Carry Me Home (29 page)

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

Zoe felt sick. The look on Cal’s face . . .

Maybe it was just Roy. Or maybe she’d screwed up. Maybe, and this was the bad thing, the worst thing—maybe she’d hurt Cal.

“I’m sorry,” she ventured. “He’s . . . not bitter, exactly. He thinks he’s funny.”

He turned halfway down the steps and looked at her. “You think I’m upset about that? Garden-variety envy? Think I’ve never seen that?”

“But you seem so annoyed,” she said cautiously. “Is it that I’m friends with Roy? Please tell me that’s not it, that you’re not jealous.”

“Oh, because it’s all about what
you
want?” He was walking again.

“What?”

They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and he stopped and turned to face her, his face harder than she’d ever seen it. The sickness was worse now, was actually making her feel a little faint.

“It wouldn’t occur to you,” he said, “that I might be upset to find out that I’m, what was it? A way station?”

“Um . . .” She didn’t know what to do with her hands. “Well, eventually, yes, that’ll probably happen. This is a step, just like . . .” She cast around for an example. “College football for you,” she said with relief. “A starting place. And then you guys move around, try to find the place where you fit, where you can star. It’s like that.”

“You know,” he said, “I can understand regular grown-up topics without people putting them into sports terms. I’ve worked real hard to raise my IQ past double digits.”

“I was just trying to find an applicable example,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Yeah, thanks. I got it. And that’s what you want. To be a star.”

“Well, isn’t it what you wanted, too?” He knew how much her work mattered to her. At least she’d thought he did. “I want to do research. I want to
be
somebody.”

“I thought people here did research. I kind of thought that was the idea of the money I gave. To make us more competitive.”

“But it’s still not—”

“Not the big time,” he finished for her. “Not the biggest time, anyway, and it never will be, and that’s all you care about. So where does the rest of your life come into this?”

“What rest of my life?”

He gestured impatiently. “You know, that thing most women start thinking about at some point here. Marriage. Family. The rest of your life.”

She tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out right. “Are you asking me to declare my intentions?”

He went rigid. “Don’t be trying to make this funny,” he warned her. “Don’t you dare try to make me look stupid for caring about you.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m not.” She was trembling a little now. She needed to sit down, and she couldn’t, so she straightened up instead. She had to face this. She had to face him. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . not what I’d have expected you to say. I didn’t think you were really . . . serious. That you really cared.”
Not as much as I did.

“Why not?” he asked. “For a person who’s supposed to be a scientist, you make a lot of assumptions, don’t you? And they don’t even seem to me to fit the evidence.”

“What . . .” She swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“Why would you assume I’m just messing around here? What evidence do you have?”

“I don’t know,” she said. He didn’t get it? Really? “Maybe that you’re Cal Jackson, and I’m . . . me? So I thought I should guard my heart? That doesn’t make any sense to you?”

“When did I make you feel that way?” he demanded. “When? All right, I wanted to sleep with you. Of course I did. I’m a guy. It’s how we’re made. That doesn’t mean I wanted to sleep with you and dump you, or that I was going to dump you if I couldn’t sleep with you fast enough. I didn’t do either thing. Even though I’m a guy, and a jock, too. I didn’t, and I would’ve thought that was obvious.”

“But . . .” She tried to focus, and failed, so she just stood there.

He sighed, some of the anger seeming to drain away, but what was left behind looked like . . . resignation. And pain. Half an hour earlier, he’d been inside her body, and now, everything they’d shared was gone. Just like that.

Loss. That was what she saw on his face. And that was what was making her own heart thump in dull agitation, making her own breath come choppy and short. Loss.

“Look,” he told her at last, “I’m thirty-two years old. I’ve been divorced once already from somebody who didn’t want the things I wanted, who didn’t want to live in the place I live. My career isn’t what you’d call portable. I’m here to stay, and I don’t have a couple more years to mess around with somebody getting my kicks, or giving her hers.”

“I’m not saying mess around, though,” she protested. “When did I say mess around?”

“What do you want to call it? You think of the name, and we’ll call it that. If it’s not going anywhere and doesn’t have a chance to go anywhere, to me, that’s messing around.”

“But wait. Wait,” she insisted, because this wasn’t fair. Was it? “Is it my fault that I didn’t say, before I slept with you, that I didn’t want to settle down and marry you? Was I supposed to say that? You would have thought I was delusional.”

“Go on,” he said. “Make me ridiculous. You can even win. I’ll give you the trophy and tell you that you won. But I’ve been straight-up here. You’re the one with a hidden agenda, and you can’t even see it. You’ve been so busy assuming that you can’t trust men, that you can’t trust me, you’ve gone and done the exact same thing to me you’re always worrying about. You telling me you don’t see that?”

“But I . . . I didn’t know you’d want all that,” she tried to explain again. “Not with me.”

“How would you think I didn’t? You sat in my dining room and listened to me tell you about Jolie. You saw how busted up I was about that. You knew I wanted a family, because I told you. What did you think I was doing hanging around with you? Amusing myself until something better came along?”

“I—” She’d gotten herself stuck again. She hadn’t looked past the present, because she hadn’t dared to believe it was more than casual. That was the answer. And she hadn’t wanted to think about why that was.

“The truth is,” he told her, “the one who’s been doing that? It’s you. If somebody’s using somebody here, if somebody’s stringing somebody else along, it sure as hell ain’t me.”

She couldn’t be mad. She only wanted to cry, because this hurt. It hurt so much. But she couldn’t cry, because that would hurt him more.

“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing that wasn’t good enough. “I should have told you, and I didn’t. I just wanted to . . . be with you. I didn’t think it through. And I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” he said. “So am I. And what the hell.” He sighed, leaned back against the wall, ran a hand through his hair, and she hated the fatigue she heard in his voice. “I screwed up, too. Picked the wrong woman. Again.”

It was a punch to the gut. Because it was true. And she had nothing to say.

“If you’re not in,” he said after a moment, “you’re not. And I don’t have time in my life to hang around waiting for another California girl to decide whether this Podunk town is someplace she can stand to be. I tried that already. It didn’t work out then, and I’ve got no reason in the world to think it’d work any better now.”

“I can’t say anything else, though.” She tried to stop the tremble in her voice, and failed. “And I’m not sure it’s fair to ask me to.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I can’t help it. I guess we just want different things, and that’s the way it is. I’m a simple guy. I’m in or I’m out. I play hard or I go home. And I want a woman who’s the same way. I want a woman who’s in.”

“Well,” she said, and swallowed against the pain, “I can’t say that. I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t promise to stay here, because it’d be a lie.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I got it.” He shoved off the wall. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“And that’s it?” she asked. “That’s all?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s it. Play hard or go home. You don’t want to play hard, so I guess we’d both better go home.”

LISTENING

The man swung by the house, the same way he had every night for the past two weeks. Casually, not slowing. Checking, just in case. He didn’t want to change his methods now, as frustrating as it had been to wait.

The first couple of his American girls had been so easy. Not much harder than in Iraq. Sitting ducks. Since he’d come to Paradise, though, everything had gone straight to hell. He’d had nothing but aggravation, and it was all her fault. Everything that had gone wrong had started with her. Which meant it had to finish with her, too.

He’d never hurt them. Much. But maybe it was time to change that. Let her know who she was messing with. Let them both know, because Cal was every bit a part of this, too. He thought he could protect her? That he could win this game, like he’d won all those others? He was going to find out that this wasn’t a football game. This was a whole different game, and there was no rulebook except the law of the jungle. Winner take all, and there was only going to be one winner here.

Nine o’clock. The light shone through the window beside her front door, and her car was there, and his truck wasn’t, for once.

Was she there, though—that was the question. But every question had an answer.

He swung into a driveway up the street without slowing, with purpose, in front of a darkened house whose unplowed walk showed as clearly as a “Vacancy” sign that its owners were gone. Invitation to burglary right there. There was a sucker born every minute.

He pulled his duffel out from under the seat, pulled out a penlight to select a few things, not risking the cab’s overhead light, zipped the bag up, and stowed it again. No sense leaving evidence for anyone to see, unlikely as that was. You could never be too careful.

Across the street, down the sidewalk, walking like a guy with a plan and not any kind of loiterer. He cast a casual glance behind him. Nobody, so he cut fast through her neighbors’ side yard, past another big dark house with nobody home. Around the back, over a short hedge that he jumped with ease.

He spared a thought for footprints, then shrugged. The snow would have filled them by morning, and he was wearing boots, size ten and a half. What were they going to know from that? Not a damn thing. That he was a guy with regular-size feet, wearing boots in the snow.

His movements were stealthier now, because there
were
lights on here at the back of the house, on the second floor as well as in her apartment. He skirted the pools of yellow light beside her door and the back door of the main house and made his way quickly around to the back, where her bedroom was. The pleasurable excitement wound higher at the thought.

Not yet
, he reminded himself.
Recon.

He crouched low, invisible in the dark. Dark clothes, dark hat, dark gloves. He pulled the little box from his pocket, put in the earbuds, and switched the machine on. Directed it toward her wall, sat still and listened.

Music. Classical. He made a face. Of course. She
really
wasn’t his type, other than physically. No kind of party girl. But he’d have a party with her all the same.

He hunkered down for ten long, cold minutes, waiting. Listening. And heard nothing but the music. No conversation. Then a scrape that was a chair being pushed back, footsteps coming closer, and another light switched on, farther down the wall. Bathroom. Toilet flush, sink. The light went out, and he heard the footsteps again, the chair.

Working in the kitchen, he decided. A lonely night grading papers.

You’re lonely now, Zoe
, he promised her.
But you won’t be lonely long.

He didn’t know why, but she was alone for once. She thought she was safe, or Cal did. Or maybe she hadn’t been good enough, and Cal had gotten bored.

That was the beauty of this line of entertainment. It didn’t matter if they were good in bed or not. It was always good for him. And it was never boring.

He couldn’t follow all his usual steps, but it would be good enough. He’d make sure of that. He’d add some . . . enhancements. Take his time and do it right, give her some memorable moments. When he got done with her, she’d have some souvenirs to mark the occasion.

He put the device away, stood up, and retraced his steps, checking before he left the shelter of the neighbors’ house for passersby. Nobody, not in the dark, not in the snow, not in this peaceful, quiet neighborhood. This safe neighborhood.

Back across the street, into his truck, and home. He had an invasion to plan.

WIND CHIMES

Zoe woke again. Woke scared, just like every other time, her muscles tense, her ears straining to hear something that wasn’t there.

She couldn’t sleep without Cal. She couldn’t think without Cal.

The misery engulfed her again. She’d worked late, trying to distract herself, to get tired enough for sleep. Until eventually, she’d been unable to focus on the screen and had climbed gratefully into bed. And had lain awake all the same, thinking about what had happened.

Everything she’d been so wary of, everything she’d suspected Cal of doing—she’d done it all to him, and she hadn’t even realized it. The look in his eyes, the expression on his face, the knowledge that it was over, that he didn’t want her, because she wasn’t enough, because she couldn’t be enough—it had all hurt her heart with an actual physical pain that still ached in her chest.

She didn’t understand her foolish heart. Or rather, she did. Her heart wanted him. It was her head that kept insisting on the plan. And all she felt was confused. Confused, and miserable, so sorry for how she’d hurt him, and so lonely for him.

The tears trickled down her cheeks despite her efforts to suppress them, and she wiped them impatiently away with the sheet, then abandoned the effort and let them come, let the waves of sorrow and guilt overtake her until she had cried herself to sleep.

She wasn’t sure how long it had been before she woke again. The same fear, the same straining ears, the same eyes, open and staring into the darkness. The same terror. Again.

She should have gone to Rochelle’s. Cal had wanted her to. After all that he’d said, all she’d said, he’d suggested that she pack a bag and call her friend, had told her she shouldn’t be alone. She’d promised him she’d go later, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t been able to face the thought of being with somebody else, not tonight. Having to tell Rochelle what had happened, that she’d lost him. That would have made it true, and she couldn’t stand that it was true. She’d told herself that she’d been safe so far, that tomorrow was soon enough to make another plan.

Now, she wished she’d gone to cry and drink too much with a girlfriend like a normal person, because she was scared. She told her racing heart to settle down, tried to close her eyes, but they stayed open, and she was sitting up now without even realizing it, sitting up and listening.

Nothing. Or something? She held her breath, strained toward it, tried to hear.

Clink. She knew that sound, and she was moving.

Clink-clink-clink-clink. The bamboo wind chimes Cal had hung in her bedroom doorframe resonated with their cheerful music, a low voice uttered a curse, and there was movement in the dark, then a penlight shining on the bed. On where she’d been a moment earlier.

It all happened in a second. The next second, she had the gun in her hands, had racked the slide.

Ka-chunk
. The unmistakable sound of the shell sliding into the chamber of a pump-action shotgun, and the light was swinging around, blinding her where she stood tucked into the wall in the shelter of the bedside table.

“I’ve got my finger on the trigger,” she said, her voice shaking only a little. “Aimed right at that light. Got four more in the magazine in case I miss.”

“You
bitch
.” It was a hiss.

“I’d love to splatter your brains on my bedroom wall. Just give me an excuse.” Her voice was stronger, because Cal had been right. There was nothing like a 20-gauge to give you confidence. She held the gun in one hand, and her other hand found the light switch, exactly like she’d practiced. She got her hand back onto the grip fast, steadied the gun, and looked at him.

Amy had been right, too. Big and strong, wearing a ski mask, the white circles around eyes and mouth making him a monster. A nightmare. His hands outstretched, glistening in surgical gloves.

Monkey paws
, Amy had said. Still holding his light, because he was frozen. Because he was the one who was scared now.

“Put the light down,” she told him. “Hands on your head.”

“You won’t,” he said, and there was a sneer in his voice despite everything. “You don’t have the guts.”

She braced herself, jerked the gun to the side, and fired into the closet wall a bare two feet to his right, a galvanizing explosion of noise in the night, and saw him leap. She didn’t hesitate, racked the slide again instantly, exactly like she’d practiced, like Cal had taught her.
Four more. One to put him down, one to make sure he stays down, and two more for insurance.
“Just give me one reason,” she told him. “Toss the light on the bed. Do it now.”

He didn’t. She saw the hesitation, and her finger tightened on the trigger. She was going to shoot him. She knew it. She was going to shoot him the second he moved toward her. And then she was going to shoot him again.

He didn’t move toward her, though. He turned and ran, crashing through the wind chimes again, leaving them swinging wildly, tinkling merrily in his wake. She followed, but she had to scramble around the end of the bed, focus on keeping the gun level.

By the time she got into the living room, he was climbing out of the window, the beam from his flashlight making him easy to spot, then dropping down onto the ground below and running across the yard.

She wanted to shoot him in the back. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.