A Smudge of Gray (14 page)
Both men looked at him, dazed. Brian
helped Jonathan into his SUV.
“Dad?” Jonathan said.
“Yeah, tiger.”
“What’s a murder suspect?”
“A very bad person. Don’t worry about
it. Let’s get out of here.”
Brian jumped inside his SUV and propelled
the vehicle from its spot, destined back to the city.
The paramedics breached the home and saw
Laura sitting on the bottom step, her hands rubbing her temples.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” the younger
paramedic asked.
“Where are my kids?”
“I don’t know.”
“Kevin? Katie?” Laura yelled as she
stood up.
“Take it easy, ma’am,” the older
paramedic said.
Kevin and Katie crept from the hallway.
“Mom?” they said in tandem.
“Are you guys okay?” she asked, holding
them.
“There was a crazy man in the house. I
thought it was Dad, but it must’ve been Jonathan’s dad,” Kevin said.
“I thought you died,” Katie added as she
began to cry.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” she replied,
hugging her kids. “Where is he?” Laura asked the older paramedic.
“Why don’t you let us evaluate you?”
“I said, where is he!?” she continued.
“He’s a detective,” the older paramedic
said as he waved Brian’s business card.
Laura snatched it as she read his name
aloud, “Detective Brian Boise.” She stormed up the stairs, her kids at her
side. Laura entered her room and saw the mess of shoes and boxes. She moved to
the phone and dialed Brian’s number.
As Brian raced through the early
morning, he answered the call. “This is Detective Boise.”
“How dare you come into my house!?”
“Where is Trevor?” Brian asked.
“Who do you think you are? I ought to
call the police,” Laura said, the whites of her eyes roaring.
“I am the police!” Brian lashed back. “I
said, where is Trevor?”
“He had to go out of town because of an
early business meeting,” Laura said, tightening her robe.
“Is that normal for him?”
“He travels a lot. It’s nothing unusual.
What the hell is going on!?”
“Your husband, he’s not exactly the
person you think he is.”
“How so?” Laura responded with a glare
that no one saw, her kids now frightened back to their rooms, the paramedics
evaluating them.
“I don’t have time to explain. But your
husband is now a murder suspect.”
Laura’s one hundred twenty pounds
wavered. The demeanor in her eyes changed from stress to distress. The skin on
her forehead screamed adding a decade of pain to her thirty-six years. She
finally received an answer from the ignorant detective, an answer that she
didn’t want to hear.
“Oh my God. You must be mistaken. That’s
impossible,” Laura replied as she covered her mouth.
“Do you have any idea where he is right
now?”
“What?” Laura asked as if she had just awoken
from a coma.
“Where is he now!?”
“I don’t know. I just have his cell
phone number and—”
“That’s his cell phone on his business
card?” Brian queried as he grabbed the business card from his pocket.
“Yes. But, what are you going to do?”
Her eyes filled with tears built up from years of holding them back.
“I suggest you stay put with your kids
and wait until we pick him up. I’ll send a black and white over. And please do
not contact your husband,” Brian ordered.
“Fuck you!” Laura roared as she threw
the phone at the loafers on the floor.
Laura sat on the side of the bed that
her husband normally slept on. She picked up the phone as her instincts told
her to call the individual who was her crutch, the one person she always turned
to when she didn’t know where to turn—her husband. But the intruder inside her
million dollar home, the father of her son’s friend, the detective, had toyed
with her instinct. She wanted to dial her husband’s cell phone, yet she
couldn’t. Laura stood from her spot on the bed and stepped into the closet. She
stared at the shoes covering the floor, the shoeboxes sprawled out like the
aftermath of a burglary, and to a certain degree, it was. Laura saw four cans
of canary yellow underneath the mess. She walked to them as the dial tone still
emitted from the phone on the floor. The cans rested not on the tan carpet, but
on the color chocolate. She reached down and grabbed a briefcase buried
underneath them all.
It was heavy like the briefcase inside
Trevor’s office. She slid the locks to open it, but they failed to budge. Her
instincts changed, as she now wanted nothing more than to see the inside of the
case. There were three-digit dials on each side, which prevented entry from an
unauthorized individual. There were one thousand choices for the first lock
coupled with one thousand choices for the second. Together this offered one
million combinations for a random user to attempt. But Laura was no random
user, she held privileged information on the man who had selected the lock
codes, because she was his wife.
A picture on the nightstand caught her
attention, a picture of the bond she shared with her husband—their two kids.
Laura spun both dials to “512” and flipped the locks, but they remained
impenetrable. “512” was the birthday of her twins, May 12. She took a moment to
think. Then, she flipped the dials to “620,” her birthday. Again, she tried the
locks, but they didn’t budge. Laura grabbed the phone as she realized she was
crazy. She needed to talk to her husband, to talk to the keystone of the
family. She was his wife and she knew that she had taken a vow to support him
until death did they part. But as Laura rested her finger on the first number
representing Trevor’s cell, something told her to try one last combination. She
changed the right combo to her birthday and the left to her kids’. She pressed
the locks again with her dainty fingers. The nail on her right index finger split
in half. Laura switched to her middle finger and pressed harder. The case
opened.
Laura dropped the briefcase without
looking any further. She stepped back from the confusion in front of her. Laura
wanted to escape from the moment, a moment that was like a wakeless dream. She
suddenly felt like a stranger in her own house as the man with whom she had shared
her bed, had shared her life, was someone gravely different from the man she
knew.
Tears flowed from her eyes. The
photograph of her twins consumed her focus again as her objective through the
chaos became clear; she needed to protect her children. Laura ran from the room
draining the life from it except for the buzz spewing from the phone. The noise
seemed to grow in strength, yelling like the sound of a heart monitor attached
to a lifeless heart.
Chapter 21
A bolt of electricity filled Jonathan’s
room. Anne Marie winced from the shock she received from the metal on the light
switch. The static electricity had been building as she paced her apartment,
wondering what to do, where to go. Her world seemed to be collapsing. She was
all alone in her apartment, all alone in her life. At that moment, she craved the
only living being that made her heart beat—her son.
Anne Marie did her best to hold back the
tears, but her cheeks were already drenched. She sat on her son’s bed and
pressed the covers. They were cold, lifeless. The tightly woven thread seemed
to expel a chill that flowed through her skin and into her soul. With her
fingertip, she outlined a basketball imprinted on the sheets. As she finished
the circle, the color of the ball seemed to change from orange to red—blood
red. She rubbed her temples as she felt her heart pounding through her veins.
Anne Marie was overwhelmed with thoughts, not knowing what to do, but she knew
that she had to take action. She wiped her cheeks and took a deep breath. It
wasn’t a breath of fear, but rather, a breath of anger.
She stormed to her room. Anne Marie
clutched the bedside phone and dialed the number ingrained in her mind. She
waited as silence encircled her.
“This is Detective Brian Boise. Sorry
that I missed your call, but—”
“Where are you, Brian?”
Anne Marie ran into the kitchen. The
light punched her face. She checked the top of a pile of papers on the counter
and saw the cable bill. She rummaged through a grocery list, the power bill,
and piles of shopping receipts. She looked at the bare whiteboard on the fridge,
and then saw the picture on the table face down. She paused her search for the
paper written by her son. She remembered him giving it to her just as he left,
and then placing it on top of the papers, but it wasn’t there anymore. It was
as if some force had removed it. As her mind hurt, a beep blasted from the
microwave. The word “Done” displayed instead of the clock. The sight scared
her. She wondered what was inside the cold, dark microwave, and more
importantly, who had put it there. As Anne Marie walked toward it, a piece of
paper under the table caught her eye.
The paper showed the phone number of the
place where her son was staying the night, and the place where her husband had
his sight. Anne Marie ran to the phone and dialed the number. This time she
heard a fast busy signal. She cycled the phone, and then tried again, holding each
digit an extra second in case the phone was dumb. Again, she heard the busy
signal.
Anne Marie slammed the device down.
“God, please help me.”
No phone, no computer, no plea could
help her now. She was a prisoner inside her home. Anne Marie stared through the
kitchen window at the sadness of night. Smoke swirled around her window,
clouding her view of the moon. She wondered whether the smoke was some sort of demon,
ogling her from outside.
She knew action was required, but action
was something she didn’t take, because Brian always did. She wondered what
he
would do right now; the answer was right in front of her through that window.
Five minutes later, the door opened from
one of the oldest apartment buildings in the city. A woman dressed in
sweatpants and a sweatshirt marched into the night clutching a paper. She had brown
hair, and if it had been daylight, a creature on the street would have seen its
true color—cherry brown. But there were few creatures at this hour, and the
creatures that were out could care less about the woman’s hair.
Anne Marie reached the curb and hunted
for a cab. She looked down the sidewalk as a woman in heels slinked her way. On
the other side, a man in a trench coat approached. Across the street, the red
and blue lights of a cop car reflected off her eyes. She stepped into the
street and searched the headlights. A cab slowed. Anne Marie hopped in without
looking back.
“Where to?” the white-haired cabby
asked.
“529 Placid Road,” she read from the
paper.
The night was at its darkest as Anne
Marie sat in the backseat. She didn’t speak to the driver; she didn’t even look
at him. But if she had, she would have seen his eyes watching her in the
rear-view, watching her fidget in the seat. The cabby had seen it all working
the graveyard shift, the beaten call girl traveling back to her pimp, the
drunken sailor looking for his ship, the gays kissing in the backseat going to
fuck. But the woman in his backseat did not fit any of those categories. It was
as if she fit into a category of her own.
All Anne Marie did was sit there and
observe the worms crawling in the dark. As the cab neared a stale green traffic
light, a man with a beard vomited at the corner. The sight disgusted her. She
wondered how Brian could work at night. This was his office, the place where he
spent his time slaving for the city. She couldn’t fathom the darkness hidden
inside her husband’s mind. This was a time when she was normally off in a dream
sculpted by her subconscious. But as she sat there, she wondered whether this too
was all a dream.
After holding her breath for ten
minutes, the downtown scrap transformed into rows of homes that were only in
her dreams. Anne Marie knew she was close, but she didn’t know what she would
do or what she would say. All she cared about was finding her son.
The cab turned down Placid Road. The
homes seemed dormant, protected from the anger of night. They were all dark
except for one with white siding and black shutters. All of its lights
illuminated the street unnaturally. It looked as if the house were under
duress, beaconing for help. Anne Marie wondered who lived in that home, but as
the cab slowed in front of it, she knew exactly who did.
She tossed the cabby some money, and
then stepped into the street. The night air was cooler than in the city; it
even smelled different. As she looked at the pillars guarding the two-story
house, she didn’t even hear the cab pull away; all of her senses were on the mansion.
Anne Marie ran up the driveway and
looked into the windows. The curtains on the first floor were all drawn, but
the lights spilled out around them. She wondered whether Brian was inside, wreaking
havoc. She paused at the doorway and listened. She heard the sound of silence,
a sound that scared her. Anne Marie pressed the doorbell. She could hear it
ring. She held her breath, waiting to hear footsteps or to see a shadow filter
through the stained-glass windows. She rang the doorbell again. After ten
seconds of stillness, she pounded on the door.
“Jonathan! Are you in there!? It’s your
mom!”
Anne Marie pressed on a window and
pushed the glass, but it was locked. She contemplated whether her family was
inside, and whether she should continue, but she had to confirm her instincts. She
grabbed a long flat rock on the ground and used it to pry open the window. As
she considered smashing it, a light flickered in her eyes. At first, she
thought it was from a room upstairs, but then she realized it was from the
house next to her.
“Hey! I see you,” a strong male voice
said.
She heard the sound of a gun cock. Anne
Marie ran around the house and into the street. Fear flowed through her as she
lost her drive to continue. She felt defeated, even more so than in her apartment.
But gone now was her safe haven, replaced by an unknown road.
Anne Marie saw the lifeless stretch of pavement
as she looked in the direction of the lights in the sky, the direction of home.
She began to walk. It was the only thing she could do. She had to go home now
to wait, just as her husband said to do. But she knew that she couldn’t wait
forever.
As she neared the corner, a pair of
headlights approached. Her stomach sank. She wondered whether she should hide,
but then she recognized the lights—the cab that had brought her there.
“You need a ride back?” the cabby asked through
the window.
She nodded, and then entered.
“Everyone needs a ride back,” he said,
driving toward the city. He had realized the category that this woman fit—the wife
searching for the secrets of her husband.