In the Shadow of Revenge

by Patricia Hale

  “You’ve haunted me for the past eighteen years.”

  I looked up at him and raised my eyebrows, wanting to hear more.

  “I was pretty sure your brother was tormenting you beyond the normal sibling stuff that night in your kitchen, and the fact that I never followed up on my hunch or secured you protection has bothered me ever since. It was a huge mistake.”

  “We all make them,” I said.

  We’d started walking and stopped beside my car. He turned me toward him, one hand on each shoulder. “If you want to go after him now and press charges for this, I’m with you. I mean that. You can stop being afraid.”

  I looked into his face and fought the urge to kiss him.

  Chapter Twenty

  I closed the door to my office, sat at my desk and stared at the phone. I wasn’t going to go after Jarod. I never had before and I wasn’t going to start now, even though I advised a lot of women to face their fears, press charges and stand up for themselves. The case file sitting on the top of my pile belonged to Sarah Wallace. Her boyfriend had hit her over the head with a beer bottle. She was charging him with assault. According to the Police Procedural, an assault is:

  “Any willful attempt or threat to inflict injury on the person of another, when coupled with an apparent present ability so to do, and any intentional display of force such as would give the victim reason to fear or expect immediate bodily harm.”

  Every day women did what I could not.

  I closed Sarah’s file and opened my email. I had a 9:00 a.m. hearing. Maybe I could reply to at least a few of the twenty-five messages in my inbox before heading into court. The problem with my early morning hearing was that I could almost count on the fact that the defendant, their lawyer and the sitting judge would inevitably show up late, providing more time for my imagination to run wild regarding Jarod’s next move.

  By ten o’clock all players were on deck. Now all we had to do was wait our turn in the line-up.

  At noon I was back at my desk, washing down my grilled cheese sandwich with iced coffee and sheepishly rereading the charges Sarah Wallace had placed against her boyfriend. Maybe it was time to swallow some of my own medicine, but even the thought of pressing charges for the welt on my cheek started my heart jogging in place.

  I made it through twelve emails, a pre-trial hearing at three o’clock in the afternoon and seven voicemails before calling it a day. When I got home, Ben was in a foul mood. A case he was working on had taken a nosedive and there were too many holes in the net to save it. I opened a bottle of Cabernet and handed him a glass. “You’re not going to win them all, you know.”

  “That’s a great attitude.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Speaking of the truth, I was thinking about your mother today. Why didn’t she confront Jarod, tell him to back off or even call the police?”

  “That would mean her acknowledging that he’s deranged. If she did that, she might have to get involved and involvement in her children’s lives has never been my mother’s strong suit.”

  “Mothers have to get involved.”

  “Maybe in your house.”

  “You talk about Amelia and Hilary all the time. It’s like they’re your siblings. But you’ve never said anything about Jarod.”

  “There’s not much to say. He was crazy and always in trouble. My mother was on her knees in her bedroom; she had no idea what was happening on the other side of the door.”

  “Who took care of you?”

  I could feel him edging for a fight, which I knew was more about his bad day at work than my childhood. He needed someone to get pissed off at and I wasn’t going to bite.

  “I asked who took care of you? Who put you to bed? Who read to you?”

  I told him to forget it. I wasn’t about to tell him that for most of my life I’d believed that my dead grandmother watched over me and I still did, but his question surprised me. Ben had gone into corporate law for a reason. He wasn’t the kind of guy who dove into the murky waters of emotion. He was a wader. And that had served me well since my past wasn’t up for discussion.

  “What do you want for dinner?” I asked, more than ready to change the subject.

  “Marriage is about communication you know,” he said.

  “We’re not married.”

  “And if you have your way, we never will be.”

  “Ben, don’t start with that again. We’re knee-deep into this Dobbs mess. Can’t our love life wait?”

  “Our love life. You say it like it’s some kind of joke.”

  “I can’t handle this right now.” I walked away.

  “You never can.”

  I didn’t answer. Instead I closed the bathroom door, turned on the shower and let his words run down the drain. When I came out he was gone. A note on the table read, If you give a shit, I’ll be at Gritty’s.

  I crumpled it in my hand and threw it in the trash. Of course I gave a shit, of course our relationship was important to me, but the words felt like a recitation and there was a familiar twinge in the pit of my stomach. Ben was steadfast and ethical and kind and he was right about my avoidance of our love life. I wasn’t even sure that we had one, because I wasn’t sure that I loved him. I made a cup of tea feeling shallow and cold, wrestling with whether it was Ben I wanted or the sense of normalcy he provided. A quality of life I’d lacked growing up, but one that had become very comfortable over the past few years.

  I flopped onto the couch and began surfing channels on the television looking for something mindless. On Law and Order a brother had killed his sister for their parents’ fortune. There was certainly no chance of an inheritance in our family, but my imagination started humming and I envisioned Jarod waiting outside, seeing Ben leave, and pounding on my door to let him in so he could threaten me again. I got up and paced around the living room. There were too many scenarios in my head, most with endings I didn’t want to see. I picked up the phone.

  “Marquette.”

  “How about that drink?”

  “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” he said, sounding like he’d been waiting for the call.

  I was standing at the curb when Nick’s SUV pulled up beside me. I climbed in. When he smiled at me I wondered if I’d done something stupid by calling him so I took the conversation directly to Dobbs and assured myself it was all business.

  Nick took the devil’s advocate role. “He has a right to be in town. He grew up here. Coming back for a visit isn’t suspicious behavior.”

  “But he worked for Wainwright.”

  “So because Dobbs worked for Wainwright, that makes him involved in a robbery that was solved almost twenty years ago?” Nick looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “There’s also the tattoo,” I added. “And the fact that he roughed up Amelia.”

  “There’s that,” he nodded. “But roughing up Amelia is unrelated and she didn’t press charges.”

  “The guy’s a slime. He’s committed a serious crime in this town, probably two. He should be locked up or worse.”

  “Easy.” He laid his hand over mine. His palm was warm. “It’s the end of the day, I’m tired, you’re tired. Maybe we should take a break from Dobbs.”

  A picture of a little girl clipped to his visor caught my attention.

  “She’s cute,” I said.

  “Samantha, she’s ten. My daughter,” he said. “I don’t see her as much as I’d like—dinner on Wednesday and Thursday and every other weekend.
But I’m lucky if I can even manage that with my job.” He glanced at me. “You know how it is.”

  I nodded, remembering him at my mother’s kitchen table. He’d been drinking from the World’s Greatest Dad mug. I’d been sure that it fit him then, I was also sure now. We took a couple of turns in silence then pulled into the parking lot at Fisherman’s Grill.

  At the bar it was a margarita for me, and Johnny Walker Black for him.

  “How long were you married?” It came out of my mouth before I thought about it.

  “Just like a lawyer. No foreplay, just facts.”

  “Foreplay?”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m kidding, Jesus, can’t a guy have a little fun? You’re a good-looking woman, Minos. Cut me some slack.”

  “You’re not going to be easy,” I said.

  “Now who’s talking foreplay?”

  I lifted my margarita to my mouth and a few strands of hair clung to the salt on the rim of the glass. He reached over and brushed it back from my face. It was a simple gesture charged with anticipation and my heart somersaulted when his fingers grazed my cheek. I was not at all sure why I reacted physically to Nick, but I could tell it was mutual from the way his eyes sank into mine. I took a breath before I drowned.

  “So, where do we go from here with Dobbs? There has to be something concrete that I can take to DeLonge.”

  Nick downed his Johnny Walker and nodded to the bartender. “Summer Ale,” he said and glanced at me.

  I held up my hand indicating that I was all set and tried not to lose my train of thought.

  “I’ve waited a long time for this guy and now he’s standing in front of me. I’m going to get him if it kills me.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m not trying to downplay it. I haven’t forgotten how devastating it all was for you three girls. And I know you still shoulder all of it. That’s a lot to carry.” He ran his thumb over the scar on my palm.

  I lowered my head. It was one thing to have a cop know that you’d been bullied and neglected as a child. It was another to have a hot guy take you out for a drink and remember that you were the little girl who’d made herself bleed, and still did. There wasn’t much about me that Nick Marquette didn’t already know, no secrets between us.

  “Look.” He lifted my chin. “I’m just saying that I understand you have a lot riding on this and I’m going to help you, but once in a while it’s nice to take a break.”

  “And have a drink?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “It doesn’t always have to be about work.”

  “If it’s not about work, it’s going to get personal.”

  “That scare you?” he asked.

  In truth it did. I was on shaky ground and I knew it. I’d stopped thinking about Ben and our argument the moment I asked Nick out for a drink. And since sliding into his car, I’d felt anticipatory, in a good way. Now I felt guilty. “Ben and I have been together for two years,” I said.

  He took a swallow of his beer and shrugged. “Can’t fault a guy for trying. My mistake.”

  I looked at him and his eyes touched me somewhere in the pit of my stomach. “It wasn’t a mistake,” I said in a whisper, as though it would make it less wrong if I said it quietly. “I asked you, remember?”

  We both took a sip of our drinks, digesting whatever had just transpired. Then he set down his glass and pushed my hair away from my face, letting his fingers linger on my shoulder. A spray of heat tingled through my chest. I looked up, caught off guard, and waited for him to say something, very much aware of his hand.

  His cell broke the tension. He glanced at his watch before answering.

  “Hi, honey,” he said, holding the phone to his ear, but keeping his eyes on my face. “I’m on my way. Five minutes.” He hung up and slipped the phone into the back pocket of his jeans.

  “Late again,” he said and shook his head. “I pick up Sam at seven. It’s now, seven-o-five. The woman doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” He dropped two twenties on the bar. “We better go.”

  We stopped in front of my apartment and I got out quickly, but instead of closing the door I leaned against it and looked at him, wanting to lean back in and kiss him good-night. His half smile and the tilt of his head told me that he not only understood my dilemma, but was enjoying it.

  “I’ll call you,” he said.

  “I hope so.” I closed the door and watched him pull away from the curb.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I woke up in an empty bed. This was a first. Ben had never been upset enough to stay out all night or drank too much to drive home. He wasn’t the type to lose control. I tried his cell but he didn’t pick up. A call to his office gave me the after-hours recording. There were a couple of guys he occasionally had drinks with from his men’s league softball team and I considered calling them, but couldn’t quite make my fingers push the numbers. I hated coming across as the overbearing girlfriend as much as I hated airing the fact that our relationship wasn’t always blissful. Ben might blow me off, but he wouldn’t blow off work. If I could hold out a little longer, I was sure I’d find him sitting behind his desk in a couple of hours.

  Stitch rubbed his tiny pink nose against mine and then curled around my neck like a fur collar. I stroked his back, making inroads through the orange fur and listened to his engine run. Through a crack in the blinds, the sun promised another ninety-degree July day. I peeled Stitch from my neck and started getting ready for work, hoping to force my thoughts away from Ben and onto Dobbs and Wainwright.

  In the steam of the shower stall, I surmised that Dobbs must have worked for Duane right up until the robbery. The assault had occurred just a few days after and within a day or two of Wainwright’s arrest. Like Nick said, it had been a slam dunk, Wainwright’s prints all over the bat, no one to dispute it and who would have, given Wainwright’s claim to fame as the town drunk. He’d gone to Thomaston to await his trial and never left.

  I got dressed feeling like there was something else, something lingering at the edge of my vision that I couldn’t bring into focus. Two crimes, both in one way or another linked to Wainwright. Was Hilary the connecting factor?

  The line at Starbucks was daunting, but my morning shot of caffeine was always worth the wait. When I got to the counter, I ordered a double espresso, anticipating that kind of a day, and took a seat at a table outside under an umbrella. I people watched for about ten minutes and let my mind go blank, a welcome change that didn’t last for long.

  Ben and I needed to talk things out, to be honest with each other. Well, mostly I needed to be honest with him, but with all the other stuff going on I wasn’t sure I had the strength for honesty right now. And that, I knew, was coming from a purely selfish place, but I could only handle one mess at a time. I leaned back in my chair and tipped my face to the sun. I needed a quick dose of backbone.

  It took me ten minutes to walk to Maine Medical Center. I pushed the button and rode the elevator to the sixth floor. Hilary watched me approach from a chair in the Day Room.

  “You look like hell.”

  “Perceptive,” I said, kissed her on the cheek and flopped into a chair beside her. “Ben didn’t come home last night.”

  “What?”

  “We had a fight, he left and he didn’t come home.”

  “What about?”

  “The ususal, kids, marriage, the future. “ I left out his insinuation that she’s my priority and about the three of us still living like nine-year-olds.

  Hilary shook her head and sighed. “He should know better. On the other hand, maybe it’s time.”

  �
��To commit?” I asked.

  “Or get off the pot.”

  “Something’s holding me back.”

  Hilary draped her leg over the arm of the chair and swung her foot. “You should listen to that,” she said. “Stuff like that’s important.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes and I considered commenting on the fact that she seemed better—at least less combative. Knowing that it might piss her off, I went for it anyway.

  “You seem like you’re doing okay.”

  “How the hell else could I do in here? They don’t serve anything stronger than soda.” She smiled and softened. “Two weeks sober. I guess it shows a little.”

  “It shows a lot.”

  “They got a new counselor since I was here last, Carol Tupper. She’s not bad. Said I can continue to see her even after I’m discharged.”

  “Will you?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Well don’t get too excited. I have a way of letting you down.”

  “I think we’re even on that count,” I said.

  We both grew quiet again. I looked through the barred windows.

  “You heard any more from Jarod?”

  I shook my head. “It’s probably only a matter of time. As his court appearance draws closer, he’s going to get more desperate.”

  She didn’t answer, but I noticed that her foot had stopped swinging. “He’s gonna fuckin’ kill you.”

  I nodded. “Yup. And Jarod might be the last straw for Ben. He doesn’t exactly fit the guest list for the wedding Ben’s planning.”

  Hilary looked at me. “And you don’t either. You just don’t want to admit it.”

  I smiled at her insight and shrugged. “Ben’s just so...”

  “Controlled? Neat? Tidy?” Hilary rattled off adjectives. “Don’t get me wrong, I think Ben’s a nice guy, but not the guy. You need someone more intimate with life’s shit storms.”

  “Sounds like a real catch.”