Pretty Baby Ch. 05

Ian glowered over me. "Don't think that the events of your little life are all I think about," he said. "I took you in, Alyssa. I gave you the means to live out your desires, whether you understood them at the time or not. Some people might feel obligated to me for that."

He stepped away, took a flask from his jacket. I just stared, shaking.

"But not you. Not Alyssa Green," he said, taking a sip from the flask. He looked back to me. His face softened somewhat, his lips twitching for a moment in a smile. "It took me a while to realize that, while I had opened the door, you were the one to walk through it. I had expected you to be . . . reluctant, hesitant. But you weren't. You reveled in it."

I forced myself to calm down. "Wh-why, Ian? Wh-why—"

His eyes studied mine. "Because I couldn't take it back," he said. "If I couldn't erase what had happened to you, then at least I could erase the person who did it."

I swallowed nervously. "He didn't have to die," I said, fighting down the tears. "He's got two kids, Ian!"

He smirked suddenly, a rude expression. "Better off not having a rapist for a father."

I shut my eyes. I didn't want to look at him. "You son of a bitch."

"I've been called worse, believe me."

"I thought I knew you," I said. "I thought I understood who you are—"

"And who is that?" he asked abruptly, making me open my eyes again. "Who did you think I was?"

I couldn't answer.

He let out a short, rueful laugh. "I finally get the chance," he said. "To show you, to . . . do something for you. To exact your revenge—"

"I didn't want that!" I cried.

"Didn't you?" he yelled, matching my outburst. "I saw the pain, the anger, the shame on your face, Alyssa! I saw what he did to you, and it broke my fucking heart!"

I gasped, reeling back, staring at Ian's face. I didn't want to admit what I was thinking, what Ian was telling me: that he had killed Gary out of love for me.

He tilted the flask back again, wiped his mouth. His outburst ashamed him, I knew. Ian Holloway never lost control, after all. "But I was too much of a coward," he said. "As much as I wanted to, as much as he deserved it, I knew I couldn't do it."

I frowned at his words. What is he saying? He didn't kill Gary? But if he didn't—

I suddenly remembered that night, when we are all in my apartment. James talking to Ian, telling him what had happened. Ian taking out his phone, Cleo's reaction when he told her who he was calling . . . .

"Mr. Stone," I whispered.

Ian said nothing. He took a last sip, then fixed the cap on his flask and slipped it into his jacket. His hand came out holding his cell.

I didn't say anything as I watched Ian dial. He did not look at me. He listened to the ringing on the other end for a moment.

"Mr. Stone," he said.

***

I was silent on the ride in Ian's Mercedes. I sat as far away from him as possible in the passenger seat, looking out the window, staring at my feet. Ian didn't say a word. I didn't know where we were going, and I didn't ask.

We arrived at an industrial park, full of rust-walled warehouses and smelling of chemicals and grease. A light rain had begun to fall, and it soaked into my hair as Ian lead me to a little door in one of the buildings.

The sounds of our boots echoed in the cold, dank hallway as Ian lead me through a little maze. We finally arrived at a steel door, and Ian paused, finally addressing me.

"The man you are about to meet does not exist," he said meaningfully. "Therefore, your conversation will never have happened. Do you understand?"

I nodded nervously. "Y-yes," I said.

Ian shoved open the door and stepped through. I followed, finding myself in a large warehouse room, huge windows along the top of the twenty-foot-high ceiling spilling pale, stark light. The warehouse was empty except for a single figure who stood in the middle, casting a long shadow that stretched out toward me.

He wasn't at all like I imagined. Hollywood and The Sopranos had told me what hitmen looked like. My idea of professional killers had been of big, stocky men in black suits and sunglasses. Physically impressive men who could stare down anyone. Men with shaved heads and trimmed goatees, beady eyes and square jaws.

But the man before us was barely my height, slim and wiry. He wore brown slacks and a pin-striped half-sleeved shirt with a dark blue tie. He had a narrow face, a large nose, and big ears. His brown hair was short but in need of a hair cut. Round, wire-framed glasses were perched on his nose. He looked more like an accountant than anything else.

Yet there was still something ominous about him, something in his unassuming appearance that seemed deliberately unassuming, like a façade erected to conceal the dangerous man behind.

"I don't like this, Mr. H," the man said. His voice was nasally, like a fussy librarian's.

"Humor me," said Ian.

The man – Mr. Stone – stepped forward, hands in his pockets. He stopped about ten feet away. I couldn't see his eyes, only the reflection of my own face in his glasses.

"Is she cool?" Stone asked simply.

"Yes," I said before Ian could respond. "I'm cool."

Mr. Stone chuckled. "You'd better be," he said with a thinly-veiled threat.

I shuddered. The man's casual, deadly confidence was intimidating. He was more frightening to me than some hulking bouncer or a sinister assassin dressed in black. Such men, at least, were recognizably dangerous. But Mr. Stone was so . . . normal that I simply had to understand that he was a deadly killer.

"So, what's this about?" he asked, pacing slowly, scuffing his heels on the concrete floor.

I glanced to Ian, who just stared back, blankly. This was my show. I looked back to Mr. Stone nervously. "Gary Jackson," I said.

Stone wrinkled his nose. "Sounds familiar," he said.

"It should," I said, growing bold. "You killed him on Halloween."

Stone chuckled, his mousy cheeks bulging. "Actually, it was the next day," he said flippantly. "Took me a while to find him."

I gritted my teeth. Now that I was faced with the reality, the confirmed physical being of the man who had ended Gary's life, I didn't know what to say.

Stone stepped closer, looking in my face. He pursed his lips. "You know, it's not often I get to feel a sense of satisfaction about my work," he said. "But seeing you . . . damn. I should'a taken longer with him."

I breathed in, feeling the tears flow. I looked away from the killer.

"Hey, don't back down now," he said. "You wanna know what happened, right? How he cried and begged, the expression on his face when I told him he was going to die? Ain't that what you wanted to know?"

I breathed out, crying, squeezing my eyes shut. This is a mistake, I thought. Why did I want to know?

"Tone it down, Stone," said Ian.

"Shut up, Ian," snapped the killer. He took another step closer to me. "Hey, pretty girl."

I drew a breath, and fixed my eyes on the man. "Don't call me that," I snapped.

Stone chuckled, showing yellowed teeth. "Wow. She's got spunk," he commented. He turned away, taking a few steps. I followed him with my eyes.

"Did he say anything?" I asked.

Stone smirked. "You mean, aside from 'no, no, please, no?'"

I winced.

"At least pretend to have a heart, Stone," Ian growled.

Stone fixed Ian a look, sucked a tooth in contemplation. He nodded. "All right," he said, and faced me. "Yeah, he said something. After I smashed in has face and tied his hands behind his back, when I was standing behind him with a gun to his head . . . he said something."

I steeled myself. "Wh-what did he say?"

Stone rolled his shoulders, popped his neck. I got the feeling he was uncomfortable. That realization was strangely encouraging. Maybe Mr. Stone was human, after all.

"He said he deserved it," the killer said. "He actually didn't beg or plead at all. I thought that was kind of strange, so I asked him why. He told me he had hurt the woman he loved, and he didn't think he could go on living anyway."

I felt the tears flow, tried to choke them back. Oh, Gary . . . .

Stone continued: "He actually told me that, if I hadn't come along, he would'a done it himself. And you know what? I believed him. He had a bottle and some pills ready to go."

I cried some more, shaking, wrapping my arms around myself. I resisted a little when Ian touched my back, but found myself leaning against him as I sobbed.

"And the last thing he said . . . his very last words . . . ."

I forced open my eyes, stared at the little man through the flood of my tears. "Tell me. Please."

He frowned, working his lips. "He said . . . I think his exact words were, 'I'm sure gonna miss the beach.'"

"Oh, God!" I sputtered, and collapsed to the ground. The emotions of a lifetime, it seemed, poured out of me. Tears flowed down my face, dripping to the floor as I slapped my hands upon the concrete. The beach, I thought. Where we both said 'I love you' at the same time . . . .

I cried for an eternity it seemed, screaming and bawling, my cries echoing in the warehouse. I was barely cognizant of Ian pulling me to my feet, of stumbling beside him as we left. Or the car ride back to my place. Or Ian carrying me inside and placing me on my bed.

All I really remembered was crying for days.

. . . to be continued . . .