Keep Them Close

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1

Allison

I shouldn't be here. I have no good reason. I pride myself on discipline, on focus, on planning, yet here I am, parked down the street from Anna's house past 10 p.m., knowing that I probably won't do a single thing but flirt with the idea of doing something very, very bad, then turn around and drive home. I'll inch right up to the line, get myself in position, heart racing-but then I'll retreat, deciding it's not worth the risk, even patting myself on the back for being the bigger person. Which, naturally, will just make me more pathetic, my humiliation more complete. Hooray for me, I'm the noble one, choosing the high road, take that, Anna, while you're up in your bedroom with your legs spread wide and my husband's face between them.

For some reason I can't quite understand, it feels good to approach the line. To know that I could do it, that I could get away with it, too. Especially after the precautions I've taken.

Like dressing in all black. Black turtleneck, black gloves, black denim jeans, black footwear.

Like unscrewing my front license plate, so any ALPRs-license plate cameras-would be unable to record my vehicle passing and thus place me at a particular location at a particular date and time.

Like leaving my cell phone at home. I considered keeping it with me but turning it off, just like he does every time he visits Anna's house here on Palomino Drive, just in case his loving wife might do something like, say, try to locate him? I ran through the calculus and decided that having my phone turned off in the middle of the evening would, itself, look suspicious.

We've reviewed your phone records going back years, Mrs. Brice, and we've never seen a single instance when you happened to turn off your phone for a period of hours in the middle of the evening. Any particular reason that would happen for the first time on Wednesday, June 11, 2025? The same night your husband, Finley, and his mistress, Anna Cortese, were found dead in a bloody heap at Mrs. Cortese's home on Palomino Drive?

So no, the phone stayed home, powered on. And the bonus: it continues to ping cell towers every so often, placing me at my residence the entire evening.

As long as the police don't pull me over for a missing front license plate, a possibility I consider remote, I could do this. I could absolutely do this. Find a way into the house? Got that covered. I know the code to the Corteses' garage door pad. From the garage (where Finley's car is parked, by the way) I could enter the home. If I time my entry to coincide with a moment of peak intimacy, if I step in while, I dunno, Finley's on all fours with a ball gag in his mouth, they might not even hear me.

True, there would be reason to suspect me. The aggrieved wife? Check. A former longtime prosecutor who knows the ins and outs of police investigation and would know how to cover her tracks? Yup.

Still, prove I did it. Place me at the scene. You can't. Show me what gun I used. You can't, because I have an untraceable one. Find gunshot residue on me? Please, the gun will be wrapped in a clear plastic bag. And I'm wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck sweater and running gloves, pliant enough to manipulate but nevertheless covering my hands and wrists. Plus I'll scrub myself clean and toss these clothes before anyone even knows the loving couple is dead.

Hell, prove that I even knew he was stepping out on me. You can't. There are only two people who know that I know. My private investigator, Harp, for one, but nothing connects me to her. For personal matters like this, I pay in cash and text her on a burner phone. The other person who knows is my brother, Luke, who would never in a million years give me up.

I blow out a breath. It matters, I guess, that I could get away with this, yet choose not to do so. It provides at least some twisted sense of empowerment: I could hurt you if I really, really wanted to; lucky you, I don't want to. Regardless, sitting here now, ready and able, I know I won't go through with it. I won't kill my husband or Anna.

I might set fire to her house, though. Now that I've thought about even more-

Movement in her upstairs window. A faint silhouette through the curtain. It's Anna, no doubt. She is naked, it appears. And approaching from behind her, wrapping his burly arms around her tiny frame, is my-

"No." I look away, heart racing so hard I struggle for breath. I didn't expect to actually see them. You can't put up opaque curtains, Anna? What, do you want people to see you fucking my husband?

I dare another look. She has turned and hopped into his arms, legs wrapped around him as he carries her-

I open the door of my car and step out just in time to vomit on the curb.

I've never actually seen them in the act. I've had Finley followed many times, seen him on video sneaking in and out of her house, watched him punch in the garage door code, even a stolen goodbye kiss. That was enough. My imagination could fill in the rest; I didn't think he was coming over for Bible study. I never wanted to actually watch them.

The June air is thick and damp, far hotter than it should be. I catch my breath, wipe spittle of vomit from my mouth as I get to my feet. As if I couldn't feel worse.

"Y'know what? Screw this," I say to no one. I pop the trunk of my car and grab the small, rusty gas can. Grab the cloth. Pat my pockets to be sure I have matches.

But I move no farther. My chest burning, eyes filling with tears, I am locked in place, unable to step away from the car and jog to the house. I can't do it.

And the reason only deepens my humiliation. If I do this, he'll know I know. I may get away with it in terms of the authorities, but Finley will know. And that will inevitably cascade downward to the end of our marriage.

You still want him, Allison. You're not ready to let go. You think there's still a chance to salvage this, that this will pass, that he'll find his way back to you, that you didn't waste the last twenty years of your life with him. You're a coward. No. You're a fool.

My head falls back on my shoulders as I let out a moan. Above me, a full moon hangs low, a bright reddish-pink. The Strawberry Moon, or so my son, Grayson, told me this morning before leaving for a friend's cabin in Michigan.

Grayson. Yet another reason to keep my powder dry for the time being. Do I want to put him through this right now? He just graduated high school a week ago and will be off to college-NYU-in about two months. Let him enjoy the summer.

Once he's gone, I can deal with this, with Finley, with this joke of a marriage.

I jump back in my SUV, a dull pain in my gut. I drive through the subdivision toward the main road, Woods Edge, that will lead me south to Grace Village. I turn right on Woods Edge, the road ahead empty save for the thin stripe of my headlights cutting through the dark, the trees on either side blurring into black walls, my vision cloudy from tears-

Out of nowhere, a harsh light floods the interior of my car. My rearview mirror fills with a truck flying up behind me, its front grille like the jaws of something built to devour. A horn blares, a deep bellow that vibrates in my bones.

I grip the steering wheel and brace for impact.

2

Allison

By some small miracle, the truck does not collide with the rear end of my car. But its grille remains all but pressed against my fender. Where did this guy come from? He must be going twice the speed limit at least. Adrenaline rushes through me as I jerk the wheel straight and slam the accelerator hard, past thirty-five, past forty-five, past fifty. But the truck with its jacked-up tires stays on me, filling my rearview mirror with chrome and rage.

The road is narrow, a single southbound lane with a speed limit of thirty-five, no shoulder, just a drop-off into black forest. I can't pull over, can't let him pass. I'm trapped in a tunnel.

His lights flare, high beams burning into me. My fingers clamp the wheel. My heart thunders. Every nerve in me screams, Move faster, but where? How?

Up ahead, the stoplight, an intersection. A left turn lane opens beside me as Woods Edge joins a connecting southbound street. Maybe he'll pass. Maybe he got the rage out of his system. Maybe he'll flip me the bird or cuss at me. I'll let him. Let him get it out and go away.

Instead, the truck swerves hard left, rumbling up beside me and jerking to a stop at the red light. I don't look in the driver's direction, just wave my hand, a concession, an apology.

Then I hear the door slam. He's out of his truck.

A mountain of a man, denim overalls over a T-shirt, coming around the front of his car and barreling toward me. His face twisted, spit flying as he shouts. I can't hear the words-just the rage. He grabs my door handle and yanks. The lock holds. I flinch back, my whole body pressed against the far side of the seat.

Go away, I say in my head, though terror chokes my throat. I raise my trembling hands in apology.

He rattles the handle again, violent, hungry. "You stupid cunt, where'd you learn to drive?"

I don't think. I just floor it, tires squealing, my SUV lurching through the red light. My chest feels like it might split open, but I don't look back. Not until the roar of his engine tells me he's coming again.

Closer. Faster. Angrier than ever.

What do I do, where do I go? If I drive home, he'll know where I live. That's what they tell people in my position, right? Don't go home. Find the nearest police station. Call 911.

But I have no phone. Just an unregistered, unloaded gun and a box of bullets, inside my middle console.

I'm breathing in quick, shallow gasps when I see it up ahead, the hulking shape of Mortimer College's athletic building-where my brother, Luke, works-its parking lot wide and empty, lit by a scatter of overhead lights. Like an oasis in the dark. A safe place. Maybe.

I veer hard into the lot, my tires bumping over the curb. The space yawns open, empty past 10 p.m. But even as I draw into the lot, I know how little sense it makes. Even if Luke were inside, his office is on the other side of the building. And I have no phone, no ability to reach him.

The truck follows, bouncing in after me.

I cut across the asphalt toward a corner where I know there's another exit. I pray it's open, that I can slip away. But when I reach it, the gate is down, a chain stretched across, padlocked, shut off for the night.

My stomach drops.

I wrench the wheel, turning the car in nearly a 180, desperate, aiming back toward the open space.

And then he's there. The yellow truck lunges sideways, tires squealing, sliding until it blocks me. Perpendicular to me, his souped-up truck the long end of a triangle, the corners of the lot the short sides. With me in the middle.

I am trapped.

The man gets out again. This time, slower. Measured. He reaches behind his seat and pulls out something long, dark, glinting in the light. A crowbar.

He grips it in one hand like he's been waiting to use it. His voice thunders across the empty lot, ugly and raw, words jagged with hate, cunt and bitch prominent among them. Then, calm as anything, he fishes out his phone. Puts it to his ear.

I don't dare take my eyes off him, but I reach into the middle compartment.

"Yeah," he says into his phone, loud enough for me to hear. "You know the Mortimer College parking lot? On Woods Edge? Yeah. Come quick. We got ourselves a live one."

The words slither through me. The gun is now in my lap. I try to load the bullets, but my hands shake too hard.

"You wanna play, sweetheart?" He comes around to the driver's side, raising his crowbar. "Okay, now we're gonna-whoa." He stops short when he sees me pointing the gun at him. I haven't been able to load a bullet, and my hands tremble, but the gun sends enough of a message.

He backpedals, returning to the front of my car. "I ain't done with you, you dumb bitch! You'll see me again!" He holds out his phone and aims it at my front fender, wanting to photograph the license plate that isn't there. "I'll be seeing you real-"

I floor the accelerator, smacking into him, sending him sailing backward into his truck, his head cracking against the side with a dull thud before he collapses to the ground.

Oh God oh God what did I do what did I do-

I've stopped just short of his truck. I put the car in park and get out. He is lying in the small space between our two vehicles, face down. Not moving, from what I can tell, though the lighting is terrible; he's lying under the beams of my headlights. I squat down near him, but hear nothing. Is he dead or is the thumping of my pulse drowning out-

An ambulance. He needs an ambulance. I reach for my pocket but-no phone. I look around in the dark and find his iPhone. I tap it. It comes to life, a screensaver of a Playboy centerfold. I don't know the code. Should I put it up to his face or-emergency, yes, there's a way to make an emergency call.

I press the buttons on each side of his phone. Two messages pop up:

slide to power off

SOS Emergency Call

Slide to call Emergency Services

Then I hear him. I startle to my feet at the sound. A baritone growl like nothing I've ever heard, menacing and predatory, more animal than human.