Every Last Fear Page 8

He imagined his wife’s face. The anguish, which would turn to fury when she would inevitably insist on examining the rest of their accounts. She’d find Maggie’s college fund down to $12,332, not enough to cover even the cost of the dorm room at MIT.

He closed the site and set up an automatic email timed to send to Liv tomorrow morning. It told her to call the police and make sure Maggie stayed at Harper’s until they removed his body. It told her where to find the files on his computer with notes to each of the kids. And it told her where to find the information on his life insurance, which he’d confirmed would pay out even after a suicide. A cool ten million.

He thought of Dr. Silverstein’s warning. The meds can trick a patient into thinking there’s only one solution.

But he wasn’t being tricked. It had started as a whisper in his ear. The voice of reason, snaking into his subconscious, confirming his every last fear: “They’ll be better off without you.” He was doing this for them. To spare them financial ruin. To spare them living with someone who was broken. That’s what the voice kept saying. But deep down he knew it wasn’t for them at all.

It was for him.

To turn off the faucet of despair.

He slammed the fistful of pills into his mouth, then chased them with the Scotch. They went down hard, and he had to suppress the gag reflex. He poured another glass and downed it quickly as he waited for the pills to take effect.

Evan wasn’t a religious man. But he liked the idea of organized religion, with an emphasis on the organized part. As an accountant, he found virtue in organization and order. And something about the rituals and traditions of religions—rules largely aimed at making you a better person—was appealing. Back in Nebraska, Liv had insisted that they attend church every Sunday. Faith had helped her through her mother’s death when she was ten. After Danny was convicted and they moved to Naperville, Illinois, Evan had no patience for it all. Still, while he was waiting for the pills to do their thing, he said the words nonetheless: “God, please forgive me. And take care of them.”

As if answering, his iPhone chimed. Not the usual ring.

He looked at the screen. It was a FaceTime call. He didn’t ordinarily use FaceTime, and he didn’t recognize the number. He was going to ignore it, but if this was divine intervention, he’d better answer.

He swiped the phone. The screen was dark, but he heard music and the din of a crowd, like a nightclub or a bar. His own image floated in the small box in the upper right corner. He looked much like he did in the documentary. The camera jostled about, then a woman’s face appeared. It was shadowed, but he could somehow tell she was scared. She was walking quickly, bumping into people, her heavy breathing and muffled music pounding through the phone’s tinny speakers. Finally she came under some grim lighting and stopped.

Evan’s heart stopped as well. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. He moved his own face closer to the screen.

She said something into the camera, but he couldn’t make it out. But it was the face—the freckles, the strawberry-blond hair, the small scar on her forehead—that caused every nerve in his body to tingle. Evan rubbed his eyes with his balled fists. It just couldn’t be.

He fumbled for the volume, turning it up.

She said the words again, and this time they were clear.

“Help me.”

A hand grabbed the woman by the hair and the phone jerked violently and went black.

Evan blinked several times, trying to process. He ran to the sink and jammed two fingers down his throat. Vomit projected out of his mouth. Brown liquid and pill capsules. Many were still intact.

His legs felt weak and his thoughts muddled. He didn’t know if it was from the shock or if some of the pills had made it to his bloodstream. He needed to stay awake. Needed to understand what he’d just witnessed.

Gripping the iPhone, he pulled up the number. The caller ID said MOLOKO BAR and gave a place of origin: Tulum, Mexico. Light-headed, he clicked on the number. His own face projected on the screen as it rang. But no one answered.

Answer, he thought.

Please answer, Charlotte.


CHAPTER 9


MATT PINE

Matt tried to sleep, but his mind was turning too quickly, the springs on Ganesh’s sofa doing the rest. Staring at the cracked ceiling of Ganesh’s apartment, he listened to the sounds of New York. A cat howling (at least he thought it was a cat). Sirens in the distance. Garbage trucks banging around. He struggled to pinpoint what he was feeling. It was more than grief, a stew of guilt and remorse and sorrow and pain—but also something more familiar: deep, unflinching loneliness.

Since Danny’s arrest, loneliness had been a steady companion. It started the summer they’d moved from Nebraska to Illinois after getting run out of their hometown. Nothing was more lonely to a kid than a summer move. Friends were hard to find. School was out, the neighborhood kids away for camp or vacations or jobs.

Movies had been Matt’s refuge. He’d spent the first half of the summer watching Scorsese and Hitchcock and Kubrick and Coppola and Nolan. Concerned, his mother pushed him to go outside, get some fresh air. She’d goad him out of his room, and when Tommy was napping, they’d quietly play board games or talk in whispers, and pretend things were normal. One of the guys at his father’s new office belonged to a country club and secured Matt a job as a golf caddie for the second half of that summer.

Matt loved the job. It was where he’d met Chad, the caddy manager. Chad was a former pro golfer who’d gotten through life on his smile (and trust fund). The caddies spent much of the day sitting in the caddy shack, waiting out the rain or the lulls on the green, listening to Chad dispense his wisdom, watching him flirt with Angela, the big-chested college girl who drove around in a golf cart selling beer from a cooler.

Chad would give Matt and the other teenagers advice. About bringing girls home (“Have a Glade PlugIn air freshener near the door; they’ll think the apartment is really clean”). About their customers (“Don’t bother sucking up; they give the standard tip unless they’re trying to impress a business client or a girl”). About higher education (“College is a snowflake factory for woke morons; the only reason to go is for the chicks”). About life (“My dad was rich, a CEO with a room full of awards, and no one gave one shit when he died”). Matt found himself jumping out of bed, eager to make his shift. Not for his love of the game—carrying golf bags in the sticky Chicago heat was hard work. But because he was part of the gang.

Then the morning came when someone had whispered in the country club manager’s ear that Matt’s brother was in prison. For murder. And Chad, his eyes downcast, asked Matt to turn in his hat and smock. Matt never saw Chad again, but imagined he was still there, doing what he loved, lusting after golf cart girls, giving advice to sad fourteen-year-olds.

Over time, Matt’s loneliness mutated into a medley of anger and resentment, and he started getting into fights. He had a pang of guilt remembering that it was a fight—on the schoolyard after his brother’s conviction—that was the inciting incident for their family’s move to Illinois, his parents deciding it was time to get out of Dodge. For the most part, Matt had managed to keep the beast caged since high school, that side of himself hidden from everyone—well, nearly everyone. After returning from winter break and a massive blowout with his father, a frat boy had made the mistake of saying something disgusting to Jane at a party. Matt pictured the kid’s bloody face, Jane crying for Matt to stop, yanking him away.

Matt sat up, clicked on the television. At four thirty, it was channel after channel of infomercials and lawyers asking, “Have you been injured in an accident?”

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he decided to go for a run. Exercise always helped him focus. It slowed down his thoughts, burned off nervous energy. Kept the beast at bay. This early it would also allow him to slip into his dorm before the paparazzi arrived for the morning shift.

He went into Ganesh’s room. His friend wouldn’t mind if he borrowed some workout clothes. Inside the messy dresser, he fished out a wrinkled Under Armour shirt and pair of shorts. Ganesh was a big guy—he’d gained thirty pounds since freshman year, a by-product of the munchies from all the weed—so Matt was swimming in the clothes. But he didn’t plan on seeing anyone, so they’d do.

He took the filthy stairwell to the ground floor and jogged under pools of lamplight along Seventh. The pavement felt good under his feet. The clouds had rolled away and the air smelled fresh.

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