No Shelter by Robert Swartwood Page A

stones, groaning softly as he moves his arm back in place. I stand there watching him for another moment, then turn and start toward the roof door we’d left propped open with a broken piece of brick. I only stop when Nova calls my name.  
    “You go ahead and tell yourself that,” he says. “But ask yourself this—had the Vegas mission taken place two years ago, would you have gone out to that ranch? Would Scooter still be alive?”  
    I continue walking again, right to the door. I grab the brick and open the door and then toss the brick out on the rooftop, letting the door close loudly and lock in place.  

 
     
     
    21

    Total silence.  
    They say there’s no such thing except in space, but there are moments when I’m alone in my apartment with the windows closed that I sit or stand very still and it’s like the world doesn’t exist anymore, that such things as screams and gunfire and crying are just a distant dream.  
    It’s well past midnight and I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and think about total silence. It’s so quiet that if a mote of dust was to float down and land on the floor it would be as loud as a firework popping.  
    Over the years I’ve come to crave total silence. There’s something peaceful about it, something so soothing that it almost helps me forget all the bad shit there is in the world.  
    It’s like a black hole, a void I can crawl into and curl up and just fall asleep. No pain. No suffering. No murder.  
    A car horn sounds outside, briefly, shattering the silence.  
    I blink, take a breath.  
    I imagine Zane lying in the bed next to me. He stares up at the same spot of ceiling I’m staring at. I want to turn to him, snuggle into his embrace, hold onto him and never let him go. Before him I’d felt empty, insecure, unloved. He’d helped open my eyes to the world. He had helped me understand that behind every façade, every smiling face, there is an evil just ready to make its move.  
    I imagine him lying here beside me and asking, What’s wrong, Holly?  
    I fucked up royally this time.  
    Why?  
    Scooter’s dead.  
    And it was your fault?  
    Yes.  
    No it wasn’t. Stop blaming yourself.  
    But I’m scared.  
    Scared about what?  
    But I can’t answer him, because before I do I take my eyes off that spot of ceiling and turn my head and find his side of the bed empty. A tear hatches from the corner of my eye and starts to slither down my cheek. I don’t even bother wiping it away.  
    The silence returns and I stare back up at the ceiling.  
    I think about a lot of different things.  
    About murder and death and how they’re wedded together, a perfect union.  
    About two years ago, down in Miami, on that drug lord’s yacht, a fire having already broken out, a number of the bodyguards dead, and my father and I finding the drug lord cowering below deck.  
    About taking the entire bottle of Valium pills concealed behind the bathroom mirror.  
    About dragging the drug lord up to the deck and aiming my gun at him and my dad turning to me and raising his own gun at my head.  
    About Karen and what she confided in me.  
    About floating in my tub filled with warm water and slicing the veins along my arms.  
    About Zane stepping out of nowhere, shouting for my dad to stop, and my dad turning his gun and firing three rounds into Zane’s chest, the bullets forcing Zane to stumble back and fall over the edge and into the water.  
    About going to the roof of my apartment and stepping up onto the edge and just letting gravity do its magic.  
    About the dry Iraqi desert.  
    About shooting my own father, one two three four five times in the chest, screaming as I do it, stepping closer and closer, and then while he lies flat on the deck moving in even closer for the kill shot.  
    About taking one of my many handguns hiding scattered throughout the apartment and placing the barrel in my mouth.  
    About the stench of the porta potty, the urine and shit