Take Me With You(110)

“Need a refill?” the waitress asks. She's been patient with me taking up this table. But that's what people do in diners, right? They either come for a quick meal, or respite from something, a place they can come to sit for a cheap escape.

“Sure.” I reach for the cup to hand it to her, but it's shaky. I've had too much caffeine and I'll keep on drinking. I feel resolute to do something, but it's one of two somethings and one is the one I want, the other is the one I should. We can go back to the quiet mornings under the California sun, when I'd read him books. Or the afternoons in the water, but this time it could be the beach instead of the lake. At night we could listen to music. Our world would be quiet, it would be just us and it wouldn't be so loud and full. And he could do what he wanted with me, because I'd let him. I'd let him devour every inch of me like I was the sweetest thing. Like I was the only thing that could curb his hunger.

Or I could do what the lives represented in the box in my bag demand—find him, ring his doorbell at night and when he answers, shoot him in the face. I'll walk away the way he does: into the night. There will be no discernible motive. No reason for the police to trace his murder to me.

Then I'll dump the box and the gun in the ocean. I'll find a motel and because I will have killed the only reason I had left to live, I'll take a bunch of pills and go to sleep.

Both somethings pull at me. They weigh equally and opposite, each making the other unfathomable. So that I am affixed to this spot, anchored by the choice I need to make. And when I can't think about that any longer, I replay the conversation that got me down to LA.



“What are you doing here?” Sheriff Ridgefield asks as he looks back over his shoulder into his house. During my research, I was able to figure out where he lives, in his and Sam's childhood home. It's the nicest house on the block, with a bright green lawn, and rose bushes.

“I need to talk to you,” I respond without shame or hesitation.

The high-pitched scream of a giggling child carries out the front door. Ridgefield looks back again, rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine.” He leans back and shouts to his wife that someone is here from work and he'll be back in a few minutes.

“You shouldn't be here. Is this about money?” It's insulting, that he'd think I'd be here for something so trivial.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I need to know where Sam is.”

He barks a mocking laugh. “What? Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“We are so close to being done with this. Why would you want to go to him?” A woman walks by with her poodle and waves at us, there's a curious look in her eyes. He smiles tightly and waves back. He leans in and hisses “Are you insane?”

“You are no one to judge me.”

He shakes his head. “I may have done something awful, but I didn't ask to be caught up in it. And you had your chance. You definitely didn't lie to protect me. You didn't even know me. You protected him or yourself, or I don't know who.”

“I didn't come here to discuss this. I just want to know where he is. At least point me in the right direction.”

“I don't know. He's dead to me.”

“So you expect me to believe a cop, who banished his dangerous brother out of town, isn't keeping some sort of tabs on him? I may not be well, but I'm not stupid, Sheriff.”

“I'm not going to lead you back to him.”

We stop at the corner of the block as we reach this impasse.

“What was your plan for me?” I ask him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Sam told me you said he should get out of town. That we should. But he left me. I know he didn't want to. It doesn't add up.”

“So that's what you want to find out? Why he left you? Christ, Vesper, let it go.”

I shake my head at his callous trivialization of my ordeal, but I don’t let it distract me. “You were going to let him take me. That's what he said. That you would have let us disappear. But then he left me. It doesn't make sense.”

“I…uh…what are you getting at, Ms. Rivers?” he asks, frustrated.

“I think I know why. Because it was the only way he could save me. You let him go. So that part was true. But there's no way you'd let him take me. My face was everywhere. I was a liability. If your brother was spotted with me, that would be too risky. I know he took me out into the woods to kill me. I could feel him agonizing over it. I could feel the barrel of the gun against my head.”

He can't even look at me now. It's all over his face. The guilt. I took a gamble, making the accusation. It was a hunch. I could have been wrong, but he doesn't have to say a word to convince me I'm right—that for all of Sam's wickedness, it was his cop brother who wanted me dead and it was Sam who risked everything so that I could live.

Sam knew the one way to keep me safe was to bring me out of the shadows and into the light. Once I was in the park ranger's office, I was too high profile to disappear again. Sam knew his own life might be destroyed in the process.

He let me go anyway.

“You need to go. I'm not leading you to him. You may think I'm the bad guy here, but this is to keep you safe.”