The Last Secret (38 page)

“That's so disgusting,” her mother said. “How could you have done that? How?”

Finally, she grabs her collar and rips open the shirt, buttons flying across the floor.

Sobbing, she changes into dry clothes, then suddenly begins slamming her closet door, banging it shut, again and again and again, and now she feels horrible, ashamed, for losing it like this, for being so out of control with her children downstairs. Chloe and Drew don't deserve any of this. “Calm down, calm down, just calm down,” she keeps gasping as she wraps her rain-soaked clothes in a towel to take down to the laundry room, but then doesn't move, can't, instead just stands here, teeth chattering, trembling in the middle of her tranquil ivory
bedroom with the gray-tinted tray ceiling, hugging the damp towel to her chest because it's not her fault, none of it is, but this is what they want, what they've all been expecting. Damn them, all of them just waiting for this to happen, the crack in the façade, well, get ready, because here it comes, everybody, one hurtling stone to start the landslide, needing her to fail so they can absolve him of everything, poor, dear Kenny, all he ever wanted was to be happy, in spite of her, the witch, the cold, lying bitch, she never deserved him, no wonder he chased every woman in sight. “No wonder!” she screams, hurling the bundled towel against the wall. “No wonder!”

The rain helps,
harder for anyone to see who's driving, especially with the wipers beating back and forth on high. So far every cruiser's gone right by. The car they're looking for is miles away in a mall parking lot, brand-new TV in back, keys in the ignition, some lucky bastard's just for the taking. Now, he's got a rental. Had to use Gendron's MasterCard, the only one they didn't reject, but still, he's not kidding himself, once the hunt's on it's only a matter of time. He drives by her house again, no sign of life, no car. Not at Hammond's either. He knows where her mother lives, pale green house way up top this steep hill. Only her mother's Volkswagen is in the driveway. Robin's car might be in the garage, though. Slows down, can't tell unless he gets out. No sense chancing that. As he drives by he stares up at the bedroom window she pointed out once. At night she could see all the lit-up houses below. She said she used to pretend she was a princess looking down on her kingdom—still does, that's the problem. Looking down on
him
, now that she doesn't need him anymore. He parks at the bottom of the street, next to a blue mailbox, under a large tree, just starting to show its pale green buds. The rainy murk lulls him into drowsiness. His eyes close. He turns the radio on and tries to keep the beat on the steering wheel so he won't doze off.

Doesn't have long to wait. Sure enough, the side door opens. Robin and Lyra hurry down the porch steps. Robin carries a frilly pink umbrella and the girl is wearing a red raincoat. She puts the girl into the
backseat of her mother's car, then gets behind the wheel. Perfect. Easy quarry, that bright yellow Rabbit. When she drives by he leans over as if he's looking for something on the floor. Eases out, keeping his distance, lets other cars get between them. A mile into town she turns into the drugstore lot, and he grins. Faster than he thought. But as she pulls behind the store he realizes it's a drive-through pharmacy, so he backs into a parking spot, slides low on the seat. She hands cash out the window to the unseen clerk, receives her white prescription bag. Again, he follows at a distance, then loses her when she turns too quickly.

“Goddamnit,” he mutters, doubling back. She's pulled into a busy strip mall that has a supermarket, a furniture store, a McDonald's, and five smaller stores. The lot is filled with cars, so she drives around until she finds an empty spot at the far end of a row. He waits, two rows behind, watching her lift Lyra out of the car. She opens the umbrella, then kisses the top of the girl's head, which enrages him. He starts to open his door and just then she calls out, waving to a man and woman in hooded yellow raincoats, pushing a loaded grocery cart toward her. She knows everybody. They embrace, talk animatedly a moment, then continue on to their car, which is too near hers for him to safely make his move. Holding Lyra's hand, she heads toward a children's shoe store. He knows by the spring in her step, the way she keeps looking down, that she's laughing with the little bitch. Her guard's down. She could give a shit about him, Eddie, the poor sap who doesn't have a clue why she turned on him. Far as she's concerned, he's as good as gone. He watches her bounce into the store. Better wait, no sense alarming her too soon. He's beginning to feel calmer. From here on, it's all smooth sailing. Whatever he did he'll make it right. Needs to get her alone though so they can talk, that's all he wants. He turns on the radio. Still in the store. Twenty minutes go by. How the hell long does it take to buy shoes? Probably knows everyone in there, too. He sits forward and starts the car. His lucky day. The white Escalade next to the mother's VW is backing out. Another car waits, directional flashing, but he zips into the space. The driver gives an indignant toot. Yeah, right, Eddie could care.

Just in time. She leaves the store, carrying two bags. Same as Aunt
Tina, always crying poor-mouth, but her kids get whatever they want, nothing left for him. Ever. He cracks open his door, watching them hold hands as they skip along, laughing when the girl splashes through a puddle in the new lime green boots she's wearing. So lost are they in their fantasy of happiness neither one notices him. With the girl at her heels, she opens the back door, leans in, flips the bags and her purse onto the seat, then turns, ready to lift her onto the booster seat, but he's made his move, scooping up the little bitch, shoving her into the back of his car.

“Lyra! Lyra!” she screams, pulling on the door, but he's already got the child lock on.

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” He grabs Robin's wrist, twisting it up against his chest.

“Don't do this. Please. Please, I beg you,” she gasps, looking at him stupidly while inside the little bitch bangs on the window, wailing for her mother. “What is it? Whatever you want—”

“Get in the car! Get in the car!” He opens the passenger door.

She hesitates, then ducks inside. As he runs around the front of the car he sees her frantically hitting door buttons, either to lock them in, or to let Lyra out, but he's too quick, as always in these moments, so swift of mind and deed that it is another self he sees perform, a mastery unhindered by doubt or fear.

“Shut up. Just shut up!” he yells over her screaming demand that he let Lyra out of the car. She didn't do anything. Why is he doing this to an innocent child? Sobbing, the little bitch stands behind her mother, arms locked around her neck, a stranglehold that impedes Robin's flailing attempts to grab the keys from the ignition. He's not going to hurt them, he yells. All he wants is to talk, that's all. “Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” he barks at Lyra, batting his hand over the back of the seat, a tap really, but she shrieks and that's when he sees Robin's cell phone, grabs it out of her hand. “Jesus Christ!” he yells, peeling out of the busy lot.

As he drives, he keeps trying to explain. He just wants to know what happened. What did he do wrong? One day they're so close and
the next, she's ordering him out of her house. Did he ever once do anything to hurt her or her kids? That's what he wants to know.

“I was good to you! I was always so fucking good to you!” he bellows over the steady whack of the wipers and the rain beating on the roof Her silence frustrates him. A good slap, that'd get her talking. From the corner of his eye he sees something glint. The diamond heart hanging from her thin neck, a gift from Hammond, he thinks, so seized with resentment he can barely see the road. “Is that what I did wrong? I was too good? Too fucking good? Is that it? It is, isn't it? You want to be messed with, don't you? You like it. You like being shit on, right? Knocked around, right? Is that it? That what hubby and the boyfriend do?” He snaps his hand out, just missing her beautiful scared face. She flinches and the little bitch screams. He laughs, can't help it. Frantic as it all seems, their terror is the perfectly clear lens through which he can now see. It magnifies everything, expanding his mind so that he's a calm, lethal force. Now they respect him. He enjoys their bloodless pallor, their shriveled nerves, their inarticulate dread. This is the power he wields over these docile, groveling lambs. “Hey, Mommy likes it,” he tells the little bitch through the mirror. “Keeps her on her toes, doesn't it? Maybe that's what I shoulda done. Want me to? Want me to start slapping you around like them? Well, do you? Do you?” he screams at Robin whose hands clasp Lyra's clenched arms. “Do you?”

“No,” she says, finally settling down, more reasonable, taking deep breaths as she looks over at him now. “Of course not. I just want you to let us go. I'm sorry you're upset. It's been a bad time, that's all. Everything's been so crazy, if I hurt your feelings, I didn't mean to, really, believe me, I'd never do that.”

“Well, you did! You damn well fucking did!”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. And you're right, you were good to us. You were, and I appreciate it. You don't know how much I appreciate it. It just got hard, that's all, I mean, knowing why you were there. It was like … like you were spying on me and then running back to her. Everything I said, you—”

“Running back to who?”

“Nora. And once I found out, of course I was upset. I mean, to think she'd actually do that, pay someone, pay you to investigate me.”

With a burst of laughter, he reaches out, aching to touch her, but she cringes against the door, which only enrages him, to think that's what happened, that snippy cunt Nora Hammond, trying to poison the well, dump him and the mistress at the same time. He wasn't investigating her or anyone else, he insists. He just liked her, that's all. And the better he got to know her, the more he cared about her. Still does, maybe more than he's ever cared about another human being. His heart swells with the tender truth of this stunning pronouncement and he grins at her. She's confused. Someday they'll have a good laugh about this. Yes.
Someday:
the word amazes him.

“So, will you let us out now. Please?” she begs as he stops at the light. Just then there is a blur of red as a pickup truck pulls alongside. “Help! Help us!” she suddenly screams, banging on her window, but no one can see her through the sheets of heavy rain. As the light turns green, he roars off. This isn't going the way he wants. In the backseat the little bitch whimpers and all he wants is to shut her up. He feels trapped, suffocating in a tumult he can't pass through, or stop. He's been set up. Set up to fail. Once again.

Nora feels
a little better after her shower. Dinner is in the oven, marinated chicken thighs and carrots. Tomorrow she'll go back to work. It's the last place she wants to be, but this is ridiculous, letting her life go to pieces around her. She can't keep falling apart. It's not fair to her children. They need her to be strong. She measures a cup and a half of broth into a pan, adds butter, sets it on the burner, needing the rhythm, the most mundane tasks to pull her back into normal living. She is in the pantry looking for the box of wild rice, when the bell rings at the side door, leading in from the garage. Odd, she thinks, quickly closing the cupboard. Only the family ever comes in that way, and Chloe is up in her room, listening to music, and Drew is in the family room, playing a video game. Ken. She hurries to the window, peers through the
curtain. She doesn't recognize the dark blue car parked halfway into her garage. Again, the bell rings, this time urgently. When she opens the door Robin Gendron is standing in the breezeway The last person on earth she wants to see. The unbelievable nerve. If ever she felt like slapping her it's right now.

“What do you want?” She clenches her fists.

“Nora, please,” Robin says with a wide-eyed gasp, white-knuckled, ringless hands clasped at her chin. “I need you to come out here. Into the garage. Please!”

“No! You want to say something, say it here.” Something in Robin's stare makes her hold the door edge between them. She looks frantic, desperate.

“I can't. Please, Nora, please. I'm begging you,” she whispers, tears running down her cheeks. She's hyperventilating. “Please come out here. I need your help. You have no idea—”

“Nora!” The car door opens and Eddie Hawkins's feet swing out onto the garage floor, but he stays in the car. Now with the light on she can see Lyra's face pressed against the rear window, mouth open, crying. “Seems we got a little mixup here, a little misunderstanding,” he calls out, the pouring rain and his voice such a boding turbulence through the open garage that for a surreal moment she finds reassurance in that mountain of black plastic trash bags piled in the corner. That's what they've come for, Ken's clothes. Tennis racquets, too, probably. They hang on the far wall over his golf clubs, alongside his skis, downhill and cross-country, his helmets and snowshoes, though not the bright green and orange snowboard, ridiculously expensive, like all of Ken's toys. The first and only time he used it he dislocated his knee. He was going to give it to Clay, an excellent boarder, but she was afraid Drew's feelings would be hurt. Annoyed by her interference, he begrudgingly gave it to Drew, who, as predicted, wasn't interested. Never used it. Ken's bicycles hang on hooks from the rafters. All the things he values most are in here. A good time. His lover, their child.

“He's got Lyra,” Robin whispers. “He won't let her go. He made us come.”

“Nora,” he calls again. “She thinks I'm some kinda detective or something. That I'm working for you, like tryna get dirt on her and the boyfriend. Your fine, upstanding husband!” He laughs. “So tell her. Go ahead!”

Nora stares at him for a moment, then looks back at Robin. “What do you want me to do?”

“Tell her!” Eddie shouts, and she realizes he's staying in the car because as long as he's got Lyra, Robin won't leave. Isn't this what Robin just said? Her brain's not working. Worlds have collided and nothing seems real. She's rooted here, on the outside, looking in.