The Wrong Man (63 page)

“Keep to the speed limit. I’ll see you in a bit.”

He thought he should say
Good luck
or
Be careful
or something bland and encouraging. But he did not. Instead, he watched as Hope quickly exited the parking area, and he glanced at his watch, trying to imagine where Sally would be. She was taking a parallel route east. It seemed like a small touch, changing license plates for the day, but he understood that when Sally had talked to both of them about paying attention to small, seemingly insignificant details, there was much truth in what she’d said. For the first time he’d come to understand that everything he’d learned in life up to that point had little relevance to what he was about to do.

On the precipice of sudden cowardice, Scott returned to his truck and readied himself to head east into uncertainty.

Hope drove toward the intersection where the interstate highway branched off to the northeast. She followed Sally’s directions as carefully as possible, keeping her speed within the limits so as not to attract any attention, heading to the spot that Sally had designated, where they would meet up later that day. She decided that it was best if she tried to compartmentalize everything. She thought of what she was about to do as mere items on a checklist, and that she was moving steadily from one to the next.

She tried to think analytically and coldly about the last three entries on her list.

Commit the crime.

Get away. Meet Sally.

Leave no trace of yourself behind.

She wished that she were a mathematician who could see everything she was doing as nothing more than a series of numbers building into theories and probabilities, and who could imagine lives and futures with nothing more passionate than the statistics of an actuary.

This was impossible. So, instead, she tried to work herself into some sort of righteous anger, fixating on Michael O’Connell and his family, insisting to herself that the course they were taking was the only one that he had left open to them, and the only one that he would not have anticipated. If she could make herself angry enough, perhaps rage alone would carry her forward far enough to do what she had volunteered to do.

Someone has to die, she told herself. Before he kills Ashley. She repeated this, like some perverse mantra, over and over for several miles of highway.

Hope remembered games when everything hung in the balance during the last minutes before the referee’s whistle. Reaching deep into that athlete’s dark reservoir for some bit of magic would free her for just the half second needed to decide the contest. As a coach, she had always urged her players to visualize that moment when success or defeat hung in the balance, so that when it inevitably arrived, they were psychologically prepared to do what was necessary, and to act without hesitation.

She imagined that this experience would be the same.

And so, biting down on her lip, she started to picture events as they were imagined by Sally, with the assistance of Scott’s description of the location. She imagined the run-down, decrepit house, the rusted-out car in the front yard, the garage filled with engine parts and debris. She thought she knew what would be inside: the clutter of newspaper, beer bottles, and take-out food, a stale aroma of uselessness. And he would be there. The man who’d created the man who’d created the threat to all of them. She knew that when she faced him, she had to picture Michael O’Connell.

She saw herself waiting.

She saw herself entering.

She saw herself facing the man they had designated for death.

Hope drove east, her mind cluttered, wishing that she could act as if this particular trip were nothing in the least bit out of the ordinary.

By midafternoon, Sally had driven to Boston and parked on the street opposite Michael O’Connell’s apartment building, with a clear view of the entrance. In her hand, she clutched the key that Hope had given her.

She was scrunched down behind the wheel of her car, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, while all the time believing that everyone on the block had already seen her, memorized her face, and taken down her license plate number. She knew these fears were groundless, but they were there, right on the edge of her imagination, right at the point where fear threatens to start taking over emotions and actions, and it was all Sally could do to keep things in check.

She wished she had O’Connell’s easy familiarity with darkness. It would help her—and Scott and Hope, as well—with what they were trying to do.

Again, she shook her head. Her sole act of rebellion, of stepping outside the routine strictures of society, was her relationship with Hope. She wanted to laugh at herself. A middle-aged, middle-class woman, unsure about her relationship with her partner, didn’t really amount to much of an outlaw.

And certainly didn’t amount to much of a killer.

She picked up her sheet of yellow notepaper and tried to picture where all the others were. Hope would be waiting for her. Scott would be in position. Ashley would be at home with Catherine. And Michael O’Connell would be inside—she hoped.

What made you think you could plan this and pull it off? she suddenly demanded of herself.

It.

She felt her throat go dry.
It
wasn’t a fair contraction. Call
it
what
it
is. A murder. Premeditated. First-degree murder. The sort of scheme that in some states would send you to the electric chair or gas chamber. Even with the extenuating circumstances,
it
would still buy twenty-five years to life.

Not for Ashley, she thought. Ashley would remain safe.

And then, just as abruptly, she realized what she was thinking. Everyone’s life would be ruined. Except O’Connell’s. His would remain on the same path as before, and there would be little in the way of his pursuit of Ashley, or, if he so chose, some other Ashley.

There would be no one left to defend her.

Make it work.

She looked up, saw shadows start to creep over the building rooftops, and, she told herself, It begins now.

He clutched the cell phone in his hand and felt a thrill of excitement, but kept himself calm until he heard the familiar voice on the other end.

“Michael? Is that you?”

He inhaled sharply. “Hello, Ashley.”

“Hello, Michael.”

They were both quiet for a second. Ashley took a moment to stare down at the papers her mother had prepared for her. A script, with key sentences underlined three times. But the pages seemed blurry, indistinct. In the silence of Ashley’s hesitation, Michael O’Connell rocked forward in his seat. The phone call was wonderful and terrible at the same time. It told him he was winning. He could barely contain the grin that creased his face. His right leg started to twitch, like a drummer using his foot to control the thunder of the bass drum.

“It’s wonderful to hear your voice,” he said. “It seems as if so many people are trying to keep us apart. You know that will never happen. I won’t let it.” He smiled, laughed a little, and added, “It does no good for them to try to hide you. You’ve seen that, haven’t you? There’s nowhere that I can’t find you.”

Ashley closed her eyes for a moment. His words were like splinters in her skin.

“Michael, I’ve asked you over and over to leave me alone. I’ve tried everything I could to help you understand that we are not going to be together. I don’t want you in my life. Not at all.” Everything she said, she knew she’d said before. To no effect. She didn’t expect anything different this time. The world she lived in was mad, and no amount of reason or rationale was going to change it.

“I know you don’t mean that,” he said, an instant chill in his voice. “I know that you’ve been put up to say that. All these people who want you to be someone that you aren’t. I know that it’s other people who are dictating everything you say. That’s why I’m not paying any attention to it.”

Ashley almost panicked at the word
dictating
as she glanced down at her script. What if he’d somehow seen everything, somehow managed to learn everything?

“No, Michael. No. A million times, no. You’ve got it wrong. You’ve gotten it wrong from the very start. We are not going to be together.”

“It’s destiny, Ashley. It was meant to be.”

“No. How can you think that?”

“You don’t understand love. True love. Complete love. Love never ends,” he continued coldly, letting every word echo across the line. “Love never stops. Love never leaves. It is always right inside. You should know that. You imagine yourself to be an artist, but you cannot understand the simplest thing. What’s wrong with you, Ashley?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said sharply.

“Yes, there is.” O’Connell rocked in his seat. “Sometimes I think you’re really sick, Ashley. Diseased. There’s got to be something wrong with someone who can’t understand the truth. Who refuses to listen to their heart. But you shouldn’t be worried, Ashley, because I can fix you. I’m going to be there for you. No matter what happens, no matter what bad things take place, you need to know, I will always be there for you.”

Ashley could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She felt utterly helpless.

“Please, Michael.”

“You don’t need to be afraid of anything.” His voice was filled with dark anger that lay right below the words he spoke. “I will protect you.”

Everything he said, she thought, was the exact opposite.
Protect
meant
hurt. Don’t be afraid
meant
Be scared of everything.

The hopelessness of her situation nearly overcame her. She felt a wave of nausea, and a flood of heat on her forehead. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, as if she could stop the room from spinning around her. It will never end.

Ashley opened her eyes and looked wildly at Catherine.

Catherine could only hear one-half of the conversation, but she knew it was going poorly. She thrust her index finger down hard on the script, jabbing at the words as hard as she could. “Say it! Say it, Ashley!” she whispered frantically.

Ashley lifted her hand and wiped away the tears. She inhaled deeply. She did not know what she was setting in motion, but she knew it was something terrible.

“Michael,” she said slowly, “I’ve really, really tried. I’ve tried to say no to you in every way I could. I don’t know why you can’t understand it. Really, I don’t. There’s something inside of you I will never understand. So I’m going right now to speak with the only person I could think of who ever managed to get you to do what they tell you to. Someone who might be able to tell me what I need to say to you to make you understand. Someone who will know how I can get you out of my life. Someone I’m absolutely one hundred percent certain will help me get rid of you. Someone I can trust to help me.”

Everything she said, she knew, was designed to provoke every ounce of rage he held.

O’Connell didn’t reply, and Ashley thought perhaps for the first time that he might be listening to her.

“There’s only one person in the world I think you’re really scared of. So I’m going to see him tonight.”

“What are you saying?” O’Connell asked abruptly. “Who are you talking about? Someone who can help you? No one can help you, Ashley. No one except me.”

“You’re wrong about that. There is one man.”

“Who?” O’Connell’s shout leaped across the line.

“Do you know where I am, Michael?”

“No.”

“I’m a short ways from your home, Michael. Not the apartment where you live, but the home where you grew up. I’m on my way right now to see your father,” Ashley lied as coldly as she could, pausing slightly between each word. “He can help me.” And then she hung up. And when the phone started to ring within seconds, she ignored it.

Sally looked up from behind the wheel and felt a current of electricity surge through her entire body. Michael O’Connell, moving furiously quickly, had exited the apartment building. He was jamming his arms into his overcoat as he took the steps in a single leap, then hurried down the block, almost sprinting. Sally reached down and grasped a cheap stopwatch from the passenger-side car seat. She punched the
ON
button when she saw O’Connell lurch into his car and rapidly pull out, tires complaining loudly.

She picked up the cell phone and hit the speed dial.

When she heard Scott’s voice on the other end, she replied, “On his way right now,” before hanging up.

Scott would start his own stopwatch.

She could not hesitate. There was so little time. Sally grabbed a backpack that contained several critical items and immediately exited her car, rapidly crossing the street toward O’Connell’s apartment. She kept her head lowered and pulled a ski cap down as low as she could. She was dressed in Salvation Army clothes: jeans, worn sneakers, and a man’s peacoat. She wore leather gloves over a skintight set of latex surgical gloves.