That’s it. That is all I could take. Bile rises in my throat. I turn to leave but I am suddenly dizzy. I fall onto my knees, my hands landing on the side of the house with a thud. I listen for any commotion, or a sign that they might have heard me, but I don’t hear anything. I stand again and struggle to put one foot in front of the other. Each step is a harrowing adventure. The three blocks home seem like an impossible desert crossing. I’ve only made it a few steps when a voice from behind startles me.
When I turn I lose my footing, falling backwards onto the grass. I look up as Tanner stands over me. “Like what you saw, did you?”
“You’re…you’re a monster.” I say, using my hands and feet to crawl backwards, away from the boy who only minutes before I thought I loved.
“Oh, Ray. You have no fucking idea.”
“Are you okay, Ray?” Tanner asked, when I’d pulled back abruptly. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.
“No, it’s okay,” I lied. “I’ve got to go pack.” I nervously twisted the hem of my shirt in my hands. I plastered on a fake smile and took a step back.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tanner asked, taking another step toward me.
I held up my hand. “Of course. I’m just, you know, overwhelmed,” I said as I backed off of the dock. “And I haven’t even told the senator yet that I’m leaving, not like he cares.”
“He’s not home. Nobody is but Nadine,” He reminded me.
“So, I should at least call him then, right?” I asked in a much higher pitched tone than I intended.
Why did I have to be such a bad fucking liar?
“Sammy should be up from his nap soon. Go pack, and then I’ll drive you guys,” Tanner offered.
“No, I mean, you don’t have to do that. King’s…”
“Oh, come on,” Tanner said, continuing to advance toward me. “Besides, you said we’re still a family right? No harm in a little car ride together.”
Except there was.
I tripped over the spot where the dock met the soft ground, falling backward on my ass. “I’m such a klutz.” I was about to stand up, but Tanner startled me by moving quickly to my side, hoisting me off of the sand.
“I’ve got you,” he said, and when I turned toward him and my eyes caught his, I saw a quick flash of the Tanner from my memory. I took a steadying breath.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to appear casual by brushing the sand off of my legs. “And yeah. You’re right. A ride sounds great. Just let me get cleaned up and get Sammy’s stuff together.”
Tanner smiled and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. All the little hairs on my neck stood at attention and not for the same reasons they did with King. There was something cold behind his words. Haunting.
Sinister.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Doe
Gone was the boy next door. With that last kiss he’d been replaced with the monster from my memory. That kiss brought it all flooding back and, what I saw, shook me to my very bones. “I’ll run to my house and grab the truck. I’ll meet you out front, on your porch in say, thirty minutes?”
“Thirty minutes. Yes,” I nodded. With a little wave I turned and jogged up to the house, practically falling again, this time over the threshold of the back sliding glass door. I flailed my way up the stairs and ran into my room. I ripped open the top dresser drawer I’d hidden the burner phone in that King had given me, tearing it from its hinges, sending socks and the phone sliding across the room. I dove for the phone and hit the speed dial button. It rang several times.
“Come on, pick up,” I prayed, nervously tapping my fingers onto the carpet. When there was so answer I shoved the phone in my back pocket. I was going to grab a duffel bag to toss some essentials into, but looking around that room, there was nothing there I needed.
Nothing I wanted. The only essential things to me were Sammy and King. And one of those was sleeping down the hallway. I’d try calling King again after I got Sammy from his room. “Nadine!” I called out down the hall. The only sounds were coming from downstairs, the hum of the refrigerator and the spinning lull from the running dishwasher. “Nadine!” I called again. “I need you to pull your car around. I’ll explain when we’re on the road, but we have to leave now!”
I opened the door to Sammy’s room. I turned the knob as quietly as I could, closing it again behind me with a soft click. I’d hoped Nadine had heard me and was pulling the car around. I tip-toed over to Sammy’s crib. Leaning over the railing I expected to see my sleepy man with his hair pointed in a million directions, clutching his favorite motorcycle blanket.
Sammy wasn’t in his crib.
It was empty.
The light clicked on and every hair on my neck and arms stood on end.
“It was that fucking weak kiss that gave you away,” a voice said, startling me so much I jumped and knocked into a pile of Sammy’s toys, which came to life in a burst of music and flashing lights. “Tanner. I thought you were meeting us out front? Where’s Sammy?” I tried to hide the shakiness in my voice. I fell backwards and landed against something soft but unmovable. When I turned around to see what it was, I eye to eye with a motionless Nadine. Her eyes unfocused and staring straight ahead. Her mouth still opened as if she’d been surprised.
Dead.
Nadine was dead.
“What the fuck did you do!?” I cried. Tanner stood from where he’d been sitting on the rocking chair I used to rock Samuel to sleep. “Where the fuck is my son!?”
Tanner knelt over me and smiled. But it wasn’t the same toothpaste commercial smile I’d seen before. There was no perfect boy next door behind the menacing expression and crazed look in his eyes. “You used to kiss me like I was the most important person in the world,” he said as he reached out and ran his thumb over my lips. I jerked my head away but he grabbed my chin and yanked it back to him. “You used to love me,” he spat.
“At some point I probably did.” I shook my head. “But I don’t remember,” I lied.
Tanner reared back, delivering a punishing backhand across my face. “Liar!” It stung so bad it rattled my cheekbone and I swore I could hear it vibrating in my ear. “There is no ‘probably’ about it. I know you remember. Do you want to know how I know?”
“Where’s Samuel?” I asked again. “Let me up, Tanner!” I tried to stand.
“No!” Tanner shouted, pushing me down on my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. “You will stay right the fuck there while I’m talking to you. I’ll ask you again, do you want to know how I know you remember me?” Tanner hissed through gritted teeth.
I slowly nodded, giving in and playing the game of question and answer Tanner was so hell bent on playing.
“Because, Ray, I felt your fear. I felt your lips tremble against mine. And the only reason they would do that…would be if you remembered the last time you saw me.”
“You mean the night I caught you fucking Nikki? The night I saw you give her drugs? Hit her? You mean that fucking night?” I yelled pushing up on him. All the anger and rage from that time rushing back into me. Tanner pinned my wrists to my side and laughed in my face.
“Yes, that’s the night.” Tanner reached up to my throat. “But I refer to it as the night I killed you. At least I thought I did.”
He squeezed my throat, cutting off my airway, and then the unexpected happened. It started as a flash of white light, followed by small staccato bits of recollection from right before I’d lost my memory:
Tanner standing over me, reigning down blow after blow on my face and body as Nikki screams for him to stop.
The feeling of being dragged over gritty concrete and hoisted into a pile of trash. The slanted image of the back of Tanner’s legs as he casually strolls from of the alley.
The feel of a finger under my nose searching for signs of breath. The sound of Nikki whispering apologies.
The blue and red lights flashing in the distance. Sirens getting louder and louder as they approach.
Nikki apologizing one last time before the feeling of her frail frame curled up against me disappears.
Being loaded up onto a stretcher as people shout orders all around me.
And then a final memory, but this one different, this one was from weeks after I woke up in the hospital. One I was seeing from an entirely new perspective.
I wake up and open my eyes to Nikki standing over me, eyes furrowed in confusion. “Ray?”
“Huh? I’m sorry do I know you?” For a few seconds I thought she was someone from my past, but then her expression turned annoyed, almost cold.
“No, you don’t know me…but you’re on my fucking bench.”
And then it all made sense.
Why Nikki didn’t tell me who she was, who I really was. Why we went to King’s party that night. Why she insisted that the solution to all of our problems would be the protection of a biker.
The entire time we’d spent together she hadn’t been lying to me.
She was trying to protect me.
The least I could do was fight to protect myself.
I lifted my knee and with all my might I landed a blow right between Tanner’s legs. When he reached down to cup his balls I held his head between my hands, and then there was a deafening crack as my head connected with his. Blood, warm and thick, dripped into the corner of my eye. I stood on shaky legs. “You fucking bitch!” Tanner wailed. Holding onto Sammy’s crib in order to keep myself upright, I attempted to put one foot in front of the other and I just about made it to the door, but I wasn’t fast enough.