The Alignment (12 page)

I try to clear my head and relax when I hear her emerge from the bathroom and go into the bedroom. I’m holding my breath as I entertain the image of walking in there, pulling her against me, and kissing her hard. Something tells me she would kiss me back, and it wouldn’t have to end there. I’ll allow these thoughts for now. But when I wake up in the morning, I will forbid them.

The fantasy plays itself out in my mind, and I don’t stop it. Common sense makes a good argument, distracting me with the image of my likely swift rejection, but I shove it aside to watch the vision continue. My repressed sexuality is like a wild animal, clawing viciously at a newly weakened spot in its cage. Suddenly, she’s in the room with me, wearing my flannel robe, carrying a pillow which she drops on the couch next to me. I sit on my hands.

“How did you move that bureau by yourself the other night?” I ask, in desperate need of something else to occupy my mind.

She studies my face a moment before she answers. “It wasn’t easy.”

“You just pushed it?”

“I had to use the bed for leverage. Then once I got it budged, I squeezed between it and the wall and pushed it more.”

It doesn’t seem possible. Her body is so small. I find myself laughing. “What are you, five foot three? About a hundred twenty?”

She gives me a look. “Something like that.” She cinches the robe tighter around her waist. “Sorry, but I forgot my robe at home. All that stuff I just brought and—”

“That’s okay.” It should not be such a challenge to avert my eyes. I never had this problem before. She turns toward the kitchen, but I can’t let it go. “What made you move it? You just woke up and wanted out of the room?”

She doesn’t answer right away. I can see her going over that night in her head, deciding how much she should tell me. I’ll just have to keep after her until I get all I want.

“I heard noises on the roof. I started to hide in the closet, but then, I don’t know. I was compelled to get out. I don’t really know why.” She sits down at the opposite end of the couch, folding one leg underneath her.

“And then you went outside?” I try not to notice how the robe rode up her leg when she sat down.

“Yes. I went outside and walked straight to you. I felt a strong…” She lowers her eyes for a moment. “River was there.”

“You weren’t afraid?” I look away, but her image remains etched on my retinas, feeding a continuous transmission to my brain.

“No. You needed help. You were lying in a pool of blood. I couldn’t tell where you were hurt, and I took a big risk moving you. You could have broken your neck.” She exhales hard, like this risk weighed on her more than it should have. I’d think she’d be glad to see my sorry ass half-dead on the ground.

“Did you see anyone else?”

“Yes, I checked on him too. He was already dead.”

Good thing she wasn’t out there when I cut his throat. But I don’t know why it matters. She obviously knows what I did, and knows I’m not ashamed of it. What surprises me most is her willingness to hang out with a murderer. Her tea-induced promise of secrecy only covered what had happened before it. An oversight, since she was free to leak future events like me killing someone in my backyard. Most people would have run screaming to the police. “Why didn’t you turn me in?”

“Turn you in for what?” She furrows her brow, genuinely wondering what I mean.

“Murder.”

“Hmm,” she answers without breaking eye contact. “I just didn’t think of it that way. I guess I probably should have. I guess I still can. Where’s the phone?”

There’s that spunk. I knew she still had it in her. Her eyes light up playfully, and my body aches to touch hers. My restrained hands slide out from under me on their own. With only a few feet of space separating us, all I’d have to do is slide toward her—

“Is there any way I could convince you to come to the clinic tomorrow to get a CT scan?”

“It’s not necessary.”

“You bled a lot out of your right ear.”

“I’m not worried about it,” I say, hoping she sees my dismissal. Maybe I should just explain it to her.

She rolls her eyes, an action that would have been like a splinter under a fingernail to me three days ago. I watch her for a moment, fascinated by this new tolerance for a woman so repulsive to me before. Tolerance? Fuck it. Who am I kidding? It’s more like infatuation. Pushing every sexual button I have.

When she raises her eyebrows in response to my stare, I return us to the subject. “How did you get me into the house?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that. You’re never going to believe it if I tell you.”

“Try me.”

She looks at her hands in her lap. “I rolled you onto a tarp that I found in the garage. I tried to pull you inside, but you were too heavy. I went back to the garage to look for something to help me, and when I got back to you River was there, along with some coyotes, and they dragged you all the way to the door.” She looks up at me and shrugs.

I can’t hold back my laughter.

She turns away. “See, I knew you’d think it was ridiculous. It was probably all a hallucination anyway. So, I really don’t know how I got you in the house.” Noticing her exposed leg, she pulls the robe down to cover her bare skin.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you. I just think it’s funny they did that.”

She continues on her own, probably wanting to move away from the subject of the coyotes. “And then, somehow, I got you in here. It took me forever to clean you up. You were a mess. By the time I was finished, I was exhausted, and I fell asleep.”

She cuts off there, looking away as she runs her hand through her hair.

I knew it. “You fell asleep on the floor?”

“Yes.” She looks back at me with a challenge in her eyes.

Like a coward, I refuse to accept her challenge. I know I’m teetering on the edge of losing self-control, and I can’t trust myself anymore. Not tonight.

“Guess I owe you” is all I can muster.

“I didn’t find out about your back until later. It was pretty bad at first. But the next day…” She squints at something only she can see.

I remain quiet, still unable to collect my thoughts. A long moment of silence passes.

“Why are they trying to kill you?” she asks.

“They aren’t trying to kill me,” I answer without thinking.

She raises her eyebrows in disbelief.

“It’s a long story.” That would feel so good to unload. But not tonight. Not ever. I need to ground myself and restore my self-discipline before I make any more foolish mistakes.

Chapter 15

Trey

W
hen the alarm
goes off, I’m already wide awake. The buzzer’s throbbing rhythm pounds my brain, still fuzzy from a night of fitful dozing through thoughts I couldn’t turn off. Hopefully she’ll be safe going to work and coming home by herself. She’ll think I’m crazy if I suggest escorting her, and that will make two of us. After a full night of asking myself why I care whether she lives or dies, I still don’t have an answer.

Too much to do today, on not enough sleep. It isn’t the first time. I get up and take a shower. I pull her car out of the garage and load up my truck with the stuff I’ll need for the day. I leave before she wakes up. A day without her will give me the chance to recoup and find my sanity again. Or, my insanity, depending on how you look at it.

I stop by the gas station. Fuel up, grab a newspaper, a couple bananas, and coffee. My old routine is a welcome friend. Strange looks and wary eyes meet me everywhere I go due to my busted cheek and cut up throat, but it’s not anything I haven’t experienced before. At least it gives people a good reason not to talk to me.

When I arrive at my first job, the foreman slaps me on the back in a greeting. I had forgotten about my wounded back until then. The bitterness of the reminder makes me feel like myself again. Two billed hours of wiring go by and before I know it, I’m taking one last look at my finished work. On my way back to my truck, I run into Wayne carrying some lumber so I drop my stuff to help him.

“Trey, man! How’s your lady friend?”

“Real funny, Wayne.”

“Always the ladies’ man, never wants to brag.”

“I don’t know who these ladies are you’re always going on about.” Wayne seems to think I get a lot more action than I do.

I head back to my truck. As I turn the key in the ignition, I check the clock on the dash. She’ll be at work now. Not that it matters.

Next job is the Lietz place. On the way there it starts to rain. Mrs. Lietz answers the door as I’m shaking the water out of my hair.

“Oh dear, you’re all wet. Let me get you a towel.”

“No need. I’ve got the parts for your toilet.”

She takes me to the guest bathroom and hovers in the doorway while I get to work.

“What in heaven’s name happened to your eye?” Attempted concern, covering good old-fashioned nosiness.

“Just a little car accident. No big deal.”

This is the part I hate about the small jobs. Dealing with customers who think they’re paying me to have a conversation with them instead of do what I’m there to do. In the beginning, I took these jobs to keep me busy. The same rule applies—busy is exactly what I need to be right now. Suck it up.

“Oh, well I hope you went to the hospital. You know you’re always hearing about folks who get head injuries and don’t go to the hospital and twenty-four hours later they’re dead.”

“Yep.” Real uplifting conversation. And she figured it out, without realizing there was anything to figure out. She also managed to return my thoughts to the woman who took care of me while I slept off that head injury.

I ignore her. After awhile she wanders away. The job is a pain in the ass, of course. I find three problems to fix instead of just the one. Sometimes I wonder if these people break stuff on purpose just to get me out here to entertain them. And she’s got her heat cranked up to at least eighty degrees so by the time I’m done I’m sweating like I’m back in Phoenix digging ditches in July. But I shouldn’t complain—the aggravation is good for me. It makes me feel right again.

Walking to the door, I holler to Mrs. Lietz to tell her I’ll send her a bill. I hear her start to get up and walk me out but I’m already out the door before she can corner me.

It’s pouring now. One of those heavy, constant, cleansing rains that turns the earth to mush, fills the creeks and seems to go on all day. And will. I sit in my truck and eat my leftover potatoes, zucchini, and beans, watching the water roll down the windshield, trying my hardest not to wonder what she’s doing right at this moment.

No doubt the roofing job is off for today, but I swing by the site just to let them know I haven’t ditched them. A couple of other guys show up too, and we stand under the porch for a few minutes discussing whether it’s going to let up. My prediction wouldn’t be any more accurate to them than their own.

“So Bevan, what’s the other guy look like?”

I laugh. If they only knew.

“Man, I’d never take you for a brawler, you’re always so chill.”

“You always catch me in a good mood.” I could laugh so they think I’m joking, but I don’t.

“Hey, we’re going out for drinks later on, you should join us.”

I tell them I have some stuff to take care of.

“Oh yeah? Blonde or brunette?” They all laugh but I have a hard time joining in.

My next job is a one-hour drive out of town. I try to use the time to figure out how I’m going to get her out of my house without getting her killed, but the more I think about it, the more impossible it seems. She’s already in too deep. If I’d just finished her off that night instead of falling asleep, this would all be behind me, and I wouldn’t know the difference. I’d have been out of the house when my most recent visitor came and would’ve missed a good fight. But at least it would be done. I’d have my house and my life back.

Conjecture is pointless though, especially in hindsight. The smallest, most trivial change of events could cause a drastic change in the result. If I’d been five minutes later and hadn’t spotted the gray Acura that day I would have never turned to follow it, and never run into Liv Gilchrist. And it’s not always a change for the better. If Liv hadn’t been able to push that bureau they could have gotten to me before she did. Then where would I be? In hell. And not much of a man anymore.

When I arrive at the site, I find them short a few guys, so I offer to take up some of the slack because that’s what I would’ve done two weeks ago before I had someone living in my house. It’s construction work on a large grocery store, and today they’re installing the commercial freezers. Good hard labor, the kind that promises to wear me out so I can sleep. There will be no need to run off excess energy tonight. And with no familiar faces, there’s no one to bug me or stir up my mind any more than it already is.

Before I know it, it’s late, and I still have the commute home. I drive through the hard rain, feeling good, like my old self has settled back into my bones. I pull up to the house. Her car is missing. I squash my disappointment. I should be glad to have the house to myself.

The rain soaks me on my walk to the door. A light shines inside, and I curse aloud. She’s at the kitchen table, already changed out of her scrubs. Cold sandwiches prepared on the counter, a plate set out for me like I do for her.

She looks up at me in the doorway. “I waited for you, but I got hungry and wasn’t sure when you’d be here.”

I avoid her eye. “You don’t need to wait for me.” She’s filled the fridge door with yogurt, the kind I buy. I take two and put them on the table. “Where’s your car?”

Her face shows no emotion. “I put it in the garage.”

I should have stayed gone longer. I pour some scotch, grab the newspaper, and sit down. Between bites, I flip pages, reading nothing.

She washes her plate, stalling at the counter. I wonder what’s taking her so long. Maybe she’ll go back into the living room when she’s done. Instead, she takes her seat at the table again.

“I can’t stay here much longer.” Her voice sounds drained.

I have nothing to say to that. I stare at the paper. Wind knocks against the house, creaking the door in its frame and throwing a sheet of rain against the window. “What do you expect me to do.” It’s really not a question.

“You said you would figure it out.”

“Yeah, well I’m trying.”

“It’s not good enough. The only thing I can do is go to the police. Because if I just go home and try to forget all of this happened, some strange people are going to kill me. I could go back to Chicago, but then I have to give up the house I bought here, and my job. Not very practical, is it.”

I know I shouldn’t, but I look at her. I feel myself slipping. I need to focus. “Be patient.”

She raises her voice. “Patient for how long?”

My voice rises in response. “It’s not that easy to sort this out. It’s going to take time.”

“You don’t have a plan!”

“I have a plan, it’s just not a plan you’re going to like. I’m working on a better one. It takes time.” I unclench my jaw. I really need to relax. I take a long drink, lean back in my seat, and fold my arms across my chest. Her lips…

“What’s your plan?”

I close my eyes. Stretch my neck to the left, to the right.
Shake yourself out of it, dumbass
. “I’m going to leave. I’d been planning to leave anyway. Just have some things I need to wrap up first. Once I’m gone, you can go back to your normal life.”

“If you’re leaving, I’ll be alone here. So what’s the difference if I just go back to my house now?”

“By the time I leave, they aren’t going to be interested in you anymore.”

“Why not?” She’s standing now.

I imagine running my thumb over her bottom lip. There’s nothing stopping me from getting up and doing it right now. I stand. My hands are not my hands. She holds my gaze, lips parted. If arguing with her is going to feel like foreplay from now on, I’m a dead man. Without a word, she pushes past me and disappears into the living room, leaving a palpable disturbance of air. I hold up my hands and stare at them. Maybe I should get that CT scan. But brain damage isn’t my concern—I’ve lost my mind altogether.

I clean up the kitchen and find her on the couch in the living room with a book in her lap. Her loose hair is pulled to one side, hanging against her chest, exposing the back of her neck and a hint of shoulder that damn wide collar is doing nothing to hide. I take a step forward but press my palm against the wall to stop myself. I’m in a virtual wind tunnel with the full force of the wind hitting me from behind. I swivel my feet in slow motion, as if they were mired in wet concrete. To turn from her, to get the hell away.

I force my legs down the basement stairs toward my herb books. If I find something else to soothe her stomach, she’ll be more comfortable and more patient. Standing at my workbench, flipping through my books, I struggle to keep focused on the pages in front of me and not the woman upstairs. I find some options and bookmark them, now very annoyed by my lucid intensity. Any other day, I’d drink myself stupid and pass out on the couch. I set the books on the stairs and pull off my shirt. A quick hard workout should do the trick.

I hang on the pull-up bar from my knees and do sit-ups until I feel the strain. Pull-ups follow, draining my arms and shoulders but the full-on fatigue I need never comes. Gloves go on. I box and kick the hell out of my heavy bag. Most of the time it’s a poor substitute for human flesh and bone. Tonight is no exception.

Still pulsing with energy that seems indifferent to this exertion, I load up my barbell with weights. Squats, dead lifts, and finally I’m about to break. Although physically tired, I still feel wound-up, but it will wear off. I grab my shirt and the books and climb the stairs. My wadded shirt sails from my hand into the laundry room, and when I turn around she’s standing right in front of me.

She steps around me to the cabinet and reaches for the chamomile tea, so I go for the fridge and chug a glass of milk. When I lower the glass, she’s watching me.

I clear my throat. “I found some other options. For a stomach remedy. Something that isn’t as strong as the last one.”

She shakes her head.

I throw my hands in the air. “You are impossible. Suffer all you want.”

“It went away.”

I turn back to her. “It went away? When?” Intrigue is not a strong enough word for what I feel now, possibly because it seems like decades have passed since I’ve felt intrigued by anything at all.

“The night you got hurt. All of sudden, it just stopped.”

Sweat runs into my eyes, so I wipe my face with the kitchen towel and throw it in the laundry room. “Do you remember
exactly
when it stopped?” I wonder if that’s what brought her out of unconsciousness.

“Yes. I heard noises on the roof, and I was trying to find the trapdoor in the closet so I could hide. Then it just stopped.”

“And?”

“And I pushed the bureau so I could get out of the room.”

“Did you still hear noises on the roof?”

She watches me like someone does when they’re having a phone conversation with one person while trying to carry on a simultaneous conversation with another. “No, the noises had stopped. I heard something fall off the house. That was probably you.” She closes her eyes. Opens them again to look straight back into mine.

I’m not used to all this eye contact from her. “And your stomach pain just stopped after I fell off the roof?”

“Yeah. I think so. Why?”

Her words take a moment to reach me, like something important has happened and my brain’s just catching up. So, she wakes up, hears our combat on the roof, goes for the trapdoor, I fall, her nausea disappears, and she decides to get out of the room.

“Just curious.” Her collarbone is a work of art. She shouldn’t wear that wide-necked shirt.

“Well it’s pretty amazing, because I feel so much better, it’s almost like I was never sick in the first place.” She smiles, her eyes lighting up.

God, I can’t concentrate around her anymore. I have to get out of here. Leaving her in the kitchen, I head to the bathroom. The shower calms me. I stand and let the water roll down me, trying to clear my mind yet again. I’m putting a lot of effort into keeping a clear head and it’s dominating my mental resources. I can’t repeat the past and must do everything in my power to make sure of that. I have to think of a way to get her out of my house. The only problem now is it’s impossible for me to kill her. I know I couldn’t do it, whether I wanted to or not.

I put on a clean T-shirt and some flannel pants and stop to stare at my face in the mirror. It seems lately my old wounds don’t have time to heal before I rack up new ones. They must be really worried about her. They have definitely stepped it up. And now I’m worried too. She’s withdrawn inside the bedroom so I go straight to the couch and fall sleep.