The Comfort of Black

by Carter Wilson

  She wouldn’t hesitate. There was no question in her mind.

  He seemed to understand this, for he sat motionless in his chair, a schoolboy freshly chastised. He didn’t take his gaze off her, and Hannah considered how much the look of confidence had changed since she’d first met him in the lobby of the hotel all those years ago. The cocky boy who told her he’d just got funding for his company, he was moving to Seattle, and he was taking her out to dinner. The colorful light in his eyes back then was pure, full of the future in wait, coated in a perfect blend of confidence and naiveté.

  Now that color was replaced by a dull haze, cataracts of bad decisions, and any hope left was not for the distant future but simply for the next few minutes.

  Dallin broke the lengthy silence first. “I love you.”

  “Give me the account information,” she said.

  “Hannah.”

  “Black is right about the money. And since I have no idea how the rest of this conversation is going to go, I had better get the money now.”

  “If I give you the information, you won’t have any need for me,” he said.

  “I have no need for you at all,” she said. “This is about your needs, Dallin. If you feel a need not to bleed to death on this dirty motel carpet, you’ll give me the account information.” She pulled the gun out of her coat pocket and placed it on the bed next to her. “Now.”

  His gaze shifted from the gun to her face. “It’s in an account. Offshore. I haven’t given…given Billy access to it yet. Everything changed when he…when he said to…you know. With the change of plan.”

  “You mean when he said to have me killed?” Hannah said.

  Dallin slowly nodded.

  “Give me the information.”

  “I can access it on my phone.”

  “We’re not turning your phone on. Try again.”

  “It’s a file. On the SD card.”

  “Give me the file name and password. Now.”

  Dallin did, no longer resisting. Hannah opened the motel-room door and relayed the details to Black, who still had Dallin’s phone. She hoped Black could use the SD card in his own phone, which was cut off from any GPS tracking.

  When she closed the door again, Dallin said, “Your father is not going to stop looking for you.”

  “I’m willing to bet I can run faster than he can,” she said.

  The next few minutes were spent mostly in silence. Hannah sat on the edge of the bed and stared blankly at the wall. Dallin twice attempted to talk to her, but she wouldn’t answer him.

  A knock at the door. Hannah got up and answered.

  Black had a smile on his face.

  “It’s there,” he said. “All of it. I contacted Peter and gave him the info, and he transferred it to our account.”

  Hannah nodded. She didn’t even feel happy or relieved.

  “Don’t kill him, Hannah,” he said. “You’re not like that.”

  Hannah blinked and looked up at him. “Everyone thinks they know me,” was all she said. Then she closed the door, leaving Black to the sunlight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “Is it true?” she asked.

  Dallin didn’t answer at first, and then he mumbled, “Is what true?” But it wasn’t really a question, because he knew exactly what she was talking about. He was just trying to buy time, and Hannah remained silent, letting him. She had all the time in the world.

  A yell came from the neighboring room, the muffled shriek of a child’s excitement, a sound of being discovered during hide-and-seek. The thin plaster motel wall separated a child’s happiness and a man’s life untethering.

  Dallin remained silent for another minute, and, as if seeing no other way to get beyond the place they were now, he looked up and said:

  “Yes.”

  The urge to throw up welled through Hannah, making her hands clammy and her mouth water. She pushed it down.

  “You’ve been fucking my sister,” she said. “And Connor—my nephew. He’s your son.”

  “I wasn’t simply…” Dallin stopped himself, likely knowing there was no explanation that would make it any better. “Yes,” he said.

  “How long?” she asked.

  “Two years.” Pause. Then he added, “A little longer.”

  The image of Justine’s television interview flashed through her mind. Justine, all made up, just the right touch of concern on her face. Justine, suggesting Hannah perhaps found another man…

  “Cunt,” she said.

  Dallin let out a long, slow exhale, as if he knew it would perhaps be his last.

  “All those nights at work. Weekends. The whole time you were with her?”

  “Not all the time,” he said.

  “I’m such a fucking idiot,” she said. “I didn’t see any of it.”

  “Because you became a drunk,” he said simply. “And that’s something I should have seen earlier. You had everything, Hannah. You had a husband who loved you. You had money. Friends. And you just kept drinking more and more.”

  “Don’t you put this on me,” she said. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

  But he continued. “I tried getting through to you, but you always kept it in control just enough. You drank just enough to keep you short of needing rehab but past the point where you stopped giving a shit about me.”

  “That’s…not…true.”

  “It is true, Hannah. It’s true and you know it.”

  “Well, I’m not drinking anymore.” She didn’t know why she bothered telling him this. What did she want, his respect?

  “That’s good, Hannah.”

  Hannah eyed the gun on the bed. How easy it would be to make him pay for everything. One flash. One bang. Over.

  No, I came here for answers. I don’t have to like them.

  “So you figured Justine—a younger, sober version of me—would make you happy?”

  Dallin stifled a sob. Hannah had perhaps seen her husband cry a handful of times in all their years together.

  “I…I didn’t mean for it to start, and I take full responsibility for everything. But now I realize…I know she planned it all along. She wanted to take me from you. She wanted the life you had. She wanted the baby you weren’t having with me.”

  The last sentence flipped Hannah’s stomach to the point she had to sit on the bed.

  “And I was happy with her,” he continued. “For a while I truly was. And then she got pregnant. I freaked out. I wanted…I wanted her to get…to terminate it. She refused.”

  Hannah thought back to when Justine announced she was pregnant. She said it was her boyfriend’s, who quickly left the picture after that. It was in the spring, and for several months Dallin had been busier than ever. Traveling. Nights. Weekends. It had been a particularly bad time in their relationship.

  “But I loved her, Hannah. I’m not going to lie. I loved her and wanted to be with her. Connor…Connor is the greatest thing in my life, and I couldn’t even be honest about him. I’d have to make up an excuse with you just to sneak over there and see him. And when we went over to Justine’s place together, I’d have to sit there and pretend to be an uncle. It ripped my heart out.”

  Hannah’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.”

  “I’m telling you the truth, Hannah. It’s what you want, isn’t it? I’m not going to hide anything else. Hell, if it wasn’t for Connor, I wouldn’t even care if you killed me.”

  “He deserves a better dad than you,” she said. “And a better mother.”

  His eyes narrowed and a bead of sweat snaked from his forehead over the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m a good father,” he said.

  Hannah finally picked up the gun and pointed it at his head. “You’re not a good anything.”

  Dallin closed his eyes.

  “Why not divorce me?” she asked. The gun quivered in her grip and she lowered it, not wanting him to see her hand shaking it. “If you love her, why not just end our
marriage?”

  His eyes remained closed as he spoke. “When Justine and I first…started…I thought that’s what I wanted. We talked about it from time to time, but she was always telling me we had to take it slow. We had to be smart. But when she got pregnant, she changed.”

  “Changed how?”

  “She became possessive. She demanded more of my time. Started telling me I had to leave you. And she…she started to become very hateful of you. Saying horrible things.”

  “What kind of things?” Hannah whispered.

  He shook his head slightly. “Things about your past. About how you were the reason your father was always so angry. She…blamed you for his going to prison.”

  Hannah clenched her jaw. “He went to prison because he fucking beat me near death.”

  “I know. I know. But in her mind, despite the kind of man he was with your family, he kept a weird kind of stability. With him gone, your mom spiraled downward. Justine blames you for her death. I think a part of her always hated you for that. And then…then you both move out here. You became successful. She didn’t.”

  These were all things Hannah knew, or at least suspected. But she never realized these feelings Justine had were so strong, so much in the forefront of her mind. How could Justine not see what a disease their father was? How weak their mother had been? If Hannah had carried Justine out of a burning home, would she have blamed Hannah for letting her stuffed animals burn?

  “She changed,” he repeated. “She changed and I started to pull away from her. I…I began doubting that I wanted to be with her. And the more I pulled away, the more she clung.”

  “You’re such a weak man,” Hannah said. “How did I never see how weak you really are?”

  He kept shaking his head and looking down. He didn’t seem to be denying what she said as much as he was putting himself into some kind of trance, forcing himself through the words, taking his mind into a place where he could free himself to tell her everything she wanted to know.

  “After Connor was born,” he said, “I fell in love with him. Even as I grew less attracted to Justine, I became more attached to my boy. I love Connor more than anything in this world, and I can’t even tell anyone I’m his father. But…but every moment with him, I feel new. Different. Better.”

  She squeezed the gun, which she held at her side. “I wouldn’t know,” Hannah said. “I’m not a parent.”

  Yet.

  “I knew I had to divorce you,” he said, ignoring her comment, forcing himself through the rest of the story. “I knew, for better or worse, the truth needed to come out. I had to be Connor’s dad, and I couldn’t do that behind all the lies. I was going to tell you everything. I knew you were going to hate me. I knew it would be a nasty divorce. But it had to be done.”

  Hannah thought back to the months after Connor was born. Were those months worse than any others in the last two years? Hell, she didn’t even really remember. Had her drinking been so bad she couldn’t even pick up on the turmoil her husband was bringing home every day?

  “But you never said a single thing,” Hannah said. “So what happened?”

  Dallin finally opened his eyes and looked up at her. Even in the dim light, she could see the streaks of bloodshot against the whites.

  “Justine had another idea,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The door opened and Black peered in, his gaze sweeping the room, finally settling on the gun in Hannah’s right hand.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Hannah said. “We’re just getting to the good part.”

  “You need me in here?”

  No,” she said. “I’m good.”

  Black strode up to her and leaned into her ear.

  “Killing him would be a problem,” he said. “I would strongly advise against it.” He didn’t ask for the gun. He didn’t even ask that she at least put it down. He just gave the one warning and walked back outside, closing the door behind him.

  Hannah turned back to Dallin.

  “What was Justine’s plan?” She put the tip of the gun on his forehead, not because she thought he’d hold back on her. She did it because she wanted to see what it felt like. Did it make her feel strong? In control? Not really. She no longer needed the gun to control Dallin.

  Dallin squirmed in the chair, inching for more comfort, but finally letting his body sag.

  “It was a few months ago. I kept telling her I was about to tell you everything. She kept telling me not yet. That I’d get screwed in the divorce since I was the unfaithful one. She didn’t want me losing all the money to you.”

  She lowered the gun. “Bitch.”

  “She told me she’d been in touch with Billy. Before she and I ever…got together. I guess he’d gotten hold of her after he got out.”

  Hannah barely shook her head. “I can’t believe she’d talk to him.”

  “She has a different opinion of him than you do.”

  “He was almost nice to her,” Hannah said. “Because she never showed any ambition. Never cared about anything. I was the one who wanted a life. He hated me for wanting more than what we had.”

  “She told him about your wealth. Our wealth. It was all her idea. She figured a way to take our money and get rid of you. She roped in Billy, whose job it was to orchestrate everything with Black.”

  Hannah took a step back. “Wait, so she planned to seduce you? That was part of it?”

  He nodded. “And to get pregnant. She told me she was on the pill, which I don’t think she ever was. I think the original idea was to get me in a position where I had a financial responsibility to her. If she got pregnant, at the very least I would owe support. But that’s nothing compared to the money she would get if I…if I left you and married her.”

  “And Billy would have the satisfaction knowing he helped destroy my marriage,” she added. “But that’s a lot of patience and planning. Any number of things could have gone wrong.”

  Dallin shrugged within the few centimeters the duct tape would allow. “But they didn’t,” he said. “You were in your own world,” he said. “She and I…we had flirted before. She was confident I wouldn’t say no to her, which I didn’t. And once we started…it was just a matter of time before she got pregnant. I think the one thing she didn’t account for was having feelings for me. And the closer she got to me, well, I think the more she hated you.”

  “I saved her,” Hannah said. “I saved her from our home. I gave her a new start. I never did anything but help her.”

  “You had things she didn’t,” Dallin said. “You had dreams of something bigger. That’s all it took.”

  “When did you find out they planned all this?”

  “She told me a few months ago. Like I said, just as I got closer to telling you everything. She told me about Billy. She told me everything. How she wanted to be with me, how I was too good for you.”

  Hannah’s skin tingled with heat, anger creating sweat.

  He continued. “She must have thought I would be okay with the fact she’d been conspiring with Billy for all that time. That I would just agree to whatever they wanted. I think she thought I wanted to be with her as much as she wanted to be with me. Truth is, I just want to be with Connor. But there was no way of achieving that without Justine being involved. She said they came up with another plan, one that would get rid of you without risking all the money in a nasty divorce.”

  “Black,” she said.

  Dallin nodded. “Billy knew him. Knew he could make all the arrangements. I mean…I mean their plan was crazy. The things they wanted me to do. To pretend to be. Jesus, Hannah, believe me that I never wanted it. Our marriage may have fallen apart, but I never wanted to do this to you. I’m a fucking idiot. I admit it. But I was going to at least tell you the truth. You at least deserved that.”

  “But she changed your mind.”

  “I told her I wouldn’t do it. By that point I really thought she was crazy. I was worried about Con
nor then. I was going to go to the police.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “Hannah, it’s true. That’s…that’s when I met Billy.” A cough, another strain against the tape. “Billy came to her house one night when I was there. I couldn’t believe it. Here was the man I’d heard so much about. The man you…you tried to kill.”

  All she had to do was flick that lighter.

  “He told me, ‘Son, you’re going to do what we say, and I’ll tell you why.’ He had Connor in his lap, stroking his hair. God, it was awful. Seeing Connor in the lap of the man who… Anyway, he said if I didn’t do what they said, they’d kill you. Not only that, they would make sure all suspicion would be thrown on me. Husband having an affair with his wife’s sister. A baby. A potentially ugly divorce. I would have lost everything, even if they couldn’t prove it. You would have lost your life. And I’d never see my son again.”

  Hannah didn’t know what to say. She tried to understand the position Dallin had been in, but all that stood out was he mentioned he would lose everything before mentioning Hannah would lose her life.

  “Dallin, you shoved me. You choked me.”

  Then his face changed. The muscles keeping his cheeks and forehead taut went completely slack. His face fell, pulling his eyes open wider. The look on Dallin’s face was one of true dismay, the realization that everything one believed in was definitely disproven in a lightning bolt of a moment. He seemed to choke, but the choke turned in to a hacking sob, and then to tears, flowing tears, unstoppable.

  She said nothing as he cried. As his body shook and the waves of despondency gutted him. When the sobbing stopped, he looked to the floor for moments longer, and then lifted his head to her.