I am afraid to sign this letter, but I hope you will look into it.
I look at Jason, who is staring passively at the ceiling.
“Isn’t she a peach?” I say.
“She’s hurting,” he says. “She’s hurting so much.”
I close up the laptop. “Do you think she’d do it? Send it?”
Jason gets up, stretches his arms. “Everything she said in that letter is true, Shauna. I hope I didn’t let any clients down. I don’t think I did. God as my witness, I don’t think I did. But I can’t know for sure. I’ll never know for sure.”
“Jason, this isn’t the time for self-reflection. This is the time for self-preservation.”
He scratches his hand and looks out the window. “I need to talk to her,” he says. “I need to go see her.”
“That’s what she wants,” I say. “Just call her.”
“No, I need to see her.” He shakes his head. “This has to be face-to-face.”
86
Jason
12:15 P.M.
I ring Alexa’s doorbell and take a couple of steps back. A flutter of nerves passes through me, but my whole body is so screwed up right now, it’s hard to tell what’s causing which problem inside me. My skin is tingling, my abdominal muscles are churning, a dull ringing has taken up nearly permanent residence between my ears.
I hear footsteps approaching the front door and steel myself. The curtain over the small side window moves, and then the lock on the door clicks.
“Hi,” she says. She is wearing a long football jersey and torn jeans, no shoes or socks. Her hair is matted and messy. Her eyes are red and puffy but, it seems, hopeful.
Hopeful, that is, until her eyes move to the suitcases next to me.
“I brought your things,” I say.
“I don’t want them. Keep them.”
“Alexa, c’mon.”
She leaves the door open and walks into her living room. I’d rather have this conversation on the front porch, but this will do. I carry in the suitcases and set them down by the door.
“Do you. . want something?” She sits on her leg on the couch.
“I’m fine.” I sit next to her. It’s an old, beat-up leather couch. “I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. Is that okay?”
Her eyes narrow. “Now you want to talk.”
“You got my attention, yes,” I say. “I got your e-mail and that letter. If you feel like you want to send that, go ahead and send it. I won’t deny what you wrote. Maybe I deserve to be reprimanded. I’m sure I do, actually-”
“Forget about the letter,” she says, her expression switching in a finger-snap. “You know I could never hurt you.” She touches my arm. Somehow it would feel cruel to recoil, to move my arm away, to deny her that small gesture.
My phone rings, giving me an excuse to reach into my pocket, thereby breaking free of her and altering my body position. “Just need to make sure it isn’t Joel,” I say, by way of apology. Actually, I know it’s not Lightner calling because we programmed the Dragnet theme as a ringtone for his calls, but Alexa doesn’t know that. I look at the face of the phone and don’t recognize the number, then set it down on the couch between us.
The other ringing, the one taking place inside my head, grows shriller. My temples begin to throb. Skin on fire, bitterness on my tongue, a stomach ready to rock-and-roll at any time.
“Alexa,” I say, “our favorite serial killer called again last night. He said he’s going to kill again, and the next one is going to be his ‘favorite.’ I’m really concerned he might go after someone I care about.”
She scoffs and makes a face. “Well, that rules out me, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t. Listen, please-please get out of town. Drive somewhere. Fly somewhere. Please.”
“I’m not going anywhere. What’s he going to do to me that you haven’t already?”
“Oh, c’mon, Alexa. You’ll get past this. You know you will. Sometime soon, you’re going to look back and realize that. . this is for the best.”
“How can you say that?” She leans toward me, her hand moving toward my face.
How can I say that? Because we both knew I was drugged up, and getting worse, and making more and more excuses as time wore on. The oddest part is that whenever Alexa invoked the excuse of my bad knee, whenever she had a pill at the ready for me when I awoke at night, I viewed her as an ally, the only one who understood me.
The addiction was my fault. But she feasted on my weakness. If I was the captain of my personal Titanic, she was my first mate, whispering sweet nothings, telling me what a good job I was doing steering the wheel, and don’t worry about those glaciers. I can’t forget that. If I do, I’ll lose everything.
But now is not the time to get into all of that. This moment calls for a defter touch.
“I have to focus on ‘James Drinker’ or whatever his name is,” I say. “He has to be my singular focus.”
She watches me with those wide deer eyes, wounded, fighting tears again.
“You’re doing this because of this man?” she says. “Or because of the drugs?”
She recalls, of course, that I mentioned the addiction when I broke up with her. And now I’m talking about a serial killer.
“It’s both things,” I say. “But this man-he’s dangerous. And he’s not done. I need to catch him, and I need you to be far away so you’re out of harm’s way.”
She grabs my forearm. “Just give me one more chance. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll be whoever you want me to be. Please, just one. What can it hurt?”
I gently peel her fingers off my arm and pull away, get to my feet. “I’m afraid it’s over, Alexa. That’s not going to change. So please accept that.”
“I don’t. I don’t accept that.”
I start for the door.
“I gave you everything!” she cries. “I gave you every part of me. I opened myself up to you in every way because I trusted you.”
“I’m. . I’m sorry how this turned out,” I say. “You deserve better. But it’s over and it’s not going to change. You need to understand that.”
She breaks eye contact, tears flowing freely, her jaw steeled.
I reach the door and open it.
“Shauna turned you, didn’t she?” she says. “She’s been trying to break us up all along. She’s staying with you right now, isn’t she? She’s being super-helpful about your ‘recovery,’ I’ll bet. Yeah, I’ll bet she is.”
“This has nothing to do with Shauna,” I say.
“That’s bullshit.” She laughs with bitterness.
“Good-bye, Alexa. Please take care of yourself.”
Her eyes are suddenly ablaze with fury, her mouth tangled, her hands balled in fists. My stomach clenches up, stealing my breath. I turn away so she can’t see me.
“This is not over,” she says. “You think this is over?”
I catch my breath, squeeze my eyes shut. “It’s over, Alexa.”
“One phone call to the police hotline,” she says. “That’s all it would take.”
I pause, gritting my teeth, my abdominal muscles twisting into knots, my stomach in upheaval, black spots dancing before my eyes. I need to get home. I have to get home.
“Yup, that’s all it would take,” I say before I pull open the door and leave.
87
Jason
1:20 P.M.
I stagger through my door and collapse onto the cold tile of my town house foyer. My stomach unleashes its contents, but there aren’t any contents, only bitter, sticky liquid in my mouth. I put my face down on the tile and try to catch my breath. The floor spins and jukes beneath me.
Something they don’t tell you: The first days of withdrawal are not the hardest. It’s the time after those first few days, when your mind and body are settling in on a new reality-that the fun candy isn’t coming in like it used to-that the mind and body decide to tell you what they think of that decision.