Heartless

by Alison Gaylin

  Zoe sipped her ice water. “You reupped your contract five weeks ago and changed your mind a week later,” she said. “I know why.”

  “It’s not . . . I did that because . . . because I . . .”

  His voice trailed off. She watched him—the slight twitch at the side of the mouth, the hand gripping the wineglass so tightly, as if he were juicing it for lies. “You thrive on secrets, don’t you, Warren? You and I are secret, but that’s not enough. She’s the secret you’ve been keeping from me.”

  “Zoe, that is not—”

  “You like to keep things hidden. Everything’s got to be in the dark, tucked away . . . Like that cross at the back of your dressing room closet.”

  Slowly, Warren put down the glass and stared at her. His mouth tightened, and Zoe saw it in his eyes again, just as she had during the interview. That flatness . . . “Why were you looking in my closet?”

  The waiter stepped up. “Shall I bring you the special appetizer?”

  “This isn’t a good time,” Warren said.

  After the waiter left, he repeated it, louder. “Why were you looking in my closet?” The stare bored into her, chilled her.

  What is wrong with him? Zoe’s mouth was dry. The skin tingled on the back of her neck, and for the briefest of moments, she was afraid of Warren—or at least, of the way he was looking at her. “The . . . the door was open,” she said slowly. “But your dressing room closet is really not the issue here.”

  His gaze started to soften. Soon, the flatness dissolved. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just . . . I’m confused.”

  The fear lingered, but before too long the wine had taken care of it. You’re hurt. You’re paranoid. You’re a little bit drunk. . . .

  Zoe said, “You’re in love with Vanessa St. James.”

  “What?”

  “You went to San Esteban to be with her. You’re leaving Day’s End to be with her. You’re leaving me to be with her, so why don’t you just tell me and get it over—”

  “Oh, my God, you think—”

  “I don’t think. I know.”

  He was actually smiling.

  Zoe said, “How . . . how can you . . . ?”

  Warren called the waiter over and said, “We’ll take the special appetizer.”

  “No, we will not.” Zoe started to get up.

  “Please sit down.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Please.”

  Zoe could feel several sets of eyes on her—other customers, that horrible waiter. . . . She dropped back into the chair and glared at Warren.

  “Vanessa St. James,” he said, “is old enough to be my mother.”

  “Give me a break. I’ve seen her picture and I’ve seen all your text messages to her so don’t even try and—”

  “She is my friend. She’s . . . she’s been having some family troubles, and she was confiding in me.” He took a breath. “Now, as for leaving my job. Man . . . I didn’t expect it to go down like this.”

  The demonic waiter placed a covered dish in front of her. “Your special appetizer, miss,” he said.

  “I don’t want an appetizer.”

  “Take the cover off,” Warren said to the waiter.

  “I told you, Warren, I—”

  “Take the damn cover off now.”

  Quickly, the waiter removed the cover. The plate beneath was empty, save for a small silver key glistening at its center. Zoe stared at it, then at Warren. “What is this?”

  “It’s yours,” he said. “It’s a key to my house. In San Esteban.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Yeah, I reupped. If you’d seen my new contract, you’d understand why. But one night . . . Remember that Monday, when you spent the night at my place? You had to leave at five in the morning because you wanted to get home to shower and change for work?”

  Zoe nodded.

  “I watched you that night. I watched you sleeping. I touched your face and you smiled in your sleep—like a reflex—and I thought, ‘I don’t want her to go home. Ever.’ ”

  Zoe looked into his eyes. No flatness, no closed doors, only light . . .

  “That’s what made me change my mind,” he said. “There is no other woman, Zoe. Just you.”

  “Warren, you’re . . . you’re asking me to . . .”

  “I’m heading back down there tomorrow. I know it’s sudden, but you have some time off, right? How about you take your three weeks, spend it with me in San Es?”

  Zoe stared at him, her eyes starting to well up.

  “If you like it,” he said softly, “maybe you don’t have to use the return ticket.”

  A tear trickled down her cheek.

  He leaned across the table, brushed it away. “Is that a yes?” he said softly.

  “Yes,” she said, “yes, yes, yes, yes . . .” until he kissed her, and she didn’t have to say the word anymore.

  Zoe and Warren skipped dinner. They took a cab back to his place—a sleek, thirty-story building on Fiftieth and Tenth overlooking the Hudson River—and though they managed to do nothing more than hold hands during the ride over, the walk to the elevator proved excruciating . . . especially considering the lengthy wait Zoe knew was in store for them once the doors closed; Warren lived on the top floor.

  Warren pushed the button, and then he turned to Zoe with that look in his eyes that always moved her. It was so real, she could physically feel it—that want turning to ache. Then his lips were on her neck, and his hands were on her waist and sliding under her blouse, and all Zoe could think of was how long it had been. Three weeks, three years, three centuries . . . She glanced at the numbers over the door; the elevator was between floors four and five. “Stop it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Stop . . . the elevator.”

  Warren leaned back for a moment, his hands still moving on her, and grinned. “You’re ser—”

  “Yes.”

  Without another word, Warren hit the EMERGENCY STOP button. Then he yanked his black T-shirt over his head and threw it on the lens of the surveillance camera. He grabbed Zoe around the waist and lifted her up, pinning her against the closed elevator doors. God, but he was strong. Her pulse raced. Her entire body throbbed for him. Before she even realized it, her shirt was off, and she felt the cool metal doors against her back and his hard chest pressed into hers. His lips moved on the hollow of her throat, his voice thick and shaky from wanting her. “We’ve only got a few minutes before security—”

  “I only need a few minutes.” Restrictive as this position was, Zoe’s fingers could still reach Warren’s belt buckle. She took full advantage of that.

  Nothing was happening fast enough. The more she felt of Warren, the more she wanted and she wanted it now, sooner than now. She despised his jeans, the button-front fly—Who came up with that idiotic invention? She loathed every item of clothing on his body and her own; they were nothing but barriers, time wasters.

  Between the two of them, though, they managed to peel away the essential layers, push them aside or worse—Zoe felt her skirt rip at the waist, the button flying off—as the alarm shrieked, drowning out the sound of their frantic breathing.

  When Warren was finally inside her, it was like regaining one of her senses. Zoe started to cry out. He put a hand over her mouth and whispered, “Someone might hear,” his breath hot and ragged against her collarbone. That did it. She groaned into his palm, pressing her hips to him as a current shot through her, all the way up her spine and into the base of her scalp, just as she felt him release. Perfect timing. She collapsed onto him, not just spent but drained. Filleted.

  At that exact moment, a deep voice emanated from the elevator’s speaker system. “Security.”

  Zoe and Warren burst out laughing.

  “Are you all right in there?” said the voice.

  “We’re fine!” Warren called out. He kissed her gently, and she opened her eyes to his—pure and blue and content. Briefly, Zoe remembered the look in Warren’s eyes when she’d m
entioned the cross in his closet, and a chill rippled through her, a prickling of the skin that stretched across her shoulder blades. She used to call it hinky, that feeling, back when she was a crime reporter and couldn’t get enough cop slang. But whatever she called it then, whatever she felt like renaming it now—this unease, this sketchy sense of dread . . . It didn’t stick around long enough to matter.

  THREE

  Warren snored. It wasn’t of the log-sawing variety—it was more like a purr. Zoe found it endearing, which showed how bad she truly had it for him now. She liked the sound of his snore.

  It was close to midnight. As soon as they’d gotten into Warren’s apartment, he’d gone online and bought her a round-trip ticket to León Airport leaving Monday night. He’d given her his user’s code (“In case you decide to say screw your boss and change your ticket for an earlier one.”), and then they’d gone to bed.

  Zoe and Warren had time now and so they’d taken it, the sex so slow and languorous that each sensation seemed to reverberate. When they came—eyes open, gasping together—tears rolled down Zoe’s face, yet she couldn’t say a word. It occurred to her that she might have lost her ability to speak forever—and that if she had, it would have been worth it.

  “Where did you learn how to do that?” she had asked, once her voice returned.

  “From you,” he’d said. “Just now.”

  Zoe rested her head on Warren’s chest, listening to him snore, feeling his heartbeat against the side of her face, until she realized she’d never get to sleep this way, not with how she was feeling.

  She had to tell Steve she was going to Mexico.

  Zoe crept into the living room, where her phone was charging, flipped it open and tapped in his number. She fully expected to get his voice mail; Steve was on weekend shift at the Trumpet this month, meaning he had to be in the office by eight the next morning and was probably home asleep.

  To her surprise, though, he picked up after one ring: “It’s about time you called.”

  Zoe heard voices in the background, Gwen Stefani yodeling over a massive speaker system, some guy shouting, “No way! Dude! No way!” so earsplittingly loud, you’d think he was trying to flag down a rescue party. “Don’t tell me you’re still at Katie’s,” Zoe said.

  “Ran into a bunch of Trumpet people! Everybody keeps buying me drinks to celebrate!”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “Desiree talked. She even put me in touch with an ex-employee who’ll go on the record. Your advice totally worked, Zoe. You’re a genius.”

  Zoe smiled. “Hey, listen, speaking of celebrating . . .”

  “You dumped the douche bag actor!”

  “No, we talked and . . . Believe it or not, he and I are in a great place.”

  No reply, so Zoe went on. “Warren says he and Vanessa St. James are just friends.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Under the circumstances, yes. He invited me to his place in Mexico, Steve. Gave me a key to his house and everything. . . . I’m leaving Monday—”

  “This Monday?”

  “If I can get the three weeks out of my boss . . .” Zoe shuddered. “That reminds me. Please don’t tell any of your Trumpet friends about this. If it gets back to Kathy I’m in San Esteban with Warren Clark, she will freak out. She might even fire me for not tell—”

  “San Esteban.” Steve’s voice sounded strange, hollow. “That’s where his place is?”

  “Have you heard of it? Mountain town, about three hours south of Texas. Lots of American hippies, retirees who think they’re artists . . .”

  “San Esteban,” he said, “is where Jordan Brink was killed.”

  “Jordan Brink?”

  He spoke very slowly. “The kid from Queens? The one who got his heart cut out.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t hear? It was on the cover of every paper last weekend.”

  Zoe’s breath caught. “Last weekend?”

  “Happened last Friday night. It was in the Post, the News, the Times, bottom of the front page. . . . The kid was on drugs in the desert, and somebody got him and . . . I can’t believe I have to tell you about this!”

  Zoe squeezed her eyes shut. “I . . . I don’t read newspapers, Steve. You know that.”

  Steve didn’t say anything. Zoe heard a deep voice yelling, “Sorensen! Get off the phone and have another drink!” a group of women shrilling along with Gwen, the echo of countless indistinguishable customers laughing and fighting and shouting to be heard, customers who were drunk and oblivious to some random killing in Mexico. “Hello? Steve?”

  Finally, he spoke. “It’s bad enough you threw away the best job in the world to go work at a fanzine. Now you’re sabotaging that job to shack up with a—”

  “I’m not sabotaging—”

  “Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But I can’t believe he didn’t tell you about the murder. Jesus, it happened one week ago!”

  “He probably didn’t want to upset me. Or maybe he didn’t know.”

  “Everybody knew.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Stop sounding so proud of that!”

  Zoe said nothing, just breathed into the phone.

  “You need to get back in the real world, Zoe,” Steve said. “You’ve got to stop blaming yourself for what happened with—”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “You need to talk about it.”

  “Don’t tell me what I need.”

  “It was five years ago,” he said, “and what he did to those women was never your fault to begin with. You were an awe-some reporter—the best—and you just threw it away because of—”

  “That’s enough.”

  “You’re going to a goddamn crime scene with some dick-head you barely know and—”

  “I said, that’s enough!”

  “It’s all because of Daryl Barclay.”

  Zoe’s breath got shallow at the sound of the name. Her fists tightened as in her mind, a plank gave way and she began to sink. “I’m going to hang up now, Steve,” she said quietly. And she did, before he could say another word.

  Jordan Brink, said a voice in the darkness. That one in San Esteban wasn’t me, wasn’t my style. You know that. . . . Zoe couldn’t see, but she knew who was speaking. After all, that was all he’d ever been to her—a voice on the phone, calling her pet names, sneaking into her nightmares. . . .

  Daryl Barclay. The Barber-Butcher. Her last exclusive.

  Boys aren’t me, kitten. Mexico isn’t me. And besides . . . The voice turned to hot liquid and seared her face. I’m on hiatus.

  A bright light flipped on and she saw Barclay at the foot of the bed. His head was shaved, as it had been in the court room, his skin pale gray, like the skin of his victims. He smiled wide—wide enough for Zoe to see that gold tooth . . . the one he’d told her about. . . . Melted down a lady’s ring to make it. My first lady. For a while, I kept the finger, too.

  “You’re not real,” she whispered. “Go away.”

  I’d like to show you something.

  Zoe wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. She watched Daryl Barclay’s tattooed arm swing around from behind his back, his big fist stopping inches from her face. She watched the fist open. At the center of Barclay’s palm was a human heart, still beating.

  Pa-dum-pa-dum-pa-dum . . .

  Blood coursed out of it, spilling over the hand, splashing onto the floor in thick globs.

  Check out the top.

  Zoe stared at the thing stretched across the top of the heart, piercing it in places. She began to shake.

  Looks familiar, right? Art imitates life, right? RIGHT?

  It was a crown of black thorns.

  Wonder what else your man keeps in his closet!

  Zoe’s eyes sprung open. Her pulse was beating so hard, it constricted her throat, made it hard to breathe. Her gaze darted around the room, and for a few panicky seconds she had no idea where she was. “Okay
,” she said out loud. The sound of her own voice calmed her a little, brought her back to reality. She heard the echo of car engines on the West Side Highway and felt filtered sunlight on her face, and she knew she was in Warren’s bed and that it was morning. A dream. Zoe hadn’t dreamed about Daryl Barclay in four years.

  Listening for Warren’s snore, Zoe heard nothing. She stretched out to touch him, but instead of warm skin, she felt a tangle of small, sharp . . . Thorns. She let out a thin gasp, then made herself turn, look . . .

  On Warren’s pillow was a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses.

  Zoe let out a burst of laughter—pure nerves. Then she took a few breaths, picked up the note that lay next to the bouquet.

  Off to the airport. See you in two days.

  I.L.Y.,

  W

  I.L.Y? Zoe gaped at the initials, her pulse quickening for different reasons. Had Warren just told her he loved her?

  “Goodbye, Eddie, Goodbye” from Brian DePalma’s Phantom of the Paradise jolted out of the living room. It was Zoe’s ring tone—a birthday present from Steve; she still couldn’t figure out how he’d ever found that song. Zoe scrambled out of bed, hoping it was Steve calling to apologize over the Barclay thing. Maybe they could get a cup of coffee, try the conversation again when he wasn’t drunk in a bar. But when she flipped the phone open, she saw the Headquarters number on her screen. Who was calling her from work on a Saturday? “Uh . . . hello?”

  “Breaking news, sweetie,” Kathy said. “I need to see you at the office. Now.” Her voice sounded cheerful enough. But the “breaking news” part troubled Zoe. Kathy in the office on a Saturday bothered her, too.

  And sweetie. That was never a good thing.

  Kathy Kinney had taken the job of Headquarters’ editor-in-chief one year ago, after spending sixteen years as a senior reporter for the world’s sleaziest supermarket tabloid, the Asteroid. Kathy was slender and blond, with an elegant, Grace Kelly-ish way of moving and the kindest blue eyes Zoe had ever seen. If there was one thing she didn’t seem like, it was a tabloid reporter.

  Until she started talking.

  “Fuck took you so long?” said Kathy, as soon as Zoe walked into her office.