The Victim (22 page)

He eased up, stepped away from the wall, resuming some confidence in the sense that she was culpable of wrongdoing, too. He wasn’t the only one.

She fell into the sofa and crossed her legs, tugging the robe down to cover herself up. “I drove Bryan home ’cause I dropped two roofies in his martini when he got up to take a piss. The stuff you get in the States nowadays turns color, but the good stuff? The pills you can still find in Europe? They’re odorless, tasteless, and colorless. One of my friends is a club promoter down on South Beach; he hooked me up. Bryan didn’t know where the hell he was.”

Mandy was right about the source of the benzodiazapine.

“
The belt?”

She stifled a laugh. “You can’t wrap a belt around your neck and tug real hard?” She imitated the motion, mouth open, tongue wagging, mimicking herself choking. She laughed again and reached for her drink. “You heard the 911 tape, right?”

“
I did.”

“
And the Oscar goes to…”

“
You sick bitch.”

“
Maybe a little.” She flashed that flirty smile that seemed revolting to him at this point. “But you’re no prime example of mental health. You burned two people alive. Can’t say I’ve ever done that.”

“
Why are you doing this to me?”

“
Hmm…Wow.” She chewed her top lip, eyes fixed in contemplation. “You know what? In almost eleven years of tracking your movements, spying on you online, relocating to Miami to get a little bit closer to you, getting married and then using that as a damn good way of getting to you, I never once thought about why. It just felt…I dunno.” She shrugged. “Just felt right. How are Gina and Charlotte by the way? Charley, you guys call her, right?”

Anton took a hard step forward. “You shut your fucking mouth and don’t ever mention them again!”

She rocked with laughter. “
Jeez
, so sensitive. Facebook’s a funny little phenomenon. It’s a study in human narcissism, but funny nevertheless. Gina should really opt for a private profile. It’s been like a window into your life for the last four years.”

He waved her off and turned around, heading for the door. “This is bullshit.”

“
You gonna go home and tell your wife what we did?” He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. “Why wait? Call her up now. Maybe she’s one of those new age types who understands that when women cheat it’s to fill an emotional void but for men it’s usually just physical. Nothing more. It’s sex. Big deal. Maybe she gets past it.

“
Now the Miami legal community and all those prospective miscreants who may one day need your services? They might not be so appreciative that you violate your incarcerated client’s trust by fucking his wife.”

“
I’ll withdraw from Bryan’s case. I’ll become a defense witness and testify that you told me you made everything up. That he never touched you.”

She nodded sarcastically. “
Oh-kay
, Anton. You do that. And please tell the jury, Mr. Mackey, where you were when the defendant’s wife made these admissions?” She dropped her voice to a dopey octave. “Uh, gee, Madam Prosecutor, musta been right after we fucked.”

“
You have no proof.”

Daniella fell into hysteria, her knees tucked up to her chest, wrapped in her arms, rocking on the edge of the sofa. She caught her breath. “You’re confident about that. Remember, Mr. Mackey, I seem to recall finding your DNA on a cigarette lighter alongside a highway in Arizona.” She motioned to the bedroom with her head. “I don’t recall us taking any precautions in there.”

“
What do you want?”

“
Like I said. The truth. You come clean; I’ll come clean. As of this moment, I’m the victim, poor and abused at the hands of my evil husband whose life rests in your hands. He’s sitting in jail right now. You know I can switch gears and tug on the heartstrings of the judge and the jury.

“
So I have no qualms about getting up on that witness stand and lying my little butt off and watching as Bryan gets, I dunno, ten, twenty years? Life, maybe? And you can live with the fact that you—
again
—allowed an innocent person to lose their life so you could save face.

“
But,
if you admit to what you’ve done and take responsibility, then I’ll do the same. I’ll march right into court, admit that Bryan didn’t do a thing, and that I invited him out with the intent of drugging him and framing him for a crime. Who knows what personal and professional consequences you’ll face? Your wife will probably leave you and she’ll want you to have nothing to do with your daughter. You’ll definitely go to prison, although a judge might show you a little mercy for finally coming forward after you clearly got away with murder. In the end, an innocent person will be free and out of this mess. That alone should mean something to you.”

He knelt down to pick up his briefcase. His movements were slow and measured, as if by his own deliberate actions he could delay the passage of time. He felt grimy in his own skin, his thighs stuck to his boxer shorts. He could smell her on his hands. As badly as he wanted to walk through that door, he was paralyzed by the fear of what was about to happen in the world beyond it.

CHAPTER 24

He parked alongside the road in the shadow of the highway onramp. A dreadlocked vagrant stumble-stepped over to the passenger window and tapped on the pane. Anton lowered the window. The man set his hands on the sill. Under the dome light Anton could see the black grit under his fingernails. He could smell the dour stench of rotting clothes and body odor. Anton handed him a few coins he fished out of the center console. The frigid air rushed inside the heated car, Anton noticing that the man was dripping with layers of threadbare jackets. Must have been in the mid-forties. The man nodded a silent thanks and went on his way, trudging down the street, disappearing into an alley behind a Payless Shoes.

Anton watched him, all too willing to trade places with him.

An after-work train rattled the Metrorail tracks zigzagging over downtown. Traffic on 95 inched along the interchanges that looped above the city. The honks of a thousand impatient motorists filled the narrow street: Miami’s soundtrack.

Tears turned the world into a glassy blur, contorting the oncoming headlights into streaks of bright white. A crowd gathered across the street in front of a cafe, sipping Cuban coffee by the open service window, pulling their coats tightly around their bodies.

He opened the glove box and reached for his carry piece. He had gotten his permit back when he was a prosecutor and had renewed it last year. Living his life in the business of criminal justice gave him an insider’s look into the worst of south Florida. For every waterfront mansion, there were a dozen housing projects. For every Maserati, there were a thousand desperate fools willing to kill you for it. He knew which bridges the sex predators slept under, fucked by the county’s housing ordinance. He knew which liquor stores had the blood of dead cashiers staining the laminate floors. Like a psychic ability, it was a blessing and a curse.

His carry piece was a snub-nosed nickel-plated Smith & Wesson .38. Anton preferred revolvers. They were more reliable, wouldn’t jam on you like a semi-automatic could. His home defense piece was also a revolver, a Colt Anaconda .44 he kept in a lockbox in his nightstand.

He popped out the cylinder and inspected the six little primers on the brass-jacketed rounds.

What if?

He clicked the cylinder back into place, rubbing his thumb along the hammer spur. There was a time shortly after the accident where he had accepted suicide as a viable option. An entire life spent preparing for a future, gone in the time it took to drive drunk and fail to apply the brakes.

If the cops were coming for him they wouldn’t take him alive. He kept that promise to himself tucked away, his last resort, like an astronaut’s cyanide pill. As time passed and it became apparent that he wouldn’t be charged, he had forgotten all about it.

The memory of March 16, 2003, would never leave. It was a daily visitor, fleeting in and out of his mind. He could still hear the crunch of his nose breaking against the thrust of the airbag. He could still taste the salty blood. He could still see the sparks lighting up the road as the wreck skidded against the guardrail.

He pressed the bore up under his chin, pushing it hard into the flesh until he could feel it with his tongue. His finger nervously grazed the trigger.

He wasn’t as worried about going to prison. The lawyer in him knew that his DNA on a lighter found at the scene wasn’t enough on its own to convict him. It was undisputed that he had signed for the RVs, that he and three other guys had each driven one up the Beeline out of Phoenix. He never mentioned the lighter in any of the statements he had given to police back in 2003 but he had admitted to being inside of the RV. It wasn’t beyond reason to think that somebody else could have discarded a piece of his property—that imaginary drifter whom the police assumed had stolen the RV out of the parking lot.

He smacked his dry mouth, still tasting the lingering vodka. He cursed himself for being so weak, for succumbing to such basic pleasures. What was wrong with him? It was like a compulsion. The same thing had motivated him to hike a mile through dark woods before the crack of dawn, drunkenly pawing his way around, pushing off of tree trunks, and stumbling over roots and patches of loose pine needles. Then, he chose to get in the driver’s seat of the RV, convincing himself that he was okay to make the eighty-mile drive home. All in the hopes of a ten-second orgasm.

How something that trivial could lead him astray tensed his trigger finger, applied just a hint of pressure. He closed his eyes. Like a crack addict who kills for the change in their victim’s pocket, he felt desperate. He thought of Gina and the tears streamed down his cheeks. How in the midst of her illness, all he could think about was himself, his needs. How their lack of intimacy bred resentment.

It wasn’t the fear of prison. It was the fear of losing her and Charlotte.

He placed the gun in the glove box and veered back onto the road.

***

He couldn’t look at her.

Anton walked inside the house, head bowed, straight to the bedroom. He looked at their bed, a husky California king. She’d taken the time to tuck in the sheets and fluff the pillows, to fold back the comforter. Every night Gina would lie beside him, sleeping inches away from an unfaithful husband. He turned away, haunted by his indiscretions.

He could hear Charley playing on the floor, shrieking, experimenting with her newfound voice. The smell of steaks broiling in the oven filled the house. He could see Samson in the backyard, through the sliding glass door, running along the back fence, mirroring the actions of the neighbor’s chocolate lab.

“
Hey,” Gina said, chopping an onion, glancing behind her. She puckered her lips in an expectant kiss. Anton kissed her quickly, afraid that by prolonging it she would somehow know. She licked her lips, scrunched her face. “You been drinking?”

“
Yeah, just one,” he said, grabbing a bottle of Zephyrhills water from the fridge. “Stopped at Tobacco Road to grab a drink with Mandy on the way home.”

She studied his bloodshot eyes. “Have you been crying?”

“
Huh?”

“
Your eyes. They’re all red.”

“
Nah.” He shook his head dismissively. “I think the weather’s irritating them.”

She accepted the answer and resumed chopping vegetables and dumping them into a giant salad bowl by the handful. “I hope you’re hungry. Got those New York strips you like.”

Anton smiled, although the thought of food made him sick.

He walked into the family room and sat on Charley’s play mat. He opened his arms. Excitedly, she crawled into his lap, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, pulling herself to a standing position. She wobbled for a moment before tentatively letting go, holding her arms out for balance. Beaming with pride, Charley held firm for a moment before plopping onto the mat, her fall cushioned by her diaper. She laughed and lunged forward to do it again.