Speak of the Devil: A Psychological Thriller Read online

  My inbox chimes. It’s the Jensen report.

  Fine. Chester Falls Elementary it is.

  I make the call. I offer the usual spiel. I give them the credit card number to the company card. The woman on the other end of the line is shocked.

  “Just to make sure I heard right…the total is $8,921.67, and you want to pay all of it?”

  “That’s right.”

  She’s quiet for nearly a full minute. I count the blinks of red, line two holding. “That’s two hundred and twelve kids that will get to eat lunch today thanks to you, Mister…”

  “Nobody.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s Emerson. If you need a name for the donation…”

  She doesn’t know what to say. They never do.

  “Emerson Parker, if you need a last name.”

  “Can you hold while I run the card...just to make sure there aren’t any problems?”

  “Sure.”

  I scan my inbox until she comes back on the line.

  “Um…there’s just one thing…the name on the receipt reads Elliot Parker…”

  “I won’t be needing a receipt.”

  “Is there a contact number we can call if my manager has any issues?”

  I give her my accountant’s number. There won’t be any issues.

  “Sorry,” she says embarrassingly. “It’s just a lot of money…”

  It’s chump change.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “To the kids it’s something,” she tells me, but she’s mostly wrong. Kids don’t care about that. Not yet. They do, however, care if they have food.

  “Do you send thank you notes or whatever they call them these days…?”

  She places me on hold so she can ask.

  When she comes back on the line, I give her my home address. Not the apartment where I reside. That isn’t home. Home is where the heart is. And my heart isn’t there.

  “Address it to Emily Parker please.”

  “No problem,” she agrees before thanking me for the umpteenth time. I end the call and hit the button that will connect me with line two. Now that I’ve done my good deed for the day, I can get on with the rest of it.

  Destroying people’s lives.

  Even though I meant to head out early, I’m forced to sit through three meetings and two conference calls before I can call it a day. This is why I prefer the lab. After I leave the office, there’s a part of me that wants to pop in, just to check on things, but I’m exhausted from the day, not to mention last night, and so I make the firm decision to stay in. No apps, no random women, just me and enough space to think.

  Back in my apartment, I pick up the few items the cleaning lady couldn’t place, which doesn’t take long because I don’t have many belongings. This isn’t an accident. I purchased this apartment for her. It’s exactly the type of place she would like. Concrete countertops, exposed beams, new but made to look old. And the view—the view is really something.

  She hasn’t seen it yet, obviously. But it’s just a matter of time. I wanted to wait to decorate; she was always really good at that. Still is, according to Instalook.

  After I’ve finished making sure everything is in its place, I return to my laptop on my small dining room table and open my email. I manage to kill an hour refreshing my browser and surfing the net.

  My stomach growls and then seizes, and I remember I haven’t eaten. I skipped lunch, and breakfast was hours ago.

  It’s farcical. What kind of person forgets to eat? Perhaps I should set a reminder for this too. Who cares, really? All the order in the world won’t save you from something terrible happening—from those you love disappearing, from the wrong gene turning on, from your body turning against you. I see that enough in my work.

  I text my assistant. Maybe she wants to grab dinner.

  When she texts back right away, I’m relieved.

  Less so when I read the response. She’s committed to something else. I shouldn’t be surprised. But that doesn’t stop me. She doesn’t ask if I want to tag along the way she might’ve once. I suppose I screwed that up too.

  It’s fine. I’ll go down to the restaurant and grab dinner. Eventually. There’s no way I’m setting foot down there at this hour. It’s too early still. The dating crowd—and worse, families—occupy the place, and a reminder is the last thing I need.

  A quick search online offers several takeout options, but nothing as appealing as what they serve downstairs. An hour is all I have to kill. I’ll manage. Patience is my forte.

  I walk out onto the patio. Sit there for a bit before giving up and pacing the apartment. I clean my gun. I rifle through the fridge. Finally, when I can’t help myself anymore, when I’ve run out of things to distract me, I do what an addict inevitably does, I give in.

  I pull up Instalook. I know I shouldn’t. This doesn’t mean I can help myself. I type her name. The words alone are like a knife to the heart, and I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet. I know I should quit while I’m ahead. Walk away, I tell myself. Do anything else. Take a cold shower. Leave the apartment, scrub the already-clean shower. But I can’t. Not until I’m satisfied. Not until it hurts.

  I press the return key. It never leads anywhere good, and yet there’s a driving force propelling me forward anyway. Instantly, like salve to a burn, I feel relief when the screen loads and Emily’s smiling face is staring back at me. I click on her profile picture to enlarge it. I remember the day it was taken. If only you could get days like that back.

  I check the time. See you soon, I almost write it in the comments. But that would be stupid. Sleep deprivation is surely to blame. I could say a million things. I could ask her why I’ve been banished to the past. I could tell her I miss her.

  Sometimes you just want someone else to know.

  Before I do something reckless, I click over to my mother-in-law’s profile. She’s not as tech savvy as my wife. She isn’t as good at blocking me. What I find, hits me like a knee to the groin. It’s there nonetheless, both expected and unexpected, and once I’ve seen it there’s no going back.

  My fingers have a mind of their own and before I can stop myself, I click on her face, her tiny face. She’s beautiful, like her mother. She’s changed a little since last week. I’m probably the only one who noticed. It’s hard to get that kind of perspective when you’re so close to the subject.

  The caption below her smile reads: Look who learned to swim.

  Goddamn it. I was supposed to be there. I should be there.

  Not him.

  Tears well up in my eyes, I will them away. It’s pointless. I refuse to let this or my wife’s antics get to me. You can’t win that way.

  There’s a video. I shouldn’t watch it. But how can I not?

  Look who learned to swim.

  She sounds so much like her mother. It makes me want to scream.

  I close the browser, punch the wall, and head down to hear the piano man play.

  Chapter Seven

  Vanessa

  Initiation Night starts out like all the rest of them. Even before we lived in Austin, Sean always made a point to fly in for things like this. After my initial training, it became something that was no longer simply a nice thing to do but something that was required.

  I take my rightful place in the circle, careful to stay on the fringes. Not entirely outside, but not in the center either. It’s a good vantage point from which to watch and gather information. The most important things are rarely spoken.

  It doesn’t take long, the opening ceremony. Members new to the Women’s Alliance are introduced and presented with their handbooks, while prospective, hopeful future inductees look on. There are older members, too, perhaps feeling nostalgic for a time when they were allowed the pleasure of being so naive.

  I remember my first Initiation Night. Sean and I had been married all of six days. It wasn’t here in Austin, of course. It was back where we came from, back when New Hope was a little more grassroots. I
can’t say that I fell in love with my husband’s church or his ideals right away, but I can say I found them both intriguing. Mostly, I had one goal, two at most: to get away from my family and to move to the city. I wanted an education, something that was practically nonexistent for girls who grew up back home. Sean promised that, and in the end, I guess he delivered.

  It’s a packed house tonight. It helps that everyone brings a friend. That’s your ticket in. A lot of what we do within the church is done in secret. The rest we do for show.

  Tonight is the same as all the rest. We recite the rules stated in the agreement. The inductees sign on the dotted line and take their oaths.

  And then we celebrate.

  Even when the former founders are mentioned and prayed over, the air remains light and cheerful. You won’t find the heavy stuff here. Champagne flows, and there’s dancing and decent music. We don’t want to scare anyone off just yet. After all, who doesn’t love a good party? And of course, there’s plenty of banal gossip to go around.

  It turns out to be the perfect Texas early fall night, the kind where a bit of summer lingers in the air although it’s long since gone. I chose a casual sundress with sandals and added a cardigan for warmth, my hair in a high pony. I kept my makeup subtle on purpose. The natural look suits me best anyhow, but it also helps compensate for the fact that half of my hair is fake extensions, dyed back to honey blonde again. The eyelashes are false as well, as is the matching youthful spirit.

  Searching the crowd for my mark, I spot a few familiar faces. They’ll want to chat, but tonight is about work, and I’m determined to stay focused so I keep my eyes glued to my phone. “Sorry,” I find myself saying several times. “It’s the sitter. She’s new…” No one questions this, and everyone understands. As for my mark, either she’s late or she’s not coming, and I really hope it’s the former.

  Earlier, after Matty was bathed, I scrolled her social media feeds. What I learned is pretty basic. She’s smart online, for the most part. Aside from the fact that she counts down to her vacations, runs marathons, and enjoys a good working dinner, I didn’t find a whole lot to run with.

  But I know a few things: Aruba and Europe are her go-to trips. Lots of pictures with location tags. Thank God for that. I gather she isn’t solely humble-bragging; she’s not simply trying to show she’s of the class who can afford frequent international vacations. With her, I can tell there’s a little more to it than that. She isn’t doing it to brag about her status in life. She doesn’t have to. She was born that way.

  I gather, based on what little she posts about day-to-day stuff, that she’s genuinely proud of her family and that vacations seem to be the only time she spends any quality time with them. I suspect that nannies do a fair amount of the child rearing in her household— something she will most definitely feel guilty about.

  It’s clear in her feed that she wants to be seen for her accomplishments. She’s overcompensating for something. I can tell by the way she enjoys showing off her fit lifestyle. And aside from health and time off, it seems she wants to be known as the cool, relaxed, take-it-as-it-comes mom, when in reality, she’s probably the furthest thing from it. She’s at an age where she has to work hard to have a body like she does, and people with that much discipline in any area of life are rarely happy-go-lucky in others.

  Nonetheless, she plays the part well. Particularly where her work is concerned. She’s well-connected, into happy hours and luncheons and late dinners. She’s always smiling, always happy. But I can see beyond that. There are small tells in her photos. I see them in crooked smiles, the tilt of her head, in the crease of her brow. She’s tired. She’s trying to keep up. Like the rest of us, I suppose. Only she’s a tad different. She’s the kind of tired that says she might just walk away and leave it all, if presented with the right offer. Her captions are upbeat and positive. But you’d have to know people—you’d have to know the nuances of body language to truly understand. I sense weariness in the slope of her shoulders, just under the surface, that begs to say: I’m like you but not.

  But then, Mrs. Louis isn’t like you or like me. Her husband is a patent attorney, and she’s C-level at a research firm. Even without her better half’s annual salary, Marcia Louis is in the top fifteen percent of all wage earners in the United States. In addition, she was born with more money than most people will earn in an entire lifetime.

  She’s not your average bear.

  Except where it counts.

  She has her weaknesses, too.

  Chapter Eight

  Elliot

  Everything one needs to know about what it’s like to do my job can be learned from Asimov. His most famous series introduced readers to a concept called Psychohistory. Summed up, the theory states that while you can’t predict the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics applied to large groups of people can predict the general flow of future events.

  So, not particularly useful when it comes to figuring out what it will take to win your wife back. But when applied to a thing like revenge…well, that seems a little easier. People seek revenge every day. Probably, most wives never come back.

  But then most husbands aren’t like me. They don’t understand the amount of calculation it takes. Most people want a quick fix. Which is good. It keeps me and the rest of Big Pharma in business. Tonight, on that front, I have a decision to make. To accept the offer for my latest formula or to hold out for something better.

  But first, food. While I’m awaiting my filet, I sample the crowd. Getting paid to determine how a group of people will react to certain chemicals, particularly in clinical trials, drives everything I do. To understand this, it helps to understand human behavior.

  I find observing from afar produces the best results. Watching people when they don’t know you’re watching tends to offer the purest sample. This way you can see the difference between what they say and what they actually do. Life can only be curated to the extent that you know your audience is watching.

  Tonight, in addition to my filet, I get the pleasure of watching my neighbor Mrs. Dunn enjoying dinner with a male companion. I study her body language. I’m curious to see if she’s as hard with everyone else as she is on me.

  Her back is straight; her shoulders are squared. She isn’t soft. But she isn’t unfriendly either.

  Never take score too soon. I can hear my father speak as clearly as though he was perched on my left shoulder. But I don’t want to think about him; he wants me to take the deal despite his advice. Even if I brought it up, he’d find a way to spin it in his favor. Stealing a few plays from his playbook wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  There’s time for that. In the meantime, my steak has arrived. The place is packed tonight, regulars mostly. But it’s still quiet enough that I can listen in on individual conversations. The man on the piano has gone on break.

  As I cut up my filet, I dial in on the conversation in the booth next to mine. I tell myself I’ll stay for just one set when the piano resumes, and then I’ll turn in for the night. Sitting here keeps me from doing other things I shouldn’t. Things like visiting my old neighborhood, tailing my wife’s lover, scrolling Instalook.

  The voices next to me grow louder. When I strain to get a better look, I can see that it’s a pair of twenty-somethings, arguing. “Come on, let’s just go upstairs,” the guy says urgently. “For old times’ sake.”

  She isn’t firm with her voice or her body language, but she tells him no. I don’t know what it is with women. There is nothing wrong with a hard no. Clear lines. Boundaries.

  If this particular woman would have had those, what was about to happen might have been stopped sooner. But then again, it might not have. It’s difficult to say with such a small sample. There are always considerations to take in. Like how many times she’s said yes before, when what she really meant was no. That’s how he will know how much pressure to use, how hard to push.

  It doesn’t make it right.

  But it does
make the outcome predictable.

  It’s human nature to take what we can get where we can get it.

  I understand now—that’s why Emily is doing this. She warned me. If only I’d listened before.

  Next to me, voices are raised higher. The girl threatens to leave. He orders her another drink.

  She tells him she is not going up to his apartment. She has to work in the morning.

  He counters with something I don’t make out. I’m forced to lean in closer. He grabs her wrist. She tries to pull away but can’t. She starts to cry. He holds on, tightens his grip.

  I can see it was smart to let Emily go. It’ll be easier to get her back.

  It takes two and a half steps until I’m standing in front of their table. Sometimes it’s easier to deal with other people’s problems rather than face your own.

  “I’m pretty sure she told you no,” I say to the guy.

  He looks up at me, his eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”

  “She said she doesn’t want to go upstairs. Let go of her.”

  “Fuck off.”

  I glare at the woman, clearly only a girl now that I have a better look. “Come on,” I offer, reaching for her hand. “I’ll walk you out.”

  She looks at her friend and then back at me. She doesn’t know what to say. But she doesn’t budge, either.

  “You need a cab? Uber? What? ”

  When she doesn’t offer up an answer, I fill in what happens next. “He isn’t going to take no for an answer. But then you know that.”

  The guy glances around the restaurant, toward the bar, and then back at her, as if to say “who is this fucker?”

  I raise my brow. “Coming or not?”

  She hesitates for a moment before finally slipping her hand in mine.