At First Sight

Chapter 9

The house was small, with a tiny front lawn. IT was not the kind of place you'd expect to find the scion of the Chandler media fortune, certainly not a house I would choose if I had his money. I was parked a little way up the street. The address, written down so carefully in Hawaii, was open now on my lap. The letters, in her delicate hand, were wavering under my blurring vision.

2367 LIPTON ROAD, CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

I looked at the house and I remember saying out loud, "Chick, this is nuts?' Of course it was way beyond nuts. This was real, hard-core, front-of-the-line stalker nonsense.

I had driven more than six hundred miles to park outside another man's house, so I could look into his lighted living room, hoping to catch a glimpse of his wife as she passed by the window. Unacceptable.

It was as if just letting the vision of her find its way into my brain might salve the pain of these past few days-of Melissa in jail, my sorry business going bankrupt, and the dwarf in the shiny pants with the hair growing out of his ears.

I watched. I waited. What was I doing? I swear, at that moment I didn't have a clue. I wanted to start up the blue Taurus and leave, but I couldn't move my hand to the ignition key. Every time I tried, I hit some sort of powerful force field. My fingers hovered inches away, unable to make contact and close the distance, which would have saved me.

I don't know how long I sat there. My thoughts were becoming pretty jumbled… pretty abstract. I thought about my dad, my wife. The first time I saw Evelyn at Mike Donovan's pool party. I thought she was beautiful then, never seeing the woman she would become. Not seeing the anger or the self-hatred that now drove her to pump iron obsessively for hours in our basement gym. I thought about Paige and Chandler Ellis and this little house so far away from L. A. I thought about the insanity of this trip down here, not knowing until I pulled the address out of my pocket what I was really doing, but then knowing in a flash that it had been my plan to come here all along.

That realization, that truth, hit me harder than any of the events of the past month. I knew this was insane, and still I couldn't leave. I couldn't put the little car in gear and save myself, because, you see, I knew that no matter what happened to me, whether I stayed or left, I would never again be the same Chick Best. Somehow, I knew right then that my coming here had changed who I was forever.

I didn't need some Beverly Hills therapist to explain that, either. The trip here had convinced me I had lost control. My love for Paige Ellis had morphed into an uncontrollable obsession.

That's when the door opened and Chandler Ellis walked out of his house. At first I thought he was going to the mailbox. But instead, he walked to the green Suburban parked in the driveway, got in, started the vehicle, and backed out.

I ducked down as his headlights swept over my car. Then I sat up, and without knowing what the hell I was doing, I started the Taurus.

I followed him.

Why did I follow him? I've asked myself that question at least a thousand times since all this happened. I wanted to see Paige. I came all this way to maybe find a way to talk to her. So why was I following Chandler? I didn't know. I couldn't answer that, except to say some psychic force had taken control and was driving me.

At any rate, my mind reeled with questions. What was Chandler doing, leaving his house at eleven in the evening? Where was he going? Did he have a girlfriend stashed across town? Was he cheating on Paige? Was he so stupid that he didn't know he was married to the most desirable woman on earth? What would happen if I caught him with another woman in some cheap motel someplace? What if I found him screwing his brains out? How would I deal with it?

These were some of my fantasies as I followed him. Of course, the answer to that last one was I'd have to tell her. I couldn't let somebody as sweet and trusting as Paige live unknowingly with a sleazy adulterer. Well, I couldn't, could I?

I was thinking I should try to buy a camera and get some pictures-evidence. And then Chandler pulled the Suburban into a shopping center. It was now almost eleven-fifteen and most of the stores were closed, but the Safeway and a Walgreens were still open. Both were throwing neon light deep into the late-night deserted parking lot.

I pulled around to the side to stay out of sight. For some reason, Chandler didn't park out front, but drove through the parking lot and finally pulled the Suburban around to the same side of the store where I was and parked. I was only ten or fifteen yards away, still in the driving lane. My mind whirled. What should I do? Should I wait? Should I leave?

Without looking at my car, Chandler walked into the drugstore. I stared dumbly at his Suburban. Then I put my rented Taurus in Park with the engine still running. I tried to come to grips with all this.

"Chick, get the fuck out of here," I said out loud to myself. But I remind you, I was not in control, unable to change the course of these this events. I was lost, as if some unknown power was setting up tnis maze and forcing me to run through it. So then who was in control here? Who was making up the rules of this game? Not me-at least that's what I told myself.

And then, for a fleeting moment, sanity returned. I knew I had to get the hell outta there. I knew I had to get away before he saw me.

My willpower surged.

I grabbed the gearshift to put the car in Drive, but as this first sane thought in hours hit me, everything changed. It happened so fast I didn't even see it coming.

I still don't quite understand it. I mean, I know the physics. The chronology. It's the psychology that baffles me.

At the very instant I gained control of myself and reached for the shift knob, Chandler came out the back door of the drugstore carrying a small bag from the pharmacy. He saw my headlights, saw that I had sort of blocked his exit. He started to come toward me, waving for me to back up. In a few seconds he would see me. How could I explain my appearance here to him?

What would I say if he recognized me? "Hey Chandler, whatta you doing here? Small world, right?" He would never go for that. Some coincidences defy explanation and I knew this was one of them. There was no way I could explain this. No way. Or at least that's what I was convinced of at that moment.

He was still walking toward me, gesturing, so I slammed the rental into Reverse and hit the gas.

But I was in the wrong gear and the car lunged forward, not backward. It struck Chandler hard, knocking him down. The front headlight broke and the car shuddered from the impact. Before I could take my foot off the gas, I ran right over him. I heard him scream. I felt the wheels roll over his chest; bouncing the Taurus like a speed bump.

I slammed on the brakes, opened the door, jumped out, and ran around to see. He was lying under the car just in front of the rear tires. Only his head protruded from underneath. He was barely breathing. Blood had already started coming out of his mouth. The bag of medicine he'd been carrying was strewn on the pavement. I remember looking down. I read the label:

PAIGE ELLIS:

DARVOCET for pain.

One tablet every four hours.

Funny, how in a time of extreme crisis, something unimportant and stupid like that registers.

"Help me!" he croaked, his eyes bright but desperate.

Then he recognized me.

A strange look of clarity passed across his face. "Chick?" he whispered.

I couldn't answer. I couldn't speak. And then he started to choke on his own blood. It was oozing out of his mouth, oozing around my feet. I jumped back to keep it off my hand-sewn Spanish loafers.

"Chick… help… " It was such a low whisper-a moan actually-that I couldn't even be sure he'd said those exact words.

I ran back to the driver's side, jumped into the car, and-God help me-I put it in Drive and inched forward to run over him again, parking the rear wheel on his chest for almost a full minute before pulling off.

Then I got out, ran around the car, and looked down at him again. His eyes were open, but they were no longer bright. They were lifeless-shiny, but vacant. Dark and cold as an empty house.

I'd never seen a dead man before, but it was obvious to me that's what he was.

My survival instincts took over. I looked around the empty parking lot for a witness.

Nobody. At least I didn't see anyone.

I climbed into the car and squealed out of the lot.

"Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh shit," I moaned, my thoughts a blur as they kaleidoscoped across the event.

I drove for a mile, then pulled over, leaned out, and threw up into the street. I couldn't even begin to get my mind around it.

I didn't know how all this had happened or why. Didn't have a clue.

Had I driven all the way down here just to kill Chandler Ellis, never admitting to myself that was what I was going to do until I did it? Is that why I followed Chandler instead of staying out in front of their house to watch Paige through the window? Did I plan to murder him all along? Did I hit Drive instead of Reverse by mistake, or did I do it on purpose?

You see now why I'm writing all this down. You see why I'm so confused.

I didn't have a clue. I still don't.

But read on. It only gets worse.