The Price You Pay

The man behind the large black desk finished talking. His crisp manner of speech had enraptured Emily from the beginning. As he stopped speaking, she felt it as an almost physical loss. He stared at her over gold-rimmed reading glasses, his pale green eyes peering out from a wrinkled and regal face.

“Say that last line again, please?” Emily said. She felt out of place in this office, high in this building she’d seen from afar nearly all her life but had never been inside, until today. The man, Mr. Reffenschall, looked back down at the leather folder he held with the spine propped against his desk. He cleared his throat, glanced up at her as if to ensure she was paying attention, then returned his gaze to the folder. 

“‘You owe me this,’” he said in a polished mid-Atlantic accent. He closed the folder, placed it on the desk, and folded his hands on top of it. Emily squirmed in her seat, picking at a rebellious bit of cuticle, thinking. 

“Are you sure it says Emily Broderick? I have a sister. Her name is—” 

“Yes, I am quite sure. I have been reading words since you were a young woman,” he said, an edge in his voice. He was losing patience with her, which was a bit of a theme in her life. Men losing patience with old, gray, fading Emily Broderick. “What is your answer, miss?” he asked, his words popping and hissing in her ears.

“How much money did you say?”

“Nine hundred fifty-eight thousand two hundred and one dollars and seventy-seven cents,” he said, without opening the folder. 

“And all I have to do is find this . . . this man and say those words to him?”

“And you must film his reaction, miss. Would you like me to read the instruction back to you? It’s really very simple. And I’m afraid you will have to decide soon, as I am a very busy man.”

Emily placed the edge of her finger in her mouth and bit absently at the cuticle. Mr. Reffenshall glared at her in thinly veiled disgust. It was a theme in her life. 

“It is the easiest— and probably the most— money you will ever make in your lifetime, Miss Broderick. Most people would jump at the opportunity.”

“I just— What did the man do? On that date? Do you know?”

“No, I do not know. My only function in this is to present you with your grandfather’s instructions. If you follow them as he has written in his will, I am then to pay you a total of nine hundred fifty-eight thousand two hundred and one dollars—”

“And seventy-seven cents,” Emily finished. 

Mr. Reffenshall smiled a wretched and humorless smile. “Correct.”

“Okay,” Emily said, wiping her wet finger on her tattered blue jeans. “I’ll do it.”

“Very good.” Mr. Reffenshall opened the leather folder and pulled out a small piece of paper. “The man’s name and address,” he said, standing up and leaning over the desk to hand her the paper. “Remember to record his reaction and then bring it back here. Then you’ll have the money in a matter of days. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Can you write down the words for me? I don’t remember them exactly. I want to get this right . . . for grandpa.” Emily stood up, very aware of the lawyer’s urge to get her out of his office. 

The old man smiled his terrible smile again and stepped out from behind the desk to usher her out of the lavish office. “Turn the paper over,” he said. “It’s all there. Two very simple, very short sentences. Now, come back when you have the recording. Goodbye now, Miss Broderick.”

Emily found herself just outside the office, close enough to the door to feel the waft of air as he shut it. She looked down at the paper and read the two-sentence script that she was supposed to say to a man she’d never seen before. Then she re-read it. 

“This way, ma’am,” the young female secretary said to Emily. “The elevators are this way.”

“Oh, right,” Emily said. She looked at the two people waiting in the reception area’s stylish leather chairs, noting their clothes and their skin and the way they looked at her. She looked down at her baggy black sweatshirt and holey blue jeans and worn running shoes and felt the hot breath of shame. It was a theme in her life.

She waited twenty minutes for the bus out of downtown. She spent the time waiting at the bus stop under the gunmetal gray skies running that number over and over in her head. Nearly one million dollars. She couldn’t wrap her head around how much money that really was. 

The bus came, and she used the transfer she’d bought earlier. She found a seat next to a woman with a halo of grey hair and a puffy faded blue jacket. Emily spent the bus ride thinking about the first things she would do with the money. It had only taken her 19 minutes to decide that she would do it. She would be crazy not to, she told herself a full minute before she got on the bus.

She got off the bus a few miles out of town and walked two long blocks to a small white house on a quiet street. She rang the doorbell and heard a dog barking somewhere inside the house. It was music to her ears. A moment later, the door opened. 

“What are you doing here?” the woman at the door said. 

“Hello, Francis,” Emily said. “Can I see her?” 

Francis sighed dramatically. “This is not what we agreed on,” she said, crowding the doorway. Emily could hear the rattle of the dog collar and excited little whines. 

“Please? I know it’s not what I said, but I had business downtown today, and I was passing by on my way home. I just couldn’t not stop.”

“Business downtown? Did you find a job?”

Emily almost said no automatically, but then she thought better of it. “Yes,” she said, smiling for the first time that day. “I did.”

“You did?” The disbelief in Francis’s voice was unapologetically apparent. “What is it?”

“I’ll be working for a lawyer. It’s just a temp job, but I think it will lead to better things. Can I please see her now?”

“I suppose so,” Francis said, stepping back from the door. A black and white border collie filled the vacated space immediately, jumping up to greet Emily, her tail wagging furiously. 

“Hey baby,” Emily said, bending down so the dog could lick her cheek. “How’s my Millie doing? Are you enjoying your time with Aunt Francis?”

“She is,” Francis said defensively.

“Can I play with her inside?” Emily asked, looking up at Francis. 

“You know better than to ask that,” Emily’s sister said. Emily nodded, expecting nothing less. It was a theme in her life. And she felt this one, at least, was deserved.

Emily took Millie for a walk around the block, telling her dog her plans. 

“We’re going to live together again,” Emily told the border collie. “I’ll be able to take care of you this time. I promise. And then I’ll be able to pay Francis back. And I’ll pay mom and dad back. And then we’ll go somewhere far away from here. Far away from this terrible place and the terrible memories. How does that sound?” 

Millie barked and wagged her tail in response.

“But I don’t want Francis to know about it until I have the money. So don’t you tell her, okay, Millie?” The dog barked again. Emily laughed. It had been a long time since she was able to be silly. 

Things were looking up. She was starting to realize that she would look back on this day as the day her life changed for the better. And seeing Millie was the icing on the cake. 

She had to take two different buses and walk over a mile to get to the man’s house. By the time she got there, her stomach was rumbling. It had been many hours since breakfast. She had begun to think that this was all some kind of big joke on her. A cosmic middle finger for all the wretched things she’d done in her life. But it didn’t make sense that someone would do that. The lawyer was legitimate. Of that, she was sure. And her grandpa had been very rich. Everyone knew that. She remembered good times with him when she was a kid, back before she started getting into trouble all the time. She hadn’t seen him in many years when he’d died a little over a month ago. 

She spotted the house and stayed up the street from it while she thought things over, chewing her cuticle as she did. Even if it was some big joke, what did she have to lose? She wasn’t breaking the law, speaking two measly sentences to the guy. So if the whole thing was legit, she would be rich. If it wasn’t, she would have lost nothing but a bit of time and an awkward encounter with a stranger. There was obviously some reason her grandpa wanted this done, so she would do it for him—a small act of penance.

She breathed deeply a few times, shook out her hands, and walked with purpose toward the house. She pulled her phone out as she neared the home. It was slightly larger than her sister’s house and a little more run down. The faded blue siding was chipped, and there were some bald spots on the A-frame roof. The lawn hadn’t been mowed for some time. There was an old Buick in the driveway that looked like it had been there for decades. 

Emily thumped up the wooden porch steps and knocked loudly on the door without meaning to. She heard shuffling inside. She looked down to hit record on the phone screen, then held the device at her side as if to hide it. Emily could feel her heartbeat behind her eyes. 

The door slowly opened to reveal a stooped old man, presumably around her grandpa’s age. “Yes?” he said, smiling slightly. “Can I help you?”

“I— Uh, uh,” Emily fumbled for the words. The appearance of this harmless old man was something she hadn’t anticipated. In truth, she didn’t know what she had expected, but this was far from it. 

“Are you alright, miss?” 

“Yes,” she blurted out. Then, “Reese Harbor, 1969, July 5th. You disgust me.” She sped through the words like a nervous young Girl Scout selling cookies. Once they were out, she looked down at the phone screen, making sure it was capturing his reaction. 

The man’s face fell, a grimace replacing his smile. His stoop suddenly seemed more pronounced. “So, today’s the day,” he said softly, speaking more to himself than to her. 

Emily said nothing. Just kept the camera pointed at this poor old man. 

“One second,” he said as he stepped away from the door, leaving it open as he did. He came back a moment later with his right arm held down at his side and behind his leg so Emily couldn’t see what he was holding. He stepped over the threshold with short, shuffling steps. Emily stepped back, unsure of how long she was supposed to record. The lawyer hadn’t said, and she never thought to ask.

The old man’s right hand shot up quickly, the knife blade scything through the air and winking wickedly in the diffuse afternoon sunlight. Emily reacted as quickly as she could, bringing her left hand up in defense. The tip of the knife slid into her palm easily, the pain at once intense and unbelievable as it pierced muscle, sliced tendon, and came out the back of her hand. She dropped the phone and made a small sound of surprise, backing away from the man. She tried to turn and run, but her feet got tangled up, and she fell down the three wooden steps, landing on the cement walkway with a painful thud. 

Emily spared the knife lodged in her hand— and the accompanying blood— a passing glance before peering back at the porch. The old man was gone. The front door stood open. She looked up and down the street, hoping for someone— anyone— that could help. A car moved far down the road, going the wrong direction. There were no pedestrians in sight. 

“He— help,” she said in a small voice, as if making sure it still worked. She stood up, grasping her left wrist with her right hand to staunch the blood flow, and pulled air into her lungs for a scream. 

“Hel—” her cry was interrupted by the crack of a gunshot. The air left her lungs as a bullet punched into her from behind. She stumbled forward, barely able to keep her balance.

Another gunshot sounded, and she ducked instinctively. Panic and shock fought for control as her vision blurred and narrowed to a pinpoint. She could feel the blood leaving her body in great runnels. The knife in her hand was momentarily forgotten. 

Another gunshot sounded, this one not so loud. 

Emily ran.

The man woke her gently and gave her time to get her bearings. The hospital room was all it needed to be and nothing more. Pale walls. Bland art. She tried to clear her head, then looked at the man. He was younger than her, but not by much. 

“I’m Detective Bettinger,” he said. “May I sit?”

Emily nodded. 

“Do you remember what happened, Miss Broderick?”

Emily nodded again. 

“Can you walk me through it?” 

She drank some water from a cup next to her bed and then told him everything from the lawyer to the knife and the gunshots. That’s where things got hazy. 

“A neighbor let you in. You banged on his door, screaming for help. He called 911. Do you remember the paramedics?”

“No,” Emily said, looking at her lap.

“Well, you’d lost a lot of blood. They said you tried to refuse painkillers.”

Emily looked up at that. “I did?” 

“Not that they tried to give you any, but yes. Apparently, you kept saying ‘No opioids’ over and over.” 

Emily looked back at her lap. “I am an addict. Or, I used to be.”

“Once an addict, always an addict, right?” Bettinger asked. 

Emily nodded. 

“Well, they had to give you some after surgery. Gunshots hurt. So do stab wounds. But I wouldn’t sweat it. I think you’ll do alright. Especially with the money you got coming.”

“That was real?” Emily asked, looking the detective in the eyes.

“It was. Not that your grandpa thought you would actually live to get it.”

“What do you mean? He knew what that man was going to do to me?”

“It seems that way. Or at least he hoped that’s what would happen. He and that man that shot you, Mr. Risak, seem to have quite the history. Years of nasty letters, death threats, and promises for revenge exchanged between the two. Did you know about any of that?”

“No. My grandpa was always very nice to me.”

“Well, right up until death, he was, anyway,’ Bettinger said, shaking his head. 

“But why would he want that man to kill me? I don’t understand.”

“You sure about that? You can’t think of any reason he would want to harm you?”

Emily thought about it for more than a minute but came up with nothing. 

“About ten years ago, you and a man named Sly Slattery paid your grandfather a visit. You don’t remember that?”

Emily’s eyes went wide with recollection. 

“I thought you would remember eventually. Dope’s a hell of a drug.”

“But we only stole some of his stuff. I never even saw him that night. We were in and out quickly. Only taking a few hundred dollars worth of stuff . . . I think.”

“You never saw him that night. But your boyfriend Slattery sure did. Tied him up and had a little fun. Waterboarded him. Threatened him. Used your name while he was doing it, too, apparently.”

“Oh, God,” Emily said. “Oh no. How did I— How did I not know? How did I not remember?” Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt like a monster. 

“What were you on? Back then?”

“Everything,” she spat, crying in earnest. “Oxy, fentanyl, heroin, meth. Whatever I could get my hands on. But what does it matter? It was still me. Drugs didn’t make those decisions; I did.”

“Well, that’s half true anyway,” Bettinger said. “So, far as I can tell, that’s why your grandpa went to all that trouble. But I suppose he still gave you a chance. He could have hired some scumbag to trick you into it for a lot less than a million dollars. But he didn’t. The money’s legit. And it’s yours.”

“How do you know all this? Did you talk to the lawyer?”

“Sure did. You told me his name. You don’t remember that, either?”

“No, I don’t.” 

“Well, he’s some lawyer, I’ll tell you that. It looks like he had instructions to dispose of your grandfather’s notes and instructions about all this, but he put it off. Too busy, apparently.” Bettinger shook his head, an unbelieving look on his face. 

Emily stared into the bedspread. 

“Anyway,” Bettinger said after a long moment. “I just wanted to tell you the news—the good with the bad. Don’t let this drive you back to the life. Take the money and make a better life for yourself. Pay your debts. Turn over a new leaf. That’s my advice, anyway. Not that you asked.”

“Thank you, detective,” she said, still staring at the blanket. “I just want to see my dog.”