Will always liked “going for a drive”.
He must’ve spent more than half his adult life in a car, since so much of work involved patrols. Even then, when we first dated, that was how he got me to acquiesce to go out with him when I was doubtful: “Let’s just go for a drive. That’s not really a date.” The part of my brain that had said not to be trapped in four tons of metal with a man did not pipe up loud enough because it seemed reasonable at the time. Just a drive. So I didn’t hurt a seemingly nice guy’s feelings.
And I’d enjoyed myself, then. He was great to talk to, funny and sweet. We’d driven out past the suburbs and through the country. That not-a-date led to actual-dates, and he always drove.
A decade later when he says he wants to go for a drive, my blood runs cold. But I do it because it’s safer to go than resist.
I expect either winding through country roads in silence, or through the city streets where he seems to remind me—almost inadvertently—of his power and his contacts at every turn.
This time he cuts around the city toward the harbour.
The night is dark and wet; the rain was a drizzle all day but has clung to the pavement, and streetlights glitter orange reflections in puddles. The weight in our five-year-old Kia Forte seems heavier than usual with the heat cranked up—Will likes the heater on always, whether he knows it makes me claustrophobic and doesn’t care or simply wants to make me uncomfortable, I can’t say. Ultimately, it’s a minor cruelty in a long list of them, but a constant oppressive one nonetheless.
We pass an old warehouse with a peeling sign saying it’s for rent—I don’t know this area, but my guess is that industry left this spot at some point as jobs were moved elsewhere and it remains as an empty monument to capitalism. The pavement is pockmarked and rainwater splashes against the undercarriage as tires slice through puddles.
Will is as silent as this place we’ve come to; the noises of the city don’t permeate this area for some reason, perhaps because this former shipping spot is set right up against the lake and we had to drive down a hill to get here. He stops the car at the end of a wooden shipping dock and cuts the engine, sitting in the darkness and staring out at the lake in front of us.
As adept as I have become at reading his body language for subtle clues, I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know why he brought me here. I watch him from the corner of my eye—that strong profile barely visible in the low light, the way he stares dead ahead—for any sign of movement, but I get none.
I’m not sure if he’s brought me here to kill me.
If he has, I don’t know if I’ll survive. There was a time I tried to fight, a token act of self defence, but it always made everything worse. Now I’m cowed and careful and I know peace can never last long but it’s what I live for, what gets me through the moments without.
At least with the car off, the air is slowly cooling. It’s late spring so it won’t get that cold, but the temperature in here drops enough that I can breathe a little easier instead of feeling like I’m suffocating. My hands want to fidget but I lock them into fists at my sides, squeezing so tightly my nails cut into my palms.
“Came here a couple of weeks ago,” he says at last, his voice deep and forceful.
I’m bracing so hard my teeth hurt so I don’t flinch when he speaks, but it’s still a struggle.
He shifts, the synthetic leather of the seat beneath him creaking. His hands aren’t on the steering wheel but at his sides so I can’t see them. I always feel better when I know where his hands are—what they’re about to grab, what they’re holding—and that dials up the tension around me a little further.
“Hell of a case,” he continues, his eyes—dark in this lack of light, but I know the cold lightness of them—locked on the lake still. “Body in the water. Derrick and I canvased for witnesses, but we clear the homeless out of here pretty regularly. No cameras on the old building. Far from the roads. Anything could happen down here.”
He lets a beat of silence pass.
“Anyone could end up in the water.”
It’s then I understand why he’s brought me here for tonight’s drive.
He knows, somehow, that I’ve been trying to figure out how to safely leave him. Even though I cover my tracks when I research online, though my months of tucking away money has never seemed to raise suspicions, though I’m conscious to do everything perfectly, he still knows. Of course he does. Because if he wasn’t a master of getting into my head and understanding me, I wouldn’t’ve been in this position to begin with.
He knows.
But he’s tipped his hand here. Because like he has pushed boundaries, so do I, until I learn all the ways to cross them without him realizing they’re being trespassed upon.
And now I know something too.