Darkness & Shadows

by Kaufman, Andrew E.

  A few moments of silence lingered, then Patrick said, “And the body I saw that day, being rolled out of the sciences building?”

  The lines on her face grew deeper and harder. “It was a cadaver from the biology morgue. I brought it into the room before I started the fire.”

  “Your fear of fire…”

  She shook her head, more tears falling down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to deceive you, Patrick, I swear. I didn’t want to use you that way, but I had to. I had no choice.”

  He nodded, now realizing why the medical examiner had declared there was no victim. They’d probably later realized where it came from—but by then, Patrick was already long gone. “And the body here in Mexico?”

  She frowned and shrugged. “You can buy just about anything in TJ if you’ve got enough money. I had plenty of it. I paid off someone at the morgue. The right sex, the right build. I put some of my jewelry on her…”

  “And your wallet just a few feet away.”

  She nodded. “And I was dead.”

  “Once again…” he said, his voice trailing.

  “The things he did to me all those years, Patrick. I can’t even talk about them. Sometimes I felt like there was nothing left after he was done, like he’d…”

  “Taken away so much of who you were,” he said.

  She nodded. “I was so scared.”

  He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “And your mother?”

  Her expression soured. “She was no better. She let it happen, and I hated her for that.”

  He’d had similar feelings about his uncle Warren while growing up. The man’s cowardly denial had only made the pain that much worse because Warren had the power to stop his mother’s abuse but never did. He remembered feeling nothing when his uncle died: nothing but anger. He reached for Marybeth’s hand, looking down, rubbing his thumb across it as if soothing a wound. “You didn’t feel badly when she died?”

  She put her head on his shoulder again. “When I saw her hanging there, logically, I knew it was an awful thing, but all I could feel was anger. She was gone, and I was all alone… with him.”

  Patrick gradually straightened his posture. She lifted her head to look at him as he studied her.

  “Hanging there…” he said.

  “It was terrible. Her face… They say death brings peace, but she didn’t look peaceful at all.”

  “I imagine she didn’t,” Patrick said, and then the words fell slowly from his lips: “I did a very bad thing.”

  She frowned.

  “That’s what you meant.”

  She shook her head.

  “No bruising on the body…”

  “What are you talking about? Baby, you’re scaring me.” She shook her head faster. “I don’t understand.”

  “But I do.” He stood straight up and took a long step back. He couldn’t be near her, couldn’t even stand to look at her. All he could do was start walking.

  “Patrick! Wait!” she shouted, starting after him. “Please!”

  Shaking his head, quickening his pace, speaking through clenched teeth, “They pulled her body down before you ever got home. I talked to the detective. He told me. So how the hell could you possibly remember what she looked like hanging there? How the hell?”

  “Baby, wait! Please! It’s not what you think!” She grabbed his arm.

  He yanked it away hard, spun around—and suddenly the beautiful, complex woman he thought loved him vanished, and she appeared now exactly as she had always been: a scared and broken little girl. He’d refused to see it then, but he saw it now, and it was clear, and it was so sorely obvious.

  Patrick seized her by the shoulders, squeezing them tight, glaring into her eyes. “You saw it because you were there when it happened! You helped kill her!”

  “No!” she said, shaking her head, flat-out fear in her eyes, voice breaking apart. “That’s not true!”

  He shook her harder, screamed louder, tears falling down his face. “No more lies! No more fucking lies!”

  She opened her trembling mouth and tried to speak, but there were no words. This was one lie she couldn’t undo. He knew it; so did she. He watched her for a moment longer, disgust brewing inside him, so powerful, so real, he could taste it on his tongue. Then he turned and walked away, afraid of what his rage might bring him to do otherwise.

  “Where are you going?” she shouted through her sobs, following after him again. “Don’t do this! We belong together. Patrick, I need you. I love you!”

  Don’t let Camilla’s legacy be a life without the one thing you want most… to love and to be loved. Don’t give her that power. She doesn’t deserve it. Neither does anyone else.

  Dr. Ready’s words boomeranged through his mind—and now so too did their true meaning. Camilla and Marybeth: both the same. Pain had robbed them of the ability to love until there was nothing left of them but empty human shells, and Patrick had almost let them do the same to him. He’d traveled to the edge, but now he was stepping away from it.

  He turned to her, and in a low growling tenor, one he barely recognized as his own, said, “You don’t know what love is.”

  His words stopped her cold.

  And through her sobs, in the small, bewildered voice of a child, she said, “Please don’t leave me!”

  And he did.

  Without looking back, he left Marybeth behind on the beach.

  This time for good.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  “How could I have been so blind?” Patrick said. “How could I have not known?”

  “Because love is in fact blind,” Dr. Ready said.

  “I don’t feel blind. I feel blindsided. And stupid.”

  “You are not.”

  He fell back into the couch, closed his eyes.

  “Patrick,” she said, “this has nothing to do with intelligence.”

  “It sure wasn’t brilliance.”

  “It’s about learning.” She nodded. “And the hardest lessons are usually the most valuable. They have a way of repeating themselves until we get them.”

  “Then I guess I have a lot more coming.”

  She kept an appraising gaze on him, and then, “I think you’ve learned a lot more than you realize.”

  “I’ve learned that pain is hell.”

  She raised a brow. “And now the journey begins.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anymore for wanting to love.”

  “To love is to hurt,” she said. “You can’t have one without the other.”

  “Then why bother?”

  “Because, Patrick, to never find it is far worse.”

  He felt the anguish take over his expression. He looked away, as if trying to hide his emptiness, push away the feeling.

  “Take the pain, Patrick—accept it, and don’t let it stop you from finding love.”

  “Why’s it have to be so damned hard?”

  “I think you’re in the process of learning that answer.”

  “I’m so… angry with them.”

  “This is your right, and it’s warranted.”

  He could feel the tears swell in his eyes.

  “Tell me, Patrick,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “I want to be loved.”

  A slow nod. “And you will.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible.”

  “It is.”

  “It isn’t worth it.”

  “It is,” she repeated, “and you will take this leap again.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because you know you need love to heal the wounds from your past.” She paused, letting the words sink in. “And because the next leap you take may be the one that brings you to love.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Officials were still trying to put the pieces together, but in the end, they took the path of least resistance: Charlene and Wesley Clark were dead. Case closed.

  But Patrick knew it wasn’t that simple.

  Detectives theorized tha
t Wesley and Jocelyn had killed Charlene the night of the fundraiser after finding out she’d snuck into the compound and extracted the backup files Wesley had removed from the clinic’s system. Once the deed was done, Jocelyn had dumped and burned the body in Tijuana, while Wesley went on the run to make it look like foul play was involved, probably planning to return with some carefully constructed kidnapping story, but before he could, the accident in Mexico had ended his life.

  Patrick, of course, knew this neat little theory was an illusion, all part of Marybeth’s beautifully orchestrated plan to finally escape the man who had controlled her physically and emotionally for most of her life. Apparently, Wesley had kept blood control samples for himself and Jocelyn in his office while doing research there. Charlene was able to get her hands on them after breaking in, then she spread them at Las Brisas, along with her own. The burned body in Mexico was the final touch, pointing the finger directly at Wesley and Jocelyn.

  Now the truth about what really happened was resting squarely on Patrick’s shoulders, and he struggled with it mightily. After leaving Mexico, he’d made a promise that he would never look back. Marybeth was dead—not in reality, but in his mind—and he wanted to keep her that way. Telling the truth would be like bringing her into his life again, not to mention further entangling himself in a legal process he wanted no part of.

  As for Helene Lockhart’s death, detectives were eventually able to trace the act to Wesley Clark. Once they learned he’d been alive all this time, the dots were connected. With the clinic being shut down, and knowing about Helene’s former association to Wesley, a motive became clear. Good detective work took care of the rest. They chalked her up to being one of many along Wesley’s growing trail of victims.

  But there was something Patrick’s moral compass still couldn’t bend to: Jocelyn Fairchild sitting in jail, waiting to go on trial for a crime she didn’t commit. The woman was no innocent, but she was not guilty of this crime, and he had a difficult time reconciling the unjustifiable pain she would go through—pain that he could stop from happening. Patrick knew too well what undeserved suffering felt like, and furthermore, how much deeper it drove the pain when nobody stopped it.

  Patrick and Tristan walked along the shoreline, Bullet running ahead of them and playing a game of tag with the waves—he chased them going out, and they chased him coming in. Patrick watched with wry recognition; on some level, the process seemed familiar.

  It had been weeks since they’d left Mexico, and neither had mentioned their ordeal.

  Until now.

  “I can’t do it,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “I can’t stand by and let Fairchild sit in jail for something she didn’t do.”

  She shook her head. “Honestly, Patrick.”

  “Honestly, what?”

  “You can’t save the world. Stop fighting everyone else’s battles and fight your own.”

  “I’m tired of fighting. Period.”

  “Got no choice,” she said. “The war rages on. You either do or die.”

  He didn’t give an answer to that. He wasn’t sure he had one.

  They walked some more in reflective silence.

  Finally, Tristan said, “I think you should walk away, Patrick.” Then, through an exhaustive and frustrated sigh, “But knowing you, you probably won’t.”

  “You know me too well.”

  She laughed. “It’s starting to feel that way. But just so you know, whatever you decide, I’ll have your back. Even when it bugs the crap out of you.”

  Patrick nodded, then he grinned.

  She picked up on it immediately. “Got a problem, Bannister?”

  Now he was laughing. “Why’s it have to be a problem?”

  She shrugged.

  “Actually, I was just thinking about how funny life can be.”

  “Yeah, it’s a real knee-slapper.”

  “Not always, but it does have its surprising moments.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as… us.”

  She put her hands in her pockets, thoughtfully considering his words.

  He said, “Who would have ever imagined? I mean, if we hadn’t been thrown together that day, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “I guess sometimes the bad times can end up being a good thing.”

  He was finally beginning to understand that. Life’s hardest experiences were in fact nothing more than tough lessons, the meaning never revealed until you got to the other side. He found a strange comfort in knowing that.

  Tristan said, “Don’t get me wrong. You take some getting used to.”

  He laughed. “You’re not exactly a cakewalk.”

  “I know. I can be a real bitch sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?”

  She gave him a playful shove.

  He said, “Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand you.”

  “Get in line, buddy.”

  “But I sure am glad I got to know you.”

  Her smile was warm and introspective. “Right back at you.”

  They walked some more, then Patrick stopped and said, “You know, I just realized something.”

  She turned to him, curiosity playing across her face.

  “The whole time we were in Mexico, as stressful and dangerous as things got, I never had the urge to list. Not once.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  He started walking again with his gaze forward. “You have no idea. I once got so desperate that I wrote all over a bathroom wall because I couldn’t find any paper.”

  Tristan stopped walking and looked at him.

  He hesitated, and his voice wavered when he said, “You know, besides my shrink, you’re the only person I’ve ever told about it. The listing.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  Tristan didn’t say anything for a long moment, thinking, and then, “How come?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe because I knew you wouldn’t judge me for it?”

  She offered him a nod of affirmation.

  “I mean, we’ve both been injured by life, and we both have the scars to show for it—we just wear them differently—but we still come from the same place. We just took different roads out. On some level I think I find that really comforting. Maybe by learning to trust you, I learned to trust myself. You know?”

  She didn’t answer—she didn’t have to: her face seemed to say it all.

  They walked some more. Bullet had grown tired of chasing waves. He came to Tristan’s side, nudging her hand until she scratched his ear. A few seconds later, he did it again. Patrick said, “I think he likes you.”

  “What’s not to like?”

  He laughed.

  She said, “So, what are you going to do now?”

  “With what?”

  “I hate when you do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “You just did it again. That answering a question with a question thing. It bugs the crap out of me.”

  Patrick grinned and scuffed some sand. Somewhere in his past, he was pretty sure he’d heard that complaint from more than one person. “Guess it comes from all my years of interviewing people.”

  “Well, knock it off.”

  “Actually, it looks like I’ll be back to work again soon.”

  She stopped walking and looked at him. “You got your job back?”

  “Well, not exactly. Erika tried her best, but Julia wouldn’t have it. That ship’s done sailed. But after I finished my story on the Clarks, US Report picked it up, and they liked it so much, they offered me a job.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “Twice the circulation of National Monthly.”

  She started walking again, gazing at the sand. “That’ll fix their sorry asses.”

  “I know. I lost one job, thinking it was the end of the world, and then I ended up landing on my feet with an even better one.”

  “See? It all works out the way it’s supposed to.”
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  “Sometimes,” he said, thinking, remembering. He realized where he was headed and changed the subject. “And you? Where are you headed?”

  She laughed. “Well, funny you should ask.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t want to say anything until it’s for sure, but I think I got a job, too.”

  “Like one that won’t land you in jail?”

  “Yeah. Shut up.”

  “What kind?”

  “I’ve been offered a position at Reed-Wallace Security. As a consultant.”

  “Holy… Tristan, that’s one of the world’s biggest firms!”

  “An old friend got hired there and recommended me. He told them I’m the best there is, offered my criminal history as evidence.” She laughed. “They’re offering me money just to show them how to be a thief. And they say crime doesn’t pay.”

  “Oh, man,” Patrick said, smiling, shaking his head. “I’m so happy for you, Tristan. I really am. You deserve this.”

  “You know,” she said, watching Bullet who was now rolling joyfully in the sand, pure delight on his face. “I never really felt like I deserved anything.”

  “So what changed?”

  She looked down, thin waves washing over her feet like soothing hands, then up at him again. “I met you.”

  Patrick didn’t know what to say. Her words touched him in ways he could hardly explain, but he felt his soul swell with joy. It hurt to be alive sometimes, but life had its moments, and when it did, they were good.

  They walked some more. For Patrick, the silence was comforting: no words, just good feelings—it had been so long since he’d had any. He stopped and looked at her. “You know, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. Not many people would have had the courage to do what you did.” He smiled into her eyes. “You saved my life.”

  She shook her head. “That’s where you’ve got it all wrong, Patrick.”

  He gave her a curious gaze.

  “You’re only seeing half the picture. I wasn’t the only one doing the saving that day.”