so a thousand
times. And maybe I was before, but Jillian’s death had changed me.
I was bitter beyond reason, and I knew it. But I didn’t care
anymore. I’d played by the rules my whole life, and where had it
gotten me? It was my turn to be bad, to ruin someone’s life like
mine had been. Vengeance seemed the best course of action for me.
But what did I know of that sort of thing?

I stared at Nick who returned my look fixedly. He
smiled at me, and I smiled back with a careless shrug. He obviously
had something in mind. I was just waiting for him to share his
depraved idea. But for all the twisted things I had ever dreamed
up, I still wasn’t prepared for what Nick had in mind.

“What are you thinking, Nick?”

He shook his head and waved his hand. “Nah, forget
it. You’d never go for it.”

“Try me.”

“All right then. What would you say if I talked to
Alexi?”

“Alexi? For God’s sake, why? What could he possibly
do?”

It was no secret that Alexi was an evil bastard, as
was Dmitri, but I didn’t know the extent of their operation. I’d
like to believe that Nick would never be involved in the sort of
things I’d been fantasizing about, but perhaps he had knowledge of
others who were, like Alexi Batalov and his boss, Dmitri Chernov,
the reigning czar of Little Russia.

“Dmitri caters to a lot of important men. He
provides certain…favors and entertainment, and has a rather large
stable of, uh...ladies who work for him,” Nick explained.
“Occasionally he buys and sells them to a few of his foreign
clients, wealthy Russian oil barons, businessmen from the Middle
East and such.” He glanced up at me for my reaction. “Perhaps he
might find a useful occupation for our little friend, Erin.” Nick
smiled at me as if this was the answer to our prayers. “It could be
the perfect solution, Tyler. You get your fill of sweet retribution
and that bitch gets what’s coming to her.”

But as much as I enjoyed fantasizing about torturing
Erin, I didn’t think I actually had it in me to follow through. It
just wasn’t in my nature. What I wanted and what I was capable of
doing were two different things entirely, and I was a little
shocked that Nick might actually feel differently.

“For God’s sake, Nick. That’s a bit much, don’t you
think?”

He snickered. “Says the man who wants to see her
beaten with a stick.”

“Come on, Nick, that was just a…a daydream. What
you’re talking about, that’s brutal.”

“Brutal? Are you fucking kidding me? Ty, she’s the
reason your wife is dead. She’s the reason you drink yourself into
unconsciousness every goddamn day of your pathetic life.” He shoved
his nose in my face and tapped his finger against my temple. “Why
you can’t get the image of Jillian’s broken body out of your
fucking head.

“Remember Jill on that hospital bed, brother, the
way they pounded on her chest, shoved tubes down her throat, and
needles into her arms. You said it yourself. She died alone and
afraid.
That’s brutal
,” he said, poking me in the chest.
“How can you
not
want to be brutal right back? Fuck that
bitch! I would see her sold to a butcher if I could.” Nick paced
around the room, looking at me with anger and disappointment. “Now
who’s the one who should man-up, Ty? You bloody fucking coward.
She was your wife!
” he screamed, his face crimson with
indignation. “Or perhaps you’ve forgotten what that means yet
again,” he added cruelly.

It struck me then that Nick was as angry about
Jill’s death as I was. I had never considered that her death might
have affected him so deeply. I thought that he was merely here to
support me. But Nick appeared driven by similar demons. He seemed
bent on revenge just as much, if not more than I was. Nick made me
feel like I was letting him down as much as I had let Jill down. I
was torn. That part of me that always followed the rules and stayed
within the lines warred with my baser side, that rabid part
screaming for revenge.

“I know, Nick. You’re right. It’s just that...what
you’re suggesting…it’s dangerous and illegal. Hell, it’s insane. I
don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison because of
her.”

Nick stood before me and shook his head, his face
twisted in disgust. He was quiet now. His shoulders slumped
downward like a defeated boxer who’d just lost to a bad call.

“It never should have come to this. You should have
let me help Jill to begin with, and then maybe none of this would
have happened. But you were always the straight arrow, weren’t you,
Tyler?” He laughed bitterly. “You know what, brother? You have no
fucking balls and you can’t say that bitch took them from you, too.
You’ve always been that way.”

Deflated, he walked out of the house, quietly
closing the door behind him.

Alone now, I sat back in my chair with a full bottle
of tequila and drank. With my mobile phone in hand, I played Jill’s
last voicemail message on an endless loop, over and over, until I
could recite it perfectly, word for word in pitch and tone. I
thought about everything Nick had screamed at me, every accusation,
about every sordid little plan we had ever dreamed up for Erin. I
thought about what Nick had suggested doing for real, selling Erin
to Alexi and Dmitri. She’d be gone forever. She’d lose her freedom,
her identity, and her humanity as countless strangers raped her
into madness. The more I drank, the more reasonable it seemed.

God, I wanted to do it, but how could I live with
the decision? Wouldn’t I be compromising my own humanity, as well?
Jill would be ashamed and disappointed if she knew what I was
thinking. But then again, she was gone. She would never have the
opportunity to live out her dreams. She would never see our child
born. Everything that ever gave me reason to live had been stripped
away, carelessly ground under the heel of a ruthless stranger. My
humanity seemed insignificant compared to that.

I was all too aware that life wasn’t free, that it
costs us each something, but I had already paid more than my fair
share, giving up what gave me incentive to live in the first place.
Life had cost me everything. I had nothing left to lose.

So with that, I decided that I
could
carry
the burden of guilt and remorse, but only as long as it was because
of Erin, not Jillian. If I had only acted when she’d asked me to,
if I had been the man she’d expected me to be, if I had only
considered her well-being instead of my own blasted rules, then
Jillian would still be alive. We would still be anticipating the
birth of our first child. But I had done none of those things. I
had failed her. I had failed my child. And now it was time for me
to pay the price. It was the least I could do for Jill, for our
baby, considering how I’d let them both down.

I rang Nick on his cell. “Do it,” I ordered. “Call
Alexi. Tell him I want to meet, and that I’ll deliver the girl to
him myself.”

I ended the call and opened another bottle of
tequila, taking a long pull directly from the top. I didn’t even
feel the burn any more, just the poison as it destroyed what little
was left of the man I used to be. I was past numb, a ghost of my
former self.

I swilled the liquor around the bottle then took
another long drink, draining more than half a pint in two swallows.
Jillian once complained that tequila turned me into a mean drunk.
If that was the fuel I needed to see the deed done, then so be
it.

Chapter
Fifteen

Hannah

It was nearly impossible to lay in bed, pretending
to be asleep, as my husband, Beckham, climbed in beside me. I was
furious with him, but, coward that I was, I was simply too afraid
to show it. He hadn’t called me once while he was away on business
in Las Vegas. He was still stewing over our last argument, as was
I. Our last exchange of words kept replaying over and over in my
mind. I squeezed my head between my hands in a fruitless effort to
stem the flow. But I still could not keep them at bay.

“Damn it, Hannah,” Beck had yelled. “You know I
can’t entertain my clients here, not the same way. It’s too cold
and damp. How am I supposed to negotiate million dollar deals if
they aren’t happy? They want to be somewhere warm, somewhere sunny.
Someplace they can relax and get away from all this godforsaken
rain.”

“Well, so would we,” I reminded him. “Conner and I
would like to get away from the rain every once in a while, too.
When you travel during the weekend, why can’t we go with you?” When
he didn’t respond, I answered the question aloud myself. “Because
you don’t want us around, do you?” When he didn’t answer again, I
walked away and shut myself in our bedroom. Minutes later, the
front door slammed shut as he left for the airport. And we hadn’t
spoken since.

Honestly, I understood Beck’s occasional trips
during the work week, the ones he took solely for business, but I
was annoyed when he traveled over the weekends because he did so
for his own pleasure, without considering his family. He explained
they were for the entertainment of his clients, usually to play
golf, something he says they are hard pressed to do in the damp,
often sunless Puget Sound area, even in the springtime.

According to Beck, a warm, sunny golf course was the
perfect location to leisurely negotiate deals and mediate
contracts, while his client was primed with endless amounts of
alcohol, hearty expensive food, and the practiced hands of the
local spa’s beautiful masseuse. Their usual destinations were Palm
Springs, Napa, and occasionally Hawaii, though tonight Beck had
returned from Las Vegas. Lying beside him, my nose was assaulted by
the mixture of his familiar cologne with the sharp aroma of tequila
and women’s perfume, a nauseating brew that repulsed me, though I
ached for his embrace or even a simple touch. Rarely did I get
either.

We spent way too much time apart to make for a
healthy marriage. Even our fifteen-year-old son, Conner, felt the
absence of his father, though he tried not to let on just how much
it hurt that Beck would rather spend time away. They used to be so
close, passing endless hours horsing around with each other, but as
of late, Beck was rarely home, and I felt as bad for Conner as I
did for myself. We were both lonely for him.

It hadn’t always been so. We were very young when we
first started dating and very much in love, but even after ten
years of marriage, Beck had continued to call me three or four
times a day. And when he came home each night, he kissed me
passionately and told me how much he loved me, how much he had
missed my face.

While Conner arrived early in our marriage, his
birth only intensified our feelings for each other, strengthening
the core of our union with the common goal of raising our child.
But when the economy had begun its downturn, Beck allowed the
financial pressures of his job as an IT consultant to worm its way
into our private lives. He worried about sustaining the lifestyle
we had become so accustomed to while residing in our
well-manicured, upscale community on Seattle’s Eastside.

Sammamish, Washington—or The Plateau, as it was
often called—was heavily populated with the families of highly paid
executives from Microsoft, Boeing, and Amazon. They settled here
because the schools were some of the best in the entire state,
while the geography offered unrivaled beauty and spectacular views
of the many lakes, volcanic peaks, and even the Seattle skyline
with the snow-capped Olympic Mountains nestled majestically across
the Sound behind it.