Marcus Sakey - The Blade Itself

Fuck that.

He hit redial , held the phone to his ear.

One ring. Then, “Hi, this is Debbie. Leave your digits and I’ll hit you back.”

She’d turned off her phone.

He was out of options.

He almost threw the mobile through the window. Stopped himself. Dropped the phone on the seat and his head in his hands. For what seemed like long moments he just sat there. Then he put the car in drive and continued up Clark.

By breaking every rule of the road, he’d made amazing time, but it was hard to get excited about the prospect of arriving home. He had no idea where Evan was, no idea how to stop him. All he had was an empty house, a ticking clock, and a head full of useless plans.

He double-parked in front of the apartment and got out. Things were unnervingly normal. Halloween decorations blinked and flashed. Down the block, a couple laughed as they struggled to hoist a pony keg up their front steps.

He took the steps two at a time. Evan had said that he hadn’t hurt her, but there was no way to be sure. No way except to step in and pray not to find her bleeding out on the hardwood floor. The door to their apartment was slightly ajar. He put a hand against it, feeling the touch of the wood, wondering if this was going to be one of those permanent moments. If after this, his life would be divided into the time before he stepped into the apartment and the time after.

He pushed the door open.

The place was a shambles, and it took him a moment to realize that much of it was the mess from the night before. Boxes sat with clothes stacked beside them, and loose pictures were strewn across the floor.

But there were other things wrong. The lamp by the couch was knocked over. The glass top of the coffee table was cracked in spiderwebs.

He stepped in and walked down the hall. The bedroom was empty. So was the spare. There was a broken water glass on the kitchen floor. The back door stood wide open. On the counter was a tuft of brown hair, stained dark at one end, as though it had been ripped out.

But there was no body.

Rage and relief surged through him. Relief at not finding her dead; seething, sun-blind rage at her violation. The animal part of him rose up, made the blood ring in his ears, his vision blur. He forced himself to breathe, one hand gripping the counter as he gulped oxygen. There wasn’t time for this. He had to be able to think. Had to get the anger under control. Had to harness it, to make it a tool he could use.

A weapon.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to count, banishing visions of Evan holding a gun to Karen’s temple. He couldn’t waste time or energy. He needed his faculties at 100 percent. With every breath he pictured his chest filling with cool blue air, and with each exhale forced it all clear, till his lungs were down to their dregs.

Think.

He walked out of the kitchen, down the hall to the bedroom. The bedspreads were tangled from last night, when they’d made love and then dropped off to sleep. Her pillow still had a crinkled indentation. He dropped to the edge of the bed and held his head in his hands.

Think!

He didn’t know where Evan lived.

He didn’t know where Evan was.

He knew the meet would be tonight, but not when. Evan would probably wait for dark, but twilight already bruised the sky outside their bedroom windows.

Debbie wouldn’t help him.

Patrick was dead. Murdered.

Karen was a hostage.

He stood up, kicked the bed frame savagely, the pain ringing up his leg. He was going in circles. He couldn’t afford to keep following the same arguments.

He had to remove himself. Think of it in purely strategic terms.

See the whole situation.

See not just the problem, but the constraints that defined it. Not just the attack, but the weaknesses it was intended to capitalize on. Like those black-and-white drawings of faces and candlesticks, where the negative space was a different picture from the positive.

Ignore the faces. See the negative space.

And then it hit him.

There was another person who knew where the meet would take place.

Danny put the car in park and killed the engine. As his headlights faded, darkness rushed in to fill the void. Outside the passenger window, the house looked as he remembered, red brick with an elaborately shingled roof that peaked like a cathedral. But now he felt like the house was somehow watching. Judging. The rest of the neighborhood blazed with light, silhouetting groups of kids running from porch to porch with winter jackets over Halloween costumes. Richard’s home hunched silent and dark.

The last time Danny had been here, he’d crossed the line from citizen to criminal. The last time, he’d picked a lock and crept in the back door as a thief. Now he had to walk up to the front door and confess.

The prospect made his palms sweat. Not because there would be no going back – he’d already crossed the point of no return – but because he had to face Richard, look him in the eyes, and admit to being the architect of his sorrow. Admit to taking the most important thing in the man’s life.

And then, somehow, convince him he was here to help.

The dashboard clock read seven. No time to waste. His mind was cloaked in static as he stepped out of the car and started across the lawn. The laughter of the trick-or-treaters seemed haunted, foreign, part of a world he didn’t belong in. A reminder of his sins. On the way over, he’d tried to plan what he would say to Richard, to anticipate the man’s response. But now, as his sneakers carved canyons in the dew-wet grass, everything vanished.

He stepped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. The windows on either side of the door showed blackness. He prayed he wasn’t too late, that he hadn’t missed Richard. He rang the doorbell again. Nothing.

Danny cupped his hands and put his forehead to the glass. Faint ambient light silvered the edges of furniture, gleamed off the hardwood, but there were no lamps on, not in the foyer or in the hall beyond. He felt a burning sickness. If Richard was gone, this whole drama was over. He leaned on the doorbell, holding it down, eyes intent on the inside. The chime rang Ding-dong-Ding-dong-Ding-dong-Ding-dong .

He had almost given up hope when he saw a flash of motion down the hall, as though someone had leaned out of the darkened kitchen to check the door. Releasing the bell, he yelled, “Richard!” He banged on the door, shouting his boss’s name again and again, conscious of the stares from a group of children, the wary look from the father escorting them. He didn’t care. He’d bang until neighborhood security took him away.

Finally the shape moved down the hallway. Danny stepped back, hands at his sides, his heart roaring. The door swung open. Richard’s eyes were sunken, and a three-day growth of beard shadowed his cheeks. “Now isn’t a good time.” He started to shut the door, but Danny moved faster, snaking a hand in to catch the edge.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Later.” Richard pushed against the door.

“I know why you can’t talk.” He kept his gaze level, meeting his boss’s eyes. “I know where you’re going. Trust me. We need to talk first.”

The pressure against the door eased, Richard staring back at him. Finally, he glanced at his watch, cursed, and opened the door. “One minute.” He stepped back into the hallway.

Danny stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. He stood opposite his boss. The man looked like a wreck, and sour guilt corkscrewed in Danny’s stomach.

“What did you mean,” Richard said slowly, “when you said you knew where I was going?”