Jericho Point

by Meg Gardiner

  ‘‘Stand up.’’

  We rose together. He kept the knife at my throat.

  ‘‘We’re going to the kitchen together. Slowly.’’

  Nudging me ahead, he walked me to the counter.

  ‘‘Put the camera on the counter and aim it back this way.’’

  I set it down, pointing at us. Was he planning to take a self-portrait?

  ‘‘Right.’’ Mouth next to my ear. ‘‘Today we’re taping America’s Rudest Home Videos.’’

  It took a second, but the reference clicked. I stiffened. He was wearing the same combat pants as that night at the party in Isla Vista, when he unzipped them to piss on a parked car.

  ‘‘She remembers.’’ He sounded delighted.

  I opened my mouth to speak and the knife pushed against my larynx.

  ‘‘Unh-unh. You don’t have any lines in this film. You only get a listing in the credits, with all the other losers who’ve been fucking up my life.’’ His voice lowered. ‘‘Crying Moron—Brittany Gaines. Rock Hasbeen—Slink Jimson. And Ballbusting Bitch—Evan Delaney.’’

  All my doubts evaporated. I knew he had killed Britt. And that he was here to kill me.

  ‘‘Where’s your duct tape?’’ he said.

  It was in a kitchen drawer. We walked together as if doing a macabre tango, blade to my throat. He made me get the tape out and rip off a strip.

  ‘‘Over your mouth,’’ he said. I did it. ‘‘Now your hands.’’

  I wrapped the duct tape around one wrist and then the other. Shaun tugged on the tape to see that it was secure. He didn’t bother to cut it away from the rest of the roll. The spool hung below my hands, swinging like a pendulum.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Shaun went still. The knife pressed against my wind-pipe. The knock came again, and Marc’s deep voice.

  ‘‘Evan?’’

  Shaun pressed the blade harder against my throat. It wasn’t cutting me yet, but I felt a strangling sensation and the desire to squirm. He held me still. His jade eyes were alight.

  The knocking stopped.

  Shaun spoke sotto voce. ‘‘Turn on the camera. You’re going to do what I say. We get one take, so it’s gotta be perfect.’’

  Because there couldn’t be any retakes. And I realized that he wanted to film himself killing me. I had to get away, right now, but the front door was dead-bolted, and even if I made it there, by the time I got it open he’d have me again. Unless I slowed him down I’d never make it. I needed a weapon.

  Outside, across the yard, I heard Marc’s voice. He was talking to Nikki. Come on, Nik. Tell him I’m home. Send him back here.

  Keeping the knife on my neck, Shaun waltzed me back a few feet. He maneuvered to center me in the lens of the camera. He slid the knife under my chin, forcing me to look up. He stepped forward and back, and flipped on a light over the stove.

  He exhaled with a hiss. ‘‘Fuck. This won’t work.’’

  He gazed around the living room.

  ‘‘Where’s a mirror?’’ he said.

  He pulled me out of the kitchen, peering at the walls in frustration. ‘‘Where are your mirrors?’’

  He looked at me, angry. I pointed at my bedroom. Where the gun was.

  He grabbed the camera and we walked in lockstep toward the bedroom. How was I going to do this? How would I get the gun quickly enough?

  Moot point. Shaun pushed me through the doorway and his feet tangled with mine. We stumbled past the nightstand. The knife nicked my throat. Adrenaline dumped through me. Dammit.

  He marched me into the bathroom. Unrolling the spool of duct tape, he tossed it over the rod for the shower curtain, binding me there with my hands above my head like a prisoner in chains.

  He set the camera on the counter by the sink and flipped on the makeup lights that surrounded the mirror.

  ‘‘Oh, yeah.’’

  The cut on my throat was burning but I forced myself to ignore it. I pulled against the strip of duct tape. The curtain rod quivered and the spool swung back and forth. If I hung all my weight on the tape, would it break? Or would I simply dislocate my aching shoulder again?

  ‘‘Perfect,’’ Shaun said.

  His jade eyes had widened. His breathing was quickening. He faced the mirror, staring at himself with the pleasure most men reserve for a lover. He rolled his neck and straightened his T-shirt and tossed his tangled hair.

  This had to be fast.

  I jumped, bending my elbows, doing a rope climb on the duct tape. The curtain rod broke loose from its moorings.

  Shaun gaped—watching me in the mirror. He began to turn but by that time I was moving and I rammed him for all I was worth. The knife was in his hand. I grabbed the camera and smashed him in the face with it.

  ‘‘Shit.’’

  He dropped the knife and slapped a hand over his eye. I bashed him again and his head went sideways into the mirror. I heard the glass crack. He howled and put a hand to his head, which came away bloody.

  I jumped past him. He grabbed for me and missed, and I blundered out into the bedroom.

  From the front of the house came pounding on the door. I pulled the tape off my mouth.

  ‘‘Here,’’ I shouted.

  More pounding. ‘‘Evan?’’

  ‘‘Marc, break down the door.’’

  I reached the nightstand. But back in the bathroom the spool of tape was still trailing behind me, and I felt it go taut. Shaun had grabbed it. I bungled the pistol into my bound hands and swung around. Shaun stood in the doorway.

  ‘‘Move and I’ll blow holes in you,’’ I yelled.

  Now, unbelievably, I felt scared. This was the positionI’d been in by the roadside with the Mings— seemingly out of the woods, with Marc a few seconds away. Nausea hit me.

  Shaun saw it. He smirked. He didn’t think I’d pull the trigger. He yanked on the tape spool, pulling me toward him in the bathroom. Hard. The gun went out of aim. I dug in with my feet, backpedaling, but my boots were slick on the wood, and when he yanked again I pitched to my knees.

  He reeled me toward the bathroom, straining to haul me in. He wasn’t coming out—he wanted me back in front of the mirror. The gun was aimed at my dresser. I slid closer to the bathroom, fighting to bend my hands around toward the doorway. And Shaun saw that, and believed.

  He backed up and slammed the bathroom door.

  I squirmed, trying to stand up, and to my horror the strip of tape continued disappearing under the door, pulling me with it. Like a slap I understood that he meant to batter my hands into the door and knock the gun loose from my grip. And then he’d have me. I twisted the barrel toward the door.

  I fired.

  The report shocked me. The gun popped up toward the ceiling. I brought it back down and fired again. And again. The bathroom door splintered. Out in the living room the glass cracked as Marc broke a pane on the French doors.

  The strip of tape went slack. I smelled cordite. My ears were ringing. Marc burst into my room. I pulled my finger off the trigger and let the pistol hang loose.

  Without a word Marc took it from me and leveled it on the door.

  ‘‘Open it,’’ I said.

  He did. Shaun was gone.

  35

  Gone, out the window. Shaun had scaled the fence and made it to the street. Helen Potts saw him running past her house in the chill dusk, looking over his shoulder at my place.

  Marc sat with me on the Vincents’ back steps, while SBPD uniforms and crime scene techs went through my place.

  ‘‘What do you want to do?’’ he said.

  ‘‘Rent a bulldozer. Destroy that bathroom.’’

  ‘‘You made a damned good start. The tile is shot to hell.’’

  ‘‘I’m serious. This is not the first close call I’ve had around that shower.’’

  He rubbed my back. ‘‘Bad soap?’’

  ‘‘I was attacked,’’ I said.

  Sidelong glance. ‘‘By?’’

 
; ‘‘My law school diploma.’’ I squeezed my hands between my knees. ‘‘It’s a vortex, some kind of whirlpool of evil.’’

  ‘‘You can say if you’re scared, Evan.’’

  ‘‘Who even needs water? I might never bathe again. I’ll use moist towelettes instead. I’ll install a sandbox and roll in it, the way chinchillas do.’’

  Marc put an arm around me. I let him.

  ‘‘God’s a lousy comedian,’’ I said.

  ‘‘You need a drink.’’

  ‘‘Several. But no liquids, so it’s a problem.’’

  Carl came out, carrying Thea. She was wearing footsie pajamas and sucking a pacifier. He sat down beside me on the porch steps and pushed his glasses up his nose.

  ‘‘He lured Ollie out the gate, didn’t he? And Thea followed,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I wish I’d shot him,’’ I said. ‘‘I should have emptied the whole magazine.’’

  ‘‘You need a drink,’’ Carl said.

  ‘‘So I hear.’’

  He gazed across the lawn, at the cops gathering evidence in my living room. ‘‘I don’t know how to put this, Evan. But do you ever wonder why these things happen to you?’’

  ‘‘My shower is a vortex of evil.’’

  ‘‘Ah.’’ He snuggled Thea against him. ‘‘So you don’t think—’’

  ‘‘I’ll get a cement truck to plug it. Or an exorcist.’’

  ‘‘—that you might consider changing your life, so it’s less exciting?’’

  I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, and Marc tightened his grip on my shoulder. I was seriously at the end of my rope, and Carl was onto something, and I couldn’t begin to deal with it right now.

  Nikki pushed through the screen door, holding the phone out to me. ‘‘Jesse.’’

  Marc’s hand lifted from my shoulder, and he stood up. I put a hand on his arm. And the phone to my ear.

  ‘‘You heard?’’ Jesse said.

  ‘‘Lieutenant Rome told me.’’

  Clayton Rome was with the uniforms in my house. He had arrived with the news that Ricky Jimson was dead.

  ‘‘Karen found him. Can you imagine?’’ Jesse said.

  Yes. I could imagine finding my man’s body. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

  Marc squeezed my hand and slipped out of my grasp. He walked down the stairs and out onto the lawn, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. His breath frosted the air.

  ‘‘Are you sure you’re in one piece?’’ Jesse said. From the noise on his end, he was in the car.

  ‘‘Apparently. But listen, I tried to get hold of P.J. and he’s not at his apartment.’’

  ‘‘That’s probably a good thing, considering that Shaun is still at large.’’

  ‘‘You think he could have run?’’

  ‘‘Possibly. But he’s more likely at Mom and Dad’s.’’

  ‘‘Right.’’

  ‘‘Is Marc with you?’’

  I glanced at the lawn. He was staring at the stars. ‘‘Yes.’’

  ‘‘Don’t let him leave. I want to thank him.’’

  ‘‘I’ll ask. No guarantees.’’ I thought: Jesse knows he’s in no jeopardy with me. And so does Marc.

  ‘‘What’s that silence?’’ he said. ‘‘Oh. You’re right. I would not be anywhere this noble in defeat.’’

  My laugh was feeble.

  ‘‘Ev. I’m so sorry. Hang on; I’ll be there as soon as I can.’’

  Setting down the phone, I walked out to the middle of the lawn. Marc continued gazing up.

  I crossed my arms against the chill breeze. ‘‘Some vacation you’re having here.’’

  He snorted. ‘‘I drove into Santa Barbara thinking you were on ice at the morgue. Compared to that, it’s been a New Year’s Eve party.’’

  He was a monolith in the night, as ever an enigmatic presence.

  ‘‘Please don’t worry. Nothing needs saying,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Of course it does.’’

  ‘‘What would you say? That in some other life, some other time, it would be the two of us?’’

  ‘‘I wouldn’t say something that trite to a Vigilante.’’

  ‘‘If . . .’’

  ‘‘There is no if. There’s only the way it is.’’

  He jammed his hands deeper in his pockets and turned to face me. ‘‘Fine. No if. No other life, no other world. This life. This time. There’s you, and me, and there’s now.’’ He smiled. ‘‘And there’s someday.’’

  Heat was pouring off him, an invisible pulse. His eyes were luminous.

  ‘‘Be happy. He loves you,’’ he said.

  Inside my house, the phone rang. The cops had plugged it back in. Lieutenant Rome leaned out the door and called to me.

  ‘‘It’s Keith Blackburn,’’ he said.

  That was odd, and possibly worrying. I jogged to get it.

  Keith said, ‘‘Why is a police officer answering your phone?’’

  He had no clue what had happened. This was about something else. ‘‘What’s wrong, Keith?’’

  ‘‘Could you come over? Please. Patsy’s asking for you.’’

  Never, in three and a half years, had Patsy Blackburn asked for me. ‘‘Keith?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know what’s wrong. She won’t explain; she just says you have to come. Please, she’s close to hysterical.’’

  Great. I ran my hand through my hair, looking outside. Marc was gone. I heard his truck pulling away.

  Jesse pulled the Mustang into the driveway at his parents’ house. The moon was rising in a black sky, clouds streaking past in the wind. We could see Keith inside the living room, pacing back and forth. Spotting us, he rushed outside.

  He opened Jesse’s door. ‘‘I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t get a straight answer out of her. Maybe you can.’’

  This was not going to be good. For straight answer, read slurred speech. Jesse pulled his gear from the backseat, snapped the wheels onto the frame, and got out of the car. When he slammed the door, I got a look at his face. Nightmare, it said.

  Keith backed out of his way. ‘‘You didn’t bring your crutches?’’

  ‘‘Don’t start, Dad.’’

  ‘‘But she’ll want to see you. And she’s upstairs.’’

  ‘‘Get her to come down.’’

  We headed for the porch. Jesse spun around backward and I lugged him up the steps. Keith averted his eyes, staring into the night.

  He followed us through the door. ‘‘She won’t come down.’’

  ‘‘She’s too drunk?’’

  ‘‘She’s too upset.’’ He ran a hand across his face. ‘‘She asked for Evan, but you should talk to her too.’’ His tone was pleading. ‘‘It’s only sixteen steps.’’

  Jesse looked at me. He didn’t have to say anything. I ran up the stairs.

  On the landing it smelled stuffy, as though the upstairs windows had been shut for years. The closeness was overlaid with the cloying scent of potpourri. The lights were dim.

  Downstairs, Keith said, ‘‘Can’t you just try?’’

  Jesse laughed, a bleak sound. ‘‘Now why didn’t I think of that? Hell, I’m going to just try and speak Mandarin while I’m at it.’’

  I called Patsy’s name and pushed open a bedroom door. Inside was an unmade bed, and P.J.’s clothes on the floor. I crossed the hall to what I recalled had been Jesse’s old room. The lights were off.

  From inside, Patsy said, ‘‘Keith?’’

  ‘‘It’s Evan.’’

  The bedroom curtains were open. A streetlight illuminated Patsy sitting on the floor beneath the window, knees curled to her chest, rocking back and forth. Her hair was messy and she reeked of alcohol. I flipped on a desk lamp.

  It cast an amber light that seemed to set the walls sizzling. I stepped back, startled. Shine and glitter confronted me. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, on every surface, were trophies, photos, medals, certificates. Everywhere.

  And it was all
Jesse.

  One wall was solid trophies, arrayed like the Manhattan skyline. Above the bed hung clusters of medals, from age-group swimming, from Junior Olympics, and from the California State Championships, Big West, NCAAs, U.S. Nationals, Pan Pacifics. A bookcase bulged with scrapbooks and videos, neatly labeled: WORLD UNIVERSITY GAMES, OLYMPIC TRIALS, WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS. But gleaming brightest was the wall of framed photos. Travel shots—Jesse with the U.S. team in Red Square, at the Forbidden City, and on top of Sydney Harbor Bridge. And all the competition photos: at age six, an impish kid bounding with enthusiasm. At sixteen, cute and cocky. At twenty-two, predatory, unstoppable, magnificent. Swimming the butterfly, attacking the water. Leaping from the starting blocks, the camera catching his fire and shocking physical power.

  There were even a few triathlon photos, taken the summer I met him. The display ran virtually right up to the day he went cycling with Isaac Sandoval and came back down the hill strapped to a backboard. Then it stopped. Patsy had archived his Before.

  She had taken every remembrance of him from downstairs where he could see it, and where it would fan the family’s grief about After, and she had hidden it here. In her secret shrine.

  She and Keith weren’t embarrassed by Jesse. They were crazed with pain.

  ‘‘I didn’t know.’’ Her voice rasped of Marlboros and vodka. Her mascara was smeared. ‘‘How was I supposed to know?’’

  I sat down on the desk chair. ‘‘Tell me what’s happened.’’

  ‘‘Is Jesse here?’’

  ‘‘Downstairs with Keith. Patsy, what didn’t you know?’’

  ‘‘That I shouldn’t let her in. Nobody told me not to.’’

  I got a bad feeling. ‘‘Sinsa Jimson?’’

  ‘‘She came by looking for Patrick. She’s been over before. Pint-sized thing, a real cutup.’’ She squeezed her knees. ‘‘She brought cranberry vodka. Where’s the harm in having a drink with one of his friends?’’

  Downstairs, Jesse and Keith raised their voices.

  ‘‘She was chatty. She seemed so understanding. Telling me she can see they really care about each other. In spite of it all.’’

  ‘‘Jesse and P.J.?’’ I said.

  ‘‘And she’s right, they do, they just can’t get past whatever it is that sets brothers off.’’