Page 54 of Kill For Me Kill For You
Iamlucky to be alive.
Just a few days ago, Amanda had no strong feelings on being alive at all. If she was breathing, then it was with the sole intent to make Wallace Crone stop breathing.
Now he was dead.
And another monster was dead too.
She knew it was the right thing to have done. On some level. Amanda was coming around to the view that what was legal and what was right were often two different things. Her father had been a union organizer, and a civil rights protester. This meant he had an arrest record longer than a Jersey longshoreman with a drinking problem. And he was proud of it too. She’d watched him being hauled off picket lines and protest marches by the NYPD more than enough times.
What would he have to say about what she’d just done?
Amanda knew the answer. He would say she’d made a terrible mistake. And that, yes, she’d been forced to defend herself against a killer, but . . .
Amanda knew she should never have climbed that wall. Should never have gotten herself into that situation where she’d had to fight for her life.
She thought of bathing Jess in this same bathtub. Filling it with suds, listening to her squeals of delight as she splashed and played with her little yellow boat that sat still and unused now on the windowsill.
Amanda slid down and let her head go under the water. It was quiet beneath the surface. And warm. The opposite of being thrown into an icy sea at the end of her recurring dream. For Amanda, being beneath the water was like going into a different world. Or seeing the old one through a different lens – a view altered and soothed by calm, swirling water.
She came back up for air, stretched out her knee, which was beginning to feel a little better. With her arms on the sides of the tub, and a towel behind her head, Amanda allowed herself to drift off to sleep.
When she next opened her eyes, the sun was threatening the sky with an angry red haze and the water in the tub was almost cold. She had not dreamed of being in that boat on that roaring black sea, so far away from the fire on the beach.
Today was Wednesday, Thanksgiving Eve. This time last year she was already up, prepping the food for the next day, making potato salad and corn fritters.
She wouldn’t be doing any of that today. She hadn’t even bought a turkey for tomorrow. The thought of it made her feel sick.
She stood, took out the bath plug and turned on the shower to get the heat back into her body.
She found bandages and surgical tape in the medicine cabinet and strapped up her knee. It wasn’t as sore as it had been last night, and the strapping helped stabilize it. Last thing she needed was a trip to the emergency room after falling down a set of stairs because her knee had given way.
Her stomach felt better too. She was hungry. She dressed in blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater to hide the bruising, then made her way to the deli on the corner of 96thStreet. She’d become quite fond of their breakfast wraps, and the coffee was always good. She took her meal outside and found an empty table under the awning. Amanda sat down and began to eat her roll.
She tried Naomi’s cell phone. It went straight to voicemail.
Glancing behind her, at the Miller Time sign, she saw it was seven oh nine. Maybe Naomi wasn’t up yet. There was no reason for Amanda to be here now other than breakfast sandwiches and hot coffee, and the realization of this gave her a sensation of warmth. Suddenly, a little bit of life was slowly returning to her. She was feeling something other than pain, loneliness and rage. There was life out there, after all.
She finished her roll, screwed up the wrapper and glanced around, looking for a trash can.
Her gaze flashed over the 96thStreet subway entrance, and something in the back of her mind registered an alarm. She focused on the subway entrance, looked around and . . .
There he was.
Wearing his overcoat, backpack, AirPods. Walking into the station like he did six days a week.
No, it couldn’t be him.
At first, Amanda couldn’t process the image across the street. She got up from her table, spilling the coffee, leaving the wrapper to the winds. She didn’t look left to cross the street, and only an angry car horn saved her from being hit. She stepped back, let the car pass then jogged across. As her legs began to pick up speed, pain stabbed at her knee, but she ignored it, pushed on. She swiped her MTA card at the turnstile, swung left for Downtown & Brooklyn, the #1, #2 and #3 trains, gripping the rail, sliding her hands down it to ease her knee as she hobbled deeper, down one flight. Then the next.
As she reached the platform, she heard the familiar swish of train doors closing. Amanda stumbled on the last three stairs, bit her lip to mask the jolt it gave her knee, but managed to stay upright. She needed a closer look. She needed to know. Maybe this was a mistake. She’d only seen him from a distance. One good look was all she needed. Amanda knew this man’s face better than she could remember the face of her little girl.
There was no one on the platform. Through the train window she saw him sitting down in the train car, facing the platform. His cell phone in his hand.
Amanda approached the window just as the train began to pull away.
Wallace Crone’s head lifted, and he stared at her. Only for a second. The train was moving, but it was all the time she needed.
Crone was alive.
