“Jinx,” Andrew called from the other end of the balcony. He was walking slowly because he couldn’t run anymore. She could hear his coughing from thirty feet away.
Jane reached into her purse for the key—not the one she kept on the chain, but the one for emergencies that she kept in the zippered pocket. Her hands were shaking so hard that she dropped the key. She bent down to get it. Sweat covered her palms.
“Jinx.” Andrew was leaning over, hands on his knees, wheezing.
Jane opened the door.
She felt her world tilt off center.
Nick wasn’t there.
Worse, his stuff wasn’t there. The apartment was almost empty. All of his cherished things—the leather couch he’d spent hours thinking about, the tasteful glass side tables, the hanging lamp, the plush brown carpet—all of it was gone. There was just a large, overstuffed chair facing the back wall. The beautiful brass and glass kitchen table set was gone. The big television. The stereo with its giant speakers. His record collection. The walls were bare; all of his cherished art was gone, even the pieces that Andrew had drawn for him.
She almost fell to her knees. Her hand went to her chest as she felt her heart tear in two.
Had Nick abandoned them?
Abandoned her?
She put her hand to her mouth so that she wouldn’t start screaming. She walked on shaky legs into the middle of the room. None of his magazines, his books, his shoes left by the balcony door. Each missing item was like an arrow piercing her heart. Jane was so terrified that she almost felt numb. All of the worst thoughts spun through her head—
He had left her. He knew that she was doubting him. That she had stopped believing in him, if just for a moment. He had disappeared. He had overdosed. He had found someone else.
He had tried to kill himself.
Jane’s knees buckled as she tried to walk down the hall. Nick had threatened to kill himself more than once and the thought of losing him was so wrenching to Jane that each time she had cried out like a child, begging him to please stay with her.
I can’t live without you. I need you. You are the breath in my body. Please never leave me.
“Jane?” Andrew had made it to the door. “Jane, where are you?”
Nick’s bedroom door was closed. She had to brace herself against the wall as she made her way down the hallway. Past the bathroom—toothbrush, toothpaste, no cologne, no shaving set, no brush and comb.
More arrows slicing open her heart.
Jane stopped outside the bedroom. Her hand could barely grip the doorknob. There was not enough air to fill her lungs. Her heart had stopped its steady beat.
She pushed open the door.
A strangled sound came from her throat.
No bed with its puffy duvet. No side tables with matching lamps. No antique chest of drawers Nick had lovingly refinished. Only a sleeping bag was rolled out on the bare floor.
The closet door was open.
Jane started crying again, almost sobbing from relief, when she saw that his clothes were still hanging on the rack. Nick loved his clothes. He would never leave without them.
“Jinx?” Andrew was beside her, holding her up.
“I thought—” Her knees finally sunk to the floor. She felt sick again. “I thought he—”
“Come back through here.” Andrew lifted her to standing and practically carried her out of the room.
Jane leaned into him as they walked up the hallway, her feet dragging across the bare floor. He took her into the living room. He flipped the light switch. Jane squinted from the glare. Even the light fixtures were missing. Bare bulbs hung from the sockets. Except for the massive chair that looked like it belonged on the street, everything that Nick had ever cared for was gone.
His clothes were still in the closet. He would not leave his clothes.
Would he?
“Is—” she couldn’t say the words. “Andrew, where—”
Andrew put his finger to his lips, indicating that there might be someone listening.
Jane shook her head. She couldn’t play this game anymore. She needed words, assurances.
“It’s all right.” Andrew gave her that careful look again, like she was missing something important.
Jane looked around the room, desperate for some kind of understanding. What could she be missing in this bare space?
The bare space.
Nick had gotten rid of his things. He had either sold them or given them away. Was he cleverly foiling the police so they didn’t have anywhere to plant their listening devices?
Jane couldn’t stand any more. She sat on the floor, tears of relief flooding from her eyes. That had to be the answer. Nick hadn’t left them. He was fucking with the pigs. The almost-empty apartment was just another one of Nick’s games.
“Jinx?” Andrew was clearly concerned.
“I’m all right.” She wiped her tears. She felt foolish for making such a scene. “Please don’t tell Nick I was so upset. Please.”
Andrew opened his mouth to respond, but a cough came out instead. Jane winced at the wet, congested sound. He coughed again, then again, and finally walked into the kitchen where he found a glass drying by the sink.
Jane wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She looked around the room again, noticing a small cardboard box beside the hideous chair. Her heart fluttered at the sight of the framed photo resting on the top.
Nick had given away almost everything but this—
Jane and Nick last Christmas at the Hillsborough house. Smiling for the camera, but not for each other, despite the proprietary arm Nick had draped over her shoulders. Jane had been out on tour for the previous three weeks. She had come back to find Nick antsy and distracted. He had kept insisting there was nothing wrong. Jane had kept begging him to speak. It had gone on like that for hours, sunset to sunrise, until finally, Nick had told Jane about meeting Laura Juneau.
He had been smoking a cigarette outside the front gates of the Queller Bayside Home. This was after the cocaine bust in Alameda County. Both he and Andrew were serving their court-mandated sentence. That Nick had met Laura was pure happenstance. For months, she’d been looking for a way into Queller. She had approached countless patients and staff in search of someone, anyone, who could help find proof that her husband had been screwed over by the system.
In Nick, Laura had found a truly sympathetic listener. For most of his life, he had been told by those in authority that he didn’t matter, that he wasn’t smart enough or from the right family or that he did not belong. Pulling in Andrew must have been even easier. Her brother had spent most of his life focused on his own wants and needs. Directing that attention toward another person’s tragedy was his way out of the darkness.
I felt so selfish when I heard her story, Andrew had told Jane. I thought I was suffering, but I had no idea what true suffering really is.
Jane wasn’t sure at what point Nick had brought in other people. That’s what he did best—collected stragglers, outsiders, people like him who felt that their voices were not being heard. By that Christmas night at the Hillsborough house when Nick had finally told Jane about the plan, there were dozens of people in other cities who were ready to change the world.
Was it Laura who’d first come up with the idea? Not just Oslo, but San Francisco, Chicago, and New York?