That was it? “Are you going to come looking for me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I won’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Does my word mean anything to you? I’ve never lied to you.”
I thought about that. “No,” I said. “You’ve never lied to me.”
“Then I give you my word you won’t hear from me. I won’t come for you. It’ll be you that comes back to me.”
This conversation was going very strangely. We sounded almost like old friends. But if he’d been here in front of me right now, I’d have fought him to the death. I didn’t have my Glock thanks to the TSA, but I was good with my hands.
“All right,” I said. “I believe you.”
“Good.”
“Let me ask you something, then?”
“If you like.”
I hesitated. I didn’t know how to phrase this. “There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” I finally said. “Ever since you came back, that first night in my house, you said you were going to start the game again. Our game. I mean, that’s your word for it, not mine. But it’s been a year and you’ve done…nothing. You send me your cards and flowers, and I know you’ve been watching me, but you haven’t started the game. I find it hard to believe you’ve just been trying to come up with something really interesting this whole time.”
He was quiet for a moment. “No,” he said.
“Then what’s going on?” I asked. “If you weren’t going to start playing, why haven’t you just shown up and tried to kill me? You’ve threatened to enough times. Why didn’t you kill me that night four years ago, for that matter?”
He went silent again. I wondered if he’d hung up, concerned about me trying to trace the call. Our few conversations in the past few years had all been brief. But when I listened closely I could still hear him breathing quietly.
“I suppose I owe you that much,” he said at last. “There must have been some confusion on your end.”
“You might say that.”
“The thing is, Nevada, for a long time I wasn’t able to answer that question, myself. Why didn’t I kill you when we fought four years ago? Why didn’t I kill you when you were strapped to that chair last year?”
“Last year you said you’d missed the game.”
“But I think I was lying to myself. The truth is a bit stranger. The truth is…you make me feel, Nevada.”
Something cold and prickly crawled into my stomach. I felt like I might throw up. “I’m not sure how to take that,” I said. “Are you telling me…are you in love with me?”
He chuckled. “No, no. Of course not. Love isn’t something I’m capable of. Emotions have never been something I’ve understood or been able to relate to. It’s like telling a man who sees in black and white to start seeing in color. It’s just…throughout our strange little time together, you’ve made me feel. I didn’t realize it until I was standing over you with my blade all those years ago. I thought that if I killed you, I might never feel again. That was a difficult thing to contemplate. So you lived.”
I thought that over. “So that’s why you haven’t started the game,” I said. “You’re afraid that when we play…that will end.”
“Exactly. So you live. You are very strange to me, Nevada, but I find that I like having this relationship with you. That keeps you safe from me, at least for now. I will continue to admire you from afar, as I’ve been doing for some time now.”
I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or not. I’d have had to admit I’d felt a certain connection to him in the past. As much as he was a sick psychopath, as much as I hated him, I’d known we had a bond. It was something only we understood. I doubted anybody else could. “You realize this isn’t going to stop me from putting a bullet in your brain if I ever figure out who you are.”
“Of course it won’t. That’s part of the appeal, I think.” He sighed. “I fear that our relationship, such as it is, is destined to end quite violently. I don’t know which of us will win. But it won’t happen yet. And certainly not while you’re off pretending to be someone else. So have a nice trip, Nevada. I’ll be here when you get back. Maybe we’ll play then. Maybe not. Time will tell.”
“Time will tell,” I said. I looked around. An older woman had overheard part of my side of the conversation and was looking at me like I must be a crazy person. And about that, she was probably right. “Anything else we need to talk about?” I asked.
“I answered your question,” he said. “Now will you answer one of mine?”
“Ask it,” I said. “We’ll see.”
“I’m wondering how far you’ve come in determining my identity,” he said. “I haven’t really given you any clues, but after all this time you must have some theories.”
I’d had theories, all right. Plenty of them. And they’d all be wrong. “I don’t know,” I said. “For the longest time I thought you were an FBI agent I’d been working with.”
“FBI? How flattering.”
“I was wrong, but I’m not convinced you aren’t government. Maybe law enforcement. You have resources that wouldn’t be available to someone in the general public.”
“Perhaps.”
“And there’s this,” I said. “You’re somebody I’ve met before. You wouldn’t have been able to resist it. You’d have wanted to look into my eyes and know you were putting one over on me. You may say that mask is your real face, but I know you’re not using your real voice when you talk to me. You’re afraid I might recognize it.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Tell me I’m right,” I said.
“You are. We have met, Nevada. Not quite for the reason you suggested, though. It was more that I wanted to know you as someone you weren’t hunting.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted to stand out, though. It would have been mundane. Did we only meet once?”
“I answered your question already. I won’t answer your second.”
Damn. Knowing that would have given me a little more to work with.
“We’ll meet again, Nevada,” he said. “I’m sure of it. Enjoy your trip.” And with that, he hung up.
I stared at my phone for a moment. Was there any point in getting in touch with Abercrombie and asking if he could figure out where that call had come from?
Of course there wasn’t. And even if he managed to come up with something, I wasn’t sure it would have been enough to make me stay.
I put the phone back in my jacket. What the Laughing Man had said had cut me to the core. He was probably right. I could pretend all I wanted, but I was always going to be me.
I was always going to be broken.
But I just didn’t care anymore.
Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California” was playing over the airport’s PA system. It seemed appropriate somehow.
I took my phone out of my pocket, ejected the SIM card, and cracked it between my teeth. It went into the nearest garbage can. After a moment’s consideration, I tossed my phone in after it.
And then I sat back in my chair and waited for them to call my flight.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew Storm lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
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ALSO BY MATTHEW STORM
The Interesting Times Series
Interesting Times
Interesting Places
Interesting People
Nevada James Mysteries
Broken
Scars
Angels
The Riley Flynn Series (as M.J. Storm)
Riley Flynn and the Runaway Fairy
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Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries) Page 16
