by E. A. Barres
“These grants are for everything,” Deb replied. “Copy machines, staff, travel, meetings. Security would definitely fall in there. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering. I have a friend who could use some help.”
“Who?”
“A mom in the neighborhood.”
“Oh. Well, let me know if I can help.”
“I will.”
Kim still sounded uncertain. Deb noticed it. “Is everything okay? Are things good with Sean?”
“They are, yeah. We’re okay. I’ve just been thinking about something.”
“What’s that?”
“I guess it’s something I’ve been thinking about more, since the baby came and Sean and I are figuring out how to adjust and everything.”
Now a note of hesitancy in Deb’s voice. “Okay.”
“It’s just, I don’t want to ask about this, but I thought you and Dad were happy. Did you ever know …”
Deb’s attitude turned harsh and cold. She felt it, didn’t fight it. “I told you, I’m not going to talk about what happened.”
“But it’s just …”
“Is there someone else?”
“No, I don’t think so. He just seems to have a lot of work.”
“I meant for you.”
“No. And Melissa and I don’t talk anymore.”
“You finally ended things?”
Kim nodded. “We couldn’t really keep in touch after I got married. Too hard.”
Silence.
Kim didn’t tell her mom about Hannah, the married woman down the street from her house who had a daughter Diane’s age. Who had mentioned to Kim that she’d also dated women and men when Kim revealed her past during an afternoon playdate. Who had grown more affectionate in their friendship since then, long smiles and playful laughing touches on the arm.
Kim didn’t want to acknowledge it yet.
And she didn’t want to acknowledge that if this attraction was there for her, maybe there was someone else in Sean’s life too.
“I just want to know,” Kim said slowly, “if you ever knew Dad wasn’t happy. Could you tell?”
Deb’s face grew hot, and she struggled to keep her emotions down. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“I know.” Kim saw her mom’s expression, saw the pain behind her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Kim and Deb helped Diane out of the jumper and put her on the floor. The baby played with some animal-shaped blocks Deb had set out.
“Why do you want to know?” Deb asked.
“I guess I just worry. I never thought about it until now. Now that I’m in that same place.”
Deb didn’t reply.
The two women watched Diane lift and drop the blocks.
* * *
Later that day, as the afternoon was ending, Deb turned off her computer. Leaned back in her chair, rubbed her eyes.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what Kim had asked.
Truthfully, she’d never been able to stop thinking about it.
The guilt was still there, somewhere buried under the surface. Along with the memories and pain of those frantic, hellish weeks a decade ago. Like a murdered corpse in a shallow grave, with the chance the slightest rain could expose the body.
And sometimes that guilt did rise in Deb. The feeling of the gun in her hand, the way that after she pulled the trigger, Levi’s head snapped back to the ground. Like the bullet was a nail driving his head down.
And when those images haunted her, she remembered what she’d told herself. The excuses she’d turned into reasons. Levi would never stop coming for her. She had to keep Kim safe. He’d killed Grant. He and Temple and the rest of their friends had trafficked an untold number of people. He’d lied to her. He was probably going to die from Temple’s shot anyway. She hadn’t meant to pull the trigger.
The face of the killer.
She stood from her chair, walked to the window. Peered through her reflection out to the wintry city of Falls Church.
The small shops and restaurants, the people hurrying through the cold, doing their best to step carefully on the ice, habit still keeping them distanced. Dogs trotting ahead of their owners.
Deb pulled on her coat and boots, headed outside.
It had begun snowing again.
Flakes floated down peacefully, lingering, touching the ground as tentatively as a cat’s nervous paw. The streets were quiet, and the early evening atmosphere lent winter’s blue romance to the neighborhood.
It really is lovely, Deb thought.
She walked through the snow, felt the cold flakes melt on her face. It was cold and it was pretty and it was her life, and she had to keep moving forward.
She wanted to.
And at that moment, warm in the winter, snow melting in her hair, still feeling the memory of her granddaughter pressed against her body, Deb never wanted anything more.
* * *
Kim undid the car seat, notched it in the crook of her arm, carried it and her daughter through the falling snow and into the coffee shop.
Saw Cessy Castillo sitting at a booth, sipping from a tall plastic cup of some sort of iced coffee.
“Hey, fucker!” Cessy cheerfully called out, and then her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, shit, can Di understand swearing yet?”
“Not yet, dumbass,” Kim replied good-naturedly. “But soon. You have a few more months. Give me a hand?”
Cessy was already sliding out of the booth, wiping her hands with a sanitizing cloth. She took the baby from Kim, held Diane tight to her chest, hoping she didn’t wake up. If she did, Cessy knew from experience she’d have no luck calming the baby down.
“I’ll be right back,” Kim said. “Let me just get my bag from the car.”
“I got her,” Cessy said. “Sort of. Hurry back.”
“You’re fine.”
Crap, Cessy thought, eyeing Diane. She’s waking up. She watched the baby’s expression turn troubled, the closed eyes squeezing, mouth puckering.
Fortunately, Kim walked back in and took the baby; at this point, Kim didn’t need to ask Cessy if she still wanted to hold her. Not that Cessy disliked Diane—she actually liked her a lot, to the point that her affection was a surprise—but she was more than happy to let someone else handle her.
“How are you?” Kim asked as she set Diane in the seat.
“Good! Nothing’s changed since last month.”
“Are those new bruises on your hand?”
Cessy involuntarily glanced down, surprised Kim had noticed. “Just a couple.”
“Another difficult dude?”
“Sometimes they don’t take no for an answer.”
Kim glanced at Diane, smiled at her sleeping child. Then she took a sip from the coffee Cessy had ordered for her. “Tell me about it.”
Cessy shrugged. “He showed up at the office when his wife was there. Screaming stuff. I asked him to leave and he wouldn’t.”
“So you led him outside?”
“Someone had to.”
“And it had to be you? I know we’ve talked about this before, but aren’t you ever going to hire security?”
“Security would probably want to be paid.”
Kim frowned. “I know I’ve said this to you from day one, when you told me you were starting this organization—”
“And every month since.”
“And every month since,” Kim agreed, “but I’m worried about you. It’s just you alone helping these women. And they have people in their lives who want to hurt them, or have hurt them.”
“Someone’s got to do it.”
“I know,” Kim said. “I just wish it wasn’t you.”
She reached across the table. Cessy reached back, squeezed Kim’s hands.
“Take care of yourself?” Kim asked.
“Oh yeah,” Cessy said. “I got this.”
“What happened?”
“I walked him out of the office, turned around, and he slammed me into the door. Grabbed my neck.”
&nb
sp; “Oh, Cess.”
“So I punched him a bunch of times, kicked him in the head. Thank you, six nights a week of Muay Thai.”
“I really should have started taking classes when you did.”
“I told you to. Anyway, he ran out the door after that. Cops picked him up an hour later.”
“I hate that you do this,” Kim said. “I mean, I’m glad someone’s doing it, but I hate it.”
“Honestly,” Cessy said, “I’ll be fine. Angry spouses don’t usually show up. That was kind of a rare thing. And even if they do, I usually put their families in touch with someone who can help them better than I can. I’m just the go-between.”
Cessy let go of Kim’s hands, wiped her own hands down, drank a long sip of coffee.
And wondered if Kim could tell she was lying.
She wondered if Kim knew that her story had been invented on the drive to the coffee shop.
Cessy had gone to that man’s house after talking to his wife. Saw him carrying the garbage outside late one night. Pulled down a ski mask and jumped him.
One hit in the back with an expandable metal baton had dropped him to his knees. A quick crack from the baton to his chin knocked him flat, and the way his chin jutted to the side told her that the bone was smashed. Cessy fell on him, let her fists do the rest until his face was buried in blood.
Took his wallet to make it look like a robbery.
Cessy could never tell Kim that.
She could never tell Kim that she liked it. That she did it because of what his wife had told her, what his daughter had told her.
She did it because, someday, Seth would be out of jail. And Cessy needed to be ready.
She did it because it felt good.
“I’m not giving up,” Kim said. “I’m going to keep bringing this up.”
“Yeah, yeah. How’s Deb?”
“She’s good. Saw her earlier today.”
“Did you make sure not to tell her about me?”
“Oh my God,” Kim said. “She’d freak if she knew we hung out.”
“You should tell her we’re dating. Really mess with her world.”
Kim laughed. “Can you imagine? But no way—I could never date you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re straight.”
“Details.”
“And I’m married.”
“For now.”
“Sure. But also we’d fight and break up, and then I’d lose you. And I’m not letting my best friend go anywhere.”
“Fine. I guess I’ll just get used to not being invited over to, like, Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey sucks anyway.”
“Maybe Thanksgiving dinner someday?”
Cessy shrugged. “As long as I still get to see you, I can deal. How’s Di’s sleep coming along?”
“She’s doing a lot better,” Kim said. “A couple of naps during the day, and most nights she sleeps all the way through. It’s so much better now than it used to be. The rough part’s passed.”
The two women sipped their drinks, kept talking about Diane and jobs and life. Cessy heard the rush of a siren as a cop car sped past the coffee shop.
Neither she nor Kim acknowledged it.
There are always sirens. They call through the night and day, the summer and snow, calling relentlessly. And someday, Cessy knew, those sirens would call for her.
She thought again about that man’s broken jaw.
Cessy reached down, stroked Diane’s sleeping face.
Smiled.
Also available by E. A. Barres
(writing as E. A. Aymar):
The Unrepentant
The Night of the Flood: A Novel-in-Stories
(co-editor and contributor)
The Swamp Killers: A Novel-in-Stories
(co-editor and contributor)
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
E.A. Barres’ most recent thriller, The Unrepentant, was published in 2019 by Down and Out Books (written under E. A. Aymar). His other thrillers include the anthologies The Swamp Killers (March 2020) and The Night of the Flood (March 2018); in both anthologies, he served as co-editor and contributor. His column, "Decisions and Revisions," appears monthly in the Washington Independent Review of Books, and he is also the Managing Editor of The Thrill Begins, ITW’s online resource for aspiring and debut thriller writers; he also serves on the Board of ITW as the Vice President of Author Programs. In addition to ITW, he is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Crime Writers of Color, and SinC. Barres also runs the Noir at the Bar series for Washington, D.C. He was born in Panama and now lives and writes in the D.C./MD/VA triangle.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Edward Aymar
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-555-4
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-556-1
Cover design by Melanie Sun
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: November 2020
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