The Comfort of Black (14 page)

“Ms. Parks is wanted for questioning in conjunction with an embezzlement charge.”

“
What?
”

“Ma'am, everything will be explained at the station. Now I need you both to come with—”

It happened in an instant. Hannah didn't even see Black move. All she saw was his body slamming into the cop, knocking him onto the ground. The cop reached for his gun but had no chance. Black removed it, held it by the barrel, and slammed the butt into the man's forehead. The cop shouted and reached for Black's arm, grasping for the weapon.

Hannah stared at the men struggling on the ground, and her instinct was to do
something
. She could kick. She could scream for help. She could stomp on the face of her enemy. But who the hell was her enemy? The cop? Black? Or maybe she should just run. Run and keep running. Stopping only when either her legs or her heart gave out, when she was at the point where nothing mattered anymore.

A gun spilled onto the ground, the metal and plastic clacking on the concrete. It was Black's gun, and it must have fallen out in the struggle. The cop, still struggling despite the blow to his head, seized the weapon. At this point, everything Hannah saw happened frame by frame, like a child thumbing the pages of a flip-book, making the animated figure dance.

The cop moved his arm from the ground. The gun in his hand slowly turned toward the man on top of him.

Black darted his eyes and saw the threat. Hannah saw a flash of something move over his face. Resolve. Decision. Instinct.

In one smooth movement, Black spun the cop's gun in his hand so it was no longer the barrel in his hand but the butt of the gun. Then, as easily as if stapling up a string of Christmas lights, Black pushed the tip of the gun hard against the cop's chest and fired.

The explosion was deafening.

This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't—

Black sprang from the ground and grabbed her by the hand. “Come on!” he yelled. He yanked her arm so hard it pulled the darkness away, but not the disorientation. She saw people come into the alleyway. A woman screamed. Another woman yelled for someone to call 9-1-1. A young man just stood and stared, his Seattle Mariners cap crooked on his head, his t-shirt displaying the image of
a jack-o'-lantern with blood coming from its eyes. He lifted a white phone in the unmistakable gesture of
I'm capturing this on video
.

Hannah ran.

Black's car sat in a surface lot three blocks from where a cop was shot. They reached the sedan without anyone following them, and as they sped through downtown, Hannah stared out the window. Buildings lasted just moments in her field of vision before vanishing. Pedestrians were little more than plastic toy figurines set upon a city canvas play set. Beams of sunlight burst through holes in the clouds, spotlighting large swaths of street and structure.

She spoke first. “You shot him. No matter what happens now, we're criminals. You shot a
cop
.”

Black kept his focus on the road. “Hannah, listen to me carefully, okay? Yes, I shot him, but I knew what I was doing. I didn't hurt him, at least not badly. He had a vest on, and I shot into it. He's probably got a couple of broken ribs, but that's it.”

Relief passed through her, and she tried to suppress it, hesitant to believe him. She wanted to ask him if he was sure, but she knew Black's answer would be
of course I'm sure
.

“But you still shot a cop,” she said. “That's a problem.”

“That wasn't a cop.”

“How do you know?”

“His shield was phony. Also, any street cop would have a radio on him, and he didn't.”

“So who was he?”

“Had to be working for your husband,” Black said. “I have no idea how they knew where to find us. Maybe a second tracker on the van I didn't find, though I looked pretty carefully.”

Was it possible Dallin had some kind of army scouting for Hannah? It was hard enough to believe Dallin had turned into
the monster he now seemed to be, but the logistics of his efforts to find her seemed like something out of a Cold War spy novel.

“That man said I was accused of embezzlement,” Hannah said. “If he was planning to kidnap me, why would be even say something like that? I mean, what does that even mean?”

Black made another left and Hannah spotted the sign for the interstate a block away.

“There's a script,” Black said. “Contingency plans. When they failed to abduct you yesterday, they went to Plan B. Pose as cops. Tell you you're under arrest, get you to come with them. They probably thought that would be enough to get me to let go of you, but they were wrong. But now we have more problems. I did shoot someone, and there were witnesses. A video will surface of the shooting, and both our faces will be on it. And that embezzlement thing? My guess is your husband's company managed a way to make that a real accusation against you, and if you go to the police you'll have to deal with that.”

“You have an answer for everything,” Hannah said.

“It makes sense, and it's what I would do if I were him. I'd make sure if Plan A failed, you'd have no safe harbor. Start building a story so if you came out against me, you would immediately have credibility issues.”

The car started to close in on Hannah, shrinking smaller around her, suffocating her. She rolled down her window, but the rushing air whipping her face didn't help.

“I can't do this,” she said. “I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in this car. I just need to stop and think for a few minutes.”

Her chest tightened, and despite the chill in the air, her face flushed with a flu-like heat. Saliva suddenly started filling her mouth.

“Hannah, I don't see how stopping the—”

“Please, just let me out.”

“Hannah, I'm not your enemy. You have to understand—”

“
Stop the fucking car!
”

Black said nothing for a moment and then swerved the car over to the curb, earning a blast of the horn from the person he'd just cut off. Black turned down a side street flanked by industrial buildings and warehouses, stopping in front a shop with a weathered metal sign reading
Amco Import Repairs
.

Hannah flung the door open, stood on wobbly legs, then bent over and dry-heaved onto the asphalt of the parking lot. She retched twice before catching her breath. Acid burned her throat, but she managed not to vomit. She stood to find Black staring at her. If he was sympathetic, she didn't read it on his face.

“I know your world is rocked,” he said. “But this isn't the time to reflect on that. This is the time to keep moving.”

She wiped her dry mouth with the back of her hand.

“I don't trust you,” she said. Then she added, “I don't trust anyone right now.”

“Hannah, I can't wait here while you figure it out. I need to keep moving.”

Hannah looked around. She didn't welcome the idea of being stranded here.

“I don't have a wallet,” she said. “Or phone.”

“Yeah, I know. Which is why I wasn't just planning to abandon you. But that's what you want, so here you go. I'll even give you some cash.”

Hannah looked around at the unfamiliar buildings, and as she did, memories of the past twenty-four hours flashed through her mind. She saw them as if they were sloppily stitched together in some grainy, out-of-focus movie, the scenes short and the storyline incomprehensible yet jolting.

She saw Dallin, his face so different than the man she knew. A mannequin.

I'm doing this for you
.

Then the smell of bacon. The sunlight streaming through the trees in some swath of woods unknown to her. The voice of Black.

I help people disappear. That's what I do
.

The bullets splintering the wood, the smell of morning air mixed with her own sweat. The coppery smell of blood smeared on her face. Concussive thumps against the bare metal floor of the van as Black drove them away.

She looked up at Black and wanted desperately for him to be one of the good guys.

“I don't know what to do,” she said. “Can you understand that?”

Black held up his hands to her. “Of course I do, Hannah. But you have a choice to make, and it needs to happen now. You can walk right now. Walk away. I'm sure you can find someone who will let you use their phone. Then you can go to the police and take your chances. You can tell them everything you know about me. About what happened to you with your husband. I have no idea what will happen to you, but I have a lot of experience dealing with people who have shitty lives. My guess is you'll wind up dead. If not in the next few days, then certainly within a year.” His voice grew in volume as he pointed to the distant buildings of downtown Seattle. “That fake cop back there? You'll probably be seeing him again.”

A siren wailed in the distance. A few seconds later a second siren joined, both punctuated by the deep bass of a fire engine's horn.

“I can't stay,” Black said, thumbing in the direction of the sound. “I shot a man back there and that's no small problem for me. I need to keep driving, and you can either come with me or stay here. I want to help you, but I'm done insisting.”

Black didn't wait for an answer before he began walking back around the car. Hannah stood there with his words—his anger—in her head, and she couldn't help but flash back to Billy, the yelling, the insults. The disdain for her existence, a disdain Hannah never understood.

“I'm not helpless,” she said just as Black opened the car door.

“What?”

“I said I'm not helpless.”

She heard her father's voice in her head. So many years of being called a rube, a good-for-nothing, and, the worst of all, a follower.
Little Hannie, just doin' what the cool kids tell her to do. You gonna end up pregnant by sixteen and that's prob'ly for the best
.

Black folded his arms onto the roof of the car. “You have to do what you think is best, Hannah. All I'm saying is I'm leaving right now, and if you're coming with me you need to move.”

Black climbed into the car.

Hannah reached for the door handle. She was wary of following, but was swept in a current she couldn't seem to swim against.

She scanned the car as Black drove. Spotless. No stray receipts on the floor, no water bottle in the cup holder, not a single pet hair on the upholstery. The car was as unadorned as the cabin had been. It served a function, but that was it.

“Can this car be tracked?” she asked.

“No.”

“I thought the van couldn't either.”

He shot her a look but said nothing.

“I want to use your phone,” Hannah said.

“Who do you want to call?”

Anyone
, she thought.
Everyone
. Call the police, tell them everything that happened. Call Dallin and give him a hearty
fuck you, I'm still alive
. Call—

“My sister.”

“Who you called back at the cabin?”

“Yes. I have no idea if she got my last message. I mean, if they do anything to her family…”

“Is that your only sibling?”

“Yes.”

“Where does she live?”

“Nearby.”

He let out a deep sigh. “I wouldn't be surprised if they have her line monitored. Or someone watching her house. Better not make contact. At least not yet. Let's get a little distance first.”

“So we're just going to drive?”

“Yes, for now.”

“You haven't even asked me why my husband is trying to…” What word did she want to use?
Kidnap? Murder?
“Hurt me.”

“Do
you
even know?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Not really. That's almost the worst part of all of this. I think he's…I don't even know exactly what he is. He seems to have some kind of sexual fetish. He said something in his sleep, and then I found something on his computer. When I confronted him on it, he flipped out. Shoved me against the wall.
Choked
me.”

Black didn't seem fazed by the information. “Has he ever done anything like that before? Anything violent?”

“No. Never. It came out of nowhere.”

“Maybe he's worried about you divorcing him and taking half of his money.”

This couldn't be about Dallin wanting to avoid a costly divorce. It had to be about something else.

She said, “When we met at the hotel, he wrote something down on a piece of paper. He wrote ‘I'm doing this for you.' He showed it to me for just a second and then took the paper away. After that, the other guy came in and things went bad quickly. But that keeps sticking with me. Dallin was trying to tell me something.”

“What do you think he was trying to tell you?”

“I don't know,” she said. “The night he had the dream, before he spoke in his sleep, he told me he was sorry, and I didn't know what for. I asked but he didn't answer. It's like there are little pieces of the Dallin I used to know still in him, trying to connect with me. But other than that, it's like he's a different person.” Then she shook her head. “It's not just that. He
is
a different person.”

“People change,” Black said. “Especially when they become successful.”

“Not like this,” she said. She looked over and glanced at his ringless fingers. “I'm guessing you aren't married?”

“No.” His stare was fixed straight ahead, and he squinted against dull sunlight. “I was once,” he added.

“Did you leave her or did she leave you?”

He glanced away from her. “She left me.”

“How long were you married?”

“She died the day after our fourth anniversary.”

It wasn't the answer Hannah expected. “God, I'm sorry.” She knew better than to ask what happened, though she was curious. Black was no older than forty, she guessed. So his wife had died young. An early case of cancer? Or was it something sudden and tragic? Maybe something violent relating to Black's line of work?