Possession

by Rene Gutteridge

  On her toes, she peered through the side window, hoping for a solicitor. But these days she couldn’t trust anyone to say who they really were.

  Joe.

  Lindy lost her breath, turning her back against the door. Her heart raced and she gasped for another breath. And another.

  What should she do?

  It was obvious they were home. All the lights were on. But she didn’t think he’d noticed her through the window. He’d turned and was looking over his shoulder.

  Tears that she’d managed to hold in most of the day dribbled down her cheeks. Her nightmare just wouldn’t end.

  And then, as fast as the dread had coursed through her veins, a strange uprising filled her. She snatched the doorknob and pulled the door open so fast that Joe stepped back, his eyes wide.

  “What do you want?” she hissed. Every moment of disappointment, discouragement, and sorrow collided with anger and frustration. Whatever expression she was wearing, it was doing a number on Joe. The gun probably helped too. “I said, what do you want?”

  “You know what I want,” Joe said, his voice slick and his eyes quickly recovering from shock. He shifted his gaze toward the gun. “You really know how to use that thing? Doesn’t matter. You ain’t gonna shoot me.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” Lindy said. She kept her tone cool.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance. Your husband doesn’t seem to know what’s at stake here.”

  “Just leave. Take it all and leave.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “It’s that easy, is it?”

  “No, it’s not easy at all. You’re wrecking our life. For money.”

  “Sweetheart, your life was already wrecked. Or didn’t your husband tell you all his dirty little secrets?”

  Lindy held steady. Barely. “Yeah. I know all of them.” Don’t blink.

  Joe smirked. “Then you’re as guilty as he is.”

  “You’re the guilty one. And you’re not going to get away with this. You may take every possession we own, but those are just things. And we can live without things.”

  “He never told you.” Joe’s eyes flashed like he’d just glimpsed into her soul.

  Lindy’s breathing turned labored, but she wasn’t going to back away from this fight. She stared him down.

  “What I know is worth a lot of money,” Joe said. “Tell your husband that.”

  “Get out of here before I call the police.”

  “The police,” he laughed. “They’ve been real helpful, have they?”

  “The police aren’t typically thrilled when a man threatens a woman. We are, after all, rather helpless.” But her eyes, she knew, said otherwise. And maybe they told a story—that at this point she really didn’t have much to lose by going crazy on him.

  Joe backed down off the porch. “Just give your husband the message.”

  Lindy stood in the doorway of her home, the gun dangling by her side. Joe walked away, around the corner of the next block. She felt a little like a woman of the prairie, except she needed a shotgun and livestock to defend. Relief finally took hold, and she found herself able to breathe again.

  “Mom?”

  Lindy whirled around, stumbling against the doorframe. Conner stared at the gun.

  “It’s okay, sweetie.”

  “What’s that gun for?”

  “Honey, it’s nothing.” She grinned. Wide. Too wide. “Bath time, okay?”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He just had a lot to do today.” She hated those words. She must’ve used them a hundred times, back in the days when Vance couldn’t find his way home. She stared at her little boy’s face. He was growing up and, by his expression, wasn’t buying the same old story. “I actually don’t know what time he will be home. I really don’t know where he is.”

  Conner blinked. “You don’t?”

  “I don’t. But I know he’ll be home. He always comes home.”

  Conner smiled a little. “Yeah. Dad always comes home.”

  “Go start your bath, okay? You look like you rolled in dirt!”

  “I did!” He laughed and disappeared down the hallway.

  Lindy looked at the gun in her hand. She’d forgotten it was there for a second. She put it back on top of the fridge. As soon as she let go of it, her whole body started shaking.

  Was this what a nervous breakdown felt like? She’d always imagined it would start deeper, like in the soul. But right now, her body felt like it might just get up and go and never come back. Leaving her soul on its own.

  She needed to talk to someone. She closed her eyes. She didn’t have many options.

  But she had a couple.

  And one kind of made sense.

  13

  “Thank you so much for coming,” Lindy said, pushing her hair out of her face and trying to seem pulled together. “I know it’s late.”

  Karen walked in, looked her up and down. “We haven’t known each other long,” she said, her accent strong and a little loud, “but I heard it in your voice. Something’s wrong.”

  Lindy bit her lip and looked away.

  “Where’s that precious boy of yours?”

  “He’s asleep. He had a long, hard day of playing.”

  Karen smiled. “And where is that high-strung husband of yours?”

  Lindy laughed. “High-strung. That’s good.” The laughter faded and her heart felt heavy. Her whole body felt heavy. Even her words. “Come on. Let’s sit on the back porch.”

  They both carried the lawn chairs that were sitting in the living room to the back porch, which was only one small slab of concrete with two steps leading to the lawn. It wasn’t much of a view. There was a dilapidated old shed that leaned sharply to the left. Still, the beautiful redwoods towered everywhere. Even in the darkness they seemed mighty. Through them were glimpses of a dark sky and bright stars.

  “It’s a nice evening,” Karen said, adjusting herself in the lawn chair.

  Lindy sat where she had a full view through to the front door. She kept the screen door open so she could hear everything inside the house.

  “I filed the paperwork,” Karen said, “and everything is in motion. We’re doing some research on the company to see what their past is.”

  “That’s good.”

  “How about the business? Any luck moving forward with that?”

  “Haven’t heard from the real estate agent yet. Hopefully I will soon. Truthfully, it’s been a little hard to wrap my mind around it.”

  “I understand. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Karen—” And it was that single word that opened a floodgate of tears. The sob roared out of her and she covered her face. It seemed her cry filled the entire night air. She tried to quiet herself, but the more she tried to hold it in, the angrier the tears became.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Karen said. She knelt beside Lindy, rubbed circles on her back.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lindy whispered. From nowhere, shame cloaked her. “I just needed to talk. I just wanted to talk to someone.”

  “I’m here,” she said. “I’m right here.”

  Lindy managed to stop crying. She wiped her tears and blotted her face with her shirtsleeve.

  Karen returned to her chair but gave Lindy her full attention.

  “It’s just that Vance . . .”

  “What is it, honey? You can tell me.”

  “He doesn’t know this, but I fell in love with him the first time I saw him.”

  Karen smiled. “Well, he is a cutie.”

  “He was kind of cocky back then. He’d just come out of the academy, and he was on the streets. He was sort of an adrenaline junkie, and I wasn’t sure I was exciting enough for him.”

  “Turned out you were wrong, huh?”

  “No. I was right. Just turned out that he was growing tired of adrenaline.”

  “You settled him down.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Lindy said. “He found more purpose than just being a cop. But I always
let him be a cop, you know? It was who he was. And he was good at it. Really good at it. He never gave himself enough credit when he became a detective. The D.C. sniper case caused him to doubt himself.”

  “Boy, that was a horrible time.”

  “It was beyond imagination,” Lindy said. A picture flashed through her head. It was of Vance standing over a body, hands on his hips. His holster barely showing. A newspaper photographer had taken the picture and it landed on the front page of the paper. Only Lindy would notice, but Vance’s eyes had held a fear that to this day she’d never seen again.

  All the guys had been flustered. They started bringing in the FBI, the ATF, the marshals . . . anybody. There was such a sense of desperation. It seemed endless.

  “We had some marriage trouble,” Lindy said. “I guess it was expected. Vance was very concerned about our safety. It’s all he could think about, day or night.”

  “Understandably.”

  “I lost him for a while,” Lindy said, her mind drifting to thoughts of all the nights alone, the hours she spent worrying about him. “And there came a point when I wasn’t sure I wanted to find him again.”

  Karen’s eyes glistened with tears. “Relationships are difficult, aren’t they?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t, sweetie. Go on. Tell me more.”

  Lindy rested her head on the back of her chair and gazed upward. In a weird way, the expansiveness of the sky made her feel peace. It was too large for man to take any credit, and that meant it had been created with painstaking detail—by God, if Conner had anything to say about it.

  “I have loved that man fiercely,” she said. She blinked slowly, afraid if she closed her eyes longer, she’d fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. “I love him so much it hurts.”

  Karen was quiet for a moment. “That is some kind of love.”

  “I watched him fall, and there was nothing I could do but watch and hope that he’d make it back to us.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Inside himself. And that’s the hardest place to reach. It seems the farthest away. But I begged him to come back. Told him that we were safe for him.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Finally he did. He came back. It was gradual, yeah, but one day it was really apparent. I remember it like it was yesterday. He walked through the front door and he was different. It was like this giant dark cloud had lifted away from him. He picked Conner up in his arms. He hadn’t picked him up in over a year. He kissed him. He kissed me. He said, ‘I’m sorry I was gone. Now I’m back.’”

  “And he stayed?”

  “Yes, he stayed. He’d been in therapy . . .” Her words trailed off into the dismal reality of what she’d since learned. “I thought he had. He told me he had.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we settled back into marriage. And work became hard for him. The red tape, the politics of police work. We tried our best to overcome it, you know? But he was unhappy and so was I. So we decided the best we could do was start over.” Lindy looked down at her hands, traced the bones and the veins with a fingernail. “And . . . there was another woman.”

  “Vance cheated on you?” Karen’s eyes widened.

  “No. He never cheated on me.”

  “Then what do you mean, another woman?”

  “His partner. Erin Lester. She saved his life once.” Lindy paused. “And the thing that always stung was that I couldn’t. I couldn’t save him.” She sighed.

  “I guess the saving of his life came at a price.”

  “He tried to repay her. And there was always this line and he never knew if he was crossing it or not.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Yeah. I’d watch them sometimes, at Christmas parties or whatever, and they had this unbelievable chemistry. They’d finish each other’s sentences. They’d tell stories and they’d have everybody captivated. They seemed like the perfect fit.”

  “But he stayed with you.”

  Lindy’s voice grew soft. “Yeah. I guess he did.” She smiled.

  “He chose you.”

  Lindy glanced inside the house, listened for Conner for a moment. “That’s why he became a detective. He got off the streets to put some distance between them. And it worked. For a while.”

  She looked at Karen. Her bright eyes, overly made-up with blues and yellows and clumpy mascara, blinked willfully.

  “What’s the matter?” Lindy asked.

  “Nothing, sweetheart. I just think you’ve got a great love story there. You two have been through a lot. He loves you. I could tell that the first time I met him. There’s something in the eyes of a man who loves his wife. You can’t explain it or put your finger on it.”

  A lump swelled inside Lindy’s throat. She sat up in her chair, fixed her gaze on Karen. “So I have a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “If he lied to me, what should I do?”

  Karen smiled a little. “Depends on how big the lie was.”

  “Big enough.”

  Karen straightened her back like she’d dispensed this kind of wisdom over and over again. Except then she looked away. “You got a good man there, Lindy. A real good man. He treats you right. He takes care of you. Sometimes, darlin’, you just gotta look the other way.”

  14

  The night had been nearly sleepless. Lindy heard Vance come in—after 2 a.m.—but pretended to be asleep. She still hadn’t decided what she should do. Was it worth all the emotional energy to confront him? Even if she did, could her heart take watching him lie right in front of her?

  The lie was in the past, she reminded herself as the clock turned the corner to 5 a.m. And maybe she didn’t have the whole story. Perhaps there was a reason he didn’t go to counseling. Maybe it didn’t really matter because he came home changed.

  And their ups and downs, she decided at 5:45, were all part of marriage and the particular challenges of being married to a cop.

  Maybe Karen was right. Maybe she should look the other way.

  After only about an hour and a half of sleep, she got up, thankful to have her family together at least. The house was quiet. The glow of the sun peeked through the limbs of the redwoods. She fixed herself a cup of coffee and opened the front door, standing on the porch in her robe and admiring the city below. She liked mornings here.

  Soon enough, the boys were stirring, so she came inside and got out the cereal and Styrofoam bowls. She couldn’t look at Vance as he came into the kitchen looking like he’d spent a hard night with the badge.

  Before a conversation could even get started, Conner bounded in and tackled his dad from behind. He squeezed his little arms around Vance’s waist, and Lindy savored the moment. Just for a second, things seemed normal.

  Vance sent Conner to brush his teeth, then wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. “I’m sorry I was so late.”

  “I was worried about you,” she said without turning around. She poured cereal into a bowl.

  “I know. I needed to think.”

  “You needed to think.” Lindy turned and moved out of Vance’s arms, that nagging mistrust she’d fought for so long starting to bubble to the surface. “Why wouldn’t you answer your phone?”

  Vance blinked. “I never heard the phone.”

  “I called at least a half-dozen times, if not more.”

  “I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I was by the ocean. It was loud. I’m sorry. But I figured some things out. And I made a promise to myself. I’m going to find Joe. I’m going to hunt him down and get our possessions back.”

  “Well,” Lindy said, crossing her arms, “if you’d been home last night, you wouldn’t have had to look far. He came here.”

  Vance, who’d been leaning against the counter, shot upright. “What?”

  “Stood right there on the front porch and threatened me.”

  “Threatened you?”

  “That’s right. And I told
him to get out of here. I didn’t even have to use my gun. But I would’ve. And I think he knew that.”

  Like a welding torch, white-hot rage glowed in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lindy said. “Really. Obviously I can take care of myself. But he did have a message for you. Something about secrets. Something he knows about you that he says you’re willing to pay a lot of money for.”

  Vance turned away, walked to the front window of the condo, stared out with his hands on his hips.

  “How’d he get here?”

  “Excuse me?” Lindy asked.

  “Was he driving?”

  “Not that I could see. He walked around the corner, so maybe he parked his car there. I was too busy protecting our child to be a good eyewitness.”

  Vance glanced at her, then away. “I can’t believe he showed up here.”

  “I guess we’re going to have to decide whether your secrets are worth our life savings.”

  Lindy could tell he was trying not to glare. This was not how she’d hoped the conversation would go, but here it was. As usual.

  “I’ll tell you,” he said.

  “Maybe I don’t want to know.”

  “I don’t think you do. But it’s what happened. And you’re my wife.”

  “Maybe I already know your secret.”

  Again, he was caught off guard. His face twitched like a feather had just run across his skin.

  “And no, I don’t think it’s worth our life savings.” She walked toward him. “I don’t know why you lied to me about going to the therapist. But it’s in our past. It was a tumultuous time for all of us. I just want to move forward, Vance. Just forward. I don’t want to look back.”

  Vance started to say something, probably in defense of the lie she’d uncovered, but she softened her voice and took another step toward him. “Let’s walk away from Joe. From everything. Let’s start over. For real.”

  “What exactly did Joe say?”

  Lindy sighed. As usual, he was missing the point. “I don’t know, Vance. I was too busy deciding whether to shoot him or not. But it was something about a secret. Something you knew. Something you’d pay for.” She tried to calm herself down, talk the way she’d seen Dr. Phil counsel on his talk show. She put a gentle hand on his arm. “See? Joe has no power over us. I already know your secret.”