unStrapped

by Nina G. Jones

  "I know. That was him on the phone."

  "Oh god. How are they?"

  "In shock, but they knew something like this was inevitable."

  "Are we calling off the wedding?"

  "Why would we do that?"

  "Because your brother was murdered!" I call out, as if it wasn’t Taylor who did it, and this is surprising news to us. This new revelation, though, makes it feel like it’s happening all over again.

  "My father said not to think about it. But I wasn’t, if we’re being honest."

  "What about a funeral?”

  "They’re doing an autopsy, then cremation. The family wants to keep this as hushed as possible. It will make it on the news of course, but we want to keep the spectacle to a minimum."

  "You said they would never find him."

  "I changed my mind."

  "Why?"

  "Because you told me Acosta started asking some probing questions. He had a hunch Eric was hiding something. We needed to redirect things drastically. Now they have his body, a death, and a motive. This case will go unsolved as hundreds of others do in that part of the world, chalked up to another cartel-related death. Now, even if his double life did come up, things will be so convoluted it wouldn’t even matter.”

  "This feels so dirty. So wrong."

  "Shy, we turned down this road a long time ago. Our hands have been dirty for a while. You were worried about living in peace, now we can."

  "How did you do it?"

  "You never knew the details of what we did with him, that's not going to change."

  "What kind of people are we?" I ask sitting down in a nearby chair and bowing my head.

  "We're survivors. People don’t fuck with us and get away with it.”

  ***

  “So what the hell is going on between you and Henry, because I know something is going on,” I ask Lizzy as she, Kristin, and I sit over some wine and cheese during a late night at the farmhouse. Instead of a typical bachelorette party, I asked the girls to stay with me for the week so we could hang out and partake in some planned outings as well. On this second night, we decide to lay low and stay in.

  “I shouldn’t say…” she replies.

  “You? Keeping your mouth shut? Oh, this must be good.”

  Kristin quietly shoves a piece of cheese into her mouth.

  “I don’t know…I think he wants to try. I don’t know. I really meant what I said about taking the year, but he’s all suddenly like professing his feelings. It’s weird.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I reply.

  “I don’t know. Listen, you know how Henry is. He is a relentless whore. And part of me thinks we could be a disaster or we could be really good. You should see him with his nieces and nephews though. I die.”

  “So, are you trying?”

  “I told him I would do a trial run. And then we’ll see where it goes. The way I see it there are a few options: nothing happens, we end up being together and going right into baby making, or we don’t stay together and he stays a perpetual bachelor but makes a baby with me so he can fulfill that desire.”

  “Wow, you seem to be taking this all in stride,” Kristin says, in awe.

  “Trust me, I have thought about it a lot. Henri has been a mainstay in my life for nearly eight years now. He is truly my best friend. And I am okay with any of those options.”

  “Okay, so what if…he takes option three and then finds someone else later? Has another family?” Kristin asks.

  “I guess that’s a fourth option, but I kind of figured that as a possibility with option three. What about you Shyla? You and Taylor going to have some obnoxiously wealthy, beautiful children?” Lizzy asks.

  Time for me to shove a cracker in my mouth.

  “We haven’t really planned that out. I’m not sure. Taylor is on the fence about children.”

  “Not surprising,” Lizzy says, sipping from her wine. “I know if he did though, he would be great,” she says pointing at me.

  Would he? I have no doubt Taylor would be a protector and a provider. But now, his confession to me months ago during our group vacation to Costa Rica about never wanting children makes total sense. There is no guarantee he will love them. And even if he does, there is no guarantee they won’t be a version of him or his brother. I love Taylor, but Taylor is only one possible outcome. I shudder to think of what an out of control or less logical Taylor might be like. What if my child didn’t love me back the way Taylor doesn’t really love his parents? The more I think about it, the more I become equally as torn as Taylor about having children.

  “I think so too,” I say, agreeably on the exterior, but internally feeling half-hearted. “And you, Kristin? You and Chad have been together only a few months less than Taylor and me. What’s the deal with you and Chad?”

  “Yeah,” she says as an enormous smile blossoms on her face. “I don’t know…” she says, looking down and fiddling with her wine glass. “I met his family. We’ve talked about the future…he got a promotion at Rubix, did I tell you?”

  “No, things got a little crazy the last night we all hung out…”

  “Wait, what am I missing?” Lizzy asks frantically.

  “Oh, nothing. My ex-boyfriend showed up drunk at the apartment while you were upstairs with Henry and Chad.”

  “Oh don’t say it was nothing! Lizzy, oh my god did it get tense. I had to pee my vagina off, and all of sudden I come upon Rick so drunk that he could barely stand, BEGGING to speak to Shyla. Shyla is all ‘we need to get him out of here before Taylor finds out,’ then just as I am calling the cab Taylor comes downstairs.”

  “What! How the hell did I miss all this?” Lizzy asks.

  “We didn’t want it to become a scene. That’s why I was trying to get him out of there.”

  “Well, let me tell you. He wouldn’t leave, he kept insisting that he speak to Shyla, and then Taylor had a standoff with him.”

  “Get. The. Fuck. Out.” Lizzy clenches at Kristin’s forearm. “I hate you both for not calling me down. I would have paid money to see this!”

  “It was not fun for me!” I remind them, raising my hand like a girl in school.

  “Poor Shyla, having two guys fight over her,” Kristin says.

  “Is Rick hot?” Lizzy asks.

  “Wait I have some pics on my phone, they’re old, but you’ll get an idea. He’s filled out since these.” Kristin flips through her pics and hands her phone to Lizzy.

  “Ooooh, he’s cuuuute. Like he’s kind of got a boyish thing going on. Taylor’s like a fucking model though. This ex of yours is slim, but I find that helps their dicks look bigger.”

  Kristin almost spits out her wine.

  “Well, like Kristin said, he’s not as skinny anymore. But yeah, I guess I have good taste,” I say, innocently taking a swig of wine from my glass.

  “So let’s amend my statement to: poor Shyla, having two hot guys fighting over her.”

  “Oh because the guy you are dating,” I point to Kristin, “and your I don’t even know what the fuck,” I point to Lizzy, “are sooooo unattractive,” I say sarcastically.

  “Wait, so what happened?” Lizzy asks.

  “You should have seen it, Taylor got all badass and like protective,” Kristin uses grand hand gestures, clearly feeling the wine. “He stepped right up to Rick, and Rick, I have never seen him so drunk and aggressive. It was crazy. I say this with all due respect, but I hoped you fucked Taylor’s brains out because it was hot as hell.”

  “Well…” I say, raising my glass in the air.

  “Poor Rick though,” Kristin pouts.

  “Trust me, I felt like shit about it. But he can’t just show up like that. I called his mom that night and she gave me a piece of her mind.”

  Lizzy jumps in. “This doesn’t surprise me at all. You should see when Taylor has to straighten someone out at work. He turns into ice, lemme tell you.”

  “Oh, you forget, I’ve been there,” I say, referring to my stint at H
.I.

  “But you made him so much nicer. You should have seen him before you came along.”

  “Yeah, apparently he was a real asshole.”

  “I’m not saying that!”

  “I know, I know, I was just kidding.”

  “I have a question…” Kristin asks sneakily. “I can ask you this now, because you aren’t his respectable wife yet.”

  “Can’t wait,” I reply sarcastically.

  “How’s the sex?”

  “Oh my god, yes. How is it?” Lizzy asks, propping her face on her palms as if I am about to recite a bedtime story.

  “I really shouldn’t,” I grin. “I mean, he’s your boss.”

  “Oh we are well beyond that and you know it. Come on! Dish the goods.”

  “Okay, okay. But you all have to dish too. It’s only fair.”

  “Gladly!” Lizzy volunteers.

  “Okay, fine,” Kristin proffers.

  I look to one side, then the other and lean in. “It’s fucking out of this world. Seriously. Like mind-blowing. Like you don’t even understand.”

  “I knew it!” Lizzy says as if she won a bet. “He’s like a brother to me, but I’m not blind. The man exudes confidence, like he knows he’s walking around with a big gun, if you know what I mean.”

  “I won’t confirm or deny that one,” I say, wanting to keep at least that private.

  “Yeah, I saw it,” Kristin remarks. “We went skinny dipping. Like a bull. Or is it horse?”

  “I bet he’s a kinky motherfucker, isn’t he?” Lizzy asks in the way only she can.

  I turn about ten shades of crimson as we all laugh. “Okay, now your turn Lizzy. Henry has had plenty of experience as we all—“ My phone rings across the room. “What time is it?” I ask.

  “It’s like eleven.”

  “I should check it out,” I say, stumbling a bit on my way up, my limbs heavy from the wine.

  Rick’s name is on my screen. Fuck. I debate internally for a moment. I could ignore it, but he’ll call again. Maybe I haven’t been firm enough. Maybe I have been too understanding. Taylor is right, what I did was fucked up, but Rick needs to understand boundaries. I pick up the phone to tell him this is my last warning, that this is no longer about conflicted feelings: I absolutely want him to stop with the shenanigans.

  I snatch up the phone and speak immediately. I don’t want to let him get in a word. “Rick. This has got to stop. I am serious. I am getting married this week. We are done. Stop calling, and do not show up to my apartment or I’ll have to call the police.”

  I expect a protest, or for him to interrupt me, but he waits until I stop. “Shyla. Don’t hang up.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Don’t!” he says desperately. “I…I know about Eric.”

  Chapter 35

  “What did you just say?”

  “I know Eric. You need to give me a chance to talk to you.”

  “Hold on.”

  I call out to the girls as I cover the receiver. “Hey! It’s my mom. She has like a thousand questions about the wedding. I’ll be right back.”

  I run up to the bedroom on the next level and close the door behind me. “Hello?”

  “I’m here.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, careful not to give away that I even know who Eric is. I have to find out what he knows.

  “I want to see you in person.”

  “Rick, that’s not possible. I am with a bunch of people now and I can’t just slip away at eleven at night. If you want to talk, you have my attention. Who are you talking about?”

  “Come on, you know who I am talking about.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  Rick sighs. “Okay, this is starting off on the wrong note. I don’t want this to be adversarial. I am doing this because I care about you and I think you are making a mistake.”

  “Can you stop speaking so cryptically? What is it that you have to tell me?”

  “Okay, shortly after you—we—broke up, I got a message from someone who said he believed you were in danger. It said if I cared about you, I would meet up with him at a restaurant. I thought there was no harm in meeting someone in broad daylight, so I went. That’s when I met Eric.”

  I sit quietly, the wine in my stomach lurching up my throat. Wherever this is going is not good.

  “He said that Taylor was his brother, but they didn’t speak any longer. That he believed Taylor was responsible for his wife’s death, though he wouldn’t specify why or how. What he did tell me about were Taylor’s proclivities. He shared with me the things that sick son of a bitch did, and he told me that,” his voice chokes with a mix of anger and disgust, “you had been brainwashed. That you were now doing those things for him.”

  “This is complete bullshit. You’ve seen me. I am free to come and go as I please. I have a good life. Eric was insane!” For a moment, I panic at the slip of using “was” when referring to Eric, but remember his death is now a matter of public record. I am not sure if Rick knows Eric is dead, but at least my story is still intact.

  “He said you would say that. That you would try and protect Taylor.”

  “Of course, just as I would do so if he was innocent. So how does that prove anything?”

  “Listen, Taylor doesn’t really love you. You are a plaything to him.”

  “Fuck you,” I say, shocking myself with my aggressive language towards Rick. We never really fought passionately, so for me to snap at him like this feels foreign. But how dare he presume to know how Taylor feels for me. He has no idea.

  “I don’t know how to get into your head. How to make you understand.”

  “So, what? You’re best buds with Eric over your faux-concern? Why do you think he told you these things? He has been trying to sabotage Taylor. You don’t know what Eric is capable of. You have no fucking idea what he is.”

  “He told me those things because he wanted my help.”

  “How so?”

  “He wanted intel on Taylor. Tangible evidence he could hold over his head. He wanted someone he could trust, who he felt had a personal connection to you or Taylor. Taylor’s firewalls are extremely tight, he has great IT security. He knew with my background in programming and my knowledge of network systems and databases, I could dig stuff up on Taylor. More importantly, I had access to a crack in the system: you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter, okay? I told him no. I told him he was crazy and that all was wildly illegal and I could to jail for years if I was caught hacking into H.I.’s database or coms.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I know something. And I love you and I didn’t want to do this, but I need to hurt you in order to show you who he really is.”

  “What are you talking about?” My voice quivers, fearing the news Rick is about to utter. At this point, I don’t think I even want to know if Taylor is hiding something. It would be too much to take.

  “Eric called me weeks ago, said he had to leave the country. It was the only other time I had heard from him other than the first meeting. He wouldn’t go into detail, but he told me something he said could be used against Taylor. He didn’t say how I could or for what purpose, but now I understand. I didn’t think you’d get this far with him, I thought you would come to your senses. But you’re going to marry him. And I don’t know what else to do but possibly hurt you just to save you.”

  I wait in silence.

  “He told me that in Taylor’s office, there is a box. That it holds souvenirs or a souvenir, I can’t remember. I don’t know how he knew it, he wouldn’t tell me. But he said it was from something Taylor did that was terrible. That he raped a woman, and kept a souvenir. That’s all I know. I don’t know what’s in the box or if it’ll even convince you, but it’s my last chance. He said it would be in the upstairs office, next to a photo album.”

  “Go to hell,” I say, ending the phone call. A swell of so many things: anger, fear, confusion,
heartbreak rush through me and crest as I throw my phone across the room.

  ***

  I wake up, flailing my arms, my face wet with tears. I look around the room for my assassin: my future husband. Then I remember, it is all a horrible nightmare. A nightmare I hadn’t had in weeks, and now it is back as strong as it had been the very first night.

  The heaviness in my chest has not disappeared since the call with Rick. I tossed and turned for another hour after going to bed, until finally the wine I had consumed allowed me to rest my eyes. But my mind did not rest, my heart did not rest. My initial doubts, the ones I had happily cast aside, grew in my sleep, manifesting itself into my nightmare.

  What am I supposed to do? Just forget the claims that Rick made? Forget that Rick claims Taylor raped a woman? And are there things Eric told him that he did not share with me? With Eric gone, is Rick now a new threat to our freedom?

  I wrestle with what I should tell Taylor. If I tell him all, and if there is a “souvenir,” then he can dispose of it. I am forlorn, like a part of me has abandoned itself, like a traitor is living in my body. How can I love someone so much that I would risk everything, but then be willing to lend an ear these awful claims?

  I glance over at the clock and see it is just after three in the morning. Taylor will likely be home all week, and if I stop by, pretending I need something from the house, he’ll want to entertain me. I won’t be able to wander freely to the upstairs office without being suspicious. Besides, the girls will be with me all week, and I’d have to run off on them too. Too many people to dodge. I need to do this in the silence of the night.

  I grab a sweater and throw it over my pajamas, slip out of the bedroom and tip toe down the stairs, grab my car keys, and slowly drive away from the house with my low beams on, so as not to wake up Kristin or Lizzy. It feels like I hold my breath during the entire five minute drive to the house, parking in front of the entrance. The property is eerily quiet, and then I trigger the floodlights.

  “Shit,” I whisper, fearing Taylor will wake, but then I remember he sleeps in the modern equivalent of a cave. If Harrison wakes up, he’ll see my car and go back to sleep. It’s not the first time I have visited Taylor late into the night. I less than a week, this will be my home too.