A box of latex gloves sat on the kitchen counter.
“I found those under the sink,” Stella said. “I prefer my gloves, but latex will do, too. I find it’s good to have extras.”
The bottle of tequila, two of the cans of Diet Coke, and two plastic cups half-filled with ice had been set on the kitchen table. The flickering candlelight on that bottle was nearly as enticing as Stella’s smile.
Stella placed two slices of bread on paper plates, then fished out the hot dogs and dropped them on top. “Go ahead and mix our drinks, Jack. You look like a puppy eyeing a bone.”
When you haven’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, things tend to taste a little better than they probably should. Even so, that might have been the tastiest hot dog I’ve ever eaten. Between the two of us, we ate the entire package, and I put away three slices of white bread after that. The tequila and Diet Coke, though, sat in front of me, barely touched. I had been staring at the bottle, I’m not sure how long, when Stella spoke.
“You need it, don’t you?”
I wouldn’t lie to her. “Usually.”
“But not now?”
I thought about it for a second. “I haven’t had a drink since the club last night. I found a bottle of Jim Beam in the glove box of the Mercedes, but it was empty. I nearly cracked it open so I could lick the glass, I wanted a drink so bad. But now…”
I held my hand out, palm down. Steady, no shaking. “Weird. I feel like I want to drink, like I should be drinking, but I don’t reallyneeda drink. Normally, I’d be shaking like a leaf when I’m this dry.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t, then.”
“Maybe I would like to drink with a beautiful woman.” I raised the bottle and took a sip of the tequila, then set it back down. “Whether I need it or not.”
Stella pushed her empty glass toward me. “After what happened at the reservoir last night, the hotel this morning, and the lake, I not onlywanta drink, Ineeda drink, and possibly a third or a fifth or a sixth after that. I would like to forget our little predicament for tonight, and that bottle plays a significant role in my plan. I am quite happy we found it, actually.”
I smiled and refilled her cup. “I imagine living in a house with Latrese Oliver would drive anyone to the bottle.”
The moment the words slipped from my mouth, I regretted them.
Stella’s face fell slightly at the mention of the name. She reached for her cup, stirred it with her finger, then took a drink. She had removed her gloves. They were folded neatly beside her, next to the three books. “It may be difficult for you to understand, looking in from the outside as you did, but she did treat me well. She cared for me, looked out for me, treated me with respect. Not the kind of respect the others in the house doled out, they were simply afraid of me. Not her, though. If she feared me in the slightest, she never let on. The day I left…I hurt her. I hurt her horribly. That man came, got me out, killed all those people to get me out, and I never thought we’d actually make it to the front door let alone to his car, but somehow we did, and I remember standing there, amazed by this. I saw this documentary once with a lion at a zoo in Germany. One of the lion’s handlers accidentally left the cage door open. Not much, mind you, just an inch or so, but open. About midway through the day, the lion realizes this, you can see it on the video—she’s walking in circles around the interior of her cage, and she pauses at the door, nudges the iron with her nose, then stands there for at least five minutes. Finally, she goes back to pacing and lies down in the corner for a nap. She had been in that cage for so much of her life, the idea of leaving when she could didn’t occur to her. Or possibly it did, and she decided she didn’t wish to go. Her life was inside that cage, not on the other side of the bars. The safety of the known outweighing the unknown. As I stood in the driveway of that house next to his car, I nearly ran back inside. I think I was going to. I killed that day, I didn’t want to, but the people who worked at the house, they kept grabbing me, trying to pull me back in, and I was wearing short sleeves, so the moment they touched me, they…I didn’t mean to hurt any of them. I was so rattled by it all. Then there was all the gunfire and the explosions. This man, he was like an army with all the destruction he brought.”
She paused for a moment and took a sip of her drink, then set the cup down. “He yelled at me to follow him, get in his car—it was parked about halfway down the driveway. That’s when the police man showed up. He came running up behind us, yelling, ‘Pittsburgh PD, drop it! Drop it!’”
“Detective Brier,” I said quietly.
Stella went on. “The man with the GTO turned toward him, prepared to fire, but then didn’t. I thought for sure he’d kill him, but something stopped him. Then Ms. Oliver’s SUV slid up behind both of them. One of the men with her jumped out before the vehicle even stopped moving, and he fired at the detective before the detective could fire at him. I was horrified. I was so busy watching this man die, watching so many die, I didn’t see Ms. Oliver get out of the car and run up to me. I didn’t even recognize her voice when she shouted at me. I just spun around and grabbed her, purely defensive on my part. I wouldn’t have hurt her if I’d known it was her, and I let go of her arm the second I realized, but she was screaming, screaming so loud.” Stella paused and took a deep breath. “The man with the GTO, he grabbed me by the back of my shirt and pulled me away, got me to his car. I could hear her screaming the entire time. I still hear her screaming.”
I nearly reached for Stella’s hand. I wanted to comfort her, but she was wearing a white tank top, her arms bare. No gloves. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t console her, I could only sit there.
“He drove me to New York City. Five hours in the car, and he didn’t say a word to me. I was so frightened, I was certain he planned to kill me. I yelled for him to let me out. I nearly touched him, several times. I pulled off my gloves and reached right for his neck. I didn’t care that he was driving or how fast we were going, or what would happen. I only wanted to get out. But he didn’t even flinch. It was like I wasn’t there. When we got to New York, he took me to Grand Central Station and parked out front. He reached into the back seat and handed me a duffle bag—” She nodded at the bag on the floor. “—that duffle bag. And said there were clothes inside, new identification, and ten thousand dollars cash. He told me to get out and pick a train, any train. He didn’t want to know where I was going. I asked him again, ‘who are you?’ and he just pushed the bag toward me and told me to get out, so I did. The second I stepped out, he left. He just sped away and left me standing there, like some big inconvenience to be discarded on the sidewalk.”
“So you have no idea who he is?”
“I didn’t then, but I think I might. Thanks to you.”
“Who?”
She slid her empty cup back to me. “Such information will cost you, Pip.”
I mixed another drink, her third now, and returned the cup to her. “Careful, you’re going to get drunk.”
“I’m well aware of the effects of alcohol,” she said, taking a long gulp.
I was still on my first, about half gone now.
Stella put her cup aside and took the yearbook from the stack beside her. She turned to one of the dog-eared pages, then pointed at the photograph of Jeffery Dalton. “I can’t be sure, but I believe it was him. He’s so much younger here, it’s hard to tell. I didn’t say anything when you first showed me the book, because it seemed too unlikely. I thought maybe my mind just wanted it to be him. But the more I thought about that night, the more certain I became.”
Jeffery Dalton.
