Black Out: A Novel

by Lisa Unger

  I still haven’t talked to my father. After we moved into town, I went to see him, to confront him about what he knows, what his role was in the things that happened to me. But the shop is closed. His landlady says she gets a rent check every month from his bank. She let me into his apartment while she waited at the door. I walked around, looking for some clue as to where he might have gone. But there’s nothing—it’s exactly the same as it was that night, except his clothes are gone. I walk by his building once a week or so, check to see if she’s heard from him. I have a hole in my heart where my father should be. I’ve been chasing him all my life; I guess I won’t stop now. Gray thinks he’s our last, best link to the truth. But I know that even when he returns, he’ll do what he’s always done. He’ll lie.

  I know he wanted to help me, to save me from Marlowe, to save me from myself. He did what he could do. I guess he finally did come for me in his way. But then he left again. Maybe that’s all he knows.

  The instructor enters through a door near the front of the classroom. It’s a large room, more like a theater really, with a podium and microphone and many rows of seats grading upward. He is a tall, lean man with a chaos of ink black hair and ice blue eyes. His voice is deep and booming; he hardly needs the microphone. His class is called The Secret Life of Trauma, and it is packed, most of the seats taken. He teaches his students about things with which I am intimately familiar: the defenses created by the personality to survive the unthinkable. I’m my own best case study.

  Today he has a slide show, some artwork created by trauma patients. He asks one of the students to bring down the lights. Before the room goes dark, out of the corner of my eye, I see her. She sits down the aisle from me, the girl who waited for a rescue that never came, who finally rose to save herself. I see her finally as Janet Parker saw her, a beautiful young woman with everything before her. There’s a light to her, something powerful that radiates from within, something that none of the horrors of her existence could extinguish. Just before she fades away with the dimming lights, she turns to look at me and smiles, at peace. At last.

  Author’s Notes

  Fiction writers dwell most comfortably in the land of their imagination. But we frequently need to venture forth to learn a thing or two about the real world. I have had the good fortune to find some very accomplished and fascinating people who have taken time out of their busy lives to make my fictional world more viable.

  Raoul Berke, Ph.D., very kindly pointed out a mistake I made in an earlier novel and was rewarded by my hounding him for information on various forms of mental illness. My thanks for his interesting insights and observations on fugue states, dissociative identity disorder, and psychotic breaks.

  K. C. Poulin, CEO, and Craig Dundry, vice president of special projects at Critical Intervention Services in Clearwater, Florida, spent an afternoon with me and shared their tremendous wealth of knowledge on privatized military companies. I can’t thank them enough for their generosity, openness, sense of humor, and amazing expertise. Fair warning: You haven’t heard the last of me!

  Mike Emanuel, renowned Florida cave diver, took the time to answer a ridiculous number of questions about Florida’s underwater caves and the sport of cave diving. His website (www.mejeme.com) features some remarkable pictures that provided me with insight and inspiration. And it’s a good thing, because you couldn’t pay me to go down there.

  Marion Chartoff and her husband, Kevin Butler, both extraordinary attorneys and dear friends, offered their expert knowledge on death-row appeal cases.

  As always my good friend Special Agent Paul Bouffard with the Environmental Protection Agency has been my source for all things legal and illegal. He never gets tired of answering my questions—or, if he does, he hides it very well.

  The following books were very important in the writing of this novel:

  The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit (Routledge, 1996) by Donald Kalsched is in turns moving, disturbing, and illuminating.

  Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Cornell University Press, 2004) by P. W. Singer is the best resource I found on privatized military companies and their role in modern warfare.

  Naturally, I take responsibility for any and all mistakes I have made and liberties I may have taken for the sake of fiction.

  Acknowledgments

  There are a number of people without whom I couldn’t do what I do. I am truly blessed by their presence in my life, and I’ll take this opportunity to thank them for all the myriad ways they bolster and support me.

  I thank my lucky stars for my husband, Jeffrey. Without his love and support, I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am today. I would also slowly starve to death because, at some point since the birth of our daughter, I have lost the ability to prepare food. My daughter, Ocean Rae, has brought a light into my life and shone it into places that I didn’t even know were dark. I am a better writer and a better person since she arrived. Together, Jeffrey and Ocean are the rock-solid foundation of my life.

  I would be lost without my agent, Elaine Markson. Every year I try to find a new way to say what she has meant to me personally and professionally. She has helped me achieve the only dream I’ve ever had of my life, pulled me from a burning building (figuratively speaking), advised, edited, supported, encouraged, and just generally been the best possible agent and friend a person could have. Her assistant, Gary Johnson, is absolutely my lifeline every single day. I couldn’t begin to list all the things he does for me. Thanks, G.

  My wonderful and brilliant editor, Sally Kim, has truly found her calling and her gift. With every novel, I have a greater appreciation for her tremendous talent and her high-octane enthusiasm. She is a truly special person and an extraordinary editor—wise, insightful, gentle, and an absolute tiger when it comes to championing her authors. I am a better writer because she is my editor.

  I’ve said it before, but it needs repeating: a publisher like Crown/Shaye Areheart Books is every writer’s dream. I can’t imagine a more wonderful, supportive, and loving home. My heartfelt thanks to Jenny Frost, Shaye Areheart, Philip Patrick, Jill Flaxman, Whitney Cookman, David Tran, Jacqui LeBow, Andy Augusto, Kira Walton, Donna Passannante, Shawn Nicholls, Christine Aronson, Katie Wainwright, Linda Kaplan, Karin Schulze, and Anne Berry…to name just a few. Of course, I can’t say enough about the sales reps who have tirelessly sold my work all over the country. I hear about them and their endless efforts on my behalf every time I visit with booksellers. Every one of these people has brought their unique skills and talents to bear on my work, and I can’t thank them enough.

  My family and friends cheer me through the great days and drag me through the bad ones. My mom and dad, Virginia and Joseph Miscione, my brother, Joe, and his wife, Tara, are tireless promoters and cheerleaders. My friend Heather Mikesell has read every word I have written since we met. I count on her insights and her eagle-eye editing. My oldest friends Marion Chartoff and Tara Popick each offer their own special brand of wisdom, support, and humor. I am grateful to them for more reasons than I can count here.

  About the Author

  Lisa Unger is the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestselling author of Beautiful Lies and Sliver of Truth. Her novels have been published in twenty-six countries, receiving rave reviews and appearing on bestseller lists around the world.

  Lisa was born in Connecticut and lived in Holland and England with her family before returning to the United States. She is a graduate of the New School for Social Research, Eugene Lang College. She now lives in Florida with her husband and daughter and is at work on her next novel.

  Also by Lisa Unger

  SLIVER OF TRUTH

  BEAUTIFUL LIES

  A Sneak Peak of

  Lisa Unger’s New Novel

  Fragile

  “[A] nail-biting nuanced whodunit.”

  — People

  “Delivers everything that Lisa Unger’s readers have come to expect �
�� a thrilling story that affects complicated and nuanced people. But it’s also a sensitive meditation on the very nature of family and community and the ties that bind us to one another.”

  — Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of LIFE SENTENCES

  PROLOGUE

  When Jones Cooper was younger, he didn’t believe in mistakes. He thought that every road led you somewhere and wherever you wound up, that’s where you belonged. Regrets were for the shortsighted, for the small-minded. He didn’t believe that anymore. That was a young man’s arrogant way of looking at the world. And youth, among other things, had abandoned him long ago.

  Jones felt the full weight of all his regrets as he pulled his Ford Explorer off the small side road and engaged the four-wheel drive to haul himself through the muck. Over the last week, the late autumn weather had been wild—hot one day, cold with flurries the next, then warm again. Now a thunderstorm loomed, as if heaven itself had decided to launch a protest against the erratic conditions. By morning, his tracks would be lost.

  What had amazed him, what amazed him still, even after all these years, was how quickly he’d stepped out of himself. He’d slipped off every convention and moral that had defined him, a great cowl that fell to the floor with the unfastening of a single closure. The person beneath it was someone he barely recognized. He’d tried to tell himself over the years that the circumstances had changed him, that they’d forced him into aberrant behavior. But in his deepest heart, he knew. He knew what he was. He was weak. He was base. He always had been.

  As he brought the vehicle to a stop, a white flash of lightning temporarily illuminated the area around him. He killed the engine and sat, drawing in a breath. In his pocket, his cell phone started vibrating. He didn’t have to look at it to know it was his wife; after so many good years with a woman, you knew when she was calling, even what she would probably say. He didn’t answer, but it set a clock ticking. He had about half an hour to call her back before she started trying other numbers. It wasn’t his habit to be out of communication. Not at this hour, early evening, when her last session had ended and, if there was nothing big going on, he’d be wrapping up the day.

  It was the thought of that, the lost normalcy, that set Jones to sobbing. He was surprised at the force of it, like a hacking cough that came from deep in his chest, buckled him over so that his head was resting on the wheel. His wailing filled the car; he almost couldn’t believe the sound—animalistic in its agony—was coming from his body. But he couldn’t stop it. He had no choice but to surrender. Then it passed, as quickly as it had come on him, and he was left quaking in its wake. As he wiped his eyes, a heavy rain started to fall. Another lightning flash, and he felt the rumble of thunder beneath his feet.

  He reached under the passenger seat, where he kept his heavy yellow slicker. He donned it while still in the car, pulling the hood tight around his face. Then he stepped outside, walked around to the hatch, and pulled it open, taking cover beneath it as he peered inside. The bundle in back was impossibly small. It was difficult to imagine that its contents represented everything dark and ugly within him, every wrong road, every cowardly choice. He didn’t want to touch it.

  In his pocket, the phone started vibrating again. It broke his reverie, and he reached inside the vehicle to gather the thick gray plastic bag in both his arms. It no longer seemed small or insubstantial. It contained the weight of the whole world. He felt the horror of it all welling up within him, but he quashed it. He didn’t have time for more tears, or the luxury of breaking down again.

  With the bag in his arms, Jones moved through the rain and ducked lithely beneath the crime scene tape to stand on the edge of a gaping hole. A Hollows kid, named Matty Bauer, had fallen into the abandoned mine shaft, which opened beneath his feet while he was playing with friends. In the fall, he’d broken his leg. It had taken police and rescue workers the better part of the day to get Matty out as the hole kept breaking down around them, showering the boy below with dirt.

  Finally, they’d managed to get a tow truck out there. Jones had been the first to volunteer and was lowered on a rescue stretcher to immobilize the victim so he could be lifted out. Even though Jones was just back on duty, recovering from an injury himself, he had wanted to go.

  When he’d gotten to the bottom of the hole, Matty Bauer was quiet and glassy-eyed, shock setting in, his leg twisted horribly. Even as he’d lifted Matty onto the stretcher, whispering assurances—Hang in there, kid, we’ve got you covered—the kid hadn’t made a sound. Then he’d watched as the stretcher lifted and lifted, spinning slowly like the hands of a clock against the circle of light above. He’d waited in that dark, deep hole for nearly twenty minutes, which seemed like hours, before they’d lowered the harness to lift him out. He’d done a lot of thinking down in that hole.

  Take your time up there, guys.

  Sorry, sir. Moving as fast as we can.

  Which is apparently not very fucking fast.

  But after the initial claustrophobic unease had passed, he’d felt oddly peaceful in the dark, some light washing in from above, voices echoing and bouncing down. He wasn’t worried about the walls collapsing and being buried alive. He might have even welcomed the hero’s death as opposed to the ignoble life he was living.

  The shaft was scheduled for filling tomorrow at first light, the bulldozer and a great pile of earth already waiting. He’d left the station house saying to his assistant that he’d come here to check that everything was ready. He’d told her that he’d be here to supervise first thing in the morning. And that’s what he was doing.

  Can’t have any more kids falling in that well. We’re lucky Matty just broke his leg.

  Jones Cooper was a good cop. The Hollows was lucky to have him. Everyone said so.

  Without false ceremony or empty words, he let the bundle drop from his arms and listened a second later to the soft thud of it landing in wet earth. Then he went back to the SUV and retrieved the shovel he always kept there. He spent a backbreaking twenty minutes shoveling dirt into the hole, just enough to cover even what he knew could not be seen from the rim of the opening. As he worked, the rain fell harder and great skeins of lightning slashed the sky.

  ONE

  MONTH EARLIER

  1

  The sound of the screen door slamming never failed to cause a happy lift in her heart that was immediately followed by a sinking, the opening of a small empty place. Maggie could almost hear her son the way he had been once—always running, always dirty from soccer, or riding his bike and getting into God knows what around the neighborhood. He’d be hungry or thirsty, would head directly to the refrigerator. Mom, I want a snack. He was loving then, ready to hug her or kiss her; not yet like his friends, who were even then slinking away from their mothers’ embraces, bearing their kisses as if they were vaccinations. He’d laughed easily. He was a clown, wanting her to laugh, too. Those days weren’t so long ago, when her son was still Ricky, not Rick. But that little boy was as far gone as if he’d gotten in a spaceship and flown to the moon.

  Ricky walked into the kitchen, standing a full head taller than she, clad in black from head to toe—a pair of jeans, a carefully ripped and tattered tank, high-laced Doc Martens boots, though the autumn air was unseasonably hot. Nearly stifling, she thought, but that might just be her hormones. She was used to the silver hoop in his nose, almost thought it was cool.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, baby.”

  He started opening cupboards. She tried not to stare. She’d been standing at the counter, leafing through a catalog packed with junk no one needed. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched it. Yesterday, he’d come home with a tattoo, some kind of abstract tribal design that spanned the length of his upper arm. It was hideous. And it wasn’t done; there was just an outline with no color. It would take several more appointments to complete, and he had to earn the money to pay for it. She certainly wasn’t going to pay for him to mutilate himself, not that he’d as
ked for money. The skin around the ink looked raw and irritated, shone with the Vaseline he had over it for protection. The sight of it made her sick with grief.

  All she could think of was how pure and unblemished, how soft and pink his baby skin had been. How his wonderful body, small and pristine, used to feel in her arms, how she’d kiss every inch of him, marveling at his beauty. When she was a new mom, she’d felt like she couldn’t pull her eyes away. Now she cast her eyes back at her catalog quickly, not wanting to look at her own son, at what he’d seen fit to do to his beautiful body.

  The fight they’d all had yesterday was over; everything she needed to say, she’d said. He would be eighteen in three weeks. His body wasn’t her responsibility anymore. You have no right to try to control me, he’d spat at her. I’m not a child. He was right, of course. That’s what hurt most of all.

  “Not a big deal, Mom,” he said, reading her mind. He was riffling through the mail on the counter. “Lots of people have tattoos.”

  “Ricky,” she said. She felt the heat rise to her face. But instead of saying anything else, she released a long, slow breath. It was a thing, like so many things, that could never be undone. It would be on him forever. Maybe she’d stop seeing it, like his hair, which was always a different color, jet-black today. He walked over and kissed her on the head.

  “Not a baby, Mom,” he said.

  “Always my baby, Ricky,” she said. He tried to move away, but she caught him and gave him a quick squeeze, which he returned.

  “Rick,” he said. He turned away from her and headed to the refrigerator.

  “Always Ricky,” she said. She knew she was being silly and stubborn. He had a right to say what he wanted to be called, didn’t he? Hadn’t she taught him to speak up for himself, to establish his boundaries, to have respect for himself?