I have no idea where we are. In the woods, somewhere. He must have carried me here from the SUV Or more likely dragged me, since the backs of my shoes have a build-up of mud and leaves on them. The surroundings remind me of where I was two years ago when I was the one holding the gun and not the one under the barrel of it. I am lying on my side, the wet dirt cold against my body. There are hundreds of trees and ferns and rocks, and there is a light rain. My cellphone is in a dozen pieces on the ground ahead of me.
The world comes into sharper focus and that’s a problem, because in the centre of my view is my lawyer. He’s no longer wearing the suit. The gun looks like a 9mm. I figure it’s loaded to the max and this guy looks like he’s in the mood to prove it.
He notices me staring at the gun, then he turns it in his hand and looks at the side of it, as if he’s seeing it for the first time.
‘It’s amazing what you can get for a few thousand dollars when you’re motivated enough,’ he says, ‘and are prepared to spend a few hours in the worst part of town. Guns, tasers, there’s no limit when you’ve got the cash. And the desire.’
My hands are still bound behind me. I tuck my legs beneath me and manage to get onto my knees. The taser pain has gone, but not the pain from the beating the guy gave me to knock me out. I have to blink heavily every few seconds just to keep things from going fuzzy, and it’s a struggle to stay balanced. The broken needle is still in my arm. Blood is running down my face. It’s getting dark. Must be around four o’clock. Maybe five.
‘What do you want?’ I ask.
‘What do you think I want?’
I remember what he said in the car. About his daughter.
‘It was an accident. I’m sorry’
‘You think being sorry negates all of this? You think if she dies your sorries will help me sleep at night?’
I close my eyes while he talks to me. His words are very similar to the ones I said to Quentin James, only for him I didn’t use a ‘what if because Emily was already dead. I wasn’t waiting on more information on which to base my decision. Nothing was going to change. One difference is I didn’t bind Quentin with plastic ties. I held him at gunpoint and made him walk. I made him carry a shovel because I wanted him to know how it felt to be a victim. I wanted him to know that the feeling he had that he was about to the was the same feeling I’d had every day since the accident and what I would feel every day for the rest of my life.
Hell, for me it was worse. I already had thed, and it was because of him. I made him dig a grave, and all along he cried and told me it was an accident, he told me he wished he could change time, he told me it was Quentin James the drinker who had killed my daughter and not the man holding the shovel. The man holding the shovel was going to get better. He was going to seek help. He would go to jail and he would live with what he had done, and he would get better.
“I’m a different person when it happens,’ he told me. ‘I’m no longer me.’
But I didn’t care; my wife was no longer what she had been, and my daughter was no longer alive. I watched as the sweat began to expand in circles from his armpits over his shirt, even though it was cold out. Dirt was sticking to his face, to his hands; He rolled up his sleeves and dirt began to stick there too. I told him it was too late, that it didn’t matter what he said now, that being sorry wasn’t going to change the past and wouldn’t prevent the future. He cried. He begged for his life. He tried to make me change my mind, but it didn’t matter. I was never going to let his justifications and sick excuses stop what was coming, and I’d made that decision before heading out there. I had to. I had to. It was the only way to go through with it, and the only way to save others from him.
Now my perspective is changing. Maybe the same damn thing that got me here is the same thing that happened to him. I never looked into his history. Never learned whether his family had died, never learned what drove him to drinking. There was way too much anger for that. He stood in the grave and he cried as I levelled the pistol at him. He told me he was sorry, and I told him that was enough, that I didn’t want to hear any more, that it was time to take responsibility. Through all his fear there must have been some hope I was going to let him go. I was hoping he would accept it, that he would shut up and make peace with his maker and just accept it. But he didn’t.
Quentin James was still begging for his life when I shot him in the head. It didn’t feel as good as I thought it would.