The Comfort of Black (24 page)

“And the ‘cop' you shot?”

“Peter's brother,” Black said. “Remember when we were downtown, walking to my car, and then I went into that store? You saw me on the phone. I was communicating our position to Peter's brother, so he knew how to find us. Everything was set up. All the bullets were fake.”

Hannah thought back to the cop's body doubled over in the alley. The terror she felt in that moment.

“And what was that talk of embezzlement? That I stole money from Echo?”

“Part of the plan,” Black replied. “That was actually Smooth's idea and Peter's execution. They actually did siphon eight million dollars from one of Echo's cash accounts and left your electronic trace on it. If you went back to Seattle, you'd have a hard time proving you didn't steal that money. The idea was to put enough pressure on you to feel you had no choice but to disappear. I'd like to know what they actually did with that eight million.”

“You thought of everything, didn't you?” she asked.

“I was highly paid to do a good job. I'm not going to lie to you, Hannah. I knew your life was being ruined, and I'm sorry to say I was okay with it. But that changed last night. When they changed the plan.”

“What about you fucking me? Was that part of the plan?”

He leaned forward. “You fucked
me
, remember. And no, that wasn't part of the plan.”

She leaned across the table and changed her voice from a shout to an angry hiss.

“And they never asked you to kill me?”

“Not until last night. Peter called and told me Smooth had killed Dr. Britel, that she was a liability because no one knew what you might have told her about Dallin. Then he said Smooth ordered me to kill you.”

“And why would Billy think you'd agree?”

“Because there was another million dollars in it for us if I did.”

Hannah felt a rush of cold air run over her arms, coolness that didn't exist in the bar, but in her blood.

“That's a lot of money,” she said.

“It is.”

“And yet I'm still alive.”

Black scowled. “I'm not a monster, Hannah.”

“So what did you tell Peter?”

“I told him to stall. Buy a little time, even if he had to pretend we were on board. But we need to run. There are two bodies now, your shrink and that redneck back in the woods. There's no wiggle room for us here. It's time for you, me, and Peter to disappear.”

“Or maybe this is just another part of the plan,” Hannah said. “Keep layering more and more pressure until I agree to disappear forever.”

Black jerked a thumb to point behind him. “You saw that man's brains today, yes? How his skull opened up and spilled everything out? You think that was part of some plan?”

Hannah couldn't keep the image of the gore from her mind, but she let it in only a few seconds before she was able to shut it back out.

“Yes,” she said. “I saw it.”

“I can get you Internet access. Then you can read about Dr. Britel's murder as well.”

“Maybe her murder was always part of the plan.”

“No, too complicated. They would have simply killed you, like you said earlier.”

“I just don't know who—”

Black held up his palm to her. “Hannah. I'm going to disappear soon, and when I do, no one will be able to find me. I'm not going to pretend I don't care about you, because I do. More than I'm going to let you know. But I need to take care of me first. Do I want you to come with me? Yes. Am I going to
force
you to come? No. You have to make your own decision, but I'm not going to put myself at more risk for you. They murdered someone, Hannah, and now we're tied up in that, whether we had something to do with it or not. This thing is out of control, and I never should have taken the job. I don't want to go back to prison. I can start over with a new identity, but it needs to happen soon. With or without you.”

He leaned back, held his drink to his lips for a few moments, and then closed his eyes as he drank. That seemed to be all he had left to say, and he was right. Hannah
did
have to make her own decision. Her life was so tattered and unrecognizable that all she could rely on was her own instinct. Logic couldn't apply anymore, because logic had been twisted into lies layered on more lies.

“And Peter? Is he supposed to come with us?”

Black smiled. “No. Peter has his own plans. He's a very smart man, and he's also a bit of a loner. In prison, he talked about buying a small vineyard in Argentina. That's all he wants to do. Live alone in Mendoza and make wine. He's already bought the vineyard under the name of a dummy corporation, and he has a small staff running it. The only reason he hasn't left already is he wants to make sure we get away first.”

“I have a hard time picturing him as a good guy,” Hannah said. “After all, he drugged me.”

Black shook his head. “He hated doing that. Truth is, he's the only man I truly trust. Trust him with my life. He actually reminds me of the partner I had when I was a cop, back when my wife was killed. Strange to think about. My best friends were my partners, the first when we were law enforcers and the second when we were law-breakers. I'm going to miss Peter.”

“But you could stay,” she said. “We could all stay. We don't have to run.”

“Yes. We do.”

“So I'm just supposed to let them win?” she asked.

“Would you rather be dead? Don't be fooled, Hannah. Things have changed. I think Smooth has gone rogue. He killed your shrink, and I'm guessing he thinks it's worth the risk to kill you as well. Maybe he planned this all along, maybe he always wanted to see you dead. But somehow he's convinced Dallin it's easier now to have you dead than hidden. Once they find out I'm not doing the job, they'll do everything they can to do it themselves.”

The alcohol made it so much easier to rage and to cry, and the latter took over. “Why are they doing this to me?” she said. Hot tears spilled over her cheek. “Why would anyone do this? I haven't done anything. I…I'm a
good
wife, goddammit. Not perfect, but good. Why would Dallin
do
this? If he hated me so much, why not just divorce me?”

Black reached out and stroked her forearm. “I don't know,” he said. “But I don't think it was Dallin's idea to have you killed. I think that was all Smooth.”

“I just need to know the truth,” she said, wiping her cheek with one hand. “Can we at least get that? Before I make any decision, can we at least find out the truth?”

His fingertips brushed lightly, back and forth, over her skin. “How do we do that?”

“I want to talk to him. To Dallin.”

She expected a terse
no
from him, but it didn't come. Instead, he said, “If we could get him talking, we could get access to the money. They did something with that eight million they took from Echo. Peter set up the account for them, but we don't have access anymore. Having that cash would make things a whole lot easier for us.”

“What do you propose?”

He swirled the last of his drink in his glass. “We need a little
time to make preparations. We can stay here, lay low. It has to be done right.”

“How much time?”

“Two, three weeks.”

Hannah sighed. “In this place?”

“It's no resort,” he admitted. “But it's anonymous.”

Hannah wasn't even sure what the plan was exactly, but there was a plan now, wasn't there? She felt a little more in control, but that didn't stop the tears. They kept coming, tears of exhaustion, of desperation, of the pain of betrayal by her husband, and, in a small part, tears of gratitude she wasn't in this alone.

She needed to cry, so Black finished his drink as she wept, looking down at the table, giving her as much privacy as someone could in so small a space.

After a few minutes of neither of them speaking, Jill came over to check in on them. Hannah looked up at her and saw the expression on Jill's face change from reserved haughtiness to something approaching concern.

“You okay, sweetie?” Jill asked.

Hannah thought about that for a moment and decided there was no easy way to answer. So she simply said, “Men fucking suck.”

Jill looked over and scowled at Black.

“Amen to that,” Jill said. “Next round's on me.”

D
AY
28

Three weeks passed, and the tiny hamlet of Silverson morphed from a depressing shithole to a depressing shithole with a few Christmas wreaths hung on rusted lampposts. Twice it snowed, just enough to cover the ground and trees in a thin blanket of white, each time lasting only a few days before succumbing to the occasional bursts from the early-December sun.

Thanksgiving came and went with little fanfare. Hannah hadn't wanted to acknowledge the holiday at all. This year she and Dallin had planned on hosting dinner in their condo, inviting Justine, her nephews, and a small group of friends. For years after the Thanksgiving that she'd last seen Billy, Hannah had ignored the holiday altogether, but in her twenties she'd realized it truly was a time to be thankful; Hannah knew her life was blessed because Billy was no longer a part of it. So she began embracing Thanksgiving once again. Thanksgiving was a good time, a time to be reminded of how things were much better than they could have been.

What did Dallin do for Thanksgiving?
she wondered.
Did he still get together with Justine, cursing Hannah, blaming her for embezzling money and disappearing? Would Justine believe his words at all, remembering the voice mail Hannah had left? And what did Justine do with that message? Did she share it with the police?

Black had insisted on a Thanksgiving dinner, even if that
dinner consisted of a rubbery chicken platter at Yorick's. Hannah had poked at her meal as she got stupendously drunk, so much so Black had to carry her from the bar to the motel. Hannah vaguely remembered tickles of falling snow on the back of her neck as she was draped over Black's shoulder. He had put her to bed, and, for a change, had gone back to his own room to sleep. Hannah awoke the next morning, alone, head throbbing, stomach lurching.

So became Thanksgiving.

The last few days Hannah felt more in control, driven largely by a sudden lack of taste for alcohol. The urge was still there, the compulsion, but beer now tasted flat, and wine acidic. She took it as a sign and consumed less. Yesterday she didn't have a single drink, which was the first time in as long as she could remember. What followed was a fitful sleep, but she woke up proud.

Their new documents were complete. New accounts set up with a modest amount of cash in them. Cover stories created, memorized, every detail of a new past rehearsed for hours a day. And once he could stall Billy no longer, Peter went underground, waiting to hear from Black the time and place to eventually meet up.

Now all Hannah wanted was to hear Dallin tell her everything. And she wanted the money. If she was going to run, he didn't get to keep everything. If she was going to disappear, so was the eight million dollars from Echo.

* * *

Hannah sat on her motel-room bed, legs crossed, using Black's laptop to surf the net, as she had obsessively since he'd agreed to let her use it a few days ago. There had been reports of a shooting of a police officer in downtown Seattle, but subsequent stories claimed it wasn't real and was all part of some reality show.

The official embezzlement report stood at $8.2 million, all of which Hannah allegedly had siphoned from one of Echo's cash accounts. Details were vague, most provided at a brief press conference led by an Echo's corporate attorney. Hannah heard
the recorded segment on CNBC's archives, her anger rising as he spoke.

Echo is fully cooperating with the local police and federal authorities in finding Ms. Parks and bringing her in for questioning
.

Dallin granted interviews to no one.

Also sickening to Hannah were the reports related to the murder of Madeline Britel, Hannah's psychologist, shot in the chest outside her office as she was leaving work for the evening. Office tossed, computer and iPad stolen. Hannah knew she died because Hannah told her what Dallin said in his sleep.

But the most discomforting interview was Justine's. A local station had done an exposé on Hannah and the central question focused on why, if Hannah was already rich, would she steal money and disappear? They interviewed Justine, whose answer was the last Hannah expected to hear.

Hannah was wealthy, but she wasn't happy. Lately she'd been acting…I don't know…weird, I suppose. I think maybe there was some discord in her marriage. She…she has issues with men, which comes from our father. Sometimes her answer is to run away. And…God, I hate to say this, you know? Because I don't even know. But maybe there's someone else. Another man. I don't know. I just know Dallin is devastated and misses her dearly, even after what she's done. I just want her to come home
.

Footsteps in the hallway, the creaking of floorboards beneath mildewed carpet. The sound of metal against a doorknob.
Her
doorknob. A violation of the
Do Not Disturb
hanging outside the door. Black had gone to Seattle two days ago to reconnoiter Dallin's movements, and she didn't know when he would be back. Hannah reached under the pillow of the bed and grabbed the gun Black had left for her.

She was almost certain it was Black on the other side of the door, but the idea of certainty no longer existed for her.

She held the gun up and pointed it at the door.

The knob twisted, and the door opened faster than she expected. She felt her finger twitch against the trigger,
almost pull back involuntarily. But she held fast as her heart pounded.

Black appeared in the doorway, and Hannah sighed in relief.