The Last Breath (17 page)

22

THE NEW ME
doesn’t leave the house for days. I channel Fannie and her efficient but caring touch, helping to assess Dad’s vital signs and pain levels and record them onto a chart, trying not to notice how they seem to be moving in opposite directions. I dole out pain medicines and cajole Dad into one more bite, or when that doesn’t work, refuse to let up until he sucks up every last drop of his Ensure. I wash laundry and sweep floors and do windows when Dad’s asleep, and I watch TV and sweet-talk him into stilted conversations when he’s awake. Neither of us bring up Bo or Lexi. Neither of us talk about Ella Mae. He doesn’t tell me I’m forgiven, and I’m too afraid to ask.

Cal comes for the weekend, and Fannie and I spend most of it in the kitchen, covered in flour and butter and sugar. She shows me how to make rich yellow pastries stuffed with creamy white filling. Giant cranberry pecan muffins with clumps of raw brown sugar. A sticky sweetbread roll filled with crushed nuts and honey that was so good I ate half of it in one sitting. Between her and Jake, I’ve already gained seven pounds, and my jeans no longer need a belt.

We work mostly in silence, and I must admit, something about the work is soothing. Maybe it’s the rhythm. The crack of an egg, the swish of a brush, the chink of a sugar shaker. Or maybe it’s the way baking allows my thoughts to flow freely, like they’re suddenly let loose from their cage to fly from Dad to Jake to Dean back to Jake. I think about Jake a lot these days.

And I barely ever sleep.

Jake drives over every night after closing up Roadkill, slipping like a shadow through the trees edging up to the backyard and texting me as he’s coming up the porch. I let him in and lead him past a snoring Dad and up the staircase, demonstrating how to hug the wall in order to silently step around the Persian, and which treads to skip so the squealing boards don’t give us away.

Upstairs in my room, he undresses me with slow but sure hands, letting my clothing—first my sweater and T-shirt, then my jeans, followed by thin scraps of cotton and lace—flutter to the floor, each piece followed by a whisper of how much he wants me, that he’s been waiting all day for this, that I’m beautiful and sweet and funny. His fingers make me forget all about Dad’s fever that fluctuates anywhere from nonexistent to terrifying, his violent attacks of hiccups that last for up to four hours, his increasingly hard, bloated stomach. About the escalating symptoms and decreasing appetite and comfort levels. About the worry and dread. He loves it all away.

He lays me on the bed and cradles me in his arms, kissing my forehead, the hinge of my jaw, the spot underneath my right ear, my collarbone, dipping lower and lower. I think about my job, waiting for me back in Kenya or wherever disaster strikes next. I think about Dad dying on his bed downstairs, tomorrow or next week or next month. Who knows how much time Jake and I have left? I want to savor every millisecond.

“Now, Jake. Now. I need you now.”

Jake complies.

Afterward, in whispered conversations under my comforter, I tell him everything. About my resurfaced memory and my guilt and the secret meeting with Jeffrey Levine. About how I’ve pretty much given up on Bo and Lexi. About how Cal lied about the affair, and how my father knew. About Dean Sullivan, and how I suspect his face was the last Ella Mae ever saw.

Jake seems more disgusted than surprised about Dean. “Have you told the police?”

“What for? They’re not going to do anything about it. As far as they’re concerned, Ella Mae’s case is closed.”

“Well then, maybe your uncle can help.”

I lift a noncommittal shoulder. When I confronted Cal for denying Ella Mae’s affair, he spat out a brusque apology and then launched into a lengthy argument about how Ella Mae’s infidelity can only make Dad look more—and not less—guilty. Even if that affair was with Dean Sullivan.

So, since I can’t ask Ella Mae, I don’t dare ask Dad, and I figure Cal would just as soon lie again than tell me the truth, that leaves me with just one person.

“Stay away from Dean Sullivan,” Jake says, reading my mind. “If what you think happened really happened, then that man is dangerous.”

“From everything I’ve heard, he’s too drunk to be dangerous.”

The pillow shifts as Jake shakes his head. “Alcohol makes people dangerous, because it makes them unpredictable. I’ve been around enough drunks in my life to know that booze will just as soon turn a man into a lion as a pussycat, but you can never tell which one it’s going to be when you pour that first drink.”

I brush his warning off with a breathy laugh. “What’s he going to do? Besides throw up on my shoes, that is. Lexi says if he’s not stumbling drunk, he’s not conscious.”

“Even so, you never know what a drunk is capable of. Do not confront the guy. It could push him over the edge.”

An icy chill skitters down my spine at his warning, mostly because I’ve already begun to think about how, exactly, I am going to do just that—confront Dean. I’ll have to somehow sneak by the circus on the front lawn to do it, but what if Jake’s right? What if Dean is a violent drunk? In that case, the protesters and cameramen might serve as a good safety net. At the very least, there would be witnesses.

But Jake is still watching me, and waiting for an answer I’m not ready to give.

“Stay away from him, Gia.”

Though I’m flattered by his concern, I’m not particularly swayed. I’ve already decided that the route to my father’s redemption begins and ends with Dean Sullivan. I just haven’t figured out how to get a confession out of him yet.

“I can’t do that,” I whisper. “Dean is the only one who knows what really happened the night Ella Mae was killed.”

“Do you really think he’s going to tell you?”

“Yes. No.” I sigh. “I don’t know, maybe if I catch him drunk enough. All I know is that for all these years, everybody’s been blaming my father for Ella Mae’s death. But now I remember the prosecution’s star witness was sleeping with the victim. His testimony sent my father to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. I have to at least try.”

Jake lets my argument sink in for a bit. “When do you want to go?”

“Well, if I wait until the protesters leave, he’ll have all day to get good and loaded. So I was thinking about right before they show up, usually around seven or so.”

He nods once. “We’ll go as soon as it gets light.”

That Jake is including himself in this adventure does not escape me. “Won’t you make him nervous? What if he thinks we’re ganging up on him?”

“Dean doesn’t have to know I’m there. I’ll hide behind a bush or something. Because think about it. If Dean’s already killed once, he’s certainly capable of doing it again. I don’t want him coming after you without me there to stop him.”

I pull back and look at him, a tiny bit miffed. “My job is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. I’ve been robbed at knifepoint and gunpoint and every other point you can come up with. I’ve come this close to being kidnapped, raped or murdered more times than I care to count. I’ve faced down terrorists and militants and bandits and natural disasters of global magnitude. I think I can handle a drunk old recluse.”

“Not if he comes at you with a gun.”

I fall silent because, despite all my posturing, the man has a point. I’ve been shot before, in the upper right shoulder, and besides the experience being terrifying, it hurt like a motherfucker. It’s hard to win any argument when you’re on the wrong side of the barrel.

“Then I’ll just have to hope he doesn’t, because I’m still going.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

My blood pressure surges at his overprotectiveness, and my muscles and teeth clench in response. In the ears of someone who’s been on her own since 1994, his statement comes across sounding much more like a requirement than a request. I scrunch my lips and look away.

Jake notices. He wraps a palm around the back of my head and brings my gaze to his, and his tone softens. “I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself, but I would feel so much better if you would let me go over there with you. Not because I think I’m bigger or faster or stronger, but because I want to know that you’re okay. Because I need to know. Please?”

My heart turns over at both his words and the message I hear behind them. He wants to protect me. He needs to know I’m safe. And I have to admit, it feels kinda nice. I decide to let him.

But first, I decide to reward him.

I sweep a finger down his bare stomach. “I don’t know. How much heat do you carry?”

“That depends.” Jake sucks in a breath as my hand dips lower. “How much heat do you need?”

I roll him onto his back and show him how much. After that, Jake seems to forget all about Dean Sullivan.

And honestly, so do I.

23

THE NEXT MORNING,
Jake and I sneak back down the stairs and out the door. The sun is barely up, the sky just beginning to streak with pink and orange, and a good two inches of snow fell while we were...well, not sleeping exactly, but tucked upstairs in my warm bed. The snow acts as a muffler, dulling our voices and smothering the neighborhood’s early morning noises. At least now we’ll hear the protesters coming from miles away.

“Whatever you do, don’t provoke him,” Jake tells me, head down, boots crunching as they make tracks across the yard.

“I know.”

He looks over. “If he gets belligerent, just back off, okay?”

“I know.”

“And if he comes at you with a weapon—”

“Jake.” I pull him to a halt at the edge of the lawn. “I know all these things. I’ll be careful, I promise, but I’m also not going to coddle a confession out of him. Stop lecturing me.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m just nervous.”

“Well stop, okay? Because you’re making me nervous.” I give him my best calm-in-the-face-of-disaster face. “I’m trained to handle people who don’t want me there. I know what to do if they start threatening or turn hostile. I’ll be fine.”

Jake watches me for a moment, and I can see he wants to believe that Dean won’t harm me. But it’s not skepticism I read on his face. It’s concern, and a rush of delight skitters down my chest and flutters around in my belly. I curl a finger around one of his and smile, and silently, reluctantly, he nods.

We continue our trek across the snow to Dean’s house. We pause at the stairs leading to Dean’s rickety front porch, and I check to make sure my iPhone is recording. Satisfied, I slip the device carefully back into my front coat pocket, and Jake motions to the left of the door, where we agreed he would stand just out of sight. Once he’s in place, I suck a deep breath, climb the stairs and punch the doorbell.

Which doesn’t make so much as a peep. No surprise there. I go old-school and knock.

Nothing.

I pound on the door, hard and with the side of my fist, and press my ear against the wood, straining to pick up movement inside. The only thing I hear is my own hammering heart and steady breathing. I thump on the door a few more times, then go to the side window and peer through. Nothing but shapes and shadows behind the dingy lace curtains. I go back to the door and pound again and again and again.

Still nothing.

I reach for the handle and twist—and then, oops, with a click and a creak and maybe a teeny tiny shove, the door swings open and I’m peering down Dean’s dark hallway.

“Hello?”

The smell hits me, an overpowering combination of vomit and whiskey and unwashed skin and shit. My stomach recoils and I cover my nose with a hand, trying not to breathe as I lean my head inside. The stairs and hardwood floors are almost completely covered with dirt and junk, ratty shoes and papers and trash, and there’s something moving—please let it only be a mouse—in the corner.

But no Dean.

“Mr. Sullivan?”

I glance over at Jake, who is shaking his head. “Don’t do it,” he mouths.

I take a few tentative steps inside, ignoring the creepy feeling slithering through my bones. “Mr. Sullivan?” I step over an empty bottle and make my way farther into the hall, my scalp tingling, my spine flagpole straight. “It’s Gia Andrews, from next door.”

A dull thunk on the floorboard behind me sends a sharp jolt kicking through my muscles. I stifle a shriek and whip my head around to find Jake, close enough to be a human shadow.

“This is breaking and entering,” he whispers.

I shake my head and whisper back, “This is a concerned citizen, checking in on her neighbor.” Louder, I call, “Mr. Sullivan, is everything okay in here?”

Nobody answers. An icy wind blows through the front door, stirring the papers on the floor and intensifying the chill in my spine. I just pray Dean is passed out and not something worse, something like dead. Coming upon a corpse was so not on my agenda for today.

Jake and I continue down the hall to the living room, where we find a motionless Dean on the couch, naked but for a pair of grubby tighty-whities. If I weren’t standing in his living room, if I didn’t know for certain this was his house, I might not have recognized him. There is literally nothing left of the handsome, charming Dean Sullivan I once knew. He’s scrawny skinny, and his skin is gray and pasty. Dark scabs cover his chest and legs, and his entire body is sunken in and purplish in places, like the skin of a bruised fruit. His formerly flaxen hair is long and dull and sticks to his head in greasy clumps. An empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s is clutched in one of his hands, the one resting on the floor.

But praise your God of choice, he’s still breathing.

“He’s alive,” Jake says, his voice swollen with relief.

I step closer. “Mr. Sullivan?” I stab a finger into his chest. It’s like poking a cadaver—cold and stiff and unmoving. “Are you all right?”

Dean doesn’t stir.

I turn to Jake. “It’s freezing in here. Look around and see if you can find the thermostat.”

Jake disappears into the hall and returns two seconds later. “His gas must be shut off, because the heater isn’t coming on. I’ll see if there’s a blanket somewhere.”

I nod and Jake heads upstairs. While he’s gone, I go into the kitchen, find a semi-clean glass and fill it with water. By the time I make it back into the living room, Jake is draping a blanket over Dean’s unconscious body. Either the noise or the movement causes him to stir and awake.

It takes a few beats for Dean’s eyes to focus in on Jake. “Who the fuck are you?” Not even Dean’s slur can soften the nasal twang of his Chicago accent. Who da fuckah you?

“I’m Jake Foster, sir. When’s the last time you had something to eat?”

“None of your goddamn business, that’s when.” Dean tries to sit up, but the most he can manage is to push up onto a shaky elbow. “Now get the hell outta my house.”

I step around Jake. “Hi, Mr. Sullivan. I’m Gia Andrews, from next door. Remember me?”

Dean squints, and his face pales to an even deathlier shade. “I know who you are.”

“Jake and I were worried about you.” I hold out the glass of water, but Dean doesn’t move. He’s too busy staring at me with glassy, panicked eyes. “It’s only water. It’ll make you feel better.”

He throws off the blanket and bolts upright with surprisingly little effort. And then he clamps a hand around my wrist, sloshing most of the water over the couch and onto my shoes. “Did Ella Mae send you over here?”

I glance at Jake, but I can’t read his face. His jaw is set in a hard line, his brow dipped in a frown, his body ready to pounce if Dean makes so much as one false move. I try to reassure both men with my calm response.

“No, sir. Jake and I came here today because we were worried about you. We wanted to make sure you were okay.”

His fingers press painfully into my arm. “I need to see Ella Mae. I have to tell her I’m sorry.”

Every hair on my body springs to attention, and suddenly, I’m no longer cold. “Sorry for what?”

“She said that she forgave me. She said that she still loved me.” He shakes my arm hard enough to rattle my teeth, and there goes whatever was left of the water. “Where did she go?”

Jake and I exchange a quick glance.

“Mr. Sullivan, were you having an affair with Ella Mae?”

Dean’s eyes bulge, and his fingers dig harder into my arm.

I take his reaction as confirmation. “Were you in love with her? Did she threaten to break off the affair?”

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it.”

A surge of electricity straightens my back and heats the skin of my cheeks, and my heart pounds in my ears. “Didn’t mean to do what?”

And suddenly, Jeffrey’s words to me a few days ago flash across my brain—your mind won’t remember things you’re not ready to face. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Dean said he didn’t mean to do it. He talked about forgiveness. These two puzzle pieces make me think the hallucinations are trauma rather than alcohol induced, and a not-so-subtle sign Dean feels guilty for something his subconscious is not ready to confront.

Something like murder.

“Didn’t mean to do what?” I ask again.

His only answer is a nod, leading with his head and neck, lurching forward then back, quickly picking up speed until his entire upper body rocks back and forth. The whole time, he chants, “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it.”

“Did you murder Ella Mae Andrews?” My voice is high and pitchy, my tone urgent.

It’s like I didn’t speak. Dean pitches and rolls and chants, jerking on my arm, almost pulling me down with him.

Jake, who’s clearly had much more experience than I in dealing with incoherent drunks, steps forward. He loosens Dean’s grip on my arm with one hand and pushes me gently behind him with the other.

“Mr. Sullivan, how about I help you into a shower while Gia rounds up something to eat?” Without waiting for Dean’s response, Jake pulls him away from the couch, guiding him firmly toward the hallway stairs. “You look like you could use a little protein, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

Protein? Not until I’ve gotten my answer. That thought overrides everything else.

“But—”

“A shower will help,” Jake says, giving me a look that leaves no doubt his words are meant more for me than for Dean. “And so will some scrambled eggs.”

For a moment or two, I consider following the men upstairs. I don’t like the thought of Jake talking to Dean without the voice recorder, still humming away in my pocket, and I’m eager to hear more about Ella Mae, even if it is only gibberish. But that would mean facing Dean Sullivan naked, so I decide to wait a few more minutes. Hopefully Jake is right, and the shower and food will sober Dean up.

There are no eggs in the kitchen, and even if there had been, I wouldn’t have touched them. The entire inside of the refrigerator is covered with a fuzzy green layer of mold. I shut the door and scrounge through the cabinets until I’ve found a package of unopened Oreo cookies and a can of peanuts. I refill the glass with water and take it, along with Dean’s breakfast, back into the living room.

Upstairs, the shower shuts off, and Jake’s voice floats down the stairs. “Gia, get up here.”

I drop everything and race up the stairs, following the sound of movement to Dean’s bedroom. From the looks of him, the shower didn’t help. Dean is curled on his side under a filthy bedspread, his body shaking violently.

Jake stands by the window a few feet away, hands shoved in his front jeans pockets. “Tell Gia what you just told me,” he says to Dean. “About Ella Mae.”

Dean’s tremors intensify, and a spring in the bed squeals in protest. “She’s p-p-pregnant.”

The last word hits me like an ice bath, freezing my limbs and heart. I shake my head at Jake. “She wasn’t pregnant. He’s hallucinating.”

Jake steps closer, lowers his voice to a whisper. “That’s what I thought at first, but what if he’s not? A pregnancy would have forced an already tense situation.”

“But something that major would’ve come out in the autopsy.”

“But what if...I don’t know, all the worrying about Ray and Dean was too much? What if she miscarried? What if she’d already lost the baby by the time she was killed?”

It makes me dizzy to process his words. If Ella Mae had been pregnant, the baby could have just as easily been Dad’s as Dean’s. She’d be forced to come clean. One man—and after everything I’ve heard here this morning, my money is still on Dean—was furious enough to murder. He may not have admitted it, not technically, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe that Dean, not my father, was one to commit murder.

“Holy shit,” I whisper.

Jake nods. “In a nutshell.”

Outside, a trio of car doors slam, announcing the arrival of the first protesters. Jake jerks his head toward the back of the house. “Time to go.”

I nod. By now I’ve heard all I needed to hear. Besides, one glance at Dean, passed out cold on the bed, tells me he’s beyond any further answers.

Jake and I make our way down the stairs and out the back door, not stopping until the tree line where Dean’s backyard ends.

“I’ll add Dean to my list for food delivery,” Jake says, his face grim, “though I’m not sure he’ll eat any of it. As far gone as he is, he’s probably not getting any of his calories from solids.”

“Will I see you again tonight?” I push up on my toes and give him a kiss on the lips. “I’ll be naked.”

And for the first time since we left my bedroom this morning, Jake gives me one of his smiles. “Try and keep me away. But first, I have to go home and disinfect myself.”