Don't Ever Tell (11 page)

30

At home, Coco greeted Joshua excitedly, running in circles and whining to be taken outside for a walk, but the little dog would have to wait.

He switched on the lights in the kitchen and placed the box on the table.
When Rachel had left him the letter yesterday, she’d also left him a key. He’d stored both in a kitchen drawer. Leaving them in clear view was too hurtful a reminder of what had happened.
He dug the key out of the drawer and inserted it into the padlock. It fit. He turned it, and the lock clicked open.
He removed the padlock and raised the lid.
A layer of black velvet concealed the contents. He grasped the edge of the fabric, peeled it away.
His heart beat soared.
A revolver lay inside, in a metal tray fitted to the weapon’s contours. The gun had a black rubber grip, and a stainless steel barrel about three inches long. Smith & Wesson was engraved on the side of the barrel.
He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but he certainly had not been expecting this.
Slowly and carefully, he lifted the gun out of the tray. The tray shifted at the disturbance, and something moved underneath. He placed the gun on the table, and lifted out the tray, too.
There was a cardboard box of ammunition.
“Jesus,” he said.
This latest discovery was another piece in the jigsaw puzzle that was his wife. Why had she kept this gun at the salon? Had she been concerned that she’d have to put down her curling iron and blow someone away?
He tried to imagine Rachel, his sweet-tempered wife, wielding this lethal weapon, and it just didn’t fit into what he knew of her.
But as Tanisha had aptly noted, there was a lot that neither of them knew about Rachel.
He gripped the revolver’s black handle.
He’d never fired a real gun. His only experience with firearms was of the toy variety: Laser tag, Paintball, video games. When he was a teenager, his dad had been a weekend outdoorsman and would go hunting for white-tail deer and quail, and he would want to bring Joshua along, but his mother had forbid it. She’d been concerned for Joshua’s safety.
He cautiously touched the trigger. The thought of handling the revolver and actually using it for self-defense was almost as absurd as the idea of Rachel using the weapon. He was not a combative person by nature, would have rather fled the scene than engage someone in a violent confrontation of any kind—least of all a gunfight.
He opened the box of ammo and dumped a couple of rounds into his palm. They were shiny, silver, deadly.
Was the revolver loaded? He didn’t know, and didn’t know how to check, either.

DON’T EVER TELL 173

He was tempted to pack the revolver in the box, shove it to the rear of a closet, and forget about it. But Rachel’s warning from her letter whispered through his thoughts.

I’ve left you a key. It will unlock something that I pray you won’t need.
Did she believe he actually might be in danger, too? If so, from who?
He placed the gun and the ammo back in the box, and locked it. But he didn’t store the box in the closet—he left it on the kitchen table.
And then he called Eddie.

31

Eddie lived in the West End, not far from where he worked at the college, in a tree-lined, historic district of Craftsman bungalows, Victorians, and Colonial Revival homes. Like many in-town Atlanta neighborhoods that had once suffered severe urban blight, the West End was in the midst of a revitalization campaign. Less than a mile from the historic area, new condos were being constructed, big box stores were opening for business, and well-heeled residents who wouldn’t have dared to visit only a few years ago were purchasing old homes and renovating them.

Eddie’s green clapboard-shingled Craftsman stood behind a wrought iron fence, a narrow paved lane leading to the detached garage. A web of holiday lights was spun across the trimmed shrubbery and eaves, and a plastic Frosty the Snowman spread cheer in the front yard.

Eddie greeted Joshua at the door.
“Hey, dawg. Come on in.”
Joshua walked inside with his satchel dangling over his shoulder. Although much of the exterior and interior of their home had been restored to its period detail, the furnishings were completely modern: microfiber sofa and chairs in light earthy colors, glass tables, track lighting, stainless steel appliances. A child safety gate surrounded the home entertainment center, childproof lever locks protected the doorknobs, and cushions softened the edges of the tables.

The house was quiet.
“You here alone?” Joshua asked.
“The wife’s at work, the kids are at day care—that’s right,

they’re at day care and I’m home in peace. I’m playing
Madden
and eating Cheetos.”

When Joshua had called Eddie, he hadn’t told him the reason he wanted to visit. Eddie, an assistant football coach at Clark, was on vacation since the season had recently wrapped up, and probably assumed Joshua wanted to hang out playing video games and eating junk food, as if they were teenagers again.

“Check this out.” Joshua placed the satchel on the sofa, removed the box, and set it on the coffee table.
“What’s that?” Eddie asked.
Joshua unlocked the case, opened it, and pulled back the swatch of velvet.
Eddie’s eyes swelled like balloons.
“Oh, shit. Where’d you get that from, man?”
“Rachel gave it to me.”
“Rachel? Your wife?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, tell a brother. Damn.”
Joshua related the entire course of events to Eddie, starting from the nightmare Rachel had experienced the other night—which he’d already told Eddie about—and on through his discovery of the handgun that morning.
“I don’t believe it,” Eddie said. “How the hell could she do this to you, man?”
“I thought I knew her.” Joshua shrugged, exhausted from his retelling of the story. “Guess I was wrong.”
“I need a drink. You want something?”
“It’s kinda early for a drink.”
“This ain’t the time to be straitlaced. Your wife is gone. You need a damn drink.”
While Eddie dashed to the kitchen, Joshua glanced around the room. Photographs of Eddie and his wife and children were everywhere. Colorful snapshots of familial bliss.
Feeling a hard lump forming in his throat, Joshua had to look away.
Eddie returned. He offered Joshua a glass teeming with dark amber liquor and ice cubes.
Joshua sniffed it. “What is this?”
“Cognac. It’ll set you right.”
Joshua took a small sip. The cognac hit him like a taste of fire, but it immediately loosened the ball of tension that had been knotted in his chest for the past two days. He exhaled a deep breath.
“See?” Eddie sipped his own shot of cognac. “Relaxes the nerves. You were wound up tight as a clock spring, dawg.”
“I wouldn’t want to make this a habit, but thanks.” Joshua tapped the gun case. “What do you make of this?”
Eddie set his liquor aside and plucked the revolver out of the box.
“It’s a .38,” Eddie said. “Nice piece for home defense.”
“So you know guns?”
With an adept flick of his wrist, Eddie swung out the cylinder.
“It’s not loaded,” Eddie said. “Rule number one: always assume a gun is loaded, until you prove that it isn’t.” “That means the answer to my question is yes.”
“My pops was an army man. He taught all of us how to handle a piece. Matter of fact, I’ve got a couple of pieces here, too, under lock and key ’cause of the kids, you know?”
“I never knew that about you.”
“You never know everything there is to know about anyone, do you?”
“Tell me about it.” Joshua smiled grimly.
Eddie lifted the tray out of the box and located the ammo. He shook one of the rounds into his palm and held it up for inspection.
“Hollow points,” Eddie said. “These will get the job done for real.”
“All I know about hollow points is what I’ve heard in a few hip-hop songs. They seem to be the ammo of choice for gangstas.”
“Here’s the deal. When they hit flesh, they expand.” Eddie traced his index finger along the top edge of the round. “It goes from looking like it does now, to a mushroom. Tearing up all kinds of tissue in the process.”
Joshua grimaced. “I don’t know if I can shoot someone, Eddie. I mean, you know me. I’m not a violent guy.”
“Remember our little talk at your party the other night? About protecting your wife and your kids?”
Although he hadn’t told Eddie about Rachel’s pregnancy, in retrospect, their conversation that night seemed prescient. “I remember.”
“If you meant what you said, then you’ll do whatever you’ve gotta do,” Eddie said. “I don’t agree with what Rachel’s done, but she’s still your wife, you still love her. She’s running scared from somebody, man, and when push comes to shove, you’ve gotta be ready to protect your own. Are you? If not, you might as well lock this gun in the box and forget about it.”
Joshua sat quietly, swirling the cognac around the glass. He took another sip. It was like liquid fire going down his throat, but it felt good, like a fortifying element steeling his spirit.
He reached for the gun.
“Show me how to use this,” he said.

32

Dexter had logged over three hundred miles that day, driving from one place to another around metro Atlanta, and he had yet to find his wife’s residence.

He’d visited single-family homes, townhouses, and apartment complexes. He’d driven through the hood and upscale subdivisions. He’d been mired in gridlock in various parts of town—this city had the worst traffic he’d ever seen in his life—for a cumulative total of maybe five hours.

But no luck.
He was convinced that he would know intuitively when he arrived at his wife’s home. The exterior details of the residence, and the neighborhood in which it was located, would be telltale indicators of whether he was at the right place. He knew his wife.
So he continued to drive, undeterred, crossing an entry off the print-out after each unsuccessful visit. He interrupted his work only to eat, grabbing fast food and wolfing it down in the car, staying on the move.
It reminded him, pleasantly, of detective work. When you were a cop, success was usually a matter of methodically grinding it out, finding leads, discarding leads, until you finally struck pay dirt and caught your man—or woman.
The cold, gray winter afternoon had darkened into a frigid evening when he began driving to the next-to-last address on his list. It was an apartment in College Park.
The StreetPilot instructed him to hook a right at the next intersection. He made the turn, which plunged him down a stomach-flipping hill. At the foot of the hill, the road banked to the left, wove around a cluster of pine trees, and then unfurled into a long straight-away bordered by winter-ravaged trees and shrubbery.
A large sign came into view ahead on the right:
FOREST

RIDGE APARTMENT HOMES
.

A cool tingle traveled the length of his spine. This was it. This was where she lived. It
felt
right.
Entry to the complex was restricted by a set of electronically activated, wrought-iron gates. Big, red holiday bows adorned the centers of the gates, and a call box, also garlanded in holiday finery, stood in front of the gateway, between the entrance and exit paths.
He drove to the call box and lowered his window. Chilly wind hit him in the face. He squinted against the gust, studying the small lighted display and the accompanying keypad.
Residents were listed by first name initial and last name; a three-digit code was beside each entry, so you could call the person you were visiting and ask them to buzz you inside.
Putting his thumb on an arrow button, he scrolled to the “H”s. He did not find any Halls.
A Honda Civic with a Papa John’s placard on its roof had pulled up behind him. The driver tapped his horn, impatiently.
Dexter veered to the right, out of the entryway, and stuck his arm out the window to wave the driver past.
The pizza delivery driver punched a code into the call box, and the gates began to swing inward.
Dexter pulled behind the Honda, only inches from the rear bumper, to fool the sensor system. He followed the car through the gate without incident.
So much for security.
The complex was a maze of four-story buildings with stacked stone foundations and gray siding, accessible via blacktopped, debris-free roadways. The leasing office and a clubhouse stood off to the right, near a large fountain with an angelic sculpture centerpiece. A sign on the clubhouse advertised an upcoming holiday party for community residents.
His survey of the property cemented his belief that his wife lived here, or had, until recently. The gated entry offered the promise of safety that she would desire, and the environment was solidly middle class: upwardly mobile single professionals and young families saving for their first homes would choose to live in such a place.
Most important, besides the complex’s appearance, the needle on the compass of his intuition was vibrating as if he stood smack dab on magnetic north.
According to Omega Search, her apartment number was five-seventeen. He followed the signs to building five hundred, and found it located squarely in the middle of the community. Unit five-seventeen was on the third floor, and knowing his wife, likely faced the parking lot so she could look through the window and see who was coming and going.
A handful of late-model cars were parked in front. When he and his wife had lived in Chicago, he hadn’t allowed her to own a car; a pretty woman with her own set of wheels was destined to get into trouble. But she had once expressed interest in an Acura sedan, a silver one, and he was sure that she had purchased the vehicle when she’d relocated, using his money. Her way of celebrating her liberation from him and all of that feminist bullshit.
But there were no Acuras parked nearby.
He parked in front of the building, checked his face in the sun visor mirror. Satisfied with what he saw, he got out of the car and climbed the stairs to the third floor.
Apartment five-seventeen, as he’d suspected, was an end unit that overlooked the parking lot. A couple of phone books were stacked on the doorstep, and a trifold menu for a Chinese restaurant bristled between the knob and door jamb.
He rang the bell a couple of times, but predictably, no one answered. The apartment was vacant.
He ought to drop a pointed note to Omega Search. Their database was out of date. How long ago had she moved?
He considered kicking in the door, but there would be little point. Whenever a tenant left, the apartment manager most likely dispatched housekeepers to clean these units from top to bottom. There would be nothing inside that might tell him where she had moved.
He looked at the doors surrounding him. He approached the apartment directly across the corridor from five-seventeen. He placed his ear against the cold door.
He heard a television broadcasting the news, and a woman talking loudly, probably on the phone. She sounded young, which was good.
He straightened his jacket, grateful that he had cleaned up that morning and changed clothes. He rang the doorbell.
The volume of the television dropped. A few seconds later, he felt the woman looking at him through the peephole.
He kept his expression friendly and relaxed, though tense anticipation bubbled in his gut. For a six-month period during his police career, he had worked as an undercover narc. Playing a fictitious character was easy when it was necessary for the job.
“Who’s there?” she asked from behind the door.
“I’m sorry to bother you this evening,” he said, using a crisp, official voice. “I was wondering if you knew Rachel Hall? She lived in five-seventeen. I’m her cousin Brian, from Chicago.”
A pause. Then, “Hold on.”
He heard a security chain pop free. The door opened.
He found himself looking at a woman in her mid-twenties. She was about five-seven, mocha-skinned, with shoulderlength dark hair. She had soft, almond-shaped brown eyes that would believe anything a brother with half-decent game would tell her.
She wore a green V-neck sweater that showed off a mound of luscious cleavage, and black slacks that hugged long, shapely legs. She was barefoot, her pedicured toes nestled in the carpet. Her ring finger was bare, and when he glanced over her shoulder, he didn’t see anyone straining to find out who had rung the doorbell.
“Hi.” He gave her his best, disarming smile.
Automatically, she smiled back at him, showing pretty dimples, and he knew she would give him anything he wanted.
“Hey,” she said. “You said you’re Rachel’s cousin?”
“I flew in from Chicago this morning for a business trip, and thought I’d drop by to visit Ray-Ray. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of years—”
“Sweetheart, you’re kinda late.” She had a syrupy sweet Southern accent. “Rachel moved out like six months ago.”
“Are you serious? I asked Aunt Nita a hundred times if this was the correct address. I think she’s going senile in her old age, God bless her.”
“Uh huh.” The girl giggled. “Rachel moved out when she got married.”
He blinked. The phrase—
when she got married
—almost destroyed his act. Married? Was she telling the fucking truth? The bitch had gotten him thrown into prison, stolen his money, come down here, and gotten married?
He had a sudden impulse to grab this young woman by the throat and throttle her, to choke her as if she were his wife, his cheating, thieving wife—
But he caught himself so quickly that the girl didn’t appear to notice his temporary lapse.
“And you know, I asked Aunt Nita about that, too,” he said. “I said, ‘Aunt Nita, are you sure Ray-Ray didn’t move after she got married?’ She said no.” He shrugged. “But it’s not as though I was invited to the wedding.”
“Chile, who you tellin’?” She rolled her eyes. “I lived next door to her for a year, and
I
didn’t get an invitation. Plus, I was going to her salon, too. Ungrateful.”
Her off-handed mention of the salon clinched the deal. Although his wife had relocated, changed her name, and supposedly gotten married, she was plying the same trade. Dumb bitch. She couldn’t do anything else.
“She didn’t invite you, either? Well, Ray-Ray could be a trip sometimes.” He sighed, glanced at the parking lot, and then turned back to her. “Where’s her salon? I’ll try to catch her there.”
“It’s over in East Point, like ten minutes from here. Hold on a minute. I think I have her card somewhere.”
She disappeared inside. He waited in the hallway. He balled his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms and leaving red marks like stigmata.