Jake
Jake walked up to Ashley as she sat on the concrete bench. The cemetery was empty now except for the two of them and a mostly quiet murder of crows. “You doing okay?” He slid his hand up her back and gave her a soft squeeze on the shoulder.
She nodded, wiping tears and faking a smile. “I’m okay. It was harder than I thought it would be.”
“Saying goodbye always is.”
She slapped her knees, “I’m a horrible person.”
“Why?”
“I guess…I mean, I can’t even say this out loud.” She whispered, “A part of me is relieved.”
Jake looked at her. He had an idea where her mind was but didn’t want to say it.
“You’re going to hate me,” she said.
“Not likely.”
“Well…” She appeared to be searching carefully for the words. “In my head I was planning all this divorce stuff, and lawyer visits, and splitting of assets. And don’t get me wrong, I did not want this.”
“I get it,” Jake replied. “That’s a terrible process to go through.”
“Yeah, but I’m a selfish bitch. I should not be thinking that. A man is dead, whether or not l loved him has nothing to do with that. I mean, I’d go through ten divorces to bring him back. You know what I’m saying?”
“Of course I do. The mind is a funny thing. We seek solace sometimes in the details and we look for positives within negatives. That’s the nature of life. It doesn’t make you a bad person. You can be sad for the death and relieved you don’t have to go through a long arduous process at the same time.”
“I guess it’s weird that I don’t feel worse. I feel like I should.”
Jake just nodded.
She switched her crossed legs, smoothed her black dress. “I remember seeing you at Cassie’s funeral. I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“No one did. All they did was say things they thought they were supposed to say, but none of it really meant anything. People don’t really mean anything. They just say things. They were probably worrying about their drive home. I’m sure there are people at every funeral thinking that stuff.”
“People did that to me today.” She wiped a tear. “Mike’s parents, they never really liked me anyway, and today they seemed so…I don’t know…fake. All that stuff they said seemed so fake to me.”
“They’re pretentious assholes.”
She laughed. “They probably think I killed him.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt,” he joked, but then took a more serious tone. “Did you see the cop watching us?”
“I tried not to pay attention, but it was in the back of my head the whole time.”
“He was looking for the proper mourning signs—as if everyone mourns exactly the same way.”
She sniffled. “I guess they know what to look for.”
“Screw them. They already cleared me. The gunshot residue test came back negative, they have nothing on us at all. Besides we know the truth.”
She turned to face him. “What is the truth?”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t just keep waiting for whoever is trying to kill us to finally catch us out of luck.” The gray sky rumbled with distant thunder.
He sighed. “Well, the good thing is that he doesn’t seem to be bothering us in populated areas. He’s opportunistic and takes his shots when no one is around to see him.”
“For now. He’s obviously a professional.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “and he’s missed us twice.”
“Which means he’s probably pissed off and more determined than ever.”
Jake looked up to the sky. It hadn’t started to rain yet, but it looked imminent. “It also means we’re a more formidable opponent than he considered.”
“That’s not more comforting,” she bristled. “It probably means we’re just full of dumb luck.”
“But it tells me something.”
Ashley shook her head. “It tells me our luck is going to run out.”
Jake pursed his lips. “Or his is.”
“Ha, that’s stupidly optimistic of you.”
Jake turned his palms up. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not really. And it’s just hard to believe coming from a guy who had a gun to his head a week ago.” She immediately changed the look on her face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Jake rolled his lips inward. “It’s a fair point.”
“I still shouldn’t have said it like that, though.”
“I knew what you meant.”
“I guess I know you did, you always do.” She stood up, wiping the last tear off her cheek. “That’s why I always liked you, Jake. You get me like no one ever did. It was hard when you stopped being my friend.”
“I never stopped being your friend. But I did what I had to do to save my relationship, and yours.”
She looked into his eyes, not a hard stare but a soft one that struggled to maintain steady. “I never wanted to be a source of anxiety for Cassie. She was my friend.”
Jake started strolling towards the car, waiting a beat for Ashley to catch up. “Cassie was a great person, but she was always a little insecure with you. Not with anyone else that I ever noticed, but with you.”
“There was a reason for it.”
“I know. But she always said how pretty you were, and how lucky Mike was. It was almost like a little test she was sending up there to see how I’d respond. She wasn’t dumb. She knew there was an attraction between us.”
“Even though we never acted on anything, I think it must have been painfully obvious to anyone around us that we had some connection.”
Jake knew she was right, but he didn’t want to admit it. He always felt bad that Cassie was jealous when he was around Ashley. It was something he didn’t even realize he was doing most of the time. But every once in a while he’d notice that he was gravitating toward Ashley over Cassie. It was ridiculous because Ashley was already married and he was engaged to Cassie and he loved her. It didn’t make sense how he could love two people at once. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
They reached Ashley’s Mazda and she tossed him the keys. “Here, I don’t want to drive.”
Jake was about to duck into the driver’s seat when he saw the man standing across the field beyond a frolicking murder of crows. He couldn’t be certain from this distance, but it sure looked like the character from the beach. He had a similar stance as he leaned against a similar car.
“What is it?” Ashley asked from inside the car.
Trying not to draw attention to the fact he might have seen the man, Jake casually got into the car. “Look across the field there, past that tall headstone where those crows are.”
Ashley scanned the scene. “I see him.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s our killer.”
She nodded slowly. “I think that’s the man from the hotel.”
He glanced around. “Is there another way out of this place?”
“I don’t think so.”
Jake let out a groan. “We have to go right past him. And there’s no one around.”
“What can we do?”
Just as Jake was formulating an idea, another funeral procession started to pull up toward the gates. The standing man flicked his cigarette into the grass, got into his car, and drove out of the cemetery gates ahead of the hearse that stopped near the entrance.
Jake thought about waiting for the line of cars to enter, but instead he sped after the man.
“What’re you doing?” Ashley asked.
“I’m going to follow him.”
“Why?”
“To turn the tables a bit and see how he reacts.” He took the turn onto the road so fast the tires groaned in protest. Heads of people parking near the gates turned to look at them as they sped off in chase.
“I don’t like this,” Ashley protested as they caught up to the dark blue sedan.
Jake pressed so close to the rear of the sedan that he could have bumped it with one more nudge of the gas pedal. Instead, he backed off just a bit but maintained close contact.
At first, the driver ahead did nothing in response, just maintained his course. But then he cut the wheel hard and turned down a side road. Jake was undeterred and followed.
As their surroundings started to grow more desolate, Jake had second thoughts. He was probably driving right into a trap. Not to mention terrible feelings about repeating history started to punch his mind like an angry boxer. The steering wheel was getting fatter, more slippery, and impossible to grasp. He stomped the brakes and let the lead car streak away into the thick pine forest.
The brake lights on the car ahead flashed as the back end reared up. Jake quickly pulled a U-turn and watched the rearview mirror. The car didn’t swing around and follow them. Jake had no idea if he’d accomplished anything, but he wasn’t second guessing himself either.
After a few seconds, his breathing returned to normal. He jumped when Ashley touched his hand on the gear shifter. She gave him a reassuring smile, but said nothing. She didn’t have to.