The Comfort of Black (18 page)

“Then I hear Kyle behind me. Says, ‘C'mon man, let's go.' Guess that was his conscience coming into play. But that was his only effort to stop me, to do something sensible, and I figured that's about as much as I would have made if it were him instead of me. Because deep down, he wanted what I wanted. He just didn't want to see me get into trouble. But I knew he was thinking,
Do it. Do it, man
. Because that's just who we were. All of us. We were all able to hold it together long enough until something finally unraveled inside, and then we turned into our primitive selves.”

Hannah suddenly saw words in her head. Typeface on a page.

Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood
.

Black sipped and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “And you know what?” he said. “I almost listened to him. There was a moment—I remember it so clearly—a second where I came back from the darkness and knew where I was and what was happening. Knew the right choice to make. I remember shifting my weight, about to turn around. Leave the room.”

Black leaned forward over the table, his shoulders pointing toward her.

“And then the guy in the bed says something. He looks at me and his eyes scrunch up and his mouth twists up, and I see a tooth sticking out, barely attached, like piece of food left on his face. He's got this shit-eating grin, like he's going to burst out laughing any second. And in a slurred voice he says to me, ‘Hey, officer, did you arrest that cunt who hit me?'”

Hannah felt the bourbon burn in her gut. She said nothing.

Black leaned back. “I don't remember any of what happened next,” he said. “But I've been told, because there were plenty of witnesses, including Kyle, who apparently tried to stop me but wasn't fast enough.” A long exhale. “Apparently I walked up to the side of the guy's bed, pulled my service revolver out, and blew his head apart.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow.”

“I mean…shit. Wow.”

“Yeah. Shit wow.” Black rubbed his hands together. “I never…never tell anyone this. I haven't talked about this since my first day in prison.”

“How does it feel to talk about it?”

“I hate it. But, like you said, you know nothing about me. You deserve to know something, and I'm not telling you my name.”

“So you went to jail,” she said.

“No, I went to
prison
. Jail is for small stuff, or for temporary holding. Prison is where you go to turn into a different person. And even though I was a cop, even though I had some sympathy on my side, and even though I pled temporary insanity, I still got twenty years. Twenty fucking years in state prison. You know what kind of fun a cop-turned-convict has in state prison? Not much.”

“How long after you went to prison did you escape?”

“Two years. Two years of the worst hell I've ever known. Two of us got out together. I'm still free. He isn't.”

“The other guy got caught?”

Black nodded. “He was sloppy. He lasted three months, better than most. But he got a little lazy, which is all it takes. He went back. I stayed out.”

“How do you know he was caught?”

“Because we remained together until a few days before he was re-arrested. Which is another thing I've learned. You have to be alone. No matter how lonely you get, once you stop being alone, you're vulnerable. He knew too much about me.” Black looked distantly beyond her. “Still does.”

Something started ringing. Hannah looked around and saw nothing.

“Excuse me,” he said. Black walked into the next room, toward the sound of the tone. She heard him answer a phone and then mumble, his words clipped and guarded. He was silent, and then spoke. Silent, then more words. His voice grew.

“No,” she heard. “No. Jesus,
what?
”

His voice trailed as he moved further away. She heard a door close and then more angry words muffled by wood and sheetrock.

Silence.

Another door slamming.

Minutes later, Black walked back into the kitchen, his posture rigid.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. I need to do some work upstairs. The house is locked. Keep your shades in your bedroom down.”

“Who was on the phone?”

“It's nothing to concern you.”

“What's going on?”

“There are things I need to do.”

That was the end of the conversation. Black shut down after finally having opened up, stinging Hannah with his silence. He walked out of the kitchen and turned off the light, leaving Hannah in the dark. He caught himself a moment later and flicked the switch back on.

“Reflex,” he said. “I'm used to being alone.”

D
AY
7

“Where are we going?”

“Someplace safe.”

“I thought we
were
safe.”

Black kept staring straight ahead as he drove.

“I thought so, too.”

“What changed? I thought we were staying at your house for a few days.”

The morning sunlight hit the side of Hannah's face through the car window which meant they were driving north.

“Plan changed.”

“Why?”

The only sound was the asphalt treadmilling beneath the car wheels and the rush of the air against the windshield. Black said nothing.

“You know, more than a two-word answer would be nice,” she said. “I mean, we had sex. Then we had dinner, where you told me things you supposedly never said to anyone else. Then you get some call and turn cold on me, then wake me up in a rush first thing in the morning and tell me to pack my stuff because we're leaving.” She rolled a hair tie off her wrist and put her hair back in a ponytail. “I deserve a little more than ‘plan changed.'”

He stole a glance at her and snapped his attention back to the road the moment their eyes met. His jaw was tight, she noticed, and his hair genuinely out of place, rather than just a sculpted version
of disheveled. But it was more than just that. He looked harried, uncertain. Unprepared, which is something she guessed Black hardly ever was.

“Did you even sleep last night?” she asked.

He didn't answer.

Hannah let out an exasperated sigh at his silence then kept looking out the window, out at the pine trees whipping by the side of the road.

Then a thought hit her.

“Why didn't you blindfold me?” she asked.

Nothing.

“You blindfolded me going to your house. But this morning we just drove away, and I saw exactly where you live. All of a sudden you're not concerned?”

“Like you said last night,” he said. “Mexican standoff.”

The answer contained as much explanation as his previous one.
Plan changed
. Might as well say
Shut the fuck up and do what you're told
. Nothing rang true.

“Are we headed to the border?” she asked.

His only answer to that question was taking the next exit off the highway and then silently navigating a series of roads, each one lonelier than the previous, until nearly a half-hour later they were on a simple dirt road flanked by a panoramic view of evergreens. It wouldn't be long before snow coated the endless sea of spiny needles.

Black stopped the car. The road was too small to pull over to the side, but no other cars were anywhere to be seen.

“Where are we?” Hannah asked.

“The middle of nowhere.”

“This is the change of plans?”

“It's a start.”

Hannah looked out the windshield and saw the expanse of forest before her. The curving land sloped into a narrow valley in the distance, a strip of blue-gray river snaking along its floor.
In happier times, Hannah would have considered all of this beautiful. Now she found it desperately lonely.

Black turned his shoulders toward her. He unfastened his seatbelt, allowing him to fully turn and face her.

“I have some things to tell you,” he said.

Hannah kept her own seatbelt on. She briefly glanced at her door, checking that it was unlocked, before moving her gaze to him.

“What?”

“You're in danger.
Real
danger.”

“No shit,” she said.

“You don't understand, because…because there are things I haven't been truthful about.”

She felt her leg muscles stiffen, pushing her body straighter in her seat.

“What are you talking about?”

“You need to disappear. For real. It wasn't safe back at my house. Everything's been compromised.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘for real'?”

Black reached for a plastic water bottle nestled in the driver's side door. He twisted the cap and took a sip so small Hannah thought the gesture intended more to buy time rather than quench thirst. He spoke again, but this time he looked straight ahead rather than at her.

“I'm working for someone,” he said. “This person wants you to disappear, and he hired me to do it. Everything that's happened…it's all been staged to make you believe your life was in danger. To make you want to run away. I was waiting for you in the coffee shop that day.”

His words drilled into her, into her core, squeezing her gut. Hannah pushed the button releasing her seatbelt, which spooled back into its harness. She had heard him, but didn't know what to do next. Was he even telling the truth? Other questions flooded her brain in fragments, overlapping each other so the only words
that seemed to resonate were
what, who
and
why
. She felt herself recoiling against the car seat.

Then she said, “Dallin hired you to do all of this?”

“Let me finish,” Black said. “I got a call last night. Things changed because…because something happened.”

“What? What happened?”

He shook his head as if trying to erase the reality of what he had to say. Then he paused, looked at her directly, and said, “They killed your psychologist.”

“
What?
”

“Madeline Britel, that's her, right?”

“Yes…I mean…” Dr. Britel's face flashed in Hannah's mind. Always sitting in the same chair, the same bonsai tree on the floor next to her. The smell of leather in the office. Books. A faint aroma of her perfume. Long black hair, a few streaks of gray that the doctor did nothing to conceal. Stern face, hard eyes, but the occasional smile that could warm her expression entirely. She heard the last words Dr. Britel said to her:

Do you feel safe?

“Please tell me what the hell you're talking about,” she said. “Tell me this is all a lie.”

Black shook his head. “My…my business partner called me last night and confirmed it.”

“Who's your business partner? I thought you worked alone.”

“Later,” he said. “He said it's on the news. That's what I was doing last night. Confirming it. She was shot outside her building. Her office ransacked. Staged to make it look like a robbery, I'm sure, to throw off the scent. They knew you spoke to your psychologist about what happened with your husband, at least his talking in his sleep. That would have been in her notes. If the police were ever able to subpoena those notes, which is difficult but not impossible—”

“Are you saying my husband murdered my therapist?”

Black held his hand up. “There's more. The client told all this to my partner last night as a means to show their seriousness. They
had a change in plans, and I think killing your doctor was about more than cleaning up a loose end. They want to try to scare me into doing something that wasn't part of the original plan.”

Hannah started to speak, her mouth so dry it seemed a wool sock had been shoved inside it for hours.

“What's…what's the new plan?”

He leaned in just enough to be either comforting or threatening, depending on the words he spoke next.

“They want me to kill you.”

Hannah knew what he was going to say a second before the words came out. As he spoke the words, she grabbed for the handle of the center console, pulling it open. Yesterday there had been a gun in there, and that was her only hope.

She saw the dull black handle of the weapon.

Hannah snatched the gun and fumbled with it for a split second—almost dropping it—before wrapping both hands tightly around the grip and pointing the barrel directly into Black's face.

Besides a solitary blink, Black made no other movement. He kept his focus on Hannah's eyes, not on the gun in front of his face.

Hannah saw her hands shaking and wished she could hold the gun steady, with power and authority. The weapon had a weight to it greater than she expected.

“Okay, take it easy, Hannah. I didn't say I'm going to kill you. I said my client
wanted
me to kill you. I'm
not
going to hurt you. That's why we're out here. That's why—”

“Stop talking,” she said. “Just shut up.”

“Hannah—”

She straightened her arms. The gun was almost touching his face. She watched the tip of the barrel waver from one eye to another as her hands shook, wondering if she could really do it.

“Shut up. Goddammit.
Nothing
is real.
You are not real
. I trusted you, despite all my instincts not to. I
trusted
you. It was the only choice I had, and even that was wrong.”

“If I was going to kill you, I would have done it while you were sleeping. I'm trying to help you. Just let me explain.”

“
Stop talking
.”

“Hannah, I could just swat the gun out of your hands. You're not going to shoot. So just put it down and let's talk.”

The shaking of Hannah's hands moved up into her arms, and the harder she squeezed the gun, the more she trembled. She licked her lips, tasting the salty sweat beading on her upper lip. She pulled the gun back away from his face to try to steady her grip. But her arms still shook with the adrenaline surging through her body.