Sue (25 page)

“I’ll pick up some sub sandwiches
on my way. Do you have something to drink?”

“Yes, we’re covered.”

“Okay, see you in a little bit.”
Sue pulled the file of abandoned buildings from the desk drawer, set it beside
the computer, and went to the kitchen to fix their sodas.

After they’d eaten, they moved to
the desk. Sue opened the file and sifted through the stack, finally settling on
three derelict structures that were nearby. Melvin sat beside her and skimmed
over their selections. Besides the old school near
Assaria
,
which was little over six hours away, she had chosen a depot and an inn.

“All of these buildings are
fantastic.” Sue smiled with encouragement. “The school alone is worth the trip;
it’s so big and freaky. And look how cool these others are. I can’t wait to
explore that old inn.”

“You know, we could get in trouble
for trespassing,” Melvin said.

“Not if we don’t get caught.”

Another deep
sigh.
“Okay, go to
MapQuest
and print out the
maps.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.

The light from the lamp glinted off
his glasses. Sue stared at him for a moment; a lump rose in her throat. She
impulsively stroked his cheek. His eyes opened immediately, locked on hers. Her
heart did a small flip. As far as she was concerned, only one thing stood between
her and the rest of her life.
Zeke.

Turning back to the computer, Sue
said, “Look, Melvin. We’ll be passing right by the White
Mountain National Forest.
Want to spend some time there?”

“Sure.” His demeanor lightened.
“Both of us should bring cameras. And we’d better leave pretty early. Unless…”

“Unless, what?”

“Unless you want
to spend the night somewhere.
That way we won’t be rushed.” His cheeks
turned pink and Sue had to stifle a giggle.

“That sounds great. Can we go
tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow. I’m doing a
stakeout,” Melvin said proudly.

Sue raised her eyebrows.
“Really?
Where?”

He shook his head and admonished
her with a grin. “I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.”

“Next Saturday
then?”
She covered her disappointment.

He thought for a minute.
“As far as I know.
Unless my work schedule
changes.
I’ll tell
Will
we have plans. I’m sure
he’ll give me the day off.”

They spent a few minutes checking
out motels in the areas they would be searching. They decided on one and Sue
agreed to make a reservation. “We’ll have fun, you know. It’s really scenic
along this route.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted
them. The last thing Melvin needed, especially this early in their new romance,
was the reminder that she had traveled that very same road before with Zeke.

However, he seemed unfazed. She
dropped the subject of their impending trip as they wandered into the living
room and settled in to enjoy the rest of the evening. They watched a movie,
cuddled, and kissed a lot. Once again, they ended up in bed, marveling at the
sensations they managed to coax from each other’s bodies. This time he stayed
until the wee hours of the morning, only leaving then out of a sense of
propriety. “Don’t want the neighbors to gossip,” he said as he kissed her
goodbye.

“I doubt if they’d even notice,”
she replied in a sleepy voice. “I rarely ever see them.”

Chapter 36

All that next week Sue rushed home
to check her mail, but she received no more strange letters. She squeezed in an
extra target practice with Melvin mid-week and worked through her self-defense
moves repeatedly. She spent time with Melvin at the gym.
Anything
to make the days fly until their trip.

She also rescheduled the
appointment with her therapist. With so much emotion boiling near the surface,
Sue worried the woman would somehow glean her private intentions. Plus, she
wasn’t ready to talk to her about Melvin; the affair was too new, too fragile.
Under Dr. Camden’s patient stare, information tended to tumble from Sue’s mouth
unfiltered, especially if she was nervous. As what Sue believed to be the
inevitable confrontation with Zeke grew closer, she didn’t want to chance
spilling anything that might provoke concern.

Even with her worries over Zeke,
Sue found she looked forward to the hours with Melvin. Her long-denied passion
awoke with a fury and they made love every night. He wasn’t insatiable like
Zeke, though. He seemed content with cuddling and conversation afterwards.
Also, unlike Zeke, Melvin didn’t try to pry into painful childhood memories,
although he seemed to enjoy hearing her talk about her exploits when growing
up.

Sue didn’t know whether Melvin
could tell, but she held back a part of her emotional self. He looked at her
with love in his eyes, a love she couldn’t return. Not yet. Inside, she roiled,
thrown from one intense state to another. The new romance with Melvin kept her
elated; the impending reunion with Zeke left her alternately shaking with fear
and resonating with a dreadful, dark excitement.

On Thursday morning, Melvin called
her at work, something he rarely did.

“Sue, can you come over to Will’s
office at lunch? We need to discuss something with you.”

Her heart began a slow, heavy
pounding, like a soft hammer against her chest. “What’s going on? Has something
happened?”

He was strangely reticent. “Just
come over, okay?”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “Are
you mad at me for something?”

“What?
Of course
not.”
His tone warmed slightly. “I’ll see you around
noon
, okay?”

She didn’t know him well enough to
read him, couldn’t guess what was going on. She called her parents’ home on a
pretext, just to make sure they were alright. They were. Swiveling in her
chair, she gazed out the window with unseeing eyes at cars rolling down the
street and through the parking lot. Could they have found out about her
internet searches?
Probably not.
It must be related to
Zeke in some way. But, if Zeke had been arrested, the call would have come from
Detective Sanders, not Melvin. No other ideas came to mind.

It was impossible to concentrate
the rest of the morning. By the time she pulled up in front of Will’s office,
her nerves sizzled and her forehead was damp.

“Come on back, Sue.” Will
gestured
toward his office. His smile revealed nothing and
failed to alleviate the mounting tension.

Inside, Melvin
waited,
an intense look on his face. “Hi, Sue.”

“Hi.” She lowered herself into one
of the chairs in front of the desk and cradled her purse on her lap. Her eyes
traveled from Will to Melvin.

Melvin spoke up. “You’re going to
be mad at me, so let’s get that part out of the way right up front.” He rubbed
his hands together in a nervous fashion.

Sue could tell he wanted his
inhaler. “Why would I be mad?” she asked.

“I told Will about the trip we have
planned this coming weekend.” The words came out in a rush.

“You what?
Why?” She clutched her purse, knuckles white.

“Because it came up in
conversation,” Will said. “I was sharing some information with him, information
that was just confirmed this morning by a law enforcement contact of mine.
That old school outside
Assaria
that was
on your itinerary?
Well, it burned down recently.”

Sue calmed a little and relaxed the
grip on her bag, still unsure of the point of this conversation. “Burned down?
So we can’t go there anyway.”

“There’s more.” Melvin tipped his head
toward Will. “Just listen. Please.”

Will sat on the corner of his desk,
looked Sue in the eye. “They found two bodies in the ashes.
A
man and a woman.
The woman has been identified through dental records to
be a young librarian from
Merlington
,
Missouri, named Anna Blythe. She was
reported missing months ago. At the time, her family thought she was abducted,
taken against her will. But that may not be the case.”

Sue sat perfectly still, intent on
Will’s words, even though she recognized the name.

“The man hasn’t been identified,”
Will’s voice was gentle, “but I have reason to believe the remains are Zeke’s.”

A wave of dizziness hit Sue and she
put her hands to her head. Her purse fell heavily to the floor. “Zeke’s dead?”
Her voice trembled. She closed her eyes until her equilibrium returned.

“That’s good news though, right?”
Melvin interjected.

Sue ignored him and focused on
Will. “How do you know it’s Zeke?”

Will crossed his arms over his
chest and leaned back a little bit. “I
don’t
know for sure. In addition
to the bodies, there was a partially burned vehicle found in the rubble.
A van.”
He reached for a file in the middle of his desk and
opened it.
“A white 2005 GMC
Savana
cargo van.
Stolen from Wichita, Kansas
last November and tagged with a stolen Nevada
license plate.”

Sue sat stunned, disbelieving.

“A lot of the stuff inside the van
survived the fire. There was a mattress in back and a small ice chest between
the front bucket seats. Sound familiar?”

With a shaky breath, Sue nodded.
“Did they find a laptop or camera?
Anything like that?”

“No, but there
were signs that the couple had been living out of the vehicle.
Dirty
clothes, empty fast food bags,
the
like.”

Sue sniffled. “Still, it doesn’t
mean it was Zeke.”

“You’re right. But they found
fingerprints on the steering wheel, Sue, and they match the ones from the crime
scenes in Four Falls
and from the church and the van left behind it in St.
Louis. Although they still don’t know Zeke’s real
name, they do know that the same person who killed Brenda was also in this
particular van. The DNA profile will take a while longer, but the fingerprint
evidence is solid. This is all very preliminary; they’re not finished
reconstructing the scene. But it looks like the couple pulled the van into an
underground parking area at the school and then went up to the second floor,
perhaps to sleep. They set a fire in one of those little charcoal burners,
probably for warmth, and it got out of control as they slept. An accelerant was
used. They probably died from smoke inhalation before their bodies actually...”
He trailed off and shot a look at Melvin, who had paled. Talk of fire always
made him anxious. “Anyway, as the place burned, the floors collapsed onto the
van parked below, crushing the engine area but leaving the rest of it largely
intact. Why the vehicle never exploded, I can’t say. It was damp in the lower
part of the building; several inches of water covered the floor, so maybe that
played a role. At any rate, the people didn’t make it out alive.”

Sue’s eyes filled with tears. “The
body, did they take actual fingerprints from it?”

Will
cleared
his throat. “There wasn’t enough...let’s just say it wasn’t possible.”

“So, it’s over now.
Really over.”

“It looks that way. You’re finally
safe.” Melvin patted her shoulder awkwardly.

“All that preparation for nothing,”
she mumbled.

“What?” Will and Melvin sounded in
unison.

Her voice was thick; she refused to
meet their eyes. “I just mean, I took self defense training, learned how to
shoot, and all that. And it wasn’t even necessary.”

“Oh,” Will
said
.
“Well, those are good things to know. That kind of instruction is never
wasted.”

Sue bent down and fumbled for her
purse, lifted it onto her knees. She rubbed furiously at her eyes, and stood.
She turned to Melvin. “I’m not mad at you,” she said. “But I don’t feel well.
I’m going home.”

“Want me to drive you?” Melvin
stepped forward.

“Thank you, but no. I just want to
be alone.” She turned and fled before the tide of sorrow washed over her.

Melvin started to follow, but Will
put a hand on his arm. “Let her go, son. She needs a little time.”

“Someone should be with her,” he
protested.

“I don’t think so. Not yet.” Will’s
voice was quiet, but firm. “Take my advice on this. Give her some privacy and
call her later on today, after she’s had a chance to absorb all this.”

Melvin reluctantly agreed. He
pulled his inhaler from his pocket and used it for the first time in days.

In her car, Sue let the tears flow.
She rested her forehead on the steering wheel as hoarse sobs tore from her throat.
When she’d calmed down, she placed a call to her bosses and told them she was
ill and wouldn’t be back that afternoon. She forced herself to control her
emotions and updated them on the status of her work projects before hanging up.

Taking a circuitous route home, she
drove slowly past Re-Books, the used bookstore where she’d first laid eyes on
Zeke. He’d swept her away with his looks and charm.

The rude blare of a car horn behind
her urged her along. She sped up and headed to the little park where she and
Zeke had often met. She steered around the winding road, noting the picnic
table where they’d sat, the fountain that hadn’t been turned on yet this
season, the stone benches under the budding trees. The day was pleasant and
there were flocks of people enjoying the weather so she didn’t stop. Several
minutes later, she arrived at her apartment. Tears filled her eyes as she
locked her car and shuffled up the walk to the porch. She unlocked the front
door, not bothering to check her mail.

Inside, she turned the ringer off
on her phone and tossed it, along with her purse, onto the sofa. She marched
into the kitchen, pulled the rest of the wine out of the fridge, reached for a
glass, then changed her mind and guzzled directly from the bottle.

I should call my parents
.
She knew her dad would be relieved that her
kidnapper
was dead and gone.
Her mom would say what a shame it all was but that he’d got what he deserved.
That
much is true.

Sue conceded he got better than he
deserved, probably died peacefully in his sleep, rendered unconscious from the
smoke before the fiery flames consumed his body.
His body.
The body I craved, adored, practically worshipped.
The hands
that touched me.
And hurt me.
The eyes that set off
electric sparks under my skin.
And turned on me like ice.
The sensuous mouth that thrilled me.
And
belittled me.
His beloved
flesh,
all burned
away. Oh god.
She took another long pull on the wine, wiped her mouth with
the back of her hand, and stumbled blindly into the bedroom.

In her gut, there was relief. There
was a sense of grim justice, a fragile flutter of freedom. But there was also
the feeling of being cheated of her rightful destiny. Hers should have been the
hand that delivered death to her tormentor. And at the bottom of it all, there
was acute, awful grief.

Setting the wine bottle on her desk
with a dull clunk, Sue fell across the bed and wept until no more tears came.
Numbness set in after a fashion and she rested for a long while in its
comforting embrace. Gradually she drifted into an uneasy slumber.

She woke near
midnight
and struggled to wakefulness. Her room was dark
and a great heaviness lay over her heart. Disoriented, she sat up and rubbed
her eyes. Then the knowledge of Zeke’s death crept into her awareness and she
cried out in fresh pain. Staggering to the bathroom, Sue relieved herself,
washed her hands, and splashed cold water in her face. Her eyes were swollen
and the wine had given her a headache.

Gripping the sides of the sink, she
swayed a little under the onslaught of sorrow, but no more tears would come.
The anguish lodged itself somewhere in her chest, making it difficult to
breathe. The feeling grew worse and she began gasping for air.

She hurried to the sofa, grabbed
her phone, turned it on, and hit the speed-dial button for Dr. Camden. When she
reached the answering service, her final shred of composure broke and the
operator could barely understand her. Finally she got the salient points across
and hung up. She paced the room several times, pulling the collar of her shirt
away from her throat. A moment later her phone rang and Dr. Camden’s sleepy but
comforting voice was on the other end.

“Susan? What’s going on?”

“I think I’m dying!” Sue choked out
the words. “I can’t breathe and my heart feels like it’s going to explode.”

“Have you taken anything, any
medication,
drugs
?”

“No! I’m just...I found out
today...Zeke’s dead!”

“Okay. Listen to me, now. You’re
not dying. You’re having a panic attack, Sue. You need to breathe; we’re going
to breathe together. Listen to me. Take a deep breath. Come on, now. I’ll
breathe with you.
In...slowly
, and now out, slowly
now. Let’s do it again...”

Sue gripped the phone, held onto
the doctor’s words like a lifeline, and did as instructed. The shadows around
the edges of her vision began to recede. Her pulse slowed.

“There we go. That’s better now,
isn’t it?” Dr. Camden asked.

“Yes. I think so.” Sue gave a
quivering sigh.

“Let’s just take it nice and slow,
talk about this a while. So, you got some news today and it upset you. Tell me
what happened.”

“They found some bodies in a burned
building and they think one of them is Zeke’s.”

“What brought them to that
conclusion?”

Sue explained everything Will had
told her and the doctor encouraged her every so often with a short question or
murmur of understanding. By the time she’d finished, Sue’s breathing was back
to normal and her pulse had stabilized.

“Do you have someone who can
come
stay with you?” Dr. Camden asked.

“I don’t want to be around anyone,”
Sue replied. “I only called you because I thought I was having a heart attack.
I guess it would have made more sense to call 911.”

“They may have been the better
choice in case you had been having an M.I., but I’m glad you called me, Sue.
I’m going to rearrange my schedule to fit you in tomorrow. In fact, why don’t
you plan to be at my office at eight in the morning? I think that would work
best. My first appointment isn’t until eight-thirty, and I can move that out to
allow us more time, if needed.”

“Okay. And thank you.”

“Look, you’ve hit a rough patch but
you’ll get past it. We’ll talk it over tomorrow. For now, I really wish you’d
call someone to stay with you through the night.
A
girlfriend.
Melvin.
Or maybe your parents.”

“No, really.
I’m better now. I think the worst has passed. It’s like you said; I just
panicked.”

They hung up and Sue crawled back
into bed, exhausted by the force of her emotions. Hugging her pillow, she
drifted in and out of troubled slumber. Sometime during the night she awoke to
realize she’d been crying in her sleep; her cheeks and pillow were wet. As the
pink light of dawn seeped around her window shades, she dragged herself into
the shower and stood under the hot spray until the water turned cool.

After she’d dressed, she sat at her
small kitchen table with a cup of hot cocoa in front of her. She didn’t have
the energy or desire to bother with her hair and it hung in damp ringlets. Her
drink grew cold as she stared at the wall, still stunned. A little after seven she
roused herself and called in sick again, leaving a message on the office voice
mail. Then she brushed through her hair and pulled it back into a clip.

She was calm when she reached Dr.
Camden’s office.

“The first thing I want to do is
apologize for bothering you last night,” Sue told her as she settled into the
chair. “I don’t know why I was so out of control.”

“You were in a fragile state. It’s
okay that you called me.” The doctor pulled out her pad and picked up a pen.
“How are you feeling today?”

“I don’t know.
Just
kind of numb inside.
No, that’s not exactly right. It’s like there’s
heavy weight pressing down on me.”

“That’s grief.”

“Grief?
Why should I mourn him? He was a poor excuse for a human being, mean,
disgusting. It wouldn’t be normal to grieve for someone like that. It’s just
that I wasn’t expecting it to end this way.”

Dr. Camden raised her brows. “How
did you expect it would end?”

Sue took a deep breath. There was
no need for secrecy anymore. “I thought
I’d
kill him.”

“I see.”

Sue stared at the doctor, looking
for some sign of outrage. There was none. She continued, “I thought he’d come
after me and I’d have to shoot him.”

“That was a possibility, I
suppose.”

Sue grew bolder. “In fact, I did
internet searches, trying to find him. I had visions of hunting him down.” She
looked nervously at the doctor from under her lashes. “Are you shocked by
that?”

“Many people who have survived
abuse dream of killing their abusers, having the power of life and death over
their tormentors.” The doctor looked at her. “When the abuser dies prematurely,
it can create a dilemma because of the perceived lack of resolution.”

“Exactly!
It’s unfinished business. What is my purpose now?” Sue twisted the hem of her
shirt in one hand; then, when she realized what she was doing, she forced
herself to stop.

“I said
perceived
lack of
resolution. There are other means to resolution, Sue.” Dr. Camden made a quick
note.

“Like what?”

“Ultimately that’s for you to
decide. But one thing you should do is allow yourself to grieve, not just his
death, but also the end to your fantasies of revenge.”

“It wasn’t revenge,” Sue corrected
her. “It was
justice
. It was like a responsibility or something, an
important duty. I needed to be the one to wipe him off the face of the earth.
Okay, maybe there was an element of vengeance there. But it was so much nobler
than that. It was a mission, my mission.”

“The truth is, Sue, that what you
are talking about is vigilantism. It’s dangerous. More than that, it’s illegal.
Was he worth going to prison over?”

“Prison?”
Sue shook her head as if to clear it.

“You’re not above the law, no
matter how justifiable his killing would have been.”

Sue’s eyes filled with tears. “I
never even thought of it that way.
It’s
bad enough he
wrecked my life to the extent he did. What a sad joke it would have been if I’d
ended up spending the rest of it behind bars for killing him.”

“It’s a moot point now,” Dr. Camden
said dryly. “He’s gone and your life will only be wrecked if you allow it to
be. How you handle your future is up to you, and no one but you.”

Sue’s head cleared with a jolt. “It
is
up to me, isn’t it?”

“It is, if you decide to step up
and take charge of it. This incident might prompt you to reexamine your thought
processes, evaluate your internal environment. I think this could be the
impetus for a reordering of your perspectives. What do you think?”

“I’ll admit I’ve been clinging to
unhealthy notions.
Actually wallowing in thoughts that
weren’t good for me.
You have no idea.”