Threats and Regrets

          “I’ve got a plan,” Tim told his wife, leaning forward with elbows on the table, “but you’re not gonna like it.”

Hell, he himself didn’t like it. But, if they and, more importantly, their baby girl, stayed on the cliff’s edge any longer, the next breeze would blow them over.

           Anastasia rubbed her upper arms. “I can’t imagine how it could be worse than losing the house.”

Fortunately, the layoffs that had imposed this threat—“Unfortunate, but necessary,” their boss had said, though Tim, Anastasia, and everyone else affected knew that they amounted to nothing more than another bureaucrat choosing, not forced, to upend people’s lives for a few extra bucks—had offered one possible out: With no office to go to, he had gotten to see what their neighbor did during the day, and obtain proof.

           Forcing a breath into stiff lungs, he pulled his phone from his pocket, cued up said proof, and turned the screen toward Anastasia.  

Seeing Parker and his “lady friend” enter the house and pass into the bedroom he shared with Leia, he had aimed the camera at the chamber’s window. Parker closed the curtains; they remained as such for about twenty minutes, through which Tim now fast forwarded. Then, they parted, revealing a shirtless Parker and, behind him, atop his rumpled comforter, his partner in crime. She looked, Tim had noticed, far different from when she’d come in: Her shoulders sagged, her face the color of unripe corn, her eyes dull. Apparently, home wrecking really took it out of a girl.  

Parker said something to her. With what seemed a herculean effort, she rose and headed for the door. The camera followed her as she trudged out of the house, to her red Kia Rio. It also caught her plates, which Tim had run through an online database, just in case he needed backup and could convince her to cooperate.

Parker was an idiot, he thought now, as he had when he’d shot the footage. How did he think that he wouldn’t get caught when he made it so obvious?

           But that didn’t matter, he reminded himself. Only what he would do with it mattered now.

           “I swear, some of these men need a permanent chastity belt,” Anastasia said, shaking her head. “But what’s that got to do with—“

           “He’s got money, Anastasia. Lots, judging by the size of his house.”

           Anastasia’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. You’re not seriously saying—“

           “It’s the only way. You wanna be out on the streets? You want Glenda out on the streets?”

           Anastasia pressed her lips together, gaze dropping. “There’s gotta be another way.”

           “Then, by all means, tell it to me.”

           Anastasia rubbed her arms, gaze darting from one end of the room to the other. Finally, she said, “Maybe we could sell the furniture?”

           “Come on, Annie; we both know that’s not gonna be enough.” Most of it, they’d bought from garage sales. More bodies than theirs had thinned the couch’s corduroy upholstery; the coffee table had lost part of a leg, the affected corner propped up by a couple of Anastasia’s dog-eared romance paperbacks; and the dining table and chairs didn’t even match. The only decent pieces, they’d bought for Glenda’s room, and they couldn’t spare those. None of which he needed to explain to Anastasia.

           “We can’t do this, either,” she insisted. “Pathetic as he is, it’s not our business, and I’m not gonna stick my nose into it just because we had some bum luck.”

           But it wouldn’t be just because they’d had “bum luck.” Parker deserved some of the blame, too. If he hadn’t cheated, he wouldn’t have ended up in this predicament to begin with.

           As if reading his mind, Anastasia added, “And it’s not just Parker. He loses money, that’s gonna affect Leia, too. Poor woman’s already going through enough, whether she knows it or not.”

           He hadn’t thought about that. He wished that Anastasia hadn’t, either—that would make this even harder.

           “Plus,” she continued, “it’s illegal. You could end up in prison.”

           That, at least, he could invalidate: “You think Parker’s gonna cut off his nose to spite his face? You know what kind of creep he is; he’ll wanna keep it hush-hush, and he can’t do that if he reports me.”

           She sighed as one would at a salesman who refused to take, “No,” for an answer. “All right, fine, but it’s still wrong. We’ve gotta find another way.”

           Before he could reply, Glenda wailed. It was his turn to tend to her, so he rose and headed to her room, where he scooped her out of her bassinet. Finding her diaper odorless, he determined that she must want food.

He returned to the kitchen, warmed up a bottle, and took it to her. As he watched her plush pink lips suck gratefully, his heart twisted. This little human needed him, them, to keep a roof over her head and food in her belly. If Anastasia couldn’t recognize her as their top priority, he would just have to act as such on his own.

*         *         *

           He waited until Leia went out and then headed over to the hulking gray Victorian he thought far too big for just two people. As he climbed the wraparound porch’s steep steps, sweat tickled his spine, and his heart thundered. He took a difficult breath and rang the bell. Chimes similar to those of a church organ but somehow eerie, perverted, sounded from inside. Footsteps. One of the dark oak double-doors opened, and Parker greeted him with a smile. “Hi, Tim. Can I help you?”

           “We need to talk. Can I come in?”

           Parker’s face fell as he backed away, allowing Tim to enter. Everything about the room, from the cherry wainscoting to the Queen Anne couches and coffee and end tables to the black steel typewriter on one of the latter, looked as if stolen from the era of the home’s construction. “Something wrong?” he asked, shutting the door behind him.

“You could say that.”

He gestured for Tim to take a seat on one of the couches. Tim did so, surprised that it didn’t crumble to dust beneath him.

           Parker took a breath. “Well, first things first. Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?”

           “No, thanks.” He nodded at the other couch. “Have a seat.”

           Parker did so.

           Tim steeled his shoulders and said, “I saw you with Krista Vandergrift the other day.”

           Redness crept up Parker’s cheeks. “I don’t appreciate being spied on, Timothy.”

           “I wasn’t spying. I was just outside, and I happened to see—“

           “So you want me to tell Leia. Is that it?”

           “You don’t have to,” he said, looking at him with conviction he didn’t feel, “as long as you’re willing to give a little.”

           Parker’s glare sharpened. “Are you threatening me?”

           “I wouldn’t be doing this if we weren’t on our last legs. But we need to look out for our daughter.”

           “I don’t care about your daughter, Withers. She’s not my responsibility.”

           “But she’s mine,” he countered, hitching his chin out, “and I’ve gotta do everything I can to protect her.”

           A vein protruded in Parker’s forehead; his skull looked about to explode. “You know what? Go ahead and tell her. You’re not gonna get the reaction you think you will.”

           Bluffing? Tim wondered. Or had he misunderstood their relationship?

           Only one way to find out: “Do you guys, like, have an open marriage or something?”       “Why don’t you ask Leia and find out for yourself?”

           No, definitely not bluffing. His tone was too calm; his gaze, too steady.

           He leaned back, feeling as if the world had started trying to fling him off. Stupid, he chided himself. All that, only to end up right back where he started, with the added bonus of two new enemies who may very well tell Anastasia that he’d defied her.

           Foiling his plans to attempt to prevent that, the doors opened, and Leia walked in. She looked at them as one would someone who had purposely smacked themselves on the head. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

           Parker looked at him and gestured at his wife. “Tell her.”

           The phone in the next room rang. “Go ahead,” Parker ordered, jumping to his feet, and then stalked off to answer the call.

           “Tell me what?” Leia demanded when he’d left.

           Tim rose and shoved his hands into his pockets, examining the grain of the dark cherry floors. “I saw Parker with another woman. If you didn’t know …I’m sorry.”

           Leia’s face hardened. “I’m not an idiot, Tim. I know what he is.”

           “All right, then, sorry to bother you,” he said, cheeks burning.

Before Parker could return to lambaste him, he made a beeline for the doors.

*         *         *

           Still struggling and failing to find a way to stay afloat, he didn’t feel like socializing. But Jayden had promised “crazy” news, so he’d dragged himself here, to Kendra’s Café, and allowed Jayden to buy him a cup of black coffee. Jayden sipped his drink—cappuccino, extra whipped cream—placed the cup back on the pizza box-sized oak table, and said, “You said the woman you saw your neighbor with was Krista Vandergrift, right? Tall; thin; blue eyes; long, dark hair?”

           “Yeah, that’s her. Why?”

           “She’s dead.”

           Tim nearly toppled over backwards. With a mouth that felt as if stuffed with gauze, he stuttered, “Are…are you sure?” A stupid question—the medical examiner tasked with her autopsy would damn well know her identity.

           “Yeah, it’s her,” he said. He took another sip and replaced the cup. “Twenty-six years old, no known health issues. Weird, right?”

Parker. Had Parker done this? If so, why? Had Chandler’s revelation angered Leia after all—had she acted like she knew not because she did, but because she thought her and Parker’s squabbles none of his business? Had the frustration at having his life blown up put Parker on the war path? Had he blamed Krista, taken it out on her? That would make it Tim’s fault, all Tim’s fault. How could he live with himself then?  

           “And it gets weirder,” Jayden said. “You know what I found when I did the autopsy?”

           He shook his head, bile surging into his throat.

           “Nothing. No injuries, no disease, no drugs in her system. It’s like her heart just stopped.”

           “That doesn’t make sense,” Tim thought aloud. “Twenty-six-year-olds don’t just drop dead for no reason.”

           “Not usually,” he admitted, “although it does happen.” He finished his drink. “Anyway, just thought you’d wanna know.”

           “Yeah. Thanks, Jayden.”

           Thanks for making my life even weirder.

*         *         *

           The house’s silence hit him like a freight train. Every muscle tense, he called out to Anastasia. She didn’t answer.

           His heart plunged.

           Sure that he would find a nightmare, he sprinted to Glenda’s room. He found her napping in her bassinet, her little chest rising and falling.

           He darted to the master bedroom. His stomach twisted. Anastasia sat on the bed, skin birch-white, lusterless eyes dragged down by heavy bags that had not been there when he’d left half an hour ago.

           “Oh my God, Annie, what happened?”

           “He attacked me,” she said, slurring words as flat as a bee’s buzz.

           Tim’s heart stopped. “Who attacked you?”

           She nodded in the direction of Parker’s house. “I know you threatened him.” She said this, too, without inflection—it scared him more than any fury ever could.

           “We’ve gotta call the police,” he said.

           “I’m not talkin’ to them…I need a nap.”

           Tim’s brows rose. “You wanna nap at a time—“

           “Leamme alone.” With that, she lay down and closed her eyes.

           He wanted to storm over to Parker’s house and make him pay. But Parker could overpower him, and then he might come to finish Anastasia off out of spite. If he intended to get revenge, he would have to do it smartly. And that would require more careful thought than his current mental state allowed.

           So he waited, alternately pacing across the living room and tending to Glenda, who seemed to sense the tension in the air. Three hours dragged past. Anastasia didn’t emerge.

           He didn’t want to bother her, but he had to make sure that she was okay. She could always go back to sleep afterwards.

           He found her lying on the bed, eyes closed, flesh foam-white. Breath leaving him, he ran to her. Placed two trembling fingers on her neck. Prayed. Nothing.

           He melted, a scream that curdled his own blood barreling through his lips. Tears rushed down his cheeks.

           Healthy. Perfectly healthy, and only twenty-nine. What could have hit her so hard, so suddenly? A virus? A stroke? A heart attack? An aneurysm? Had her exhaustion foretold it? Should he have insisted that, if she didn’t want to talk to police, she at least see a doctor? Could he have saved her then?

           Or had something much darker come into play—something proven by the disturbing connections his racing mind had started making?

           Whichever explanation proved the case would forever haunt him.  

*         *         *

           Jayden emerged from the autopsy room the following day with a frown that carved deep parentheses beside his lips. His eyes flashed like those of a wounded animal.

           Though still certain that he didn’t want to know, Tim asked, “What’d you find?”

Jayden shifted, a vein in his neck twitching. “I don’t know how to tell you this, man. It’s freakin’ weird.”

 “Well, I’ve got a feeling it’s never gonna get any easier to hear, so just tell me.”

“All right.” He took a breath. “Nothing on the tox screen, nothing on her physical exam, no signs of injury. It’s like…like her heart just stopped.”

           Tim shivered, struck by a chill from which he would probably never get warm. He wanted to scream, to cry, to pound the floor until his knuckles shattered. None of it would do the situation justice. So he just stood there, staring at the wall, mind replaying words whose meaning he had failed to realize, until now.

           I know what he is.