by Ellis, T. W.
I shrug to say I’m over it – I’m not – but while she’s here anyway I might as well exploit that. There’s so much I need to know, after all.
‘Have you caught Carlson?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not yet. But we’re working on it.’
‘Do you know who he is yet?’
‘We’re working on it,’ she says again.
Turns out Wilks doesn’t have much for me to exploit.
‘Where’s Messer?’ I ask.
‘He’s taking care of a few things.’
I shift my feet. ‘Look, I don’t want to be funny. I know I said you guys could come in before, I know you didn’t want to wake me up. I appreciate that. But I’d kind of like some space to myself now. I need to get my head together, you know?’
Wilks says, ‘I understand.’
‘I’ve slept but it hasn’t helped. I’m still tired. I need to rest and eat and think. I’ve got so much to think about. I need to relax more than anything else and I just can’t do that with you two here.’
‘I understand,’ Wilks says, ‘but since we’re here there’s a few more questions I need answering.’
‘Can it wait?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not really. Not given the involvement of this Carlson individual.’
‘What do you want to ask me? I told you everything I know earlier, which is nothing. I didn’t think of anything else while I was asleep, I promise.’
‘I’m sure,’ Wilks says. ‘But we’ve found out more in the meantime. You might recall we asked you about information your husband might have regarding his associates.’
‘Yeah, yeah. You said it might be on an external hard drive or something like that.’
‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘Do you think you might recognise one that doesn’t belong to your husband, that you’ve never seen before?’
‘If I’ve never seen it before then how could I possibly recognise it?’
Wilks says, ‘As an odd one out. Would you know that you hadn’t seen one before if we found it in your husband’s possessions?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I’m not good with technology.’
Wilks considers.
‘Hey,’ I say, ‘what do you mean when you say if you found it in Leo’s things?’
Wilks doesn’t answer.
I remember the closed office door. ‘Is that where Messer is? Is he in Leo’s office?’
Wilks can’t answer quick enough before I add: ‘He’s been searching for hard drives while I’ve been asleep?’
‘We need to find out just who Leo’s business associates are before they realise we’re on to them.’
‘You told me before you know who they are.’ I’m backing out of the room as I speak, heading for the stairs. ‘And either way it doesn’t give you the right to snoop around my home without my consent. How dare you. Hey,’ I shout up to Messer, ‘get out of my husband’s office.’
Wilks is following me. ‘Why don’t you try calming down?’
Of all the wrong things to say.
I spin a fast one-eighty, getting my face into hers. ‘Get out of my house. Get out right now and don’t come back until you have a warrant.’
4:06 p.m.
Wilks makes no move to do anything of the sort. She stands before me mere inches away and doesn’t react except to calmly wipe away a little of my saliva from her cheek. This only infuriates me further, but what else can I do?
I ignore her for the moment and begin climbing the stairs, clutching the banister for support, moving faster than I should because I’m so angry at this intrusion, this betrayal. How dare they? After all I’ve been through, how dare they do this as well?
I call down to Wilks without looking at her. ‘Whatever else is going on, this is not okay. This is not okay.’
Wilks is silent and I know she’s watching me from the bottom of the stairs.
Messer, reacting to the commotion, is on the landing by the time I reach it. He stands in my way, blocking my route to Leo’s office. He fills the width of the landing so I try to push past.
I might as well be trying to shift a boulder.
‘Get out of my way,’ I yell at him.
He does, but in his own time, stepping back with one foot so he’s parallel to the wall and I march through the space he’s left.
I gasp when I see the state of Leo’s office.
The floor is strewn with papers. Every drawer has been emptied, every file and folder has been stripped of documents. It’ll take all day to put right. Maybe longer.
‘What the hell have you done this for?’ I’m so angry I could scream and I’m doing everything I can to maintain a last modicum of calm. ‘Get out of my house,’ I say at Messer and, leaning over the banister, I yell down to Wilks: ‘Get. Out.’
Wilks says back up at me, ‘We’re not going anywhere just yet, I’m afraid. We don’t need a warrant, Mrs Talhoffer, not when it comes to matters of national security. The law is very firmly on our side with this one.’
I’m heading back down the stairs now, still awkward in my movements but quick now I’ve already been down and up in the last few minutes. Messer doesn’t try and get in my way this time. He just stands and watches.
‘Why?’ I ask Wilks. ‘What are you talking about? How is a drug cartel a matter of national security?’
Wilks waits for me at the bottom. ‘I’m afraid I can’t share the specifics with you at this current juncture due to the aforementioned national security concerns.’
I glare at her. ‘Oh, so you’re afraid you can’t share the specifics with me at this current juncture?’
She nods as if she doesn’t detect my obvious sarcasm.
‘Well,’ I continue, ‘doesn’t that just make everything peachy?’
‘I don’t think I follow,’ Wilks says, deadpan.
I summon some resolve, some restraint. ‘I’m asking you to leave. This is my home. You have no right to be here. Please.’
‘We still have some things we need to—’
‘Are you going to leave?’
Wilks shakes her head.
‘I want it to be noted that you are refusing my very reasonable request to vacate my property.’
Wilks nods. ‘Noted.’
‘Can you at least tell me how long you’re going to be?’
Wilks glances at Messer, still at the top of the stairs.
Messer says, ‘An hour, maybe.’
Wilks’ gaze falls back on me. ‘An hour, maybe.’
I sigh, because that’s all I have left. ‘First money laundering, now matters of national security. What’s it going to be next?’
I’m not expecting an answer and Wilks doesn’t supply one. I would storm out of the hallway and into the kitchen but I can’t walk well enough for storming. Instead, I have to express my anger and dissatisfaction with a modest speed and light step. It fails to have the same impact. I’m committed, though. I give it my best.
I pour myself a glass of water in the kitchen. All of a sudden, I’m aware of how parched my throat is, how long it’s been since I drank anything. I don’t consider a few sips of Rusty’s scorching coffee to count as hydration. The glass is drained in seconds and I pour another and sit with it at the table, the table where I left my phone earlier.
I take a look underneath. Nothing. I look around the kitchen. It’s not here. There’s nowhere it could have slid out of sight.
Aside from Carlson’s call earlier I don’t remember the last time I used the house phone. It’s attached to the kitchen wall near the hallway. It has one of those long curly wires that once seemed so useful, so essential. I pick up the receiver and pause with my finger over the keypad as I try and recall my own number. For a few seconds my mind is blank – I haven’t had to remember it for years – but then it comes back to me, flashing loud and clear in my thoughts. I press the buttons. It’s been so long since I did so it comes as a surprise how nice it feels to have that tactile feedback from actual, real buttons instead of tapping
a glass screen. Maybe progress isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as Trevor noted.
It takes so long to start ringing that there’s a brief moment in which I think I’ve dialled incorrectly, that I don’t remember my own cell number. As soon as it rings I lower the receiver to better listen for the sound of my cell’s ringtone. I can’t hear it at all. Out of battery? No: even if it’s here, I won’t hear it because it’ll still be on silent mode from class this morning. Sometimes I can go days without realising I haven’t switched it back to normal. I don’t get a whole lot of calls or messages to make me notice.
I’m holding the receiver to my chest and concentrating hard to listen out for any sound of vibration, any rattle, so I almost don’t realise it when the dial tone ceases, when someone else’s voice answers my phone.
‘Hello?’
I raise the receiver, shocked but ready to demand to know who has my phone, when the voice speaks again.
‘Who is this?’
The voice is female. I recognise it.
Wilks.
Wilks has my phone.
I set the receiver back, hanging up. My heart is racing.
She told me in the car she didn’t have my phone. She said it must still be at the house. She said it must have fallen off the table.
Why does she have my phone?
Why did she lie to me?
What else is she lying about?
4:09 p.m.
I slide back into my seat at the kitchen table. I sip some water. I try to control my breathing. Messer is upstairs, tearing apart Leo’s office looking for information. Wilks is in the living room with my phone in her possession after claiming she didn’t have it. They wouldn’t leave when I asked them to leave.
There’s a horrible feeling of doubt, of dread, creeping up my spine.
I’m starting to feel like I’ve made a terrible mistake coming back here, but it doesn’t make sense. Wilks and Messer are FBI agents. They were in Rusty’s office. They have to be who they say they are. Don’t they?
That doesn’t change the fact Wilks has my phone and hasn’t given it back to me. There’s no good reason she should have my phone. No reason to lie.
I look down at myself. I’m still in my robe and suddenly it feels so light, so thin, so weak. I make my way upstairs yet again so I can change into proper clothes for the first time today. I put on underwear, a pair of jeans, a sweater. No socks, though, because I don’t want any extra compression on my sore soles. I pull my hair back and tie it into a ponytail.
Downstairs again, I put on some sneakers. This takes a little work because the gauze makes my feet fat. I compensate for this by first loosening the laces. It still takes some effort to get my feet inside without aggravating a cut or scrape and my teeth are clenched the whole time.
With the dressings bulking out my feet the sneakers are a tight fit but I’m not complaining. Standing up in shoes for the first time in hours feels like the height of decadence.
I feel complete, finally. More capable.
I’m alone in the hallway. I take my car keys from the bowl by the front door.
I’ve never picked them up so slowly before. I’m trying to be quiet, hoping to be silent.
I’m not, because from behind me Wilks says, ‘What are you doing?’
I’ve thought ahead. I expected this could happen. I’m ready.
‘Need some milk,’ I say. ‘We’re out.’
‘You can’t go anywhere,’ she tells me. ‘It’s not safe.’
I face her. ‘Why isn’t it safe?’
‘Until we have identified the man who calls himself Carlson then we have to work on the assumption he’s a threat.’
I say, ‘But he could have killed me before I walked into the police precinct, couldn’t he? Yet he didn’t.’
‘It’s not safe,’ Wilks says again.
Yes, it’s beginning to feel like that – but not out there, in here.
‘I’ll risk it,’ I say, breezy of tone.
Wilks is coming forward. ‘I can’t allow that.’
I don’t ask her if she’s going to stop me because she’s said as much and I can see it in her eyes I’m not going anywhere. I try and keep my expression even, pretending I don’t know what I know. I don’t have the landline programmed into my cell – does anyone any more? – so she won’t know I just called.
‘Great,’ I hiss, sounding frustrated and irritated but hopefully not scared. I drop the keys back in the bowl, making sure she can see. ‘Happy now?’
The display seems to win her over. She sort of shrugs, sort of nods. She returns to the living area.
What now, Jem? What now?
How did I end up exactly where I started?
If this is a nightmare, please wake up. I promise never to eat cheese before bed ever again.
I don’t wake up. It’s no nightmare because it’s real. Somehow, I’ve repeated the exact same mistakes. I have two people in my house, two people who are lying to me, two people with guns who are preventing me from leaving. I’m a prisoner in my own home and I invited my captors inside twice.
Stay calm, I tell myself. Blame can come later. Self-loathing can wait.
I tried running away last time and it’s only brought me full circle. This time, I need a different approach. Keep acting ignorant, play naive. I tell myself that whatever I do, don’t let them know that I know.
If only I could listen to my own advice.
I head to the kitchen so I’m close to the back door, because even if my plan is to stay put until I know more, I still want to have an escape route nearby. I ran through the woods barefoot once. I can do so again in sneakers.
What do I know? Next to nothing. That needs to change.
This is all about Leo, his business, money laundering and cartels and national security … if what Wilks and Messer claim is true. But they’ve lied to me. I can’t trust a word they’ve said. But what little Carlson has told me reinforces some of what they’ve said. Which parts? Leo and Leo’s business. He mentioned nothing about a cartel or national security or even money laundering. He told me that only he was investigating Leo and that only Leo’s business associates knew what Leo was doing.
So, what has Leo been doing?
Is it possible Wilks and Messer are in fact FBI agents but also business associates of Leo? Is the cartel story just a smokescreen for something else? And that something is a matter of national security?
I have no more time to ponder this because Wilks enters the kitchen. At first glance I figure she has grown suspicious of me or wants to ask me some questions, but it’s neither. She strides towards me.
She’s holding a cell phone out in her palm, only it’s not her phone.
It’s mine.
‘Answer it,’ Wilks orders me.
My phone is vibrating.
‘Say nothing about us.’
Her tone is intense, frightening.
On the screen of my phone the caller ID displays the name ‘Leo’.
4:15 p.m.
Wilks is close to me. Far too close. I have nowhere to go. I don’t have any space left that I can call personal. The kitchen table is behind me, its edge pressing into my lower back as I instinctively try and lean away from her.
She now has the phone edges clutched in her fingertips, held up at me. Leo’s name glows before my face. He’s pulling a face because he hates having his picture taken.
There’s no time to think about why he’s calling or even how he’s calling because Wilks is so close, so frightening. Her face is a stark contrast to Leo’s. Wilks has such an intensity in her expression that I can barely look at her. Her green eyes are ablaze and unblinking.
‘You’re going to answer the phone,’ Wilks instructs me in a tone somewhere between growl and whisper. ‘You’re going to answer it and you’re going to act like everything is normal. You’re going to act like everything is fine. It’s just another day for you. Say nothing about us. Nothing about this morning. Do you understand?’
The phone continues to buzz. Leo’s goofy face looks right at me.
‘I …’
Wilks barks into my face, ‘Do you understand?’
I flinch. I nod. ‘Yes.’
‘Messer,’ Wilks yells. ‘Get down here, now.’ She turns her attention back to me. ‘I’m going to put it on speakerphone so don’t think you can pass on any messages and get away with it. I’ll know. You’ll only make it worse for yourself and even worse for Leo.’
‘I … I won’t,’ I stammer.
I’m shaking. I’m so scared.
The phone is still vibrating. It’ll go to voicemail soon, in seconds.
Wilks says, ‘Are you ready?’
I nod. I think I nod.
Wilks turns the phone and uses a thumb to tap the answer button, then hits speakerphone. She holds it back out to me.
I clear my throat. ‘Hey … you.’
‘Heya back,’ Leo says, his tone breezy, missing the significance of my breaking voice, because why would he think anything was wrong? ‘Flight’s grounded.’
‘Dammit,’ I manage to say. ‘How come?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Something about insufficient crew. I kind of switch off during those announcements. They make too many of them so you have to zone out to save your sanity. At least, I do. Then, when they make one you actually need to pay attention to your mind is a mile away. They’re supposed to have moved me to another flight but it was overbooked. If I had known I’d be waiting this long I would have called sooner. Anyway, I’m rambling. How are you? How’s your day?’
‘Yeah …’
Leo laughs a little. ‘Your day is “yeah”?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, forcing a laugh of my own.
Wilks is glaring at me because I’m not doing a good enough job.
I try harder. ‘You know, my day is … yeah. Whatever.’
‘Oh,’ Leo says back. ‘That kind of day. I’m having one of those too.’
Messer arrives. Wilks raises a finger to shush him, then mouths Leo. Messer edges closer.
Leo says, ‘You okay, babe? You sound distracted.’
Wilks eyeballs me, gesturing for me to convince him things are fine. If I haven’t so far, what can I possibly do, possibly say, to cover for this moment, this fear?
