The Kill Clause

30

TIM sat atop the playground slide at Warren Elementary, a few blocks from his old house, his feet pointed downward on the aluminum slant, clutching a bottle of vodka loosely in his lap. The small, unadorned merry-go-round sat still and silent, a flipped spider with bunched metal legs. Swings rattled in the night breeze; a tetherball bounced against its post. The air smelled of tanbark and asphalt.

He’d been here last on a lazy Sunday when Ginny had interrupted his edging the back lawn to make him walk her over, hand in hand, so she could again study the monkey bars that she was too afraid to swing across. They’d stood there silently, father and daughter, while she circled the bars, examining them from all angles, like a horse she was planning to mount. When he’d asked if she wanted to try, she shook her head, as always, and they’d walked back home, hand in hand.

Tim was shivering, though he wasn’t the least bit cold. He found himself walking, studying the ground at his feet. He found himself on his porch, ringing his doorbell.

Some commotion, then Mac answered. It took Mac a moment to recognize him and take his hand off the butt of the Beretta stuffed into the waistband of his sweats. Behind him, even through the thickening haze of his grief and anger, Tim could see the blanket and bed pillow on the couch from which he’d been roused.

“I want to see Ginny’s room,” Tim said.

Mac’s body swayed, as if he’d taken a step, but he hadn’t. “Look, Rack, I don’t know if this is such a-”

Tim spoke low and calm. “You see that pistol in your hand?”

Mac nodded.

“You’d better step aside or I’m gonna take it from you and ram it down your fucking throat.” His voice wavered hard.

Mac’s mouth pulsed in a half swallow, half gulp before smoothing back into a handsome inscrutability. “Okay.”

Tim pushed open the door, and Mac stepped back. Dray was coming down the hall, knotting her bathrobe, her mouth slightly agape. “What are you-?”

He lowered his head when he passed her and shoved into Ginny’s room, locking the door behind him.

He heard the sound of Dray and Mac talking down the hall, but he was too drunk to shape the sounds into words. He took in the room blurrily, the mound of stuffed animals in the corner, the pleated shade crowning the pink porcelain lamp on the diminutive desk, the inane glow of the Pocahontas night-light. Only when he curled up on Ginny’s bed did he realize he still held the vodka bottle. The last thing he remembered before dozing off was setting it gently on the floor so it wouldn’t spill.

•When he awakened, it took him a few moments to remember where he was. He’d curled into the fetal position to fit on the small bed. He scooted up against the headboard, rubbed his eye, and felt the pinch of crust against his lid. Dray was sitting across the room, back to the wall, facing him. The faint gray light of early morning, split by the slats of the venetian blinds, fell across her face.

He glanced at the now-unlocked door, then at her. She had an unbent bobby pin in her mouth, angled down over her plump lower lip.

“I’m sorry,” he said, placing his feet on the floor. “I’ll leave.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Yet.”

Her stare made him uncomfortable, so he studied the yellow and pink flowers of the wallpaper.

“You were crying last night,” Dray said.

He clasped his hands, pressed the knuckles to his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize for that.” She leaned her head back until it thumped softly against the wall. “Maybe you should have done more of it.”

He blinked hard, kept his eyes closed. “I don’t know what to do to diminish the hurt. There’s got to be something, some outlet for the victims. If not, if we don’t get anything from the courts, from the laws, what are we supposed to do?”

“Mourn, stupid.” She propped her chin on the union of her fists. “And, Tim?” She waited for him to look up. “We’re not the victim. We’re related to the victim.”

He sat with that one for a few minutes. Then he said quietly, “That is a damn powerful insight.”

Dray took a deep breath, as if preparing for an underwater plunge. “You and I, we have a tough time starting conversations, not having them.” She lowered her arms until they stuck straight out, her elbows resting on her kneecaps. “I went to the grocery store today for the first time. Shopping not for three, not even for two. I skipped the candy aisle because Ginny, you know, and I bought less stuff, just for me, and I got to the checkout counter, and it was thirty-something dollars. So cheap I almost started crying.” Her voice cracked, a seam of vulnerability. “I don’t want to shop for one.”

He felt something break inside him and spill relief. “Andrea, I-” He sat up sharply. “Wait a minute. You didn’t go to the grocery store the day I went in to work, the day of the Martia Domez shooting?”

“I couldn’t get off the couch that day. What’s going on?”

“The Stork said that’s when he broke in and bugged my watch. I left it at home.”

“No way. I was here all day.” She let a sigh puff out her cheeks. “They must have had their eye on you longer than they’re letting on. You knew they were manipulating you from the get-go-”

“I’ll have to talk to Dumone. I know I can trust him.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. I know it in my bones.”

“Well, maybe the Stork and Rayner wanted a transmitter on you a week early, and they didn’t let on.”

“Maybe.” His mind seethed with troubling thoughts. He vowed to get some answers from Dumone or in the next meeting at Rayner’s, to learn the precise parameters of the Commission’s stalking of him. His unease had been ratcheted up another notch-if his trust had indeed been violated, he’d be forced to implode the Commission.

Dray remained backed against the wall, watching him with moist eyes. Her neck bore the mark of her nails from earlier scratching. “Come here,” he said.

She rose with a groan, knees cracking, and crossed to Ginny’s bed. She lay down, her face on his chest, a wisp of hair falling to frame the outer edge of her eye. He put his spread hand over the back of her head and cradled it to him. She nuzzled into him like an animal, like a baby. They breathed together, then breathed some more.

He pulled her hair back out of her face, and their eyes met, held. Her hand tightened on his chest.

“I feel like we just found each other again,” he said.

His phone, wedged in the front pocket of his jeans, vibrated against them both. Dray backed up off him, her knees and elbows pressing into the mattress, her chin resting on his stomach.

He flipped the phone open. “Yeah.”

Mitchell’s voice came with the staccato fire of cop argot. “The subject’s at the ten-twenty.”

“Okay.” Tim turned off the phone and regarded Dray, savoring a final trace of comfort and, beyond that, feeling the stone edge of need bulldozing through him.

She raised her eyebrows. He nodded. She pushed herself off him and stood, straightening her shirt.

He wanted desperately to put his mouth on hers, but he feared if he started, he wouldn’t stop. He had to be across town, and he hated himself for it.

On his way past her, they pulled together in a spontaneous embrace, caught sideways, her hands clasped around his waist, his arm down over her back, her face pressed to the side of his neck, chin resting on his shoulder.

It was all he could do not to turn his head and kiss her.