The Wrong Man

8

Ashley bent toward the computer screen, assessing each word that flickered up in front of her. She had been locked into position for more than an hour and her back was tightening up. She could feel the muscles in her calves quivering a little, as if she’d run farther on that day than was her usual jogger’s norm.

The e-mail messages were a dizzying array of love notes, electronically generated hearts and balloons, bad poetry that O’Connell had written, much better poetry that he’d stolen from Shakespeare or Andrew Marvell and even Rod McKuen. It all seemed impossibly trite and childish and yet chilling.

She tried writing down different combinations of words and phrases from the e-mails to deduce what the message was. There was nothing so obvious as a word italicized or placed in boldface that would have made her task simpler. As she closed in on her second hour of inspection, she finally tossed down her pencil, frustrated with her efforts. She felt stupid, as if there were something she was missing that would have been apparent to any crossword or acrostics puzzle fan. She hated games.

“What is it?” she shouted loudly at the screen. “What are you trying to say? What are you trying to tell me?”

She could hear her voice rise, stretching into unfamiliar pitches.

She scrolled back, starting at the beginning, then blistering through each message, one after the other, so they flashed up on the computer screen and then disappeared.

“What? What? What?” she yelled as each went past her eyes.

And then, in that second, she saw it.

The message from Michael O’Connell wasn’t contained in the e-mails that he’d sent.

It was that he’d been able to send them at all.

Each one had come from a different name on her address list. Each was from him. That they were grade-school-level testimonials of undying love was irrelevant. What was critical was that he had managed to insinuate himself into her own computer. And then, through a clever choice of words, managed to get her to read every message he’d sent. And, she understood, the likelihood was that by opening one, she had opened some sort of hidden electronic door. Michael O’Connell was like a virus, and now he was nearly as close to her as he would have been if he’d actually been seated next to her.

With a small gasp, Ashley leaned back hard in her chair, almost losing her balance, feeling a sense of dizziness as if the room were spinning around her head. She grabbed the arms of the chair with her hands and steadied herself quickly, took several long, deep breaths to regain control over an accelerating heart.

She turned slowly and began to let her vision creep over the small world of her apartment. Michael O’Connell had spent precisely one night here, and it had been a truncated night, at that. She had thought they were both a little drunk, and she’d invited him up, and she tried to replay what had taken place in her current, scared-sober imagination. She berated herself for being unable to recall just exactly how much he’d had to drink. One drink? Five? Had he been holding back while she indulged? The answer to that question had been lost in her own nervous excesses. There had been a nasty looseness to the night, a mood of abandon that she was unfamiliar with and was out of character for her. They had clumsily fallen out of their clothes, then coupled frantically on her bed. It was rapid, edgy lovemaking, without much tenderness. It had been over in a few seconds. If there was any real affection in the act, she could not remember it. It had been an explosive, rebellious release for her, right at a time when she was vulnerable to poor choices. On the rebound from a noisy, unpleasant breakup with her junior-year boyfriend, who’d lingered into her final year despite some fights and general dissatisfaction. Graduation and career and school uncertainty dogging her every step. A sense of isolation from her parents, her friends. Everything in her life had seemed to her to be forced, to be a little misshapen, out of tune, and out of sync. And into that turmoil came a single bad night with O’Connell. He was handsome, seductive, different from all the students that she’d dated through college, and she had overlooked the singular way that he’d stared at her across the table, as if trying to memorize every inch of her skin and not in a romantic way.

She shook her head.

The two of them had slumped back on the bed in the aftermath. She had grabbed a pillow and, with the room swerving unsteadily and a sour taste in her mouth, plummeted into sleep. What had he done? she asked herself. He had lit a cigarette. In the morning, she had risen, not inviting him for a second tumble, making up some story about needing to be at an appointment, not offering any breakfast, or even a kiss, just disappearing into the shower and scrubbing herself under steaming water, sudsing every inch of her body, as if she’d been covered with some unusual smell. She had wanted him to leave, but he had not.

Ashley tried to recall the brief morning-after conversation. It had been filled with falsehoods, as she had distanced herself, been cold and preoccupied, until finally he had stared at her in an uncomfortably long silence, then smiled, nodded, and exited without much further talk.

And now, all he talks about is love, she thought. Where did that come from?

She pictured him going through the door, a cold look on his face.

That recollection made her shift about uncomfortably.

The other men she had known, even if only briefly, would have exited either angry or optimistic or even with a little bravado after the one-night stand. But O’Connell had been different. He’d merely chilled her with silence, then removed himself. It was, she thought, as if he were leaving, but he’d known it wasn’t for long.

She thought to herself, sleep. Shower. Plenty of time with her back turned. Had she left the computer on and running? What was strewn about her desktop? Her bank accounts? What numbers? What passwords? What did he have time to find and steal?

What else had he taken?

It was the obvious question, but one she didn’t really want to ask.

For an instant, the room spun again, and then Ashley rose and, as quickly as she could, raced to the small bathroom, where she pitched forward, head over the glistening toilet bowl, and was violently, utterly sick.

After she cleaned herself up, Ashley pulled a blanket around her shoulders and sat on the edge of her bed, considering what she should do. She felt like some shipwrecked refugee after rough days adrift at sea.

But the longer she sat there, the angrier she got.

As best as she could tell, Michael O’Connell had no claim on her. He had no right to be harassing her. His protests of undying love were more than a little silly.

In general, Ashley was an understanding sort, one who disliked confrontation and avoided a fight at almost all costs. But this foolishness-she could think of no other word-with a one-night stand had really gone too far.

She threw the blanket off and stood up.

“God damn it,” she said. “This is ending. Today. Enough of this bullshit.”

She walked over to her desk and picked up her cell phone. Without thinking about what she was going to say, Ashley dialed O’Connell’s number.

He answered almost immediately.

“Hello, lover,” he said almost gaily, certainly with a familiarity that infuriated her.

“I’m not your lover.”

He didn’t reply.

“Look, Michael. This has got to stop.”

Again, he didn’t answer.

“Okay?”

Again, silence.

After a second, she wasn’t even sure he was still there. “Michael?”

“I’m here,” he said coldly.

“It’s over.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s finished.”

There was another hesitation, then he said, “I don’t think so.”

Ashley was about to try again, but then she realized he had hung up.

She cursed, “You goddamn son of a bitch!” then redialed his number.

“Want to try again?” he answered this time.

She took a deep breath.

“All right,” Ashley said stiffly, “if you won’t make this easy, I guess we can do it the tough way.”

She heard him laugh, but he did not say anything.

“Okay, meet me for lunch.”

“Where?” he asked abruptly.

For an instant she scrambled about, trying to think of the right place. It had to be someplace familiar, someplace public, someplace where she was known and he wasn’t, somewhere she was likely to be surrounded by allies. All this would give her the necessary gumption to turn him off once and forever, she thought.

“The restaurant at the art museum,” she said. “One this afternoon. Okay?”

She could sense him grinning on the other end of the line. It made her shiver, as if a cold breath of air had seeped through a crack in the window frame. The arrangements must have been acceptable, Ashley realized, because he had hung up.

“So I suppose,” I said, “in a way this is all about recognition. Everyone needed to see what was happening.”

“Yes,” she replied. “Easy to say. Hard to do.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. You know we like to presume that we can recognize danger when it appears on the horizon. Anyone can avoid the danger that has bells, whistles, red lights, and sirens attached to it. It’s much harder when you don’t exactly know what you’re dealing with.”

She thought for a moment, while I remained quiet. She was drinking iced tea and lifted the glass to her lips.

“Ashley knew.”

Again she shook her head. “No. She was scared, true. But just as much as she was frightened, she was annoyed, which truly hid the desperate nature of her situation. And, in reality, what did she know about Michael O’Connell? Not much. Not nearly as much as he knew about her. Curiously, although at a distance, Scott was closer to understanding the real nature of what they were up against, because he was operating far more out of instinct, especially at the beginning.”

“And Sally? And her partner, Hope?”

“They were still outside fear. Not for much longer, though.”

“And O’Connell?”

She hesitated. “They couldn’t see. Not yet, at least.”

“See what?”

“That he was beginning to truly enjoy himself.”