Never Knowing

SARA,

  THE PRESSURE IS BAD. I NEED YOU.

  JOHN

  The walls of my office closed in as I stared at my screen. Behind me Evan was talking, but I couldn’t make sense of the words. My body felt hot all over, my legs heavy with dread.

  Evan said, “What’s wrong?”

  “John just e-mailed.”

  Evan spun his chair around, asked me something else I didn’t catch. I opened the window above my desk, needing air, but I still felt like I was suffocating. Billy, I had to get in touch with Billy. I forwarded the e-mail and he called right away to say the RCMP would try to find out where John had sent it from, but I was sure he’d used a public computer.

  When I showed Evan the e-mail he told me to just ignore it. I tried to focus on the wedding site, but I couldn’t get John’s words out of my head.

  I said, “What if he kills someone?”

  “The police have warnings out to all the campsites. But he’s going to end up killing you if you keep communicating with him, Sara.” He scrolled through another page on the Web site. “Come on, this will take your mind off it. See, I changed the format and added our horoscopes and links to a map—there’s a little quiz too. And people can RSVP right online.”

  “That’s cool—and thanks for trying to distract me. But not communicating with John is what’s pushing him over the edge.”

  “So let him get pissed off. I’m here, the house is wired, and we have cops patrolling by. If you’re going to talk to him at all, that’s what you should tell him—that the police know he’s been contacting you and they’ll catch him if he steps foot on the island again.”

  “That might make him go totally ballistic.”

  Evan turned from the screen. “What do you want to do, Sara?”

  “I just want this to all go away.”

  “Then let the police do their job.”

  “But they can only do so much and I can’t stand not knowing what he’s doing.”

  “Sara, if you talk to him, I’m going to be really pissed off.”

  “Now you’re threatening me? That’s not fair.”

  “It’s not fair that I have to worry about you. You said you were done.”

  “But he’s not done. We can change our numbers—I can change them a million times—but as long as he’s out there he’s going to find new ways to contact me.”

  Evan’s face was stony. “So what do you want to do?”

  “I think—I think maybe I should try to meet with him again. If—”

  “No, Sara. You can’t do it.”

  “Evan, just think about it. Please. I don’t want to do it either—it’s terrifying. But we have to catch him. It’s the only way this is ever going to end. How are we going to be able to have a wedding with this hanging over us?”

  “If you do this, I don’t want any part of it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m not sitting in that truck, wondering if you’re getting yourself killed. You’re risking Ally too, you know.”

  “That’s so unfair—I’m trying to protect Ally. She’s not going to be safe until he’s caught.”

  “If you do this, she should come to the lodge with me.”

  “Ally’s staying here.”

  “So you want her in town where he can snatch her from school?”

  “She’s safer here with police protection than up at the lodge. The drive there is deserted, there are only like three policemen in the entire town—and he knows where the lodge is, Evan. If anything happened up there—”

  “I could protect her better up there.”

  “Billy can protect her—” I pulled back as I realized what I was about to say.

  “So you think Billy can take better care of Ally?”

  “He’s a cop, Evan.”

  “I don’t care what he is, if you do this I’m taking Ally to the lodge or I’m telling your parents and she can stay there.”

  “You’re not taking my daughter anywhere.”

  “Your daughter? That’s what it comes down to? She’s not mine so I don’t have any say in what happens to her?”

  “Evan, that’s not what I meant!”

  He closed down his computer and headed for the office door.

  “Do what you want, Sara. You will anyway.”

  * * *

  That night Evan slept on the couch. I tossed and turned for hours, still arguing with him in my head, but by midnight most of my anger had burned off. I hated that he was mad at me. I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Why couldn’t Evan see that meeting with John was the best chance—like Billy said, probably the only chance—of getting him out of our lives?

  In the dark I turned over everything we’d said. My daughter? Evan was more of a father than she’d ever had in her life. Did I really think because she wasn’t biologically his that he shouldn’t have a say in what happens to her? Now I realized that subconsciously I’d always considered Evan’s opinions second when it came to Ally.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to cut John completely off. I’d done everything the police had asked, endured all of John’s calls to the point where I was a walking panic attack, finally agreed to meet him—and he still hadn’t been caught. He’d said he wouldn’t hurt anyone as long as I talked to him, then killed Danielle even after I pulled off to the side of a highway to answer his call. And how did I know he wouldn’t have attacked her even if he had reached me in Victoria? If I made the slightest misstep he used it as an excuse to do what he was going to do anyway. Now the stakes were higher. He knew he could use Ally as leverage—if I was willing to lie to protect her, he might wonder what else I’d be willing to do for her.

  I could’ve explained my feelings to Evan better, but why was he being so dominating? I ran back through the fight and this time tried to put myself in his shoes. Then I got it. Evan was scared. And he had every right to be. How would I feel if he was going to do something that terrified me but I couldn’t stop him? The last thing I wanted was a marriage like my parents’—Mom in the kitchen and Dad calling the shots—but Evan wasn’t bossing me around; he was just worried.

  I crept downstairs and into the living room. Evan was on his back, one arm thrown up over his head. I knelt by his side and admired his features in the moonlight. I love his high cheekbones and the way his upper lip is slightly fuller on one side. His hair was messed up, making him look even more boyish. I moved my face close to his.

  “What are you doing?” he murmured.

  “Sucking up.”

  He grunted in the dark and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me up and on top of him so my head rested on his chest.

  He said, “You weren’t very nice.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But you were being all alpha-male guy.”

  “I am alpha male. You just need to accept that.” I heard the smile in his voice.

  He grunted into my neck. I grunted back. It had been a long time since we’d done that. I smiled against his cheek. His left hand crept down and grabbed my butt.

  “You know, you could make it up to me.…”

  I giggled into his shoulder.

  “Evan?”

  “Yeah, baby.”

  “I won’t meet him, okay?”

  “Good, because I have to go back to the lodge in the morning and I don’t want to worry about you.”

  “First thing in the morning, I’ll change all the phone numbers.”

  He pulled me in tight and gave me a kiss, then our bodies relaxed against each other, my head on his shoulder, his arms loose around my back as he drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  The next morning after Evan left I changed my cell and my landline. I gave the police the new numbers. My family would wonder why I changed them, so I just told them that since the article had come out we’d had a lot of newspapers and wackos calling. When I talked to Melanie she said, “I heard Evan was home.”

  “Yeah, for a bit.”

  “What’d he think o
f the CD?”

  “Um…” Before I could make up an excuse Melanie said, “You’re unbelievable. Some sister,” and hung up.

  When I tried to call her back and apologize, her phone just rang. Then my guilt turned to anger—I didn’t need this crap. I had a serial killer messing with my life. Okay, so she didn’t know that, but she could just wait for once.

  * * *

  Since I changed my numbers the calls from John have stopped. The first couple of days were hard—I checked my locks and the alarm constantly—but when nothing happened I started to relax. Evan was right, I should have done this a long time ago. No more jumping up, no more checking my cell every ten seconds. I haven’t watched the news or Googled anything. I’m even getting caught up with some projects—yesterday I returned a ton of e-mail quotes. It’s like I was addicted to some horrible drug, and now that I’m sober I can’t believe how much it had taken over my life. But this is it. I’ve quit for good.

  SESSION SIXTEEN

  You know what really bugs me? From the outside looking in, everyone thinks Evan is the calm rational one and I’m the crazy one. I even go along with it. I think, God, I shouldn’t have flipped out like that, why do I always overreact so much? It’s not until later when I trace it back to try to figure out why I blew up that I realize Evan tossed a lit match at my feet when he already knew I was standing in a pool of gasoline.

  Like this morning. I’m trying to get Ally ready for school and she’s going through all her clothes trying to decide what to wear. She finally picks a red shirt, but then she’s worried her headband doesn’t match, so she has to go through all her clothes again. Then Moose, who decided this is a great time to get some sort of bacterial infection that requires antibiotics three times a day, will not eat anything that has a pill in it no matter how cleverly disguised. So I’m chasing him around the kitchen, trying to get the thing down his throat, while Ally’s screaming, “You’re hurting him!” Food is landing on me, on the dog, on the kid, and on the floor. Then Evan, my sweet, kind, rational fiancé, walks in, looks at the mess, and says, “Jeez, I hope you’re cleaning that up.”

  Are you kidding me?

  So of course I lose it. “Get the hell off my back, Evan. If it bothers you so much, clean it up yourself.” Then he storms outside, pissed at me for yelling at him. He didn’t talk to me for an hour, which isn’t like him at all. I can’t stand it when someone gives me the silent treatment, so I end up apologizing, then later I’m like, wait a minute—why didn’t he apologize for picking the worst time in the world to get on my case?

  We talked about it right before I came here and he said he was sorry for his comment, but I know he’s still pissed off. Then on the way here I remembered what you said last session, that Evan might be feeling resentful of all the time I’m spending on the John situation. I didn’t think so then because we’d been getting along great, but this week something changed, and now everything’s changed. No one’s having much fun right now—except maybe John.

  * * *

  The day after our last appointment I got a call from Sandy.

  “Julia would like to talk to you. She tried to call you but you’ve changed your numbers.”

  “What does she want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know, Sara.” She sounded annoyed. “She just asked me to give you her home number.” I could imagine how much Sandy loved playing messenger. The thought made me smile.

  “Thanks. I’ll call her right now.” But I didn’t. Instead I made a cup of coffee, then sat at the table with the phone in front of me. The woman could make me feel horrible and I had enough of that going on. Maybe I shouldn’t call her back at all. Give her a taste of her own medicine. I lasted two minutes.

  She answered on the first ring.

  “Sandy said you wanted to talk to me?”

  “I’d like to see you in person so we can talk privately.”

  “Oh. Okay. I, um, can’t really go anywhere today, I have to pick up Ally soon, and—”

  “Tomorrow’s fine. What time can you be here?”

  “Maybe around eleven?”

  “I’ll see you then.” She hung up, leaving me with no explanation and the urge to call her back and tell her I wasn’t coming. But there was no way I could do that, which pissed me off. She probably knew it too. That pissed me off even more.

  * * *

  Evan wasn’t keen about me driving all the way down to Victoria when we still didn’t know where John was, but he understood I had to find out why Julia had called. I promised I’d be careful, then proceeded to speculate about a million possible reasons she might want to see me, until he finally said, “Sara, you’ll find out tomorrow. Go to bed.”

  “But why do you think she—”

  “I have no idea. Now go to bed. Please.”

  I did, but I stayed awake for hours, wondering what to wear, how to speak. This visit felt so different. She’d asked to see me. She wanted to see me.

  * * *

  The next morning I headed straight down to Victoria after I dropped Ally off at school. I was almost a half hour early, so I grabbed a coffee from a shop near Julia’s house, remembered there’s a public beach close to her place, and drove down that way. As I passed by her house I noticed a woman coming out the side door. She ran her hand through her hair.

  No way.

  I pulled into a neighbor’s driveway, then watched in my rearview mirror as Sandy crossed the street and got into an unmarked police car. What was she doing in Victoria? She called yesterday and never mentioned it. Of course, I didn’t mention my upcoming visit either. After Sandy drove by I pulled out and continued to the beach. For twenty minutes or so I stared out at the ocean, sipping my coffee and thinking about what I’d just seen. They might’ve been going over the case, but the timing seemed odd.

  I drove back to Julia’s house. She smiled briefly as she answered my knock, her lips tight against her teeth. Even though it was the middle of June, she was dressed all in black in a long skirt and a sleeveless tunic. She looked pale and her bangs were a sharp line against her forehead. I smiled back and tried to make eye contact. See how harmless I am? How lovable? But her eyes flicked away as she ushered me in with a quick movement of her hand.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She didn’t offer anything else, just gestured for me to follow her to the living room. As we passed through an enormous kitchen with gleaming marble countertops and cherry cabinets, I spotted two mugs on the counter. I wondered if one had been for Sandy.

  The living room was more formal than my taste and as I eyed the white couch and matching love seat I tried to imagine Ally there. The Himalayan cat reclined on a leather ottoman in the middle of the room, glaring at me as it flicked its tail. I sat on the love seat, Julia perched on the couch in front of me and smoothed her skirt down her legs. She gazed out at the ocean for a long time before she spoke.

  “I heard you won’t talk to him anymore.”

  Where was she going with this?

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “You’re the only one who might be able to stop him.”

  My body tensed. “Would you want to talk to him?”

  “That’s different.”

  I felt bad for my comment and said, “Evan, my fiancé, we decided it’s too risky.”

  She looked hard at me. “I want you to meet with him, Sara. For me.”

  I gasped. “What?”

  She leaned forward. “You’re their only chance of catching him. If you don’t talk to him, he’s going to kill more people. He’s going to rape and kill another woman this summer.”

  We stared at each other. A pulse beat at the base of her throat. The cat leaped off the ottoman and stalked off.

  “That’s why Sandy was here today, isn’t it?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise and she sat back.

  “I saw her leaving, Julia. Did she tell you to say this stuff to me?”

  She said, “S
he didn’t tell me anything.”

  We held gazes. I knew she was lying, but she didn’t even blink.

  I said, “What about my life? What about my child?”

  Her hands shook in her lap. “If you turn your back on this, then you’re a murderer.”

  I stood up. “I’m leaving.”

  She followed me to the door. “It disgusted me that I had you inside me for nine months, it sickened me knowing you were out there in the world—that something of his lived.”

  Her words froze me at the door and I stared at her, waiting for the pain to hit, like when you cut yourself and first see the blood, but your mind doesn’t realize yet how badly you’ve been hurt.

  “But if you stop him,” she said, “it will have been worth it.”

  I wanted to tell her everything she was saying was unfair and cruel, but my throat was tight and my face hot as I tried not to cry. Then the anger left her face, her body sagged, and when she looked at me her eyes were desperate, defeated.

  “I can’t sleep. As long as he’s out there I’ll never be able to sleep.”

  I threw myself out the door, slamming it behind me, ran crying to the Cherokee, and jammed into reverse. I tried to call Evan as soon as I was back on the road, but he didn’t answer. After a few miles my hurt and anger had segued into guilt. Was she right? If I didn’t set up another meeting and John killed someone, was I a murderer?

  * * *

  Normally when I drive up the Malahat Highway from Victoria I take it slow and focus on the road—with one side a sheer drop and the other a rock wall, there’s no room for error—but today I was speeding around the corners, my hands gripping the wheel. When I reached the summit and started down the other side where the road opens back up into two lanes, I called Sandy.

  “That was low, even for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know damn well.” As I came too close to another car on a sharp bend I forced myself to slow down.

  “Did something go wrong?”

  “You can drop the act, Sandy. I saw you leave her house.”

  She was silent.