See No Evil

TWENTY-FOUR

Faye sat on the end of the couch and stared out of Cami’s bedroom window into nothingness. They had gathered here after midnight. Her father thought she was home in bed. Not that he would know. He was someplace else, in another bed, screwing his woman of the month.

Her stomach groaned uneasily. She didn’t know if it was because she hadn’t been eating well or if she was worried.

“You should never have tried to kill her,” Skip said. He paced the room, worried. Frantic was more like it.

“It had to be done,” Cami said. “Julia Chandler’s digging too deep.”

“Bullshit!” Skip shouted.

“We agreed-” Cami started.

“You agreed,” interrupted Skip. “You’re the one who’s made all the rules, deciding who lives and who dies. Emily is in trouble because of your stupid idea to kill Victor Montgomery.”

“It was part of the plan.”

“Your plan. One you haven’t shared with us.”

Cami’s voice quieted, a sure sign she was ticked off. “The weak panic when the road gets rocky.”

“The smart survive,” Skip countered. “And you’re not being smart.”

“Don’t start, Skip.”

“Why? You going to try to kill me, too?” he taunted.

Cami’s lips pursed. “You’re treading on thin ice. All we have to do is lay low.”

“We shouldn’t have killed Dr. Bowen so soon after Judge Montgomery,” Faye said, speaking up for the first time that night.

Everyone looked at her. She’d never contradicted Cami in front of Skip and Robbie. Cami looked betrayed. “Faye, you said-”

“I know what I said. But looking back I think we made a mistake. But it wasn’t our mistake, was it? He wanted it done. There must have been a good reason. But I still think it was too soon.”

“I want out,” Skip said.

“There’s no getting out,” Cami shot back. “Don’t even say it. Don’t even think it. No one can connect us to Dr. Bowen’s death. No one can connect us to anyone.”

Faye’s stomach clenched. She felt like puking. Skip had just signed his own death warrant. Nothing was working out like it was supposed to.

“I’m going to kill my dad,” Robbie said. “By myself.”

Cami jumped off her bed and slapped Robbie. “Don’t you dare. That’s not the plan. Just sit tight and wait. I promised you he’d be next, but we have to wait.”

“I earned it. I did. I did what you asked me to do.”

“Actually, you didn’t. You didn’t kill Julia Chandler,” Cami said.

“We’re all going to jail,” Skip said. “Julia Chandler’s a freakin’ government lawyer!” He jammed his hand into the wall, wincing as the plaster cracked and blood seeped from cuts in his knuckles.

“Cami.” Faye shook her head. They should never have told Skip about Robbie’s failed attempt to kill the prosecutor. He was their weakest link. Even druggie Robbie was more reliable than Skip. Faye should have gone after Chandler herself. She would have succeeded.

Faye didn’t want to kill Skip. She liked him. He’d been kind to her when he didn’t have to be.

Skip stared at Faye and the realization of her duplicity sunk in. “You knew about trying to kill the lawyer lady?”

She nodded. Cami stared at her and Faye realized she had screwed up. Big-time.

“How’d you know?” Cami asked her.

“Robbie told me,” she lied, looking at Robbie and pleading to him with her eyes.

Robbie shrugged. “What’s the big fucking deal who knows? She didn’t see me. She didn’t see anything. I would have got her, too, if that other guy hadn’t shown up.”

“What other guy?”

“The one Cami was sliding up against in Bowen’s office Saturday night.”

Skip’s fists clenched. He winced as his knuckles stung. “We’re all fucked.”

“No, we’re not.” Cami crossed to the center of the room, got their attention. “Everything’s under control. The police have nothing. There’s no way to trace any of us to Wishlist. We’re covered. You have to trust me.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word trust.” Skip left.

Faye walked over to Cami and touched her face. So enraged, Cami was shaking. “He’s going to blow.” Cami looked Faye in the eye. “We have to do it.”

Faye shook her head. “No.”

Cami now touched Faye’s cheek. “Containment. We knew it might need to happen.”

Faye nodded. A sob escaped her throat.

Cami turned to Robbie. He was half-asleep on her couch. He’d also been high when he’d hit the prosecutor’s car. It’s why he had screwed up.

“Hey, Rob, let’s go take care of your truck,” Cami said.

“Sure.” He gave Faye a lopsided grin. “See ya tomorrow.”

Faye watched them head for the bedroom door. Cami gave her a stern stare.

Faye knew what she had to do, but for the first time, killing didn’t seem like fun.

Robbie dozed in the passenger seat of Cami’s sleek sports car after telling her where he’d stashed his truck. The ride lulled him to sleep. He remembered Cami’s warnings about drugs, but he’d only smoked a little pot. Okay, so it was laced with some primo opium, but it wasn’t like he was on coke again. He wasn’t a total idiot. Pot was nothing. It was just like smoking cigarettes. Better even, you didn’t get cancer.

He dozed. Cami shook him awake when they arrived at the San Marcos quarry, in a part of it that hadn’t been worked on for months. There had been an attempt at security, but earlier in the week Cami had taken care of it, and now, a couple days later, no one had noticed.

Robbie’s truck was parked between two piles of half-processed rock-exactly as Cami had directed him after he’d tried to take care of the lawyer.

Cami said, “Robbie, wake up.”

“Hmmm?” He’d been dreaming of Cami. Actually, he’d been dreaming of doing Cami and Faye together. He wondered if they’d be up for it. He knew they had something going. A couple lesbos. Okay, so they were bi. Whatever, it would be a treat. And he’d earned it, hadn’t he? He’d done everything Cami had wanted. Even some things the others didn’t know about, like taking those photographs she asked him to.

“Did you bring the pictures?” she asked now.

“Of course.” Robbie pulled the folder from his jacket, handed it to her. “Your wish is my command,” he chuckled.

She quickly flipped through the pictures. “The fucking liar!”

“What?” Robbie tried to look over and see what Cami was looking at, but she stuffed the photos back into the folder.

She handed him a sealed manila envelope from under her seat. “Time to go.”

“What?”

“Sorry, Robbie, but if the police are able to trace your truck, you have to be gone. Here’s an airline ticket to Rio de Janeiro. And I got your passport from your father’s filing cabinet last night-plus fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty? But I have millions coming to me when I’m eighteen. Fuck if I’m leaving the country!”

“Well, a lot of good those millions will do you in prison,” Cami said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Robbie.

“He wanted me to kill you, Robbie, but I’m giving you life. I’m setting you free. But you have to go. The flight leaves in six hours. Park the truck in long-term parking. By the time anyone finds it and traces it to you, you’ll be basking in the sun. I’ll send more money, promise.”

“No way. It’s not fair.”

She tenderly touched him on the cheek. “I’ve always liked you, Robbie. I want to help you. This is the only way I know how.”

“It’s the guy in the pictures, right? He’s the one behind all this.”

“Go, Robbie.”

He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to watch his father die. He still felt the lashes across his back from the last “lesson.” The old bastard deserved to suffer.

“But if I run, they’ll know I’m guilty.”

Cami sighed, pulled out another folder. “I planted a copy of this in your father’s office and am sending this one to the police. See how well I copied your handwriting?”

Robbie frowned and, shaking, took the folder and opened it. Inside was a photograph of him beaten black and blue. He looked small, weak, and stupid in the picture. But it was really him and it was unaltered. The negatives were also in the folder.

The letter did look like it was in his handwriting.

Dad:

You almost killed me last week. I was coughing up blood. Some day I think you will kill me. That’s always what you wanted to do, right? Because you blamed me for Mom dying.

FUCK YOU! I’m sending these pictures to the police and to the newspapers. Ha! Ha. Deal with it. And if you think you can talk your way out of it, take a close look at the last picture. The negatives are going to the police. When you’re in prison for raping your own son, I’ll come for a visit.

I’m so outta here, asshole.

Robbie

Hands shaking, he flipped through the pictures. Sure enough, there was one of his father standing over a young boy.

“That’s not me,” Robbie said, voice shaking.

“Doesn’t matter. No one can see the face.”

“He did that to someone?”

“I have the negatives.”

“Why say it’s me? I can destroy him with this alone.” Robbie’s stomach churned at the realization that his father was a pedophile as well as a child abuser.

“We will destroy him, Robbie. But it has to be you, to give you a reason to leave. Embarrassment, fear, whatever. Doesn’t matter. You come back when everything dies down and no one will be looking at you for anything we did. I’ll take care of the truck. Just leave the ticket in the glove compartment, okay?”

A niggling doubt tickled Robbie. Something didn’t sound right. He wished he hadn’t smoked that pot earlier. “I don’t know about this.”

“It’s already done. The folder is on your father’s desk. I mailed a copy to the police. They’ll have it tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest. Go, Robbie. This was my solution, instead of letting him kill you. Please, Robbie, for me.”

She leaned over and kissed him. She’d never kissed him before. He didn’t think she’d ever even touched him.

Tears stung his eyes. He took the envelope, heavy with cash. “I’m going to miss you, Cami. And everyone.”

“We’ll miss you, too.”

She took the folder from him and kissed him again. “I know where you are, Robbie. I might come down and see you if things get too hot here.”

He smiled, kissed her back. Grabbed her breast. “I wish we had more time. Maybe-”

“We don’t have time, Robbie. Please. For me, go.”

He sighed and got out of Cami’s car, walked over to his truck. He climbed into the driver’s seat.

Cami watched Robbie from the safety of her own car. She had no remorse, feeling nothing but irritation that he had proved so unworthy and stupid. She flashed her lights once.

Everything had been set up earlier that afternoon. The woman in the quarry’s control room pulled the switch. From above, three tons of rock fell on Robbie’s truck. Whether he was crushed to death or suffocated, Cami didn’t know.

He was now really stoned, she chuckled to herself.

She looked at the photos he’d taken for her, her anger raging. Someone would pay for this betrayal.

No one made a fool of her.

Skip had trusted Faye. And she’d killed him.

The light reflected off the blade. She watched herself stab him. He fought back.

“Faye, no!”

He held his arms up and she brought the knife down. Felt it cut flesh. Hit bone. Over and over. Up and down. He hit her once, then she got him in the eye.

She cut him even when he was dead. She couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. She almost turned the knife on herself. Almost. Almost. Almost…

But in the end she couldn’t take her own life, and she hated herself even more. She was weak. It would be so easy to slit her wrists and watch her life flow away to the nothingness she’d felt her entire life…

Faye stared at the bloody knife.

Skip had been her friend, and while she killed him she almost felt as if she’d been outside her own body. She watched herself stab him over and over.

It got easier when his eyes stopped accusing her.

But what about the knife? And her own blood? The kill hadn’t been easy. Skip hadn’t gone willingly.

Cami was off taking care of the other loose end. Faye wondered if she herself was a loose end. If she went to him, would he kill her?

Maybe that would be for the best.

And she’d already put her life in his hands. He could decide whether she lived or died. Faye didn’t much care either way.

Trembling, she approached his door, replaying the last forty minutes over and over. The knife. Skip’s eyes. The way the blade had sliced his skin and muscle. The blood. Hitting bone, a hiss of air from a pierced lung. The kill seemed to have taken forever, but Skip was dead ten minutes after the blade first pierced his skin.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was angry.

She started crying. He ushered her inside. “Faye!” He shook her brutally, then slapped her. Blood got on his hands. She stared at it. Skip’s blood or hers? “Dammit, you should never have come here like this. What’s gotten into you? Do you want all of us to go to prison?”

She shook her head, but she didn’t know what she was agreeing with. Or not agreeing with. She didn’t know anything anymore.

“You were supposed to shoot Skip!”

“I don’t like guns.” Faye hadn’t been able to shoot Paul Judson, so Skip had done it for her. He’d protected her, kept that secret from Cami and Robbie, told everyone she had used the gun as she had been ordered to do.

The knife was more real.

And Skip had been a friend. The knife made it personal.

He hustled Faye into his bathroom, putting her in the shower with her clothes on, mumbling. She only made out some of his words: “bleach” and “burn” and “bitch.” She really didn’t deserve him, she’d known it all along. She was an ugly and scarred freak, unworthy of love. She would be better off dead. She should have killed herself after stabbing Skip to death, something like Romeo and Juliet, except hate united them instead of love.

Skip’s blood was washed from her body, down the drain, a whirlpool. Around, around, and down, down, down. It was pink now, and getting lighter. She slid down to the shower floor, closing her eyes.

Someone stepped into the shower with her. She shook her head and tried to wake herself up. How much time had passed?

He was naked. He’d been so good to her. He had trusted her with his life. And with his knife.

“Faye!”

She looked up at her beautiful, naked lover. Had he slapped her? She touched her cheek. She couldn’t feel anything.

“You cut yourself, Faye.”

He was very angry, but he also sounded a bit worried. Maybe he did care about her. Could anyone care for her? No one had in her short life. They’d shared blood, they’d shared life and living and exquisite sin. They were soul mates.

She looked at her own body as he stripped her. She saw her blood this time. He turned off the shower.

She didn’t remember cutting herself down her arms. Had she done that? Skip hadn’t had a knife.

Lifting her bloody, wet form from the shower, he laid her on the tiled floor. She shivered.

He was looking through his medicine cabinet, then opening and shutting drawers. He knelt next to her, with bandages, scissors, and tape. He sprayed something on her arm, but she didn’t feel it. He brought out a needle and thread. She was a quilt he was sewing. She laughed. Was that her laugh?

“Faye, stay with me.”

“I’m here.” She thought she said it aloud. Maybe she hadn’t. He could probably read her thoughts, though.

He taped over the gash he’d sewn up. Her arm felt numb. Maybe it always had. Her whole body was numb.

“Swallow.”

He put a pill in her mouth. She trusted him and swallowed. He put a water glass to her lips.

She was in his bed, warm blankets all around her. But wasn’t she just on the bathroom floor?

She tried to raise her arm.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You passed out.”

He was wearing a robe now. She smelled bleach.

He sat on the edge of the bed, taking her hand. “No matter what you hear or see, you must always trust me.”

“I will.”

“Say nothing. Do nothing. Stay right here. No one can know you’re here. Not even Cami.”

Faye nodded.

He leaned over and kissed her. “I’ll always take care of you.”

“What’s wrong with my arm?”

“You cut tendons. I fixed it.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. He fixed me. That’s what he does, fixes people. “How long was I sleeping?”

“Sleeping?” His hand cupped her cheek and she felt oddly safe and loved. She’d never felt loved before, not like this. “You passed out from blood loss,” he said. “You’re still very weak. I have orange juice here. Vitamins. Some medicine that will help. You’ll be fine.”

“How long?”

“Twelve hours.”