CHAPTER 23

Alight mist began to fall as they drove to Jane’s condo. It cast a glow on the city the way Ingrid Bergman’s skin glowed at the end of Casablanca, except the glow Jane saw outside her window was in Technicolor. She saw her hospital lit up in buttery green and silver, a beacon of safety. She would never go there again.

This is the end, thought Jane. There’s no coming back from this.

“Poppy’s fine. As soon as Seth realizes she’s not Leah, he’ll let her go. He’s … not a bad man.”

“And Thomas?” Daniel kept his eyes on the road. Maybe he was already distancing himself from her, replacing his emerging love with warning: she was dangerous.

“Seth can control Tommy,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

Between the gaps of the government buildings and a refurbished apartment block, she saw clusters of people walking down the sidewalks heading she didn’t know where—restaurants, bars, clubs. Their silhouettes cut across the beams of headlights. She wished she could’ve had a group of friends who’d meet at this or that place to drink and dance and talk about when they were getting the new iPhone, the chances of the Clippers making the playoffs, if Pop Star X was really a slut, and if Pop Star Z had really smoked weed on stage, or cheated, or had a secret love child. That was the life she’d been building with Alma, except all Alma cared about was sci-fi so there had been no sports and no pop stars, but it had been something.

Now she was dead because of it.

Daniel parked at the condo. “You shouldn’t go up there alone.”

“It’s better for you to be here, ready to drive them away after I get them out.”

“We should call the FBI,” he said without conviction. “They could help.”

“The Vanguard probably has people in the FBI.”

“Still, that Sao guy, he seemed pretty determined.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Jane took a deep breath to calm herself. The sooner she got up there, the sooner this would be over, but she didn’t want to leave Daniel. She didn’t know how to say goodbye.

“If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m coming up.” Something in his jaw tightened, the perfunctory tone of his voice tried to add up to a determination he didn’t quite feel. When he’d woken up that morning he’d never imagined he’d come this close to the men who had ruined his life.

I ruined him. He knew that now. It had hung between them the entire drive. If not for Battery Park, his life could’ve been everything he’d wanted.

“Or I could come with you now.”

“Wait fifteen minutes, then call 911,” said Jane. “Report the kidnapping. This isn’t a Vanguard crime.”

She got out of the Prius before he could argue. It was a selfish thing to ask him. If the police got involved and not the FBI, she wouldn’t have to bear witness to her knowledge of the Vanguard. As soon as Daniel realized that, he’d think less of her. If that is even possible.

Shayla’s dog was barking. Inside the echo chamber of the stairs, he sounded miles away. If Jane had a dog it would be barking, scratching at the door getting ready to welcome her. If Jane had a dog, she would know her condo was intruder free, spider free. Instead she stood before her door, slightly out of breath, with her keys in her hand trying to decide if she should knock.

The door was unlocked. She pushed it open. The condo was dark except for a strip of weak light leaking through the gap under her bedroom door. Caution tape rustled around her feet as she stepped inside.

Ambient city glow coming in from the balcony door dimly illuminated the living room. On the couch with his steel toed boots up on the cushions was the spider of all spiders. There was enough light to see the fuzzy profile of his beard and receding hairline with two tentacle arms resting behind his head. She flipped on the light over the breakfast bar and the shadows toying with her imagination scattered to the corners of the room. It was only Seth, very nearly the same as she remembered him—former soldier’s body gone a little soft from too much pizza, the lumpy bulk that had once seemed so solid and safe—plus that ridiculous Hawaiian shirt.

“Hello Rachel.”

She checked the shadows. Her skin crawled under the gaze of hundreds of invisible eyes; she didn’t see Tommy. “You’re alone?”

“This is an interesting home you’ve set up.” He rolled off the couch. His momentum carried him halfway across the room towards her. Jane tried not to flinch. “Only one bedroom. No toys.”

“I can’t afford much.”

“But you subscribe to security coverage.”

“It’s a nice thing to have. I’m thinking of getting a dog.”

“I have a cat.”

Jane tried to estimate how much time she had before Daniel came and if he would come alone or wait for the police.

“Where’s Tommy?”

“With a friend.”

The use of the old code her family used when they were among outsiders startled her. With a friend, meant Tommy was hiding, probably in the basement of some Vanguard supporter. Who does he think will overhear him here? She looked around. Steve and Poppy were most likely in the bedroom. There was no one else.

I’m the outsider.

“Were you with him when he …” she couldn’t finish the thought.

Seth put his stupid face on, the one that used to trick her into believing he’d misplaced his brain and needed her help. “I’m sorry about your friend. Tommy, he’s changed since you left. Angry all the time.”

“At me?”

“At everyone. Nothing is enough for him. Just this year—he’s been pushing, trying to change how we do things.”

“And what about you? Did she deserve to die for betraying the Vanguard?”

Seth’s eyes went wide, became all whites with little black dots in the middles as he advanced towards her. She backed up against the wall as he swerved into the entryway and paced the short hallway to the bedroom. He did four circuits, his hands swinging back and forth. “I couldn’t save her. By the time I got to the house, she was already gone.”

“And North Carolina? And Daniel? Those were all Tommy?” Her words sliced off the end of her tongue like it was a knife. “You are so fucking lucky Daniel didn’t go to the police.” Jane hadn’t quite meant to say ‘fuck’—too much time around Steve—it went off like a bomb, the concussions making the too-close hallway walls vibrate as Seth turned on her.

“We branded him because Aaron wouldn’t let us brand you! You were willing to expose us just to give him a drink. Ever think how that made us feel, huh?” Seth’s hefty bulk backed her up against the wall. She caught a whiff of his deodorant and Irish Spring soap. “He could’ve recognized you from the park.” Seth stuttered in his anger. “You shouldn’t have been with him in the first place.”

“You would’ve branded me for that?”

Something fell in Jane’s bedroom, a patter of lightweight objects in succession. Seth caught his breath, trying to calm down. Jane considered bolting towards the bedroom door to free Steve. He could probably overpower Seth. They could make a run for the Prius.

I’m done running.

“You needed to be taught a lesson,” said Seth softly.

“That only makes sense if you’d told me what you did. But you didn’t. It’s been a secret all this time. I bet Aaron doesn’t even know.”

“I regret what happened. It got out of hand. But the motivations were pure. You belonged with us, not him.” The confidence in his voice chilled her. He would do it again, she thought. I can’t give him that chance.

She stepped around Seth into the hallway and moved towards the bedroom. She couldn’t risk Daniel coming up and meeting Seth. She had to move faster. Seth rushed to intercept her as Jane reached the bedroom door. “Leah’s sleeping,” he said.

Jane’s breath spasmed in her chest. “What did you say?”

Seth responded to what must’ve been a grotesque mixture of dumfounded contortions on her face by placing a silencing finger across her lips. Taking Jane by the shoulders he gently shifted her to the other side of the hallway so she stood to his right. Since Jane had been sixteen, this had been her place beside him, the place where he said it was easiest to protect her because he was left handed, because any approaching danger would meet his strong hand before it met her. With delicate care he opened the bedroom door.

For a moment, the power of suggestion, combined with the low light of the desk lamp from Goodwill, allowed Jane to see her lost daughter curled up in the middle of the bed, the breeze of her shallow sleeping breaths whispering into the curls of a porcelain doll tucked under her arm. Jane drifted across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She set her hand on the thin ridge of Leah’s ribs and felt the easy cadence of their expanding and contracting, their action governed by a perfect miracle of creation. A little person still intact, somehow resilient to all the confusion and fear Jane had imagined for her. Jane brushed her hair back from her temple and kissed it.

Jane shifted to pull Leah into her arms. Her peripheral vision detected movement. She jumped to her feet ready to lunge for the RAID can in the closet, then she saw Steve’s giant feet, his ankles tied together with her favorite dress shirt, thumping against the side of her desk, causing a pile of grocery receipts to fall like a cascade of feathers towards the floor where they joined her already fallen paystubs. He was gagged and blindfolded, a scene eerily reminiscent of how she’d encountered Daniel in that Manhattan basement. His head lolled back and forth. Unintelligible sounds gurgled from his throat.

The spell was broken. It was Poppy in the bed not Leah. Taken from school by a stranger, probably terrified. Steve would never speak to Jane again when he learned it was her fault. Jane was surprised to feel loss at this. They’d just begun to understand each other.

“Where is Leah?” Seth addressed her in a dead monotone. Jane wanted to run at him and ram her body against him, dig her nails in and tear his skin off, scream at him. Instead, she opened her arms and approached in a posture of surrender, slow steady steps, no extraneous movement.

“Leah’s gone.” Her voice was iron.

“No more games, Rachel. Just the truth.”

“I had an abortion.” Jane waited in the middle of the room. She’d never spoken this particular truth out loud, not even when she’d told Daniel. She thought the ceiling might come crashing down, thunder and lightning, some cosmic cause and effect, but nothing happened. She’d expected confession to feel different, feel more.

“That’s not possible,” said Seth.

“Isn’t it? Maybe I didn’t know what you’d done to Daniel but there was plenty of other shit warning me you’d make a godawful parent. And I certainly wasn’t prepared to figure it out on my own.”

Something in these words must’ve rung true because Seth stumbled back against the bedroom door. Overgrown toddler sadness filled his eyes with tears.

“You wouldn’t accept no for an answer,” said Jane. She tried to keep her voice hard, but it was flailing under the pressure. She wanted him to understand, to admit that maybe she’d done the right thing, which of course wasn’t going to happen.

“You lied to me,” he said.

She felt Seth pulling himself together around this idea of her deceit—the pills she took without telling him, and now an abortion. Jane imagined the sharp stab of knowing slowly becoming the ache that would live in his gut like it did in hers. When he said, “You murdered our daughter,” the stab became a spear that pierced her heart. But with it also came relief. Finally, he knew; she was free of her secret.

Seth’s eyes shifted to Poppy in the bed. His arms went limp as a fresh surge of tears blinded him. “The girl. She sleeps just like Leah.” His head fell forward into his hands. Snot dripped from his nose and bubbled in his beard.

This seemed a safe moment to try and escape. Jane moved to Steve’s side and began to feel her way through the knots of her clothes. She couldn’t look at Seth. She knew what he was feeling too well. She got Steve’s legs free, but his hands were zip tied. She glanced sideways at Seth and asked without expecting an answer, “Where’s your knife?”

With grave difficulty, he lifted his head and leveled his gaze at her. “You are my wife.” He launched across the room and grabbed her arm. Jane wrenched away. He grabbed her again. Her tired body strained with effort as she parried and ducked and finally landed a solid push kick in the side of his calf. Something snapped. Seth gasped as he released her.

Jane dove to the floor. She removed Steve’s gag but not the blindfold. If he saw Seth’s face he’d be a liability to the Vanguard and they would come after him the way they’d come after Alma.

“Steve? You okay?” She lightly tapped his cheeks.

“You …” Steve’s lips were swollen and dotted with crusted saliva. “You’re …”

“What did you dose him with?” she asked Seth.

Seth spoke from the muffled cavern between his chest and thighs. He’d collapsed against the wall. “God will punish you for taking her from me.”

For a moment, the words felt as final as though he was a judge reading out a jury’s verdict condemning her. She hated that he still had that power over her mind. “Maybe. But that’s between Him and me, not you.”

Jane spotted Seth’s mission bag on the floor by Steve’s feet. The knife was probably in it. Just as she reached for it there was a rush of air as Seth slammed into her shoulder. She punched without being able to see and found only air. There was the ceiling. There was the wall. Desk. Seth. She lunged at him. He grabbed her shoulders and held her back. Her arms weren’t long enough to reach him, but she could still kick. She turned sideways, throwing him off balance. As he stumbled forward, she delivered a swift kick to his kidney and then, without hesitation, to his groin, a kick even harder than she’d delivered to the bovine guy in the bar.

“You can’t fight me, Rachel.” Seth gasped.

For a moment Jane thought she heard feet running up the stairwell. She grabbed the knife out of the bag and hurried back to Steve. She was almost through the zip tie when Seth came at her again.

He seized her arm and jerked it upward so hard something snapped in her shoulder. She instinctively stood to alleviate the pressure. “You have to come home.” Seth snatched the porcelain doll from Poppy’s arms and muscled Jane toward the bedroom door. “You need to repent. No more secrets. We’ll start over.”

Jane’s feet snagged on clothes, a purse, and a waste-of-money self-help book—dragged them along to slow Seth down as he pulled her towards the door. She was so tired. Her efforts felt useless. As Jane reached out and grasped only empty space, she saw Steve pop the remaining sliver of the zip tie. His movements were imprecise as he massaged his hands then removed the blindfold. Jane gave up her resistance and pushed Seth out the bedroom door before Steve looked their way, squinting as though he couldn’t quite trust his eyes to tell him what was going on.

They were almost to the front door. Jane elbowed Seth in his bruised kidney. This only slowed him down for a second. He took both her arms and held her fast. “Why won’t you listen to me? You’ll never be right in your heart if you don’t come home and face this.”

“I face it every day and I don’t regret it. I’d do it again.”

He searched her face for his placid, accepting wife, shook his head at whatever he saw. “There have to be consequences for what you’ve done.” He turned the knob to open the front door. It didn’t open. He checked the deadbolt. Tried again. The door didn’t budge. He glared at Jane like this was her fault.

Two more tries and he was so frustrated he let go of her arm. He pinched the doll in his armpit so he could use both hands to pull the door.

Jane looked around for a weapon—dirty clothes, clean clothes, purse; nothing useful. She summoned her remaining energy for one last attack. She lined up beside him and delivered a sharp front punch to his jaw to throw him off balance. She waited, counted beats as he stumbled back, his feet doing a blind jig step, until he was facing her. She planted her foot, channeled all her remaining energy up through her heel and drove her right foot into his crotch. The doll fell first. Seth howled, perhaps in pain, perhaps in horror as its face shattered, and then his eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the ground.

Jane ran to the bedroom for Seth’s zip ties. Steve sat on the floor beside the bed with one hand braced on the side and the other on the headboard post trying to pull himself up. When he saw her, he grinned. “You good?”

“Not really.”

“Me too.”

The crunch of porcelain sounded in the hallway. Jane grabbed a fistful of zip ties and braced herself for another confrontation. But when she returned to the hallway Seth was still laying on the floor, semi-conscious, curled in a ball. It was the door opening against the broken doll making the sound. Daniel was on the other side. “Jane?”

Her heart did a small leap. “I’m here.”

Daniel wedged himself through the doorway and stepped over Seth’s feet. He wrapped his arms around Jane, holding her so tightly he lifted her off the ground.

“I thought …” He stopped, as though the fact that she wasn’t hurt negated his worry. He set her down. “Where’s Poppy?”

“In the bedroom. Steve’s here. They’re both fine.”

She walked him down the hall. In the bedroom, Steve had managed to pull himself up onto Jane’s bed. He laid with his back to them snoring, with Poppy tucked up against his chest. Daniel stared in disbelief. “He’s asleep.”

Jane returned to the hallway and bound Seth’s wrists together. His ankles were too wide for one zip tie so Jane used three in interconnected loops, one of many things Aaron had taught her and Tommy during the survivalist camping weekends they’d taken together. She saw movement in her peripheral vision and looked up to see Daniel standing in the bedroom doorway watching her work. The light wasn’t good, but there was enough to see this twist in his face like he was impressed, but also surprised, by her skills.

His gaze shifted past her to Seth on the floor. For a moment, she thought to tell him not to look, that the Vanguard would come after him if they thought he could identify them the way Alma had, but then she realized seeing one of his attackers was more important to him than safety.

“So that’s the husband.”

“Yeah.”

“No sign of your brother?”

“There’s no way to find him.”

For a moment, she thought Daniel didn’t believe her, like she was protecting Tommy, even after what he’d done. This is why it has to be the end. He’ ll never trust me now.

“I guess we should move him so the doorway is clear?” Before she could stop him, Daniel grabbed Seth’s shirt and started dragging him into the living room. Jane followed, too tense to help.

Daniel propped Seth up against the couch and stood back to study him. He paid particular attention to Seth’s hands, as though measuring them against some imaginary handprint. “He’s just a regular guy.” Daniel sounded disappointed.

Long moments ticked by filled with Daniel’s private thoughts. Jane felt time passing with increasing urgency until finally, she said, “Did you decide to call the police?”

Daniel reluctantly turned away from Seth. “I thought I would come up and see what was going on first. Steve doesn’t like publicity. We’ll get them down to the car and then call.”

Jane nodded. It felt like too much work to tell him that they couldn’t report a crime if they’d erased evidence of the victims.

“I’m going to carry Poppy down, then I’ll be back okay?” Daniel spoke with an eerie calm. She didn’t want to imagine what he was thinking.

She waited until he left then she collected the doll from the entryway. Her face was smashed, but the little porcelain arms and feet attached to the cloth body were still intact, as were the parts of the head where the hair had been glued on. Jane recognized the doll as one of Seth’s mother’s childhood toys, a gift she’d given them when they’d told her they were having a baby. Jane assumed Seth had brought the doll with him for Leah. Now he knew he’d never give it to her.

She carried the big pieces of the doll’s face into the living room. She wadded a kitchen towel into the cavity of the head and gently set the pieces in place, two blue eyes that opened and closed, a little pouty mouth, one and a half rosy cheeks. Jane didn’t have the nose.

“She would’ve liked you,” Jane whispered as she propped the doll up against the couch beside Seth. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you if you come home.” Seth’s voice was only a whisper and his eyes were still closed, but the threat was clear.

She knelt beside him and pressed her hand over his heart. It was the same motion she’d used in New York, trying to calm Daniel without revealing herself, a motion she used to transfer the deepest core of her feelings into another person.

“Don’t you dare, for one second, think I’m sorry for you.” She lowered her voice and bent close to his face so he would be sure to hear her. “You had no right. No fucking right to manipulate me the way you did.”

Someone was behind her. She withdrew too late. Daniel had entered the condo without making a sound. He was observing her from the hallway with mild interest, like a scientist in a lab. “Ready?” he asked, then disappeared around the corner.

“He’s no good for you, Rachel,” said Seth.

“That was never for you to decide.”

“You won’t be happy until you repent.”

Jane stood, towering over him for the first time in her life. “Don’t try to find me again.”

“You can’t leave me, Rachel. You’ll regret it, you hear me?” Seth’s voice gained strength as she walked to the hallway and then abruptly died out. When she turned back to look at him one last time, he had fallen a little to his left, leaning into the empty space between him and the doll as though trying to find the missing third of his holy trinity: father, mother, and child.

It took both Jane and Daniel struggling one step at a time to get Steve down to the Prius. With Steve and Poppy buckled into the back seats, Daniel drove away from the condo tower and parked down the street in front of the In N Out. His fingers tapped a silent melody on the steering wheel as the engine ticked. Jane tried to remember to breathe.

Finally, he turned and set Detective Marten’s card on the center console. “Your brother needs to be stopped before anyone else dies.”

Jane nodded but did not reach for the card or for her phone. Images of the crime scene photos Sao had showed her flickered through her mind, dim impressions of a violence she could not believe was real.

“I need you to prove you’re done with them,” he said softly.

This wasn’t what she’d expected. Behind Daniel’s words, she heard the unspoken promise of a future. He hadn’t decided to cast her out. She brought her purse up from the floor by her seat and pulled out her burner phone. Her fingers shook as she dialed the number.

Martens answered after only one ring.

“There’s a man who might be able to tell you where to find Tommy Schaben.” She recited her address and hung up.

Daniel held out his hand. Numbly, she gave him her phone. He got out of the car and dropped it into the trash can by the front door of the building. He leaned into the backseat and pulled a water bottle out of the case by Poppy’s feet. Jane glanced back and saw Poppy rub her nose as she shifted in her sleep so her head rested against the door. On the other side of the bench, Steve’s long frame was crunched into the small space, his head stuck in the gap between the headrest and the door, his legs slanted sideways and shoved on each side of the water.

What will they remember when they wake up? wondered Jane. Maybe Daniel was willing to accept her, but his family would not.

Daniel started the Prius and pulled out of the lot. Half the water in the bottle Daniel had opened was gone. He tilted it from one side to another as he drove, watching as the water sloshed back and forth. “The drink you brought me that night saved my life.”

Jane’s chest tightened. It hurt to breathe. “They saw me with you in the park. I didn’t—”

Daniel held up his hand. “I’ve chartered a jet to Oahu. Until your brother is caught, it’s not safe here. It will be hard for him to get through an airport without being flagged, so Hawaii seems like a good choice. That’s probably not what you want, but I don’t think I can put you on a train right now.”

Jane thought about pointing out that she was less easy to find alone than she was with him, but the logic of what he was saying didn’t matter. His reasons didn’t matter. He wanted her with him.

“And after that?” she whispered.

“After that, I’ll be busy with the movie, but I could probably still find time to teach you to surf.”

Tears burned her eyes. She could hardly articulate the words as she asked, “Is that what you want?”

His jaw moved like he was turning ideas around in his mouth. “You’re the first person in a long time who hasn’t looked at me like I’m some fucked-up mess. Unless this whole week has been an act—”

“It hasn’t.”

“I’m not ready to give that up. That isn’t a promise that this is going to work.” He paused as he changed lanes on the freeway, checked his mirrors, perhaps stalled to collect his thoughts. “I’ve lived all this time not knowing why they attacked me. Now I know. Things feel different. It has meaning.”

“But if you hadn’t met me …”

He set the water bottle in the cup holder and positioned both hands on the steering wheel, ten and two. The leather cover squeaked under the force of his grip twisting back and forth. “You’re right, our relationship has cost me quite a lot. I’d like to see if we can make it worth it.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“I’m willing to try if you are.” He detached his right hand from the steering wheel and set it on the center console, palm up, fingers open in invitation. After a moment, Jane set her hand in his. He closed his fingers around hers and squeezed so tight, she imagined he would never let her go.