“You’vebeen the one texting me?” A 508 area code could havebeen anyone. Anyone who knew I had good reason to be afraid of someone from Massachusetts. And I fell for it. I fell for the whole thing. No wonder he didn’t want to talk on the phone.Think. “Leave right now or I’ll call the police.”
Brooks smirks as he pulls a phone from the back pocket of his filthy-looking khakis.Myphone. I must have left it in the other room. “That will be difficult without this.” He tucks it back into his pocket. “I just need you to hear me out, Frankie. Then I’ll go.” But the look on his face—even he doesn’t believe that.
I feel the scraper in my hand again. Brooks isn’t a big guy, but he could still easily overpower me. What if I miss? All of this seems much simpler in the movies. So certain and swift.
Think. Think. Think.Talk your way out of this, Frankie. Pretend you’re listening.“Okay, Brooks. What is it?”
“Richard.”
“What about Richard?”
“I saw you leave Richard’s, Frankie. I know you and he—”
“Nothing. He and I, nothing,” I say. “I was locked out. That’s all. Richard and I are just friends.” My voice is trembling.
“Friends,” Brooks snorts. “I wasthereon the mountain, Frankie. I saw it. Weallsaw it. He was infatuated—and so were you.”
“Nothing happened then, either, Brooks.” Although that isn’t the complete truth, is it?
He starts to laugh—too hard and too loud. “I want Richard’s wife, and you want Richard. It’s an even trade. We help each other. Everyone ends up happy.”
Sore loser.That’s what the tension on the mountain was about. Brooks wanted Richard’s wife. He still wants her.
“I don’t want Richard.”
“Yes, you do,” Brooks says. He shrugs. “You know what? Okay, fine. Let’s pretend you don’t. We can still make some kind of arrangement. Gretchen is hanging by a thread. All she needs is to hear that you two have had an affair and she’s going to leave Richard. I know it. She just needs someone to say it—a woman, someone who’s not me. I’ve been trying to tell her for years. Do it and then you can run off with some other guy, for all I care.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“Call Gretchen and say you slept with Richard. Then I’ll leave.”
There’s no way he’s just going to go. I raise the scraper. “Get out, Brooks. Now.” He stares at it for a long moment. When he looks up, he does not seem surprised or afraid.
“Before you think of doing anything crazy with that—whatever it is you’re holding—I wrote an email that will send automatically to my wife tomorrow if I’m not around to stop it, explaining that you and I have been having an affair, you’ve been acting unstable, and you have a history. If you know what I mean. So if anything happens to me, she’ll be sure you’re prosecuted. She is one vengeful bitch, trust me.”
“Leave, Brooks.Now.”
“Fine. Then how about money?” he goes on. “You and I both know you’re willing to do all sorts of things for money.”
“Did you push Van?” I ask.
He just stares and stares at me, his face chillingly expressionless, eyes empty. He doesn’t jump to deny or defend. He doesn’t do anything. It’s like he’s not even in there anymore. Like no one is.
I wave the scraper in front of me. “Get the fuck out of my apartment, Brooks.”
“I will, just as soon as you make one quick call.” He holds my phone out again.
But we both know he’s not leaving me alive to tell everyone the truth afterward.
Run. It’s my only option. I stare down at the phone in his hand and count—one one-thousand, two—
I launch myself toward the door. Sprinting across the apartment. Arms pumping.
I am knocked forward. My knees crack against the hardwood. And Brooks’s hands are on the back of my neck. Shoving me down against the floor, my face pressed to the side. But the scraper. It’s still in my hand. And I am just an animal. An animal about to die.
I shove back once with all my weight. But it’s no use. The rest is a blur. A struggle. Brooks shouts, “Knock it the fuck off!”
And then, suddenly, my arm is free for a second—one second—and the scraper knife is swinging. Swinging. I am swinging it. Until it sticks, sickeningly. With a wet, tearing sound.
