Next Time You See Me (22 page)

“Any news?” was my hello.

“No. But I know you’ll be wondering if you’re cleared to go home.”

“Are we?”

“Not yet. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

“We’re picking up some chatter. Better safe than sorry.”

It was all he said.

F
ive more days passed; we had now spent a week and a half at the White Palace. We still hadn’t been cleared to leave the grounds, but we’d started to receive mail under our new names, mostly catalogs and sales flyers marketed to a generic American family. Nothing I wanted. Still, each piece of mail felt oddly significant, like a small transition inching us toward the possibility that we could be here indefinitely. That we might actually be forgotten and hover for months or even years in our strange white bubble. I realized we were settling in when I went online and ordered a bed railing for Ben, having decided that it was time to transition him into a twin bed since he now routinely fell in the act of climbing out of his crib. I also ordered a new hat for my mother to match her green scarf, and a two pairs of warm socks for myself. A few days later, a phone call from Mike notified me that something had arrived.

“You’ve got a package, Mrs. Peltrie,” he said before we lost the connection, which I had been told happened here occasionally when the temperatures were very low.

Mom had just maneuvered Ben into his jacket, boots, hat, and mittens—the whole winter ensemble whose confinement my son resisted—and was buckling him into the stroller.

“Something came,” I told Mom. “I hope it’s the bed railing. Mind if I go down to the guard station and see?”

“Why don’t you catch up with us when you’re done?” She zipped up her jacket. “I don’t want to go through all that again.”

“See you in a few minutes.”

She headed out the door and I slipped into my boots and coat. I saw them stroll off in the direction of the carousel—Mom singing, Ben kicking his feet. Always, now, we started our walks in the hope that today would be our lucky day even if that only meant a ride on the carousel, not what we truly hoped for: the return of Mac and the end of our time at Shore Haven. Every day you hoped today was the day, and took what you got.

I headed the opposite way, toward the guard station. After a few minutes I was alone on the long wooded road, puffs of icy breath preceding me as I walked and walked. It was so quiet that every sound was amplified: my steps crunching on twigs, dead leaves, and pebbles that had strayed onto the road. My breath moving through my body. Even my thoughts seemed louder: of Mac, whether we would ever see each other again; of the isolation of this place, its stern beauty and loneliness; of the bed railing that would allow Ben a new measure of freedom and me a new measure of both worry and relief. Time moved. Things changed. You changed with them because you had little choice.

I heard something and stopped walking. Listened: music in the distance behind me. I pulled my hat off one ear and leaned into the sound. It was the carousel. My heart swelled with the knowledge that Mom and Ben had stumbled into Doug.

Now I walked faster, wanting to reach the guard station, get the package, and make my way to the carousel before they finished. If it
was
the railing, and the box was too big for me to handle alone, then Doug could drive us down, put the box into his truck, and take us home.

Through the web of bare trees I saw the hulking brown UPS truck drive slowly up an alternate road used for commercial deliveries to Shore Haven. One of the staff must have ordered something, too.

A large box was sitting on the ground just outside the door of the guard station.

“Mike, I’m here!”

He didn’t respond. I stopped to look at the box: There was no return address. And something seemed odd about the way the address was written. It wasn’t just the strangeness of seeing myself addressed as Joan Peltrie; it was something else. The box was the wrong shape for a bed railing, but I hadn’t ordered anything else that was large. There was no UPS label, and none of the scrawls or stamps that indicated it had gone through the standard delivery process. And the handwriting itself . . . I stooped to get a closer look . . .
It looked just like Mac’s
.

“Mike?”

The quiet suddenly felt thick, heavy. I stepped into the booth that was large enough for two people and a desk. It was empty. Through the small side window, I saw something that looked like the toe of a shoe.

I hurried outside and around to the other side of the booth.

It was a black shoe, double-tied, at the end of a leg that was Mike’s . . . and there was Mike, flopped on his side. I crouched beside him. He looked at me with panic-bright eyes.

“What happened?” I asked him.

His eyes dulled, seemed to freeze, and his pupils dilated to large dark saucers. It was a sign I recognized from too many crime scenes, too many corpses; I had looked into dead eyes before, but no one’s life had ever drained away in front of me.

“
Mike
,” I whispered.

And then I saw the blood oozing from a wound behind his right ear.

I twisted around and closed my eyes, forcing back an impulse to vomit. Swallowing, I stood up and reached into my pocket for my cell phone: It wasn’t there; I must have left it at the condo. There was a phone in the guard station I could use to call 911.

But as soon as I stepped around the guard station, I saw the box and remembered the UPS truck snaking its way up the alternate road.

And then I heard the music from the carousel.

A map appeared in my mind: how the other road was a shortcut to the part of the grounds where most of the development’s commercial and social life took place—the restaurant, the café, the pools, the gazebo.

The carousel.

The music now seemed to saw through the cold air, slicing open a path for me to follow. Revealing an imperative. Because I knew . . .

. . . that the person who had delivered the box had also killed Mike.

. . . that this person was now driving into Shore Haven.

. . . and that he wanted access for a reason.

. . . a purpose.

. . . a goal.

. . . a target.

I needed to call 911.

And I needed to open the box.

But mostly I needed to get to the carousel.

Chapter 18

I
cut through the woods, hacking branches with my arms as I raced toward the steady trill of the music. The drumbeat of my heart grew louder and faster as I ran until I could hardly hear the music anymore. The sharp rasps of my breath, the banging of my pulse was deafening. I couldn’t run fast enough; as in a nightmare, I seemed to move backward, unable to gain any ground.

And then a branch swung back at me after I’d pushed it aside, smacking me hard in the face. Pain fountained from my nose, flooded my brain. I fell backward onto the ground, my head pounding. Salty blood trickled into my mouth. I got up and ducked under the branch and kept going.

And going.

And going.

Until finally I emerged onto the alternate road.

I raced across the road and up a slope of hard earth at the crest of which I stopped. My nose throbbed with excruciating pain. With the back of my arm I wiped blood off my face.

Down the slope, in the distance, beside the gazebo, sat the big brown truck.

The doors to the carousel’s shed were open, spilling music.

I ran, building downhill speed to accelerate myself as the land flattened. As I got closer I saw Ben’s stroller sitting empty in a shadow that fell from the gaping mouth of the shed.

Closer still, I saw other things:

The rear door of the UPS truck was slightly open.

The end of my mother’s bright green scarf trailed through the cracked-open doors.

One of Doug’s muddy work boots lay on its side between the shed and the truck.

I reached the truck first. Whoever had shut the door had meant to lock it but failed; the latch had closed on the outside, instead. I swung open the door. Nestled among disarranged boxes were Mom and Doug, bound and gagged, laid back to back in a manner that was sickeningly familiar: it was just how Diego and Felix had situated me and Mac in the back of the truck in Mexico as they drove us to what was supposed to have been our deaths.

I jumped into the truck and pulled the tape off Mom’s mouth.

“Are you okay?”

Her voice shook with urgency: “He has Ben—the carousel!”

I pulled out the knot binding her wrists and then flew out of the truck, propelling myself to the shed where I was swallowed by a shadowy darkness that blinded me for a moment.

Blinking, gasping for breath,
frantic to see
, my eyes began to adjust.

The music played steadily as the carousel turned.

And then Ben rotated out of a shadow into a fragment of light.

“Mommy!”

“Ben!”

“
Mommy.
Mommy.
Mommy.
” His plaintive voice reaching for me. His expression looked horrified, and for a moment I thought it was because he’d seen my battered, swollen, bloody face. But then I thought again.

He came closer and I stepped toward him—he was on the largest horse, an orange stallion with blue eyes—and in that moment of apprehension I saw not just Ben and the horse but the man who rode the horse and held Ben in his lap.

His eyes were almost as blue as the horse’s.

His skin a creamy russet brown.

But in that moment it all seemed to fuse together into a single inextricable being: Ben, the horse that slid up and down its pole, Diego.

“Give me my son. That’s all I want.
Just give me my son
.”

As the carousel revolved them closer to me, Ben reached and cried. Diego’s mouth lifted into a grin. In a wedge of light I saw that one of his hands gripped Ben’s middle. The other hand held a gun.

“
Why are you here?
What do you want?
”

“I felt it was time to meet my brother.”

As the carousel drew them away, Ben disappeared behind Diego’s back. The uniform he had stolen was too small and his thighs in the tight pants threatened to rupture around the body of the horse. The horse suddenly looked fragile, as if it would shatter any moment.

I ran alongside the carousel.

“Please.
Please
. Just give me Ben. Hand him to me. And I’ll go.”

In turning to look at me, Diego kicked the side of the horse and nearly lost his balance.

“Ben!”

“Mommy!”

“He’s just a child—
please
.”

Diego steadied himself, gripping Ben too tightly. My baby started to cry.

“My life was without a brother or a sister or a father—and now it is without a mother. I am alone. Why should I be alone?”

“You’re not alone.”

“I have much to share.”

“Please give him to me.”

“I will share it with my brother—my protégé.”

A bundle of cords running from the carousel to the side of the shed caught my foot and I crashed forward, landing facedown on the ground, the impact igniting a blast of pain to my nose. The carousel kept moving at its steady pace; the music, playing. I pushed myself up and hurried forward but the carousel had moved on. Gyrating shadows made it difficult to find the blue and orange horse, the man, my boy.

“Ben?”

“
Mommy
.”

Ben twisted sharply, taking Diego by surprise, and I saw it in slow motion as it started to happen: the whole piece of them, the man-boy unit tilting heavily off the horse, Diego’s opposite arm suddenly reaching for the pole.

The gun flying out of his hand. Bouncing off the moving platform. The
thunk
of it landing on hard-packed dirt.

And then it was steady again, the heartless centaur, riding forward.

I dropped to the ground and crawled through a shifting latticework of shadows to find the gun. Hoping I hadn’t imagined it falling right . . .
here
.

My hand gripped the handle as, shaking, I got to my feet and shouted, “Stop! Right now! Give him to me!”

“You think you can have everything? The father, the son? Greedy woman—you will have
nothing
.”

The hysteria of his voice—powerless, gunless—reached me before the words made sense and before I saw them emerge into a beam of gray light from the open door. It was as if they had stepped into a spotlight: Diego, practically standing astride the horse now, holding Ben high in both hands as if about to throw him.

“No!
Don’t!
”

With the gun aimed at Diego’s chest, I moved toward them, waiting,
waiting
, until I was close enough to shoot him and catch Ben at the same time.

Aware that in shooting Diego I could be killing Mac’s other son.

Aware that, if Mac was still alive, this could end our marriage.

Aware of the risk, of the price, I would pay for my child’s life.

And aware that at this moment, there was no chance of compromise.

“
Mommy!
”

Carefully, slowly, maintaining my aim on the moving target of Diego’s heart, I edged closer. Erasing the distance between us. Until Ben was close enough. And then I would shoot.

“I’ll give you one more chance!” My voice shook. But my hands, my aim, remained steady.

“You—think—you—can—have—
everything
.”

Almost close enough now to shoot Diego and catch Ben—
but not yet
.

And then Diego did something I hadn’t anticipated, yanking Ben out of the air and pressing my little boy to his chest like a shield.

A voice boomed: “
Now—hit his leg!
”

I squeezed the trigger and a shot roared through the shed.

Diego crumpled forward.

And Ben,
my Ben
, dropped like a weight into nothingness.

I was almost close enough to catch him.

But
almost
wasn’t good enough to bridge an impossible distance.

I didn’t hear him fall.

But he must have fallen; gravity demanded it.

I knew I would live and die in this moment for the rest of my life.

Knew
it, as I ran through shadows and light.

I couldn’t remember shooting the gun. But obviously I had. I had
seen
Diego move Ben in front of him, I had
known
my strategy would no longer work—and I had pulled the trigger anyway.

Even as I ran to Ben my mind dissected my fatal error: a moment’s miscalculation, a body shifted in space, an action occurring before comprehension. And in an instant, everything was over.

A dark blot in a deep shadow drew my eye and I crawled to it. Fearing Diego would jump off his horse and stop me. Crawling faster.

“Ben? I’m coming.”

“
Mommy
.”

It was as if his voice awakened me; and I saw him: cradled, on the ground, in his father’s arms.

I stopped. Blinked. And still saw them: Ben, safe; Mac, returned.

Pulling Ben away—feeling his warmth, smelling him, my heart opening to the miracle of what we had just survived—I stood and ran to the door, terrified Diego would come after us, worried Mac wasn’t real, uncertain exactly what had just happened and was still happening.

“Karin!” Mac called in the same commanding tone that had ordered me to shoot. “You’re safe.”

My body stopped but my brain kept going; my eyes swept the dim space like a searchlight. Diego was buckled over the horse, gripping the pole so hard his knuckles were white, blood pouring from the front of his thigh.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Mac said.

Now I really looked and
saw
him: He was a mess. Dirty and bearded with jaundiced bloodshot eyes.

“Karin!” It was my mother’s voice, and then I saw her rushing into the shed with Doug.

So many things crashed through my mind all at once:

Mac was alive.

He had escaped the cartel, fled Mexico.

He was here
.

Ben was in my arms, alive and well.

Mom was fine. Doug was fine.

I hadn’t killed Diego, or my marriage.

“What happened to your face?” Mom asked.

“Tree branch.”

Mac was next to me now, taking Ben out of my shaking arms. “That looks bad, Karin. Let’s get you to a hospital.”

Mom hovered her fingers in the air an inch from what now felt like the ballooned sausage of my nose, not touching me, understanding the pain would be too great. “Can you see? Your eyes are so swollen and your skin—it’s turning green.”

Outside, sirens blared. Doors opened and slammed shut. Voices called.

“How did you get here?” I asked Mac. Queasiness crept through me, but I had to know.

“Long story.”

“Were you in that box—was that your handwriting?”

Nauseous, dizzy; and then the next thing I knew I was strapped to a gurney in an ambulance and Mac was holding an ice pack to my face.

“Where are we going?”

“Hospital. Shh.”

“Where’s Ben?”

“With your mother. They’re fine.”

“What happened in Mexico?”

“Like I said, it’s a long story.”

“It’s the only story I want to hear.”

“Can’t we just deal with your broken nose right now?”

“What makes you so sure it’s broken?”

He looked at me. We both laughed. Pain bolted across my face; I winced, and stopped talking.