Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

the Bersa out of the safe and put my belongings together. By the time he pulls up in a sleek, long car, I’ve checked out of the hotel and am sitting on a bench out front, enjoying the sunshine and waiting for him.

He tucks my suitcase into the trunk without comment. It is clear I’m not leaving anything behind. I think I catch the hint of a questioning look, but it is gone so quickly, I figure it is possible I am wrong.

We leave the city on a ribbon of highway he tells me is called the Sea-to-Sky. “It could also be called the sea-to-ski, I guess, but it’s prettier this way.”

And it is pretty. Raw young mountains, snow-kissed peaks, a picturesque sinewy oceanside that laps at the edges of the scene for what seems like a disproportionate amount of the way. Then the highway heads up into the mountains. A couple of times, my ears pop. It is lovely and I feel myself lulled, the feeling of being out of control, like a little kid, and the grown-ups are taking you on vacation; that is how I feel.

At Squamish, he has his meeting in a low office building with a nondescript façade. I find a café nearby and take my laptop with me and do some more research, trying the dark web this time and seeing if I can turn anything up that might shed some light. Still nothing. No matter how you slice it, this is a straight-up, straight-shooting, well-liked guy. He has, as he’d told me, an ex-wife. But that doesn’t look complicated, either. From all accounts, they split amicably. Facebook photos indicate mutual respect and shared parenting of two teenaged daughters. Even the daughters look well adjusted and as though they are flourishing. It would have been maddening if it weren’t all so lovely and perfect. Maybe it is both.

I am so focused on what I am doing, I don’t see him come in. As promised, he has not been long, but I hadn’t expected him quite so quickly.

“You looked so intense,” he observes. “As though what you were contemplating was life and death.”

I opt for candor of a sort. “I was Googling you.”

“Me? Whatever for?”

“I just wondered if we had … I dunno? The right stuff.” I let my voice trail off suggestively.

He drops into the chair opposite mine.

“Right for what?” he says with a credible air of innocence.

“Exactly,” I say, deliberately obtuse.

“And what did you conclude?”

“No conclusion,” I say tartly. “And here we both are.”

“Exactly,” he says in just the way I had moments before. And the smile he gives me goes right to his eyes. “And what would I find if I were to Google you?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I am an enigma.”

One eyebrow shoots up, but he doesn’t say anything.

“A cipher,” I add. “It might be that I don’t exist at all.”

“A cipher. An enigma. Those are interesting ways to describe oneself. And, if that is the case, how is it that this cipheric—”

“I don’t think that’s a word.”

“—enigmatic woman should come into my life? What message does that bring?”

“That would be an arrogant way to frame things,” I say, smiling brightly and hoping he doesn’t see how close to the mark he’s come.

To my relief, he laughs.

“It would, wouldn’t it? Of course. Everything is about me!”

“But all our worlds are, aren’t they?”

“I guess they are. Never mind. Let’s get back on the road. We’ve still got nearly an hour of driving before dinner.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “I’m not hungry at all.”

“You could be by the time we get there, right?”

“It could happen.”

The big black car slips along the highway soundlessly for a while before I chance the question I’ve been framing. It seems a risk worth taking.

“If someone were going to kill you, who would it be?” I say, as conversationally as I can manage.

He looks at me quickly before pulling his eyes back to the road.

“That’s a weird question.”

“Right?”

He laughs. I’m not sure if I hear an uneasy note, though I listen closely for it.

“Okay,” he says. “You first.”

“Me first what?”

“Kill you. Who?”

“Me?” I say. He’s taken me by surprise. He does that a lot. “Well … I’d have to think.”

“That’s what I’m doing. My turning it around was a stall tactic.”

“Ah.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Go ahead and answer.”

“Well … there might be too many to count,” I say truthfully. “But they wouldn’t know my name.”

“Well, it would seem you are safe then.”

“Yes, that’s right. It would seem so.”

“So no one in particular?” he asks. “Your ex?”

“No. He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t realize you were a widow.”

“That’s okay.” My response is almost automatic. In this moment almost not remembering the man who had been my husband. Something about an accident. Something about a hospital bed. I put it from my mind. “Sometimes I barely remember myself.”

“Children?”

“No,” I say, turning my head quickly, something near my heart I don’t want him to see. I watch the darkening scenery for a while. We are powering through a forest. The trees going by so fast, they are a solid blur of brown and green.

We are quiet for a while. A companionable enough silence. Though when he speaks, it is like there has been no interruption.

“Honestly, I don’t think there is anyone who would want me dead. I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know if that means I’ve lived an exemplary life or if I’m just too vanilla.”

I think before answering. And then, “Maybe neither. Maybe something entirely different is true.”

“I think most people go through their whole lives without anyone ever trying to kill them,” he says, deadpan.

“You say that based on what?”

He laughs. “I don’t know. The number of people running around not dead?”

“So not your ex-wife?”

“We’re still on the kill me thing?”

I grunt.

“Because that’s a weird tack for a girlfriend to take.”

I consider. And then, “I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Okay then.” he says, only slightly abashed. “But not my ex. No. We get along very well,