Mistress

Chapter 10

They come at me all of a sudden, faceless, but big and strong, with quick hands that take hold of me, seize me by the neck and the wrist, forcing me into submission as my feet slip on the wet bathroom tile, placing the gun in my hand but gripping it fiercely, maintaining control, pressing it against my temple. I resist, moving my hand, angling my head away from the barrel, but their fingers grip my hair, force my head forward, press the barrel against my temple, and reach for the trigger. I stretch my fingers outward, off the trigger, but they’re too strong, they’re too strong and I’m too weak, and I see the blood spatter on the shower curtain before I hear the bullet, before I feel it penetrate my brain, before I know that I am dead.

I lurch forward and almost break my laptop computer in half. I expel a loud breath and take a moment to reorient myself. I’m sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I was online doing research for a story and I guess I dozed off. I’ve been doing that a lot since Diana died-not sleeping in any regular fashion but rather nodding off until the violence of my dreams shakes me awake. I can count on one hand the number of hours I’ve slept in the last forty-eight.

I place the laptop, hot in my sweaty lap, onto the carpet and rise to a crouch. I stay that way, keeping low, as I move toward the window, careful to stay below the sight line.

Then I rise up just enough to look down at the street level. The sun, recently risen, sends stripes through the trees into the park and onto F Street below.

The white panel truck is still parked along the curb across from my house, two days running now. I have passed it several times in the days since Diana’s death. Never have I seen a single person inside. Then again, I can only see inside the driver’s compartment. I have no idea what’s going on in the back.

One of my neighbors, a grad student named Alicia who won’t let you forget she studied the classics at Radcliffe, is walking her Doberman along the brick sidewalk across the street. A Frisbee sails to a rest at her feet and she pauses, concerned, as another dog, a yellow Lab, races to retrieve it. She hustles her Doberman away to avoid a confrontation. The Lab manages to scoop up the Frisbee in his mouth and gallops back to his owner, who is standing in the middle of Garfield Park.

No sign of Oscar, the giant schnauzer.

Someone’s playing Frisbee with his dog this time of morning? The guy is big and athletic-is he one of the guys from the Lexus a couple days ago, watching me and the cop outside Diana’s building? Could be. I don’t know.

I turn away from the window and catch a whiff of myself. I didn’t shower yesterday. I don’t remember much of what I did yesterday, which is not to say that I have amnesia but rather that it feels like a blur. Somewhere in there, while hunkered down in the house-the benefits of owning an online newspaper-I banged out an article on a power struggle between the president’s chief of staff and the secretary of homeland security, something I dug up from a source inside DHS, an assistant to the deputy secretary, one of the few women I ever dated who actually liked me when it was over.

Music pops on over a DJ’s voice-my clock radio. Six thirty in the morning in the nation’s capital, and it’s going to be a great day, he tells me.

No, it’s not. Today’s going to be a bad day.

I move slowly, trudging along, bitter and wounded. Over the last two days, I have veered wildly between depression and bitterness and fear, depending on whether I consider that (a) Diana is gone forever; (b) someone violently took her from this world; (c) someone might have similar thoughts toward me; or (d) somehow, in some way I can’t fathom, I am being set up for Diana’s murder.

The instinct comes naturally to me, bred into me since childhood, to turn inward, to hide, to keep everything and everybody out.

Benjamin, the sooner you learn your limitations, the better.

You’ll have plenty of time to make friends when you grow up.

Diana was my friend. And that’s why I can’t stay in the house today.

Today is Diana’s visitation in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, and I owe it to her to attend.

Even if it gets me killed.