I felt sick and my heart jackhammered unevenly like a trip-hop breakbeat all the way back to Rick’s. My companion—I’m not going to call him friend, because friends don’t seriously threaten to kill each other—said nothing.
My life had taken yet another wrong turn. A bad one. Somewhere out there was someone who’d manipulated me into killing three innocent people, turning me into a murderer. Was it Jim? Some random who’d manipulated me? Frankie Balls? Was Rosa Abalos involved? Or was it someone else entirely?
How could I have been so stupid to trust a total stranger?
We live in a world in which we’re taught not to trust. The old man at the end of your road might abduct your child, her teacher or priest might be an abuser, politicians take money from vested interests and lie to the people who elect them, media spins fake news, businesses pollute the four elements, the billboarders hide their money from tax collectors and avoid paying their fair share, doctors push opiates onto unsuspecting patients, and the lessons in dishonesty and manipulation go on and on. And yet in this age of distrust, we are all so naive. We take the word of a stranger on social media as gospel. We trust a guy with a friendly profile picture who claims to have uncovered evidence of a satanic conspiracy at the heart of government, or the friend of a distant cousin who says a Silicon Valley billionaire plans to inject everyone with nanoparticles.
Look at me rationalizing my stupidity. I can’t be dumb alone, so I have to implicate everyone. We’re all being radicalized, pushed further left or right, taught to distrust authority by strangers we trust to tell the truth about why we shouldn’t trust authority, creating a paradox that will ultimately consume every pillar of society, until it collapses on us all. And here I am catastrophizing. My world is ending, so it must be ending for us all.
The truth is I was an idiot. I was played for a fool by someone much smarter than me, and I had no idea who or why. And I needed to find out, because when Rosa Abalos came calling, I wanted my attorney to be able to give her another name. I wanted to be in a position to cut a deal. I wanted a way to avoid prison, and a plea bargain would do it.
So, for all Jim’s sass, I had become a concerned citizen. Concerned with my own freedom, and that turned me into an investigator. I needed to know the identity of my patron and why he or she had paid me to kill Walter Glaze, Farah Younis, and Richard Gibson.
What a mess. Who the fuck ends up in this situation? Looking into murders they’ve perpetrated, like some bizzarro detective. It was an indication of just how far I’d fallen from normal society.
“You tell me if you catch wind of anything,” Jim said as we rolled into Rick’s parking lot.
Mine was the only car there.
“And I don’t think we should see each other for a while. Not with that cop sniffing around you.”
I nodded. That was fine by me.
“Later,” I said as we stopped.
Jim sneered as I got out, and his tires actually screeched as he raced out of the lot.
I climbed into the Range Rover, stinking of fear sweat and eighty-proof vomit, but I soon got the AC going and felt better as I drove up to the hills.
The wafer-thin relief I felt was devoured entirely when I turned into my driveway and saw Rosa Abalos’s car parked outside my cottage. She was sitting on the step by the front door and got to her feet as I came to a halt.
“This is starting to feel like harassment, Detective,” I said, trying Jim’s line of attack. I didn’t have his stone confidence and was worried my words just made me sound like I had something to hide.
“No harassment, Mr. Collard.” She held her hands up. “I’m just here to check you’re okay. Your friend seemed angry. I wanted to make sure you’re not under any duress.”
“I appreciate your concern, Detective, but I’m A-okay.”
I walked to my front door, key in hand, and she stood to one side.
“You know your buddy has served time for manslaughter?” Rosa said. “Got out fifteen years ago. Lot of people thought it was murder, but Mr. Steadman’s lawyer convinced the court it was a bar fight that got out of hand. Had all the evidence about premeditation excluded.”
My heart started dancing around again, bouncing in my chest like a drugged-up clubber on a massive rush. Was Jim behind this? Why? Was he settling an old score?
I focused on my key as I unlocked the door. I couldn’t look at Rosa. She might see my fear and interpret it as guilt.
“Wasn’t like your experience, which seems as though it was a genuine accident,” she said. “She was nineteen, wasn’t she?”
I froze with the door half-open.
“Freya Persico, the girl you killed in the crash.”
I was a statue on the threshold of my home.
“You were a good man before the accident. At least that’s my read on things. I checked your military record. Commendations, citations, nothing stellar, but nothing bad either. A family man.”
I pinned a dispassionate mask to my face so she wouldn’t see how accurate her assessment was. I longed to be that man again, but I was about as far away from him as I’d ever been.
“What made you drink that day?” Rosa asked.
“I don’t really remember,” I lied. “What’s this got to do with these murders?”
Rosa stepped close enough for me to smell her vanilla perfume.
“Prison changes a man. And I don’t just mean up here.” She touched her forehead, and I wanted to run inside and slam the door, because it was as though she was reading my mind, and I was worried she would see celluloid visions of guilt projected by my treacherous brain. “I mean practical changes. New friends. Associates. People who want jobs done.”
“You think I met someone inside?” I scoffed. I could play this part easily because it was the truth. “I hated prison. I made no friends. Or associates. You think I met a killer?”
“I think you might have met someone who wants people killed,” she suggested. “I can see what Freya Persico’s death did to you. It’s written all over your face, and it’s obvious in the map of your life. Guilt drove you off the rails, Mr. Collard.”
I felt naked, as though she’d stripped me beyond my bones, down to my very soul. She was looking at me like she could see my shriveled heart in my rib cage, my shredded soul fluttering like a torn flag beneath it. She took another step forward and held my gaze.
“Guilt, Mr. Collard. It’s like rust. Once it finds a way in, it eats away until there’s nothing left. Nothing useful or good anyway. If you had a hand in the murders of Walter Glaze or Farah Younis, the guilt will get you.”
“I don’t know those people.” My voice was so pathetic, even I didn’t believe me.
The hot sun, her piercing eyes, the rotten tightness in my chest, my nakedness before her combined to make the world unbearable and close as it swam around me.
“Okay, Mr. Collard,” Rosa said, stepping back. “I see we’re going to have to take the long road.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumbled.
“Yes you do, Mr. Collard.” Her eyes frosted over, and she gave me an ice-cold stare. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
She backed away, eyeballing me until she reached her car.
The pressure eased and the world stopped spinning as she drove off.
I leaned against the doorframe for a moment and caught my breath before stepping inside.