Already Gone

– 52 –



I don’t move, and for a while we just stand there on the front porch, staring at each other.

Then Gabby motions past me and says, “Can we talk?”

“She’s gone,” I say. “If that’s why you’re here.”

“I know she’s gone, and no, that’s not why I’m here.” He pauses. “You going to let me in or not?”

I hesitate, then step back, holding the door.

Gabby walks in first, looking around the living room as he does. The other man follows.

“You’ve been down here this whole time?”

“How’d you find me?”

“Not important.” He snaps his fingers and points. “Did you get the gift?”

“Was that what it was?”

“Depends how you look at it,” he says. “I think I did you a favor and showed you her true colors. That sounds like a gift to me.”

I think about the note and the apology. All at once, everything clicks into place. Gabby had to be right. He knew what would happen when he sent the statue, and he knew what Diane would do when she saw the diamonds. This was his way of proving to me that he was right about her all along.

He wasn’t apologizing for what he’d done back home. He was apologizing for what he knew was coming, what he knew she’d do.

“You knew what was going to happen.”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out, kid. You were just too close to see her for what she was.”

Even faced with the facts, a part of me still doesn’t believe it’s true. A part of me still believes she loved me, that not all of it was a lie. But this time, I keep that part of me quiet.

“Like I said, she’s not here.” I walk past them and into the kitchen. “She took the diamonds, and I don’t know where she is.”

They follow me.

“We know,” Gabby says. “But don’t worry about that. We’ll get to her. Tonight, I’m here to see you.”

The tone of his voice is cold and feels like a frost crawling along my spine. I reach down and take the whiskey bottle off the table and drink.

I tell myself I won’t be afraid.

Gabby walks to the sliding glass doors and looks out at the darkness. He doesn’t speak.

“So what do you want?” I take another drink. “Did you come to thank me for saving your life?”

Gabby laughs, then turns around and looks at me. “That’s right, Jake. That’s exactly why I’m here.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and pats my cheek with the other. “Thank you.”

I look down at the bottle in my hand, but I don’t think I have the strength to lift it.

“This is a nice place.” Gabby looks at the old man standing along the wall, then points to the glass doors. “Did you see how close we are to the water?”

The old man shakes his head, doesn’t speak.

“Is it easy to get down there?”

I feel my stomach twist. I nod, silent.

“Well, come on then, show me the way. I love the ocean at night.”

My legs feel weak, but I manage to walk over to the table and set the whiskey bottle down. I motion to the doors leading out onto the porch. “After you.”

“You lead the way,” Gabby says. “It’s your house.”

I pull the doors open, and we all walk out onto the porch and down the steps to the long path leading to the sea. There are no stars tonight, just the full moon, cold and bright against a depthless black sky.

When we get to the water, I stop and let the waves roll in over my feet. Gabby stands next to me, and we stay there for a long time, staring out at the reflection of the moon on the ocean.

The sea is loud, and I focus on the sound until the world drops away and that’s all that’s left.

A few minutes pass. Then Gabby turns and looks at me. “We can’t stay, Jake.”

“I know.”

“I wish you would’ve trusted me.” He shakes his head. “Things could’ve been different.”

I don’t look at him, just stare out at the moon and listen to the roar of the sea. “They are what they are.”

Gabby frowns. “You’re right about that.”

He looks past me and nods to the man standing behind us, then he puts his hands on my shoulders and squeezes.

He lets go and walks away.

Behind me, the old man steps closer.

I close my eyes and focus on the sound of the sea.

I tell myself I’m not afraid, but I still jump when I hear the gunshot.

It takes a minute before I realize I’m still standing.

I hear movement behind me, and when I turn around, the old man is lying on the ground. Blood is blooming out from a hole in his shirt, soaking into the cloth. He claws at the sand, once, then stops and doesn’t move again.

Gabby is looking back toward the house, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, trying to decide which way to go. I follow his gaze and see Diane walking down the beach from the path. She has Doug’s .38, and she’s aiming it at Gabby.

As she gets closer, he turns to me and laughs.

“Jake?”

Then Diane pulls the trigger.





“Come on,” Diane says. “Help me.”

She hands me the .38 then bends down and lifts the old man’s legs. Gabby is lying facedown a few feet away, and I can’t take my eyes off him.

“Help me.”

I slip the .38 into the back of my belt, then come around and lift the old man’s shoulders. Together we drag him into the surf and float him out as far as we can.

Even in a few feet of water, the current is strong.

It pulls at us as we walk back to shore.

Diane runs over to Gabby’s body and tries to turn him onto his back. I follow her, slow.

“We have to hurry,” she says. “What are you doing?”

I can’t think of what to say, so I start with the obvious question. “Where were you?”

Diane takes a breath, and I see her shoulders drop. “Can we do this later?”

“I want to know.”

“I left,” she says. “I stayed up all night thinking about that note and wondering why he sent you the statue. The more I thought about it, the more I knew he was coming, so I took the diamonds and the gun and hid from him, and from you.”

“Why?”

“Because he wanted to kill us, that’s why.” She holds out her hands. “This was the only plan that would work. He expected me to leave, so he had to think I did.”

“But why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “Why did you just leave without a word?”

“You would’ve tried to talk me out of it, and I would’ve let you.” She looks up and smiles. “I couldn’t do that this time. I knew I was right.”

I can’t argue with her, and I don’t.

Instead I say, “Why did you come back?”

Diane’s eyes go wide, and she smiles. “Why do you think I came back?” She shakes her head and laughs under her breath. “I love you, Jake.”

A few seconds pass. Diane grabs Gabby’s shoulder and tries again to turn him over. “Will you give me a hand, please?”

I get down next to her and we push him over onto his back. When we do, he stares up at us, his mouth opening and closing, silent.

“Jesus,” I say. “He’s still alive.”

Diane ignores me. She walks around and lifts his legs, then nods toward his head. “Come on, we have to do this.”

“But he’s still alive.”

“Pick him up.”

I hesitate, then grab Gabby’s shoulders. We drag him down the beach toward the water. Gabby is whispering something, but the sea is loud, and his words are lost in the sound.

We push him out into the surf and let the tide take him. Then Diane and I stand at the edge of the water and watch as the currents pull him away from the shore.

Silent.

After a few minutes, I ask, “Now what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where do we go from here?”

“Anywhere we want,” she says. “We’re free.”

Somewhere, far from shore, I think I hear Gabby crying out to me. I tell myself it’s just the wind.

Diane steps closer and leans into me.

I slide my arm around her shoulders, and we stand like that for a long time, staring out at the sea.

“I love you, Jake. Do you know that?”

I look down and see her eyes, clear and bright in the moonlight. It makes me smile.

“Yeah,” I say. “I do.”




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank my agent, Allan Guthrie, for his advice and his patience. Thank you to my editors, Terry Goodman at Thomas & Mercer, and Francesca Main at Simon & Schuster. Thanks to my early readers, Kurt Dinan, John Mantooth, Eric Smetana, John Hornor Jacobs, Stephen Sommerville, and Sean Doolittle for their time, their generosity, and their invaluable insight during the early drafts of this novel. I’d also like to express my sincere gratitude to Jeff Belle, Sarah Tomashek, Jacque Ben Zekry, David Downing, and everyone on the Thomas & Mercer team for their hard work, their passion, and their unmatched dedication to their books and their authors. Most of all, I’d like to thank my wife, Amy, for her love and her support, and for believing when I didn’t.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Rector is a prize-winning short story writer and the author of the novels The Grove and The Cold Kiss, which was named Best Debut Novel of 2010 by Suspense Magazine and optioned for a feature film currently in development.