Take Me With You

by Nina G. Jones

  Both somethings pull at me. They weigh equally and opposite, each making the other unfathomable. So that I am affixed to this spot, anchored by the choice I need to make. And when I can't think about that any longer, I replay the conversation that got me down to LA.

  “What are you doing here?” Sheriff Ridgefield asks as he looks back over his shoulder into his house. During my research, I was able to figure out where he lives, in his and Sam's childhood home. It's the nicest house on the block, with a bright green lawn, and rose bushes.

  “I need to talk to you,” I respond without shame or hesitation.

  The high-pitched scream of a giggling child carries out the front door. Ridgefield looks back again, rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine.” He leans back and shouts to his wife that someone is here from work and he'll be back in a few minutes.

  “You shouldn't be here. Is this about money?” It's insulting, that he'd think I'd be here for something so trivial.

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I need to know where Sam is.”

  He barks a mocking laugh. “What? Why?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “We are so close to being done with this. Why would you want to go to him?” A woman walks by with her poodle and waves at us, there's a curious look in her eyes. He smiles tightly and waves back. He leans in and hisses “Are you insane?”

  “You are no one to judge me.”

  He shakes his head. “I may have done something awful, but I didn't ask to be caught up in it. And you had your chance. You definitely didn't lie to protect me. You didn't even know me. You protected him or yourself, or I don't know who.”

  “I didn't come here to discuss this. I just want to know where he is. At least point me in the right direction.”

  “I don't know. He's dead to me.”

  “So you expect me to believe a cop, who banished his dangerous brother out of town, isn't keeping some sort of tabs on him? I may not be well, but I'm not stupid, Sheriff.”

  “I'm not going to lead you back to him.”

  We stop at the corner of the block as we reach this impasse.

  “What was your plan for me?” I ask him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Sam told me you said he should get out of town. That we should. But he left me. I know he didn't want to. It doesn't add up.”

  “So that's what you want to find out? Why he left you? Christ, Vesper, let it go.”

  I shake my head at his callous trivialization of my ordeal, but I don’t let it distract me. “You were going to let him take me. That's what he said. That you would have let us disappear. But then he left me. It doesn't make sense.”

  “I…uh…what are you getting at, Ms. Rivers?” he asks, frustrated.

  “I think I know why. Because it was the only way he could save me. You let him go. So that part was true. But there's no way you'd let him take me. My face was everywhere. I was a liability. If your brother was spotted with me, that would be too risky. I know he took me out into the woods to kill me. I could feel him agonizing over it. I could feel the barrel of the gun against my head.”

  He can't even look at me now. It's all over his face. The guilt. I took a gamble, making the accusation. It was a hunch. I could have been wrong, but he doesn't have to say a word to convince me I'm right—that for all of Sam's wickedness, it was his cop brother who wanted me dead and it was Sam who risked everything so that I could live.

  Sam knew the one way to keep me safe was to bring me out of the shadows and into the light. Once I was in the park ranger's office, I was too high profile to disappear again. Sam knew his own life might be destroyed in the process.

  He let me go anyway.

  “You need to go. I'm not leading you to him. You may think I'm the bad guy here, but this is to keep you safe.”

  The old Vesper would have taken the first no. She would have not wanted to inconvenience or pressure someone. She would have seen the look on Sheriff's face and somehow felt guilty for confronting him with the truth. But now, I won't leave here until I have what I want. I didn't come here with a request. This is a demand.

  “Andrew, right? Can I call you that?”

  “Yeah,” he confirms skeptically.

  “I don't have anything left. People like me don't come back home. We die. Or people think we have. But we're not meant to come back home. And I am here, and I'm not supposed to be here.”

  “You just need to give it time.”

  “I feel suffocated by all this freedom. All these choices. I don't feel safe without him.”

  “He's the one that made you feel that way.”

  “He is. And there's only two ways I can feel safe from him. One is to be back where I was, and the other—” I stop myself from telling an officer about murder. He's not my friend. I have to remember that.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Vesper?” He’s becoming agitated.

  But I can't tell him any more of my secret thoughts. The shame of wanting a man who has done the incomprehensible to me. How I agonize over every decision I have made since Sam drove away.

  “I have it, Andrew. His box of trinkets. I bet you thought he took it with him when he cleaned the place out. You must know about that. All the little things he took from us. All the mementos. Like this...” I reach down and hold the moon charm on my necklace between my fingers. It used to mean so much to me. I didn't think it could symbolize any more than it already did, but now it's overflowing; loaded. It holds so much that I feel its heaviness pressing down on my neck every day.

  He doesn't say anything. He just waits there with his arms crossed, lips pressed into a tight line, as the occasional car passes or child runs by.

  “I have it. You have to understand that I have nothing left. And if I can't get to him, then the only way I can bring him to me is to tell everything I know. To go to the FBI and hand them that box and tell them everything.”

  “You wouldn't.”

  “I don't want to.”

  “Is this a threat?” he asks, his brow glistening with sweat.

  “If something happens to me, it will be found. And then there will be more questions than you can answer.”

  “When is this going to end? I thought we were going to forget this?”

  “It ends when you tell me where I can find him. So I can end this myself. You had your reasons for lying and I had mine. You can go back to your family and I can finish what was started.”

  “What are you going to do when you find him? Kill him? You think Sam's gonna let that happen?” Andrew is tight, trying to hold in the sleepless nights, the betrayal, the frustration. He jabs his finger at his temple. “He's smart, Vesp. He's evaded us for years. You think he's going to trust you? And if you kill him, that puts me in the same spot I was trying to avoid, having our name on the news.”

  “I promise you telling me won't come back to you. This isn't even about you.”

  “You're nuts. This conversation is over. If you go and see him, try to attack him, it’s you who will end up dead,” he snipes through gritted teeth. Sheriff turns abruptly and walks away, leaving me without options. I played all my hands and he's called my bluff.

  He makes it about twenty feet away, before looking side to side and stomping back over to me. “You know what? You want to go find him, you want to put yourself in danger? Fine. But I want that box.”

  “I don't trust you.”

  “Well I don't trust you.”

  “Just tell me,” I say. “And you won't have to see me again. Ever. I don't want money. I want to know where he is. And that box will be in the ocean or in a fireplace once I have him. If he kills me, it’ll be safe with him. I have no reason to want that thing to come to the light of day. Not unless you give me one.”

  He pauses for a moment. His lips purse a few times because he knows he's getting a raw deal. But he knows he owes me. He almost took my life from me. The least he could do is give me this.

  I give him
a little extra push. “I'll find him. Now you can either direct me, or I can snoop around.”

  He sighs and looks at his watch. “Shit, Katie's going to kill me.” He looks back up at me. “He's in L.A. At least the last time I checked. I thought I wanted to know what he was up to, but the truth is I don't. Because if he hasn't stopped…I can't know. I can't—” his voice catches. Andrew Hunter-Ridgefield is a cop, through and through. There's something in the way he walks, a pride, an honor. I can tell this—what we've done—it's like a parasite eating him from the inside out. His need to protect his family and the very badge he has worked for going against the very thing that badge stands for.

  “Thank you,” I say, “And this is goodbye. Really.”

  “Yeah,” he replies sarcastically, taking a few steps back, keeping his eyes on me before turning and leaving me standing there alone on that corner.

  I take a sip from the fresh mug of coffee and my eyes train up to the fuzzy small screen behind the counter. There's a sketch of a man with a mask on the screen. Like moth to a flame, I hover over to it, nearly bumping into a waitress. The one behind the counter turns to look what has me so interested.

  “Oh the volume on this thing is broken. Have you heard about him? It's scary.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Nobody knows, it's this guy that's been breaking into homes and killing people.”

  “Killing people?” I repeat, my stomach and heart swirling in a sickening fashion. This can't be him. Not my Sam. Sam doesn't kill.

  But just like I feel I'm closer to him, my gut clenches almost painfully, telling me something.

  I turn around just as a man leaves the diner and his paper on the booth where he was sitting.

  It's on the third page. The story of a predator who has claimed his third and fourth victims. No rape, just an invasion and murder. They don't have any leads. He's smart. He wears a mask, likely stalks his targets, and he's athletic. He gets in and out of the neighborhoods on foot so he's gone before the cops are even called. His eyes are a striking blue or green.

  I cover my mouth as acid works its way up my throat. Sheriff Ridgefield said it, Northern California is crawling with killers; dead bodies with no justice. It can't be much different down here.

  But I look at the dates of the attacks, and I just know. And the choice I have to make becomes perfectly clear.

  Blood. It's something I've never had to deal with before on a hunt. Now it's everywhere, in my hair, soaked into my clothes, in my fingernails. It's messy. A variable I don't like. But I've lost it. Ever since I left her, the urge has come back. And it's strong. I'm alone again. Unattached to humanity.

  I'm angry that I've felt what it was like, to have it, that thing I craved, I stole—and now I'm back to where I started. She was my medication, she was my sanity. A missing cog in a machine that suddenly made it work without a squeak. And now it's gone and the whole fucking thing has gone haywire.

  I tried to recreate the thrill of the hunt. But each time I go into a new home, it feels flat. I can’t get back what I’ve lost. And then I’m filled with that wrath that has to go somewhere, but I can’t keep cutting myself. I’d only do that to protect her. So it goes out, in a flurry of blood and screams until the house is as quiet as it was when I first breached it.

  I know she still wants me. Before I let her go, there was always that doubt, that it was all a manipulation. That she was the one playing me. But the way her voice quivered on those calls when she asked me why I left, the way she filled me in on things, as if we're having a conversation, except her voice was pleading—for me to take her away, back to our little world—It is real.

  But I can't go to her. I can't take her away again. This has to be a choice. She has to come to me. And if this is what I have to do to smoke her out, I'll do it.

  This is my love letter to Vesper. I write it in their blood.

  It's a sunny day in LA. The kind of sun that makes you smile when you rise. It's warmth gently heating you to your core, softly baking the skin. The day when I kill Sam.

  I stuff my belongings into my bag, over the box of tokens, and leave my motel room, heading over to the nearest pay phone. I open the phone book, first to Ridgefield. There are seven listed. None with the first name Samuel. I flip over to the H's. No Hunter-Ridgefields, many Hunters, none with his name. The phone book is old, so I pick up the phone and dial the operator.

  He could have hidden the listing or changed his name. But why would he? He has nothing to hide from. Only two people know his secret, and we share it with him.

  The operator answers, uninterested in the magnitude of this inquiry. She doesn't understand what she's doing. Who I am. What I've been through. What I am about to do. She finds the one Samuel Hunter-Ridgefield in the directory and provides his number and address, not understanding this is a death sentence.

  I stare at the address, written on my motel receipt, my hand trembling. From the moment he left me, I had imagined we might see each other again. But not like this.

  The taxi leaves me a couple blocks away from the address at my request. I need the time to walk and build the nerve. I can't just step out of the car and onto his front door. It's a nice neighborhood, filled with families, and it builds my resolve. This monster lives among them and they don't even know it. They don't know he could be watching, waiting to bludgeon them to death like he has four other people since he has arrived. I caress the gun in my pocket, bearing a little bit of its weight so it doesn't make an imprint through my thin sweater.

  I could still turn around and go to the police. There is still time to change this story. But it doesn't feel like a possibility. I am invested in every possible way. If I have to kill him—the little boy who was always different, with the stutter and scars, locked away by a crazed mother and a family with too much pride to admit imperfection—I won't drag him out there like a spectacle. I'll do it quickly. Mercifully.

  My stomach roils when I see the number on the mailbox. 445. I stand on the path to the front of this quaint home, and stare at the door. I'm shaking everywhere, unable to stop the uncontrollable jitters. I can feel him, throwing off my equilibrium, pulling me out of my orbit.

  I take one deep breath, and proceed to the door, my hand firmly gripping the small revolver.

  I take each of the three steps up to the door carefully, as if they were made of thin ice and could crumble underneath me. Then I stand in front of the door, holding in the volcano of emotion that rumbles in my skull and chest, wanting to burst. I raise my fist to knock, and before I can, the door opens.

  All the blood drains from my head, a heady feeling taking over me as my eyes lock on his for the first time since the day he fed me lies so he could kill me. The day he put his own life at risk so that I could live.

  I should have known. It was too easy to find him. Sam was never in hiding. He was in waiting.

  He stands there before me, his faded red t-shirt clinging to his sweaty chest, his ripped jeans snug against his frame, his face, beautiful, yet corrupted with scars, and his eyes—eyes like a nocturnal creature that has hunted and tortured, that has killed me and brought me back to life—they stare into mine. There is no uncertainty in them. This is exactly where he expected to find me one day.

  I grip the gun, willing my arm to pull it, but it locks up. I'm frozen by the sight of him. Distance was my power, proximity is his. Now that I am here again, I want to drop down to my knees and cower before him like a subjugate to her king. It's beyond rational thought. It's been trained into me. It's conditioned into my mind, body and soul.

  I want to be in his favor. I want to be good.

  The temptation of the carnal is too strong to be subdued by abstract concepts of right and wrong. The only real thing is him, here, right now. I know what he's done, but this person before me, calm and assured, he's not the wild person behind the mask. That's someone else.

  My hand lets go of the gun and I slide it out of my pocket.

  “Sam—” I utter,
a whimper.

  I don't know what I am supposed to say right now. And I've learned not to expect words from him. He takes the hand, the one that a moment ago was just holding a weapon, and pulls me into the house. The door slams behind me as he pushes me up against a wall, so hard it beats the breath out of my chest and the bag hanging on my arm falls to the floor. I see flashes of the danger he poses, the bright sun reflecting off of the pale aquamarine just like it does the sea—beautiful and deadly. How many people have been seduced by the endless ocean, thinking they could conquer it, and were never seen again?

  My heart rages in my chest, taking me back to the very first night he had me. His lips tremble with a hint of a snarl. A faint sound—almost like a purr—rumbles from his throat. Like a predator, he pounces.

  It's repugnant, the way I feel when he presses himself against me. The fact that my body lights up like a pilot switch, giving into everything I shouldn't want. That I can forget everything inconvenient just so I can feel this moment in its purest sense. I can close my eyes and be that girl who didn't have a choice but to enjoy this, for her own survival. I can tell myself I'm in his house alone, and I have to let him have me. But I know I passed that point a long time ago.

  The way his lips taste my lips, my collarbone, the curve of my chin, my shoulders. The way his teeth graze parts all over, instantly brings back the high of being craved by a man so dangerous, having a power over him that I know no one else has, no matter how many tokens are in that box.

  I make the decision at that moment not to be a victim. I came here, I had the gun and I didn't use it. The very first night he gave me a choice. And now I am making another. I grab at him, pulling at his shirt so I can feel his skin again, hot and slick with sweat. This can't be wrong. The way I feel like I belong here. The way out there, I feel unsettled. But here, pinned to a wall by the most dangerous man in L.A., I feel like I'm home again.

  Tears run down my face as I abandon every principle I ever stood for. I don't just abandon them, I scorch them. I blaze them to soot. Sam pulls off the sweater I'm wearing and then at my dress, so the top falls down and its weight pulls the rest of it to the floor.