Keep Them Close(45)

I reach my driveway and pull the garage door opener from my jacket pocket to lift the door, the familiar grind, the interior light popping on, one side of the garage now empty.

“Gotta run, squirt,” I say. “Call me later?”

“Sure. Love you.”

I enter the garage and set down the bags when I sense something behind me, footsteps, heat—

A mountain of a person, an angry giant in a fluorescent orange vest and a red flannel, his eyes predatory and intense, moving so quickly toward me—

No, it can’t be—

I raise up my right hand, but he’s on me, arms extended, shoving me. I fly backward against the garage wall, tripping over storage boxes but managing to stay upright. Before I can say or do anything, his fist lands in my stomach. Pain screams sharp and hot. I fold forward, gasping for air that will not come, and land on the concrete floor.

He slams his hand against the wall. The garage door lowers again, the faint light of dawn narrowing to a strip and then disappearing with a conclusive thud, leaving only the dim light of the bulb overhead. I’m trapped inside. Trapped with this man, Stranger Danger, the road-rage guy.

I try to crawl away, but his foot connects with my ribs, whisking away what little air I had and toppling me over onto my back. “Goin’ somewhere, Allison Brice?” he mocks. “Didn’t think I’d find ya, did ya? I didn’t, either, gotta say. Turns out I’ve been working less than a mile from here on a job—that old mobster house on Cherry Oak?—and I had no idea you were the next town over. Not until you went and got your picture all over the newspaper.” He kicks me again, a hard thrust into the ribs on my other side, an explosion of pain, a lightning bolt through my body. “I said to myself, ‘I know that lady. That’s the stupid cunt that almost killed me.’?”

I claw for air, for my voice, but all I feel is a searing pain in my ribs and rising panic.

I get to my hands and knees, an instinctive if fruitless attempt at escape. He grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls up, forcing me to arch backward, half lifting, half throwing me onto my back, my head striking the surface, spots dancing before my eyes. He crashes down on top of me, his breath sour from cigarettes, those wide feral eyes and thick cheeks.

“Money,” I manage, somehow finding my voice. “I…have…money.”

His hand grips my throat, cutting off all oxygen. I am helpless, pinned, unable to breathe or move. The world shrinks to a thin, frantic pulse.

“Ya know somethin’, Allison?” He releases his grip. “Great minds think alike.”

I suck in air like it’s coming through a straw. He said yes to money he said yes there’s a way out of this he said yes—

“My…bank,” I manage, struggling to regain a semblance of normal breathing.

“No, no, no,” he says. “We ain’t walkin’ into no bank together. You’re gonna do it right here, right now. Where’s your phone?”

“I…dropped—dropped it.” My voice ragged, shaky.

He gets off me and finds my phone by the door into the house. “I was thinkin’ twenty-five thousand, Allison,” he says. “Plenty good sum, but not so much to draw suspicion.”

Just get away from him. Anything to get away from him—

“You’re gonna wire it to my account. Sit up.” He grabs my running jacket and pulls me into a sitting position. “You know my name, don’t you? What’s my name?”

“M-Marlow.” I manage a breath. “Marlow Luckett.”

Marlow Luckett, 1313 South Cedar Street, Cicero, Illinois, age thirty-four, high school degree from Morton East—

“Yeah, thought you might look into me. That’s the kind a shit rich people would do.” He reaches into his back pocket and hands me a rumpled check from his bank. “There’s the account and routing info. Here’s how this’ll work.” He stands behind me. A knife appears before my eyes. “You’re gonna wire me twenty-five thousand, and I’m gonna keep this knife nice and close. Anything goes wrong, or you play any games, you’re gonna be smiling ear to ear, know what I mean? I’ll cut you open like a fish.”

I open my banking app and input the numbers. I make several mistakes, my trembling hands trying to hold the phone steady and type with my thumbs, Marlow’s hot breath in my ear.

A confirmation page pops onto my screen. I punch the final button. Done.

“Good job, Allison.” He swats the phone out of my hand. It skids into a grease stain where Finley’s car once parked.

Marlow walks around to face me again. He grips my cheeks with one hand, holding the blade of his knife below my eye. “It turns out that this money gets canceled or something fucks up, I’m gonna come back. And you’ll never look pretty again.” He releases his grip with a push of my face.

I lie on the dirty surface of the garage while he punches the garage door opener, daylight wiping away the darkness.

He turns to me before he goes. “We coulda had some fun that night,” he says. “Maybe we still could someday.”



* * *





I close the garage door behind him, my hands still trembling, the chill burrowed in deep, under my skin, in my bones. Inside the house, I wrap myself in every blanket I can find in the hall closet and sink onto the couch, but the chill won’t leave. Every breath is a punishment, the bruised ribs on each side sending a bolt of pain through my chest with each inhale.