The Gray Zone (4 page)

Her real life—that’s what she called it—had ended abruptly, and the memories had now sifted down to a basic few, which she pulled out and rubbed like beach stones, their contours growing blurrier and softer with each recollection. A ballet recital in which she wore a sea-green tutu. A booth in a restaurant where the waitresses wore little white hats that looked like Kleenex boxes. Riding on her mother’s back in someone’s swimming pool, as though on a dolphin. A dollhouse with a set of dishes no bigger than buttons. She remembered less of her father, even though she had last seen him when she was the same age. He had died in prison from unknown causes, she’d been told. And this news had snuffed out most of what remained. The two memories she did have—flying across the sidewalk while each parent held a hand, and clinging to his neck on their way out of a movie—didn’t bring her any comfort or answers. At the trial, the judge had asked Kelly questions about him. She didn’t know what she was supposed to answer, so she had tried to figure out what the judge wanted her to say. Her father had taken her mother away from her. That was what it all came down to. Then he was gone, too, and she went into “protective custody,” “foster care”—terms
she had heard for so long. An avalanche of strangers, a bottomless pit of insults, pain, and indifference.

The morning she’d met her husband had been dreary and drizzly. Kelly had crouched in a doorway, shivering, the too-short sleeves on her jean jacket leaving her forearms red and bumpy. Her feet, clad in soaking-wet socks and tennis shoes, were freezing. Dressed in a three-piece suit, the man had approached her cautiously, holding out a big umbrella and offering her a white handkerchief with a monogram embroidered on it.

“You look cold. Are you hungry?”

“MOMMY!”

Kelly jumped.

“Kevin’s eating my fries!”

“No, darling, those are not your fries. You’re not supposed to have any fries. Let’s see what else they have that you might like.”

She waved at the waitress to come to their table.

“Do you have any sugarless desserts for a diabetic?”

“Sugar-free Jell-O?”

“That’ll be great, thanks.” Kelly turned to Libby, saying, “Honey, you’ll love it.”

The children continued to bicker. Without a word, Kelly breathed on a spoon and pressed it to her nose. It hung on the center of her face, and she waited for them to notice. As she watched their faces, a wave of love enveloped her. It was easy to put aside her memories of his voice that day, nine years ago, asking, “Are you hungry?”

“Mommy!” squealed Libby, instantly forgetting about Kevin’s offenses. “I want to do that!”

“It works on your chin, too,” said Kelly, demonstrating. Kevin covered his fries with more ketchup as Libby hung her spoon from
various parts of her body and experimented with the different surfaces of the table and the vinyl seat. Kelly took a sip of coffee as the waitress came over with the Jell-O.

“May I invite you to have lunch with me?” he asked politely, gentleman that he was.

He pulled Kelly under his umbrella and led her to a warm restaurant where they studied menus the size of newspapers in a booth in a back room. In a whisper, Kelly ordered a steak, a baked potato, and a strawberry shake. She hadn’t been in a restaurant since her mother had been killed, and it was what her mother had always ordered.

He drank some type of clear alcohol with a twist of lemon in it, as Kelly recalled, and he simply watched her eat. They did not speak. Kelly chewed quickly. When she put down her knife and fork, he slid toward her and, putting his hand over hers, broke the silence.

“You know, little one, I pride myself on being a real good judge of character. I can see that you are a good girl. You don’t belong on the streets.” His sad eyes moved across her face. “I have no family. The only people who live in my house work for me. They can take good care of you,” he said in a fatherly voice. “Come home with me. You can have your own room. I live in a big house with far too many things for me alone. I can use the company. I’m tired of eating alone every night. You can get a puppy or a kitten, whatever new clothes you want. I’m just like you: all alone in the world.”

Kelly had recognized immediately that he was holding out a way for her to escape the Gordons and the police. Whatever this man’s motives, they seemed far less threatening than Gary Gordon’s fist or juvenile hall. He might be nice for a couple of
days. So Kelly had nodded and wiped her mouth, and when he got up and offered her his hand, she took it and followed him to his car.

His house was set back from the street by a curved driveway. The November trees in the front yard were bare and slick with rain. As he’d promised, the house was large—a mansion, really—and painted white with a gray roof and dormer windows. A portico and two pillars framed the front door, which was painted black.

He punched some buttons on a keypad, and a wrought-iron gate swung open. Kelly stayed very quiet as he led her up the steps and through the front door. The entryway was vast, with black-and-white tiles that stretched away from her like a giant checkerboard. He showed her the game room with the pool table, the screening room with the projection TV and cabinet full of movies, the kitchen with a refrigerator that took up an entire wall, and a walk-in pantry stocked with snack food.

Upstairs was her room, already made up. It contained a bed with a red bedspread. The floor was covered in fluffy white shag. The dresser, vanity, and desk were white.

Looking back on it, as she had done so many times, Kelly wondered why the few things she remembered from that day were so vivid, while huge chunks of time from the rest of her life—before and after her husband—were complete blanks. She did get new clothes, a uniform for school, but couldn’t remember how she got them. He must have taken her shopping, or perhaps he brought them to her, afraid the cops would notice them. They ate somehow, but Kelly couldn’t remember whether he ordered in or employed a cook. There were so many people that came in and out, cleaning, fixing, serving. She never got a pet. Kelly was pretty sure he didn’t touch her
at all in those first few weeks except to stroke her hair or hold her hand.

She turned sixteen a couple of months after he had brought her home. The memory was a vivid one.

They had been in the screening room, watching
Pretty Woman
. During the scene when Julia Roberts leans out her window and Richard Gere gets ready to climb up the fire escape, Kelly volunteered, “Today’s my birthday.”

He stared for a moment, then took her hands in his. “Marry me. Marry me and the courts won’t be able to do anything to us. To you.”

Kelly didn’t even have to think. She’d been surviving on what other people had been offering her since she was six. She grabbed the chance to decide for herself. For that moment, she allowed herself to be Julia Roberts.

“Okay,” she said.

She married him three days later in the Houston city hall. She signed the marriage license that said she was eighteen. No one questioned it. The two of them stood alone in front of the judge, but Kelly wore the elaborate white dress and veil he had bought for her. When the judge was finished talking, her new husband lifted her veil and kissed her.

“That does it,” he whispered. “Now you’re mine forever.”

“Yes,” she heard herself reply. She looked up at him and saw that his eyes were vacant, impossible to read. “I love you,” she said, repeating what she’d heard on commercials and in movies. He smiled and pulled her to the car.

He drove her home and carried her up the stairs. “This is your bed now,” he said, draping her on the black comforter in the master suite. “Turn over.” Slowly, he undid each of the dozens of pearl buttons running down the back of her dress.
He tore the last few and threw the pile of tulle on the floor. He rolled her onto her back.

“Now touch yourself,” he demanded.

More confused than frightened, she reached between her legs. Her husband wiggled out of his suit. Suddenly he smacked her hand, flipped her over, and forced himself into her. Kelly screamed.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “Do you want to go back to the streets?”

She pressed her face into the mattress and refused to let herself cry. When he was done, he rolled her over and kissed her lips gently.

“You’re mine,” he said with a grimace. “Remember that.”

From that moment on, Kelly let him do whatever he wanted, and she performed whatever he dreamed up. And yet, as clear as most of that night was in her mind, the next several years were a blur. Eventually she became an expert at anticipating his moods, for the sake of her survival, just as she had been adept at reading the emotions of her foster parents, but sometimes she misjudged. His rage came unexpectedly and, out of nowhere, he might pinch her nipple until she felt pain in her groin, or, overcome by his own nightmares, he might rip her clothes off and sodomize her.

Kelly looked up suddenly. The diner had gone quiet. Everyone had shifted in their seats to face the television, where the words
BREAKING NEWS
were scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Kevin was drumming on the table with his fingers, lost in his own little world. Libby was eating her Jell-O. The waitress turned up the volume. A man with thick, dark hair and gray eyes spoke. Kelly recognized him immediately from their encounter at the club.

“Congressman Porter Garrett of Nevada was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room early this morning,” said Jake Brooks in a monotone voice. “He appears to have been a victim of homicide. Congressman Garrett will be deeply missed by his family, his friends—and the American people.”

The mug fell from Kelly’s hand and shattered on the floor. A firework of coffee arced around the shards.

“Mommy, you spilled!” cried Libby.

Kelly fought to control her reaction to the grief and confusion she was forced to tackle. Her mind was spinning. The race was on. It wouldn’t be long before they’d trace everything to her.

“Honey, you alright?” said the waitress, bending over with a dustpan. Kelly kept an eye on the TV as the waitress swept up. She saw Porter’s wife, supported by two large men, stagger into a limousine. Pictures of an ambulance speeding away, a row of police barricading the hotel, a reporter with a microphone standing in front of some yellow tape. Suddenly, the reporter’s face on the screen morphed into the weathered and kind face of Porter. Kelly caught her breath. It was file video, probably from a campaign, and Porter looked comfortable, even heroic, surrounded by bright lights and a crowd of people.

Los Angeles,
thought Kelly.
He’ll be buried in LA, where his wife always wanted him to stay. And a lot of his big donors will be at the funeral.

The waitress mopped up the last of the coffee. “Well, you want to know what I think? Politicians can go to hell. When’s the last time a politician ever did anything for us?”

Kelly struggled to keep her mouth shut. It was crucial she didn’t make herself memorable. She put a twenty on the table, smiled politely, and pulled Kevin and Libby out to the parking lot.

Even before the diner’s door shut behind them, she felt a trap closing in on her. It was Kevin who voiced her thoughts for her.

“Mommy, the car’s gone!”

“We must have parked it somewhere else,” Kelly said, trying to make light of the moment. But even she didn’t believe her own words.

“Nope,” Kevin responded, shaking his head. “It was parked right over there,” he insisted, pointing to the empty spot.

The hairs pricked up on the back of Kelly’s neck.

“Maybe someone
stole
it.” Kevin sounded excited by that possibility. It was Kelly’s turn to shake her head, her heart racing. What should she do?
Get out of the exposed parking lot and into shelter.
She grabbed Kevin and Libby by the hands and pulled them toward the gas station next to the diner. Suddenly Kevin wrenched his hand free and pointed.

“Look, Mom! Over there.”

Kelly looked. Behind the diner was the car, parked under a scraggly palm tree that shivered in the hot breeze. Kelly approached the car and looked in the window. On the driver’s seat was a piece of paper. Kelly looked closer. Drawn in blue pen was a smiley face. Her husband. He—or someone who worked for him—had done this. Kelly opened the door and snatched it away.

The game was on. The same game he had taunted her with many times before. She was the prey, he was the hunter … and the kids were collateral damage.

“What’s happening, Mommy?” asked Libby.

“Nothing, honey,” answered Kelly, scanning the backseat. “Someone was playing hide-and-seek with our car. Pretty silly, isn’t it?”

The children laughed and climbed into the car. Kelly dropped behind the steering wheel, scouring the road to the left and to the right as she pulled back onto the freeway. There were no cars in sight. She didn’t even notice the police cruiser parked behind the gas station—or the cop inside it, talking into his radio as she drove away.

Her mind was somewhere else. She kept returning to the encounter with Jake Brooks at the nightclub. She kicked herself for pulling that stunt with the wig. She had let her ego get in the way of all her careful planning.

The net had been cast, and Kelly was on automatic pilot. Only two words echoed in her brain: The first was
run!
The other was his name.

Porter.

“COOPER, WHAT’VE YOU GOT?”

Jake sailed into the investigation headquarters that had been temporarily set up in a suite down the hall from the crime scene. He held a Starbucks cup in one hand, a fistful of attitude in the other. Having pulled himself together after his breakdown following the press conference, he felt the need to direct his emotions elsewhere—to take out his grief over his friend’s death on anyone remotely connected to it. He knew what he was doing, but he didn’t care. Fuck the seven stages of grieving, or however many there were. He was going to remain at this stage: rage.

Cooper looked up from his phone and motioned for Jake to sit on one of the chairs next to the hotel desk. Jake ignored him and hovered, jangling the change in his pocket and reading the computer screen over Cooper’s shoulder. Cooper switched on the screen saver and shuffled a printout back into its manila folder, but Jake caught a glimpse before it was concealed. It was from the FBI.