Monday morning seemed almost normal. I had awoken early and gotten dressed for work like normal people. It hadn’t been easy to get my job back after being on leave for so long, but I let the manager’s sympathy play in my favor. He understood grief, having lost a wife the year before, and was willing to give me an equal position to the one I had vacated months before.
Of course, the morning of my arrival was filled with well wishes from my prior coworkers who all wanted to personally extend their condolences. There were the few thrill seekers bold enough to try to wiggle the lurid details of my father’s murder out of me, but they were given a quick brush off and sent on their way. I had no time for their ilk.
Settled into my office, I buried myself in work, putting my life back on track the only way I knew how. It seemed like the day crawled by with the tedious accounting of various local businesses laid out in front of me, but finally it was lunchtime and eventually, time to go home. I eagerly closed up my office and made my way downstairs to head home to my quiet little suburb where I could drown my discontent in a few glasses of merlot and go to bed.
“I need to talk to you.”
My head whirled around at the sound of his voice and my anger immediately flared. How dare he accost me in the parking garage of my employer. Something was going to have to be done. He was quick to note my anger, immediately trying to calm me.
“Hold on, spitfire. Don’t get all red in the face at me again. I am not here as your enemy.”
“What are you here as, then, Samuel? Or do you prefer to still go by Jack Knife?”
“I kind of liked being Jack Knife for a while, in all honestly. He was a real badass. Not quite the same lurking about town in an expensive suit and looking over my shoulder.”
“What do you want?”
“Look, I know about you and D. So does Jeremiah. Why do you think he was so keen to get what he could out of you before you completely clammed up on him? I came here as a friend. No matter what you think of me, I enjoyed the brief amount of time we had together.”
“Fucking. You mean you enjoyed fucking me.”
“I won’t deny that I did, but that’s not all there was to it. You were different than the others. I told you, I felt like I was with my own kind. Those girls there, you know how they are, who they are. Their only goal in life is to get by, make some money on their back or their knees and ease their pain with a string of sexual encounters, drugs and alcohol. Even though I knew you were fucking me for information, I also knew why and I admired you for it.”
“Cut the bullshit, Samuel. Why did you come here?”
“I don’t know if you are still involved with D, but you need to get a message to him. I’m a dead man. I can’t. They are going to make a move soon. Take this envelope home with you and read through it, then destroy it. It has everything you need to know in it. Make sure you warn D before it is too late.”
“You want to save him? Why?”
“Let’s just say you aren’t the only one who understands D and what he is really about. He’s not a monster, Janessa. No matter what anyone, even he, might tell you. He has a good heart. He’s hurt people, but I can’t name one person he ever hurt who didn’t deserve it, and he’s helped a lot more than he’s harmed.”
“Yeah? You think his best friend deserved it? Zach deserved to die?”
“Yes.”
“How can you say that?”
“Janessa, you weren’t there. Who do you think the witness to it was? Perhaps Zach didn’t deserve to die. Maybe no one really does, but I believe that we reap what we sow. Zach certainly did himself no favors and it was him or D. You can’t judge that kind of decision unless you are the one making it.”
“I have to go.”
“Here. Take this.”
He handed me the envelope and disappeared into a darker part of the garage as I climbed into my car and drove home. It was all I could do not to stop and read what was in the envelope before I got home, but I didn’t dare. I felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding like I’d never felt before and just needed to get somewhere to feel safe. Home was my only sanctuary at the moment.
Inside the house, I locked the doors and sat on the sofa, carefully opening the envelope and reading its contents. It took a few minutes for the information it contained to really sink in, but it finally did. I read it again and digested it as best I could. When I was done, I took a deep breath and stared into space. D was in trouble and I didn’t know how I could stop it, but I knew I had to try.