The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes (33 page)

Fast, too fast, they had crossed the crowded floor. The door was painted black and partly hidden by velvet curtains. Laney glanced over her shoulder again. Daniel wouldn’t meet her eye.
He knows you lied to him.

It doesn’t matter. In a few seconds, it will all be over.
She pushed open the door. Night air poured over her sweating skin. The loading dock was broad and bright, a sodium lamp on the building casting remorseless light down on concrete stained and pitted. Two huge Dumpsters ran along the wall, the metal rusty. The air smelled sour.
Let them both get outside. Then finish it.
She took a few extra steps, ears straining. She could sense them behind her by the way they blocked the sound.
Wait until—
The heavy door banged shut, turning the music down.
Now.
Laney reached into her purse, feeling for the revolver. Her fingers traced the hard, cool edges of the—
—glass?
She jerked her hand out, found herself holding a heavy-bottomed tumbler, a couple of drops of amber liquid still in the bottom.
An image flashed across her eyes. Bennett coming up behind them. Close enough to her purse that all he had to do was look down.
He must have seen the gun and slipped it out of her purse, trading the glass in for weight.
Oh god. Oh, god, no.
She turned, wanting to warn Daniel, to tell him to run, but Bennett was right there. His smile was bland and cold. “So, Daniel, you were wrong. At your house today, you said at the end of the night, you’d be holding a gun”—Bennett reached for his waist, drew the pistol, and pointed it at her beautiful husband—“and I wouldn’t.”
No, it won’t work, not now, no—

“Tell me something. You’re a writer, you’re supposed to understand the human heart, all that stuff. Why is it that when you tell people to trust you, they tend to?”

“We want to believe in each other.”
“Simple as that?”
Daniel shrugged. “I wouldn’t say simple.” He looked at Laney.
He’s waiting for you to hand him the gun. And all you have is a

Her head and heart screamed to move, to try something, to charge Bennett.
“Never made sense to me. Words are just breath with sound. For example, I promised I wouldn’t hurt you.” Bennett pulled the trigger.
The hammer fell with a click, as she expected.
“Actually,” Daniel reached behind his back and pulled out the snub-nose revolver. With his left hand, he drew out a handful of shells from his pocket. “What I said was, I’d be holding a
loaded
gun, and you wouldn’t.”
It was like she’d been bound by iron bands and someone had cut them. She could suddenly breathe, smile, even laugh. He’d done it. Somehow, her baby had pulled it off.
Then Daniel turned and pointed the gun at her. “Go stand over there with him.”

She lied to you. She and Bennett are in this together. There’s no way to win. But that doesn’t mean you have to let them.
Better all three of them end up on the concrete.
Laney said, “What?”
Bennett said, “How?”
“I hid two guns in the bathroom. We picked up this one,” he moved it to point at Bennett, “at the house this afternoon, and I hid it in the ceiling. The plan was to put it in Laney’s purse in case you searched me. But that was before I knew she was lying to me.”
“Daniel, what are you doing?” Her voice frantic. “What are you—”
“I saw your cell phone. You talked to him yesterday. From the hotel.”
She looked at Bennett, then back at him. “Yes. But it’s not what—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” His headache was an avalanche, a stampede, a typhoon. “You know, ever since I lost my memory, I’ve been looking for you. I thought you were the center of my world. But you were the reason I tried to kill myself, weren’t you?”
Bennett’s mask of cool had slipped, revealing the creature behind it, all angles and cunning. He looked from the gun to Laney to the street beyond the loading dock, then took a half step back.
“Don’t move, fucker.” Daniel raised the gun. It felt so right in his hand.
No, wrong, it feels wrong, not right, you don’t want to, not ag—
He blinked, tried to steady his hand. At this range, there was no way he could miss. All he had to do was pull the trigger. Swivel his aim a couple of degrees, at Laney, and pull it again. Then, finally, put the barrel in his mouth and finish what he’d started in Maine.
Laney’s eyes were pools of wide panic. She stepped toward him.
“Stay there.”
“No.” She stared at him, the woman who’d been lying to him—
the woman you love—
her face beautiful—
terrible—
a monster—
your life
—“You’re not going to do this, Daniel.”
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t. Don’t you remember?” She spoke softly. “I know you do. That’s why you couldn’t shoot him at Sophie’s house, and why you keep having that dream—”
“What are you—”
“—about the concrete canyon.” She took another step. “Only it’s not a canyon, Daniel.” Her eyes hypnotizing him. “It’s the river basin.” He felt dizzy, almost as if he were—
“Where you killed Bennett last time.”
—falling.

—dizzy, almost as if he were falling. Daniel wobbled on his feet, sucked in a breath of cool air. Reeling from the force and abruptness of the memory, from the crystal clarity, from the echoes of nausea and horror.

Laney stared at him. Something in his eyes must have told her that he remembered. “Now you see why I had to lie baby. Why I’ve kept us from going to the police, and why I wanted to just give him the necklace, even now. I didn’t want you to have to remember this. I didn’t want you to face it again.”

Oh fuck me.
In the instant the memory had flowed through him, he’d been lost in it, but now he found himself here again. Back in a concrete canyon holding death in his hand. A loading dock instead of a dry river basin, but the decision the same.
Only heartbeats had passed. The snub-nose revolver was still pointed at Bennett. Through the walls of the club, bass still throbbed. The glaring buzz of the sodium light was unchanged.
But everything was different. He knew what he’d done.
And what it had cost him.
Bennett had his mask back in place, his features collected. He held his hands out and vaguely up. “Easy, brother. Easy. You tried this once, and you didn’t like it.”
Daniel stared down his arm. Shoulder, bicep, elbow, forearm, hand, pistol. All connected.
A gun is just a tool of your will. You pull the trigger, the man in front of it dies.
It’s not the gun that does the killing.
“Tell you what.” Bennett lowered his hand.
“Don’t!” Daniel’s mouth was dry. His throat closed tight.
“Easy! I was just getting your necklace. Okay?” Very slowly, Bennett slid two fingers into his pocket, pulled the glittering chain out. “Here.” He dropped it on the concrete. “See?”
It all comes down to this. Every mile you drove, every memory you chased, every moment you’ve had of this too-short life. Everything you’ve learned along the way. All conspired to bring you right back where you started.
Sweat dripped down his forehead, and he wiped it away with his other hand. Laney watched him. His Laney, the woman he loved, and who loved him.
My god. You almost—you were going to—
“I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t know. I didn’t—”
“It’s okay. I understand. I love you.”
“Listen, Daniel.” Bennett’s voice calm. “We can work something out.”
You’re here again. Only this time you realize what it means.
When he’d driven to the river basin, the gun in his glove compartment, he had been telling himself that he would give the man a chance to walk away. But he’d known that he didn’t really want that. He’d wanted the man to give him a reason to kill. He’d gone there with murder in his heart.
Only you didn’t understand. You thought it was just another story you were writing. Didn’t understand how taking a life would change you. How part of you would die too. Didn’t realize you were living the last days of Daniel Hayes. At least the Daniel Hayes you thought you were.
But pulling a trigger is different than typing words on a keyboard. Different than imagining the story of your life. Different even than writing a real-life scene, the way you scripted the one for Bennett’s cameras, and the twist that left you with the loaded gun.