Page 51

51

Arrested

Jake

Within minutes, an emergency response team spills out of the elevator bulkhead and onto the roof.

“It was all a horrible accident,” Cynthia says levelly over the bustle and din of the EMTs and police officers in her trademark unnerving monotone.

“You’re going to be okay. You’re in shock,” the paramedic says, fluffing a big silver emergency blanket and spreading it around Cynthia’s shoulders. A police officer writes her statement on a pad while Cynthia gazes at me with emotionless eyes.

The hand that touched Andrew’s chest tingles and turns white.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Laura reassures me. We wrap our arms around each other, and I watch Dodi pace back and forth restlessly, distractedly, like a caged tiger, Cat still curled into a ball in her arms, watching Cynthia all the while.

My father is dead. That was a lie for most of my life; now it really is true, but I feel nothing about the loss. Everyone who matters to me is safe.

Eventually, Laura gives a statement to the police too—cool, calm, collected.

“It was all a horrible accident,” she says firmly, squeezing my hand with both of hers.

She seems taller, straighter, like she fills space differently somehow. She hands a business card to the officer and takes one of his. Next is Dodi’s statement.

“It was all a horrible accident,” she says without blinking, leaning into my side.

I feel like I’m watching myself when I give my own statement. “It was a horrible accident.” I’m not lying.

The building manager arrives, carrying Princess in a grubby baby onesie. He scrabbles out of her arms and pelts over to Cat.

“Yes, there’s a security camera, right there,” the building manager says to the inquiring police officer, “but it’s directed at the dog park, not the wall. Jesus. What a horrible accident.”

At last they don’t need us anymore, and we can go. With one final look at Cynthia still swathed in foil across the roof, perched on the parapet like it’s the best seat in the house, I take Cat by the hand, and Dodi slips a protective arm around Laura—one widow supporting another—and we go, passing a pair of police officers as they step onto the roof.

“God,” one mutters, “what a horrible accident.”

—

“Jake,” Dodi says in the elevator. “We need—to talk.”

I look at her. I think what she needs is a change of clothes and a shower, but Laura is in agreement.

“You two go for a walk,” she says, eyes darting between us. She wants a reconciliation. A happily ever after. She wants to keep Cat so badly. “I’ll take Cat back to the apartment.” She darts out on the third floor with Cat and Princess in tow and leaves us.

In a whisper, Dodi says, “Cynthia—”

“Cynthia,” I agree.

She lets out a breath. “She’s covering for you. What are we going to do about her?”

“She can wait.”

She nods, eyes wide, feet apart in a fighting pose. “Table the discussion of this paradigm shift for now?”

“Put a pin in it and circle back later for a proper face time, because we have other things to discuss.”

Dodi stares at me. I stare at her. I press G, the doors close slowly, and there’s the fairground feeling as we watch each other in that small, falling space, my entire future life flashing before my eyes. I have time—so much time now—and yet I’ve never felt so pressured in my life to get something done as quickly as possible. It can’t wait.

“I’m walking it all back. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

I’m dropping clichés like a Hallmark ghostwriter, but what else are you supposed to do when there’s no other way to say it? The message lands. I see her feelings on her face for once. Surprise. Relief. Regret. Sadness. So much sadness. She winds her arms tight around her midsection instead of around me.

“And I love you,” she says bravely. “I wish I could spend the rest of my life with you, too.”

And I knew, theoretically, Dodi was capable of crying, but it’s something else to see it happen. Her face doesn’t wind up or turn red. She just calmly, quietly sheds tears, like a placid stone statue performing a miracle in a deserted transept for her one true believer.

I completely fucked up my delivery.

“You can.”

“What?”

“My real grandparents are almost a hundred. Can you put up with me that long?”

She smears her tears across her face with her coat sleeve. “What?”

She didn’t understand a word of what Cynthia said on the roof about my parents. “Bill did a DNA test—”

And I don’t need to explain anything else, not this second, because “DNA test” are the magic words that make a hereditary disease vanish in a puff of smoke. Dodi’s mouth falls open and a shuddering breath comes out. She shivers as a secondary earthquake ripples through her mental landscape and shifts everything , and she needs a minute to assess the lay of the land in the aftermath. I can give her as many as she needs because I have a lot of minutes now.

“Fuck’s sake, Jake!” she says, swiping at her eyes. She’s furious and relieved and trying so hard to turn the tears off. “That’s the sort of thing you lead with!”

The movies say this ends in a dramatic kiss. I step close, and she reaches for me—

The elevator doors heave open and three firemen shoulder in. I grab Dodi by the hand and pull her outside into the circus of ground zero. Lights flash, people shout. It’s insane to watch any of this. His body is there—right there . I watch the paramedics zip the body bag and lug him onto the stretcher like a sack of potatoes.

This isn’t the place for that kiss, either. “Let’s go for a drive.”

Dodi wrinkles her nose in disgust at the thought of the stinky Lambo, but I fish the key fob out of my pocket and place it in her palm. She stares at it.

“I didn’t steal this one,” I say. “It’s yours.”

She rotates the fob slowly in her hand and stares at the logo, then presses the lock button. A beep sounds behind us. She turns and stares at the sleek red car, her mouth hanging open.

“What? How? ”

But the beep also startles a police officer standing half a dozen feet away. He spins around and our eyes meet.

It’s Baby Cop.

His nostrils flare, and he’s about to duck his head and walk in the other direction, but then he freezes. His eyes bulge and his mouth falls open.

“Jesus shit!” he yells, staring at something inside Dodi’s new car.

It’s Willow, still sitting shotgun after helping me meet the required passenger number for the carpool lane during holiday gridlock, her uncomfortably round, open mouth pressed to the glass like a tank-cleaning fish.

Another cop jogs over to assist Baby Cop. “What the fucking hell—what’s wrong with her?” The new cop slaps the glass. “Lady? Lady! ”

A paramedic sprints over and shines a flashlight in her eyes. “She’s not responsive!”

A second paramedic, two more cops, and a fireman—we’ve got fucking firemen now—swarm the car, and another fireman runs over with a window breaker—

“Stop!” Dodi shrieks, clicking the fob buttons madly. She punches the panic button, the lock button, and finally the unlock button. A cop yanks open the door and Willow topples out onto the asphalt. The paramedics pounce.

“She’s cold and clammy! I can’t find a pulse!”

All hell breaks loose, but to one side, Baby Cop hasn’t moved an inch.

“You,” he says, looking right at me. “You sick pervert .” His voice rings out and heads turn to look. He takes one step toward me and another, arms bulldogged around his vest and hands hovering near his belt. “Where were you going to leave this one, huh? Sitting on a swing making daisy chains?” He jerks his chin toward the playground behind Dodi’s complex.

Preposterous. It’s the middle of winter.

“Or on the steps over there, scattering bread for the pigeons?”

I sigh.

“Or maybe sitting on that bench there,” Baby Cop continues, pointing, “a white hot chocolate in her hands, her skates in a bag on the ground and two tickets to the Santa Skate for Tots in her pocket, waiting for her date to pick her up.”

My mouth falls open. He gets it .

He gets the happy stories I was trying to create, the Life After Grant I was giving his emancipated prisoners. Una down by the river, bundled warm and perched on a rug to admire the view of the glittering downtown, with a bottle of champagne, a bouquet of red roses, and an engagement ring sparkling on her finger, waiting for her new fiancé to come back from his phone call to announce the news to his parents.

Tari, perched in a wheelchair, a tensor bandage around her ankle, a pair of dance shoes in her lap and a nightclub’s stamp on the back of her hand.

Katrin, waiting in arrivals with a printed itinerary in her pocket and a big sparkling sign saying WELCOME HOME .

David, perched on Santa’s knee, Christmas movie tickets in one pocket and a wrapped present in another, a gift for his significant other—an apartment key—

And so many others. Rich, interesting lives for all of them, from A to V. Well, from B to U. Poor Anastasia. And Verity—Dodi was a terrible influence.

Everyone’s staring at me. The paramedics have abandoned the doll, the firemen form a ring, and half a dozen cops creep close like a pack of wolves circling.

And there’s Dodi, eyes wide, mouth as round as Willow’s.

When I look at her, I know I have my own rich, interesting life waiting for me.

I summon my best serial killer smile. “Get out of my head.”

He pounces. I’m pinned to a cruiser in an instant, being patted down and mashed against the metal body of the car. I taste blood on my lip.

“Pete. Pete!”

It’s a familiar voice. Officer Stubbs? I can’t move my head. Handcuffs ratchet tight around my wrists.

“What—No! That’s my car!” Dodi is shrieking at the same fireman who tried to smash a window. A cop hears this and now Dodi is pinned to the hood of the cruiser next to me.

“A bit extreme, Pete,” Stubbs’s voice rings out.

“It’s him !” Pete snarls.

“Public mischief, Pete! That’s the best-case scenario!”

“He’s going to have fucking decapitated heads in his freezer. Skeletons buried under his patio. I know it! ”

“Jesus…the Homicide Department thought it was funny …no one was laughing at you, but then you started—”

He presses his big paw on top of my head and ducks me down and into the back of the cruiser. My face collides with the sticky vinyl of the back seat, and the door slams behind me. I wriggle around and sit up. Outside, Pete’s yelling, spittle flying out of his mouth, and Officer Stubbs watches him, coolly, eyebrows raised. She catches my eye.

I think I see the slightest flicker of a smile.

The opposite door opens and Dodi tumbles in like a rag doll.

“We need a lawyer,” Dodi grunts into the seat. She rolls over and looks up at me, panting.

“We’ve got the best one in town, and he’s taking us on pro bono.”

She frowns in confusion and then gasps. “Shit!”

I follow her line of sight through my window to Laura perched on Dodi’s balcony on the third floor, Cat’s little face peeking up over the railing.

“Shit, shit, shit !” Dodi snarls. This affects Cat .

But for the first time in years, I’m not afraid of anything. No background noise of anxiety and dread. Nothing.

“Trust me,” I tell her.

By now she’s learned to. She falls still and waits patiently for my lead.

I peer out the window and mouth, We’ll call! I don’t know if Laura sees that, but she waves and takes Cat by the shoulders, doting grandma on babysitting duty for the night while Mom and Dad go on a proper date. It’s so hard to make time for date night, but so important.

Dodi catches my eye.

I lean forward and whisper in her ear. “You wanted to play serial killer games with me,” I remind her.

She bites her lip. “I don’t mind the handcuffs,” she says in a low voice, slipping into the fantasy with me. “I prefer zip ties, but in a pinch…” She’s…turned on, the little freak. Her lipstick is smudged, her eyeliner smeared, her hair tousled, spilling all over the seat where she lies.

I still haven’t explained everything to her. I haven’t told her about the house with the built-in grandparents, or the school down the street, or the fact that she gets to keep our Las Vegas winnings for our consulting business seed money—I’ve got twelve clients lined up for us out of the gate, all of whom have HR departments that will be interested to learn how my spreadsheets can help them remove expensive assholes from payroll. There’s so much to tell her. We’re set.

It’s time for that kiss.

Officer Stubbs climbs in behind the wheel and, after one long look in the rearview mirror at me, presses a button on the dash. “Jailhouse Rock” fills the cruiser at full blast. We round a corner and Dodi slides across the slippery seat and into me. We can’t hold each other, but we don’t need to. She wriggles up and latches her mouth onto mine in a wet slide, a warm twist—and another sudden corner topples us into an even better position. Baby Cop can slap the fucking shatterproof plastic window between us all he fucking wants, I’m never coming up for air.

This is it: happily ever fucking after.