“How the hell did you get in here?” There is no panic in his voice. No fear. Only surprise.
“Vince Landry?”
He gives a small, almost imperceptible nod but doesn’t say anything.
“I’m Brandee,” I say, going with my original story, despite the fact that I probably don’t look much like anyone’s idea of either a pool service person or a customer service rep. Also, despite the fact that none of the story I’ve woven for him will matter in a few minutes.
“But I told you …” The confusion is clearing from his face now. A thundercloud is on the way.
“I’m sorry, but I have some papers …” I reach into my purse. It is Coach—authentic Coach, not something you’d buy on Canal Street—and my fingers touch the cold skin of my Bersa Thunder .380. I can feel the cold of the steel even through the nitrile gloves.
I see Vince Landry’s eyes widen when he gets a whiff of the Bersa. It’s a pretty gun, but I know he’s not admiring her beauty.
I don’t give him any warning and I don’t give me any, either. Not much, anyway. Just before I plug three silenced shots into his chest, I think about my son, now gone. I think about my flat iron and the hair that didn’t actually benefit much from straightening on that day. I think about what I then had and what I do not now have. It’s like a life flashing in front of my eyes. And for about twenty seconds, I feel good. I feel whole again.
And then Vince Landry is dead at my feet, the light fading from his eyes as the blood begins to drain from his body, and I get a move on because I know that if I want that feeling again—the feeling of good wholeness—I have to shorten the distance between where I am now and where I want to be.
CHAPTER TWO
FIVE YEARS AGO, I was someone’s wife and someone else’s mother. Their names don’t matter now, though they mattered a great deal then.
I had a job. Let’s say I worked in an office, because that’s close enough to what it was. I got up early in the morning, anyway. Put coffee on while I was still wearing my bathrobe, then hurried through the shower while the coffee brewed. Every day.
Before I left for work, I’d stop by his room. We had a big house, far out of the city and that commute, it gave me hell. I had to leave for work an hour before he even got up for school. So my routine: I’d drop by his room and lay a kiss on his forehead.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” I’d say, or some other dopey thing like that.
And mostly he’d fuss, because what nine-year-old kid wants to be woken up long before he has to get ready for school? But I’d wake him up anyway, usually with a glass of juice or milk. And I’d demand a hug and a kiss, and while I roared down the highway on my way to the city, sometimes I’d think about the sweet smell of him. And I’d smile at the memory and at the hopes and dreams I had in my heart, because that was the thing that pushed me out the door in the morning, that kept me running when maybe I could have walked. There was going to be a future, and I was going to make it happen, and I didn’t think about the fact that I was buying that future with my own youth. I only thought about the need and desire and must-haves that were right in front of me.
It all seems so stupid now.
That last day, though, that was different.
I was running late. I didn’t stop by for a hug and an infusion of that sweet smell. I didn’t even stop to grab a coffee or do any of the things I usually did.
I flattened my hair. It seems an odd detail to remember. I used the flat iron on my hair. I can still feel the hot weight of it in my hand. I remember because I’ve wondered about it since. Wondered about it every single day. Did I leave that iron on? Is that how it happened? The insurance people—and the cops—they didn’t say so: they couldn’t pinpoint it quite that way, and me … well, I didn’t dare ask. By then it didn’t matter anyway, because it was all too late. Don’t ask a question, that’s what my mother always said. Don’t ask a question unless you really want to know.
Cause and effect, right? That’s what it boiled down to. And, whatever the cause, here was the effect: the fire killed my child very quickly. At least, that’s what they told me. And I’ve never been sure if they told it to me because it was true, or because they wanted to try and wipe the haunted look out of my eyes. I don’t think that it did.
The fire killed my son, but it didn’t kill my man. Not right away, anyhow. It half-killed him just enough that he never recognized me—not ever again. But before he died, I owed everything we’d had and shared and more for the medical bills that would make it all right again. That would try to make it all right again. And it was then—of course it was then—that the world lined up and showed me the way it would be from then on. Life is good that way. It takes care. It shows you symmetry when you never thought you’d see it again. That’s the thing I tell myself.
And now? Well, now my life
