The Comfort of Black (26 page)

“Shoot a man before?” Dallin snapped his head back to her. “What's he talking about?”

“Eyes forward!”

Dallin did as he was told. Hannah kept the gun level and stared at the back of the head she knew better than anyone's.

“They made me do it,” Dallin repeated.

“No more talking now,” Black said. “But you're in luck. The reason we are here is because Hannah wants answers. I told her it would be safer to just disappear, but she wants to hear the real story, plus I think she has a few things to say to you as well.” Black moved the car to the right lane on the highway. Their exit was coming up soon. They weren't taking Dallin far from home, but no one would find him. “And you're also going to get us some money,” Black continued. “You answer some questions and get us some money, and then we disappear.” He turned to Dallin. “You don't do those things, and then
you
disappear. You understand? You can answer now.”

Dallin remained silent and immobile.

“Hannah, I don't think he understands.”

Hannah pushed the tip of the gun up against her husband's left earlobe. It was the place he would close his eyes and offer a pleasured shiver at the flick of her tongue. With the cold metal of a weapon touching it, his body recoiled.

“I understand,” Dallin said.

“Good, now just stay calm, sit back, try to relax. Just a few more minutes. Again, I don't want any more talking, no unnecessary movements. Got it?”

Dallin nodded. Hannah pulled the gun back but kept it aimed at him. She remembered holding the gun on Grizzly, how it seemed to increase in weight every second she held it. Now she felt more confident with it in her hand, more assured.

A familiar ringing. Black looked over at Dallin.

“My phone,” Dallin said.

“Let it go,” Black said.

It rang four more times, the ringtone the same one he always used, so familiar to Hannah, at times an annoyance, usually someone from work, an update, an emergency, guidance needed. Dallin always answered his phone, and Hannah could see the muscles in his neck tighten at his inability to answer it now.
Especially
now.

Seconds later another chime, the announcement of a voice mail.

“Hand me the phone,” Hannah told her husband.

Black turned as he exited the highway. “Why?”

“We should check the voice mail. If they're already looking for him, it would be good to know.”

Black thought about this for a moment and then gave a nod. Dallin didn't move.

Hannah pushed the gun up under his ear again. “Darling? Please give me your phone. I'm not going to ask again.”

Dallin slid his hand inside his jacket pocket, and Black eyed him as he slowly pulled out his phone. Black reached over with his right hand and patted Dallin's chest and hips.

“You think I have a gun?” Dallin asked.

“No,” Black said. “I don't think you would know what to do with a gun. Then again, I would have said the same thing about her, but now she can put a bullet through a Coke can from fifty yards.”

It wasn't true, Hannah knew, but it sure sounded good. She was confident she could at least put a bullet through a head at fifteen inches.

Dallin reached back with his hand and handed Hannah the phone. Their fingers touched briefly during the exchange, and his index finger extended, stroking her finger slightly, as if he could
communicate some kind of passion and love in the split second chance he had. To Hannah it felt as comforting as a meaty spider crawling up her finger.

“He made me do it,” he repeated. “I was protecting you. I did it for you.”

“
Quiet
,” Black said.

She yanked her hand back then navigated the screen of his phone to his call log. She was surprised when she saw the name attached to the recent call.

Justine
.

Why was Justine calling him?

Hannah touched the voice mail icon and launched the app. It showed all of Dallin's voice mails visually, grouped like e-mails. She sucked in her breath at the list.
Justine, Justine, work, work, unknown, work, Justine, Justine
.

Hannah repositioned the gun and stared at the back of Dallin's head as she selected the most recent voice mail.

Her hand began to shake as Justine's voice filled her head.

Hey, baby, it's me. Just checking in, seeing if you've heard anything yet
.

The words weren't real. Couldn't be. It was another part of the plan, an elaborate hoax, all perfectly timed and orchestrated to elicit a reaction from her, a reaction that somehow,
somehow
, played into their needs. Hannah almost couldn't bear to keep listening to the last few seconds of the message. But she did.

I just want this to be over, you know? I need to be with you. I miss you. Connor misses you. He needs you, too. A boy needs his daddy…

She looked up and saw Black staring at her in the mirror. Deep, quizzical eyes, concern blended with confusion.
What?
he mouthed.

Hannah shook her head. “It's not true,” she said.

“What's not true?”

Dallin began turning his head to her, and Hannah saw something fly at him from the left. It caught her so much by surprise she didn't register until a moment later it was Black's hand, palm open, striking the side of Dallin's face. Flesh cracked like lightning.

“
Keep your eyes forward
,” Black said. “You have a bad habit of thinking rules don't apply to you.”

Dallin reached up and rubbed the cheek Black had struck. Slowly, Dallin turned his head back around, and once again he stared through the windshield, silently, his body rigid.

“What is it?” Black asked Hannah.

She dropped the phone over Dallin's shoulder and onto his lap. She didn't want it. Didn't want to dissect the meaning of it all. She didn't want to be a part of the joke anymore.

Dallin picked up the phone and replayed the message. Hannah watched his face fall.

“It's not true,” Hannah repeated.

This time, Dallin didn't need a reminder to stay silent. Hannah didn't know if he was scared of Black or scared to give Hannah an answer. Maybe both.

Before Black said anything else, he reached over and took the phone from Dallin, then pried the backing off with one hand. He turned the phone over and rapped it against the steering wheel
until the battery fell onto the floor of the car. “There's no more using this phone,” he said. “We don't want anyone tracing his signal. Now, Hannah, tell me what the hell's going on.”

Hannah leveled the gun at her husband.

“It was a message…from my sister.”

“Justine?”

“She…called him
baby
. She also told him that Connor—her youngest—that Connor needs his daddy. It's bullshit.” The gun shook in her hand. “It's all just more lies.”

Dallin's head now faced downward and shook slightly from side to side. He brought up his hand and squeezed his forehead.

“Is it true?” Black asked him.

“Of course it's not true,” Hannah said. “Everything is a lie. Another calculated lie. Perfectly timed.” Despite her denials, Hannah felt her mind fighting against the math, not wanting to do the calculations. If she didn't think about it logically, then the story would remain merely a lie. It was a battle she couldn't win.
Connor is almost a year old. Dallin's been distant for nearly, what, two years?

“The timing doesn't make sense,” Black said. “I mean, they had no idea we'd be intercepting him today, so she couldn't have left that message knowing you would see it.”

Hannah shook her head. “No, somehow they knew. Don't you see? It's all part of it.”

Yeah, Hannah, and what's the point of all that? Why would Dallin pretend to have an affair with your sister, an affair that resulted in your nephew? Did Dallin start pulling away from you two years ago as part of this intricate plan? C'mon, Hannah, you're not that stupid, are you?

Dallin said nothing. Now he looked to his right, out the window, the pale sunlight washing over his ashen cheeks. Hannah trained the gun on that perfectly smooth right cheek, but he paid her no attention. He was looking out, past the streets, the houses, the storefronts peppered with sun-faded plastic signs, and far into the distance, his gaze pointed on nothing but another choice, as if
by seeing a better decision he could actually go there. It was the grim look of acceptance of a path ill-chosen, with no possibility of return.

Her hand shook as she fought to steady the gun, which suddenly felt a thousand times its normal weight, just as it had before she shot Grizzly.

“We're here,” Black said.

Hannah looked to her left at the motel where they had rented a room. An anonymous place for anonymous deeds.

“Let's just get inside,” Black said. “Focus, Hannah.” He swerved the car into a parking space outlined by jagged fault lines ripping through the asphalt.

Black got out and opened the door for Dallin, who walked slowly across the parking lot with Black close behind. Hannah looked around at the lot and saw it mostly empty, just a scattering of cars, two of which looked abandoned. She brought up the rear, no longer needing to keep her gun trained on her husband since Black was also armed and would make sure Dallin didn't make a run for it. Her own gun was in the pocket of her coat, and she kept her fingers on the grip as she walked.

Black opened the door to Room 24, a first-floor room facing the parking lot. He ushered Dallin inside and quickly followed, allowing the faded, brown door to swing closed behind both of them. She knew what Dallin would be seeing right now: a chair with two rolls of duct tape next to it. Would he panic at the sight of those things? Or would Dallin do as asked, sit there and let Black snake the tape around his torso and limbs, binding him tightly to the chair?

Part of Hannah wanted Dallin to resist, wanted him to refuse to cooperate, just so she had an excuse.

You don't need any more of an excuse
, she told herself.
The last two years apparently contained enough excuse to execute him a hundred times over
.

The heels of her boots clicked on the asphalt, steady beats in rhythm with a confident step. This was no longer the woman scared of her husband, worried about what he was thinking or
how he might react to her. Worried that he would smell the alcohol on her breath. That woman was gone. What remained was Billy's blood, which coursed through her veins, filling Hannah's every nerve with anger, rational or not, and a sweet desire to destroy, even though she knew that destruction would not ultimately satisfy. Yet she couldn't feel any other way.

Hannah took a deep breath as she approached the door to Room 24. She took one last sweep of the building with her gaze, finding something different this time. A dash of pink in a window above. Hannah slowed her approach and focused on the figure in the window of Room 37, up and to the right of Room 24. A little girl—no more than five, Hannah guessed—looked down on Hannah with empty eyes and long kinked hair that fell over half her face. She clutched a naked doll to her chest, suffocating it against her own body, perhaps as an act of compassion.

Hannah finally stopped walking and just kept staring at the girl. She wondered what her story was. Were her parents in the room? Was the family passing through town, maybe looking for better work somewhere? Or was the little girl alone with her mom, hiding from an abusive husband and father, one who would do bad things if he found them.
Shut that curtain
, the mother would say.
Can't afford to be seen
.

Hannah offered a wave using the hand not gripping the gun.

The little girl just stared back and wrapped her arms tighter around the doll. Then she took a step back and the curtain closed, and the girl's room once again became the same as all the others surrounding it, just a place to keep the stories locked inside.

Dull sunlight struggled to fight its way through the thick, ancient curtains of the motel room, and the small amount achieving its goal barely illuminated the shape of Hannah's husband, strapped to the chair from chest to waist with silver duct tape, motionless except for the anxious gaze flicking back and forth between Hannah and Black. Black turned on the single lamp in the room, its shade stained from some unknown brownish liquid, perhaps coffee. The smell of mildew hit Hannah, and the overall feeling of suffocation within the tiny room made her long for the decrepit Silverson Inn.

Black sat on the edge of the single bed and placed the gun next to him. He lowered his head into his hands and rested there, his hair spilling through his fingers.

“Lock the door,” he said.

Hannah turned and twisted the lock.

Black waited a few moments longer and then lifted up his head. He looked first at Dallin, who returned the stare for a second before finding the floor.

“She has questions for you,” Black said. “I can't imagine it's going to be an easy conversation, but I strongly encourage you to tell the truth.”

“You won't shoot me in here,” Dallin said.

“You think anyone in this shit motel isn't used to hearing the random gunshot? You think anyone here is going to say a word? I assure you no one cares. No one wants to get involved.”

“You won't shoot me,” Dallin repeated, though the conviction left his voice. Dallin tried to squirm in his chair, but the tape held him fast.

Black continued. “Before she asks you whatever she wants to ask you, we need something. That eight million taken from Echo? You're going to give it to us.”

Dallin turned to Hannah. She saw the contorted face of desperation he so rarely displayed, but had on occasion revealed to her. Forehead rippled by worry lines, eyes drawn into tight circles, focus drilling on her. Pleading.