The Survivor (31 page)

He shook off the call and dialed Abara, who answered in a hushed tone. “Hang on.” Some rustling as he moved around, and then Nate could hear wind whipping across the receiver. “You can’t just
call
me, Overbay.”

“When will you have an answer about Witness Security?”

“Soon. Look, sit tight. The DA is less than thrilled with me for releasing you before arraignment. I can’t talk right now, and not over the phone.”

“We barely got out of the house,” Nate said. “We’re twisting in the wind here, Abara.”

A sigh blew across the receiver. “Give me twenty-four hours.”

“How will we—”

“I’ll text you a meet time, and we can talk through our next move.”

The connection clicked off. Nate used his chin to flick the cell phone closed. He looked across at Janie and said, “Tomorrow,” and she nodded solemnly and turned back to the view.

For a few moments, they stood quietly, the stillness gnawing at them—the first relative calm they’d had since fleeing the house. Cielle’s face cracked, and then, unprovoked, she started weeping on the couch. Janie went to her and held her while Nate watched impotently from the kitchen, consumed by visions of bloody vengeance. They passed another hour or so in silence, Cielle zoned out on the sofa, Janie and Nate lost in various imagined scenarios.

Cielle was crossing to the kitchen with her water glass when the rear door flew open and a hooded form leaped in at her.
“Bleeeh!”

Janie shrieked, and Nate all but levitated from the floor, grabbing for the gun before spotting the pizza box in the attacker’s hand.

Shithead Jason pulled his hood down and grinned broadly. “Did I scare you?”

Cielle rolled her gaze to the ceiling, an exaggerated gesture that showed off swaths of maroon eye shadow. “That was so unscary it was
comfortable.
”

Jason looked disappointed.

“In fact,” Cielle continued, “it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling.”

Janie was sagging against the wall, pale, twisting a clawful of shirt fabric at her chest. “If you do that again,” she told Jason, “I will shoot you myself.”

Jason looked across at Nate, breathing steam, holding the gun, and he reached over and let the pizza drop gently onto the counter. “Roger that.” He licked his lips nervously. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean anything. You don’t have to get all pissed off. I’m sick of being treated at like an asshole by you guys.”

“Then quit acting like one,” Nate said.

The blow registered immediately on Jason’s face.

“Dad,” Cielle said. “Jesus.”

“No,” Jason said. “It’s fine. Whatever.” He ambled out and returned with several bags of groceries—milk, orange juice, bread, a tub of Red Vines, cookies, dog food, spaghetti, ice cream, peanut butter, and Mountain Dew. Nate moved to pick up one of the white plastic bags, and the handles slipped right through his left hand. He tried again, focusing, but the weight tugged his fingers open, a carton of Ben & Jerry’s rolling onto the floor.

Janie called across the counter, “Need a hand?”

“No thanks.” He reached with his right hand but found it shaking.
Clasp and lift,
he told himself. But again his fingers pulled apart.

Cielle and Jason were playing around, enacting a sword fight with Red Vines. Sweat dripped from Nate’s forehead. Nausea swept his stomach. He reached again.

Janie, at the fridge now: “Everything cool?”

“I got it,” he said. “No problem.”

The bag came an inch or two off the tile and fell, the jar of peanut butter bouncing free. He stared at his fingers in chagrin, Cielle and Jason’s laughter washing over him from behind.

He straightened up and said gruffly, “Cielle, come put this away.”

“You’re right there, Dad.”

“Just
do
it, please.” Angrier than he’d intended.

Janie’s head swiveled in his direction, taking in his face and then the fallen groceries. He pretended not to notice.

Crossing to the pizza, he flipped open the lid. Hawaiian style—pineapple and Canadian bacon. “Aren’t you a vegetarian?” he said flatly.

“Oh,” Jason said. “Yeah. Except for bacon.”

A round of looks was exchanged.

“What?” Jason said. “Think about it. What makes everything good? Bacon. A BLT. Bacon. Salad? Bacon. A baked potato—”

“Right. Bacon. I get it.”

“I figure if I just eat bacon, I can be a good vegetarian. Oh—
and
gyros.”

Somehow they got through the afternoon, keeping clear of the front windows despite the pulled blinds. Sitting on the floor leaning against the sofa back, Nate dozed off in the fall of sunshine near the wall of glass, Casper curling across his thighs the way he had as a puppy, his paws and rump spilling over the sides; it had never occurred to the dog that he’d ceased being lap size years ago.

At some point between sleep and waking, Charles made a brief appearance, stroking Casper’s fur with a bloody hand missing two fingers at the knuckles. “A bacon-eating vegetarian,” he said. “If you don’t punch that douche, I’m gonna.”

“Okay,” Nate mumbled. “Do it when I get up.”

*   *   *

When he came to, it was dark; they’d agreed to keep the lights mostly off in the house so as not to attract attention. He slid out from under the heap of warm fur, Casper emitting a rumble of irritation.

With two spoons and one bucket of Cherry Garcia, Cielle and Jason were zoned out in front of the television. Nate paused by the doorway and took them in, the light flickering over their faces, turning the room into an aquarium, peaceful and blue. Their hands were intertwined on the cushion, and there was something about it so youthful and unconscious—chaste, even—that Nate skipped a breath. Cielle’s spoon scraped the bottom of the empty container, and she peered down and said, “Rats.”

Jason’s spoon, en route to his mouth, paused. He moved it across to Cielle, and she took the last bite of ice cream. “Thanks,” she mumbled through a full mouth.

He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles.

Their eyes never left the screen.

Nate felt the faintest softening of the verdict he’d been carrying around since Shithead Jason’s first appearance. Maybe, just maybe, these two weren’t a universe apart from a young couple playing house and serving each other Eggos in a tiny Westwood apartment.

Nate drifted back down the dark hall in search of Janie. The light in the master bathroom was on, and he found her sitting on the lip of the tub, clutching tweezers, focused on her hand. A bottle of rubbing alcohol stood within reach on the sink.

She looked up and smiled. “Glad you got some sleep.”

He came closer and took in her knuckles, shiny from striking the door to the garage during Yuri’s assault. The diamond engagement ring had bitten into the flesh, bruising her finger. It struck him that she had spent the morning tending to everyone else’s wounds and no one had taken care of her.

He took a knee before her. “Lemme see.”

She put her hand in his, giving it a little southern-belle flair. He tilted it toward the harsh light of the vanity. Embedded in the pale white dermis, a scattering of splinters.

He moved her ring around so he could take stock of all the splinters.

She frowned down at Pete’s ring. “It’s in the way, isn’t it?” She tugged the ring off and threw it. It clanged off the sink and wall, then rattled around on the tile for what seemed an unnaturally long time.

“They can consider it rental money for the house,” she said. “Now get on with it.”

He stuck out his hand. “Tweezers.”

“Tweezers.” She slapped them into his palm.

He looked at her. “This is gonna hurt.”

“I know.”

His grasp was suddenly, inexplicable steady. He worked at the splinters, her delicate hand jerking in his. “I’m sorry,” he said.

And then, “I’m sorry.” And, “I’m sorry.”

He extracted the last one and reached for the alcohol and a bag of cotton balls that had fallen into the sink basin. He doused one of the balls, which shrank with the moisture, and then he was dabbing gently at the tender underskin of her hand. Janie bit her lip; her eyes watered; her bare feet twisted this way and that.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

And then it was done, and he kept her hand and he stayed there on one knee before her, his eyes downcast, and he was still saying it, the words having migrated to another meaning: “I’m sorry. I’m—”

She stilled his mouth with a kiss.

Tender and soft. And then less tender, less soft.

He rose awkwardly to a half crouch, and she leaned back on the tub, parting her legs to let him nearer. Their lips stayed attached as if they were afraid to break apart. Then they were standing, shuffling together toward the dark bedroom, knocking knees and half tripping, and she fell back on the mattress, one hand hooking the back of his neck to pull him closer, closer.

Rolling. Twisting. Pants tangled on ankles. The warmth of her laid bare against him—thighs, stomach, arms matching flesh to flesh, zippering up into one body. She gripped him tight, ankles crossed at the small of his back, her nails breaking the skin of his shoulder blade. Her mouth at his collarbone, blurring the words: “Why’d you make me wait so long?”

After, they lay, a cross section of legs and arms, breathing hard. Her blinks grew longer, and then she was asleep. Basking in the silent glow of her, he tried not to think of the seconds slipping away, heartbeat by heartbeat.

Chapter 41

As they ate cereal on the couch the next morning, a text arrived from Abara:
9PM.
TRAVEL
TOWN,
GRIFFITH
PARK.
LOCOMOTIVE
ENGINE NO 3025.
The phone made its solemn rounds, from Nate to Janie to Cielle to Jason.

“Guess we’ll know something tonight,” Janie said. “One way or another.”

The rest of the day, they stayed holed up in the house like fugitives, which Nate supposed they were. Though he did his best not to fixate on the upcoming meeting, he grew more antsy as night fell, his mood exacerbated by Cielle and Jason. The honeymoon had ended, and again they were quarreling like … well, teenagers.

Preparing dinner, Janie and Nate could hear them down the hall.

Jason’s voice first. “I didn’t say she was
hot,
” he backpedaled. “I just said I didn’t think she was
ugly.
”

Checking the stove, Janie murmured to Nate, “He said she was hot.”

Cielle’s reply now, at equivalent volume: “
Christina Verducci.
As in, ‘OMG, I would, like, so kill for a mani-pedi. Like, see how much time I save through my clever use of abbreviation?’ If you find
that
‘hot,’ what are you doing with me?”

Janie poured pasta into the colander. When the hiss died away, the debate had intensified.

“In telling
me
to shut up,” Jason said, “you’re clearly
not
shutting up.”

Janie, again with the color commentary: “She
did
just tell him they both needed to shut up.”

Cielle, back on the offensive, her voice echoing down the hall: “You’re so wrong, I wish we had a tape recorder just so you could hear the extent of your total wrongness.”

“I wish we had a tape recorder to rewind this conversation to prove I never said Christina Verducci was hot.”

“If we asked, like, a hundred people, ninety-nine would agree with me.”

“Sure. And Rosie O’Donnell is gay.”

“She
is
gay, dipshit.”

“I meant
not
gay.”

Strident as it was, the youthful banter did provide, Nate had to admit, a respite from the oppressive heaviness of the wait. Janie handed him a stack of plates, and he set them on the wooden table, the knock of ceramic and the jangling of flatware momentarily drowning out Lincoln and Douglas. When he’d finished pouring water into the glasses, things had grown quiet down the hall.

Janie cocked her head. “What now?”

“Forest,” Cielle was saying.

“Nah.” Jason’s husky voice, barely audible. “Too hippieish. Carson?”

“No. I knew a Carson in elementary school who used to eat his eyebrows. How ’bout Taylor?”

“I like it. Taylor Hensley.”

“No, Taylor
Overbay.
”

Nate thunked the final water glass into place. “Oh, Jesus. Are they…?”

“I believe they are,” Janie said.

They listened. Nothing.

“Silence is bad,” Janie said, but already Nate was moving.

He stormed down the hall and into the study. They were upright, thank God, but making out on the leather couch. He cleared his throat angrily, and they scrambled apart and gave him Garfield eyes.

“No, okay?” Nate said. “Just …
no.
Now, come eat.”

They followed him sheepishly, Jason muttering, “Dude, we were just kissing. We weren’t all
boom-chicka-wah-wah.
” Nate held up a finger, and the boy silenced.

In the kitchen Janie had lit candles to avoid turning on the overheads, the effect soothing and inadvertently elegant. The pasta steamed on the plates, but by some unspoken agreement none of them started eating. There was no sound save the faint crackling of the candle and Casper at his dinner, his collar dinging the salad bowl into which Nate had emptied a can of dog food. Nate stared down at the woven place mats, the folded napkins, and understood fully for perhaps the first time in his life why people said grace before meals. For a brief stretch, they’d managed to forget about what awaited them beyond the comforting walls of this borrowed house. Sitting down at a well-set table threw their situation into sudden relief. Even Shithead Jason kept his mouth sealed.

Cielle broke the stillness first, tentatively picking up a fork, and they followed suit, eating almost shyly.

With dismay Nate realized that his jaw quickly tired from chewing, soreness radiating out from the hinge of the bone. The first weakness to reach his face. The invasiveness of this—the increased proximity now of the illness to his brain—seemed dire and insurmountable. The irony was sickening; he’d finally found the will to crack free of the frozen suspension that had kept him from his family, and now his muscles were fighting to paralyze him. Struggling to contain his reaction, he set his fork aside.