Keep Quiet(79)
We’re over!
Jake tried to put Pam’s voice out of his mind, but couldn’t. He looked through the windshield at the traffic light, but all he saw was her tears. His fingers curled around the plastic steering wheel, but all he could feel was the warmth of her hand under his palm. He had taken that touch for granted. He was trying to wrap his mind around the fact that she had cheated on him, but now it was beginning to sink in that she could really be in love with Dave, and that he had lost his wife forever.
A horn blared behind him, and Jake came out of his reverie, checking the rearview mirror. A massive construction truck was flashing its lights for him to move out of the fast lane. He hit the gas, powered through a yellow light, and reached for his phone, pressing the buttons on-the-fly to call the office.
“Hey, how are you doing?” Amy picked up instantly.
“I’m fine, thanks. Amy, I’m not going to be back to the office for a couple of hours. Can you deal?”
“Totally.” Amy paused. “But what’s going on? You seem so—”
“I thought I’d work at home. I got nothing done this morning and I don’t need any more interruptions.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Hold the fort and I’ll give you a call as soon as I know what my schedule is. Take care.”
Jake turned left off of Concordia Boulevard, got home in no time, and hit the house running, letting the door slam closed behind him. Moose waddled out of the kitchen, his fluffy tail wagging slowly.
“Hey buddy,” Jake called to the dog, then hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his tie flying. He reached the second-floor landing, slid out of his jacket, and hurried into his home office, where he tossed his jacket onto the couch, plopped down in his desk chair, and hit the mouse to power up his computer.
He opened his email, watched his incoming pile onto the screen, and scanned the countless client emails for Pam’s name. Moose trundled into the office, panting from the effort of going up the stairs, in his characteristic huh-huh-huh. The golden lumbered over to the desk, and Jake palmed his big head before the dog could start his nudging routine.
Jake found Pam’s email, scrolled to the attachments, and clicked OPEN. There was a list of ten photos and he opened the first one. The photo must have been taken from the door to the apartment, and it showed scenes of a tiny galley kitchen next to a small living room, with an old black futon and a wooden coffee table. There was no other furniture in the room, nor were there any books or newspapers. Two windows on the far wall had broken blinds and between them, oddly, was a poster series of tennis player Anna Kornikova.
Jake opened the next few photos, scenes of Voloshin’s apartment, messy and nondescript. The following few photos were of a massive black monitor affixed to the wall and surrounded by a floor-to-ceiling entertainment center, also in black, with plastic video games shoved every which way in its crammed shelves. There was a photo of large black speakers and consoles that lined the top shelf, mixed with an array of weird pornographic figurines.
Jake shuddered. He opened the next photo, which was of a black laminate desk cluttered with Red Bull cans, cellophane Tastykake wrappers, and bags with multicolored Skittles strewn amid a dark tangle of joysticks, headsets with microphones, controllers, wires, a mouse, and a large silver laptop.
Jake eyed the laptop, wondering if it had contained the pictures of him and Ryan on Pike Road. Either way, he assumed the killer had taken the laptop. The right edge of the photograph showed a doorjamb that must have led to a bedroom, but that wasn’t what caught Jake’s eye. What he noticed was the brownish cork edge of a bulletin board on the wall, which must’ve been the one that Pam mentioned.
Jake clicked open the next photograph and sat back in his seat, trying to absorb the shock. It showed the bulletin board full of curling photos of Kathleen, which looked like they had been printed from the computer; Kathleen at work, company picnics, and softball games, hitting the ball, eating a chili hot dog, or smiling with her arm around her mother, who sported an identical grin. Jake cringed at one of the mother-daughter photos, in which both Kathleen and her mother were wearing matching bunny ears.
“I’m so sorry,” he heard himself say, realizing he said it aloud only because Moose nudged his leg. Jake could never begin to imagine the depths of that mother’s pain at losing her daughter, and he knew he could never forgive himself for his responsibility for Kathleen’s death. Everything that had happened since the hit-and-run followed as inevitably as one domino knocking down another, except that the dominoes were the people he loved the most in the world and the mess was their life as a family.
Jake told himself to get a grip. He scanned the photos again to see if he’d missed anything, but he hadn’t. It only confirmed that Voloshin had a crush on Kathleen and that both mother and daughter trusted him as a friend, or they never would’ve posed for the pictures.
Jake clicked on the last attachment and opened the photo. It showed the left-hand side of the bulletin board, and oddly, it was different from the right-hand side. The pictures were darker, printouts of photos taken at night, and they showed Kathleen running alone or with the track team down Pike Road. In the background was the corporate center and the road that came off of Pike, Dolomite Road. A few of them had thumbtacks in the corner and photos underneath, as if they were a series. One of the photos was taken at twilight in the summertime, with the girls running back toward the school in sweaty Chasers singlets and skimpy shorts, a sight that must’ve given Voloshin quite a thrill.