Somehow Harry managed to perform that task. Clive tucked the sheets into his pocket, and spun the knife, a twinkling show of dexterity, like a baton twirler. “Thank you, Mr. Whelan. You’ve been very helpful. And in case you’re tempted to discuss what just happened with anyone…your supervisor, for instance, or the police, or the McClouds—”
“I won’t,” Harry assured him, his voice breaking. “I promise.”
“Or your mother,” Clive continued. “Or even that pretty colleague, the one who’s so worried about you. My associates and I informed ourselves before I came here. Your address, for instance. Where you live with your mother in that Victorian home in Tacoma. Pretty, but those old houses are firetraps. It would be tragic to come home from work and find that your mother had been burned to death in a house fire, hmm? Batteries run down in the smoke alarms. Tsk tsk. Terrible shame.”
“I promise, I—”
“And then there is Nancy, that lovely girl who wants to play nurse. Isn’t that sweet of her. She lives in that apartment complex on the other side of the park, all alone with her cat, in unit 8D. Violent things can happen at night to young women all alone. Just terrible. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for something like that, would you?”
Harry shook his head, and realized to his dismay that he could not stop shaking it. It just kept on twisting, back and forth. No. No. No.
Clive smiled and grabbed the top of Harry’s head, forcing it to stop turning. “Excellent, then. We understand each other.” He held out his hand, as if they had just conducted a normal business meeting.
Harry was horrified to realize that his slavish obedience to the other man actually extended to automatically holding out his trembling hand to shake. Clive shook it and gave it one last, agonizingly painful squeeze. Harry cringed and squealed like a whipped dog.
“Have a great day, Mr. Whelan. Thanks again for all your help.”
The door closed. Harry collapsed on his desk. His throat felt like it would implode. His groin throbbed. He felt raped, torn. Bleeding inside. He hadn’t known how easy it would be to be mortally hurt.
Then it flashed in his mind, like a pop-up banner on the computer. An appalling thought.
What a man like that might do to a three-year-old girl.
He shoved the thought away as if it electrocuted him. Too much. He couldn’t deal with that too. That little girl was not his responsibility. This was not his fault. He had not caused this.
There was a timid knock on the door. He scrambled for a fast food napkin to wipe his eyes and nose. “What is it?” he snapped.
Nancy peeked in the door. “Harry? I just, um, saw that guy go out. I thought I’d check on you. I was wondering…what the eff?”
For one crazy instant, he was tempted to tell her everything. What a sweet relief it would be, to let someone else carry some of the weight of the horribleness of the ten minutes that had just passed. Then he thought about her all alone at night with her cat in unit 8D.
No. Don’t.
He blew his nose again. “That was a tricky situation,” he said, hating the phlegm-clogged, officious tone in his own voice. “Sometimes in this business, you just have to make a judgment call.”
“Ah,” she said. “Um. OK. Harry, are you sure you’re—”
“Yes! I’m fine! It’s just this sinus thing I get sometimes. Allergies. It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about me.”
“OK.” Her face reddened. The door started to close.
“Nancy?” His voice had a wobbly, pleading tone. He took a deep breath to steady it as she opened the door and peeked back in. “Uh…don’t mention this to anyone else, OK?” he begged. “I mean, no one.”
She looked almost scared. “Whatever,” she said softly.
The door closed. There was a strange finality to the sound. As if the door was closing on the person he had fantasized about becoming.
He’d been cut down, trimmed into something that would always be smaller now. Someone who would never get rid of that pot belly and train to run in the local 10K. Never ask Nancy Ware out to the Blues In The Park concert series. Never get his own place and move out of his mother’s house. Someone who would never make general manager.
He grabbed the wastebasket, vomited into it until bitter snot hung from his face over the plastic sack. He mopped it off, touched his balls, wondered if they were irreparably damaged.
Wondered if it would be a relief to run his car off the road into the river tonight when he got off work. Just to make this awful feeling stop.
“Push with your legs,” Sveti encouraged her. “Up and down. That way you can go higher all by yourself.”
Rachel tried valiantly, but she didn’t really have much luck coordinating the frantic movement of her skinny little legs with the rhythm of the swing. Still, she put all her effort into it, flopping like a freshly caught fish in the bucket-style kiddie swing, giggling madly.
It was getting very dark, and the gray sky was fading to night on one side. It was also extremely cold, but they were having so much fun in the park playground, neither wanted to leave quite yet. After all, they could see the lit-up windows of Connor and Erin’s house right on the other side of the park, like a beacon of safety. After days of shrieking for Mamma, Rachel was finally calming down. She was not really eating yet and when she talked at all, she stuttered, but things were looking up. Right now she was laughing and smiling. Sveti was grateful to see it. Reluctant to let go of the moment.
The whole afternoon had gone relatively well so far. Rachel seemed to enjoy the story circle at the kids’ room in the local library, and the level of English had been perfect for Sveti’s comprehension level, too. In fact, she’d used Erin’s library card to check out a whole tote bag full of children’s books to study. She had to hurry up and learn.
Not just for Josh, either, she told herself sternly. Forget stupid Josh. She wasn’t thinking about his green eyes, his big grin.
This was for her. Just her. She wanted to study here, go to college here. Something to do with small children. Teaching, childhood development, psychology, and someday maybe even medical school and pediatrics.
It made her so happy to see how Rachel had grown, how much better she walked. To see that rosy red blush in her cheeks. She glowed like a Christmas light in her puffy red ski jacket and red sparkling cap. No one would ever call her chubby, but she looked so much better than back in the bad old days, when she’d seemed like a wizened little troll.
It all seemed so improbable to Sveti sometimes. The strange flip-flop of reality. Sometimes her life seemed like a dream of heaven. Being free, seeing the sky, the trees, the flowers. Seeing Rachel happy with someone who loved her. Having her own mother again.
But that stinking basement room haunted her. Piss-stained mattresses, hollow-eyed children. Doom hanging over them. Constant fear and dread. She wondered if that was the reality, and this was the dream. She could wake up at any time and find herself there again.
It was a nightmare that wouldn’t let her go. Knowing that there were places like that, cruelty like that. Monstrous selfishness like that. Once known, you couldn’t unknow it. And it was hard not to think about it.
All she could do was enjoy a little girl giggling on a playground swing in her puffy red coat and try to hold the dark at bay.
These sad, dark thoughts had sobered and chilled her enough to make her want to get herself and Rachel quickly back to the safety to the McCloud house. It was full of people, voices, and laughter tonight. Both of Connor’s brothers were there with their wives, for dinner. They were incredibly nice to her, but their loudness, their breezy American exuberance, their torrents of hard-to-understand English, oh. It made her intensely shy.