Chasing Shade Part 22

Miller was an emaciated sh.e.l.l of a man. Nothing like she'd imagined. She'd imagined him as still hale and hearty and terrifying. A big man with thick forearms and ginger hair thick on his head, a small goatee, piercing green eyes. The wiry copper hair had been on his forearms too. She remembered how it had caught the sunlight when he grabbed her arm. She remembered how her mouth had tasted like copper from fear and she also remembered how she had found it terrifyingly amusing. That metallic taste in her mouth, that metallic colour of his hair.

He regarded her with watered-down eyes. The sharp, alert green had turned to a pale liquid shade. His forearms were thin. His face thin. Legs thin. He was a man made of sticks and cottonwool. A human form created from a hospital gown and Johnnies. Smoke and mirrors.

He can't hurt you.

The thought hit her like a punch to the gut.

He can't hurt me any more, she thought.

She felt almost giddy with it.

'You can sit right over by the bed.' The nurse studied her for a second and then added, 'If you like.'

He seemed to float in the bed. A figure ready to drift away.

On weak legs, Betsey walked to the small metal chair. She was happy to sit because she felt as if she'd fall. She realised the chair was bolted to the floor. She couldn't move closer to him, or what was preferable farther away.

'Mr Miller,' she said, and nodded. Betsey was determined to keep herself calm. To keep herself together.

'h.e.l.lo.' That was all he said and even that was in a hissy whisper.

'Your daughter wants you out,' she said.

'I know.'

She waited, thinking that in a movie this would be where he'd plead his case. This would be where he told her he'd found G.o.d or changed or had had some prison-yard epiphany and now wanted to spread joy and love throughout the world.

'Do you have anything to say to me?' she asked.

His eyes, though rheumy, somehow held a slyness under it all. It was unsettling. She suppressed a shiver. It was her, Betsey thought. Her childhood fears and worries. Not him. He was a harmless old man now. Humbled and hobbled by illness. Every time he breathed, her chest ached with a horrible claustrophobia.

He studied her. 'Not what you want.'

He was strapped to his bed. She wondered if he was always bound to the bed or if it was for their meeting.

'What's that?'

'That I've changed or I'm a wonderful human now or all the other things people expect.' He coughed. The short cough turned into a long wheezing bout.

'And you haven't?' Her fingers twisted against one another over and over. She was so nervous she felt electric. Like she'd been lit up inside. It was an awful but powerful feeling.

'Oh, I have,' he said, chuckling darkly. 'I'm riddled with cancer now. I can't walk four feet without doubling over with a cough. Or having to take a hit of oxygen. I've been locked in a cage like an animal. And rightfully so.'

Those eyes were on her again, and chills sank their teeth into her spine. She clenched her thighs and her calves to ward them off. She refused to show weakness even if she had to turn herself inside out to control it.

'Rightfully so?'

'Yes. My daughter's got to all the others.' This time his cough was short and brutal. Like gunfire. But his eyes watered from the force of it. 'You were the hold-out. You wouldn't talk to her or a.s.sure her you wouldn't voice your discontent to the parole board. The lawyer was worried about you.' He smiled at her and it was terrible.

Dread washed over her. She was starting to piece this puzzle together and it wasn't a pleasant one. Betsey felt she was destined to become a saviour. One way or the other. The question was, whose?

'And now I'm here,' she said.

He nodded and then winced from the movement. 'Yep.'

'So tell me,' she said.

Miller looked surprised. 'Tell you what?'

'Whatever you need to.'

This was a bizarre scene, she thought. Beyond strange. It scared her with its mix of normal and surreal.

'I am here for a reason. That reason hasn't changed.' His old fingers picked at the plain white cotton sheets covering his small prison-hospital bed. He couldn't move his arms but he could move his fingers and he seemed to need that motion. 'I am the same man I was when they brought me in here. Just not physically.' He grinned at her, showing nicotine-stained teeth and pale, unhealthy gums. 'Karma's a b.i.t.c.h. I have proof.'

He paused but when she said nothing, he went on. 'If you argued against my release. If you fought it. If you even threatened, I think, to get a lawyer and go to the press, the prison would shut down this line of thinking in a heartbeat. The judge would retract his terms for Marie to get me out. It's only due to Marie's constant drum-banging that you're even here.'

'But if I spoke up it would be over?'

'Yes.'

'And you '

'I would repeat my former actions, given the chance.'

She pointed to a wheelchair, clearly his only means of independent mobility, and the oxygen tank. 'And this?'

'This is a fact. I am physically hobbled. I have maybe a week or so to live. But given the chance...'

'If you could muster the strength...' She swallowed.

'I would give myself one more blissful fling.'

Betsey felt her stomach roll sickly. 'But there's no way.'

'There's always a way.'

She couldn't believe this. Miller, in cla.s.sic form, had surprised her. Hadn't that been what made him a successful predator? The element of surprise? And here he was surprising the voice out of her again.

'I came here to try and be the bigger person,' she said.

'The question...' He held up his hand as far as he could in the leather cuffs and she had to wait for him to catch his breath. 'The question is, who are you going to be the bigger person on behalf of? My daughter or my next victim?'

My next victim...

Her face went numb. Her fingertips too. Betsey struggled to take a deep breath and she bit her tongue sharply to focus. She was having an anxiety attack.

'I'm in here for a reason,' he wheezed.

That was it. He called, 'Guard!' and, when the man came to get him, Miller was wheeled off in his mobile bed without a second glance her way. She sat there alone with a wheelchair he'd never even sat in. It was like sitting with the ghost of him. She stood up quickly.

'f.u.c.k,' she breathed. She walked slowly on shaky legs when the other guard said, 'Ma'am', and held out his hand.

He led her out with that hand on her elbow.

Archie was just where she'd left him. Waiting for her. She was so grateful to see him she could barely comprehend it.

'What did he say?' He led her out by the elbow just like the guard, but his was a comforting touch, not a foreign one.

'A lot. I don't...can I just process it? We can talk about it later?'

He looked surprised and then chagrinned. 'Of course. I'm sorry.'

'Don't be. I just need to really absorb it and understand it before I can begin to explain it.'

'Gotcha,' he said. And he did. When she slipped on an icy step, he righted her. Laughing softly. 'Watch it, Betsey.'

She smiled. He always seemed to have her back. She wondered if she deserved that. She hoped she did.

She looked wrong to Archie. Somehow hollowed out. Or maybe caught off-guard to the point of shock. He put his hand on her thigh, reminded himself that he did not have a right to her emotions and her thoughts. Only that he wanted to be there when she wanted to share.

It was hard for him, though. He felt himself frowning and worked hard to correct his face. It wanted to scowl because he was upset. And a little hurt, if he admitted it.

What Archie really wanted to do was pull the truck over and shake her. Look her in the eye and tell her that he was here for her, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, so why wouldn't she open up to him and let him help?

Caveman approach...

The thought flitted through his head and he heard himself laugh bitterly. He did his best to cover it with a cough.

'Are you OK?' she asked, tracing the length of each finger with her fingertip. It shivered up through him, that gentle touch.

'I think I'm supposed to be asking you that question,' he said.

'Well, ask me if you want,' she said, softly. 'But I don't really have an answer for you. Because I don't know, Archie. I have some thinking to do. But the thought of you being angry at me...' She trailed off and turned towards the window, where she seemed to study the fleeting view of frozen fields.

'You tell me when you want to,' he said softly. He ran a hand through her hair. He kept his eyes on the road but allowed himself to touch her quickly.

'I'm sorry.' Her voice was a whisper.

'Don't be.'

'I spent years being sorry,' she said. 'I drank and then I felt sorry and I felt so sorry I ended up drinking. I have a lot of guilt.'

'I have a feeling that has something to do with you escaping. When those other women didn't. They were down there. They were made to suffer. And you escaped it.' He bore to the left towards the trailer park. 'I'm willing to wager it's akin to survivor's guilt.'

She nodded once and seemed to compose herself. 'Makes sense.'

When he stopped outside her trailer he held his breath. Waiting, wishing, hoping she'd ask him in. Archie didn't want to let her go. Not looking so sad and so broken. He knew it wasn't his place to save her, but by G.o.d, he could be near her, couldn't he?

'I'll see you tomorrow,' she said. His heart sank but he tried to hide it. Betsey didn't need him adding guilt to guilt she already shouldn't have to bear. 'Thanks for taking me, Archie.' She leaned over to kiss him.

He said what he'd already said to her but couldn't stress enough: 'Whatever you need, Betsey.'

Archie felt like he was moving in slow motion. Not because they weren't together he wasn't a moony-eyed teenager but because he was worried about her. He had had a terrible time sleeping all night. He'd got up repeatedly, to walk the trailer or just check outside to see if any of the snow that had been threatened had arrived. Every time he'd looked outside, her lights had been on.

Clearly she could have fallen asleep with them on, but something told him Betsey was over there thinking. Turning herself inside out.

Archie knew deep down he couldn't fix things for her. Or save her. Or any of the things little boys were often taught they needed to do for little girls. Most likely the best he could do for her was leave her alone and let her figure stuff out.

But it was driving him nuts.

'Because you are a nosy b.u.t.tinsky who has to try and fix everything,' he snarled, making an atrocious cup of coffee with sugar and powdered creamer. 'You are also a terrible barista.'

His eyes ached, he was so tired. They were scratchy and blurry and the entire scenario had him in a terrible mood. He drank his awful coffee and listened to the subtle tick-pop, tick-pop of sleet hitting the trailer.

At least he knew what he'd be doing this morning. He'd be salting the walkways and common areas around the trailer park to make sure no one slipped and broke a bone.

Archie watched the news and weather and then got dressed. Once it was fully light, he went out, hoping against hope that he'd run into Betsey on her way to the diner. He a.s.sumed offering her a ride to work was off the table. He really needed to leave her be. Let her come to him. He knew it in his heart and hated it with every breath.

But he did it.

Salting turned into helping Mrs Franklin sc.r.a.pe her car and helping Charlie get his ancient Jeep unstuck. The roads were more slippery than they looked, but that didn't stop Archie driving to the diner when lunchtime came around.

'Hey, all,' he said, finding his normal booth. He was looking at the specials when the kitchen door swung open and he glanced up. Instead of Betsey, one of the other waitresses, Debbie, came out.

'Hey, doll. What do you want today?' She c.o.c.ked a hip, grabbed her pad and pen, though he was sure she didn't need it, and waited.

'Where's Betsey?'

Debbie blinked at him and then smiled. 'Off today, I guess. Or sick? Tony called and asked me to come in. I don't ask questions, I just take the extra shifts.'

He nodded, appearing he hoped much calmer than he felt. 'Can I get the turkey club?'

Archie spent the better part of a half an hour eating as much as he could manage and calming himself. He was worried. The last time Betsey had been truly upset had been the incident with the wine. Then again, she'd regretted it, and he didn't see her doing it again.

He paid Debbie, smashed his hat on his head and went out to his truck. It was only once he was out there that he lost his s.h.i.t and punched the steering wheel. He said every bad word he knew, twice, and then put his head in his hands. The right one was throbbing dully. It was only when someone tapped on his window that he looked up.

Charlie Booth stared in at him. And he was grinning.

Archie wound down the window. 'Yeah, Charlie?'

His boss chuckled. 'Something tells me you're having a bad day.'

'A little bit.'

'Can I help?' Charlie asked, lighting another fat cigar. He seemed to always have one.

'I doubt it.'