The Good Girl (27 page)

Gabe
Christmas Eve

Somewhere in Minnesota it begins to snow. I drive as fast as I can, which isn’t fast enough. It’s hard to see through the windshield though the wipers go as fast as they can. This is every six-year-old’s dream: snow on Christmas Eve. Tonight Santa will come, his sleigh loaded with gifts for every girl and boy.

Detective Hammill calls. He’s got a couple of guys keeping the cabin under surveillance. He told me about it, a little cabin lost out in the woods. But they haven’t seen anyone come or go; they haven’t gotten a visual of anyone on the inside.

By the time I arrive he plans to have a team assembled: ten or so of his best guys. This is a big deal around here. It’s not every day that this kind of thing happens.

I think of Eve. I go over it a thousand times in my mind: what I will say, the words I will use, to convey the good news. And then I consider the possibility that there isn’t good news: that Mia isn’t in the cabin, or that she doesn’t survive the rescue. There are a million things that could go wrong.

By the time I make my way up the coast of Lake Superior, Roger’s guys are getting antsy. He’s got a half dozen of them headed out to the woods. They set up a perimeter. They’re armed with the department’s best firepower.

Detective Hammill is a man on a mission. Seems he has something to prove.

“No one takes a shot until I get there,” I say as I gun the engine along a narrow, snow-covered road. The tires skid and I struggle to regain control. Scares the shit out of me. But what worries me more is the brassiness in the detective’s voice. Even more than me, he’s a guy led into the line of duty by the prospect of carrying a gun.

“It’s Christmas Eve, Hoffman. My guys have families to see.”

“I’m doing the best that I can.”

The sun sets and it’s dark out here. I floor it. I fly through the narrow pass, nearly decapitating myself on branches that hang low from the weight of the snow. I don’t know how many times I come to a near standstill, the tires kicking up snow and going absolutely nowhere. This piece-of-shit car is going to get me killed.

I’m going as fast as I can, knowing I need to get to Thatcher before Detective Hammill does. There’s no telling what that guy might do.

Colin
Christmas Eve

This afternoon I returned to town and put in a call to Dan. Everything’s ready to go. He says he’ll meet us on the 26th in Milwaukee. It’s the best he could do. The guy wasn’t about to drive all the fucking way to Grand Marais. He made that clear.

It’s my Christmas present for her, a surprise for tomorrow. We’ll leave by sundown and drive all night. It’s the safest way. I suggest we meet at the zoo. Nice public place. Open Christmas day. I’ve gone through it in my mind a thousand times. We’ll park in the lot. She’ll hide out in the primate house. I’ll meet Dan by the wolves. I’ll find her when he’s gone, when I’m sure we aren’t being trailed. From there, the quickest way to Canada is in Windsor, Ontario. We’ll drive into Windsor, and then as far as we can get on the gas money we have. I have enough cash to get us there. And then it will be gone. We’ll live under pseudonyms. I’ll get a job.

I’ve got Dan working on a fake ID for Ma, too, and when I can, I’ll get it to her, somehow. When I figure that part out.

I know this is my last night in this shitty old cabin. She doesn’t. I’m secretly saying my goodbyes.

Tomorrow is Christmas day. I remember that when I was a kid I’d leave the house early on Christmas day. I’d count out a dollar and two cents from a change jar we kept. I’d walk to the bakery at the corner. They were open until noon on Christmas. We pretended it was a surprise, though it never was. Ma would lie in bed long enough to hear me sneak out the front door.

I never went straight to the bakery. I’d be a Peeping Tom, staring through the open windows of the other kids in the neighborhood, just to see what they got on Christmas. I’d stare for a while at their happy, smiling faces, then think
fuck them
as I trudged through the snow the rest of the way.

The reindeer bells on the bakery door would announce my arrival to the same old lady who’d worked there a hundred years. She wore a Santa hat on Christmas and would say
Ho, ho, ho.
I’d ask for two fifty-one-cent chocolate long johns that she’d slip into a white paper lunch sack. I’d return home where Ma would be waiting with two cups of hot chocolate. We’d eat our breakfast and pretend that it wasn’t Christmas day.

This time I’m staring out the window. I’m thinking of Ma, wondering if she’s okay. Tomorrow will be the first time in thirty some years we haven’t shared a long john on Christmas day.

When I can get my hands on paper and a pen I’ll write her a note and drop it in a mailbox in Milwaukee. I’ll tell her that I’m okay. I’ll tell her that Chloe is okay, just to give her useless parents some peace of mind, if they give a shit. By the time the letter makes it to Ma, we’ll be out of the country. And as soon as I can figure out how, I’ll get Ma out of the country as well.

Chloe comes up behind me and wraps her arms around me. She asks if I’m waiting for Santa Claus.

I think of what I’d change if I could, but I wouldn’t change a thing. The only regret is that Ma isn’t here. But I can’t fix that without ruining
this
. One day it’ll all be right. That’s how I satisfy the guilt. I don’t know how or when. I don’t know how I’ll get the fake ID to Ma without being found, or how to send her enough money for a flight. But someday...

I turn and gather her into me, all hundred-and-some pounds. She’s lost weight. Her pants no longer rest on her hips. She’s always yanking on them to keep them from falling. Her cheeks are hollow. Her eyes have begun to dull. This can’t go on forever.

“You know what I want this year for Christmas?” I ask.

“What?”

“A razor,” I say. I comb the mustache and beard with my fingers. I hate it. It feels disgusting. I think of all the things that will be better when we get out of the country. We won’t be so fucking cold. We can shower with real soap. I can shave this woolly face. We can go out into the world together. We won’t have to hide, though it will take until all eternity for us to feel safe.

“I like it,” she mocks, smiling. When she smiles I see all the pieces fall into place.

“Liar,” I say.

“Then we’ll ask for two,” she says. She lets me feel the soft hair on her legs.

“What would you ask Santa for?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says without thought. “I have everything I want.” She rests her head against my chest.

“Liar,” I repeat.

She pulls back and looks at me. What she wants, she says, is to look pretty. For me. To take a shower. To wear perfume.

“You look beautiful,” I say and she does. But she reiterates in a whisper:
Liar.
She says she’s never felt so revolting in her life.

I settle my hands on the sides of her face. She’s embarrassed and tries to look away, but I force her to look at me. “You look beautiful,” I say again.

She nods. “Okay, okay,” she says. Then she fingers my beard and says, “And I like the beard.”

We stare for a moment before calling a truce.

“One day,” I promise, “you’ll wear perfume and all that.”

“Okay.”

We list the things that we’ll do
one day
. Go out to dinner. Watch a movie. Things the rest of the world does every damn day.

She says that she’s tired and disappears to the bedroom. I know she’s sad. We talk about a future, but in her mind she’s convinced no such thing exists.

I gather our things, trying to be sly. I set them aside on the counter: her drawing pad and pencils, what’s left of the cash. It takes all of two minutes to gather the things that are of importance. She is the only thing I need.

Then, out of boredom, I carve the words
We Were Here
into the countertop with a sharp knife. The words are serrated, not a masterpiece by any means. I drape my coat over the engraving so she won’t see it until it’s time to leave.

I remember that first night in the cabin. I remember the fear in her eyes.
We Were Here,
I think, but it’s someone else who leaves.

I watch the sun set. The temperature in the cabin drops. I add wood to the fire. I watch the minutes on my watch tick by. When I think the boredom is certain to kill me, I start dinner. Chicken noodle soup. This, I tell myself, is the last time in my life I’ll ever eat chicken noodle soup.

And then I hear it.

Eve
After

She’s been here before. She gathers that immediately.

Mia says that there used to be a Christmas tree, but now it’s gone. There used to be a fire constantly roaring in the stove, but now it’s silent. There used to be a smell much different than this; now all there is, is the piercing odor of bleach.

She says that she sees excerpts of what may have happened: cans of soup lying on the countertops, though they are no longer there. She hears the sound of water running from a faucet, and the ruckus of heavy shoes on the hardwood floors, though the rest of us remain still, watching Mia like a hawk, our backs pressed against the log wall.

“I hear rainfall on the cabin’s roof,” she says, “and see Canoe scurry from room to room.” Her eyes follow an imaginary path from the family room to the bedroom, as if, in that moment she actually sees the cat, though we all know he is tucked safely away with Ayanna and her son.

And then she says that she hears the sound of her name. “Mia?” I ask, my voice barely audible, but she shakes her head. No.

“Chloe,” she reminds me, her hand settling on an earlobe, her body pacified for the first time in a long time and she smiles.

But the smile doesn’t last long.

Colin
Christmas Eve

Ma always told me I have ears like a bat. I can hear anything. I don’t know what the sound is, but it forces me from my seat. I flip off the light and the cabin goes black. Chloe starts to stir in the bedroom. Her eyes fight through the darkness. She calls my name. When I don’t answer right away, she calls again. This time she’s scared.

I peel the curtains back from the window. The faint glow of the moon helps me see. There must be a half dozen of them: police cars, with twice as many cops.

“Shit.”

I let the curtain drop. I run through the cabin.

“Chloe. Chloe,” I snap. She jumps from the bed. The adrenaline rushes through her body as she fights off sleep. I pull her from the bedroom to a windowless section of the hall.

She’s coming to. She grips my hand, her nails digging into the skin. I can feel her hands shake. “What’s wrong?” she asks. Her voice trembles. Tears fall from her eyes. She knows what’s wrong.

“They’re here,” I say.

“Oh, my God,” she wails. “We have to run!” She slides away from me and into the bathroom. She thinks we’ll get out the window, somehow, and escape. She thinks we can run.

“It won’t work,” I tell her. The window is jammed shut. It’ll never open. She tries anyway. I put my hands on her, lure her away from the window. My voice is calm. “There’s nowhere to go. You can’t run.”

“Then we’ll fight,” she says. She pushes past me. I try to avoid the windows, though I bet the blackness in the cabin makes us invisible. But I do it anyway.

She’s crying that she doesn’t want to die. I try to tell her it’s the cops. The damn cops, I want to say, but she can’t hear a word I’m saying. She keeps saying over and over again that she doesn’t want to die. The tears run from her eyes.

She thinks it’s Dalmar.

I can’t think straight. I peer out the window, and I tell her that there’s nowhere to go. We can’t fight. There’s too many of them. It’ll never work. It will only make things worse.

But she finds the gun in the drawer. She knows how to shoot it. She grasps it in her shaking hands. She attaches the magazine.

“Chloe,” I say softly. My voice is a whisper. “It won’t do any good.”

But she sets her finger on the trigger anyway. She puts her left hand and right hand together. She holds firmly, like I told her to. She leaves no space between her hands and the grip.

“Chloe,” I say. “It’s through.”

“Please,”
she cries. “We have to fight. We can’t let it end this way.” She’s crazed, wild and demented. Hysterical. But for some strange reason I’m calm.

Maybe because I knew all along that sooner or later it would come to this.

A moment passes between us. I watch her eyes. They’re crushed and defeated. She’s crying. Her nose runs. I don’t know how much time passes. Ten seconds. Ten minutes.

“I’ll do it myself,” she says then, incensed. She’s pissed that I won’t do it for her. I watch the way the gun shudders in her hands. She can’t do this. And if she tries, she’ll get herself killed. And then under her breath, she says, “But your aim...”

She lets the words hang in the air. I read her expression: hopelessness. Desperation.

“Never mind,” she says after time passes. “I’ll do it myself.”

But I don’t let her. I nod. “Okay,” I say. I reach out and take the gun from her hands.

I can’t let it end like this. Not with her begging me to save her life. And me refusing.

Floodlights pour into the cabin. They blind us. We’re standing before the window, completely exposed. I stand with the gun in my hands. My eyes are composed though hers are wide with fear. The light makes her jump and she falls into me. I step before her to hide her from view. I raise a hand to shield the light.

The hand with the gun.

Gabe
Christmas Eve

Hammill calls to say his guys have been made.

“What do you mean?” I snap.

“He heard us.”

“You get a good look?” I ask.

“It’s him, all right,” he says. “It’s Thatcher.”

“No one shoots,” I say. “No one moves until I get there. You hear?” He says okay, but deep down I know he doesn’t give a shit.

“I need him alive,” I say, but he doesn’t hear. There’s a lot of commotion on the other end of the line. Hammill sounds like he’s a mile away. He says he’s got his best sniper here.
Sniper?

“No one shoots,” I say over and over again. Getting my hands on Thatcher is only half the job; finding out who hired him the other. “Hold your fire. Tell your guys to hold their fire.”

But Hammill’s too busy listening to the sound of his own voice, he doesn’t hear me. He says it’s dark in there. But they’ve got night vision. They got a visual on the girl. She looks terrified. There’s a pause, then Hammill says, “There’s a gun,” and I feel my heart drop.

“No one shoots,” I say as I make out the cabin, buried in the midst of trees. There are a gazillion cop cars parked outside. No wonder Thatcher heard.

“He’s got the girl.”

I skid up the drive, throwing the car into Park when it becomes apparent I’m not going to get any farther in this snow. “I’m here!” I’m screaming into the phone. My feet sink in the snow.

“He’s got the gun.”

I drop my phone and keep running. I see them, lined behind their vehicles, every single one of them waiting for a shot. “No one shoots,” I say when the distinct sound of gunfire stops me in my tracks.