The Stranger Beside You (11 page)

Mr. Z had some heavy decisions to make.

“Do you want me to stay on her?” Garcia asked.

“For now.”

“What about the house?”

“Don’t worry about it for now.”

“I went through her car.  It was clean.  Just a digital camera in the glove box.  She had taken pictures of the mess I made so I erased the memory card.”

Mr. Z thought about Brynn Nelson and considered what value she was to him.  That was a tough call.  He would deliberate further on that after he met with his inside man at the FBI.  Mr. Z had called him the instant the plane touched down.  His inside man was on his way.

Finch had a chair by the window and found a Knicks game on TV.  At 11p.m. he saw headlights and heard the sound of a car door outside their room.  He peered through the drapes and turned to Mr. Z and grunted, “It’s him.”  Then he unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.

The man walked in and extended a hand to Mr. Z.

Special Agent Price said, “Welcome back to New Jersey.”       

18

I was up before the sun.  It was my first morning since Tom’s death.

It actually didn’t hit me for a few minutes.  I woke with a dull clanging between my ears and staggered to the kitchen in search of Tylenol and coffee.  The apartment was mostly dark and unfamiliar, and thus I promptly introduced myself to some furniture.  I turned on the light over the sink and rifled through the surrounding cabinets.  Karly’s kitchen was organized chaos.  I found a glass and took the pills with water, and then it hit me that I wasn’t at home. 

I glanced around.  The hangover made my brain feel like clay.  I moved like I was standing at the bottom of a swimming pool.  Most of the previous evening was lost.  I had awakened on the couch fully clothed and vaguely remembered the vodka. My memory produced blurred snapshots of Todd and Ramón, and then it all flooded back in.  Tom was dead.

I exited the apartment and closed the door silently behind me.  I didn’t leave a note for Karly because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of scavenging for a pen in the dark and, frankly, in my current state it wasn’t a safe bet that I could even spell.  The morning was cool but humid and the moon was still out.  I gathered my bearings and tried to remember where I had left my car.  The Tylenol had yet to enter my bloodstream.

It was about a ten-minute walk to the boutique.  There was a parking ticket under the Volvo’s wiper blade.  I plucked it off, unlocked my door, and absently pitched the ticket over the back of the seat.  I sat at the wheel with the key in my hand.  Sadness pressed down inside my chest.  This was the start of the first full day without Tom in my life. 

I left the city and found the Long Island Expressway as the first hint of morning light was breaking over the horizon.  I was running on autopilot.  In a few days I would bury my husband.  It was time to start telling people he was gone.

The New York skyline faded in the mirror as the wide roadway unspooled before me like an asphalt ribbon.  I stopped for gas and coffee and stood beside my car staring vacantly at tall grass bending in the breeze.  The coffee tasted like bath water. 

I found the exit and turned west.  The assisted living facility was in a town about ten miles from a marina where Tom and I used to bring the kids on occasion to fish.  I saw a sign for the marina posted on the side of the road and had to look away.  The assisted living facility was on the opposite side of the road from a golf course.  I parked the Volvo and followed the sidewalk to the front entrance. 

Tom’s parents had separate rooms.  They’d been married for nearly sixty years, and still spent most of their days together, but each now was a complete stranger to the other. The Alzheimer’s had robbed them of their life together.   Sad didn’t even begin to describe it. 

Clancy Nelson was awake when I knocked on his door.  A caregiver had his coffee and grapefruit prepared.  She smiled at me.

“Came alone today?”

I nodded.  “How is he this morning?”

She shrugged.  “Keeps asking what time Merv Griffin comes on.”

A television in the corner was set to the weather channel.

“Meredith is still in bed.”

“You think it’s the medication?”

“She got her hair permed the other day along with most of the ladies.  Smelled like hell around here.”

I nodded.  “I’m sure she looks nice.”  

“I’ll be down the hall if you need me,” she said as she ambled out the door in her orthopedic shoes.

“Good morning, Clancy.”

There was a noticeable tremor in his hand as he dipped his spoon into the grapefruit.  Breakfast was an hour-long ordeal.  His big hazel eyes swiveled toward me, lingered a moment, then returned to the serving of fruit on his plate.  He didn’t know me from Adam.  The disease didn’t strike until a couple of years into our marriage and I remembered Tom’s father as a relatively quiet man with a wicked sense of humor.  He had always made me laugh.

I made an effort to engage him.  “Have you seen Meredith’s hair?”

Nothing, like he hadn’t even heard me.

“She always enjoyed getting dressed up.”

He was off in his own world, locked inside the sad lonely prison of his mind.  I watched him for a minute.  His ears were filthy and he needed a shave.  His hair was thick and silver and unruly.  There were drips of coffee on his chin.  I used the cloth napkin the caregiver had tucked in his shirt to wipe his face.

“Your son passed away yesterday,” I said.

He slurped another bite of grapefruit from the spoon.

“There was an accident, and Tom was killed.”

No reaction at all.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.  “I know you loved your son very much, and he loved you.  He was very proud of you.”

It was no different than conversing with an inanimate object. 

“The kids are doing great.  They miss you.  You wouldn’t believe how much Ashton has grown.”

Clancy had never known his grandchildren.  The remorseless onslaught of the disease had hit before Josh’s birth.  During our monthly visits we made the kids sit and tell their grandparents about all the stuff going on in school and talk about their friends.  Both boys dreaded it. 

He sipped his instant coffee and watched the fish in the fish tank in one corner of the room.  It was a fifty-dollar aquarium the boys gave him for his birthday a couple of years back.  It had one of those pumps that plugs into the wall and circulates the water.  I could hear it hum.  We started with three fish and all three croaked within a month.  Before a visit we always stopped at a pet store and bought a new one.  Some lasted longer than others.  Same as people, I suppose.  I can only assume that the nurses dutifully kept them fed.  The kids named them after cartoon characters.  It was something to keep them entertained or at least distracted during those bleak little visits.  The bottom of the glass tank was covered in colored rocks.  There were plastic trees and a treasure chest that released a stream of bubbles every time the lid opened and closed.  I watched the latest lone survivor swim lazy laps around the tank.

I rose from the table and kissed him on the forehead.  The meteorologist on TV was gesturing at a computer-generated graph of the United States.  Looked like there was a chance of rain today.  I stopped at the door and glanced back at Tom’s father.  His spoon was on the table beside his plate.  He was staring at the wall.  I could have sworn I saw a tear on his cheek.

The door to Meredith’s room was closed.  The caregiver was pushing a metal cart down the hall as I made my way out. 

“Short visit,” she said.

“Please tell Meredith I stopped by.”

“She wouldn’t know who I was talking about.”

“Maybe she understands more than we think.”

She gave me a skeptical frown.  “I’ll tell her,” she said.

“Thank you.”

•  •  •

I called Marcus and Sadie’s home from the car.

Sadie answered.

“Any word?” she asked.  I could tell she was in a hurry.

“Tom is dead.”

That stopped her cold.

“Wait.  What?”

“There was…an accident.”

“W…what are you saying, Brynn?”

“Tom was killed early yesterday morning.”

There was a long silence.

“You just blew my mind.  I’ve got to sit down for this.  Tell me everything, and start from the beginning.”

“Listen, I’m exhausted.  I’ve spent the morning in Long Island.  I’m on my way back from breaking the news to Tom’s parents.”

“Brynn, oh my God!  So you’re serious?”

“Can we talk about this later?”

“What about the boys?”

“Please don’t saying anything in front of them.  You can let Marcus know, but I want to deal with Josh and Ashton.  They don’t need to hear this over the phone and they don’t need to hear it secondhand.”

“I’m sitting here with my jaw on the floor.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Have you slept?”

“Very little.”

I could hear her choking back tears.

“Brynn, baby, I don’t know what to say.  You’ve been in our prayers.  I can’t believe he’s gone.  Marcus will be devastated.”

Something about what Sadie had just said somehow tripped a switch in my brain. That’s when a strange feeling hit me out of nowhere.  I felt a renewed sense of urgency.  My visit to Long Island was suddenly forgotten. 

She was still talking, so I interrupted whatever she was saying.

“Got to go.  I’ll call you later.”

“Brynn – ”

But I ended the call and dropped my cell to the seat between my legs.  I stamped my foot down on the accelerator and watched the needle on the speedometer climb.  For the first time since the FBI had showed up at our door, I was in a hurry to get home.

•  •  •

Sadie could barely dial the phone because of her trembling hands.  Marcus had dropped the kids at school only minutes earlier and was sitting at a red light when his cell rang.

“Hey, baby,” he said.

“Tom is dead.” 

Marcus felt his stomach drop.  The light turned green but he didn’t see it. 

“What did you say?”

She could barely bring herself to repeat it.  The news was simply too awful and impossible to comprehend.

“Brynn called two minutes ago.  Tom was killed yesterday morning.  He’s dead, Marcus.  Do you understand?”

Tom Nelson was his best friend, but the term “friend” fell short.  There wasn’t a big enough word in the English language to describe what the man had meant to him.  Marcus could barely form a thought as the shock of the news wiped his mind blank.  Someone honked and he glanced in the mirror and realized he was holding up traffic.  He managed to turn through the intersection and pull the Hummer to the side of the road.

“Is she positive?” he asked his wife.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Just stay calm.  I need time to think.  I’ll call you back when I get a chance.”

Marcus sat totally still behind the wheel for several minutes, then he leaned across the center console and opened the glove box.  He removed a zippered case and opened it.  There was a gun inside.  He checked that it was loaded, and then placed it under his copy of the
Wall Street Journal
, where he could grab it quickly if he needed to.

19

My stomach fluttered as I punched the button for the garage door opener and pulled the Volvo inside.  This was my first time home since Tom’s death and it was more than a little unnerving.  I opened the car door and brushed past Tom’s workbench on my way into the house.  I paused.  Standing at the bench, I turned and placed both hands flat on the wood surface.  Everything reminded me of him and I missed him so much.  Forget whatever he’d done, I couldn’t help but still love him.

I hurried through the house to the stairs to the bedrooms.  Our home seemed terribly quiet and empty.  Sadie had told me she’d been praying for me.  Normally I’d have thanked her for the sentiment and moved on, but not today.  At that particular moment, the word
prayer
held my full attention.

There was a wooden chest at the foot of our bed.  It was never locked or anything because there’s nothing of value inside.  It was simply a place to store family stuff.  There were quilts in there, and family photo albums, a few dolls from when I was a girl that I had hoped to pass down to my daughter someday.  The chest was a big thing, the full width of our bed.  I opened the lid and lifted out several thick, folded quilts that reminded me of my grandmother.  I was on my knees, sifting and sorting.  It was like a trip down memory lane.  What I was looking for was near the bottom.  I had organized it all, so I knew where to look.  It was in a box packed away against the right side of the cedar chest.  I lifted it out and turned so that I was sitting with my back against the chest, the box placed on the floor beside me.

I lifted off the cardboard lid.  Inside was a family Bible.  It was an heirloom passed down from Tom’s side of the family.  It was old and heavy.  Beneath our family name on the front cover was written Easter Sunday, 1862, so it actually dated back to the Civil War.  That was pretty awe-inspiring.  I sat cross-legged and set the bulky thing on my lap, then I started turning pages.  I felt my pulse quicken.  Why had Tom quoted scripture to me?  It didn’t make sense unless he’d been trying to tell me something.  The pages were huge and thick and crisp.  I thumbed past the Old Testament, and past the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  A wonderful smell of aged leather fluttered at my face.  When I hit the first of St. Paul’s epistles, I took a deep breath, then I found the book of Ephesians.

I turned the pages and found chapter six.  My hand drifted down the rows of stylized King James text to verse nineteen, and I quickly read it.  It was verbatim what Karly and I had found on the Internet, except that handwritten in the margin beside the text of the verse was something altogether out of place.  My pulse quickened yet again.  Someone had written a four-digit number in blue ink.