33. Janet
JANET
Isit at the kitchen table with my laptop open. A legal pad next to me. Nothing written on it.
I need a destination before I pack.
My hands are steady on the keys. That scares me more than shaking would.
I search international departures from all the tri-state airports.
Lisbon comes up first. I read through flight times, do the math on what a month away would cost, decide it isn't far enough.
Bangkok is farther. Three layovers. I close the tab.
I try Mexico City next. Too close. He could be on a plane and standing in the lobby before I finished unpacking if he doesn't buy that I'm dead.
Europe is good. Germany. No, I don’t speak enough Spanish to do Spain.
I sit back and stare at the list. A banner drops across the top of the screen, a price alert to Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, four hundred and twelve dollars.
I stare at it.
I click it before I let myself think about why.
The seat map loads. I pick a window and type in my card number. My thumb hovers over the button for a second before I press it.
Confirmation number. A receipt drops into my inbox. It's done.
I leave on Wednesday. Thursday, I'm dead.
I close the laptop.
The sob comes before I can stop it. I sit there in the dark and shake until my ribs hurt.
I wipe my face with the heel of my hand and go find a bag.
I call Mitch.
He picks up on the first ring, voice low. "Hey?"
"The letter," I say. "Don't do anything with it."
A pause. "Janet?—"
"Karen opened it."
"Shit, Mitch."
"How was I going to stop her?"
"By not showing it to her."
"Hey, I'm the one who stopped her from calling the police on the spot."
"Okay, don't do that. Hold it. If something happens, you'll know when."
"Is that her?" I hear Karen snatching the phone.
"What the hell is going on?" she says. "I've been calling you. What the hell is this crazy letter? I almost called the police."
"No, don't do that."
"People are trying to kill you?"
"There are people after me." My voice comes out flat. "Bad people. One of them already killed a man I used to work with."
Karen goes quiet on the other end. "Then you call the police. Right now."
"They won't do anything. No one is going to take me seriously right now. Not until he does something. By it's too late."
"Janet."
"He'll get to me eventually. Unless I'm not here to get to."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I have to disappear." I say it plainly, so she hears it. "I have to make him think I'm dead. So, people may call and ask for me. You don't know where I am or what happened to me."
"This is crazy."
I open my mouth to tell her everything. Mike's name sits right there on my tongue.
Karen doesn't believe me. I can hear it in the silence that follows. But she lets it go.
"I'm leaving Wednesday. I will call you when I get where I'm going. It's best if you don't know where right now."
"I... I don't know what to say," she says.
"It's the only way right now."
"Call me every day," she says. "I mean it, Janet."
"I will."
I hang up and sit there with the phone in my lap for a long time.
I call my sister in Connecticut next. I give her the short version. Bad people, real danger; she won't hear from me for a while and shouldn't panic when she doesn't.
"Should I call Karen?" she asks.
"She already knows. If anyone else asks, you haven't heard from me. That's all I need from you."
"Janet, you're scaring me."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'll call when I can."
She's still asking questions when I hang up.
My thumb finds Settings. Blocked Contacts. Mike Trent's name appears on my screen.
I tap Unblock.
In the bedroom, I set my gun on the nightstand, phone beside it, to reach without opening my eyes.
I pack almost nothing.
Clean underwear. A T-shirt rolled tight. Cash. Phone charger. One of the extra toothbrushes still in plastic from under the sink. Not mine from the cup. Not anything that would make it look like I left town.
I stop.
Passport.
Shit.
I take it anyway and slide it flat into the inside pocket of my purse. Hopefully, they’ll think they couldn’t find it.
I'll buy clothes and what I need in Costa Rica. Everything else stays.
I sit on the edge of the bed for one second.
I lie back without taking off my clothes and stare at the ceiling until the room softens at the edges.
I tell myself I'm only resting my eyes.
Sleep takes me anyway.
I hear it. Metal on metal, out in the living room.
I lie still, listening. There it is again. A scrape against the fire escape grating.
I take the gun off the nightstand and swing my legs out of bed. The hallway floor is cold beneath my feet. I move toward the living room, gun low, both hands.
The window is open. Curtains lift and fall with the draft.
I turn toward it, and a hand closes around my wrist from behind.
I scream and twist, fighting on instinct. The gun gets ripped from my hand before I can bring it up.
"Janet!" His voice cuts through the panic. "It's me. It's me."
I stop fighting.
Mike stands there in the dark.
I slap him.
He catches my wrist before I can swing again. I twist free and punch him, my fist catching his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways.
The gun falls to the ground.
He doesn't let go. He hauls me against him and I fight him, both fists against his chest, shoving, hitting.
I slap him with everything I have.
His head turns with it.
I do it again.
Again.
All the fear. All the humiliation. All the nights I let myself want him while he was lying to me. It comes out through my hands because there's nowhere else for it to go.
He takes it.
On the fourth one, he catches my wrists. Not hard. Enough to stop me from breaking both of us open any further.
I'm breathing like I ran here.
So is he.
For one second, we stand there, his hands around my wrists, my body shaking against his, his face close enough that I can see the red mark blooming across his cheek.
He pulls me into him.
I should fight it.
I don't.
I kiss him.
For a second, everything goes quiet except his mouth on mine and the hard beat of his heart under my hands.
"I love you." He says it against my temple, my cheek, chasing my mouth. "I love you, Janet."
"Mike. I hate you." My hands press flat against his chest, pushing, not pushing hard enough. "You hurt me."
"I love you." He kisses me again, softer this time, and something in me stops fighting it.
His hand slides into my hair and mine fists in his shirt, pulling him closer instead of away. He walks me back until my shoulders hit the wall.
I wrap myself around him.
He sets me on the kitchen counter.
He gets my shirt over my head between one breath and the next. His mouth finds my throat, my collarbone, lower, and I arch into him, fingers dragging through his hair.
"I love you," he says again, lips against my skin.
His hand slides down my stomach and lower, and I'm already soaked, already shaking, and he groans against my ear like the feel of me undoes something in him too.
"Mike." His name comes out ragged.
He grips my hips and pulls me to the edge of the counter, my legs wrapped around him, settling between my thighs like I weigh nothing.
He pushes into me slow. I gasp. My nails drag down his back. There's no Ryan, no video, no letter in Mitch's safe. There's just him, moving inside me, whispering my name like a vow.
"Don't stop," I say.
He doesn't. He builds a rhythm that has my hips rising to meet him, has my head pressed back against the cabinet door, has both of us breathing like we're drowning and refusing to come up for air. His mouth finds mine again and swallows the sound I make when I come apart underneath him.
"I love you," he says, right against my lips, as I break around him.
He buries his face in my neck and holds me through it, both of us shaking, and for one long moment nothing in the world can reach me.
Somewhere outside a siren wails, and I sit up in my bed gasping.
The room is black except for the gray line of city light through the blinds. My bedroom. Not the kitchen counter. The siren fades.
My heart slams against my ribs like it's trying to get out. My skin is slick with sweat, and my thighs ache, a phantom ache.
I press a hand flat against my chest and count. One. Two. Three. My pulse doesn't care about counting.
I reach out and my fingers find the gun first, exactly where I left it, cold and solid under my hand.
I get up and cross into the living room. I check the window latch with both hands, twice, until I'm sure.
Locked.
I stand there a moment longer than I need to, waiting for my heartbeat to slow, waiting to feel foolish. I don't.
I go back to bed and reach for my phone on the nightstand, the way I always do.
One missed call.
Mike.