Deadly Accountability

             Deadly Accountability

Laurel sat paralyzed looking at her laptop screen, her breath catching at the sight of the name staring back at her, right there in the middle of all her unread emails, NatLansing@rtu.com. Why would Nathan Lansing be emailing her after 16 years. Just seeing his name was enough to transport her back to that beach, to that day in Wilmington, North Carolina. She was 24 years old and looking into the eyes of the man she thought she would be spending the rest of her life with. She just had the best summer interning for a law firm there and meeting Nathan, a restaurant and club owner who had swept her off her feet, the charismatic man who made her so happy until that very last day when her world would be shattered. She was so excited to share the news about the job offer she had gotten from the law firm which meant she could relocate down there and they could start a life together. When she told him his face was far from happy, it seemed to darken and then he said three devastating words that ripped her heart out and altered the way she would trust any man in the future. He said, “I am married” and as she managed to stand there feeling like someone had just kicked the life out of her, he started to explain. He said he and Patty, that was his wife, had two boys and they were in the process of a divorce when she got sick. They put the divorce on hold while she recuperated and even though she is improving the doctors say it will be at least another six months before she is well enough to be on her own. He then said to Laurel that her moving down here right now might really complicate things. She stared at him, she couldn’t believe what was happening and what he was saying, she didn’t even know this man that was standing in front of her. It wasn’t just what he was saying, it was the way he was saying it. The warm and affectionate man she had fallen in love with was gone and a cold stranger was standing before her giving a cold, clinical explanation that didn’t even make sense. He seemed completely detached from her and their relationship, in just a matter of minutes he changed completely right in front of her eyes. She was consumed with sadness, shock and confusion and it had almost suffocated her but something changed as she listened to this stranger he had become. The longer he talked the more she realized he was nothing more than a cheating husband and she had been his mistress for the last three months and that was it. He never loved her or had plans to have a future with her, he was lying about everything and that is when the anger and disgust moved in and it pushed her pain aside, at least for the time being. She let him talk a little while longer, let him spew his lies and when he finished he ended with a doozy, “I know we will be together soon because we are meant to be together.” She was so disgusted she just wanted to be away from him and away from that place as fast as she could. She pulled her hands out of his and simply said, “We are through, do not ever contact me again.” She turned and walked away with her dignity intact but her soul and her heart were crushed, destroyed.

Laurel didn’t take that job in Wilmington but she found a better one in Boston and after a couple of pretty serious setbacks she began a very big life there but she had a hole in her heart from Nathan and sadly it never healed. She could never trust a man enough to take a chance like that again. All her relationships were very superficial, just affairs that she controlled very carefully and she ended before any real intimacy developed. She could never deal with that kind of pain again, which meant there would be no marriage or children for Laurel. She always seemed happy to everyone that knew her and she used to wonder if she was happy because she really couldn’t remember what real happiness was, she had been faking it for so long.

She poured a stiff drink, sat down and opened the email.

Laurel,

    I know you said never to contact you but I thought since it has been 16 years I would give it a shot. This is going to sound so lame but I am sorry, so sorry for what I did to you. I lied to you the whole time and that was just horrible of me and I needed to tell you I am sorry. The guilt I have felt all these years has been eating me up inside ever since the day you walked off that beach. I really needed to tell you how I felt and hope that you can forgive me and maybe we can get together and talk things out and get some real closure. I hope you are happy and well.

                               Nathan

Guilt, he has been feeling guilty! It had been eating him up inside, he just had to tell me and he is so sorry, she jumped to her feet as rage coursed through her veins. She was infuriated at how he had come back and opened all her wounds, wounds she had spent years healing and now she would have to do it all over again because he needed to cleanse his soul. She threw her glass against the wall and watched it smash into thousands of pieces. It felt good to listen to the smashing of the glass, it seemed to be louder than his apologies that she kept hearing in her head over and over again. She stared at the shards of glass that were lying all over the floor and she thought how they looked like her heart felt that day, how everything she went through after that fifteen minutes of life altering hell that he inflicted on her while his life didn’t change at all. How dare he, she told him not to contact her and now she has to sit here and hurt and remember and deal with it all again, I don’t think so! He did all that for himself, to release himself from his guilt, well good for him but whilst doing that he had thrown her world back into a state of chaos! She just wanted the peace back that she had worked so hard to get, the peace she had just moments ago before she opened that damn email. She could feel the fury as she remembered what those three months cost her and realizing it cost him nothing, well it was time to pay up Nathan, it was time to be held accountable.

She was at her laptop, her fingers were trembling as she typed his name, Nathan Lansing, immediately his address, the names of his two restaurants and the name of his second wife came up. She couldn’t even have a relationship because of him yet he was on his second wife. She put the addresses into her phone then she packed a bag and she headed to her car. It would take her about twelve hours or so and then she would be back in that beautiful beach community.

She pulled into town and stopped at the first motel she could find, got cleaned up and made sure she looked really good, then went to his house and waited. Within thirty minutes he came out and got in his car and she followed him to one of his restaurants. He got out of his truck and she pulled in next to him, got out and just stood there.

He looked up as he went to close his door and he saw her, he just stood there staring.

“Hello Nathan.” She said very calmly and sweetly.

“Hi Laurel, my God, I am in shock right now.” He said. “How are you, what are you doing here?”

“I guess those are appropriate questions to ask me since we haven’t seen each other in sixteen years, I am here on business and I thought I would stop in and say hello. How are you?”

“I am good, Laurel. Did you get my email?” He asked very nervously, he was actually starting to sweat.

“I am great, why are you so nervous, Nathan, I am just here to say hello, you aren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Sorry, it’s my wife, Jessica she is really jealous, she questions everything that’s all.” He said running his fingers through his hair, she remembered how this was his signature move he did whenever he was nervous or stressed.

“Is she on her way down here or something?” Laurel asked.

“No, it is just me here this morning.” He said looking at her with a look that she seemed to remember, he was getting ready to turn on the charm.

“Okay, would you like to invite me in for a cup of coffee, Nathan?” She said.

Then Nathan finally realized there was no reason for him to be nervous, they were all alone there.

“Yes, of course, sorry.” He said grabbing his briefcase and heading up to the door as he walked in behind her. “You look great Laurel, really beautiful.”

“Thank you, Nathan.”

She followed him into his office, sat next to him and when she did her little cream mini skirt moved up exposing just about all of her legs.

“Ooops, sorry, that wasn’t appropriate, I will go sit over there.” She said getting her things together but he put his hand on her arm stopping her from getting up.

“Please don’t, sit here with me.” He said as he started to play with her hair as he looked at her the way he used to.

“Okay, but why don’t you close your office door.” She said to him smiling seductively.

He smiled, caressed her cheek then walked over and closed and locked the door. When he turned around he saw something he never expected to see, she was standing behind the chair holding a gun and it was pointed right at him.

“What the hell are you doing Laurel?” Nathan asked as the color drained from his face.

“What the hell am I doing? I told you not to contact me ever again, everything was just fine but no, you had to go stir everything up, making me relive the suffering all over again. Why, huh? Why couldn’t you just leave me be?”

“I didn’t know you would still be upset after all these years.” Nathan really didn’t know what to say to her.

“Please sit down and shut up Nathan, the more you speak the angrier I am getting.”

Nathan sat, his body was trembling as she watched him and he didn’t know what to do.

“Nathan I can see your little pea brain working, don’t even try to rush me and take the gun because I will get a shot off before you reach me and you will be rendered useless. So, why don’t you just listen to why I am here? I realized when you wrote to me that I suffered terribly because of what you did but you didn’t suffer at all. Then you write to me, opening up all my wounds and here I am again, suffering and once again you are just fine. This is really warped because you are the one that caused all the pain, you are the liar and the cheat. You used me, told me huge lies, you destroyed my ability to ever trust another man again. When I was on that beach with you that last day was the happiest of my life, still is, even now. I was so excited to share with you the news about the job offer and as soon as you heard that, you had to shut me down, destroy my dream. You went on with your life, you were just fine but when we walked away from you that day my life was screwed up and it stayed that way for a long time. It was…”

“Wait, what do you mean, we?” Nathan asked.

“I was pregnant, I found out just a few days later and the thought of carrying your child made my skin crawl, so I had an abortion. That decision pushed me right over the edge and I was committed to a psychiatric facility because I had a complete nervous breakdown. That’s right Nathan, you had screwed me up so badly I had to spend months in a psychiatric hospital getting my head straightened out while you played the happy family man and probably moved on to your next affair. I haven’t had a single serious relationship with a man because I am petrified of them shattering me the way you did. Let’s tally it up, shall we? An abortion which was horrible and still haunts me, months in a psych ward, my ability to trust men-gone, which means marriage and children are dreams I will never acquire. Now, how did it affect you, hmmm, well you went home to your wife and your two sons and you lived happily ever after until you got bored and you moved on to Jessica, wife number two. I have to tell you, it really makes me sick.”

“Laurel, please listen to me.” Nathan’s voice was shaking, he was petrified.

“Nathan, shut up. I will not listen to you, you are a lying snake. You hurt people and you don’t give it a second thought.”

“I loved you Laurel, I really loved you.” Nathan was in a full blown panic.

“Loved me? You told me that we would be together once your poor sick wife was better, then there was sixteen years of silence and here we are. I was nothing but a summer fling for you and you know what, you are starting to make me nauseous, I think it’s time to end this and hold you accountable for all your lies and manipulations.”

Nathan lunged forward and Laurel was ready, he did exactly what she wanted him to do. She shot twice as he fell against the desk then he slid to the floor, his body twitching and jerking. Blood was pouring out of his chest and stomach as she just watched him and then she calmly leaned down and checked him for a pulse. She found none so she continued her plan and tore at her clothes while making herself cry, smudging her makeup and throwing things around the office. She wiped down the gun then she remembered he was left handed when she wrapped his hand around the grip and positioned his finger on the trigger before adding her own set of prints to the gun and then she let it fall to the floor. 

She called 911 and as she screamed into the phone for help, her performance was Oscar worthy, it was so believable because in her mind she did what was right and she had no regrets, he had to be held accountable and that was that. She dropped the phone and started sobbing, the adrenaline was running through her body while she waited for the authorities to arrive. Then she heard a commotion outside and she heard the sound of doors opening and footsteps approaching. She braced herself as the police entered with their guns drawn and they instructed her to put her hands up as a female officer helped her to her feet. They took her away from the scene of the crime and she told them the harrowing story of her encounter with her old friend Nathan and she told that story through tears while shaking from the shock of it all.

Her years as a criminal lawyer had prepared her just perfectly for this situation. She knew exactly what to do to protect herself and how to convince them everything happened just the way she said it did, it was almost too easy. The gun was his, he had given it to her that summer for protection and she had it in her glovebox. It had been put away for years and it hadn’t been used until that fateful moment. As far as they were concerned Nathan had the gun all this time, he used it for protection and he had it with him and he used it to scare her when she wasn’t giving into his advances as he hoped she would. Then she had the email where he apologized, hoping they could see each other and get some closure. Then as word got out that Nathan Lansing was shot by a woman claiming he had been assaulting her, things got even better for her, a number of women started coming forward and volunteering to be witnesses. So many women had quite a bit to say about Nathan’s predatory behavior, it was poetic justice and it was meant to be. His apology was insincere and it came way too late but it was because of his apology that he was finally held accountable.

Laurel went from victim to vigilante and in the process sacrificed her morals and her humanity. The absence of remorse, the cold and calculated way she called this murder an act of accountability showed this was nothing more than revenge. The irony was Laurel felt Nathan needed to be held accountable but who would be holding Laurel accountable for her actions?

                     The End