Jeff Abbott: Fear

I killed my best friend.

Miles stared at the words, black in their clean lines against the white of the paper. First time to write the truth. He put the pen back to the pad.

I didn’t want to kill him, didn’t mean to kill him. But I did.

‘Baring your soul fixes nothing.’ Andy sat against the edge of the kitchen table, watching him write. ‘She’ll just hate you.’

Miles said, ‘No, she won’t.’

Andy lit a cigarette, exhaled a blue cloud over the confession as Miles wrote. ‘You’ve lied to Allison for weeks…’

‘Lie’s a bit strong.’

‘Not as strong as murder. Telling her what you did isn’t going to make you better.’ He watched the smoke dance from the cigarette’s tip.

‘Shut up.’ Miles finished writing out his confession. Andy wandered to the kitchen, rummaged in the refrigerator, found an early-morning beer.

‘Priests say confession is good for the soul, but this is an exceptionally bad idea. Even for your soul. We had a deal, Miles.’

‘This doesn’t affect you.’ Miles signed his name – his real name, Miles Kendrick – at the bottom of the page. Allison had never seen his true name.

‘You tell her what happened, it very much affects me.’ Andy slapped his hand on the table. ‘Let me read what you wrote.’ Miles slid the paper across the table to him, then went to the kitchen counter and poured black coffee into a cup. He usually drank his coffee first thing, but this morning he’d wanted to write the confession before he lost his nerve.

Miles went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face. Stared at himself in the mirror.

I used to be someone, he thought. I used to be me, a regular guy, the anybody American with a home and a business and a life, and now I don’t know who I am anymore. The old me died. The new me doesn’t want to be born.

‘Lies!’ Andy called from the kitchen.

Miles wiped his face and stepped back into the kitchen. ‘I’m telling the truth.’

Andy slapped at the confession. ‘The truth you remember. Not the truth of what really happened.’

‘It’s all I remember.’

‘You didn’t save those cops.’

‘You know I did.’

‘And I think about the high price every day, Miles.’

Miles stepped around Andy, took the paper, folded it, slipped it into an envelope. ‘I have to be honest with her.’

‘You’re breaking our deal.’

‘The only deal we have is in your mind. I have to go. Don’t be here when I get back.’

‘I don’t want to get ugly, Miles,’ Andy said, ‘but you give her that confession, and I’ll kill you.’

Miles stopped by the apartment door. He yanked on his coat, slid the confession into his coat pocket.

‘I will, Miles.’ Andy’s voice was low and it prickled Miles’s skin as if an ice cube ran along his ribs. ‘I’ll slip a gun into your mouth. I’ll pull the trigger. I’ll settle the score.’ Andy paced the kitchen floor, arms crossed, glaring.

‘You go ahead and try.’ Miles shut the door behind him and leaned against it. Then he hurried down the steps, past the comforting cinnamon smells of the bakery on the ground floor of his apartment building. He stopped right outside the building’s front door, craned his neck out an inch, scanning both ways up the narrow streets, eyeing every car and pedestrian.

No one waited to kill him. No cars idling on the road, full of assassins to mow him down before he took five steps. He started his walk to Allison’s office. He didn’t drive anymore because he was afraid if the Barradas found him, they’d wire a bomb to his car’s ignition. They’d blown up the last two people who had testified against them, scattering engine and glass and flesh across a driveway in Hialeah and an office parking lot near Miami. The center of Santa Fe, where he now lived and worked, was territory he could cover on foot. Santa Fe was so much smaller and quieter than the constant revving hum of Miami. He walked through the Plaza at the heart of the old city, past the Native Americans spreading turquoise and silver jewelry across black felt mats. He headed up Palace Avenue, past a beautiful young mother pushing a stroller with twin girls under a pink blanket, tourists ambling along an architectural route, joggers huffing in the crisp gray of the mountain morning. Jogging, Miles thought, he should try jogging. Good healthy exercise to heal all the rot inside him.

He glanced over his shoulder twice to see if Andy was following him. No Andy, although it wouldn’t take him long to catch up if he decided to press his case.

The confession, inside his pocket, made a soft crinkling sound as he walked, and he smoothed the paper straight with a slide of his finger.

The paper would change everything in his life, once again.

He walked past the stone grandeur of Holy Faith Episcopal Church and the elegant Posada Hotel and Spa. Most of the homes along this stretch of Palace Avenue had been converted into office space. Allison Vance counseled in an old brick Victorian that stood out from the more common adobe-style buildings, its yard dotted with spruce pines and cottonwoods. The hum of a saw roared through an open upstairs window. The landlord was refurbishing the empty top two floors while Allison refurbished people’s heads.

Miles went up to the house, glancing over his shoulder. Andy stood on the bricked sidewalk, huddled against the cold, his tropical print shirt and khakis out of place in the morning chill of a Santa Fe spring.

Go away, Miles mouthed at Andy.

‘If you give her that confession,’ Andy said, ‘it changes nothing. It doesn’t hurt me, it hurts you. You got me, Miles?’

Miles gestured at him to go.

‘This ain’t done.’ Andy tossed the cigarette onto the street, marched back toward the Plaza.

Miles found his breath and went inside. The door to his right read ALLISON VANCE, M.D., PSYCHIATRY. He opened it, stepped inside, rested his head against the door as he closed it.

‘Good morning, Michael,’ Allison said to his back. ‘I’m glad you made it this morning.’

‘Made it early,’ he said. Certain days he couldn’t face the appointment, the idea of sifting through the black sand of his memory, afraid of what he might unearth. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘Nothing at all,’ Allison said, and her tense expression faded. ‘Would you like a cup of green tea?’

He hated green tea but said, ‘Great, thanks.’ He took off his jacket, hung it on a hook – the confession still in its pocket – and sat down in the fat, worn leather chair across from hers.

She poured a steaming cup of tea and handed it to him.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You look tired, Michael.’ It was his new-life name, one conjured up by Witness Security.

‘I’m not a morning person.’ He sipped.

‘You probably worked a lot of nights, being an investigator.’ Attempt number one to get him to talk. His being a former private investigator was one of the three nuggets of truth she knew about his old life.

‘Nighttime is the right time,’ he said. ‘Cheating spouses often burn the midnight oil.’

‘Is that who you shot? A cheating spouse?’

Attempt number two, based on nugget number two. The dance remained the same; she would try to get him to talk about the horrible instant when his old life died, glean details he couldn’t remember, and he would duck and run, hiding behind jokes and chatter. ‘No. I never carried a gun.’ The words came out like molasses dripping from his lips. Get up and give her the confession, he told himself.