The Comfort of Black

by Carter Wilson

  “How does it feel to talk about it?”

  “I hate it. But, like you said, you know nothing about me. You deserve to know something, and I’m not telling you my name.”

  “So you went to jail,” she said.

  “No, I went to prison. Jail is for small stuff, or for temporary holding. Prison is where you go to turn into a different person. And even though I was a cop, even though I had some sympathy on my side, and even though I pled temporary insanity, I still got twenty years. Twenty fucking years in state prison. You know what kind of fun a cop-turned-convict has in state prison? Not much.”

  “How long after you went to prison did you escape?”

  “Two years. Two years of the worst hell I’ve ever known. Two of us got out together. I’m still free. He isn’t.”

  “The other guy got caught?”

  Black nodded. “He was sloppy. He lasted three months, better than most. But he got a little lazy, which is all it takes. He went back. I stayed out.”

  “How do you know he was caught?”

  “Because we remained together until a few days before he was re-arrested. Which is another thing I’ve learned. You have to be alone. No matter how lonely you get, once you stop being alone, you’re vulnerable. He knew too much about me.” Black looked distantly beyond her. “Still does.”

  Something started ringing. Hannah looked around and saw nothing.

  “Excuse me,” he said. Black walked into the next room, toward the sound of the tone. She heard him answer a phone and then mumble, his words clipped and guarded. He was silent, and then spoke. Silent, then more words. His voice grew.

  “No,” she heard. “No. Jesus, what?”

  His voice trailed as he moved further away. She heard a door close and then more angry words muffled by wood and sheetrock.

  Silence.

  Another door slamming.

  Minutes later, Black walked back into the kitchen, his posture rigid.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I need to do some work upstairs. The house is locked. Keep your shades in your bedroom down.”

  “Who was on the phone?”

  “It’s nothing to concern you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “There are things I need to do.”

  That was the end of the conversation. Black shut down after finally having opened up, stinging Hannah with his silence. He walked out of the kitchen and turned off the light, leaving Hannah in the dark. He caught himself a moment later and flicked the switch back on.

  “Reflex,” he said. “I’m used to being alone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  DAY 7

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  “I thought we were safe.”

  Black kept staring straight ahead as he drove.

  “I thought so, too.”

  “What changed? I thought we were staying at your house for a few days.”

  The morning sunlight hit the side of Hannah’s face through the car window which meant they were driving north.

  “Plan changed.”

  “Why?”

  The only sound was the asphalt treadmilling beneath the car wheels and the rush of the air against the windshield. Black said nothing.

  “You know, more than a two-word answer would be nice,” she said. “I mean, we had sex. Then we had dinner, where you told me things you supposedly never said to anyone else. Then you get some call and turn cold on me, then wake me up in a rush first thing in the morning and tell me to pack my stuff because we’re leaving.” She rolled a hair tie off her wrist and put her hair back in a ponytail. “I deserve a little more than ‘plan changed.’”

  He stole a glance at her and snapped his attention back to the road the moment their eyes met. His jaw was tight, she noticed, and his hair genuinely out of place, rather than just a sculpted version of disheveled. But it was more than just that. He looked harried, uncertain. Unprepared, which is something she guessed Black hardly ever was.

  “Did you even sleep last night?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  Hannah let out an exasperated sigh at his silence then kept looking out the window, out at the pine trees whipping by the side of the road.

  Then a thought hit her.

  “Why didn’t you blindfold me?” she asked.

  Nothing.

  “You blindfolded me going to your house. But this morning we just drove away, and I saw exactly where you live. All of a sudden you’re not concerned?”

  “Like you said last night,” he said. “Mexican standoff.”

  The answer contained as much explanation as his previous one. Plan changed. Might as well say Shut the fuck up and do what you’re told. Nothing rang true.

  “Are we headed to the border?” she asked.

  His only answer to that question was taking the next exit off the highway and then silently navigating a series of roads, each one lonelier than the previous, until nearly a half-hour later they were on a simple dirt road flanked by a panoramic view of evergreens. It wouldn’t be long before snow coated the endless sea of spiny needles.

  Black stopped the car. The road was too small to pull over to the side, but no other cars were anywhere to be seen.

  “Where are we?” Hannah asked.

  “The middle of nowhere.”

  “This is the change of plans?”

  “It’s a start.”

  Hannah looked out the windshield and saw the expanse of forest before her. The curving land sloped into a narrow valley in the distance, a strip of blue-gray river snaking along its floor. In happier times, Hannah would have considered all of this beautiful. Now she found it desperately lonely.

  Black turned his shoulders toward her. He unfastened his seatbelt, allowing him to fully turn and face her.

  “I have some things to tell you,” he said.

  Hannah kept her own seatbelt on. She briefly glanced at her door, checking that it was unlocked, before moving her gaze to him.

  “What?”

  “You’re in danger. Real danger.”

  “No shit,” she said.

  “You don’t understand, because…because there are things I haven’t been truthful about.”

  She felt her leg muscles stiffen, pushing her body straighter in her seat.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You need to disappear. For real. It wasn’t safe back at my house. Everything’s been compromised.”

  “Why do you keep saying ‘for real’?”

  Black reached for a plastic water bottle nestled in the driver’s side door. He twisted the cap and took a sip so small Hannah thought the gesture intended more to buy time rather than quench thirst. He spoke again, but this time he looked straight ahead rather than at her.

  “I’m working for someone,” he said. “This person wants you to disappear, and he hired me to do it. Everything that’s happened…it’s all been staged to make you believe your life was in danger. To make you want to run away. I was waiting for you in the coffee shop that day.”

  His words drilled into her, into her core, squeezing her gut. Hannah pushed the button releasing her seatbelt, which spooled back into its harness. She had heard him, but didn’t know what to do next. Was he even telling the truth? Other questions flooded her brain in fragments, overlapping each other so the only words that seemed to resonate were what, who and why. She felt herself recoiling against the car seat.

  Then she said, “Dallin hired you to do all of this?”

  “Let me finish,” Black said. “I got a call last night. Things changed because…because something happened.”

  “What? What happened?”

  He shook his head as if trying to erase the reality of what he had to say. Then he paused, looked at her directly, and said, “They killed your psychologist.”

  “What?”

  “Madeline Britel, that’s her, right?”

  “Yes…I mean…” Dr. Br
itel’s face flashed in Hannah’s mind. Always sitting in the same chair, the same bonsai tree on the floor next to her. The smell of leather in the office. Books. A faint aroma of her perfume. Long black hair, a few streaks of gray that the doctor did nothing to conceal. Stern face, hard eyes, but the occasional smile that could warm her expression entirely. She heard the last words Dr. Britel said to her:

  Do you feel safe?

  “Please tell me what the hell you’re talking about,” she said. “Tell me this is all a lie.”

  Black shook his head. “My…my business partner called me last night and confirmed it.”

  “Who’s your business partner? I thought you worked alone.”

  “Later,” he said. “He said it’s on the news. That’s what I was doing last night. Confirming it. She was shot outside her building. Her office ransacked. Staged to make it look like a robbery, I’m sure, to throw off the scent. They knew you spoke to your psychologist about what happened with your husband, at least his talking in his sleep. That would have been in her notes. If the police were ever able to subpoena those notes, which is difficult but not impossible—”

  “Are you saying my husband murdered my therapist?”

  Black held his hand up. “There’s more. The client told all this to my partner last night as a means to show their seriousness. They had a change in plans, and I think killing your doctor was about more than cleaning up a loose end. They want to try to scare me into doing something that wasn’t part of the original plan.”

  Hannah started to speak, her mouth so dry it seemed a wool sock had been shoved inside it for hours.

  “What’s…what’s the new plan?”

  He leaned in just enough to be either comforting or threatening, depending on the words he spoke next.

  “They want me to kill you.”

  Hannah knew what he was going to say a second before the words came out. As he spoke the words, she grabbed for the handle of the center console, pulling it open. Yesterday there had been a gun in there, and that was her only hope.

  She saw the dull black handle of the weapon.

  Hannah snatched the gun and fumbled with it for a split second—almost dropping it—before wrapping both hands tightly around the grip and pointing the barrel directly into Black’s face.

  Besides a solitary blink, Black made no other movement. He kept his focus on Hannah’s eyes, not on the gun in front of his face.

  Hannah saw her hands shaking and wished she could hold the gun steady, with power and authority. The weapon had a weight to it greater than she expected.

  “Okay, take it easy, Hannah. I didn’t say I’m going to kill you. I said my client wanted me to kill you. I’m not going to hurt you. That’s why we’re out here. That’s why—”

  “Stop talking,” she said. “Just shut up.”

  “Hannah—”

  She straightened her arms. The gun was almost touching his face. She watched the tip of the barrel waver from one eye to another as her hands shook, wondering if she could really do it.

  “Shut up. Goddammit. Nothing is real. You are not real. I trusted you, despite all my instincts not to. I trusted you. It was the only choice I had, and even that was wrong.”

  “If I was going to kill you, I would have done it while you were sleeping. I’m trying to help you. Just let me explain.”

  “Stop talking.”

  “Hannah, I could just swat the gun out of your hands. You’re not going to shoot. So just put it down and let’s talk.”

  The shaking of Hannah’s hands moved up into her arms, and the harder she squeezed the gun, the more she trembled. She licked her lips, tasting the salty sweat beading on her upper lip. She pulled the gun back away from his face to try to steady her grip. But her arms still shook with the adrenaline surging through her body.

  Black leaned back, putting more distance between his gun and his face.

  “It isn’t even loaded,” he said. “I keep the bullets in—”

  Hannah closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The shot was deafening in the tight confines of the car, and when she opened her eyes the first thing she noticed was the shattered glass of the driver’s window. Black’s hands were in front of his face, and Hannah winced as she expected to see blood pouring from between his fingers.

  He removed his hands. His face was fully intact. Hannah had missed, the combination of shaking hands and closed eyes dooming her aim, even at such a short distance.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “I can’t believe you really pulled the trigger.” He pushed himself back against the car door as Hannah quickly brought the gun back up.

  I can’t believe it either, she thought. She wanted to think she missed on purpose, but she hadn’t. Just for the fact that she couldn’t hold her weapon steady was the only reason he was alive. Or maybe it was some kind of divine intervention.

  “Get out of the car,” she said. “Just get out of the fucking car.”

  “Fine, Hannah.” He kept his hands up. “Let’s both get out of the car and we can talk, okay?”

  “I’m done with talking,” she said. “And I’m done with trusting.”

  “Hannah, you can’t just leave me out here.”

  She kept the gun pointed at him, and now her hands seemed steadier. “I’m going to tell you one more time to get out of the car, and then I’m going to shoot again. Next time my eyes will be wide open, and I won’t miss.”

  Black opened the door and got out, leaving the door open. Hannah kept the gun trained on him from the passenger seat of the car.

  “Dallin is your client,” she said. “But you said ‘they.’ Who else hired you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Who are your clients?”

  “Will you not just abandon me if I tell you?”

  Hannah aimed the gun just to the left of Black and pulled the trigger again. Black jumped as the bullet screamed past him. The sound of the blast echoed inside her head, but this time it felt good. The gun felt less heavy. A sense of power and control surged through her.

  “Will you stop doing that?” he said.

  “Tell me. Or the next one’s going into you.”

  Black ran one hand through his hair, smoothing it back for a second before long strands fell again over his forehead.

  “Yes, Dallin,” he said. “Dallin’s my main client. He was the one who initially contacted me.”

  “Was he the one who told you to kill me?”

  “No, the call last night was from my partner. He’d been given the instruction to…the change of plans.”

  “Who’s your partner?”

  Black sighed.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “You know him as Peter.”

  Hannah saw the man in her mind. The huge hands, the deep stare. She could smell the chemical on the rag he used to send her into unconsciousness.

  My job is to mitigate risk.

  “The thug from Echo?”

  “He doesn’t work for Echo,” Black said. “He works for me. I knew him in prison.”

  Another falsehood. Another deception.

  “Tell me everything right now,” she said. “Goddammit, tell me everything, and if I think you’re lying I swear to God I’ll—”

  “Hannah, there’s so much you don’t know. I don’t know everything. In fact, I’m thinking I know a lot less than I suspected. Let’s get back in the car, drive away from here, and I promise I’ll tell you everything I know. That’s what I was trying to do anyway before you pulled the gun on me. I was driving you away from danger. Just take it easy, okay?”

  “Let me tell you what I know,” she said. “I know if you tell me to take it easy one more time, I’m shooting you in the face. Right the fuck in that beautiful face of yours, Black. And then you won’t be able to tell any more lies. You won’t have to run away from anyone again.”

  She barely felt anything, any emotion, any sensation at all. She simply observed what this
tiny woman with the gun and cheap hair dye was saying.

  “Hannah,” he said.

  “You need to tell me everything. Who the other clients are. And why all the pretense? Why not just kill me earlier?”

  Black didn’t seem to hear her. He was distracted by something else.

  “Hannah,” he barked. “We’ve got company.”

  She felt her mouth say the word “What?”

  “Look.”

  Hannah turned her head and looked through the rear window of Black’s car.

  She saw a white pickup, battered and rusted, the war scars of hard use. It pulled to a stop fifty yards away, and Hannah hadn’t even heard it approaching. A man stepped out of the truck and started walking towards their car. There were many things about this man that screamed caution to Hannah, but none more so than the shotgun he carried.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Black whispered with enough force for it to be a hiss.

  “Give me the gun, Hannah.”

  “The hell I will.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Goddammit, I wish you would just believe that. This guy looks like a problem.”

  Hannah turned her head again. If someone was ever to film a version of Deliverance in the Pacific Northwest, Hannah thought, this guy would be in it. The first thing she noticed was the man was broad and thick, carrying the kind of extra weight that suggested power rather than fat, like a linebacker. His beard was almost as long as the hair on his head, all of which appeared to have avoided the bite of a comb in weeks, maybe months. His small, dark eyes were set back behind high, puffy cheeks. The flannel and denim encasing him had faded into monochromatic shades.

  He’s a bear, Hannah thought. Grizzly.

  “Is he working for you, too?” she asked. Her grip on the gun did not loosen.

  Black seemed to want to argue more but must have thought better of it. He called out to the man.

  “Morning,” Black said.

  The man kept walking without responding. As he got closer, he shifted the shotgun so he held it with both hands. It wasn’t pointing at them. Yet.

  “Can I help you?” Black said.

  Black took a firm stance on the dirt road, right leg back, knee slightly bent.