The Wild Zone

by Joy Fielding

  “There won’t be.”

  “The police could have more questions. . . .”

  “They won’t.”

  “They won’t,” Will repeated.

  The police investigation had concluded that Dave Bigelow had found out about his wife’s affair with Jeff and had gone to the Southern Comfort Motel to confront him, and that Tom, high on dope and drunk on beer, had shown up soon after, shooting to death both Dave and Jeff. Their report further stated that Tom Whitman was already well known to the police and that he was prone to random and unprovoked acts of violence. This scenario was given further credence by the statements of Tom’s estranged wife, his former boss, and a girl from an escort service whom he’d recently assaulted. Suzy Bigelow had been brought in for questioning and quickly cleared of any involvement in her husband’s death.

  “Have you heard from Suzy at all?” Will asked now.

  Again Kristin shook her head. “She kind of dropped off the radar after the funerals.”

  “I guess Dave’s death left her pretty well-off.”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you think she ever really loved Jeff?”

  “I think she did,” Kristin acknowledged sadly. “At least a little.”

  “May I see your ticket and boarding pass, please?” a uniformed guard demanded.

  “Looks like this is where I get off,” Kristin said as Will showed his ticket and boarding pass to the stern-looking woman, who examined both closely.

  “There’s nothing I can say . . . ?”

  Kristin leaned forward and kissed Will gently on the lips. “Have a good life, Will,” she said. “Be happy.”

  “Sir, I’m afraid I have to ask you to move along,” the guard urged.

  Kristin pulled back, stepped out of the way. Reluctantly Will moved forward, pushed along by those behind him. “It’s not too late to change your mind,” he called back, stopping abruptly, deciding to give it one last try.

  Will saw her standing off to the side, leaning against a pillar. He saw the final shake of her blond hair, the blinding flash of her smile as she waved good-bye. Then he watched her disappear into the crowd.

  THE SKY HAD turned cloudy by the time Kristin pulled her car to a stop in front of 121 Tallahassee Drive. The sixties music blasting from the stereo immediately fell silent.

  Kristin looked toward the front door of the tan bungalow with the white slate roof and smiled. Suzy was sitting on the front steps, her tanned feet bare, her toenails painted bright pink, her sandals resting on the step beside her. Soft waves of brown hair cascaded past her shoulders, framing a face that was blissfully free of bruises. A few yards in front of her, leaning up against the prominent SOLD sign in the middle of the front lawn, was her overnight bag.

  “Hey, you,” Kristin said tenderly, opening the car door and climbing out as Suzy jumped to her feet.

  “How’d it go?” Suzy asked, slipping quickly into her sandals.

  “Pretty much like we expected.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you.”

  “It’s better that you weren’t.”

  “Did he ask about me?”

  Kristin nodded. “I lied, said you’d pretty much dropped off the face of the earth after the funerals.” She reached for Suzy’s overnight case, prepared to hoist it over her shoulder. “My God. This weighs a ton. What have you got in here?”

  “Dave’s ashes,” Suzy said matter-of-factly.

  “What?” The bag dropped from Kristin’s hand.

  “Careful. You’ll break them.” Suzy laughed. “And I want everything to be perfect when I feed the bastard to the alligators.”

  “I don’t think there are any alligators in San Francisco.”

  “We’ll make a slight detour,” Suzy said. “Would you mind? I’ve been dreaming about this moment for years.”

  “Everglades, here we come,” Kristin said, picking up the bag again and tossing it in the backseat of the car.

  “How old’s this car anyway?” Suzy asked, climbing into the passenger seat and once again removing her shoes. “Remind Dave to buy you a new one.” She laughed again, the laugh dying in her throat when she saw the look of reproach on Kristin’s face. “Sorry. I guess that wasn’t very funny.”

  “Oh, God, Suzy,” Kristin moaned. “How did everything get so screwed up?”

  “Things happen,” Suzy said. “Things you don’t expect. Things you can’t always plan for.”

  “The only one who was supposed to get hurt was Dave. Will wasn’t supposed to get shot. Tom and Jeff weren’t supposed to die.”

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Suzy agreed. “You think you have everything all worked out, and then something happens, somebody says something that isn’t in the original script, and it changes everything.”

  “Three people end up dead.”

  “We’re alive. I’m finally free of that monster.” Suzy took Kristin’s hand in hers, brought it to her lips.

  Kristin glanced quickly out the side window. “We shouldn’t. Not here.”

  “It’s okay,” Suzy said. “Nobody can hurt us anymore.”

  “I’ll never let anyone hurt you ever again,” Kristin said, studying Suzy’s lovely face, the blue eyes she’d first looked into as a frightened young girl of sixteen. I can’t find my wallet, she’d said to Suzy, baiting her, during one of their early encounters. You have something to do with that?

  Suzy is right, Kristin was thinking as she pulled the car away from the curb. Things happened that you didn’t expect, that you couldn’t always plan for. Who could have predicted that two lonely girls, living in a group home under the indifferent auspices of Child Services, would not only fall in love but forge a bond stronger than any relationship either would ever have again, that their love would survive separation and distance, husbands and lovers, disappointment and disillusionment, time and circumstances?

  That they’d found each other again was a miracle in itself. Suzy had just moved to Coral Gables with her abusive husband. On a whim, feeling desperate and lonely, she’d looked Kristin up on the Internet and discovered she was working in South Beach at a bar called the Wild Zone. One afternoon when Dave was at the hospital, she’d stopped by, not sure Kristin would even remember who she was.

  They’d recognized each other immediately, the years disappearing like fading old photographs as they brought each other up to speed, confiding the intimate, occasionally heartbreaking details of their lives since they were last together. Kristin told Suzy about Jeff; Suzy told Kristin about Dave. It wasn’t very long before they came up with a plan to use one to get rid of the other.

  Dave’s attacks were getting worse, increasing in both frequency and ferocity. They couldn’t afford to wait too long.

  And then suddenly, everything had fallen into place. Will had turned up on Jeff’s doorstep, bringing with him unpleasant memories, enhancing long-standing rivalries and creating new ones. Old grudges resurfaced; new alliances were forged.

  Time for Suzy to make her entrance.

  It had taken just a few choice words to get the ball rolling.

  Then Lainey had walked out on Tom, leaving him even angrier than usual, and Ellie had called Jeff with the news of their mother’s imminent death, rendering him vulnerable and confused. After that it was a question of knowing when to advance and when to fall back, of knowing what buttons to push and what strings to pull, how hard to provoke and how lightly to tread. A lethal combination of cunning and spontaneity, of feminine wiles and male willfulness, of opportunity and the luck of the draw.

  Both women had played their parts beautifully. And while it had been difficult, sometimes almost impossible, for them to stay away from one another once their plan had been set in motion, they’d agreed to keep their contact to a minimum until the deed was done.

  Of course, neither could have predicted the speed with which everything had progressed, how fast the stately waltz had degenerated into a spastic jive, how quickly the slow merry-go-round began sp
inning out of control, morphing into a wild and deadly roller-coaster ride.

  And no one could have foreseen that Jeff might actually fall in love.

  Kristin shivered with the memory of those agonizing moments when she feared his feelings for Suzy might actually be reciprocated, that Suzy might be falling for Jeff as hard and unexpectedly as he’d fallen for her. And maybe she had fallen in love with him, Kristin thought now. At least a little, as she’d said earlier to Will.

  Just as Kristin had fallen at least a little in love with Will.

  “You cold?” Suzy asked now, reaching out to stroke Kristin’s arm.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  And she was. Dave Bigelow was dead. The money from the sale of his house and luxury automobiles would go a long way to ensuring a comfortable future for his widow. Will was on his way back to Buffalo. Kristin had quit her job at the Wild Zone. In a matter of minutes she and Suzy would be on the highway, and after a slight detour to give Dave the send-off he well deserved, they’d be heading across the country for their new life in San Francisco.

  Suzy tugged gently on Kristin’s ponytail. “I love you,” she said. “So much.”

  Kristin smiled, feeling the smile spread from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet before it settled in comfortably around her heart. “I love you, too.”

  This is how it ends.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  TWENTY THREE

  TWENTY FOUR

  TWENTY FIVE

  TWENTY SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY EIGHT

  TWENTY NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY ONE

  THIRTY TWO