Lisa Unger - Black Out

“Gray didn’t know what was happening,” I say. “He was afraid, too, that Marlowe-or someone from the past-had come for me. That’s why he killed Briggs.”

Parker offers a slow, sad nod. “You’re right. He never would have been a part of it. He would never deceive you or cause you so much pain. In fact, in his way, though only because he loves you, he has been enabling you. Maybe part of him doesn’t want you to remember.”

“So who then? Who thought they were helping me then?” I yell, nearly shriek. I am startled by my own emotion. He seems startled, too, as though he didn’t expect any of this to upset me. He raises a calming hand.

“Your in-laws, Drew and Vivian. A representative approached Vivian, told her that you’d contacted us for help and then changed your mind. She and Drew agreed to our plan to help you confront your past.”

I think of Vivian taking me to Dr. Brown, of the fear on her face when I confronted her with the things that were happening to me. I struggle with this, trying to recast her as the liar and the manipulator she had to be to do that. I want to think I know her well enough to know that she was trying to help me. I hope that’s true, at least.

“No,” I say, drawing in a breath to calm myself. Something is wrong. “They’d never let you hurt Victory. They’d die first.” I am as sure of this as I have ever been of anything.

“Admittedly,” he says with a mild shrug, “they weren’t aware the lengths to which we’d go to accomplish our goals. No one ever is.”

He seems empty then, vacant, and I see that Alan Parker is a man who has been gutted by grief and rage, filled up again by a quest for revenge that he could never quite release, even when he knew better. I feel a sob rise up, a great tide moving inside my chest.

“They were so sure you were helpless, so devastated by the events of your life that you would never be whole. They resorted to these tactics to help you. Well, really to help Victory, I think, so that she would have a strong and healthy mother. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that now you’re the one to help them.”

I feel that adrenaline pump again as my heart starts to thud.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s all up to you now, Ophelia.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, moving closer to him. My voice has taken on the quality of a plea. “Where are we? Where’s my daughter?”

I’ve never felt so frightened or so desperate, but he just moves away from the car. I see he is going to leave me here. “The keys are in the ignition. There’s a gun in the glove box. At the end of the road, you make a right. You’ll know where you are once you’re driving.”

He starts walking away from me then, moving toward the trees that surround the airfield. “You need to be strong now, Ophelia. Stronger than you’ve ever been. For yourself, for your daughter, for me.”

“You never needed me to lead you to Marlowe,” I call after him. “You knew where he was. Why are you doing this?”

I see him lift the wad of tissues to his mouth, see his shoulders hunch into a cough. That sob that’s been living in my chest escapes through my throat.

“What do you want me to do?” I cry out. “What do I need to do to get my daughter back?”

Just then the tower lights go out. I look up, and as I do, the runway lights go dark. The plane is gone; the pilot must have moved into the hangar, because I never heard it take off again. The only lights come from the headlights of the car beside me.

“Tell me!” I yell into the darkness. But the Angry Man is gone. I am alone. The air around me is thick with silence. Out of sheer desperation, I get into the car and start to drive. I turn onto the road, and he’s right-I do know where I am. The farm is less than ten miles away.

“They are not here,” said Esperanza at the door to my house. She blocked the small opening she’d created and was peering at Detective Harrison worriedly through the crack.

“I need to know where they are, Esperanza,” he said sternly. “This isn’t a social call.”

She looked at him blankly, opened the door a little wider. She was shaking her head and seemed close to tears.

“Miss Victory is with her abuela, ” she said. “Mr. Gray, he left en la noche. Nothing. He say nothing. Mrs. Annie, she’s-” That’s where she started to cry. “They’re all gone.”

“Let me in, Esperanza,” he said more gently, giving her what he hoped was a look of compassion. His “I’m a really good guy and I only want to help” look. It worked: She opened the door, and he stepped inside. She started talking fast, her tears coming harder now.

“Mr. Gray, he call me the other day, say Victory is coming home, can I come back? I come back but no Victory,” she said.

Harrison took her by the elbow, led her over to the couch, and stood beside her until she managed to stop crying and looked up.

“We wait and wait,” she said. “In the night a call come. Mr. Gray leaves. He just told me go home and no worry. But he was very afraid.” She motioned at her face, to tell him she read Powers’s expression. “So I stay. I wait for them to come home.”

“When was this?” he asked her.

“Two nights I wait.”

“And you haven’t heard anything else?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing. I call Mr. Drew. No answer; no one call back.”

He walked over to the phone and scrolled through the numbers on the caller ID, looking for what, he didn’t know. “The call came on this phone?”

She shook her head. “No. His cell phone.”

Harrison felt like he was trying to hold on to a fistful of sand-the tighter his grasp, the faster it slipped away. His desperation was compounded by the promises he’d made to his wife. She didn’t care about the money, she said. She accepted his addiction. What she couldn’t understand and wasn’t sure she could forgive were the lies, the blackmail, the secrets he’d kept from her. She couldn’t understand what he’d done to me.

“Why, Ray? Why didn’t you come to me? We could have asked my parents for money, taken out a loan. How could you let yourself go so low? It’s not you.”

But that’s what she didn’t quite get. It was him. Part of him was in fact that low. Money and the things he thought it could give him-not possessions necessarily, but freedom, ease of living, a certain power he’d lacked all his life-obsessed him. That’s how he could risk the small amount they had in the hope of making more, that’s how he could blackmail us not just for the money to pay off his gambling debts but a hundred thousand dollars besides. And Gray had paid it-paid it without a word, because he loved me that much, because he wanted to protect me.

“You need to make it right, Ray,” Sarah said.

“How? How do I make it right?” he asked. He reached for her, but she moved away from him. She shifted over to the corner of their modular unit and sat there with her arms wrapped around herself in a protective hug.

“You can start by paying him back everything you didn’t give the bookie and making a plan to pay back the rest,” she said gently.

The thought filled him with dread. He couldn’t stand the idea that their savings account would be empty, that they’d go back to living paycheck to paycheck. That he’d always be worried about the next time the car broke down or the refrigerator started to leak. He wasn’t sure he could do it.

“Sarah…” he started, but found he couldn’t finish.

“Find a way to make things right, Ray.” She didn’t issue any threats or ultimatums; she didn’t ask him to leave the house. But he heard in her tone what she never said: Find a way to make things right, Ray, or I won’t ever be able to look at you the same way again.