Spiders in a Dark Web

by Emily Senecal

  “I feel…” I began, then stopped. “I… I do,” I managed inadequately.

  “I can’t imagine what would have happened if Oss hadn’t…” he said, as inarticulate as I was.

  “We’d have met some other way,” I stated, having no doubts in the matter. “At the bar—around town. It would’ve been the same no matter what.”

  “It does feel like that. Like so many things were pushing us toward each other without us even knowing it…”

  “Like the tides,” I offered, leaning my head against his shoulder.

  “I used to think people were being stupid when they talked about meeting someone and just knowing—love at first sight, and all of it. I still think most of it’s a combination of attraction and timing—and no small amount of wishful thinking. But this… it’s… indescribable. I don’t believe I’ve only known you a week.”

  “I know,” I agreed, nestling comfortably into his neck.

  “It’s… It seems wrong, or like it should be wrong, to be taking any risks just when we’ve found… But I know it’s right to go forward. I feel the same way you do—I want to do it. I’ve only ever watched from a distance—been a kind of side act to people like Kathe who are actually doing something to make things better. It’s a fight you lose more than you win, and we might lose this round in a spectacular way. But I’m—thankful to have the chance to do it. I’m glad to be doing it with you.”

  We fell silent, and sat like that for a long time, safe in our own small, private bubble, the air sweet with rare and friendly understanding.

  ■ ■ ■

  Peter asked if I wanted to go out for my birthday, and I said no. Instead we picked up more of his favorite tacos and ate them in the shade by the hotel pool, where several small tables had been set up with umbrellas. A family with four children ranging from a chubby toddler to a thin, leggy girl of about eleven splashed happily and noisily at the other end of the pool, overseen by relaxed and indolent parents on nearby lounge chairs. The evening light stretched and grew dimmer, we bought and drank a bottle of cheap prosecco from a nearby convenience store, sipping and talking idly about nothing in particular.

  Now was the moment I asked him about Tucson, his time at school, the places he’d worked, friends he still kept in touch with. There were long periods of comfortable silence, while I watched the family dreamily with a magazine in my lap and Peter read on his iPad.

  As seven thirty became eight, eight became eight thirty, the shadows grew darker, the last of the lights around the pool came on and the family collected various belongings and toys and moved in a disorganized group back to their room. We planned to leave before seven the following morning, so gathered our own things and made our way back upstairs. I unlocked the door and opened it, and felt Peter’s arms come around me and his body move against mine.

  I turned, dropping my bag, meeting his kiss with a rush of instantly enflamed lust, barely registering that the door swung shut behind us. We threw ourselves at each other, pulling impatiently at buttons and straps, clumsy with the force of our desire and pulsing with expectant heat. We didn’t make it the twelve steps to the bed, using a nearby wall to prop us up until we slid fluidly to the floor, my back cooled by the tile of the entryway, in no way disturbed by the hard ceramic surface. I was too absorbed in Peter—Peter’s mouth, Peter’s skin, Peter inside me moving me in ways I’d never thought to imagine—to be bothered by anything outside of us.

  We’d made love quickly before, and slowly. Though we hadn’t talked much about sex outside of the act, we’d begun to learn each other’s likings and had been relatively successful in coming to mutual release, one way or another. This time was different from all others before it. It was faster, wilder, more intense, deeper on every level—and it was with a kind of blissful, wide-eyed astonishment that we came at the same moment, moving together to kiss and breaking away to gasp as our bodies shuddered with pleasure.

  As our breathing and heartbeats slowed, we lay on the floor for a time, limbs casually tangled. I marveled at this thing that life had brought me—this person. Nobody had ever made me feel like that… so wanted, craved even. So safe and so fiercely aroused at the same time. What was between us felt so utterly right, it was tempting to be afraid of it—to call it “perfect” and stumble quickly from there to “nothing is perfect, so it must not be real,” to “it can’t last.” The fear of loss hangs so easily over those things we grasp the tightest.

  But I couldn’t think of it as perfect, so the rest didn’t follow. I couldn’t think of Peter as perfect.

  Not only because of the strained, criminal-ridden situation we found ourselves in, which wasn’t ideal. It was more than that. The sex was, admittedly, really good. And we got along with an ease and effortlessness that might have been boring or false, except it wasn’t. It wasn’t that we were so alike, just that we were alike in not feeding off of or enjoying drama. At the same time, just because we hadn’t had our first fight yet didn’t mean a first fight wasn’t coming—I wasn’t so besotted as to believe it would always be as easy and exciting as this past week.

  No, it wasn’t perfect. It was an insane lucky beautiful unlikely blessing, one that neither of us had ever thought to hope for in our years of solitude and unhappy relationships. It was something real and precious and worth whatever it asked of us, because it wouldn’t ask us to give up ourselves. It had flaws, just like we had flaws—but it worked. I wasn’t scared of losing it because it was so good. I was just endlessly, utterly grateful for it, down to my core, no matter what the future held.

  If we found in a week or a year that it wasn’t working, it would be devastating. But we’d survive it, and walk away knowing that we took the chance with the best intentions. I knew that like I knew my own name.

  “You know,” Peter said sleepily from my hair, “this floor is really cold.”

  As soon as he mentioned it, the tile was freezing and hard and extremely uncomfortable. Together we pulled ourselves up and crawled, drained and drowsy, into bed.

  ■ ■ ■

  At two o’clock I woke up—was startled awake, from a nightmare I didn’t want to remember. I was sweating under the light blankets and pushed them off, then got up to go to the bathroom and drink glass after glass of water from the tap. When I finally lay down again, cooled and hydrated, I found that my eyes wouldn’t close.

  Tomorrow we’d be on our way. If all went well, tomorrow night we would be in San Francisco, checking into our extravagantly expensive room. And from there… whatever happened would happen.

  I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, when my phone alarm began to trill. I couldn’t remember, as I frantically groped to silence the sound, why I’d set it for such an odd time, two twenty-four, and then memory returned. I needed to send the email. Maybe my brain woke me in anticipation of that task, unconsciously aware of it hanging over my head. I quickly found the draft I’d written and hit send without looking at it again, then set down my phone and tried to go back to sleep.

  After another twenty minutes, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. My mind was too busy spinning endlessly through what might be true and what could happen, too anxiously occupied to let me relax again. I resolutely pulled out one of the novels I’d brought on the trip but hadn’t yet read, a cozy mystery, turned on the low light by my bed, angled so that it didn’t reach Peter, and forced myself to focus on the words. To this day I don’t remember what happened in that story, even though I read every line and made myself pay attention. When Peter finally stirred at six thirty, dawn had brightened the edges of the curtains and I was on the last chapter.

  “Morning,” he said, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  “Morning.”

  “How long have you been up?” He rolled over and sat up, stretching.

  “A while. I couldn’t sleep,” I said, not bothering to add that I’d privately resolved to wake him if his internal clock hadn’t done the job first. “But I can always doze in the car.”

&
nbsp; Peter nodded and wandered into the bathroom. After a minute or two, I heard the shower going, making me realize that I really should have gotten up earlier and started getting ready to go. I began to pack my things, pulling out clean clothes (nearly my last) for the long drive ahead and shoving everything back into my duffel. If this adventure went many days longer, I’d need to do laundry.

  As soon as Peter got out of the shower, I was ready to jump in, rushing through washing and conditioning my hair, soaping and shaving dangerously fast with Peter’s razor since I’d forgotten to grab mine out of my cosmetic bag. He hadn’t bothered to shave his stubble since we left on the trip, but I think we both felt the unspoken need to smarten ourselves up for our arrival at the Four Seasons. We didn’t want to be Those Guests, standing out in any way because of our scruffiness.

  We were doing a last check of the room and on our way shortly after seven, stopping to grab coffee and breakfast burritos before we got on the freeway. Our route on Interstate 10 would take us through Phoenix, Palm Springs and LA, where we’d join Interstate 5 north through the Central Valley.

  About an hour outside Tucson, I noticed that I had a new email from an address I didn’t recognize. It consisted of a lot of numbers and letters, so I would have trashed it as spam except for the subject. One word: “Lo.”

  I made a strangled noise and urgently waved the phone at Peter, who continued to drive with commendable steadiness.

  “What happened?” he asked patiently.

  “A message—from Marianne!” I nearly shouted, quickly tapping to read it.

  stop it lo. it’s going to be fine. you’re freaking out over nothing. we have this handled, ok? just relax and stay far away. I know the people running this thing told you to be there but you have to ignore their bullshit. it’s too dangerous and I’ve been through too much to have you screw it up. it was good to see you in ny but that’s it. stop contacting me and CHILL OUT. love m

  “She totally got it,” I said excitedly, after reading this aloud to Peter. “She understood what my message was for and is helping us set the trap!”

  “Looks like Brendan was right,” Peter said, smiling sideways at me. “She hoped we’d take this chance.”

  “Planned for it, you mean,” I corrected. As excited as I was to see this sign of her support, it still rankled the tiniest bit.

  “True, but… Look at it this way. She’s going on faith—trusting that we’re taking some kind of action with the dirt she managed to pull together on her parents. We were the ones who tracked her down in New York. Up to that point, she did everything she could to keep you out of it. You chose to walk back in, and she’s taking that at face value and making the most of the opportunity.”

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “But why didn’t she just—arrange everything with us? The night we saw her?”

  “We can’t know that, but I still think it was a snap decision. She thought of it once she saw us—and it’s possible she wasn’t even sure she was going through with it until after she had a chance to talk to us. She didn’t know how you were going to react to the truth, Lola. It might have been different—you might not have wanted to help.”

  “She knows me better than that,” I said, but even as I spoke understood that the statement wasn’t fair. Marianne knew everything about me… except how I might respond to her story. She’d had to take a huge leap of faith in sharing it with us—not only with me, who might very well have turned on her, but with Peter, a total stranger I brought along.

  Peter said nothing; he knew he didn’t need to point this out.

  He had some music loaded on his phone, a mix of genres, so we turned that on and drove in a companionable silence. Somewhere during the Eagles Live I dozed off, eased into sleep by the motion of the car and the changeless landscape. I must have been more tired than I realized—from my sleepless night, from everything that had happened—because I slept for nearly five hours. I woke up with a guilty start to find that we were already well into California, entering the eastern edges of the LA area.

  “I’m so sorry—I completely conked out on you!” I said repentantly.

  “You didn’t miss anything,” Peter assured me, smiling. “You were tired. But I’m about ready to take a break and stretch my legs. I thought we’d stop for gas in Pasadena, if you can wait another twenty minutes or so.”

  My full bladder, probably the reason I woke up at all, was now clamoring for my attention, but it could stick it out for twenty minutes.

  “I can wait. You’ve made really good time.”

  “Not too much traffic on the roads. It was a little slow in Phoenix, but since then I’ve been able to go around eighty.”

  “Let me know if you want me to take over after we stop.”

  “I think I’ll be OK, but thanks.”

  First car trip, I thought. He’d rather drive than be driven.

  I began to collect empty wrappers and water bottles and other trash, ready to clear out when we stopped. It was just as well the wait wasn’t longer, because now that I was conscious I was increasingly uncomfortable, just about at bursting point when Peter smoothly took us off the freeway and pulled into a Chevron.

  “I’ll be right back,” I gasped, dashing for the door of the station shop.

  Fortunately one of the two bathrooms was unoccupied and I was able to find quick relief. After washing my hands and checking myself in the small, scratched mirror, I came out to see Peter through the window filling the rental car’s gas tank, and took the time to stock up on more snacks and drinks. With a ten-cent plastic bag in hand full of bottled water, sodas, chips and candy, I came back outside just as Peter returned the nozzle to its dock. He took his turn at the bathroom while I washed the bug-spattered windshield, then we were back in the car.

  Nearby was every kind of fast food imaginable, and he opted to stop at Wendy’s before we got back on the freeway, ordering a burger and fries while I chose a chicken sandwich. It was long past noon, and though we’d bought a bagful of snacks in Tucson, there’s nothing like hot greasy fast food to satisfy hunger on a road trip.

  We ate in the shrub-lined, shady parking lot. While Peter took our wrappings to the nearest trash can, I went into my phone settings and granted Facebook and Instagram permission to access my location services. I then logged into the Facebook app and allowed it to tag me at this business, Wendy’s in Pasadena, double-checking that my privacy settings were set to “public.” I did the same with Yelp, giving it five stars. I thought that was enough to start with. Before we left LA, I’d log into my bank account and use location services on the app to find a nearby ATM. As soon as we got to San Francisco, I’d do it all over again—at the Four Seasons and nearby.

  Either they’d know it was a trap and stay away, or they’d think I was an idiot and come to find me. Or a third option I couldn’t think of—and didn’t want to try.

  ■ ■ ■

  I found I didn’t have any desire to sleep any longer, feeling wide awake, distracted and uneasy. The closer we got to the Bay Area, the more my anxiety grew. Peter seemed lost in his own thoughts, his eyes on the road. We had no more plans to make. Whatever was coming, we’d already set it in motion.

  I knew Peter felt responsible for suggesting that we go to New York in the first place, that we download the evidence, and that we not only send the evidence to the police but set up the trap, using Marianne and me as the only available bait. Of course they were his ideas, but I was just as responsible for agreeing to them. If it hadn’t been for me, meeting me and hearing my problems, he’d still be living a quiet life in Half Moon Bay, helping his sister prepare for the coming storm.

  I was the catalyst that set him on this path, just like Marianne had been my catalyst. Like vampires siring each other, I thought vaguely, not that the metaphor really fit. Maybe it was the sense of doom that hung over me that made me think of horror stories. I wasn’t even a fan of the genre.

  It was just after six when we merged onto I-580 West, continui
ng to make good time in spite of sporadic mires of traffic on I-5. Bay Area freeways were crowded, as usual, and as I navigated us to the rental car office in Oakland, traffic continued to crawl. I wasn’t sure whether to be glad or sorry that these last miles were taking so long. On one hand, I desperately wanted to be out of the car. My body was cramped and I had to go to the bathroom again.

  On the other hand, the sooner we arrived, the closer we’d be to the center of the web.

  There was no going back now.

  We finally got off the freeway at MacArthur Boulevard and were soon turning into the returns area of the rental car office parking lot. After a hectic minute spent clearing out the clutter of trash and belongings, Peter checked the car in, we loaded up our bags and headed in the direction the employee had pointed out to us, toward the nearest BART station. It was a short walk, maybe half a mile, and tired as I was it felt good to move my legs.

  We only waited about two minutes for the next Richmond-Daly-City-bound train, finding two seats in the middle of a semi-crowded car, shoving our bags at our feet. Just like in New York, plenty of people used BART to get to the airport, so it wasn’t unusual to see fellow passengers towing suitcases or strapped to large backpacks.

  I felt sick as we swayed our way through the tunnel under the bay, staring out the blank black windows. The train was stuffy and my stomach full of too-salty and too-sweet food without any nutritious value. It didn’t help that every mile drew us closer to an unknown end.

  “Hanging in there?” Peter asked me quietly. I nodded and held on. He slipped his arm around my back, and I leaned into his shoulder, breathing in his now-familiar smell. It helped.

  Once we reached the city, our stop was the second after Embarcadero. We stood as Montgomery Street neared, hauling up our bags and pushing out with the crowds. I was anxious to get to our hotel room, the privacy and the quiet. The air in the city was fresh and cool, the sky just fading in the last of the western light. It felt so different from the desert, here on the edge of the cold, unfathomable Pacific Ocean. Half a block down were the subdued glass doors of the Four Seasons.