Chasing The Dead

Chapter Thirty-One

Alex sat at their kitchen table watching the dawn break. She’d been there all night after confessing to Bonnie, sleeping in fits and starts, her head on her arms, jolting upright at her latest nightmare. She’d left nothing out, telling Bonnie everything beginning with her confession that she hadn’t killed Dwayne Reed in self-defense and ending with buying the burner phone. Bonnie had listened, drawing out the details like she was taking a thorough history from a reluctant patient, not editorializing, just making certain she got the information she needed for a diagnosis.

Alex didn’t cry and Bonnie didn’t yell. They were more than civil. They were professional, Bonnie going over everything again and again, Alex reminding her they’d covered all of that, Bonnie saying yes but she was just trying to understand. They’d opened a bottle of wine when they began but neither took a sip. Bonnie turned to coffee as the enormity of what Alex had done became apparent.

“Is that it? Is that everything?” Bonnie asked after three hours.

The knots in Alex’s back and neck had unraveled the more she talked, draining her tension and anxiety, leaving her limp and depleted. But now that it was Bonnie’s turn to react, whether to console, condemn, or forgive, her muscles began to tighten and twist again.

“Yes,” she said, stiffening. “That’s all of it.”

Bonnie sat back in her chair, cradling her coffee cup, eyebrows raised, mouth pursed in contemplation.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I know,” Alex said.

Bonnie set the cup on the table, running both hands through her hair, then around her neck, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her head, letting out a long breath.

“I mean, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You don’t have to begin. This is all on me.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean?” Bonnie asked, her flat-faced clinical detachment giving way to anger and anguish. “How could this all possibly be on you? You could lose your job, your law license, and probably go to jail, and, oh, by the way, someone may try to kill you, and you don’t think this doesn’t affect me? Or us?”

Alex wrapped her arms around her middle, rocking back and forth. “Of course it does. But I’m taking the responsibility.”

“How?” Bonnie asked, throwing up her arms, her voice rising. “Are you going to start packing a gun and wearing body armor until Rossi catches Robin’s killer? Are you going to turn yourself in for murdering Dwayne Reed? What would be the point of that? It’s not like I haven’t heard of double jeopardy. Are you going to turn in your law license and rat out Judge West? Are you going to quit your job and check into rehab like politicians and celebrities who totally fuck up their lives? Maybe you’ll find a twelve-step program for people who make the biggest fucking mistakes! Hi, my name is Alex and I’m a moron! Just exactly how are you going to take responsibility, because I’d really like to know?”

Alex stopped rocking, dropping her hands in her lap and hanging her head. She was too worn-out to cry. All she could do was take Bonnie’s body blows like a punching bag.

“I don’t know.”

“And what about us? Are you planning some grand noble gesture like breaking up with me so when this shit storm hits-and it is going to hit sooner or later-none of it blows back on me?”

Alex raised her head. She’d thought of nothing else during her confession because it was the only thing she could think of to protect Bonnie.

“I’ll be out today.”

Bonnie stood, planting one hand on the table, cupping Alex’s chin with the other and squeezing.

“Like hell you will. No way am I letting you off that easy.”

Bonnie’s cell rang before Alex could respond. Bonnie answered, listening and shaking her head.

“Christ! I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She clicked off the call. “School bus carrying a bunch of kids back from a high school football game got T-boned by a fire truck. I don’t know when I’ll get back, but you better be here when I do.”

She picked up her purse and ran for the door, racing back to kiss Alex on the forehead.

“We’ll figure this out. Don’t ask me how, but we will.”

In the morning light, Alex knew Bonnie was wrong. Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, she could see clearly enough to know that much. She wouldn’t expose Bonnie to a killer, but that wasn’t the only harsh reality they faced. No one’s well of forgiveness was that deep. No one could live with someone who’d done what she’d done. And even if Bonnie never uttered a word of reproof, never brought up any of her sins again, Alex knew she’d forfeited Bonnie’s trust. That would corrode their relationship as surely as anything else, and Alex wouldn’t put Bonnie through that. She wrote her a note, packed a bag, and walked out.