The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 by Andrew E. Kaufman
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
ISBN-13: 9781477809440
ISBN-10: 1477809449
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906871
To my mother and father
Contents
START READING
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In ashes of despair, though burnt, shall make thee live.
—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Prologue
It always begins and ends the same. The explosion, the smoke, the flames.
And her.
Palms pressed against the pane, she gazes into my eyes, her expression vacant, dampened by an eerie, peculiar sadness.
“Baby, save me.” Her voice is muffled behind the smoke, behind the glass. “Make it stop.”
But I can’t. Can’t stop the fire. Can’t stop the pain.
I race from window to window, but none will open. The smoke is getting thicker, flames climbing higher. I can barely see her through the heavy soot. My fear gives way to panic, then to a terror that rages through every part of me. I search for something to break the window, find a shovel leaning against a tree. Grab it, slam it. The metal bounces off the reinforced glass.
She is wheezing and choking now. “Help me. I can’t breathe.”
“I’m trying!” I shout. “I can’t get in!”
“Baby,” she begs, “don’t you love me? Are you just going to let me burn?”
I love her more than anything, and yet, I must let her go.
Tears spill down my face as I helplessly watch the fire surround her. First her hair catches, then her clothes, then, finally, the hungry flames consume her.
It feels as though my sadness has waited for this moment to own me. I crumble to my knees and surrender to it.
A loud creak demands my attention, followed by a slow, yawning whine. Through the window, I see a beam break loose and crash down. Two more follow suit, and the roof gives way, caving in. The blaze protests with a ferocious, angry roar—it explodes, rattling my bones and everything around me. Red-hot embers shoot toward the sky like a thousand tiny angels lighting up the heavens, then grow pale as they fall toward earth.
The building collapses onto itself. Beneath the rubble is the only woman I have ever loved.
And through it all, I can still hear her voice. And those words.
And they haunt me.
They will always haunt me.
Chapter One
The night could be cold and empty. It could hold secrets. And sometimes, the night could feel like a living, breathing thing. Patrick had learned to survive the nights—to accept them—but they were never peaceful, and they were never easy.
Especially now.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” Dr. Sheila Ready said, observing him with interest.
“Is it that obvious?”
She raised a brow, smiled.
He shifted restlessly on the couch, his body seeking comfort, unable to find any. She was right: he hadn’t slept well in days, maybe weeks. Or was it months? He’d lost track.
“You look tired,” she said. “That’s all.”
He lowered his gaze to the floor, shook his head.
She said, “Are the dreams still keeping you up?”
“Everything is keeping me up.”
“Everything?”
“I’m just… anxious.”
“About what?”
“Don’t know. Not sure.”
“Has something happened?”
His mind drifted off.
“Patrick…”
He regained focus.
“Tell me what’s the matter,” she said.
“The words…”
“What words?”
“The ones in my head. They won’t leave me alone. Won’t stop. They’re choking me.”
“The listing.”
He looked the other way, wrapping an arm around his stomach as if protecting a defiant wound. “It’s starting again.”
There. He’d said it.
She leaned back a few inches, gave him an appraising gaze. “It’s okay, you know.”
“It’s not.”
“We spoke about this. That there might be times when—”
“I feel ashamed.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” Agitation forced him off the couch, took him to the window where he stared sightlessly out at the San Diego skyline. He’d moved here about a year and a half ago from the Bay Area, hoping the change in scenery and new job might change his life for the better. They hadn’t. Same life, different backdrop. Stupid idea.
“Patrick…”
He snapped out of his fog, but before he could turn to her,
he caught sight of himself in the window glass. His hair had grown long, almost past his shoulders, his face covered by several days’ scruff. He’d dropped about ten pounds that he could barely afford to lose. There was once a time when he cared about how he looked. Not anymore. No energy left.
He said, “I thought I had this under control. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“It’s not about control, and you’re not losing your mind.”
“Then what am I doing?”
“You’re learning.” She nodded. “Tell me. Do you remember what happened before you started making the list?”
“Lists.”
“Ah,” she said. “How many?”
He looked the other way, ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve lost count.”
She watched him for a moment longer, and then, “Can you tell me what you’re feeling while you’re writing the words?”
“Confusion. Anger.”
“About what? Toward whom?”
He shook his head.
“Your mother?”
Camilla had been dead for almost two years, and still the thought of her was enough to take him to the Dark Place.
As if reading his thoughts, she said, “You went through an awful lot.”
“She was a horrible person.”
“Yes, she was.”
“Did bad things to me.”
“There’s no question.”
“It still hurts. I’m still angry.”
“You have every right.”
“When will it stop? When will she go away?”
“She may never, Patrick.”
He met her gaze, as if by doing so he could strip the truth from her words. Tears that had refused to fall so long ago now filled his eyes. Chest tight, voice no more than a cracked whisper, he said, “I don’t want to think about her anymore.”
“It’s important that you allow the feelings. It’s the only way to get rid of them once and for all.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Stop fighting them. Let them happen. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It never is. That’s why I’m here. To help.”
“So, how do we do it?”
A warm smile. “We talk.”
He pulled his arms tightly across his chest. He closed his eyes.
She said, “The listing is a symptom, that’s all. Not a setback, not a failure. Your OCD is brought on by stress, as a strategy to relieve tension. It worked for you as a child, helped you survive your mother’s horrendous abuse. But now, as an adult, it doesn’t help so much. In time, you’ll acquire new coping skills that are more functional, less destructive.”
“God, I hate that I do it!”
“I get that, Patrick. I feel your frustration. But the better you become at facing your fears and emotions, the more quickly the urge to list will lessen.”
He leaned back, looked up, shook his head.
“Accept the pitfalls. See them as signposts. Realize that, in the long run, they are actually steps forward.”
“They feel like failures.”
She fell silent, frowning. “You’re awful hard on yourself.”
“I can’t help it.” A new tear rolled down his cheek. He wiped it away, as if to erase the pain.
She kept a compassionate gaze on him, then glanced at her watch. Quietly, she said, “Let’s stop for today.”
On his way out, he passed a girl thumbing through a magazine in the waiting area. She glanced at him, her face marred by a scar running diagonally from her left temple to her right cheek. He drew his attention away briskly, trying not to appear put-off. But he wondered how it got there and, even more, what it was like to have to wear the pain on the outside instead of within; whether one was worse than the other.
He got into his car. His notebook was open and facedown on the passenger seat. He flipped it over and stared at the page, and the words stared back, practically laughing at him, mocking him.
“No!” he told himself, shaking his head, jamming his key in the ignition.
He shoved the gearshift into drive, took off down the road.
Chapter Two
Bullet accosted him halfway through the doorway. On hind legs, paws pressed against Patrick’s chest, the dog delivered his unfailingly annoying Tongue Shot.
“Easy, boy,” Patrick said, wiping dog slop from his face. “Easy.”
Bullet threw his paws around Patrick’s waist and delivered another shot. He went on to the arms, the face, anywhere he could reach.
Patrick didn’t mind. Not really. Manners would have been nice, but it was hard to resist the unencumbered enthusiasm, the crazy love, even if it was the furry, four-legged kind. He’d take what he could get. Sometimes it felt like the dog was all he had left.
Bullet was an eighty-pound Rotty mix. A rescue. Well, sort of. Actually, the dog had nearly killed him when they first met. Patrick had been covering a story in Texas and found the starved and beaten animal chained to a rundown trailer, stranded there for days while his murdered owner, a dirtbag named Flint Newsome, lay rotting inside. Patrick managed to be first on the scene, and Bullet managed to sink his teeth into Patrick’s leg soon after—not a good thing to happen to someone for whom even a minor cut could be a death sentence. Luckily, the dog’s teeth didn’t break his skin. Near catastrophe averted.
Word was that Newsome had abused and neglected Bullet since he was a puppy. Patrick knew how that felt and soon realized that their chance meeting was no accident at all, that it was meant to be. Two kindred spirits converged, partnership formed, happiness found.
“Easy, boy,” Patrick said again, intercepting another Tongue Shot just in time.
Bullet eventually settled down, head up, eyes keenly fixed on Patrick as he moved into the kitchen and thumbed through the mail. Bills and more bills. He tossed them onto the counter to join the growing pile of their unpaid friends, and as he did, a postcard slipped out from between them. Patrick lifted it: a message from CJ Norris. The two met and became close friends while working the Nathan Kingsley story together in Corvine, Texas. He studied the picture from Empire, Nevada, a dilapidated small town located north of Reno. He flipped it over.
Greetings from Hell. Stuck in what has to be the shittiest place on earth, doing what has to be the shittiest assignment on earth: recession ghost towns. Of course, knew you’d appreciate this. Been there, done it, right? Think of you far more often than I’m able to reach out, but God, I sure do miss you!
Hope you are doing fantastic!
Hugs,
CJ
He let out a long, defeated sigh, pitched the postcard onto the counter.
The last time they’d spoken, Patrick had been fantastic; in fact, he was at the peak of his career as a reporter for Newsworld. Then an opportunity came that he couldn’t resist. National Monthly—a magazine with a much larger circulation—offered him a freelance job with a substantial pay increase and the possibility of becoming permanent. Patrick accepted, working out of their Southern California bureau in San Diego, where he’d spent his first year of college. Things went well for a while. Then he was sent to Donovan Correctional Facility, a prison located in an unincorporated area just outside of town, to cover the Aaron Stillwater case. The six-year-old boy had been savagely beaten and left for dead inside a closet, tethered to an ironing board with electrical cord. The child’s face was so badly bruised that his eyes were barely visible beneath the swelling. Cassandra Clayton, his mother, a part-time drug dealer, part-time prostitute, had left Aaron alone with her part-time drug dealer, part-time pimp boyfriend, Harold Freely.
Having endured years of his own mother’s wicked and relentless abuse, Patrick wasn’t so sure this was the best assignment for him, but being new to the job he knew that turning it down wasn’t an option. As the interview progressed, Patrick tried his best to ignore the disgust and contempt mounting within him with each new word that fell from Freely’s mouth. Then Patrick asked wh
at the child had done to deserve the abuse. Freely answered, “He changed the channel on my football game.”
Patrick didn’t remember lunging at the man, nor did he recall the three outsized guards who intercepted him before he was able to make good on his intentions—but he didn’t need to. He was able to watch the whole thing as it played out on YouTube courtesy of the television crew setting up for the next interview. The video instantly went viral, and soon, just about every broadcast outlet in the country and beyond was showing it, along with attention-grabbing teases that simultaneously managed to attack Patrick’s competence and derail his career. “A reporter attacks a convicted child abuser during a prison interview!” and “National Monthly reporter throws professionalism out the window while trying to throw a punch at his subject!”
Patrick had never been a violent person—he couldn’t remember a single incident in his life when he’d ever acted in such a manner—but Harold Freely had tripped a wire, a very exposed, very fragile one.
Freely escaped unscathed, but Patrick did not. As if the public humiliation hadn’t been bad enough, his career slid down the rails. Julia McGovern, his managing editor, didn’t exactly fire him; she just stopped calling him for assignments, stopped returning his calls, and very soon Patrick got the message: Bon voyage. Have a good life. Not that he could blame them. In just a few short moments, he’d not only discredited himself as a reporter but also severely damaged the magazine’s reputation.
And just like that, his illustrious career as an award-winning journalist vanished, his former triumphs nothing more than a distant memory. Patrick couldn’t bring himself above the shame to look for new work. He knew there wasn’t a news outlet in the country that would hire him anyway, so he just gave up.
With plenty of savings to sustain him, he remained at his small rented bungalow in the North Park area, a once-struggling, rundown neighborhood now moving into yuppie gentrification one street at a time. Patrick had hoped to improve his life by moving here, but instead had failed miserably at it. Stability had been the goal, but unbalanced transience was the result. Not exactly what he’d been shooting for, unless sad and lonely was the plan.
After feeding Bullet, Patrick turned his thoughts toward feeding himself. He peered into the fridge at a burrito from Rodrigo’s, soggy and beyond edible, one bite missing. An opened can of Rockstar. Two petrified slices of something; no telling from which year they’d hailed, or for that matter which animal.
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