by David Hosp
She rolls her eyes. ‘Kendra. Was she hurt?’
I shake my head. ‘It was a little ugly,’ I say. ‘He had her tied to the bed.’
‘Nothing she’s not used to, I’m guessing.’
I shoot Yvette an annoyed look. She looks back down at the table.
‘I think I’ll go check to see how your mother’s doing,’ Cormack says. He gets up and heads up the stairs.
‘I’m glad she’s okay,’ Yvette says.
‘I don’t know that she’s okay, but she wasn’t hurt. It was pretty awful.’
‘I’m sorry. Did you take her home?’
I shake my head. ‘They let her go before they let me go. I stopped by when they let me out, just to see that she was alright. Her place was pretty badly messed-up.’
Yvette’s ever-evolving hair is pushed back from her forehead, a single lock falling in front of her left eye. I know that she has barely slept in days as well, and yet she looks beautiful. Just being near her sends shockwaves through my body, and in my addled state I worry that I may be overcome. I’m in love with her, I realize. I’m as sure of that as I can be of anything at this moment. And yet, life is never that easy. There’s something between me and Kendra that remains unfinished, and I know that I can’t escape it. It’s as though I’ve discovered some dark place in my soul – a corner I never knew existed – and I need to know what’s there. I need to know how deep the darkness goes, and there is only one person who can show me. Yvette picks up my glass of whiskey, throws back what remains. ‘Are you gonna see her again?’
We’re looking at each other now, and I know I can’t lie to her. ‘Probably.’
‘Is it love?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘She’s very pretty.’
‘She is,’ I agree. ‘So are you.’
Yvette looks down into the empty glass. ‘Don’t patronize me.’
‘I’m not.’
‘What is it about her, do you think?’
‘I wish I knew.’ I’m staring at her, desperate for any words that might make sense of this, but there are none, and we both know it. She stands, and I do too. I move toward her, but she shakes her head.
‘No,’ she says. If she’s fighting back tears, she’s doing a good job. ‘You need to figure this out for yourself.’ She touches my cheek for just a moment before she heads to the door.
‘You gonna be okay?’ I ask her.
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I’m pretty resilient.’ She walks out the door and calls over her shoulder, ‘Get some sleep. You’ll need a clear head to figure any of this out.’
She’s right, and suddenly I feel more tired than I ever have in my life. I wonder whether I can even make it up to my room. As I turn to go up, I hear Cormack coming down the stairs.
‘How’s she doing?’ I ask as he walks into the kitchen.
‘She’s okay. She’s tough, too.’
‘She is that.’
‘She’d like to see you.’
‘I’ll stick my head in on my way to bed,’ I say. ‘If I don’t fall down before I get there.’
‘You’ll make it.’ He nods toward the screen door through which Yvette disappeared moments before. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘Yvette?’ I shrug. ‘She’s okay. She’s tough.’
‘She is that.’ He puts a hand on my shoulder as he walks past me on his way out. ‘Get some rest, Nicky. Things will seem brighter in the morning.’
I can hear my mother’s labored breathing as I approach her room. ‘Ma, you need anything?’ I ask as I poke my head in.
She’s lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling. She turns her head to face me. ‘Not a thing,’ she says. It comes out almost defensively. ‘Cormack told me it’s over.’
‘It is.’
‘Good. Everyone’s alright?’
‘More or less.’
She nods. ‘You can tell me more in the morning.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’m going to bed.’ I pull my head out of her room and start down the hall.
‘Nick!’ she says quickly.
I turn back and stick my head in her room again. ‘Yeah?’
She looks at me, and I have the sense that she’s trying to make up her mind about something. ‘I loved your father,’ she says slowly.
‘I know, Ma.’
‘Let me finish,’ she says sharply. She takes a deep, rumbling breath. ‘I loved your father, but there were others. Before him, not after we were married – he’d have killed me if there was anything after he married me. But before that there were other men I loved. At least I thought I loved them.’
‘I understand, Ma,’ I say.
‘Do you?’ She shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure. Eventually you choose. It’s the way it has to be. Do you understand?’
‘I do.’
‘And once you choose, what happened before gets left behind.’ She looks at me, her eyes clear, her expression serious. ‘Do you understand that?’
‘I think so.’
‘I hope so. Because if you hold someone’s past against them, it will never be right. Your father and I both knew that.’ She turns her head back to the ceiling and closes her eyes. ‘Good night, Nicky,’ she says heavily.
I watch her for a moment. ‘Good night, Ma.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I sleep through the day and wake as the sun is starting to crest. I stumble out of bed, throw on some jeans and a T-shirt, head downstairs. Ma is sitting at the kitchen table, sipping some coffee. She looks stronger, and that is a relief to me.
‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ she says.
‘I’m not sure you could have.’
‘Last night sounds like it was bad.’
I sit at the table, pat her hand. ‘It was, but now it’s better.’
‘Is it?’ She passes a sheet of paper over to me. ‘A woman named Kendra called. Asked you to meet her at the Liberty Hotel in Boston tonight at ten.’
I take the message and read it. ‘Thanks.’
‘Friend of yours?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The Liberty’s the hotel they built in the old jail, right? Pretty swanky, from what I hear. Ten seems awful late for a date.’
‘Mind your own business, Ma,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna go take a shower.’
She raises her hand in surrender. ‘You’re right, not my business. Yvette called too, just to see if you were alright. I guess that’s not my business either, but I thought you’d want to know. She left no message.’
‘Thanks, Ma.’
The Liberty Hotel is located on the back side of Beacon Hill, behind Massachusetts General Hospital, just across the river from both Charlestown and Cambridge. It’s an imposing granite structure looming over the water, which for more than a century and a half was a prison that housed some of Boston’s most dangerous criminals. In the late 1970s it was the site of a prisoner revolt, organized to protest against the deplorable conditions. A decade and a half later it was decommissioned, and the remaining prisoners were sent to more modern facilities.
The building sat fallow for many years, as the city and Mass. General, which had acquired the property for development, considered proposals for renovations. Eventually it was decided that the building would be converted into a new boutique hotel. The architects called in were careful to keep many of the original elements of the jail, including the prison bars and steel doors to give the place a mysterious Gothic feel. The restaurants all have themes relating to incarceration, and the hotel offers romance packages catering to the adventurous, including pleasure kits of handcuffs and restraints.
I’ve never been to the place before. It’s only been open for a few years, and it’s become a mainstay of the cutting-edge world of upper-class Boston. It’s as far away from my little street in Charlestown as two miles can feel. As I walk up to the front door, the huge granite facade stares down at me in judgment. Stepping into the lobby, I am awed by the seven-story central atrium that was the
guard station when the prison was in use. Looking up, I can see the catwalks that ring every floor. Four radiating wings split off from the central structure; these were the cell blocks where the prisoners were kept, and now they are used for the guest rooms. The feel of the place, with its dark-brick interior and fire-lit ambience, is a little overwhelming to me. All around the city’s beautiful people move with a sense of belonging that I’ve never felt. More than one woman glances at me and gives a smile, but I can’t seem to smile back. A man in a red vest approaches me. ‘Can I be of assistance, sir?’ he asks.
‘I’m meeting someone at Clink,’ I say.
‘Yes, of course. It’s the restaurant in the back.’ He raises his arm to the left. ‘This way.’
Clink is the main restaurant at the hotel, and it’s in a warren of what used to be ground-floor cells. The bars remain, and the stone and brick walls give the place the feel of a refurbished castle dungeon. I walk through the place, peering into every nook, growing dizzy with the effort as the gas lights on the brick throw off moving shadows that flicker and disappear. I find Kendra tucked away at one of the private tables in a section just off the bar. She’s sitting by herself, staring ahead, the expression on her face one of calm contemplation and subdued anticipation.
She looks perfect. She’s wearing a red dress that clings to her in all the right places, black stiletto heels. It’s a simple, clean outfit that doesn’t look as though she’s trying too hard. And yet as understated as the look is, she makes it look like an open invitation. Something about her breathes desire into the air, like a neurotoxin that paralyzes everyone around her. I can see it in the people at the tables nearby; their heads are drawn to her with a sense of sexual fury.
I walk over and sit across from her. ‘You look spectacular.’
‘You look rested.’
‘I feel better. I collapsed this morning and slept through the afternoon. It’s been years since I got that much sleep.’
‘It’s awful, isn’t it? I’m the same way; I haven’t slept for more than a few hours at a time since I was in my teens. It doesn’t matter how tired I am.’
The waitress comes over and I order us drinks. She’s having Scotch, and I join her, ordering her a second. ‘Thanks for calling.’
‘I said I would.’
‘I know. That didn’t mean you had to. Are you staying here?’
‘For tonight. Tomorrow . . . who knows?’ The waitress returns and puts the drinks down. We sip them in silence for a few minutes. It’s a comfortable silence, though. My mind isn’t darting from one thought to another, searching for conversation. I am content just sitting there in her presence. She smiles at me. ‘Tell me about your job,’ she says.
‘Small talk?’
‘A lot can be learned from small talk. There’s really nothing small about it, if you listen hard enough.’ I wonder whether that’s something she’s learned in her professional life.
‘Well, you know about my job. You dated Josh.’
‘I know about NextLife. I don’t know much about your role at the company.’
‘I’m not allowed to talk much about what I do.’
‘Because you’re the black-ops end of the business, right? Like Josh’s own little CIA.’
I’m caught off-balance for a minute. ‘I thought you didn’t know much about my role at the company?’
‘Well, I know some. You’d be surprised what you learn when you date a CEO.’ She makes a face at the thought of the time she spent with Josh Pinkerton, but shakes it off quickly. ‘So, what’s it like crawling around in people’s fantasies all day?’
‘I do less of that than I used to,’ I say. ‘I oversee the operation now, and we have a bunch of people who do the actual GhostWalking.’
‘Still, you must do it sometimes.’
‘Sometimes.’
‘What’s that like?’
I feel a little uncomfortable talking about this, but I push ahead. ‘It’s strange,’ I start. ‘Our users have the ability to live out their greatest desires. They can experience space flight; they can sit in a Formula One car as it wins a Grand Prix race; they can climb Mount Everest. The possibilities are limitless.’
‘But what’s the point?’ she asks, frowning. ‘That’s what I’ve never really understood.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Take Mount Everest. The whole point of climbing Mount Everest is to make the climb. The whole point is to accomplish something and actually have the experience. What’s the point of doing that while you’re sitting in a Barcalounger.’
‘But the experience is almost the same. The graphics on our system are so advanced, it’s literally hard to tell the difference.’
‘Doesn’t that make it even worse? It cheapens all of those things we’ve found important and thrilling for our entire existence.’
We pass our first uncomfortable moment. ‘So what else did you learn about the company when you dated Josh?’ I ask, just to move off the awkward conversational island we seem to have landed on.
‘I learned plenty. Thank God.’
‘What do you mean?’
She looks hard at me. ‘Did you talk to him before you came out here tonight?’
‘What? No. Why would I have?’
‘You work for him. Maybe this is the way you get back in his good graces. Come out here and find out what I know; find out how serious it is.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Knowledge is power, Nick. I have that power now; I’m not giving it up.’
I finally realize what she’s saying. ‘That’s how you got away from him, isn’t it? Josh isn’t the type to give up something he cares about without a fight. Which means that you had to know something that would make him back off. Tell me what it was.’
‘Why would I tell you?’
‘Because you trust me.’
‘You’re pretty sure of yourself.’ She says it with a smile.
‘It’s true. I saved your life, and you can see straight through me. Tell me I’m wrong.’
We sit there, looking into each other’s eyes, neither one of us blinking. I can feel her fighting it, but she’s losing the battle. The smile slowly fades, and I see the vulnerability she’s shown only once before. ‘I can’t tell you you’re wrong,’ she says. ‘I trust you. I’m just not used to that feeling, and it scares me.’
‘I understand that. But it doesn’t change how I feel. I’ll protect you. I’ll always protect you, don’t you get that?’
She nods, and her eyes tear over. She uses a cocktail napkin to soak up the moisture before it spills over onto her cheeks. ‘I know that.’
‘So, what made Josh back off?’
‘What’s the greatest danger with a company like NextLife?’ she asks rhetorically.
‘Greater than a psychopath using the system to murder a bunch of women?’
‘Much greater than that,’ she responds.
I consider the possibilities for a moment. The company has grown so large, the possible ways in which it could be used for nefarious purposes are myriad. ‘I don’t know,’ I say at last. ‘There’s lots of information on the system that could be used for ugly purposes, if you could connect that information to the individual users.’
Kendra nods solemnly.
‘But that’s why the algorithms are in place, to prevent that from happening.’
‘As long as those algorithms aren’t cracked, everything’s okay then,’ she says in an ominous tone.
‘Are you saying they’ve been cracked?’
‘I’m saying they’re not as secure as NextLife likes to pretend. I’m saying there have been rumors about blackmail and identity theft on NextLife, which could only be happening if someone knew how to break through those algorithms.’
I let the implications marinade for a moment. ‘If people knew about this, it would kill the company.’
She nods. ‘Only a few people know. They’ve been able to keep it quiet. That’s why Josh backed off.’ She ta
kes another sip of her drink. ‘The company was ultimately more important to him than his other needs.’
‘What other needs?’
‘The need to have complete control over someone, and to give in to someone else and allow them to have power over him for a time – to completely let go. That was what I gave him. That was what he needed, and what he tried so hard not to give up.’
‘I wonder where that need comes from?’ I ask idly. ‘We see it all the time in the fantasies our users create.’
She’s holding her drink just under her chin, and she breathes in the aroma. ‘I think it comes from guilt. We all have these desires, these needs that we’re taught from an early age are wicked – that will lead us into hell. And so, when we’re in control, there’s always this internal governor – the voice inside our heads – that tells us: that’s too far . . . you shouldn’t be doing that. If you give over control to someone else, literal physical control, the guilt goes away. We’re not the ones satisfying these dark needs, someone else is. We’re the victim – the plaything – and we’re at someone else’s will. If you’re with someone who you trust, it’s an extremely liberating experience.’
‘Who do you trust that much?’
Her smile is defensive. ‘I don’t trust anyone that much. Not really. That’s probably why I’m not naturally inclined in that direction. For me, it’s a business proposition. I need to know what makes others feel good, if I’m going to be successful at what I do. It’s not about me; it’s about them.’
‘That sounds lonely.’
The smile disappears. ‘It is. If I could find someone to trust, it might be different.’
‘Are you close, do you think?’
‘I may be,’ she says. ‘You?’
‘I don’t know.’
She picks up her drink and swallows the last of it. ‘Let’s find out.’ She stands and takes a hotel card out of her purse, puts it on the table. ‘Room 813. Wait fifteen minutes and then meet me there.’ She leans in close, brushing her cheek against mine. I can feel the soft flutter of her dress against my arm, and smell the subtle fragrance of jasmine. ‘Trust me,’ she whispers. She kisses my lips softly. ‘Trust yourself.’
