The Night Before

by Wendy Walker

  “I know!” Rosie cried the words. “Why, Joe? Why would he do that?”

  Joe was running now. She could hear his feet pounding against the pavement. “It’s Laura. He wants Laura.”

  “Why? Why now…?” Rosie’s eyes never left the house. There was no movement inside. No lights coming on. No sound.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just get out of there! I’m calling the police.”

  Rosie grew silent, thinking. “What about the notes, Joe? And her boyfriend in New York? God, I never even told you what I found. He’s dead, Joe. The boyfriend in New York was killed in a robbery. Laura had no idea. Do you think…?”

  Joe stopped running. “Rosie,” he said, his voice serious now. “Get out of there!”

  “Okay … call the police. I’m leaving. I promise.”

  Joe hung up and Rosie put the phone down on the passenger seat. She put her hand on the key and started to turn the ignition.

  But then she stopped.

  The sound was gone—the metal against metal. It wasn’t the screen door banging in the wind.

  She knew what it was now.

  It was Laura.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Laura. Present Day. Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Branston, CT.

  “Gabe!” I say in a whisper when he comes through the door. “I heard thuds! I tried to get out! What’s going on?”

  Gabe shuffles down the stairs quickly and in a panic.

  He takes my arms and ushers me away from the stairs, out of the line of sight from anyone who might open that door.

  “It was nothing. Just an unexpected guest. But you did the right thing. Just like I told you. Good girl,” he says. “Good girl.”

  I say nothing about the doors being chained from the outside, and Gabe doesn’t wonder why.

  “Are they gone now?” I ask.

  Gabe looks to the window that faces the driveway and strains his neck to see through it. “I can’t tell,” he says.

  I moved the trunk from beneath the window. But just beyond it is the bag with the sports equipment, which I’ve left open. Shit!

  I pull Gabe’s attention back to me, hoping he won’t see.

  “Gabe!”

  He looks at me again.

  “What do we do now? Is it time to leave?”

  He shakes his head. “No. There’s been a complication. But it’ll be fine.”

  “What complication? Do they know I’m here? Are they coming?”

  Gabe pulls me to his chest and wraps his arms around me tight. Every inch of my skin crawls at his touch, at his smell, but I grab hold of his arms and squeeze them as though I never want to let him go.

  “I’m scared,” I say. I have to make him believe me. He wants to be my protector, and I will make him just that.

  But then his body jerks away from me. His head turns back toward the window. Back to the open bag with the sports equipment.

  He walks to it with large strides, looking inside.

  “What were you doing while I was gone?” he asks.

  When he looks back, I’m standing by the foot of the stairs, one foot on the first step, and the bat gripped tightly in my hands.

  He freezes for a second, stunned by my deception, but I am already moving. Up the second step, and then the third.

  He runs to the stairs. I bound them two at a time.

  I reach the top and grab the doorknob, this time turning it all the way. The door opens into me and I have to step down to make way. And when I do, I feel his hand on my ankle, pulling me hard to my knees and then down the stairs. Toward the bottom. Toward Gabe.

  “Why?” he yells as he grabs hold of my other ankle. He drags me to the bottom of the stairs like a rag doll, the bat releasing from my hands and falling through the railing to the floor below.

  He climbs on top of me, hands gripping my wrists, legs pinning my thighs to the ground.

  “I did everything for you. Don’t you understand that? I saved you from my brother. And then I saved you from Mitch Adler. You knew it was me. I know you saw me. I looked at you when I opened that car door and saw you with your shirt pulled up and his hands on you. You would never let him do that to you. I know that. But you always got yourself into trouble, didn’t you?”

  I feel his hot breath against my skin. His eyes are crazy now, like a dam has broken and whatever he’s been holding inside is now free.

  “I saved you again from that monster in New York. I made him disappear and it never touched you, did it? I always clean up your messes and then make sure it never touches you. Precious Laura. Nothing can ever touch precious Laura.”

  I look in his eyes then and let my face soften. I stop fighting against his hold and let my body go limp.

  “I know, Gabe,” I tell him. “I’ve caused so much trouble, haven’t I? I’m sorry. You’ve always been so good to me. But I’m scared. Don’t you understand? I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t know if I can trust anyone. That’s always been my problem, remember? I can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

  Gabe lifts my wrists and then slams them down in anger. “You never could!” he yells. “You liked it when he kissed you! I know you did! You kissed him for a long time and in front of everyone!” But then the anger subsides. “I thought you would finally understand. When the notes started to come, I thought you would realize that I was the good guy. I was the one you could turn to. But you didn’t, did you? You went on a dating website and put on makeup like a little whore. I couldn’t let you do that again. I couldn’t let you not see the truth—that I am the one who protects you! I am the only one!”

  I nod and try to smile, though my mouth is trembling.

  Gabe killed Mitch Adler. Gabe sent the notes. And Kevin—what did he mean about making him disappear?

  My voice trembles when I speak. “I know, Gabe. Give me some time. Teach me. I can learn. I can be better.”

  We both hear footsteps coming from above. Gabe looks to the top of the stairs and the door that is now open. He climbs off me and pulls us both to the wall at the foot of the stairway, where we can’t be seen.

  In the corner I see the bat, and I break free long enough to get to it.

  I stand tall now, Gabe right in front of me.

  And I clutch the bat in both hands.

  Sirens pierce the silence that has filled the room.

  Sirens, and then the sound of my sister’s voice calling my name.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Rosie. Present Day. Saturday, 4:32 p.m. Branston, CT.

  Rosie couldn’t wait. Not one second longer.

  She left the car and ran to the door at the side of garage. It opened the same way it always had, from the time they were kids. The frame was warped, the lock misaligned. She moved quickly to the toolbox on a small workbench in the corner and lifted it. The key was there—just like always. She ran to the side door that led to the house, turned the key, and opened the door, stepping just inside.

  The side door led to the mudroom and then the kitchen. She slowed herself now because the house was quiet. Gabe would have heard her enter. He could be anywhere, around any corner. She walked past the small island and then the counter where he’d placed her black purse.

  She saw a butcher block with a set of knives and grabbed one from the back, one with a large blade. She held it with both hands, propped in front of her, and walked slowly with her back against the wall until she reached the entrance to the living room.

  She heard voices coming from the basement. The door was open. She approached it slowly, listening, the knife in her hands.

  At the top of the stairs, she stopped.

  “Laura!” she called out.

  Sirens rang out in the distance. The police would be here in mere moments.

  “Laura!” she called out again. Then she walked through the door.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Laura. Present Day. Saturday, 4:35 p.m. Branston, CT.

  Gabe turns to see Rosie standing at the top of the stairs. But I don’t look away from my ta
rget. I raise the bat high behind my head.

  “Gabe!” Rosie calls his name now. “Just back away. Everything is all right now. The police are just up the street—can’t you hear them? Step away from Laura.”

  My knuckles go white. I can feel them the way I always do when the fists come. I want to swing it down against him. Strike him in the chest. Send him to the ground. My mind flashes back to the night in the woods. The bat in my hands. Mitch Adler at my feet, blood pooling around his head.

  I tell my arms to move, but they don’t listen.

  And then I know. With every part of me, I know the answer to the last question Dr. Brody asked me.

  I did not swing the bat. I did not level the fatal blow to Mitch Adler.

  Rosie is moving down the stairs now, the knife in her hands. Gabe is afraid of her. I can see it in his eyes. He’s afraid of Rosie and what she might do to him.

  Rosie, who’s never lifted her finger against a living soul. But Rosie, who would give her life for mine. Who would take a life for mine.

  Gabe lifts his hands in the air and steps back just as Rosie reaches the last step. We hear knocking on the front door and then feet pounding the floorboards. Officers appear at the top of the stairs, guns drawn.

  I feel my fingers release. The bat drops to the ground. And my fists turn to open hands just as Rosie pulls me into her open arms.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Laura. Before the Sessions. Five Months Ago. New York City.

  Dr. Brody: Is it strange dating a shrink?

  Laura: As long as you don’t try to shrink me.

  Dr. Brody: I’ll try.

  Laura: It is strange dating a man with kids. And a wife.

  Dr. Brody: It won’t be strange when you meet them, finally. And she’s a soon-to-be ex-wife. She left me, remember? For her high school boyfriend, no less. But then I met you.

  Laura: But then you met me.… I hope you’re not sorry about that day.

  Dr. Brody: How could I ever be sorry I met you?

  FIFTY-SIX

  Laura. Present Day. Saturday, 10 p.m. Branston, CT.

  I feel cold.

  Joe has brought a blanket and Rosie has wrapped it around me. But it can’t touch the place where I feel it most.

  Two men are dead. Another came close. Jonathan Fielding. Where this latest chapter began. They say he’ll make it. His body will recover. But he won’t recover in other ways. Every time his hand reaches for a lock to open a door, he will feel the fear. I think about his caution. His concerns about my past, all the questions—relentless questions. I convinced myself they were unusual, that they made him suspect. But in the end, he was right to be concerned, wasn’t he?

  Two men are dead.

  Two men. The first, Mitch Adler. My high school obsession. Dragged from his car and beaten to death with a baseball bat. Gabe had been watching from deep in the woods, the preserve where we spent days upon days together, alone, and with Rosie and Joe. Hours, days, years—none of us ever saw it. None of us ever knew what was happening inside our friend. His brother’s abuse was worse than even I knew, and I thought I knew everything. It had been going on for years. There was a file at social services. Visits from caseworkers to their home—right next door to us. Our mother now says that Mrs. Wallace confided in her about Rick, all those afternoons when they were in the kitchen together. Our mother crying about Dick and his infidelities. Mrs. Wallace crying about her twisted, violent son who enjoyed tormenting his little brother. Both women keeping secrets that would lead to people dying.

  Our mother is on a plane now. She has no idea what she will face when she sees us. Me, Rosie. And Joe. My half brother.

  The second man, Dr. Kevin Brody, was killed in an alley outside his gym in the early morning hours. I am in shock, they say, which is why I haven’t cried yet. But the tears will come.

  I met Kevin at a coffee shop one Saturday morning. His wife was leaving him, but they couldn’t afford for either to move out of the apartment. Kevin left on Saturdays. She left on Sundays. They both needed some space, and to be alone with their children.

  It was crowded that morning, and he asked if he could sit with me at my small table with the extra chair. I moved my bag and let him sit.

  Four weeks later he told me he loved me, and it was the first time I ever believed it. Now I wonder if it will be the last.

  I am the reason he’s dead. I am the reason his children don’t have a father. I may as well have beaten him myself and left him to die. It might as well have been me.

  They found Kevin’s phone in Gabe’s house. He sent me the text I thought was from Kevin—the one ending things for good. It was so concise and so believable that I didn’t question it. I didn’t try to reach him or see him. I didn’t seek out a more complicated explanation. Instead I invited the pain in—opened the door wide and put out a welcome mat. And I let it nearly destroy me, leaving my job. My home. My life. Returning to the scene of the crime. The place of my childhood, where it all began.

  I know what he would say, because after a short while, I asked him to help me understand my mind. I could see that he was different. That he was not like the other men I had pulled close only to push them away or be hurt by them. Devastated. Immersed in pain that was so familiar.

  I suppose this is a gift he left me. This understanding of my mind, which, ironically, I can now believe in.

  Jonathan Fielding. The third man. He is everything he said he was. Just a man. A guy. Stumbling his way through life. Through his mother’s death and his divorce and his job and his car needing a repair and trying to be sexy again as a single man with a younger woman. Loneliness. Hope. Desire. All of it had been real. Everything he said to me had been true.

  And now he has paid the price for that.

  More facts have come out in the past several hours. Gabe had seen a therapist throughout his teen years. He had a breakdown in college and spent three months as an inpatient. We were all told he was studying abroad.

  As for Rick, he joined the army right after he graduated from military school. After a long string of violent outbursts, he was eventually dishonorably discharged, and later sent to prison for a gruesome bar fight that left a man dead.

  Violence. Secrets. Mental illness. Right next door in the Wallaces’ house.

  Two men dead. And also one woman.

  Melissa Wallace was strangled to death and stuffed in a bag. She’d never gone on a business trip. She just got too nosy. Too angry at her husband’s obsessions. She got in the way.

  I’ve gone over every detail of my life with the investigators. From the first memory of my childhood to knocking Rick Wallace off Gabe by the fort, to kissing Rick in a game of spin the bottle and all of the things I knew about his violence toward Gabe. I told them about the night in the woods and how I didn’t see him, how I didn’t know it was Gabe. And how I now know that I did not swing that bat. Not once.

  After I left for college, there were other strange incidents that now raise questions. Men who left suddenly and without much explanation. These were my wolves, the “wrong” men I chose so they would hurt me. So I could try to make them love me, but then prove to myself I was unlovable so I could play the old record of my childhood over and over.

  We are drawn to the familiar, even if it hurts us.

  But now I wonder which ones were wolves, and which ones left because of Gabe. There was a guy freshman year who told me he couldn’t date someone with a crazy ex-boyfriend. At the time I thought maybe he meant Mitch Adler. I thought he’d discovered my real last name, like Jonathan Fielding had, and read about my past and that night in the woods. I told the investigators about it and they are tracking him down. I suppose he will tell them that Gabe paid him a visit.

  Gabe knew everything about my life because I told him. Every bad date. Every painful breakup. He was always there to comfort me. And, in his mind, to protect me. But what did he do with this knowledge? I fear what we will find.

  Rosie and Joe sit with me in the room. Rosi
e says it is the same room where she saw my phone records, and where Joe confessed what he knew about the past just hours before.

  A forensic psychologist is with us, along with a young man who is training to be one. He is going to learn a lot today.

  “I just don’t understand,” Rosie says. She’s said it a dozen times since we got here. I can feel her remorse, though she has been nothing but heroic.

  Joe sits quietly now that he has the facts. He seems to understand Gabe in a way that we don’t. He sits between us, one arm around Rosie and another around me. We huddle together in a giant heap of emotional chaos.

  The forensic psychologist mostly asks questions, but she also tries to explain the possible scenarios.

  “Sometimes during a childhood trauma, especially one that is ongoing, the child will create an unrealistic attachment to someone who makes him feel safe. That person becomes so crucial to his emotional survival that he has to have her all to himself. In this case, it is possible that Gabe developed that attachment to Laura. You said she was brave, even though she was just a little girl?”

  Joe nods and even smiles a little like he’s proud of me. Proud that he’s my brother. “She was brave. And fierce.”

  But all I can think is that everything I was and everything I did back then contributed to this psychotic attachment that has now left three people dead.

  The psychologist nods as well.

  “And, Laura, you were the only one who knew about his brother, right?”

  “Except for his mother. And my mother,” I say, and I cannot hide my anger.

  “But Gabe only told you. And you were the only one who tried to stop it. That’s what matters. You became essential to his survival.”

  Rosie sniffles now even though the tears are gone. “I don’t understand,” she says again. “Why didn’t he try to be with her? To date her or be physical with her in any way? Why didn’t he try to marry her when they were older?”