Silence.
A second later, he slammed his car door shut and sped away. Alec continued to record as the vehicle swerved down the street.
He started his engine and pulled up next to the runner to see if he was okay. He opened his door next to the limp body, saw the wide-open eyes and knew. He was dead.
Holy shit. That drunken asshole had killed this guy and just left him. He looked up and was still able to see the drunk’s red tail lights in the distance.
He closed his car door and pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. He isn’t going to get away with this, I’ve got two loaded guns, and I’m going to get him.
He raced after the van, adrenaline pumping through his body, his heart about to jump out of his chest. He was going to get this guy, make a citizen’s arrest, call the cops and be a hero.
Driving sixty miles an hour down residential streets, Alec caught up with the van. He slowed down so his quarry wouldn’t notice him following. The drunk was now only a single block ahead.
Then, without signaling, the van made a right turn. Alec followed, keeping his distance, filming with his right hand, steering with his left. The neighborhood grew seedier the further they went but Alec didn’t care, he had his own arsenal.
Another mile and the drunk made a left onto Ashland Street. The road was lined with houses in various stages of disrepair, more than one car up on cinder blocks. Alec took a shot of the street sign as he turned so he’d be able to retrace his steps if he had to. The minivan slowed and pulled crookedly into the driveway of a small, beat up, yellow ranch house sorely in need of some tender loving care.
Alec stopped his car several hundred feet behind and turned off the engine. He carefully removed the handgun from the glove compartment and took a few deep breaths. The drunk got out of his van, stumbled across the gravel drive and fell onto the front lawn.
After a couple of minutes, seeing no further movement, Alec slowly got out of the car. He noticed he couldn’t feel his legs underneath him as he moved silently like a panther towards the downed man.
In seconds he was alongside him, glaring down at his weather-beaten face. A streetlight flooded the yard, so he was able to get a good look. Lying on his back, the unconscious man appeared to be no more than forty and in need of a shave. The drunk reeked of booze, body odor and a faint smell of urine.
‘Get up,’ Alec commanded as he pushed the man with his foot.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ slurred the drunk coming to life, turning his head to focus his eyes.
‘I’m the guy who’s gonna turn you over to the cops,’ Alec said, pulling out his phone and starting to dial.
‘Fuck off,’ the drunk said, closing his eyes again. ‘Get the fuck out of my yard.’
‘Maybe this will wake you up,’ Alec said, pulling out his gun and waving it in the man’s face, filming now with the camera on his phone. The man opened one eye, saw the gun and sat up on his elbows.
‘Get that away from me,’ he slurred. ‘What the fuck do you want? I ain’t got no money.’
‘I don’t want your fucking money, you piece of crap,’ Alec said. ‘You hit a man with your car, and you left him to die. I’ve got the whole thing on video.’
‘Get the fuck out of here. I didn’t hit nobody,’ said the drunk waving him away.
‘You’re so whacked out on booze, you don’t even know how screwed you are. Now, get up,’ Alec said as he kicked the drunk in the leg causing the man to wince.
‘Listen,’ the drunk pleaded, ‘it was an accident. He came out of nowhere. He shouldn’t have been running at night, anyway. It was his own fault. Who runs in the dark?’
‘You were smashed when you came out of that bar. I saw you. You hit him and left him to die.’
‘I didn’t leave him to die, he was already dead,’ the drunk protested. ‘That guy was cold. Get that gun out of my face.’
‘You think I’m afraid to use this?’
Alec pointed his weapon at the guy’s head. ‘Ask yourself a question. Are you absolutely sure I won’t blow your fucking head off?’
When the drunk finally realized he was dealing with a lunatic, he frantically offered money, apologies, and eventually, the sexual services of his girlfriend, hoping the deranged man with the gun would go away. Proffering the girlfriend made Alec laugh out loud. He was enjoying this little scene. He felt like the town sheriff. He was Wyatt Earp keeping law and order in Tombstone. Yeah!
‘What’s your name?’ Alec demanded, still waving the gun.
The drunk guy stared at him, trying to devise an escape plan.
‘Tell me your goddamned name or say goodbye to your head.’
‘Calm down, man,’ the drunk shouted. ‘I got a kid.’
Alec smirked. Like I care if this scum is somebody’s daddy? Clearly, he doesn’t know me at all. The cops might give me a commendation or put my picture in the paper for bringing this guy in. Maybe I’d get interviewed on Good Morning America or the Today show. That would be cool.
He punched 911 into his phone and smiled.
Chapter 55
Some people have good luck. Some have no luck. Victor Malecki had bad fucking luck which is even worse.
He’d gone out for a few drinks and laughs with some guys from his old neighborhood. When they were teenagers, they used to boost cars together and a bunch of other things he didn’t like to talk about. Let’s just say, cops weren’t his friends and he knew first-hand what the inside of a jail cell looked like. He was no choir boy, he’d done some bad things in his life, some evil things.
It was supposed to be a nothing night, no business, just Victor and some guys hanging out at the Dew Drop. They had a bunch of beers and started playing pool. The shots began around midnight. By the third or fourth round, the drinks started going down real easy. Victor couldn’t even remember what kind of shots he’d had. Maybe rum or tequila, or a few of each. After a while, he lost count. He and his friends closed the place at 2am. Then, the bartender locked the front door and let them hang out to continue drinking until four thirty.
When they finally left and were out on the street, Victor realized he’d left his wallet on the bar and told the guys to wait for him while he went back inside to get it. When he came out, his friends were gone, and the street was dark and deserted. Fuck them, he thought.
He stumbled to his car and stepped hard on the gas pedal when suddenly a runner was right in front of his headlights. His vehicle and the man collided. What the hell just happened? he thought, slamming on his brakes. He got out of the car to look. His headlights were right on the man lying in a pool of blood. Victor nudged the guy with his foot and decided he was dead.
If the cops came now and found him, they’d haul him off to jail, and he’d probably go down for manslaughter. With all his priors, he’d be looking at some serious time, maybe life. He was still on parole. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking at all. He looked around, nobody was on the street, and he thought maybe, for once, his luck had changed. He got back in his car and pressed the gas pedal gently, easing his car slowly down the road, not wanting to attract any attention.
Relieved when he finally arrived in front of his rundown ranch, he got out of his car. He was home free. As he walked towards his front door, he tripped on a piece of concrete and landed on his back on the lawn. Exhausted, he decided to rest on the grass for a minute, grateful he had made it home without running into any police. Everything was going to be alright.
He lay on the lawn for a couple of minutes when he was interrupted by some crazy guy talking all kinds of smack. The stranger said he had witnessed him hit a runner and followed him home. He said he had a video of the whole thing and he was going to call the cops.
At first, Victor thought the crazy guy was full of shit and wished he would go away and leave him in peace. He had a pretty good buzz on, and he didn’t feel like getting up and dealing with this maniac. Then the crazy guy started waving a gun around, telling Victor he wasn’t afraid to use it and t
hat he was calling 911 so the cops would come and make an arrest.
Victor indeed had terrible fucking luck.
Chapter 56
Everyone was looking forward to the Cranbury High twenty-fifth reunion. No one was more excited than Mark Miller because he had heard she would be there.
When the night came, everyone agreed that Quinn Delaney didn’t look a day older than when they had graduated. In high school, every guy had had a crush on her and from the looks they gave her at the reunion, most of them still did. She was still the ‘it’ girl. In high school, Quinn had been funny and silly, always giggling. She made people feel good about themselves when they were with her.
Despite her popularity, she somehow was able to transcend gossip. Women could sometimes be ruthless about other women. Girls could be vicious, especially towards the real pretty ones. Mark had seen his wife and her friends rip another woman to shreds over the smallest transgression. In high school that had never happened to Quinn, probably because she was so darn nice, he thought. She had been a benevolent queen, routinely asking the shyest, nerdiest girls to sit at her lunch table like a majesty summoning them to court. The gawky girls thought they had died and gone to heaven when Quinn validated them with a luncheon invitation. She didn’t do it for herself. She had a huge heart.
During high school, most of the guys were jealous of Mark Miller because he was Quinn Delaney’s boyfriend for all of junior and senior year. He admitted now that he wasn’t always the best boyfriend. He was only a kid when they started going out and still trying to figure out how to navigate a relationship. Given that his parents were divorced and his old man was a drunk, he didn’t have many good role models.
When they were seventeen, Quinn grew more dependent on him and became clingy. Sometimes it felt suffocating to Mark. At other times, when she’d pull away, he’d get possessive. They were kids; neither one knew how to do relationships. Mark thought acting macho showed he cared. That behavior was what ultimately drove her away.
As the reunion approached, Mark thought about how much he had changed since high school and wondered whether, if he had been less controlling with Quinn, maybe she wouldn’t have broken up with him. At one point, he’d thought he was going to marry her, aware that girls like Quinn came along once in a lifetime.
After they went to college, they both got caught up in their new lives, and Mark never saw Quinn again. He eventually married Annie. They’d been married for twenty-two years and had problems like most married people do. Now that their kids were in college, there wasn’t much to talk about anymore except the bills, always plenty of those. They each did their own thing. She had her stuff, He had his. They co-existed.
Someone told Mark that Quinn was going to be at the reunion and that she was getting divorced. He was pretty sure he was still in love with her.
That night, he was nervous as he walked into the party. It was crowded, and he scanned the room for his old girlfriend. He looked from face to face for those twinkly blue eyes. He spotted Cathy Franz and Liza Columbo, Quinn’s best friends, and figured she would be nearby. He looked to the left of Cathy and then to her right, and that’s when he saw her. Quinn Delaney, once again holding court. She was wearing a long navy gown and had some kind of diamond thing in her hair. He thought she looked like a princess in one of those fairy-tale books. He took a deep breath, walked across the room and approached her from behind. He carefully put his hands over her eyes, cupping them to make sure he didn’t mess up her eye make-up, something his wife had taught him to do.
‘Guess who, my dear,’ he said in a high-pitched voice and unidentifiable foreign accent.
‘I don’t know,’ said Quinn, laughing. ‘That’s not fair, it could be anyone.’
Mark’s heart beat faster as he lifted his hands and spun her around.
‘Mark,’ she squealed with a big smile and gave him a hug. ‘Mark Miller, oh my God. You look great. Cathy, look, it’s Mark.’
All the feelings for her came flooding back like a freight train. He was seventeen again, standing next to his girl. She looked exactly the way he remembered. Thrilled to be with her again, he didn’t notice her underlying sadness.
That whole evening, Mark reprised his role as her boyfriend, fetching her glasses of wine or appetizers. He stayed by her side every minute. A few other guys tried to muscle in, but he held his ground and Quinn was genuinely happy to have him next to her, just like old times. Several of their classmates commented that seeing them together made them feel like they were all back in high school. That was how it felt to Mark, too. He liked that feeling.
He and Quinn drank more wine and hit the dance floor. In his arms, she felt the same way she used to. She even smelled the same. It felt like he had just arrived when the overhead lights flickered and someone shouted that they had to be out of there in fifteen minutes. Mark looked at his watch. It was almost one in the morning. Half the people in the room had already left, and those remaining were gathering their belongings.
Quinn kissed him on the cheek and said she had to go, that she was getting a ride to her parents’ house from Cathy. When Mark offered to drive her home so they could chat a little more, she accepted. They walked to his car still laughing and talking about the highlights of the night. A half mile from her parents’ place, Mark pulled over into a parking lot next to St. Gabriel’s, the Catholic church she had been married in.
‘What are you doing?’ Quinn asked. ‘Why are you stopping here?’
‘Quinn,’ he said, putting the car into park. ‘I want to say something to you before I take you home. I’m just going to say it. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. Quinn, I’m still in love with you.’
Chapter 57
QUINN
You could have knocked me over with a Q-tip. I went to my high school reunion to have a good time, just wanted a fun night with old friends. I was hanging out with my former boyfriend, Mark, and he comes on to me. Tells me he’s still in love with me. I haven’t seen the guy in twenty-five years. How could he be in love with me? He doesn’t even know me. I’m not the same person he knew in high school. I’m married with two grown children. I’ve lived a life since we knew each other. I’m different. I’m broken.
Mark stood next to me the entire night. I kind of liked the attention. It’s been a while since I was the belle of the ball. It felt good to be that person again, the one all the boys wanted to dance with. Mark looked pretty good. A little older and grayer, a little heavier but he was still handsome. At the beginning of the night, it felt like old times. For a few minutes, I pretended he was my boyfriend, and then I remembered who I really am and where I was.
He offered to drive me home, so I accepted. All night our conversation had been about happy things we did in high school, this party or that football game. Light stuff, nothing profound. Then on the way to my parents’ house, he pulled over by the church and told me he still loves me.
‘I mean it, Quinn,’ he said. ‘I never forgot about you. I married Annie, but I never stopped loving you.’
That’s messed up, I thought. You married your wife while you were still in love with me. I felt sorry for this Annie because I knew what it was like living with a liar and a cheat.
‘We were so good together tonight,’ Mark continued. ‘Everyone said so. They said it was just like when we were a couple in high school.’
‘But we’re not in high school, Mark. I’m married and so are you.’
‘You’re getting divorced. I’ll leave Annie,’ he said. ‘We don’t spend any time together, anyway. Quinn, what do you say, we can make this work.’
What the hell? Mark may have been in love with me, but I haven’t given him a single thought in twenty-five years. We were not on the same page. He convinced himself that I had the same feelings. I didn’t.
He leaned over to kiss me for a second, and I pulled back.
‘Mark, what are you doing?’ I cried. ‘Put the car in drive. Take me to my parents’ house. I don’t want to do this.’
He looked surprised, hurt and disappointed.
‘Look, I know I’m springing all this on you,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Just think about it. We don’t have to make any decisions tonight.’
When we got to my parents’ house, he gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I let him because, well, I just did. It was easier. I had enough chaos in my life. I thought about calling his wife and filling her in on our conversation, but then I thought it would be mean, so I just put it behind me and hoped he never called. I wished I hadn’t given him my phone number and address in Newbridge. Too late now.
Chapter 58
Alison and Alec lived over an hour away from each other. Because of the distance, they typically only got together on weekends. Weekday dinners were rare, except for the week Quinn died. That week Alison saw Alec every day. He had been preoccupied with work projects and said there were significant changes at the university and he was involved in the planning. He ducked out in the backyard on his cell phone several times that week to talk to colleagues about what he said were ‘urgent issues’.
On Sundays, Alison usually left his place in the early evening so she’d be home to get ready for work the next day. That Sunday he begged her to stay longer, saying he was in the mood to barbecue, so she stayed until about ten. When she got home an hour later, he insisted on FaceTiming with her and kept her up video chatting until one in the morning. She remembered the next day she was exhausted.
On Monday, he called her at work and asked her to come over and watch a game. She balked, saying she was too tired but he dangled a home cooked lobster dinner in front of her. Alison could never say no to lobster and agreed. On Tuesday night, he called her around seven in a panic. He had a huge presentation with the president of the university the following morning and had accidentally left an important file at her condo the week before. He asked if she would bring it over and spend the night. She agreed but didn’t stay and went home a little before midnight. Wednesday night he drove to her place to take her out to dinner as a thank you for bringing him the file. He stayed with her that night. Thursday, he got tickets for them to go to a lecture at UR. Then they planned to spend the entire weekend together at his house.
I Am Quinn Page 16
