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A LIFELINE
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2022-08-06 21:00:00“These people need to move on,” my mother said that morning, annoyed by their grief and suffering. She was driving me to school, and Marlowe was along for the ride. “Frank’s not even in the car. Why would he be throwing rocks at us?”
“He wants revenge,” said Marlowe from the backseat. We locked eyes in the rearview mirror.
“He wants it from the wrong man,” said my mother. If she remembered her confession to me about Frank, about his strangeness, she showed no sign. I hadn’t even bothered to tell her what I saw the night before; she wouldn’t have believed me, and I didn’t want her to tell Frank. Fear was a stone I carried in my chest, so heavy I could barely stand upright. I thought of her in her used wedding dress, how she’d pranced about like Cinderella at the ball, thinking no one could see the frayed edges or the cigarette burn in the lace. The story of her life.
At school that day,
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It’s not as dramatic as I believed it would be, this return of my past. I envisioned being bowled over by it, taking to my bed, feeling helpless to do anything as the memories trampled me like runaway horses. But it is more like watching the rerun of a black-and-white horror film I saw as a child. The images are familiar, but too grainy and drained of power to be truly frightening.After I put Victory to bed her first night back home, I start to remember. I tuck her beneath her sky blue sheets and sit with her as she drifts off, watching the delicate rise and fall of her chest. As I get up quietly and slip from her room, she says sleepily, “I want my baby.” I find Claude on the floor and put him beside her, but she is already sound asleep again. As I leave the room, I hear Janet Parker’s voice and there’s a terrible ringing in my ears. Once I’m back in my bedroom, I’m swept away, traveling back to a place I haven’t visited
Last Updated : 2022-08-06THE VENGEFUL LUNA ACTION
Yet this is not a fugue, this most recent flight from my life. For the first time maybe, I am sure of who I am and what I must do. This has been a purposeful escape to protect my daughter from mistakes that I have made, to protect her from the woman I have been. If I can’t do that, then she’s better off without me.The boat is pitching horribly now, and I cling to the rail on the wall as I make my way back to my cabin. The wind is wailing, and I think of Dax on his little boat and wonder how he is faring in the big waters and if he’ll survive, if he’ll come back for me. My stomach is in full mutiny, and I hold back vomit as I move through the door, pull it closed behind me, and resume my crouch in the small triangle of space that will be created when the door swings open. I listen to the wind and the churning water.It isn’t long before I hear the thrum of a powerful boat engine, then footfalls on the deck above me. I take the gun from my
Last Updated : 2022-08-06THE VENGEFUL LUNA HIS GIFT
“Mom!” I yelled, grabbing the banister and racing up the stairs. I covered my mouth and nose with my arm, but the smoke was insidious, burning my eyes, clawing at the back of my throat. By the time I got to the top landing, I was coughing and light-headed.I found my mother alone in her bed, passed out cold, oblivious to the fire raging through the house. I don’t know what I thought would happen to her in all this, but I couldn’t leave her to die. I shook her but couldn’t rouse her. Finally I dragged her until she stumbled from the bed, leaning her full weight on me.“What’s happening?” she muttered.“There’s a fire!” I yelled, struggling to get to the door. “Where’s Frank?”But she didn’t seem to hear. “Lolita,” she slurred, “let me sleep.”I dragged her into the hall, where through the smoke I saw two figures on the staircase, one lon
Last Updated : 2022-08-07THE VENGEFUL LUNA WE DON'T GET TO MOVE ON
“He was gone most of the time,” Gray said of his father. “And when he was home, he was this brooding presence. Sullen, staring at the television or angry at my mother for something she’d bought or had done to the house while he was gone. I hovered around him, wanting and fearing his attention. Occasionally I’d get these quick pats on the back or we’d try to play catch or build a tree house, something that fathers and sons might do together. But it was never quite right. We always walked away feeling like we’d failed at something indefinable. We just couldn’t connect, not really. Not ever.”He used to spend time talking to me like this, even when he thought I might not be able to hear him or that I didn’t care. He’d sit in my room at the psychiatric hospital in New Jersey where he’d admitted me as Annie Fowler and talk. I’d stare off into space, not responding. I wasn’t exactly catatonic, but I
Last Updated : 2022-08-07THE VENGEFUL LUNA RETRIBUTION
He’s moving fast, crossing the causeway and pulling on to the highway. He’s not stopping at the police station. He’s headed into the city, which seems odd. I never thought to ask him how he knows where Harrison lives. He has his methods.“I was in a bar in the East Village once, a place called Downtown Beirut. You know it?” Gray asked me one night at the hospital. Our relationship had improved by this time, but I didn’t answer. I almost never did. I don’t think he minded. He knew I was listening.“A real dump, the biggest dive you ever saw - what a shithole. I used to drink there a lot. Just find a corner and pound them back until I could barely get myself home to my apartment on First Avenue. It wasn’t every night that I’d get drunk like this, only when I couldn’t sleep, when it was all too much with me. My mother passed after I was discharged, a stroke. I blamed my dad. I blamed him for almost everythi
Last Updated : 2022-08-07THE VENGEFUL LUNA WHAT EVER IT TAKES
They told me that I left myself behind that night when I got into that black sedan with Marlowe, that Lolita ceased to exist and a new girl took her place.So who am I now? I remember wondering as Gray shouldered the bag filled with the things he bought for me and we walked through the automatic doors into the cold parking lot. Am I Annie Fowler or Lolita March or someone else entirely? Two and a half years of my life were gone.I got into the black Suburban and wrapped my arms around myself against the cold. I was shivering, from cold, from fear. On the day I left Frank Geary’s horse ranch, I was seventeen, nearly eighteen. On the day I left the hospital with Gray, my twenty-first birthday was just three months away.Gray turned on the heat, and we sat for a while in the car. I was scared. I didn’t know who I was or what I was going to do with myself now. But I stayed quiet. I couldn’t afford to show any weakness.“I know a
Last Updated : 2022-08-07THE VENGEFUL LUNA WHAT IT TAKES
We drove for two days and finally wound up at Vivian’s place on the beach. She and Drew were just dating at the time, so I lived alone with her. Gray took an apartment nearby. He wanted me to have some time to get to know myself, to get to know him.“We’ll date,” he said. “Like normal people.”Vivian took me into her house and treated me like her daughter. She cooked for me and stayed up late listening to me talk. She offered me a sort of kindness that no one else ever had. As I got my GED and started taking classes at the local college, my belly grew bigger. Gray and I dated. It was the happiest time of my life.I suppose some people would have considered ending the pregnancy. But it didn’t even cross my mind. I’ve never once thought of Victory as Marlowe Geary’s daughter. She has always been mine and mine alone.* * *I watch as Gray gets out of the car with a black duffel bag. He puts t
Last Updated : 2022-08-08THE VENGEFUL LUNA BRIGGS' DEAD
I wanted to tell him that it couldn’t be true, though I’d read this much. I don’t think I could have witnessed these crimes and done nothing, but the truth was, I didn’t know for sure.“A few weeks earlier, a witness, a stock boy Geary left for dead in the back room, said he saw you. He was badly wounded, unable to help the girl Geary was torturing. All he could do was listen to her screams, thinking he was about to die himself. He said you were virtually catatonic, that you sat in a corner and rocked, gnawing on your cuticles. That Geary led you out when he was done. You went with him like a child.”I covered my face in shame. I hated to think of myself this way, weak and in a killer’s thrall, just like my mother.“Up till then I wasn’t sure. Your mother said you went with Geary willingly. But your father said when you came to New York that you weren’t right, you weren’t the girl he knew. He said
Last Updated : 2022-08-08
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I suppose it’s possible that, like Ray Harrison, she was a person I met, someone I knew in passing, and that the fuller relationship we shared was something created in my mind, a fantasy established to fulfill some deep need in my psyche.It’s equally possible that she was someone who worked for Drew, someone hired to keep tabs on me; this is what Gray believes, though he has no evidence or knowledge to support his theory. Sometimes I search my memory for clues that might have indicated that my friendship was a fantasy - like the white shock of hair my imaginary Ray Harrison had, or the searing headaches that were the inevitable backdrop to my encounters with him. But there’s nothing like that. Whatever the case, Ella Singer was friend enough that I feel her loss deeply. And that means something in this world. It means a lot.I am less hard on myself these days. I try to treat myself the way I treat my daughter - with patience and understanding. I str
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I walk over to the back of the house, look at the ocean and the white sand. The ground beneath me seems soft, unstable.“Annie, what’s this about?”“The night...” I begin, then stop. I was going to say the night you killed Briggs but I don’t want to say those words out loud. “When you said all threats had been neutralized, you meant Briggs.”Gray is behind me, his hands on my shoulders now. “Why are we talking about this?”“Just answer me,” I say quickly.I hear him release a breath. “Yes, that’s what I meant.”I lean against him, my back to his front. “What’s happened?” he whispers.But I can’t bring myself to say the words. I can’t bring myself to tell him about the Ray Harrison I knew. Not now, not when my husband has started to believe in my sanity for maybe the first time.“Annie,” Gray says,
THE VENGEFUL LUNA KARMA
They are grim, intent, uncomfortable. My father is a boy with the stubble of a beard, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He is lithe, muscular, with dark eyes and square jaw. Drew looks like a heavier, less appealing version of my husband - like a young bulldog with a stern brow and mean eyes.“These men, these fathers, all searching for their kids,” says Harrison, drifting over toward the glass doors leading to the deck. “Alan Parker’s daughter murdered by Frank Geary, Teddy March’s daughter held in the thrall of Marlowe Geary, Drew Powers’s son far from the fold, estranged for years. They all had a common purpose, to do right by their kids in the ways that they could.”I think about this, the deviousness and planning, the deception that it took to make all this happen.“And how was it that both you and Melissa fell prey to the Gearys? Coincidence, maybe. Or maybe it was their karma, their bond? I don’t kno
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After I’ve been all through the house, I come to stand at the glass doors downstairs and stare at the Gulf until I sense someone behind me. I spin around to see Detective Harrison standing in my living room.“The door was open,” he says apologetically.He looks thin and pale but oddly solid - at peace in a way. I find myself grateful for him and for his wife, and I’m glad to see him now. I want to embrace him, but I don’t. I smile at him instead and hope I don’t seem cool, distant.“Coffee?” I ask.“Please,” he says.I pour him a cup but abstain myself. I’m jittery already from too much caffeine this morning, and I feel a headache coming on. I sit on the couch, but he prefers to stand.“How’s your family?” I ask.“We’re okay, you know?” he says with a nod. “I think we’re going to be okay. I’ve hung out my own shingle
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I feel a shutting down of anger, of fear, and I am mercifully blank. But I find I can’t bear the sight of Drew and Vivian anymore. I stand up with Victory in my arms and move away from the table, heading for the door. There are a lot of questions, but I don’t want the answers. Not from Drew and Vivian.“Annie, please try to understand,” says Vivian. I can see that fear again on her face, but I am already gone.“I need to understand what you did, Dad,” I hear Gray say behind me. I can tell he’s trying to keep his tone level. “I need you to tell me the truth.”“Leave it be, son,” answers Drew, his tone as unyielding as a brick wall. I wait in the foyer, listening, rocking back and forth with Victory, who is quiet now.“I can’t do that.”“Yes,” says Drew. “If you know what’s good for your family, you can. Your wife is unwell. In my opinion not w
THE VENGEFUL LUNA FIRED
Now that the engine is off, the ship has started to pitch in the high seas, and my stomach churns. I pause at the bottom of the staircase that leads up to the deck. I can hear the wind and the waves slapping the side of the ship. I strain to hear the sound of voices, but there’s nothing, just my own breathing, ragged and too fast in my ears.I make my way up the stairs, my back pressed against the wall. My palm is so sweaty that I’m afraid I’ll drop my gun. I grab on to it tightly as I step onto the deck. I am struck by the cold and the smell of salt. The sea is a black roil. The deck is empty to the bow and to the stern; the light on the bridge has gone dark, like all the other lights.Suddenly I am paralyzed. I can’t go back to the cabin, but I don’t want to move outside. I don’t know what to do. I close my eyes for a second and will myself to calm, to steady my breath. The water calls to me; I feel its terrible pull.While
THE VENGEFUL LUNA POWERS AND POWERS II
She is on me then, clinging and sobbing into my chest in a way she hasn’t since she was a toddler. I hold on to her tightly, bury my face in her hair.“No one’s going to hurt me, Victory,” I whisper into her ear.Gray is looking at his father, his face a mask of confused disappointment. “Dad?” he says. “What have you done?”Drew takes a few deep breaths, seems to steel himself. “I did what I had to do for our family, so that we could all be together like this.”Gray gets to his feet so fast that everything shakes. A piece of stemware falls to the floor and shatters, spraying wine and shards of glass at our ankles. No one moves to pick it up; everyone stays fixed, frozen. Gray’s face is red, a vein throbbing on his throat. I’ve never seen him so angry.“What are you talking about, Dad?” Gray roars.Drew is turning a shade of red to match, but he doesn’t
THE VENGEFUL LUNA TONIGHT
I reach my cabin and fumble with the lock for a second, then push into my room. A small berth nestles in the far corner. Beneath it is a drawer where I have stowed my things. I kneel and pull out my bag, unzip it, and fish inside until I find what I’m looking for-my gun. A sleek Glock nine-millimeter, flat black and cold. I check the magazine and take another from the bag, slip it into the pocket of my coat. The Glock goes into the waist of my jeans. I’ve drilled the reach-and-draw from that place about a million times; my arm will know what to do even if my brain freezes. Muscle memory.I consider my options. Once again suicide tops the list for its ease and finality. Aggression comes a close second, which would just be a roundabout way toward the first option. Hide and wait comes in third. Make him work for it. Make him fight his way through the people charged with protecting me and then find me on this ship. Then be waiting for him with my gun when he does.
THE VENGEFUL LUNA POWERS AND POWERS
The farce of it all sickens me. Sarah Harrison might as well be seated across from me at the long glass table where we have gathered for dinner. A wide orange sun is dropping toward the blue-pink horizon line over the Gulf. We feast on filet mignon and twice-baked potatoes, fat ears of corn. Drew and Gray knock back Coronas while Vivian and I drink chardonnay. Victory sips her milk from a plastic cup adorned with images of Hello Kitty. Anyone looking at us might feel a twinge of envy, the rich and happy family sharing a meal at their luxury home with a view of the ocean.“Annie,” says Drew, breaking an awkward silence that has settled over the table once vague pleasantries and chatty questions for Victory have been exhausted. “You seem well.”He is smiling at me in a way he never has before. There’s a satisfied benevolence to him, the king surveying his subjects. I thank him because it seems like the right thing to do in this context
