The Request

by David Bell

  “Maybe this takes the heat off Blake. Maybe he can come back from wherever he is.”

  “I hope so.”

  It was a measure of how crazy and upside down things had become that even Amanda summoned empathy for Blake, who had found himself a person of interest in Jennifer’s death. While I harbored my own anger toward him for so many things, not the least of which was involving me in Jennifer’s death by sending me into her house the night before, I shared that relief with Amanda. Some of the weight that had been pressing down on my shoulders had been lifted.

  But I still had Dawn Steiner and her looming deadline to deal with.

  One thing at a time . . .

  “Just don’t let him hold Henry anymore,” Karen said. “You have to be careful with those things.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, and stood up from the table.

  As I left the room, I heard Amanda assuring both of her parents that Blake wouldn’t be holding Henry anytime soon.

  “He’s getting married this weekend,” Amanda said. “And Sam’s a good influence. He might be ready to grow up. . . .”

  As I walked to the front of the house, I started to recognize a shift in my perspective. Compared to Kyle Dornan, trying to break down the door of our house, Blake seemed like an okay guy. If the worst thing he ever did in Amanda’s eyes was bonk our baby’s head against a lampshade, then he seemed to be doing okay.

  I went into the living room, which was small, overfurnished, and barely used. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever spent any real time in there. When Karen and Bill hosted parties—at Christmas, say, or for the Kentucky Derby—their guests usually just threw their coats on the couch in there.

  I looked over my shoulder to make sure I was alone and then I called Blake. And I waited while the phone rang incessantly.

  “Come on. Come on.”

  I heard the voice mail greeting again. I tried one more time, and on the third ring, he answered.

  “Finally,” I said.

  “Hey. Sorry.”

  “Where have you been? What’s going on?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said.

  “I can imagine. But I’d like to know what you’ve been doing. The cops have been looking for you. Sam is worried about you. And this guy, this Kyle Dornan guy—did you hear about him?”

  “Yes, I did. I just heard it on the car radio.” He let out a relieved sigh. “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy, isn’t it? I mean really, really crazy.”

  “Have you talked to Sam again?”

  “I’m going to talk to her. Soon. You know, she’s dealing with a lot too.”

  “She’s at the police station,” I said. “At least, she was the last I knew. The detective working the case wanted to bring her in and talk to her about everything that was going on. I guess mostly she wanted to ask her about you.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Sure. I’ll get ahold of her. The police really wanted to talk to her?”

  “What do you expect? She’s the person closest to you.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll let you go if you want to get on that,” I said. “She’s probably worried. And scared.”

  I chose not to tell him about Kyle trying to break into our houses. There wasn’t enough time to explain it all, and I wanted to let him talk to Sam. She could explain it to him. And if he needed to know more, we could talk about it at another time, when things were less frantic and rushed.

  “Okay, I’m going to let you go call her.”

  “Wait,” he said.

  “What?”

  “There’s something else I need you to do,” he said, his voice level. “Something only you can do for me.”

  “Blake, what the hell else could you want? I went into that house. I risked everything.”

  “This is an easy request, okay? Just meet me at your house.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  I drove back across town, back to our house to meet Blake.

  I’d made my excuses to Amanda and her parents, telling them I had something to take care of. It took a little convincing to get Amanda to agree to stay behind. Having Henry in an unfamiliar place made it tougher to keep him on his schedule, although neither he nor his grandparents minded in the least. But I told Amanda it was better if she stayed, if she remained there a little while longer, until we were sure all the dust had cleared.

  She walked with me to the door and told me how relieved she was that Kyle was out of the picture.

  “I know I’m not supposed to feel that way,” she said. “In fact, I feel awful just thinking those kinds of thoughts. But he scared me. He really did. And to think . . . he killed someone, Ryan, and he came and tried to get into our house. With Henry there.”

  “I know. I know.”

  We held each other longer than we usually did outside of our home. I breathed in her scent, a hint of vanilla from her shampoo. I didn’t think she’d showered that morning, but it didn’t matter. She smelled better than I did on any day. And I took in her scent like it was oxygen filling me with strength and resolve.

  Amanda stepped back but not completely out of my grip. She looked up at me.

  “I have a feeling I know who you’re going to see,” she said, her face showing concern.

  “He finally answered his phone. We’re just going to talk at the house. He’s been through a lot the last day or so. It can’t be easy to have the police looking for you like that.”

  Amanda remained quiet, still looking up at me. And my mind scrambled to come up with a counterargument as the TV played in the background, punctuated by the sounds of Henry’s gurgling.

  But Amanda continued to surprise me with her reaction to Blake.

  “I know he’s your friend,” she said. “You’ve known him longer than you’ve known me.”

  “I like you better. You’re much prettier.”

  “Seriously,” she said. “I know he might be in our lives to some extent. I know that none of us are perfect. Maybe I’m trying to be more forgiving of everybody. I don’t want to have such harsh reactions to people like I do sometimes. It doesn’t make me feel very good.”

  “I just want to have you and Henry around. No one else matters.”

  We kissed before I went out the door. Before she shut it behind me, she said, “It will be nice to have all of this in the past.”

  * * *

  —

  I expected Blake to be waiting for me, but when I pulled up to the house, I found the driveway empty, everything placid. We’d left in such a hurry, we hadn’t bothered to open the blinds or turn off the porch light.

  As I approached the back door, keys jangling in my hand, I couldn’t help but think about Kyle pounding the wooden surface just a few hours ago, as alive as I was. And so quickly he was wiped out of the world, extinguished like a fragile flame.

  I went inside. The quiet in the house emphasized how much I’d grown used to the noises Henry and Amanda had made going about their day during the last six months. Henry’s increased chatter and Amanda’s steady, persistent conversation with him, the clacks and clangs of dishes and toys. Even when he slept, we listened to him breathe through the baby monitor. For a moment, I saw a flash of my life without them, and I breathed a little easier knowing Kyle was gone. Knowing Blake, one of my oldest friends, wasn’t a killer.

  In the office, I opened my laptop. Somehow, through a great application of willpower, I managed not to look at all the e-mails that had accumulated in one morning away from the office. I knew they waited for me, the number of messages increasing by the minute, but I’d promised Blake I’d take care of this for him.

  He hadn’t told me what he wanted to see. If Blake had dropped Jennifer’s phone in her neighborhood, as he’d said he was going to, then the data on my computer might be quite valuable to the police, who were trying to put the finishing touches o
n her murder investigation. I tried to tell myself that since they had their man, they really didn’t need anything I had. But I knew that was a foolish argument. Even being certain of Kyle’s role in Jennifer’s death, they still needed to be able to close the case, to prove what they believed and shut the book once and for all.

  I had promised Blake I’d wait for him. But I had also told him I didn’t know how long I felt comfortable keeping that information out of the hands of the police. He needed to show up and do whatever he wanted to do, and then we were going to hand it over.

  Except he didn’t show up.

  I waited ten minutes. Then fifteen. I called him. Twice.

  No answer.

  So I texted. What gives? Where are you?

  It took another five minutes before he wrote back.

  Sorry, buddy. It will make sense soon enough. I promise. Peace.

  I stared at the phone. Something seemed odd about the text. Very odd.

  Peace?

  Blake had never, ever used the word “peace” once in his life. It didn’t sound like him at all.

  What was going on now?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  But I wasn’t sure what I could do about it. Or if it was anything worth thinking about.

  Perhaps the events of the past night and day had worked together to turn me into a paranoid freak, someone who saw danger and conspiracy in the most mundane things.

  I listened to the quiet house, heard the tick of a clock from another room. The information on the computer screen from Jennifer’s phone waited for me.

  I remembered the series of messages between Jennifer and Kyle, the ones I’d seen last night while Amanda and Henry slept above me. I looked at them again, and in light of the recent events, they struck me as particularly chilling. Especially the last thing Kyle said to Jennifer:

  We need to settle this. I need to know. Now.

  I looked around at other texts, focusing on messages Jennifer had exchanged with women. I wondered if she’d had friends she’d confided in, anyone who could have known Jennifer was in danger and could have stopped it. I found nothing to indicate that, and even if I had found such a thing, what difference would it have made? The image of Jennifer’s body stretched on the floor, cold and alone, pulsed in my mind. Such a lonely way to die . . . and I wanted to believe something could have prevented it. Somehow I thought that would make it more sensible.

  A fool’s errand.

  And what did it say about me? I felt like a ghoul, sifting through the electronic remains of a murder victim. We all spent so much of our time looking through and observing one another electronically, through social media photos and posts and texts. Scrolling through my social media feeds made me feel like a voyeur, but it was nothing compared to seeing someone’s private messages this way.

  But I kept looking, telling myself I would do it just a few minutes longer.

  I finished looking at the text messages and decided to check something else. I started searching through the messages that had come through Jennifer’s Facebook account. Those messages also showed up on the download, and the possibility struck me that Jennifer might have spoken to someone through that platform instead of a text. Maybe she had talked to someone there about her problems with Kyle? Maybe a friend or family member had offered her advice and comfort there?

  I gave myself a five-minute time limit. When five minutes had elapsed, I promised myself I’d close the software and back away, leaving Jennifer’s private conversations behind forever. Maybe by then Blake would have arrived. Then he could do what he wanted to do, and we could hand everything over to the police.

  The list of messages unfurled. I scanned quickly, looking for familiar names. Kyle’s was on there, but the messages he exchanged with her were mundane and rare. They made plans, sounded happy. I saw nothing from Blake, of course. He would have kept his communications with Jennifer limited to texts. When I clicked on some of the other names—friends, coworkers, acquaintances—not much was revealed. I saw exchanges about birthday parties, happy hours, a question about whether she was happy with the model of car she’d purchased the year before and what kind of gas mileage she was getting. And I saw the messages she had sent to me, the ones Amanda had encountered on my computer.

  It all made me sad. A person’s life reduced to these mundane discussions. What else had Jennifer left behind? I knew so little about her. She’d passed along the periphery of my life without leaving any real mark. If I’d known a man like Kyle had harassed her, maybe I could have helped. But how often did anyone confide in a stranger? And that was what we had been to each other when all was said and done.

  I can’t say why I clicked on the last conversation. The name of the person writing to Jennifer struck me as almost bland. Lily Rose. But no photo accompanied the name, which seemed odd if she and Jennifer were friends. Maybe that was why I clicked there, because the lack of a profile picture and the blandness of the name stood out to me amid all the other noise and messages.

  What I saw froze me in place. I stared at the screen, my mouth dropping open.

  This Lily Rose person had sent Jennifer a flurry of messages in the last twenty-four hours of Jennifer’s life. They were read by Jennifer, but she’d chosen not to respond.

  This isn’t over.

  You can’t do this.

  Who do you think you are?

  It’s going to get bad for you. Very, very bad.

  I’m coming.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  First, I took a screenshot of the conversation. Then I called Blake again, and this time when I received his voice mail greeting, I insisted he call me as soon as possible.

  “I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing—you need to call me.”

  Kyle might have created a fake account, an alias, to be able to write to Jennifer and threaten her. I knew that people sometimes created fake accounts in order to reach out to people who might have blocked them. But if Kyle was heading over to Jennifer’s house the night she died, had they completely fallen out?

  And given the nature of the threats, wouldn’t she have gone to the police?

  Maybe she had. The cops felt compelled to tell me only things that involved me. Nothing else. When they referred on the radio to other suspects and evidence, that could have been it. They might already have known someone else had made threats against Jennifer.

  Lily Rose’s Facebook profile showed nothing. No photos, no personal information. A ghost. Spam accounts popped up all over social media, accounts meant to generate clicks and spread advertising, but I’d never heard of one being created just to threaten someone. Someone who later ended up being murdered on the floor of her own bedroom.

  I considered sending a message to that account but decided against it. If I didn’t hear from Blake, I’d go to the police on my own. I’d tell them what they needed to know and hope for no more involvement.

  As if my mind had been read, the phone rang. It jarred me so much, the hard, insistent ringing, that I jumped in my seat, my heart racing like it had received a massive shot of caffeine.

  “Thank God,” I said. “Blake.”

  Except it wasn’t. The caller ID screen told me Amanda was calling.

  A dark shadow fell over my mind. Why was she calling? It made sense she would just be checking in, but something felt off—

  “Hello?”

  “I think you need to come over here,” she said in the low voice she used when Henry napped.

  “Did something happen? Is Henry okay?”

  “He’s okay. He’s good. He’s in the other room with my parents. I’m trying to keep them from hearing me.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, can you just come back? Are you done with whatever Blake wanted?”

  “He didn’t show.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you went over there for nothing,” she said. “Look,
come back. Okay? We need to talk. I’d get my dad to drive me over there, but he’d just ask a bunch of questions. They both would. And I’m not up for that right now. I want us to talk first. Okay?”

  “And you’re not going to tell me about what?”

  “So you’re coming back over?” she asked, her voice brightening.

  I heard Karen talking in the background. She must have come in, and was hovering over Amanda like she was a teenager plotting with her boyfriend.

  “Okay. See you soon.”

  If Amanda’s goal had been to light a fire under me, it worked. I rushed through the house, out to the back door. I dropped my keys and then kicked them, like I was in a one-man Three Stooges routine. When I straightened up from grabbing them, somebody called my name.

  A familiar voice.

  I looked over to the garage. Blake emerged from around the corner, looking like he hadn’t slept in a month. His clothes were disheveled, his hair wild.

  “What the hell happened to you?” I asked.

  “I thought you were meeting me here.”

  “I was. Now Amanda needs me. And I’m sorry, but I take her wishes more seriously than yours. Especially when you’re late.”

  “It was unavoidable.”

  “It must have been. You look like you couldn’t avoid the tractor that rolled over you.”

  He sighed and leaned against the side of the garage. In the bright sunlight, I saw a bruise on his left cheek. His shirt hung out of his pants, and his shoes were covered with mud.

  “I’m tired,” he said.

  “So am I. Tired of all of this. And I want it finished. I thought that’s why we were meeting here today. We were going to do something together, and that would be the end of this. Kyle killed Jennifer. And he’s dead. So what else is there?”

  “I just wanted to look at that stuff from Jen’s phone before we go to the police. I just want to see it.”