Keep Me In Sight

by Rachel Blackledge

  I program the directions into my phone as I speed up the freeway, while my thoughts turn to Jacob. Or rather, the eerily similar story that he shared with me, followed by the chilling final end.

  Erin operates by collecting her evidence, by hook or crook. If she gets any more evidence against Dan, or if he’s put into a position where she can concoct some, then it’s one more chain around his neck.

  I listen to the peppy roar of my car as I press my foot on the gas pedal. The central panel glows blue as I watch the speed dial climb. And finally, I reach my exit. I hope it’s the right one.

  I follow the signs and flick on my brights. There’s a dirt parking lot where people leave their cars close to the trailhead. It’s empty—except for two vehicles: Dan’s and Erin’s.

  Thank God. I park next to the ‘no kooks’ sign, and before I climb out, Erin’s words of warning come to mind: if you’re ever walking into an iffy situation . . .

  "Thanks for the advice," I mutter, punching in the passcode of my phone and starting up the voice memos app. Then I slip my phone into my ‘bra pocket,’ and I’m down the trail in a dead run.

  49

  DAN

  Erin stands there, watching me approach. The shadows cloak her face, but her eyes are gleaming, and a hint of wickedness curls her mouth into a smile. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. It’s surreal coming face to face with my ex-girlfriend turned enemy. It’s excruciating to think about what happened the night of my farewell party.

  We’re a few feet away from each other now. She smirks; her eyes narrow. I see the familiar features that I used to like—the smattering of freckles across her nose, the deep Cupid’s bow on her top lip—and find them repulsive now.

  I want to mention Trevor and all her past victims, just to wipe that nasty smirk off her face, but she can’t know that I know. She has to think that I’m just another innocent little lamb, trotting off to the slaughter.

  "You need to stop this, Erin. Drop the charges. Get your goons off my back. This is my life you’re screwing with here. You can’t make these false allegations against me. You can’t—"

  "Yes, I can. I can because it’s all true."

  "You know it’s not true though," I say evenly. "You know I didn’t hit you." See if you can squeeze out a few pathetic tears, I tell myself.

  She steps forward, her index finger jabbing my chest. "Yes you did. And Brynn saw! She saw you shaking me."

  My hands curl into fists, thinking about how Erin turned my own girlfriend against me. I’d like to shake Erin now, but that will just give her the ammunition she needs. "Yeah maybe I did shake you. I tried to shake some fucking sense into you."

  Erin folds her arms; one corner of her mouth turns up. "Thanks for admitting that."

  My stomach sinks. That’s one for her, zero for me. That’s okay, I tell myself. The game isn’t over yet.

  "How do you even know what happened that night anyway?" she asks. "You were so shit-faced, you hardly knew your own name. I made sure of it."

  Flames of anger shoot through me. "You . . . made sure of it?"

  She shrugs as if to say, Yeah? What’s the big deal? "Just a little GHB. Nothing deadly."

  There’s a timer counting down somewhere inside of me as inevitable as a nuclear core meltdown. Of course she drugged me. I felt like death warmed over the morning after my farewell party. It took a Herculean effort to drag myself out of bed. It was by far the worst hangover I’d ever experienced. I hadn’t suspected drugs though. I know for a solid fact that I did not touch the white powdery substance on offer that night because I could have lost my job!

  Keep a lid on it, man, I’m thinking to myself. Calm down. Don’t let her win. But my pulse is racing.

  "All part of your big bad plan right, Erin? Framing me for assault and battery wasn’t enough for you, was it!"

  She makes a mock pouty face, her fat fish lips forming words that I wish I could obliterate. "Oh, poor you," she says. "Losing your jobbie-wobbie." Then the pout disappears, and her eyes turn hard. "Well, you deserve it after everything you did to me."

  Two. One. A shutter raps down on my vision. I see a fuzzy terrain of whiteness. Erin is in there somewhere, a great gob of a shape, yammering about her clever little plan, how I never had a chance, how she set me up, how Brynn is going to testify against me, how she has a recording—and then she’s screaming, "Hit me, Dan. Hit me! I dare you! You pussy!"

  In my mind, I imagine the ropy cords of her neck pressing against my palms. It’s a vividly satisfying image. The helpless choking sound that she might emit is like a salve to my torn and ravaged soul.

  No.

  I dial back my rage so that it’s manageable, barely, and say, "No. I won’t hit you. Not now. Not ever."

  Erin doesn’t reply. But her eyes bulge with fury. Suddenly she screams and hurtles her own fist at her cheek, hitting herself instead. She strikes her own cheek twice in quick succession, making a muffled thwak-thwak sound, and a small lump rises up on her cheekbone. Then she scratches at her own face and neck with a screaming vengeance that leaves me breathless.

  Finally, she wraps her hands around her own neck and tightens, making a gurgling choking sound, crying out the same line she’d used the night of my farewell party, "Stop, Dan! Stop!"

  After she’s done, she moves a few feet away, snuffling or snickering, I honestly can’t tell, saying, "Dan just choked me. He tried to kill me."

  Is she serious? Who the fuck is she talking to? Every bone in my body is dead tired of her. She’s still got a hand around her neck, but her eyes are dancing with what I can only describe as glee.

  My heart sinks all the way down my feet as Trevor’s words come back to me: the minute she gets more evidence on you . . .

  I never worried about Erin getting evidence because I knew I’d never touch her. But after the police incident, I should have known that she’d hurt herself again, and blame me for it. I just should have known.

  The malice emanating from her feels white-hot. She reaches up to the lapel on her coat and plucks something off. It’s small and black, attached to a thin cord that is plugged into her phone, which she produces with great satisfaction.

  "Thanks for that," she says, without a tremor of emotion. "That’s all I needed." She shows the face of her phone to me. "A nice recording of you assaulting me again." She tucks her phone safely away in her pocket and looks up at the night sky, rubbing her neck and tilting her head left to right. "I hope you left a mark." Under the bright smattering of stars, light years away, stand thousands of silent witnesses that I wish could talk. Her cold voice startles me from my reverie. "Do you want this to end?"

  "Yeah. I really do," I say, my anger bleeding out.

  "All you have to do is pay me off," she says.

  I tamp down a little thrill as she steps into my carefully laid trap. Checkmate.

  "How much?" I ask, looking down in feigned defeat.

  "Half a mil. Then I’m gone. I’ll drop the charges. You’ll never hear from me again."

  One half of one million dollars. That’s far beyond the measly fifty or one hundred thousand she tricked out of her ex-victims. But she knows I have it, sadly, so I start mentally earmarking the money. I have some equity, the benefits of buying young (except I still owe my mom the down payment), plus I’ve been lucky with my investments, and I have about a hundred thou in savings. It would have been a heavy toll to pay, but she’s not going to get a single dime of it.

  "Yeah, I’ll give you the money," I say in my best approximation of a beaten man.

  Actually, my retired CIA operative pal, Ken Walker, wired up with a concealed body cam, is going to give her the money. As soon as she takes possession, he’s going to rain hellfire down on her head, while I watch the comedy unfold from the comfort of a car. He said he couldn’t wait. "Retirement’s a little dull," he told me when I asked. "I could use some excitement."

  "All cash. No bank transfers," she says.

  I’m glad she agrees. "
Exactly."

  She lays out her terms like a mobster, while I smother a smile. Small unmarked bills, stuffed into a duffle, or something equally as ridiculous, when I hear my name.

  "Dan!"

  The clear voice startles me. I turn, trying to identify its owner. Who in the world could be out here on this deathly cold night, calling my name?

  Brynn!

  She’s running toward us in a tired lope. She’s giving it all she has, sprays of sand airborne behind her feet. My heart lurches in my chest. Brynn. She’s here. She’s yelling something, waving her arms. I hold my breath, listening.

  Before I can understand her words, Erin says in a cold hard voice, while she fiddles with her coat sleeve. "When Brynn gets here, tell her to go back."

  50

  BRYNN

  My lungs are burning, but somehow my legs are still moving. I see two figures standing among the ice plants in the distance. Behind them, the train tracks curve into the darkness. One figure is the same height and build as Dan. The other one, with long blonde hair streaming behind her head, is a dead giveaway. It’s them. I pick up the pace.

  "Dan!"

  "Go back!" he yells, waving his arms over his head. "Brynn, go back!"

  But I can’t. I won’t. I jog up to them, breathing so hard from exhaustion that I’m having a hard time catching my breath. Erin’s mouth is drawn down with anger, her brow furrowed into a deep scowl. She looks none-too-happy about this late addition to her party. Good. I glance over at Dan, my sweet Dan. Even better.

  I throw my arms around his neck and try to stem the rising tide of guilt and shame surging through me. "I’m sorry," I say against his neck, my eyes pricking with tears. "I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you."

  He pulls away, his eyes sharp with alarm. He’s squeezing my hands so hard they hurt. He’s trying to communicate something vital, probably an apology, but it doesn’t matter now. It’s all over. I know the truth. And soon, so will Erin.

  Dan meets my gaze. "Go home, Brynn. Please."

  "No, I won’t. Not without you." I turn toward Shelter Girl, her eyes gleaming in the moonless night as dark and fathomless as pits.

  I hardly recognize her real persona. I had become so accustomed to poor little Erin, always on the verge of tears, always ready with a sad tale of woe, always pawing at people and gazing into their eyes with adoration. I’ve never seen Erin, the stone cold killer.

  "I know what you did," I say to her, my heart beating fast and high in my throat. "I know that you killed Chris Mabray. And it wasn’t self-defense like you claim. It was murder."

  "You killed someone?" Dan asks Erin, his voice soft with disbelief. He’s stumbling to keep up. He’s falling out of the clouds. But I’ll catch him. I’ll break his fall.

  "You don’t know what you’re talking about," she scoffs, glancing at Dan, with a hint of defensiveness.

  "I know exactly what I’m talking about." I move toward her. She steps back. "It’s so uncanny how you partied with both Chris and Dan, and both ended up beating you up."

  "That was just a coincidence," she says.

  "Amazing coincidence right? Wow. You should buy a lottery ticket."

  She shrugs, trying to look like she’s not sweating the small stuff. I push on. "And you then you partied with Chris and everybody got really drunk, except you." Her eyes narrow. "You pulled Chris aside for a little private chat. And so off he went, a little worse for the wear, not thinking very clearly. That’s because you drugged him."

  Dan tenses, but I keep talking, the words flying out of my mouth. I’m so close. I’ve got her. I just need to deliver the final blow.

  "So he stepped outside with you, and you pushed yourself on him. You wanted to go the whole way, right? But he turned you down. And you wouldn’t take no for an answer. You pushed and pushed until he pushed you back. Just to get his point across because you were being so pig-headed about it. And you made sure you got that part recorded. Right? So diligent. And then what? What did you do? Go ahead and say it. I think Dan deserves to know. Since you did the exact same thing to him."

  Erin’s eyes glitter with malice. Her mouth is curved into a smile, but it holds no goodwill. I can tell that she wants to brag about her foresight, her cleverness, and her wonderful perfect plan.

  "He never saw it coming," she says coolly. "It was my story against his." One corner of her mouth curls up. "Except I had a photoshopped image and a recording. And he had nothing."

  "And with your evidence, you set up Chris and extorted money from him. Lots of it. But you didn’t stop there, because you knew he was working to have you arrested. So you lured him over to your house to deliver your final blow."

  As Erin speaks, I watch the dead gleam in her eyes. "Chris thought he was so smart. He thought he could out-step me. That was his undoing. He tried to beat me at my own game."

  "Oh my God," Dan says, grasping the parallels between Chris’s story and his.

  "It wasn’t so hard to do," Erin continues. "Chris came over enraged, angry that I’d ruined his life. I prodded him further, making sure he was nice and furious. As soon as I got some marks on my body, I had everything I needed to get away with it."

  "The perfect alibi . . ."

  "Self-defense," she says in a flat tone. "Works every time."

  "With victim after victim, including Dan. Right?"

  "Why change a winning formula?" she says with a self-congratulatory grin.

  "Except you didn’t think this one through, did you?" I say to Erin. "You must be getting soft." I wrinkle my nose. "Maybe a little lazy."

  "Oh, really?" Goaded, she pulls up a voice recording on her phone. It’s the sound of a voice, followed by some gurgles. It’s a choking sound. Dan’s weight shifts as if his knees are buckling. And then I hear her voice, shaking and soft. "Dan just choked me. He tried to kill me."

  "I never fucking touched you!" he yells. "Put that on your voice recording!"

  All part of her game. I tighten my arm around him. I’m here for you, Dan, I’m saying to him. I’ll get you through this. I believe you.

  Erin speaks. "You have—"

  I hold up a finger. "Quick question. Did you try to extort any money from Dan yet? Or did I show up too early? I can always leave and come back."

  Dan looks at me aghast.

  "You can jump in front of a train for all I care," Erin says, "Dan just choked me. I have evidence. It may not be permissible in court," she says, waving her hand like she could care less. "But it will change the course of the investigation." She shrugs. "Like, in my favor."

  "Wow," I say. “Wow wow wow. You really know your stuff. You’re really a forward thinker. So thorough." The corner of her mouth perks up. She’s loving all this praise. Well, she’s not going to love it much longer. "You should write a book," I continue, while her smile fades. "Maybe an instruction manual. Have you thought about YouTube videos? You really have a winning personality." Her smile is long gone now, but I continue. "Do you think I could ask your advice about something? I’m just a stupid newbie, after all.” I pull out my phone and navigate to the clearly recording app. “But do you think this will change the course of Dan’s investigation?" I shrug. "Like, in his favor?"

  The corner of her right eye twitches, while I press the home button, leaving the app recording in the background, and push the side lock button. Her lips draw tight. Then she shakes her head. "No way. There’s no way you caught that on audio. For one, your jacket is covering the microphone. Two, there’s a ton of wind."

  I smirk and pull out my ear buds, the wire looped around my neck, the microphone tucked tidily along my collarbone, just under my chin, shielded from the wind by the collar of my coat, unzipped just enough to catch Erin’s confession. "Bet you didn’t think of that."

  "It’s all over, Erin." Dan says. "I know about Trevor and everyone else you screwed over. You’ve really made a career of destroying people. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, but of course you’re not."

  Trevor? I look at Erin,
expecting a smart rebuttal, but instead I see the imperceptible twitch of her mouth as her mask slips. Her eyes widen. She’s struggling to hang onto her composure, but she can’t quite get that mask fastened back in place.

  Finally, she gives up. She looks like a different person now with veins roping across her forehead, a big one pulsing between her eyebrows. Her eyes are wild, her lips pulled back against her clenched teeth.

  My amusement turns to alarm when she withdraws her arm from behind her back. And in her fist, glints a long sharp blade.

  51

  BRYNN

  "Brynn," Dan roars, throwing his arms around me and pushing me out of the way of the blade’s slicing arc. I feel his body move in a quick flinch. He doubles over, arm clamped around his abdomen.

  "Shit," he mutters, peeling back his arm slightly and looking down at the damage. I see dark, inky fluid seeping into the white fluffy interior of his jacket. Blood.

  "Dan!" I try to hold him up, but he sinks onto his knees with a soft grunt.

  "Give me your phone," Erin says in a flat even tone, one hand extended. Hot fear surges through me. I need to help Dan somehow, but I’ve got a big fat problem on my hands called Erin. "Give it to me now!" she screams.

  "Okay, okay," I say, backing up, trying to lure her away from Dan, trying to buy some time so I can figure what I’m going to do about this rattlesnake.

  A gust of wind bellows, cutting me to the bone. My teeth chatter. But I clench my jaw, stopping the noise, because I hear something: the sharp, shrill blow of a train whistle. The ground rumbles under my feet. Erin and I both look at the rails curving into dark hills like black ribbons. It’s coming. A train.

  "I’m not going to ask again," she says, jerking the knife toward me. "Gimme your phone!"

  "You don’t know my passcode," I yell against the wind. "You’ll never get access to the recording."

  "I don’t need the passcode," she says, glancing over her shoulder at the oncoming train. She’s going to throw my phone at the train and destroy it. That’s her plan. What’s mine?