Hold Tight
“Okay.”
He saw something cross her face. Then he remembered. “You said two things were bothering you.”
She nodded and something happened to her face. Not much. If you were playing poker, you might call it a tell. That was the thing when you are married a long time. You can read the tells so easily—or maybe your partner doesn’t care to hide them anymore. Whatever, Mike knew that this was not going to be good news.
“An instant-message exchange,” Tia said. “From two days ago.”
She reached into her purse and pulled it out. Instant-messaging. Kids talked via typing in live time to one another. The results came out with the name and a colon like some awful screenplay. Parents, most of whom had spent many an adolescent hour doing the same thing on plain old phones, bemoaned this development. Mike didn’t really see the problem. We had phones, they have IM and texting. Same thing. It reminded Mike of those old people who curse out the younger generation’s video games while hopping on a bus to Atlantic City to play video slots. Hypocrisy, right?
“Take a look.”
Mike slipped on his reading glasses. He had just started using them a few months back and had quickly grown to detest the inconvenience. Adam’s screen name was still HockeyAdam1117. He had picked that out years ago. The number was Mark Messier’s, his favorite hockey player, and Mike’s own number seventeen from his Dartmouth days, combined. Funny that Adam hadn’t changed it. Or maybe again that made perfect sense. Or maybe, most likely, it meant nothing.
CeeJay8115: U ok?
HockeyAdam1117: I still think we should say something.
CeeJay8115: It’s long over. Just stay quiet and all safe.
According to the timer, there was no typing for a full minute.
CeeJay8115: U there?
HockeyAdam1117: Yes
CeeJay8115: All ok?
HockeyAdam1117: All ok.
CeeJay8115: Good. C U Fri.
That was the end.
“ ‘Stay quiet and all safe,’ ” Mike repeated.
“Yes.”
“What do you think it means?” he asked.
“No idea.”
“Could be something with school. Like maybe they saw someone cheat on a test or something.”
“Could be.”
“Or it could be nothing. Could be like part of one of those online adventure games.”
“Could be,” Tia said again, clearly not buying.
“Who is CeeJay8115?” Mike asked.
She shook her head. “It’s the first time I’ve seen Adam IM with him.”
“Or her.”
“Right, or her.”
“ ‘See you Friday.’ So CeeJay8115 will be at the Huff party. Does that help us?”
“I don’t see how.”
“So do we ask him about it?”
Tia shook her head. “It’s too vague, don’t you think?”
“I do,” Mike agreed. “And it would mean letting him know we’re spying on him.”
They both stood there. Mike read it again. The words didn’t change.
“Mike?”
“Yeah.”
“What would Adam need to stay quiet about in order to be safe?”
NASH, the bushy mustache in his pocket, sat in the van’s passenger seat. Pietra, the straw-haired wig off, drove.
In his right hand, Nash held Marianne’s mobile device. It was a BlackBerry Pearl. You could e-mail, take pictures, watch videos, text, synch your calendar and address book with your home computer, and even make phone calls.
Nash touched the button. The screen lit up. A photograph of Marianne’s daughter popped up. He stared at it for a moment. Pitiful, he thought. He hit the icon to get to her e-mail, found the e-mail addresses he wanted, began to compose:Hi! I’m going to Los Angeles for a few weeks. I will be in touch when I get back.
He signed it “Marianne,” did the copy feature, and pasted the same message into two other e-mails. Then he hit SEND. Those who knew Marianne wouldn’t search too hard. This, from what Nash could figure, was her modus operandi—disappearing and then popping back up.
But this time . . . well, disappearing, yes.
Pietra had drugged Marianne’s drink while Nash kept her occupied with the Cain-ape theory. When they had her in the van, Nash had beaten her. He had beaten her badly and for a long time. He had beaten her at first to elicit pain. He wanted her to talk. When he was sure she had told him everything, he then beat her to death. He was patient. There are fourteen stationary bones in the face. He wanted to snap and cave in as many as possible.
Nash had punched Marianne’s face with almost surgical precision. Some shots were designed to neutralize an opponent—take the fight out of them. Some shots were designed to cause horrible pain. Some were designed to cause physical destruction. Nash knew them all. He knew how to keep his knuckles and hands protected while using maximum force, how to make the proper fist so you don’t hurt yourself, how to use the palm strike effectively.
Right before Marianne died, when the breathing was raspy from the blood lodged in her throat, Nash did what he always did in those situations. He stopped and made sure that she was still conscious. Then he had her look up at him, locked his gaze on hers, saw the terror in her eyes:
“Marianne?”
He wanted her attention. He got it. And then he whispered the last words she would ever hear:
“Please tell Cassandra I miss her.”
And then, finally, he allowed her to die.
The van was stolen. The license plates had been changed to confuse the issue. Nash slipped into the backseat. He jammed a bandana into Marianne’s hand and tightened her fingers around it. He used a razor to cut off Marianne’s clothing. When she was naked, he took fresh clothes out of a shopping bag. He struggled but he managed to get them on her. The pink top was too snug but that was the point. The leather skirt was ridiculously short.
Pietra had picked them out.
They had started off with Marianne in a bar in Teaneck, New Jersey. Now they were in Newark, the slums of the Fifth Ward, known for its streetwalkers and murders. That was what she’d be mistaken for—another beaten whore. Newark had a per capita murder rate three times nearby New York City’s. So Nash had beaten her good and knocked out most of her teeth. Not all of them. Removing all her teeth would make it too obvious he wanted to hide her identity.
So he left some intact. But a dental match—assuming they found enough evidence to warrant looking for a match—would be hard and take a long time.
Nash slipped the mustache back on and Pietra put on the wig. It was an unnecessary precaution. No one was around. They unloaded the body in a Dumpster. Nash looked down at Marianne’s corpse.