Chapter 17
Ted
“He was right there,” I said, fastening my seat belt.
“Where?” Camille peered out the window and pushed the button to start the ignition.
“Right over there.” I gestured toward the lakefront and the sidewalk running parallel to the beaches and the gray water. “He’s been watching us.” My gut churned. Despite the chill in the air, my face burned. Beads of sweat popped out on my forehead.
Camille put the car in gear and glided almost silently into the traffic going south on Sheridan Road. I looked over my shoulder, grateful at least to see him still standing on the sidewalk facing us and watching.
“Is he following us?”
“No. I don’t think he’ll have time to get to his car, thank god.” But the implications rose up, terrifying me and making me feel like there was no safe haven. Not here, not anywhere I could imagine hiding.
“Good.”
“No, no Camille. Not good.”
She closed her eyes for only a moment in realization. “He knows.”
“Right. He knows where I am.” I felt a rush of panic. “He knows where you live.”
Camille turned suddenly onto a side street and lurched into the only open space—next to a fire hydrant.
Her hands trembled and she stared resolutely out the window.
She looked a shade paler than she was before we started driving.
I hated that I’d drawn her into this nightmare web.
She didn’t need this and really, should have never been a part of it.
I was grateful, though, that she wanted to. That she cared so much about her friend that she would risk herself in this way.
I put a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t move. “I’m so sorry, honey. I put a target on your back. All you did was offer me shelter, some kindness. And what thanks do you get? Being put in the crosshairs of a killer.”
I wanted to jump from the car and run. Who knew where? Who knew what good it would do. I had drawn this poor woman, one of my dearest friends, into a situation where the only escape could be, realistically, death.
Camille drew in a deep breath and turned to root around in her big purse at my feet on the floor.
She brought out a cigarette and lighter and lit up.
Blue smoke filled the car’s interior before she lowered her window.
“Shit. When I bought this car, I promised I’d never smoke in it.
” She took another drag and regarded me. With hatred? Regret?
Then she said, “I would do it all over again, Ted. I love you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. This is not your fault. It’s his. You did nothing wrong, other than try to love him. And then you came to me for help. Help I gladly give. And would give any day of the week.”
“But staying with you is now out of the question.”
She couldn’t argue. She nodded. “I know,” she said, her usually strong voice the whisper of dried leaves. “I know, sweetheart.”
“And I’m worried now about you.”
She let out a long sigh, finished her smoke, and flicked it out the window into the street.
“Her doesn’t know me from Adam. My building is secure—locked vestibule, triple-locked, now, front door.
He doesn’t know my name or, I hope, what unit I live in.
Common sense, whatever it’s worth in a situation like this, dictates that he can’t get at me.
And really, psycho or not, why would he?
I’m nothing to him. I have no skin in this game, no role in this play. ”
I could almost hear her saying the words, even though she was too kind to speak them. You’re the one he’s after. You’re the one he wants.
“Still…” I felt such guilt and remorse. I should have left her out of it.
If anything happened to Camille, I could never forgive myself.
And her remark about having no skin in the game made me think how that didn’t matter.
None of this was logical. None of it had any rationale or sense to it.
If there was, it was beyond my comprehension.
And I’m grateful for that. My whole world had morphed into the kind of dark fairy tale, complete with an ogre, I enjoyed as a boy.
“Still nothing, Ted. He’s not going to come after me. But we need to think, now, what to do with you. Where can I take you to keep you out of harm’s way?”
I thought of Karl and, as much as I wanted to be with him, I figured he’d be the worst possible choice.
He was best in a lot of ways—he knew Josh, knew his madness, and his capability to be lethal.
But he was also the person Josh probably knew most about, including where he lived.
This last thought sent an icy chill up my spine.
Was no one safe?
I doubted I had ever felt more like I wanted to escape. The old chestnut stop the world, I want to get off came to mind. My life had gone from boringly normal to a nightmare, a horror movie, to living in abject and hopeless fear.
As though she’d read my thoughts, Camille took my hand and squeezed it.
“He’s a monster, but not like the ones in a King novel or a horror movie.
He can’t rise from the dead; he can’t fly or teleport.
He’s human. He has the same limits we all do.
You’ve listened to the podcast, to what his sister said, to what Karl knows.
This cold case is heating up. He’s also hiding, Ted.
He’s desperate. That’s no comfort, but it’s a reflection of his anxiety, his worry, maybe, that things are closing in on him. ”
“What am I gonna do, Camille? Where can I go?”
“Well, for the moment, I think you’re in luck.
He didn’t follow us, so we can get you someplace safe, or at least relatively so.
Here on out, though, we have to be super careful.
I’m going to find a motel—I have a place in mind—and check you in.
We’ll pay cash if they’ll let us and use an assumed name. ”
“I guess that’s a start.”
“Sure it is. Once we get you settled, we can decide how to deal with the threat, with the danger.”
“Karl can help.”
“I know, but we have to be very careful, for his sake, too.”
Again, I simply wanted to act on my flee instinct. I had no fight in me.
“Where are we going, Camille?”
She smiled, “Why, we’re going right to the very heart of Chicago.”
*
She wasn’t kidding. I’d driven by the Heart O’ Chicago motel dozens, if not hundreds, of times during my time here in the city.
It sat on north Ridge at a busy intersection in the part of the city known as Edgewater (although the water’s edge was a good two or three miles away from its front door).
It had been here for as long as I could remember and I recalled hearing once that it stood in its place, looking all suburban and Motel-6-ish, since the 1950s.
I never dreamed I’d be staying here. The motel had a reputation as a place for gay orgies and drug use.
I don’t know if any of that’s true, as I’ve always come down on the more monogamous side of the gay experience.
But did its reputation really matter? Not really—not when all I needed was a safe space away from Josh’s eyes.
Now, looking around the small room, a bit rundown, but cleaner than I’d expected, I thought that Camille maybe had something when she suggested depositing me here for a little while.
It simply wasn’t a place, I believed and Camille did too, that Josh would think to come looking, even though it was as obvious as could be.
Kind of hiding in plain sight was what we both reasoned.
I prayed she was right. And I prayed that, despite her assurances to the contrary, that Josh had no supernatural link, a sort of psychic Find My Phone to keep his finger on where I was.
I also prayed—and I was never one for praying—that he would leave my Camille alone.
She didn’t deserve his wrath, his paranoia, his rage.
She didn’t even know the man. Now, I was grateful I’d never introduced them.
I wondered if my reluctance had something to do with a fear, buried deep within my consciousness, that the pair were better left separated.
It was dark now, and the orange glow of streetlights seeped in through my closed curtains.
Camille had taken care of me. When I asked her to go back to her apartment to get a few of the things I’d forgotten, she refused.
If I didn’t already know, I knew now that my friend was a thinking-two-steps-ahead kind of woman.
“If I go back to my place, get some stuff, and bring it to you, who’s to say he won’t be watching?
He could then easily follow me back here. ”
So, she’d gone to Target, gotten me a few pairs of underwear, some T-shirts and hoodies, a couple pairs of jeans, toiletries. She’d even ordered a pizza from Giordano’s for me.
She was the mom I didn’t deserve. Or maybe I did deserve her. Angels come in all shapes and sizes.
The hour had grown late and I felt relatively safe in this too-warm motel room. I shed my clothes and crawled under the covers. I used the remote to turn on the old-school TV, thinking I’d be up for hours, mind tortured by fear and suspicion.
But no, the stress of the day had taken its toll.
I’d lost the thread of the old Law and Order: SVU episode I was trying to turn my attention to, even if was a bad choice, present circumstances considered.
After the third snort and awakening and having no idea what was going on in the episode, I drifted off.
*
Camille walks down her darkened street. The roar of Lake Michigan, just ahead, is her only accompaniment. Until…
Footfalls behind her. The hour is late, the streets relatively empty, even for Chicago.
She pauses. So do the footsteps.
She starts again. So do the footsteps.
She digs into her purse and brings out her keys. She positions each key between her fingers. She’s a woman alone and she can’t be too careful. Not only can she use her keys as a weapon, she’ll also have them at the ready if she needs to get inside her building as fast as possible.
She’s almost there and a prickling sensation at her neck alerts her that someone has drawn even closer. She looks down and in the wan light of a street lamp, spies two shadows.
The time has gone for running. The time has come for confrontation, if she is to stand a chance. She tells herself this could be nothing—a stranger on the same path that she is, headed for the lakefront or a car parked near its edge. She stops, turns.
And he’s there.
Josh.
She doesn’t know why, but she recognizes him immediately.
He smiles, that disarming, handsome grin that she supposes he will think will put her at ease. But she’s not. Her heart pounds.
“What do you want?”
He moves a step closer and she takes a step back.
“Ted—that’s what I want. Make this easy and tell me where he is and I’ll go away.”
She looks down at the ground, then back up at him. “I don’t know where he is.”
“He was staying with you.”
“Yes, but not anymore.” She half turns toward her building—so close, yet so far away.
“I saw you leave with him, Camille. I know you know.” He steps close again and he seems taller somehow, definitely menacing.
She moves toward her building, closer, stumbles. Over her shoulder, “I don’t know. No, sir. I don’t. Now leave me alone or I’ll scream.”
He laughs. “No you won’t.” He draws out a hunting knife and holds it close to her face. “I’ll shut you up real quick. Screams don’t sound too loud if a throat gets cut.” He raises an eyebrow, still smiling.
She thinks of the pepper spray in her purse, how useless it now is.
She sees a crowd has gathered near the lakefront—pale, moony faces staring, waiting. They all look the same—long, dark coats, pale skin, and white eyes devoid of pupils.
Camille runs, but drops quickly as she trips over a cat, lying prone. “Mrs. Davis?” She wonders aloud. “How did you get here?”
There’s no time. He’s on her.
Stabbing. Stabbing.
The blood arcs into the air.
Mrs. Davis rises up, hisses, then dashes away.
Sirens.
Applause from the onlookers near the shore…
Camille lies, twitching, on the concrete, framed by dirty snow.
*
I wake, bathed in sweat and tangled in the sheets. Is Camille all right? Did she make it home? Or was the dream a vision?
Sleep will not grace me with a return tonight. I kick off the covers. Stand.
And try to call Camille.
Voice mail.
It’s late, I tell myself.
She’s sleeping.