by Ray Backley
“Is this really what you want?” she asked her reflection.
Think, think, think. There was very little time. She either took the pills now or she didn’t.
She placed the pills down on the edge of the sink.
There had to be another way.
She thought about all the times she’d struggled with her history and had been forced by circumstances to sort out her own feelings by herself, unable to confide in Dan despite so desperately wanting to.
And it occurred to her that there was one other way. It took a couple of minutes for her to convince herself, but in that time her idea moved up the list from being a batshit crazy longshot to a realistic way out of this whole mess. It was the only way she would be able to guarantee their safety. That bastard who’d just been released from San Quentin had stated in cold hard words that he would kill anybody else she loved. Anybody else she loved? Anybody ELSE? She told herself to wash her mouth out. They were his words, not hers. She had never loved him. Never. And he had definitely never loved her. He wasn’t capable, and that was the truth.
And she wasn’t going to let him win.
Her mind was made up.
She took a few deep breaths, gave her face a little more of a wash to clear up some of the redness around her eyes, and glanced at the pills again. Three would do it. No, just two. Just two, because of what one had done to her. Dan wasn’t much bigger than her. And inch taller, forty pounds heavier. She picked up two pills. Yes, dissolved in a little alcohol to camouflage the taste and also to help with the effects, two would do just fine.
She nodded to herself, balled her fists to give herself a little courage, and went downstairs.
When she entered the living room, Dan stood up again and asked her what was happening.
“I’ll tell you in a few minutes. Just turn the TV off and wait here.”
It was bizarre, almost funny: the movie was still paused. For a second Cath wished that her life, too, could be paused, for the future to not happen. But Dan turned the TV off, and Cath came back down to planet earth. She headed for the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“I need a drink,” she hissed from the doorway. “Just wait a minute.”
In the kitchen, she stood still for a few seconds and told her hands to quit trembling. A few deep breaths later she did what was necessary, then returned with two small tumblers of gin and offered one to Dan.
“I’m good,” he replied.
“Take it.”
“Since when have I liked gin?”
“Dan. Please. Just take it and drink it.” Her voice was raised just enough so that he wouldn’t argue.
And it worked. She threw hers into her throat in one shot, then stared at him. He hesitated, but made an okay expression with his face and downed his too.
“So . . . are you going to tell me who called you earlier? Do I get to know what’s happening around here?”
A few seconds later they were next to each other on the couch. “Hold me,” she said, and laid her head on his chest, closed her eyes, felt those strong arms around her. Her tears were wetting his T-shirt, but she controlled her voice.
“You’re going to have a very difficult time,” she said.
“What?” He gave her one of his short, slightly exaggerated laughs, as if he was desperately trying to make light of the situation and knew he was failing. It was one more quirk of his that she would miss.
“Just hold me, Dan. And remember that whatever happens, I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll never forget you or Phoebe or Benjie or the precious times we’ve had in this house. Our home.”
“Uh . . . if you say so, I guess, but—”
“I have no choice, and we don’t have much time. I’m doing what I think is best. I want you to promise me that you won’t forget that. I don’t want you to suffer, but this is the only way.”
“Please, Cath. You’re starting to scare me. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Promise me, Dan.”
He sighed, eyelids now slowing every time he blinked. He was tired. That was good. His arms, now just a little weaker, squeezed her. “Okay. I promise I won’t forget.”
She waited, almost counting, willing the time to march on.
“Are you going to tell me?” he said. He yawned when she didn’t reply. “I mean, who the hell was calling you at this time of night? It’s all very James Bond.” Another yawn. “And I’m really tired, but I’m damned if I’m going to bed without you giving me some kind of explanation.”
She patted his chest. “Just relax. Let me go check on Phoebe and Benjie. Then I’ll come back down and we can talk. I’ll tell you everything.”
“If that’s what you want.”
She lifted her head and quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks before standing and heading for the hallway.
“I love you, Dan,” she said from the door.
“I love you too, Cath,” he said, eyelids now drooping, adding, “You’re crying again.”
She nodded, then went upstairs. She went into the master bedroom, collected together a few items of Dan’s clothing, mainly underwear, and placed them near the door. In the children’s bedroom she also gathered some of their clothes and placed them with Dan’s, then sat for a few minutes with them, looking at their innocent faces. They had done nothing to deserve this, it was true, but neither had she.
When Phoebe’s bedside clock showed 10:30, she left them sleeping and crept back downstairs.
A rhythmic, rasping murmur emanated from Dan’s nose, a sure sign of snoring to come later in life. And it was beautiful. She slapped his face a few times just to be sure he was out, then pulled his arm, twisting his body around so that she had his head and shoulders in her lap. It was a good job he wasn’t much heavier than her. In fact, dragging him along was easier than she thought it would be, and hopefully he wouldn’t end up too bruised. At 10:50 she was done and returned to the children’s bedroom. She huddled Phoebe up in her bedclothes and took her away, returning later for Benjie and the stack of clothes. The kids were also easier than she thought, each one stirring a little as she carried them, but never completely waking up.
A few minutes after eleven, just as the black car was pulling up outside, Cath started gathering a few of her own possessions into a weekend bag, and told herself she’d done the right thing. As she was leaving the house, she noticed Dan’s cell phone on the small table in the living room, next to where he’d been sitting. Would that have been useful to him? Well, it didn’t matter now. There was no time. Her arms and back ached from dragging Dan, but mentally she was starting to feel strong. Of course, that could change, but at the time, when she got into that car and sat next to Sergeant Jones, she felt strong.
And that feeling did change.
Deep regret started to surface pretty much as soon as the car drove off, getting too intense to ignore as she was carried out of Pasadena and toward the freeway. It was only then, as she was leaving her family alone and helpless, that she started to panic and tell Sergeant Jones to go back. Of course, it was a pointless request; there was no way the car would turn around. She knew the score.
She’d known the score ever since she’d stopped being Karen Fisher and had become Catherine Hall twelve years ago. And the need to lock that old, shameful life away in a sealed vault had become much more acute when she’d married Dan and become Catherine Brewer eight years ago.
Chapter 5
At first Dan wasn’t even sure he’d opened his eyes. He could see just as much with them shut as open: nothing at all.
A few seconds later, that worry was relegated to second place; his mouth was giving him more grief – dryer than dry, causing a flashback to coming round after his one and only general anesthetic three years ago. The back of his throat was as tacky as flypaper, one side of his tongue appeared to be glued to the roof of his mouth. He shifted his tongue around a few times and moved his jaw up and down in an attempt to get a little saliva going, so at least
he could swallow and fully open his airways.
Then there was his neck, shoulders, and back: they all ached like he’d had a major gym workout. And his heels hurt like he’d backheeled a few rocks. He rubbed his feet together. No shoes, only socks. That might have explained why his heels hurt. Well, it might have explained it if he’d had any recollection of doing anything remotely like backheeling a rock, which wasn’t exactly a hobby of his.
Then he turned his attention back to where the hell he was, and tried his best to see something – anything. He blinked. Yes, his eyes were definitely open. It was still very dark – no, not so much very dark, more like total coal mine black. Either that or he’d gone blind. And he would have remembered that.
Talking of which, what could he remember about how he’d gotten here?
Well, he recalled the meal – pizza Friday as Phoebe and Benjie liked to call it. It was a relaxed affair, nothing unusual. After leaving time for the children’s stomachs to settle, Dan and Cath put them to bed. Then there was the other Brewer Friday tradition: the movie. Dan couldn’t recall the title, but was pretty sure he’d selected one he knew Cath would like. She’d taken a little convincing, but in the end had enjoyed it.
Well, until . . .
Until something had interrupted the movie. Yes, something had definitely happened toward the end of it. But what? His body was still half-asleep and his mind probably three quarters, but in time he recalled Cath acting strangely. She was . . . well, different. Perhaps she was upset. Had he done something to annoy her? If he had, he couldn’t remember the incident. The last thing he recalled was her talking to him. And was her face . . . tearful? Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully, more memories would come back to him when he was fully awake. He tried thinking of her face, willing his mind to return to the event.
For a moment it worked; he could see her face in the darkness, but it was the only thing he could see.
He assured himself that his vision would return. Of course it would. Within a few minutes his eyes would become accustomed to the darkness and he would be able to see where he was, to make some sort of sense of what was happening.
He reached out, but with great care. This wasn’t right. He was on his back, but surely wasn’t in bed. Anything could be out there. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing but fresh air even with his arms stretched out. Fresh air? No. Definitely not fresh. It smelled damp and not unlike a construction site. Now he moved his hands out to the sides – again, very slowly.
Both hands touched something and he instinctively flinched back, fearful because it had the texture of a cheese grater. He felt his fingertips, sensed no blood, so inched them out again.
It wasn’t quite a cheese grater; it was brickwork. But it was very rough. He tried again, moving his hand up high and then far forward. Yes, brickwork. About two feet away from each shoulder. Was he in a corridor of some sort? He reached out behind his head. More brickwork. Not so much a corridor, more like the bricked-up dead-end of one. Or just a small room. Whatever the hell it was, it was not good, not good at all.
More importantly, why couldn’t he see anything? How long did eyes take to get used to the dark? He had no idea how long they took to become fully accustomed, but surely he should see something after a few minutes.
He realized that to see anything he would need light – even if only a tiny amount. Here, there seemed to be none whatsoever.
Either that or he really was blind.
And was he deaf too? He could hear nothing. He coughed, then clicked his fingers.
Yes, he could hear. Thank God he wasn’t deaf. He exhaled in relief and heard that too.
Then he heard a noise, and stilled every muscle he could. What the hell was that? It was a high-pitched groan or squeak, like a small animal, but it stopped as soon as it had started.
He lifted his head. “Hello?” he said quietly. Nothing. Not even a faint echo. Whatever this room was, it was very small. He looked all around – ahead, left, right, straight up, twisted to look behind him. It was an intensely uncomfortable experience, not knowing what was out there, fearing that something might suddenly decide to come out of the darkness and strike eyeballs that were incapable of protecting themselves. The thought made him blink again.
His hand instinctively reached for his cell phone. It wasn’t in either pocket. He couldn’t remember what the hell he’d done with it. In fact, he could remember very little about the previous night other than the pizza and the movie. That is, if it was the previous night. Then another vignette came to mind: him and Cath sharing a drink after they’d put the children to bed.
That didn’t help: he still didn’t have his cell phone.
However . . .
He clutched his wrist. It was there. The cheap watch – the antique Casio digital that had probably seemed so futuristic to his dad back in the eighties. What with everyone now owning smartphones, those things were now obsolete, but Dan had always thought old-tech was somehow just as cool as new-tech.
And his was the model with a light. Not exactly what anyone would call a flashlight, but it was a light.
He fiddled with the cuff of his sweater, stuck his right thumb to the left of the watch body and pressed.
There was light.
He let go and cursed, collapsing back and letting out a few deep breaths. He hadn’t gone blind. Thank God.
He tried again, this time keeping his fingertip pressed on the button, looking at the digits. For a moment the light was too bright and hurt his eyes, but he kept looking. It was 9:13 a.m. Well, it was 9:13 a.m. if the time hadn’t been changed. The thing had never been perfectly accurate, but gaining a minute a week was as good as anyone really needed. So if that time was correct, he’d either been transported some huge distance or there were no windows in the room.
The light from the watch wasn’t much help, but it was all he had. He angled the face away from him and pressed the tiny button again. There was no telling how far the light was throwing itself. In the complete darkness it was irrelevant. He moved the light to his left – toward the rough surface he’d felt. And yes, it was indeed brickwork. He checked the other side too. Yep, more brickwork. He traversed down and across. More of the same. But not regular bricks. These were concrete blocks – and the pointing between them was poor. He allowed himself a laugh. Cath had joked about that once or twice, saying he was borderline OCD. He wasn’t; he was observant.
That made him think of Cath again.
If anyone had difficulties in the mental health department, it was Cath. Of course, he’d never made a big deal of it, and had definitely never mentioned the words “mental health” to her because he knew her background. Both parents had died in a car crash when she was five, after which she’d been brought up by her mom’s parents, who had both passed away while she was in her late teens. She was too cut up about missing the best mom and dad anyone could ever have to care about school. And that probably explained her uneventful life: not too many friends – no old ones at all from her schooldays; only one previous boyfriend who she never wanted to talk about. She’d had a couple of anxiety attacks since Dan had known her, and had seen a shrink once, but Dan always thought the most constructive way to deal with her issues was for him to downplay them. Not to dismiss them, but to tell her the truth: that nobody was perfect in this world and that nobody was supposed to be perfect, and that she was an awesome wife and mother, which mattered far more than most things, so he was a happy husband as long as she was happy.
So no, he wasn’t OCD – and a damn good job he wasn’t, given his current situation. Observant, yes.
And right here, right now, there was nothing better to do than observe. He moved the light from the watch back to his left, twisted his body to position it further up and down. And he observed.
And he saw a mains power socket. With something plugged into it. An electrical cable emerged from the back of the plug, so he moved the light along to trace that.
A few inches up, installed in the cable, was a
switch of some sort. He reached out to touch it, but hesitated, the back of his mind reminding him that this was electricity and in the current circumstances it was to be treated with caution.
He tapped the body of the switch with the back of his little finger – a trick he’d learned in his early IT days to minimize the risk of electrocution. But it was fine. He traced his fingers across the surface until he was in a position to switch whatever was at the other end on – or possibly off; because he had no idea what the hell was going on in this strange world he’d been dumped into.
He laid his thumb onto the switch, pausing, bracing himself. He thought for a few seconds. It could be a TV, it could be heat, it could be an alarm, it could be any number of unpleasant things. Of course, it could be a light switch.
He braced himself.
Chapter 6
At around the same time, Cath was lying back on one of the beds of room 6 of the Toledo Motel, trying to control her twitching, fidgeting body, unsure what to do or even think.
The motel was generous for one person, which didn’t help Cath’s mood, and was very average accommodation: one allocated parking space, two double beds, one small desk with chair, one TV, one large closet with a hanger section on one side and drawers on the other. At the back end was a microwave oven over a small refrigerator next to a tiny sink, and next to that was a door leading to a compact bathroom.
The whole place smelled fresh, but in a synthetic way.
The most important aspect of it, however, was that very few people – possibly only Sergeant Jones and the driver of that car – knew she was here. That was good, but as she curled up on the bed and hugged herself, she would have gladly traded all the safety in the world for the company of her husband and children. She hadn’t slept all night, and hadn’t even tried to eat breakfast; she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it down. So, too tired to do anything useful, she considered for the hundredth time since leaving Lancaster Drive just how she might break the news to Dan that she’d been lying to him for as long as she’d known him. For that, she had to run through the story in her own mind.
