The Night Before(70)

I feel my mouth hang open. Wide-open as I stare at Gabe. His face has changed again; this time he looks smug.

“How do you know that? And why…”

He takes one hand off the wheel and holds it to face me.

“Stop,” he says. “I’ll explain everything when we get to the house.”

I’m scared now. Scared like I’ve never been scared in my life. I’m so scared, I start to cry. “Gabe…”

I feel his frustration turn to anger.

“You’ve been getting notes. Threats. Haven’t you?” he asks. “Joe told me.”

“How does Joe know?”

“I didn’t ask—does it matter? You’ve been getting them—threats, right?”

I nod. “I got one tonight. It was in my purse.”

“And how do you think it got there?” he asks.

I think about the note and the conversation I had with Jonathan Fielding right before Gabe hit him with the door. How he suggested Rosie was the one leaving me the notes. And how I turned it right back on him. He was angry at the accusation, but now my mind is flooded with every moment I spent with him. I think about the list of wrong things. His fake name. The car. The story. The route he took to the bar and his bare apartment. The wedding ring in the medicine cabinet, hidden in a bottle of pills. He had excuses for everything, except for one thing—and it glares at me now. Why was he like a dog with a bone when it came to Mitch Adler’s murder?

I hear his voice turn lurid. I want to fuck you again.

But I couldn’t make sense of these things. I make mountains from molehills but then don’t see danger when it’s standing in front of me. When it’s stroking my face and kissing my neck.

I am suddenly grateful.

“Who is he?” I ask. “Why did he want to hurt me?”

Gabe shakes his head now. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to find out. I knew he wasn’t real—Jonathan Fields. I looked into him for Joe. He was worried. And then I just wanted to get you out of there. Get you someplace safe.”

“Rosie…” I start to say, suddenly picturing her and Joe standing in their kitchen, watching me leave last night. The fear in Rosie’s forced smile. The hope in Joe’s eyes—or so I thought. Maybe I misread that too. Maybe he was fearful as well.

“I’ve been following you all night. You and this man.”

A chill runs through me. He says the word “man” with disgust, like I’ve been spending time with a monster posing as a man.

“I told them I’d get you and keep you safe. The police won’t look for you at my house. Not right away at least.”

“Why would the police be looking for me?” Nothing is making sense. My mind spins and spins.

“Because,” he says. And then he pauses as though it should be obvious. “Laura…” he continues. There is nothing but dismay on my face, so he lays it out. “He’s bleeding on the floor. He’s been struck in the head. And you were the last person seen with him. Given the past, I think it’s only a matter of time before they put the pieces together.”

“But he’ll tell them, won’t he? He’ll tell them that I was with him when the doorbell rang.”

“Will he? He lost his chance to hurt you one way. Now he has another.”

Tears soak my skin. Gabe is right. If Jonathan Fielding was really out to punish me for what happened to Mitch Adler, he’ll lie now. He’ll tell them I assaulted him. Tried to kill him.

Maybe he’s already dead. Maybe I’ll have another murder to account for.

“It will never be over,” I manage to say through the tears. “What happened that night … to Mitch. To his family. It will never end, will it?”

Gabe turns the wheel. We are at his house now, pulling into the driveway.

He puts the car in park. Turns off the engine.

“Melissa’s traveling for work. It’ll be safe here,” he says.

I lean across the console and fall into his arms.

“It’s going to be okay now,” he says.

I don’t answer. I don’t know if I believe him.

A man found me. Lured me on a date. Wanted to hurt me. And I ignored every sign that appeared. I told him my darkest secrets. I slept with him. Christ. And now I will be a suspect in his assault. Or his murder. How can it possibly be okay?

Gabe rocks me back and forth.

“I always kept you safe and I always will,” he says. And I pull away, startled by his words.

“What do you mean?” I ask. Gabe was never my protector. It was always the other way around. From the first time I saw his brother hit him, it’s been me saving him. Me keeping him safe. Me keeping his secret from the world.

He looks at me, perplexed. “From my brother,” he says. “Remember? He used to follow you into the woods. Stalking you. Hunting you. He would come out of nowhere, pin you to the ground. Try to smother you. Or hit you. Or strangle you. Or put a knife to your throat. Just enough…” he says, then he pauses to reflect, and remember carefully. “Just enough,” he continues, “until you thought you were going to die. Only then would he let you go.”

Am I losing my mind? He is dead serious as he describes these events, only I was the one watching as his brother did these things to him. I was the one who saw the bruises on his neck. I was the one who found them in the fort that day, Rick on top of him, a knife to Gabe’s throat. I was the one who picked up a branch from a tree and struck Rick in the head. I told him I would kill him if he did it again. I told him, and he believed me because he knew it was true. I had more anger inside me than an army of men. He left for military school a few weeks later. Gabe said he’d asked to go and I had always thought it was because of me. Because I had put the fear of God into him.