Revenge (15 page)

“
Y
ou’re serio
u
s?”

He nods
again
.

“What about Chief Cummings? I know he doesn’t know you’re with the DEA, but you can’t just disap
p
ear!”

“I have a cover story.”

“You have a
what
?”

“He thinks my dad is dy
i
ng.
I
n hospice. On the east coast.”

I pause.
T
hree years ago, we didn’t talk much about Mark’s dad. He mentioned having one, and that he didn’t have much contact.
T
hat was it. In the effort to create a life that isn’t real, he’d invented an ailing dad?

“You have al
l
the bases covered, don’t you?”

“I have to. That’s how it works when you’re deep underco
v
er.” His eyes are closed off, and his voice makes him seem so distant. It hits me.

He’s comp
a
rtmentalizi
n
g. He has to. If he’s too friendly as he separates to go away for a few days it’ll make everything harder.

“Stay here in the cottage while I’m gone,” he insists. He walks out of the bedroom and comes back with a shaving kit. “It’s safer.”

“It’s weird.”

“
I
t’s safer, Carrie.”

“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

He s
t
ops and stares at me. “Are you nuts? Of course I do.”

“
No, you don’t. I’ll be fine.”
 

“Someone kidnapped your best fri
en
d.
I
n fact, if I could take you to D.C. with me, I would.” He frowns as if thinking of different ways to make that happen.

“I have a job here! I start classes on
T
uesday. No way I’m just disappearing with you to D.C.”

“Maybe next time.” He finishes packing, then stops.

“What’s wrong?”

“I still need that shower.”

“I think you need a kiss more.”

B
zzzz.

Anxiety fills me, like I’m immersed in it and I can’t breathe. He really is leaving this fast. Every movement is efficient. Mark’s changed before my eyes, turning from the loose but authoritative man I’m in love with into a ruthless, focused—

Undercover f
ederal agent.

How many selves are inside him? How many versions of Mark do I need to get to know before I understand all of him?

His goodbye kiss is quick, hot, and unraveling.

“Look, Carrie,” he says, staring at me with piercing eyes the color of whisky. “I mean it. Stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be home in a few days. If the chief asks, my dad is sick.” He snorts. “It’s not far from the truth. Galt
is
sick. Not h
o
spice sick, but he’s a sick guy.”

“Okay,” I say, suddenly meek.

“By the time I get back, I’ll know more. When I know more, I can do more.”

“
O
kay.” I’m feeling even smaller.

“And the more information and resources I have, the sooner we can take this motherfucker down.”

I just nod.

I want him to tell me it will all be okay. That he’ll find Amy. That she’ll be rescued and home and everything will go back to the way it was right after I came home. I know he can’t say any of that, but I wish he could.

I wish he
would
.

I lunge at him, wrapping every part of me around him that I can. “I’ll miss you,” I whisper.

I love you.

Oh, how I want to say it, but the time isn’t right. It’s too early. It’s too
soon. It’s premature and—
 

“I love you, Carrie,” Mark murmurs against my ear.

Or, maybe not.

“
I know it’s crazy to say it like this,” he adds, his breath hard against my ear. “But I can’t hold back the truth. And it’s killing me to have to leave like this.”
 

He pulls back, both hands cradling my jaw. Our eyes are riveted to each other.

“I love you, too,” I gasp. “Always have.”

“I couldn’t stop. No other woman ever compared. I waited and wanted and
damn it
, Carrie, I need you.” The kiss we share is so sweet and warm, a commitment and a promise.

And then:

Bzzzz.

Mark snaps to attention as if poked by a cattle prod. “I have to go. I’m going to just walk away and break contact with you because if I keep standing here I’ll have you naked and up against the wall in about ten seconds, and if I do that I’ll want you in my bed and on all fours, on your back, riding me, on the chair...
everywhere
.”

His eyes blaze with passion. “And if we do that, I’ll never get to D.C.”

“Fuck D.C.” I declare.

He groans, laughing, as he forces himself to walk away from me.

“Sometimes you surprise me, Carrie. And I love it.”

As the door clicks shut, I stare out the window at the moon.

It stares back.

The first
four
days without
M
ark go by in a blur. Between visiting Minnie, who is sedated most of the time, talking to Elaine about Minnie and the latest town gossip, and going out my mind with worry over Amy, time flies.

And then there’s work.

O
n
Thur
sday, I walk into work to find my entire desk cleared. All the piles I’d sorted paperwork into are gone. It looks like someone took everything and created one big, sloppy pile on top of the long counter that houses the air conditioning unit.

And instead of those piles, there’s Claudia Landau’s ass all over my desk.

“What are you do
i
ng?” I challenge, mar
ch
ing in and getting right up in her face. I’m so sick of her, and now that I know Mark’s in D.C. getting more evidence against her father, I frankly don’t give a crap.

I’m not afraid of her.

She’s clearly surprised. If she thinks I’m going to cower any more, or pretend she isn’t being a bitch when she acts like one, she’s sadly mistaken.

“
There was a leak,” she says, pointing up at the ceiling. The tile right above my desk looks clear as can be.
 

“What leak?”

“Right there. Can’t you see it?”

I look again. “No.”

“
T
hen you’re blind.”

“And you’re an asshole. Get your skanky ho ass off my desk.” The words are out before I realize what I’ve said.

Boy, I really
have
had it, haven’t
I
?

She looks like she’s about to explode. “What did you say to me, you little shit?”

“
I
f I’m blind, I guess you’re deaf, Claudia. I said,
Get your skanky ho ass off my desk
.” I lower my voice as I say the last part.
 

“You can’t talk to me like that!” She looks aro
u
nd the office as if expecting so
m
eone to come to her rescue.

“I just did. You’re not my boss. You don’t work here. Get out.”

Alarm floods her eyes as she realizes I’m not backing down. Funny how bullies freak out when you call them on their
antics
.

“I’m telling my father what you’ve said.”

“Go ahead. I suspect he won’t care. It’s pretty obvious he’s sick of micromanaging you like you’re a child.”

Her cheeks go bright red with fury. “You’ll regret this.”

“What are you going to do? Kidnap me
and cut off my arms and legs
?”

The room turns to ice.

Her eyes get impossibly wide, the black eyeliner she wears on her bottom lids looking like a thick chunk of charcoal. Her mouth drops open into a little O of astonishment.

I got her.

But why are my words so shocking?

Effie wanders in at that exact moment, humming to herself and c
a
rrying a folder. I can’t tell if she’s heard any of our conversation. She ambles over to the photocopier.

“Hi Carrie,” she says.

“Hi Effie.”

Without looking at Claudia, she says
pleasantly
, “Hi, Skan
k
y Ho.”

I guess she
did
hear.

Cla
udia
makes a sound of disgust and flees.

“Carrie?” Effie asks casually, as if that didn’t happen. She loads more pa
p
er into the copier. “What’s a ‘skanky ho’?”

I burst out laughing. “Oh, Effie. You don’t want to know.”

She sets the photocopier up and starts copying a hundred sets of syllabi for a professor. “Your desk is so clean,” she observes.

I point to the mess Claudia’s made. “No
t
exactly.”

If there’s one thing you never, ever do when it comes to staff at a university, it’s t
h
is: touch the stacks of paper on their desks. Effie knows this. I know this.

So when Effie realizes what Claudia’s done, she inhales sharply, the gasp going on for so long I’m worried she’s having a stroke.

“She did that?”

“
Y
es.”

“
Double
skanky ho.”
Effie makes a clucking sound and moves quickly for the door. I realize her phone is ringing in the distance.
 

A
s
I look at the giant pile of papers Claudia’s made, I slump forward.
T
his is at least an hour or two of re-sorting and organizing.
A low-grade hum of anxious energy begins inside me.
 

What have I done?

I’m two Carries right now. The first is the quiet, get-alon
g
you
ng
woma
n
who is back with a mission: to exonerate my dad.
That
Carrie stays quiet, lays low, and has one goal.

T
he other Carrie is just sick of being treated like a doormat by people like Claudia and doesn’t care about jeopardizing any mission.
I
t’s all about dignity and calling people like Claudia on their crap.

For years, Carrie #1 has dominated.

Looks like Carrie #2 is ready for her turn.

It’s been
four
days since I’ve heard from Mark. When I woke up on Sunday, I got a cryptic text from him that just said:

Lockdown. Don’t expect contact. Home Thursday or Friday.

Great. A “few” days had turned into a week. As hopeful as I am, I doubt he’ll be home tomorrow. I expect Friday at t
h
e earliest. Who knows what information they’ve uncovered? I’d rather Mark stay there and do this right than rush home and have the operation all fa
l
l apart.

And I certainly don’t want another innocent person to be wrongly accused of an
y
thing.

“You see Eric
Horner
?” Effie asks me as she grabs finished copies off the copy machine. She limps over to a big table and begins making stacks.
Five
stacks of
one hundred
sheets of paper. No matter how many times I’ve tried to explain how to use the copier to collate and staple, Effie doesn’t seem to care.

She sits down with a stapler and thumbs her way through one copy of each page. Squares them by banging the small stack on the table top. Staples them.

And prepares to repeat that ninety-nine times.

Welcome to academic administration.

“
Not since Saturday, no,” I say. Last night was my first class of the new semester. Anthropology. I half-expected to see Eric in building. New professors get stuck with the night classes. No Eric.
 

“Hmmm. My son says he’s missing.”

A chill fills my bones. “Missing?”

“Wasn’t here for his first class last night.
I
sn’t answering his phone. Parents in Ireland are starting to get worried.”

When I was Eric’s student he never, ever missed a class. This isn’t like him.
Not one bit.
 

A
s if on cue, Chief Cummings walks in to the room. He’s tall, like Mark, and old enough to be Mark’s dad.
G
rey hair, short and military style. The chief has a grey mustache and wide, green eyes. He doesn’t look much like Effie. I assume he takes after Milton.

“Hello, Carrie,” the chief says. We’re on first-name terms. After what happened three years ago, I know every cop by name.

“Chief.”

I said we were on first name terms. Not that we were on
friendly
terms.

“Have you seen
E
ric
Horner
? Last I heard, you and Officer Paulson had a bit of a run in with him.”

My skin feels like ants are crawling on it. “That was S
a
turday. He pulled over whe
n
I was stopped by the side of the road. Officers Murphy and
P
aulson thought I
m
ight be in some danger. I wasn’t,” I quickly add.

Just then, Claudia marches in, defiant. “There you are!’ she
sa
ys to the chief, as if he’s a stray servant she’s been lo
o
king for. She shoots me a triumphant look as she points to me and says to the chief, “She’s the last one to have s
e
en Eric.”
She glares at me and asks,
“What did you do to him?”

“
Do
to him?” I choke out. “What are you talking about?”

“Everyone knows you have a thing for my boyfriend.”

Effie’s shooting dagg
e
rs at Claudia with her eyes.

“No, I don’t! Eric’s just an old friend.”

“One you were caught nearly kissing by the side of the road on Saturday.”

I’m guessing Murphy
can’t
keep his mouth shut.

I say nothing. Let Claudia think what she wants.

“Is Eric your boyfriend, or Mark?
Y
ou were shoving your tongue so far down Mark’s throat the other day I thought you were trying to lick his butt from the inside,” I say to Claudia.

T
he chief’s jaw drops and he stars coughing uncontrollably.

The phone rings.

“A
rts and Sciences
. This is Carrie speaking,” I say into the receiver.