So close, p.23
So Close, page 23
He trembles as he hugs me back. “Have you come to take me to heaven, angel?”
I pull back. His face is craggier than before, his eyes deeper set. He’s got his flat cap on, and the gray tweed has darkened with age. He’s shorter now, his back curved into a hunch.
“Now, Ben … I’m a married woman, and you’re too suave to use a line like that.”
“Well, you’re off to take me to the other place, then.” He nods sagely. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Maybe not about you ending up there either, come to think of it. We’ve both enjoyed a sin or two, haven’t we?”
“One or two. Do you mind if I bum a smoke off you and sit awhile?”
He frowns at me. “Angels don’t smoke.”
“How do you know?”
His rheumy eyes peer dubiously at me, but he motions for me to join him at the table. I sit, and he follows suit, watching as I help myself to a cigarette and light it with his lighter. The first inhalation is deep, my eyes closing against the familiar and longed-for head rush.
“Ah, that’s so good. You’re a saint, Ben.”
“Am I?” he queries eagerly.
Opening my eyes, I study him. “You know I’m not dead, right?”
Even though I say it, I’m not sure I believe it. It feels like I’m in a snow globe, trapped in a contrived moment in time.
“They say you are. Drowned in your pretty little boat. It used to worry me, you sailing off alone all the time. It broke my heart when Robby told me you weren’t coming back.”
“Oh, Ben.” I set my hand over his. His knuckles are thick, the age-spotted skin nearly translucent. “I’m sorry.”
“And your poor husband.” He shakes his head. “He worried me, too. I don’t think he slept all the days they searched for you. The night Robby told me, I sat here on the deck and cried, but Kane … That boy walked to the water’s edge and yelled with all his might.”
Oh, my love … You’ve suffered so much because of my weakness for you.
Ben rubs his chin thoughtfully. “It sounded like somethin’ between a wolf’s howl and a banshee scream all twisted together. It was the eeriest thing I ever saw or heard, a man standing under the moon and falling apart that way. Could you hear him up there when he did that? I think he was shouting for you.”
My hand is over my mouth. The pain in my chest feels like a heart attack, and maybe it is. Possibly my heart can’t survive the picture Ben has painted in my mind.
If there’s a part of you that will always hate me for what you’ve endured, I’ll accept that. Anyone who hurts you should pay, including me.
The screen door swings outward with a creak and Ben’s grandson, Robert, steps out. “Oh, my heavens. Lily?”
“Can you see her, too?” Ben asks, alarm on his face.
I notch my cigarette in the ashtray and swipe at my face, knowing my makeup must be a fright from all the tears I’ve shed.
“Hi, Robby.” I stand and hold my arms out to him.
“How are you here?” he asks over my shoulder, hugging me tightly. “Where have you been?”
Through Robert, I can picture Ben as he must’ve once been. He’s about my height and lanky, his face square and earnest. Freckles dance across the bridge of his nose. He’s near my age but looks much younger. Like his grandfather, Robert’s a charmer, the kind of guy who never settles for one girl but is so sweet that there’s never a fuss.
“It’s a long story,” I tell him, resuming my seat and taking another drag on my cigarette. My fingers are trembling, but I feel like I’ve smoked marijuana instead of tobacco. Everything is murky and odd, distant and dreamlike.
“You’re really not dead?” Ben asks, his gaze narrowed.
“I don’t think so.” But they are both looking at me so strangely. “What?”
“Are you back in the house down the beach?”
“Yes, we’re back. We live in the city, but we’re here for now, and we’ll hopefully return often.”
Robert runs a hand through his auburn hair. “I need a drink. Pop?”
“Yes. Me, too.”
He heads inside.
Ben leans back, shaking his head. “If you’re really alive, you should know your house is haunted.”
I pause mid-exhale, smoke trapped in my lungs. “How do you know?”
“We’ve seen you there, Robby and me. It was just Robby at first; he walks the beach more than I do. He saw you through the patio doors, staring at him. I told him it was a trick of the light and grief. He’s carried a torch for you a long time. But then he saw you in the upstairs window a couple of years later.”
He pauses to light a cigarette, exhaling heavily. “I saw you last year. It was dark, and the upstairs light was on. You stood in the window with a glow around your head. Like a halo. It scared the bejesus out of Robby every time, but I felt real peaceful about it. Like everything was going to be okay.”
Robert returns with a tumbler in each hand and a bottle of water under his arm. The door slams shut behind him, and even though it’s a familiar and expected sound, it makes me jump. Filled with anxious energy, I rise to help, taking the water for myself and one of the drinks for Ben, which I place on the table in front of him.
“Whew.” Robert stares at me. “Why’d you cut your hair?”
I crush the end of my cigarette, extinguishing it. “I don’t know.”
“You still had long hair when I saw you last year,” Ben says.
“About that …” I focus on Robert because his mind isn’t yet clouded by age. “Can you tell me more about what you’ve seen?”
He takes a long drink of whiskey, stretching back in his chair. Then he shrugs. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never told anyone but Pop because it’s crazy.”
“You saw a woman in the house. Why’d you think it was me?”
“She was tall, like you. Thin, like you. I was down by the water, so it wasn’t like she was right in front of me, but she was a knockout, like you.” He shrugs again, clearly embarrassed.
“It was you,” Ben insists. “I’d know you anywhere.”
Your words echo through my mind. I haven’t been back.
“Lily!” The wind carries your voice to me, scattering my roiling thoughts. That you’re shouting for Lily is a soul-rattling shock, as it’s the first time you’ve called me by her name since I woke.
Shoving the chair back, I leap to my feet. I search the beach and see you running. “Kane!”
Your head turns toward me, and you sprint with the astonishing speed and grace I once admired on the basketball court, your feet flying across the sand. Your beautiful face is pale. Your eyes are dark coins, a payment for Charon to ferry you across the River Styx to me, your hell. Guilt settles in my gut. I race to you, meeting you partway. You snatch me up, squeezing so tightly I fear a rib will crack. I welcome the pain.
Your hand thrusts into my hair, anchoring me against you. My feet hover above the sand. You’re quivering violently, and I hold you as tightly as I can, keeping you together. The picture Ben painted of you on the shore wracked by grief is in the forefront of my mind. Coming back to an empty house must have revived that pain in you, and I beg forgiveness.
“I’m sorry,” I tell you, a sob in my throat. “I should’ve left a note.”
“You can’t just leave like that. I need to know where you are.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I gentle you with my hands, stroking your back. “I wasn’t thinking.”
My gaze scans the beach for danger. It frightens me to have you out in the open. The flowers are a taunting revelation that our location is known, as is my recent past. We’re exposed in every way possible, and you are the target.
Ben’s gruff voice calls out, “You didn’t have a wake, boy. She’s trapped in purgatory, held between this life and the next.”
Your chest expands in a shuddering inhale. “I’ll keep holding her tight then, Ben,” you shout back, “so she’ll stay.”
37
WITTE
Shirtless and barefooted, sweat from exertion slowly drying in the afternoon air, I lean against the balcony railing and read the latest text to my mobile.
Paid in cash. No name. No license plate. VIN obscured. Full video emailed as attachment. The Range Rover had a tracking device on the undercarriage.
I study the grainy black-and-white surveillance photo of a gentleman exiting a florist shop in Greenwich. His head and face are clean-shaven, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. He is a large man, muscular – in some parlance, he would be called “the muscle” – dressed well in a suit with the jacket loose enough to conceal a gun.
Movement through the black-framed French doors draws my gaze to Danica as she collects my discarded clothes from the white carpet of her living room. My lover of many years picks up after me, cooks for me and pampers me. All of which is unnecessary but lovely. My daughter says it’s serendipitous that I found a woman willing to accommodate the demands of my career. That Danica is a dazzling beauty who charms me with her wit and easy companionship is a bonus.
I smell her on my skin, and a primal need stretches inside me.
Opening my email, I skim the written report and then watch the video. It begins on the street, the vantage courtesy of a camera on the opposite corner. He arrives in a black Bugatti, a vehicle so distinct it’s evident he doesn’t care if anyone remembers him. He unfolds from behind the wheel, neatly buttoning his jacket before entering the shop. While he’s far too large to be truly agile, he conveys danger and menace in the fluidity of his movements and the way he thoroughly assesses his surroundings for hazards before stepping away from his car.
I forward the email and ring Mr Black. He answers immediately, and I begin without preamble, “I suggest returning to the penthouse. The beach house is too exposed.”
“I’ll discuss with Lily.”
Danica has slipped into a sheer white kimono, her nude perfection still on full display. She moves with the sinuous grace of a cat, her platinum hair falling to her waist.
Even after years together, I am still too eager and too lustful with her. I’ve just taken her on the floor, which she’d demanded I do the instant we rushed laughing through the front door, hot with desire like teenagers. Fuck me now, Nicky, she’d ordered, pulling me down on top of her in a tangle of silken limbs. Nothing could have deterred me from responding to that command. And when I’d pulled free of her sated body in a rush to answer my phone, she evinced no pique at being abandoned so swiftly after orgasm.
“I’ve reviewed the surveillance footage. The man is unquestionably a professional.”
My employer exhales harshly. “Of course he is.”
“You should have it already.”
He’s quiet as he watches. “The Bugatti should be easy to trace,” he murmurs, with the absentmindedness of split focus.
“We’re working on it,” I assure him.
“He tracked my car?!” He swears viciously as he crosses that piece of information in the written report. “How did that happen?”
“We’ll check the footage of the penthouse garage, but it would have been easier to attach it while we were out in the city on any number of occasions.”
“Why toy with her like this?” There is helpless fury in his voice. “Tracking her. Taunting her with those flowers.”
“A message. Only she knows what it means and whether it was intended for you or her.”
Danica approaches, her full breasts and slender hips swaying as she walks with seductive grace. She pushes the door open, her lips curving in a feline smile as she sets a tumbler of whiskey with a ball of ice on the patio table. Lunch in thirty minutes, she mouths, before slipping back inside and shutting the door. Although I’ve just enjoyed her thoroughly, my cock stirs at the lushness of her figure so tantalizingly displayed. I’ve been with her for days and have scarcely been separated from her body the entire time. As pleasurable as that has been, I cannot help but feel I’m not where I should be.
“You don’t think I should trust her,” Mr Black states. “Have you seen the way she looks at me, Witte? She’s no threat.”
The assessment is too blithe. Hasn’t their relationship been mostly agonizing for him? His grief was so terrible only the single-minded focus on transforming himself into a man of substance had kept him going. He would not have that great a distraction again. If Lily broke his heart this time, I don’t believe he would survive it.
I catch Danica’s eye as she moves through the open-plan kitchen. She is a lavishly tempting creature gliding elegantly through the space, a seductive wraith trailing a gossamer white train and lustrous silver hair that drifts like fog around slender shoulders. She gives me a come-hither smile, her gaze languid and hot.
Is anything as intoxicating as being the object of desire for a stunningly beautiful woman? Is any man capable of being rational in that circumstance? Before meeting Danica, I would’ve said heedless love and desire were the folly of youth. I’d believed myself past all that nonsense. Can I judge Mr Black, lecture him, when my circumstance mirrors his?
“Let me tell you about Lily,” he says tightly. “Ryan texted me one day, inviting me to spend an evening at his place. It’d been a few weeks since we’d hung out because I was avoiding her. I couldn’t stand even the possibility of seeing them together. I knew she was at least half in love with me, and it drove me insane that she stayed with him just to keep me at bay. She tried to gaslight me, to convince me I was seeing a reaction from her that wasn’t there, but the love was obvious every time she looked at me. So was the fear.”
Abruptly my first sight of her on the street in the city takes on a different connotation. Does her fear stem from her feelings for him rather than fear of him? Is such a thing possible?
“A hard choice for a woman to make,” I murmur, my thoughts spinning. “You are both exceptional men.”
“Not then, I wasn’t. Ryan was already making moves with LanCorp, but it was only a pipe dream for me to buy what remained of Baharan.” He sighs heavily. “I accepted his invitation because I missed his friendship, but I also wanted to see the photos of her he had at his place. That’s how starved I was for the sight of her.”
I glance at Danica. I, too, turn to photos of her when being together isn’t possible. At times, memories alone are not enough to appease the ache of separation.
“I showed up right on time,” he continues. “Maybe even a little early. The doorman knew me and knew I was coming, so he just waved me by. I took the elevator up. Ryan’s front door was propped open by the deadbolt. I walked in and was about to call out when I heard sounds coming from the bedroom.”
The pain in his voice is a deep throb that affects me acutely.
“I should’ve walked out,” he goes on, his voice rough and raw. “I walked to the bedroom instead. I couldn’t stop myself. She was there, under him. They’d barely undressed. She’d lifted her dress, he’d dropped his pants, and he was in her, moaning like he was losing his mind.”
He pauses for a long moment before continuing. “She was looking straight at me when I reached the doorway, and there was zero surprise on her face. She had her hand on the back of his head, holding it against her shoulder and turned toward the far wall so he wouldn’t see me.”
“Mr Black, I don’t –”
“She planned it, Witte. All of it.”
I don’t want to hear any more. It’s my job to put myself in his shoes, and with Danica in front of me, that’s far too easy. She and I are of an age and beyond classifying our relationship. I’m monogamous; I’ve never asked if she affords me the same courtesy. She is a sensual woman, and I’m not often available. I never visit her unannounced, but it’s possible that if I did, I would witness a scene like my employer described. The thought alone torments me.
“She’d used his phone,” he bites out, still furious. “Set the time. Called the desk downstairs. Propped the door open. And stared at me with dead eyes while he fucked her in front of me.”
I shift on my feet, repulsed. I see the picture he’s painting with his words. The Lily he speaks of is a woman I don’t know. She cannot be the one who looks at him with such fervent longing and love.
But she could be the woman to whom a professional killer sent flowers and romantic sentiments.
“Her goal was to end us before we began. Because even though we hadn’t seen each other in weeks, our intense attraction was still growing. It was only a matter of time. Ryan had been telling me he felt like she was easing him into the friend zone. She was declining sex with him and limiting their time together. It made it so much worse that I’d been building up hope of her coming to me soon.”
I hear his desk chair squeak as he shifts and find myself mentally noting the need for lubricant to address it, an instinctive grasp for withdrawal from the conversation. It’s both too personal and too painful.
“Up until that point, I’d thought I was the issue. That I wasn’t good enough, that my prospects as a life partner were too limited for her. At that moment, I realized the reverse was true in her mind. For whatever reason, she believed I was better off without her, and she was willing to degrade us both to protect me from her.”
It takes me several seconds to frame a tactful reply. “Not many men would come to that conclusion in those circumstances.”
“Somehow, I knew – even at that moment – that she loved me. She staged a scene that had to be for my benefit, Witte. There was nothing in it for her but suffering. She didn’t understand that only I’d stop wanting her if she stopped wanting me first. As long as she loved me, I had to keep going. Can you understand that?”
“Partly, yes.” I don’t say that I wonder if she’d known the scene, as he calls it, would only deepen his desire for her. And put her at much greater risk – every man has his limits, and Mr Black’s temper can be explosive. I certainly would have nothing further to do with Danica if she were to ambush me so cruelly and deliberately. But Lily had, perhaps, more insight into Kane Black than anyone else, in addition to her study of psychology.
