Authors: Cody McFadyen
The Darker Side (44 page)
We fall silent. I look at Jesus, still paint-chipped, still suffering.
“Why are you here, Smoky?”
“I need something from you.”
“What?”
I hesitate. Find Jesus again.
Am I sure about this?
“I need you to hear my confession again. It’ll be brief.”
He studies me for a moment and then he stands up and indicates the way to the confessional booth.
“FORGIVE ME, FATHER, FOR I
have sinned. You know how long it’s been since my last confession. I lied to a man today. It was a big lie.”
“What was the nature of this lie?”
“I told him I had done something, something terrible. I later told him I had lied, that I hadn’t really done what I’d said.”
“But you had?”
The big question, with the big answer, the one that never leaves me. It’s there with me when I wake up, when I go to sleep, as I go through my day. It played a part, I’m sure, in my career choice.
“Yes. I had actually done what I confessed to him.”
“Do you want to tell me what you told him?”
“No, Father.”
A pause. I can almost hear him thinking this through. I can sense his reluctance, and his suspicion.
“This thing you told him, do you think God heard it too?”
“If He exists, then it was really meant for Him, Father.”
“I see. So you want to admit here that what you said was true, but you don’t want to say it again.”
“Something like that.”
He sighs.
“Do you want to be forgiven for this thing?”
“I don’t know, Father, to be honest. I just know I want to admit that it happened. That’s a start, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Smoky. It’s a start. But I can’t give you penance or absolution this way.”
“Penance is under way and has been for a long time. As far as absolution goes…we’ll have to see. I just need to know that you heard me, Father. I’m still not sure if forgiveness is a part of the picture.”
I’d ask my mom, if I could.
“I heard you, Smoky. And if you ever want to tell me more, I’ll listen.”
“I know, Father. Thank you.”
I HEAD DOWN THE HIGHWAY
toward home and Bonnie and Tommy and I think of my mother. I remember her beauty, her smiles, her temper. I remember every second I spent with her, and I cherish those memories for what they are: times and places that will never exist again.
I killed my mother when I was twelve. I did it from love, true, but I’ve always wondered: Is that why I can understand the monsters the way I do? Because there’s a little bit of monster in me too?
What do you think, God?
He remains silent, which is my continuing and basic problem with Him.
Mom?
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the breeze in my hair through the car window feels like a reassuring touch, and I am, for a moment, at peace.
44
“HOW IS SHE?” I ASK.
“See for yourself,” Kirby says.
The hotel room Callie chose to quit Vicodin in has seen better days. She’s lived inside this room for twelve days now and it reeks of sweat and vomit. She’d refused to go to a formal treatment center, which hadn’t surprised me.
“Housekeeping is going to hate us when we finally let them clean this place up,” I observe.
“I’ll be sure and tip them well, honey-love, don’t you worry.”
Callie stands at the door of the bathroom. She’s pale and she has the shadows of exhaustion under her eyes, but she looks more steady than she has so far.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Like something approaching human. Finally. I think I’ll be ready to leave this hellhole tomorrow.”
Kirby and I have been taking shifts with her. We’ve taken turns holding her while she shook and sweated and cursed. We’ve held her hair back while she vomited. Once, I stroked her hair while she wept at the wanting.
“Geez, about time,” Kirby says. “This has really put a crimp in my sex life.”
“Mine too,” I say.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Callie replies. “I haven’t seen my man in the buff since this began either. We’ll all be returning to our respective lovers soon.”
“How’s your back?” I ask her. “Any pain?”
She comes and sits down on the bed.
“There hasn’t been any pain in my back for a long time, Smoky. The Vicodin became about the Vicodin.”
“Wow, so you were a bona fide junkie, huh?” Kirby says.
“I loved my little white pills, it’s true, but thankfully, I love my man more. Speaking of which—where do we stand on the wedding?”
“All systems go. Your daughter has been helping with the last details. Brady tried to slip in an invitation to your parents, but I caught it and pulled it from the pile.”
“Thank you.”
“I aim to please. Anyway, no worries. Everything’s set. You just need to get the heck out of here, hit the gym, maybe do a little tanning…”
“I don’t ‘do tanning,’” Callie says. I’m happy to hear some of the haughtiness back in her voice. It’s a good sign.
“Whatever. You want to look like the corpse bride, it’s your funeral. I mean wedding.”
“All redheads are pale complected,” Callie protests.
“There’s a difference between ‘pale’ and ‘junkie white,’” Kirby retorts.
“Is it really that bad?” She sounds distressed.
Kirby sighs. “You’re going to make me be nice, aren’t you? No, it’s not that bad, I’m just giving you a hard time, Callie-babe. Truth is, you look great even though you’ve been sweating and puking and stuff. I kind of hate you for it.”
Callie smiles. “Made you feel bad, made you say it.” She sticks her tongue out at Kirby.
“Bitch,” Kirby observes.
There’s a lull in the conversation. Callie stares down at her hands, obviously working up to saying something.
“Listen close, because you’ll only hear it once,” she says. “Thank you both for this. I couldn’t have done it alone.”
“You’re welcome,” I tell her.
“No problemo,” Kirby chirps. “Besides, I got to see you down on your knees, praying to the porcelain god.” She chortles. “Wish I could have gotten
that
on camera.”
Callie makes a face, and more good-natured bickering ensues. I listen with half an ear, smiling in the right places.
Three women, all proud, all a little damaged…the burden of our secrets becomes heavy so easily. We don’t trust enough to share, and there are parts of us that we keep for ourselves, things our men will never know, however much we love them. Things we prefer, most of the time, not even to share with each other.
But it’s nice to know, if those burdens become too great, that we have someplace to go, someone who’ll listen to our whispers in their ears and take our secrets to their graves.
“I COULD GET USED TO
this, babe. What do you think?”
“Finding a man who can cook is definitely easier than having to learn yourself,” Bonnie agrees.
Tommy is making us an Italian dinner. The meat sauce has my mouth watering, and the smell of homemade garlic bread wafts through the house.
“My mom made me learn,” he calls from the kitchen. “She said cooking for a woman is a fast way to impress her.”
“Smart mom,” I say.
“Yes, she is.”
“When are we going to be meeting her?” Bonnie asks.
I glance at Tommy.
“Why do you ask, honey?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “You must really think I’m retarded, Momma-Smoky. You guys are moving in together, right?”
I scowl. “Who told? Callie? Kirby?”
She smiles. “Give me some credit, guys.”
I chew on my thumbnail, nervous. Tommy remains silent.
“Sorry, babe. We were going to tell you soon. How do you feel about that?”
This has been my final concern, the last worry. Bonnie may love Tommy, but it’s been just her and me for two years now. We’ve built our life together. We’ve needed each other. I’ve worried how she’d feel about this change.
She walks back over to me and takes my hand. Her smile says everything I need to know.
“I think it’s great. Really, really great. Besides—he can
cook
.”
LATE AT NIGHT AND TOMMY
sleeps beside me. Through that window I can see the moon again, that ageless, ancient moon. People have danced under it, fucked under it, killed under it, loved under it, died under it. The moon keeps shining; life goes on.
I’m thinking about my mom. I wonder why helping her die was less of a burden to me than the abortion. It’s the one secret I’d never told, not even to Matt. Now I’ve told it to a monster, which seems to fit my life. It’s never weighed on me that much. It is something that happened, that I don’t think about often.
Was it wrong?
I look for the answer, and find the only one I’ve ever found:
I don’t care.
She stopped suffering. That’s all that really mattered to me, in the end.
I cried at her funeral. I haven’t cried for her since. I don’t cry now either, but I let myself feel her absence, just a little.
I miss you, Mom. Dad was a great dad, but I was always my mother’s daughter.
Tommy stirs next to me. I smile.
He’s a good man, Mom. Different from Matt. Not better or worse. Just different.
My life is messy. I realize I’ve been trying to put everyone away, to stuff them into their little boxes and cover them with earth. What a waste. The ghosts are there, they’ll always be there, and they’ll show themselves when they feel like it.
The trick is to continue without the pain of enduring. Like the moon.
It continues to shine and I tell the ghosts to go to sleep now. I turn into Tommy and let myself fall into his warmth.
Welcome back, traveler,
someone whispers.
“Mom?” I mumble once before tumbling into a dreamless sleep.
The moon shines on.
One Final Thing:
THE SINS
of
KIRBY MITCHELL
NEWS ITEM, LOS ANGELES:
Michael and Frances Murphy were found dead in their prison cells this morning, apparent suicides. The twin killers became infamous for their recent postings of video clips on the popular user-tube website, detailing the last moments and intimate confessions of more than 140 women.
Michael Murphy was the spokesman for the duo. He claimed religious motives were behind the killings. His actions, though supported briefly by a radical minority, were widely rejected by the Christian community worldwide.
They died within a few hours of each other. The lack of suicide notes, along with the fact that the Murphys were Catholic and thus presumably against suicide, has some speculating that something more sinister occurred. This is not a theory currently being pursued by law enforcement.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CODY McFADYEN lives in California. He is the author of
Shadow Man
and
The Face of Death
. His website is
www.codymcfadyen.com
.
Also by Cody McFadyen
SHADOW MAN
THE FACE OF DEATH
THE DARKER SIDE
A Bantam Book / October 2008
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 by Cody McFadyen
Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McFadyen, Cody.
The darker side / Cody McFadyen.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90567-0
1. Government investigators—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Fiction. 3. Serial murderers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.C438D37 2008
813'.6—dc22 2008028095
v1.0