CHAPTER 20
“Don’t worry about it, babe.” That’s what Sam tells me after I inform her about the missing purse. “I already know that. If it was important, I would have taken it with us.”
We’re in her room, she smoking by the window, me nervously perched on the edge of the bed.
“And you’re positive there’s nothing incriminating in it?” I ask.
“Positive,” Sam says. “Now get some sleep.”
There’s so much more I should be asking. What did she do with my bloody clothes? Why did she let me snap like that in the park? Was I so violent and unhinged that it summoned that brief glimpse of Him at Pine Cottage? All remain unsaid. Even if I asked, I know Sam wouldn’t answer me.
So I leave, heading to the kitchen for a Xanax and grape soda chaser before lying down on the sofa, ready for another sleepless night. To my surprise, I do manage to drift off. I’m too exhausted to fight it.
Yet my slumber is brief, interrupted by a nightmare of Lisa, of all people. She’s standing in the middle of Pine Cottage, blood gushing from her slit wrists. In her hands is Sam’s purse, getting splashed with gore.
You forgot this, Quincy, she says.
I awake with a start, sitting up on the sofa, limbs flailing. Although the entire apartment is silent, I sense the reverberations of an echo in the living room. A scream, probably, bursting from my mouth. A minute passes in which I wait for someone to inevitably wake up. Surely Jeff and Sam heard it. Or maybe I didn’t scream after all. Maybe it was just in the dream.
Outside the window, the night sky is quickly thinning. Dawn’s on its way. I know I should try to get more sleep, that I’ll collapse soon without it. But my nerves are a sparking jumble. The only way to calm them is to go back to the park and see if the purse is still there.
I tiptoe into the bedroom, relieved to find Jeff fully asleep, snoring lightly. Quickly, I wrap myself in running clothes. I then slip fingerless gloves onto my hands to hide the abrasions that roll over my knuckles, already beginning to scab.
Once outside, I cross the blocks to the park at a dead sprint. I blast over Central Park West, crossing against the light, making an approaching cab slow down to avoid hitting me. The driver honks. I ignore him. In fact, I ignore everything as I fly to the spot where the purse had been knocked from my hands. The same spot where I had beaten a man so much his face resembled a rotting apple.
But now that man is gone. So is the purse. They’ve been replaced by police—a dozen officers milling around a wide square of yellow police tape. It looks like a murder scene. The kind you see on cop shows. Officers search the taped-off area, conferring with each other, sipping coffee from steaming paper cups.
I hang back, jogging in place. Despite the hour, several other onlookers are also there, standing in the blue-gray dawn.
“What happened?” I ask one of them, an older woman with an equally geriatric-looking dog.
“Guy got attacked. Beat real bad.”
“That’s awful,” I say, hoping I sound appropriately sincere. “Will he be okay?”
“One of those cops says he’s in a coma.” She practically whispers the word, putting a scandalous spin on it. “City’s full of sickos.”
Inside, I feel a thorn bush of emotions, tangled and jagged. There’s joy that the man is still alive, that I haven’t killed him after all. Relief that his coma means he can’t talk to the police just yet. Guilt for being so relieved.
And worry. That above all else. Worry about the purse, which could have been found by the police. Or stolen. Or dragged into the thicket by the coyotes that sometimes, inexplicably, find their way to the park. It doesn’t matter what happened to it. As long as it remains out of our possession, that purse has the potential to tie me to the beating. My prints are all over it.
Which is why I come home with my mouth set in a grim scowl. Jeff is awake when I slip through the front door, standing in the kitchen in a T-shirt and boxers.
“Quincy? What are you doing?”
“I went for a jog,” I say.
“At this hour? The sun’s not even up.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Jeff peers at me through puffy eyes, the lingering fog of sleep hovering around him. He scratches his head. He scratches his crotch. He says, “Is everything okay? This isn’t like you, Quinn.”
“I’m fine,” I say, clearly not. My body feels hollow, as if my insides have been scraped out by the ice cream scooper I use to drop batter into muffin tins. “Just fine.”
“Is this about last night?”
I freeze in front of him. Just for a moment. Wondering what, if anything, he heard last night. That I’m keeping a secret from him at all makes me quiver with guilt. That he could possibly know about it only makes it worse.
“Me having to go to Chicago,” he says.
I exhale. Slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion.
“Of course not.”
“You seemed pretty annoyed about it. Believe me, I am. I don’t love the idea of leaving you alone with Sam.”
“We’ll be fine,” I say.
Jeff squints slightly, frowning just so. The perfect picture of concern. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
“Yes,” I say. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because you were out jogging before six,” Jeff says. “And because you just found out that Lisa Milner was murdered and that there are no suspects.”
“Which is why I couldn’t sleep. Which led to the jogging.”
“But you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
I force a smile, trembling from the effort. “Of course.”
Jeff pulls me into a hug. He’s warm and soft and smells faintly of sweat and fabric softener from the sheets. I try to hug him back, but can’t. I’m undeserving of such affection.
Later, I make him breakfast while he gets ready for work. We eat in silence, me hiding my injured hand under a dish towel or on my lap while Jeff leafs through The New York Times. I take furtive peeks at each turning page, positive I’ll see an article about the man in the park even though I know it’s too early. My crime was past their deadline. That particular hell will have to wait until tomorrow’s edition.
As soon as Jeff leaves, I pull the key from around my neck and open my secret kitchen drawer. The pen Sam stole in the cafe is there. I pick it up and scrawl a single word across my wrist.
SURVIVOR.
Then I hop into the shower, forcing myself not to blink as I watch the water smear the ink away.
Sam and I don’t talk.
We bake.
Our tasks are well-defined. Apple tarte tatin with caramel sauce for me. Sugar cookies for Sam. Our work stations are laid out on separate ends of the kitchen, like opposing sides in a war sharing a common front. While I make the crust for the tarte, I keep checking my hands for signs of blood, certain I’ll find crimson stains across my palms. All I see is flesh turned puffy and pink from being washed too many times.
“I know you’re having second thoughts,” Sam says.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“We did the right thing.”
“Did we?”
“Yes.”
I’ve started on the Honeycrisp apples, my hands trembling slightly. I stare at the red-yellow apple skins, which fall in long, drooping spirals. My hope is that if I concentrate on them enough Sam will stop talking. It doesn’t work.
“Going to the police now won’t make things right again,” she says. “No matter how much you want it to.”
It’s not that I want to go to the police. I think I have to. I know from Jeff’s work that it’s always better for a criminal to come forward rather than get caught. Cops have at least a grudging respect for those who confess. So do judges.
“We should tell Coop,” I say.
“Are you out of your Goddamn mind?”
“He might be able to help us.”
“He’s still a cop,” Sam says.
“He’s my friend. He would understand.”
At least I hope he would. He’s said many times that he’d do anything to protect me. Is that the truth, or is there a limit to Coop’s loyalty? After all, he made that promise to the Quincy he thinks he knows, not the one who exists lately. I’m not sure it would still apply to the Quincy who’s already taken two Xanax since returning from the park this morning. Or the Quincy who steals shiny objects just so she can see her reflection in them. Or the Quincy who pummels a man until he’s comatose.
“Let it drop, babe,” Sam says. “We’re good. We got away. It’s over.”
“And you’re absolutely certain there was nothing in that purse that could lead to us?” I ask for what’s probably the fiftieth time.
“I’m positive,” Sam says. “Chill out.”
Yet an hour later, my phone rings as I’m pulling the tarte tatin from the oven. I place the tarte on the counter, tear off an oven mitt and grab the phone. Answering it brings a woman’s voice to my ear.
“May I speak to Miss Quincy Carpenter?”
“This is Quincy,” I say.
“Miss Carpenter, I’m Detective Carmen Hernandez with the NYPD.”
Fear freezes me—a sudden, numbing chill. How I manage to keep hold of the phone is a mystery. The fact I can still speak is a minor miracle.
“How can I help you, detective?”
Hearing this, Sam whirls away from the counter, a large mixing bowl hugged to her stomach.
“I was wondering if you had time to come to the station today,” Detective Hernandez says.
I only half-listen to the rest of what she has to say. The deep freeze of fear has made its way to my ears, blocking out a good deal of it. Yet the key words are clear. Like blows of a pickaxe against the ice.
Central Park. Purse. Questions. Lots of questions.
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Once I end the call, the frigid grip of fear subsides. Taking its place is the hot burn of despair. Trapped between cold and heat, I act accordingly, melting into a puddle on the kitchen floor.