I mean, if the point really is self-destruction, why not save everyone the time and just find a knife or a gun and end it all? You don’t do that, do you? No, because it’s not the end you want but the suffering, the pain, the decline, the growing ruin as your body breaks down or your bank account empties or you fail those you love, you want to see yourself slowly degrade. You want to punish yourself.
Is that what I’m doing with you? Are you my addiction, Lauren? Am I punishing myself, allowing myself to get wrapped up in you again and knowing that you’ll just leave me again? Am I barreling toward a cliff?
Sometimes I feel that way, when I’m lying in bed at night, thinking about what we’re doing and where we’re headed, plagued with this sense of disbelief that anything like this could be real. I question your love. I question your commitment. I convince myself that you will wake up one day, ask yourself what is so great about me, and not like the answer.
If that happens, I don’t know what I’ll do. Nothing else in my life makes sense right now but you.
THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN
22
Jane
“Okay, let’s hear it,” says Chief Ray Carlyle, popping into the conference room they’ve commandeered at the station. He’s been back in town for ninety minutes, stopping first at the Betancourt house, where Jane took him around and updated him.
Sergeant Jane Burke looks up, blinks, adjusts her eyes. Age thirty-seven, she’s always had excellent vision and only recently flirted with the idea of getting cheaters for close-up reading. After spending the last forty-five minutes going over transcripts of text messages from the pink phone found in Lauren Betancourt’s house, she’s wishing she had some right now.
Outside the conference room, the house is buzzing. All hands on deck. All twelve patrol officers currently on duty are coordinating with the Major Crimes forensics team, four of the six sergeants in-house, the chief and deputy chief giving this their undivided attention as well. Most of Jane’s job now, she realizes, will simply consist of managing all these people.
“Lauren’s burner phone only texted with one other phone,” she says. “No calls. Just texts. Well, a few missed calls just before Halloween, but otherwise—just texts.”
“So the phones had a specific purpose.”
“Very,” says Sergeant Andy Tate. “Like we thought. These two were having an affair.”
“No names, I take it?”
“That would be too easy.” Jane flips a stack of the printouts to him. “They were very careful. Careful in all ways. They texted each other twice a day, at ten in the morning and eight at night. Occasionally, they’d miss a text session, but when they did text, it was only at those designated times.”
Chief Carlyle nods. “It worked for them, those times. They had to be free of their spouses. Or at least Lauren did. Who knows if her special guy was married?”
“On our first run through these messages, it wasn’t clear to us whether he was or wasn’t,” says Andy Tate. “But we’re going to pore over every detail. Careful or not, there must be something here.”
“Let’s start with the punch line, Chief,” says Jane. “The last text the offender ever sent. It’s alone on the last page.”
Chief Carlyle picks up the stack of printouts and flips to the final page. Jane reads along herself:
Mon, Oct 31, 10:47 PM
I’m sorry, Lauren. I’m sorry for what I did and I’m sorry you didn’t love me. But I’m not sorry for loving you like nobody else could. I’m coming to you now. I hope you’ll accept me and let me love you in a way you wouldn’t in this world.
“Huh. ‘I’m sorry for what I did.’ So we have a confession. ‘I’m coming to you now . . . Let me love you in a way you wouldn’t in this world.’ So our offender decided to do everyone a favor and take his own life?” The chief looks at Jane. “Any chance he was good enough to let us know where he was going to commit that selfless act?”
“We have an area-wide bulletin out for suspicious deaths last night,” says Jane. “We’ll know soon enough.”
The chief smirks. “Any indication how it came to this point?”
“The last night in particular,” says Jane. “Halloween night. Flip two pages forward.”
Chief Carlyle flips there. Jane reads along with the chief, the communications on October 31, after trick-or-treating ended:
UNKNOWN CALLER
VICTIM’S PHONE (EVIDENCE #1)
Mon, Oct 31, 8:09 PM
Trick or treat?
Mon, Oct 31, 8:12 PM
Hello? Are you home? I need to talk to you.
Mon, Oct 31, 8:14 PM
Testing . . . testing . . . 1, 2, 3 . . . testing, testing . . . 1, 2, 3
Mon, Oct 31, 8:15 PM
Not home, told you out of town
Mon, Oct 31, 8:16 PM
That’s strange coulda sworn I just saw you walking through the family room I must be seeing ghosts!
Mon, Oct 31, 8:16 PM
You’re outside my house????
Mon, Oct 31, 8:17 PM
Just want to talk that’s all
Mon, Oct 31, 8:18 PM
Nothing to talk about please go home please!
Mon, Oct 31, 8:18 PM
Let me in treat me like an adult. I know you still love me. Why pretend you don’t?
Mon, Oct 31, 8:19 PM
Go home ACT like an adult I’m sorry you know I am but it’s over
Mon, Oct 31, 8:21 PM
What are you doing have you lost your mind??
Mon, Oct 31, 8:22 PM
Stop kicking my door I’m going to call the police
Mon, Oct 31, 8:23 PM
Go ahead call them I dare you
Mon, Oct 31, 8:25 PM
I will let you in if you promise to be calm
Mon, Oct 31, 8:26 PM
I promise I swear
The chief whistles. “Fuck if that’s not a theory of the case. She soured on him and dumped him. He couldn’t handle it. He stands outside the house, lurking around. He texts her, she lies about not being home, he calls her on it because he sees her through the window. He makes a scene outside, kicking the door. So she lets him inside the house. And he kills her.”
“While wearing a Grim Reaper costume,” Andy adds. “On a dark, dark night.”
“Well, he can wear whatever costume he wants,” says the chief. “He won’t get far now.”
BEFORE HALLOWEEN
September
23
Vicky
After Labor Day, I return to Christian’s office, a four o’clock appointment again. When I’m done reading his proposal, I look up at him. Still rough-shaven and handsome, same basic kind of expensive dark suit with the open collar, still that cocky look about him like someone who knows today’s going to be another “win” for him.
“Water?” I say.
“It’s the next big thing,” says Christian. “Water is becoming a scarcity. That will become truer and truer as the population growth continues to spike. Less than one-tenth of one percent of the world’s water can be used to feed and nourish seven, eight billion people.”