"I saw enough," I say, but somehow the words feel hollow.
He looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes narrowing. "You saw enough with your own two eyes that were swimming in booze?"
"Dan, don’t go there . . ."
"Call Erin."
"What? What for?"
"Call her. Now."
His hard tone of voice tells me I don’t have a choice in the matter. So I take out my cellphone and call her. She picks up, but before I can speak, Dan snatches the phone out of my hand.
"Erin, you liar! Yeah. Yeah. You go ahead and get an innocent man hung out to dry. No. You listen to me. Brynn is right here. Yeah, she said she saw it all. But I want you to tell her. I want you to tell her what really happened that night." He jerks the phone away from his ear and jams his finger onto the speakerphone button. "Go on!" he roars.
I listen, heart skittering in my chest, but all I hear is light snuffling.
"Don’t do this to me, Dan," Erin pleads. "Haven’t you done enough?"
"Me? Haven’t I done enough?" he yells.
I’ve never seen him so apoplectic. A vein bulges on his forehead. His eyes are enormous.
"You tell Brynn what happened that night!" he yells again.
"Stop!" I cry, trying to take the phone away from him. "Leave her alone!"
And suddenly Erin’s voice turns eerily clear and quiet. "Meet me at my place. Come over and we’ll talk this through."
My heart sinks. Meet at her house?
Dan scoffs. "There’s no way in hell I’m going to meet you at your house. Ever. Meet me at Trestles. Down at the end of the trail, next to the train tracks, and we’ll sort this shit right out." He jams his finger onto the red hang up button, tosses my phone onto the kitchen counter, and moves to leave. Then he pauses, his back to me. "Brynn, you asked about the police incident report when I was on deployment. And I didn’t want to talk about it; I couldn’t. I guess that does make me an asshole."
"Dan . . ."
He walks into the bedroom. A little while later, he returns with a pink paper in hand, heavily folded and creased.
"Here’s the rest of the police report," he says, tossing the square onto the counter. "Read it and weep."
And he leaves.
45
BRYNN
A surreal feeling descends on me as I unfold the paper, my gaze skipping straight down to the narrative.
Con’t. After placing Evans in the backseat of the squad car, I then proceeded inside the premises to make contact with Lazarus. Upon entering the kitchen, I found Lazarus with sand paper in hand, roughly rubbing her arms, causing self-inflicted wounds.
I placed Lazarus in handcuffs for making a false statement to police and escorted her outside. Victim Daniel Evans declined to press charges. Suspect was issued with a warning instead.
The final conclusion hits me like a body blow. Victim Daniel Evans. I’m having a hard time putting those words together. I put my hands on my forehead and pace the kitchen. Erin hurt herself! Who does that? Crazy people do that. Insane people do that.
"Dan the victim" carries my thoughts back to Gia, who also said he was a victim. What else did she say? Call and find out for yourself.
I rush to my bedroom, trying to remember what I was wearing the day of her visit. There’s a laundry basket over by the closet. I quickly ransack the clothes, digging my hands into all the pockets and finding nothing.
I step back from the hamper and look around the room. Where would I have put that business card? What was I wearing that day?
White shorts.
Wine.
The laundry.
I rush to our washer dryer combo set in a small alcove just off the kitchen, yank open the lid of the top loader, and peer inside.
My heart sinks. My wine stained shorts lay crumpled at the bottom of the stainless steel drum. There, plastered against the wall, are chunks of paper that hold the secret to Gia’s message.
I reach inside and carefully peel away the shredded pieces from the side of the drum. They’re dry so at least I have that, but they’ve been pulpified. I’m not holding out much hope that the number is still intact.
My mind flashes back to when Erin had "accidentally" sloshed her wine on my clothes and the fuss she’d made to treat the stain. As I collect all the pieces of paper, I realize, with a pit opening up in my stomach, that she planned to ruin my clothes all along so she could get her hands on that business card. And stop me from calling the number.
As careful as a surgeon, I lay the pieces down on the tile countertop and start piecing them together like a fossil, but hardly anything fits. I peel apart two layers that are stuck together. The permanent marks of Gia’s ballpoint pen survived, but the ink was mostly erased.
I can still make out the bare outlines of the number and trace depression lines from the tip of her pen. I put together the pieces in what looks like the correct combination, area code first, followed by three numbers and a dash. The last piece holds the final four digits, except the last number is hopelessly mangled.
I’ll start at the top, nine to zero, and hope that I reach the right person. I’m a little breathless at the prospect of dialing a stranger. What am I supposed to say?
First things first. I need some liquid courage. I need some wine. I open the fridge door, and search around for the familiar red foil finish of my favorite bottle. There it is, tucked behind the carton of soy milk. I yank it out and shut the fridge door. The bottle is half empty; the perfect amount to get me over the hump of self-consciousness.
I start unscrewing the cap, but slow to a stop. No. I put the frosty bottle down on the counter. No, I’m tired of needing a crutch to function. I’m tired of looking to a bottle of wine for courage.
I look again at the series of faded numbers. I need to do this sober. I want to do this sober. My mouth goes dry. My stomach is roiling. With shaking fingers, I pick up my phone and start dialing. Hopefully, the right person picks up. Which they don’t. Next try. And someone picks up on the third ring.
"Hello?"
"Hi, my name is Brynn. I’m sorry to bother you, but someone named Gia gave me your phone number. She told me to call you and find out something that has to do with Erin Lazarus? She’s harassing my boyfriend. Erin, I mean. I think she’s framing him for assault and battery, but I don’t know why . . ."
Silence. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe the last thing this guy needs is a stranger calling him up, rambling on about set ups and harassment.
"I’m really sorry," I begin. "Sorry I—"
"No," he says. "No, I think we should talk. I think you should know what happened to my brother. To Erin’s supposed ex-boyfriend."
46
ERIN
Dan’s got me on the back foot, but I can recover. I always have. Chris also had me on the back foot. That’s why he died. If Chris had been a good little Trevor and handed over the cash without any kick-up, he could have lived to tell his sad little tale of woe to his next girlfriend in search of a man improvement project.
But he didn’t. Chris decided to try and catch me at my own game. That was his undoing. It was messy business getting rid of him, and not at all an experience that I would like to repeat. That’s why I’m hoping Dan doesn’t try to throw any punches.
I was scrupulous with laying down the clues in Chris’s case, but I’m not going to lie. I was stressed to the maximum during my time in jail, after they decided to deny me bail and leave me there to rot during the long legal battle.
Eventually, my exorbitantly paid bulldog attorneys did their job and convinced the jury to find me not guilty, but I had to endure a brutal and agonizing stay in jail, even faking a suicide attempt so I could hide out in the psych ward and escape the lesbians looking for fun and favors.
All in all, I think I paid for that crime, even if the victim’s family found the verdict "unfair." Well, life is unfair. Don’t they know that? This wasn’t supposed to happen to them, a good family happily ensconced in suburbia with their comfy beds, Sund
ay roasts, and a big trampoline in the backyard with yapping dogs and barbecues and laughing friends.
Well, my question to them is this: why not you? What makes you so special? So immune to heartbreak and turmoil?
I’ve had my share of it. And I’m busting my back so that I’ll never have to taste the hollowness of starvation again. Why do they think they get to sit on their fat fannies and eat popcorn and watch movies, while I have to work so hard just to get food in my fridge, a roof over my head, and clothes on my back?
Never again. That’s what I swore to myself.
When I was twelve, a walking bag of bones with lice crawling in my hair, I swore that I would do anything to make sure I never starved again. Never again. Never again will my stomach crater with hunger. Never again will I beg for a morsel of food. Never again will I be ridiculed for wearing dirty clothes and having unwashed hair, getting unmercifully bullied because of circumstances that were out of my control.
That’s the plight of the child who nobody cares about. That was my plight. Getting shunted from foster family to foster family. Many of those "families" were poor and down on their luck, looking for an easy paycheck. Growing up, I was just a meal ticket, a way for some "mothers" to pay for a fix.
I worked hard to get to where I am today. Now, I can shower when I please, however long I want to. I have a beautiful house and a closet filled with beautiful clothes. And I have a business and a great life, as long as nobody comes along and tries to screw it up.
All this doesn’t come easy, I can guarantee that. I almost missed Gia, stumbling away from Dan’s house and running to her car. I’d been sitting outside of Dan’s house for hours, starving and in need of a restroom break. So I made a quick dash to a taco restaurant. By the time I drove around the corner, Gia was peeling away from Dan’s house.
That was a scary near miss. What would have happened if I hadn’t driven around the corner just then? I would have missed the golden opportunity to paint her as a stalker. Then where would I be? Nowhere. That’s were I’d be. I deserve that bit of luck. Luck favors those who are prepared. And I’m always prepared.
Yes, I’ve come so far, and I’m proud of myself because there’s nobody else around to be proud of me. If Daddy was still with me, he’d be proud . . . I know he’d be proud.
Now, I have to deal with Dan. I had hopes that our relationship might survive. But I guess I couldn’t contain my volatile temper. And I went too far one too many times. Well, all learning lessons for next time.
I park in the dusty parking lot close to the trailhead that leads to the spot where Dan and I spent some Saturdays. It’s the place where we will meet again under much different circumstances.
I reach under my car seat, pull out a switchblade, and slip it up the sleeve of my coat, the tip of its handle resting in my palm. Let’s hope Dan’s a lapdog like Trevor, and doesn’t give me any problems.
I’ve got him right where I want him. Brynn went to police, gave them her statement. I wanted to toast to her gullibility that day that at Dan’s house, and her exasperating dithering, but I had to get that business card out of her hands. Well, I failed to get it, but at least I ripped it up and rattled her cage. But you know what? I don’t think it matters.
She went to the police. She stated on record that she saw him shaking me. Now, I’m about to meet Dan in a dark isolated place. It will be easy enough to get some more evidence on him. Making my final plan just that much easier.
I get out of my car, lock it up tight, and head out into the night. Soon enough, and if I step very carefully, it will be yet another "job done."
47
DAN
Driving up to meet Erin brings this whole nightmare into surreal focus. This is like a bad dream that I can’t wake up from. My own girlfriend thinks that I beat up my ex, and she doesn’t believe a word I say. Brynn’s calling now, but I let it ring out because I don’t want to pick up and listen to more of her remembrances.
I strike the steering wheel with the palm of my hand instead. The sharp jolt of pain feels good somehow, a nice contrast to the aching, spreading, intangible miasma that is growing inside my chest, robbing me of air. I wake up in a living nightmare every single day now. Well, at least I’m not alone.
There are others. She told some dude that she had cancer and got fifty grand out of him for her treatment . . .
Erin thinks she’s so smart. Well, we’ll see about that. Ever since my call with Trevor, Erin’s ex-victim, I’ve been busy laying out a plan that’s going to put her nose out of joint.
"You gotta play with the same deck of cards," an ex-operative pal of mine, Ken Walker, had advised me after I called looking for advice. He’s a retired CIA agent that lives out at Joshua Tree. We meet up occasionally to rock climb some of the less technical routes and sit around a campfire at night, the cold desert to our backs, whiskey warming our insides, talking about close shaves and his days of old. "You gotta play the same game as her," he said, his voice gravelly. "But play it better."
Her game is extorting money. Am I surprised? Not exactly, but I am taken aback because I realize that she’s far more unscrupulous than I could have ever imagined.
I always wondered why she never had cash liquidity crises that seemed to plague every other girl I knew. At one point, I thought maybe she was a stripper on the side, so I investigated the matter. I toured the main ‘topless dancing’ establishments in San Diego with two of my friends, who were only too happy to help with reconnaissance. My friends got souvenir lap dances for their efforts, while I just pocketed a complementary bottle opener with two big boobs as a handle because I didn’t have one at home.
I found the atmosphere at the strip clubs to be depressing, the ladies desperate and hollow-eyed. Some were clearly on drugs. And after a quick look into how many strip clubs I’d have to visit in order to chance upon Erin, I decided to give up my mission.
Attending grimy strip joints was certainly not how I intended to spend my down time. So I let the mystery of Erin’s finances fade.
After Brynn apprised me of this looming shit storm, I’d hoped to handle Erin’s false accusation through the criminal justice system, even if it meant facing her bulldog lawyers in court. I consulted with a lawyer that my mom had found, and he wasted no time laying out the legal mountain that lay before me which appeared as formidable as K2, patiently waiting to dispatch me in the death zone five hundred feet from the summit. In essence, victory is a treacherous journey and far from certain.
Even if Erin’s Photoshopped pièce de résistance along with her carefully curated voice recordings are debunked and thrown out of court, I’ll be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, not to mention the many months, if not years, I’ll spend legal limbo land until the judge delivers his opinion. Do you think the military would welcome me back in the interim, while the case works it’s way through the legal system? Not a chance in hell.
Trevor’s sage words of advice come back to me. You better find a way to cut her off at the pass because the minute she gets more evidence on you . . . you’re done.
Not if I can help it. I exit the freeway and park next to a red SUV. I told Erin to meet me on a mostly deserted stretch of beach where we spent a few Saturday afternoons, back when we first started dating and she’d given me every reason to think she was completely normal. Erin with her picnic spread and word salads, me with my surfboard.
Brynn calls again. I let the call go to voicemail.
I pull on my puffer jacket, lock up the truck, start off down the sandy trail at a brisk pace, and break into an easy jog.
The wind blows sharp and frigid. The night is moonless and inky dark, the kind of darkness that steals away your depth perception and makes you feel like you’ve fallen through a trap door.
I reach the end of the trail and sweep my gaze up and down the vast empty beach. A storm had blown in overnight. I can hear the ocean pumping waves onto the sandy shoreline and the hissing sound of retreating water. It w
ould be magical if it wasn’t so eerie, if the temperature wasn’t so bone-chilling.
A little way up the beach, I see a glowing cell phone illuminating the face of a blonde sitting among the small rolling sand berms, hugging her knees. Erin. Behind her I can just make out the train tracks that follow this stretch of coastline.
She looks small and vulnerable. If it were any other person, I might go to her and see if she needs help. But not this one. She looks my way, switches off her phone, and rises to standing. I can just make out the edges of her dark silhouette.
I feel a twinge of nervous anticipation. I pull in a breath and memorize the feeling of being alive and vital as cold ocean air fills my lungs. Then I exhale and make my way over to her, finding strength in the knowledge that I have a plan.
A trap, waiting for her nasty right foot.
48
BRYNN
I’m racing up the freeway toward Trestles, praying for no traffic, for a fast commute, that my car won’t run out gas or blow a tire. And I’m praying for Dan. I’m praying that he’ll blow a tire instead, or maybe get abducted by aliens—anything that will stop him from meeting up with Erin.
I put my ear buds in my ears and dial him up. "Please call me back," I mutter to myself. Please please please. But my call goes to voicemail.
My hands are shaking. My heart is thumping so hard that I’m having a hard time catching my breath. I take a few deliberate big ones and focus on calming down.
The traffic slows, making me grind my teeth with frustration. Hopefully, Dan got caught in the same knot of traffic.
Trestles is a long stretch of rugged coastline, home to a beautiful unspoiled beach with lots of great waves. I’m not exactly sure which exit to take, but I know that there’s a dirt parking lot just off the freeway, close to the trailhead for a coastal path that weaves through dry shrubbery and under a train overpass to the beach.
Keep Me In Sight Page 21
