Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,81

coming. She knocked me on my ass, demanding the money, and I ran. I ran right into the street and the car. My own goddamn fault. I’m sorry, Ellie. Ellie?” He blinked one eye open, which was flooded red and clouded with drugs. The other seemed sealed shut. It puffed and trembled, filling with liquid. He struggled to locate her.

One minute left. The seconds ticked down. A tear leaked out of his open eye and wound a path down the raw flesh of his cheek. She felt an answering well in her own eyes.

“You know, I realized something this week; you were right. I never let Sam White go. I never stopped blaming myself. That’s why I talked Mike into the open marriage and why I keep Henry at a distance. I thought if no one got too close, I could bear it when they left.

“But I put up all those walls for nothing. You saw right through them and became my friend anyway. And Logan—she was everything I wished I could be. Strong. Warm. Whole. When I saw you two together that night, I was furious. You’d both drawn me in, you’d made me care despite all my efforts not to, and then you left me behind. So irrational.” She traced the underside of his palm. “I guess love always is.”

A noise jerked her head up. The nurse stood outside the door, shaking the handle. She mouthed an order through the window and pointed down. Nora turned away and the noise grew louder, then a hand slapped the glass.

“I’m done, Corbett. I’m done putting up walls. I’m done hiding behind my job. I’m not letting anyone cast me aside and make me believe I deserve it.” There was a clamor outside the room, a rise of angry voices. “Where’s the bank?”

He told her, breathing numbers as she tapped the last knuckle on his hand. A key was jammed into the lock and the door flew open, followed by the nurse and a security guard.

As they pulled her away, he said, “One of them’s lying, Ellie. Find the truth. You’re the only one who can.”

GREGG

I’D WANTED her gone for so many months, had fantasized about it, dreamed of a world that didn’t revolve around Logan, a world where I could meet a normal, competent professional like Nora Trier and have the right to ask her out to dinner. And the company. There were so many things Strike could do, so many channels where we could expand. We had the tournament publicity, the vStrike experience, the new gyms, so much opportunity on our horizon. The thought of removing Logan Russo from my life was powerful, liberating, orgasmic.

It was one day too early.

Detective Li and his partner searched the entire penthouse, every closet and drawer, with my permission, while I texted everyone at the stadium variations of what my sleep-starved brain was screaming. Pivot. Pivot.

“Normally we don’t file missing persons reports on adults until seventy-two hours have passed,” the detective interrupted my furious messaging, “unless we receive evidence to indicate the person is in imminent danger.”

She was in imminent danger. From me.

“We’re talking about the woman who once fractured an opponent’s collarbone and then complained when the fight was called early.”

The detective nodded, surveying the great room that showed zero evidence of a happy marriage. No pictures. No dents in the couch cushions showing customary sitting places. Just a set of boxing gloves tossed on the coffee table and a trail of blood droplets along the floor. He asked me to recount the last time I’d seen my wife, and seemed incredulous that I hadn’t physically laid eyes on her since he’d interviewed us together at the stadium yesterday.

I pulled up social media and followed the #LoganRusso and #MillCityMiracle pictures across platforms: Logan, posing with a half dozen bubbling millennials at one o’clock. Logan, leaning into an Arnold press with three meatheads wearing wife beaters twenty minutes later. I took him through a cascade of her Strike Down exhibition selfies until late yesterday afternoon, when she disappeared, and how I’d monitored tournament coverage all night from my office couch.

“Did anyone see you there?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you go home last night?”

“I haven’t been home all week.” The truth, again, was clearly the wrong thing to say.

“Have you had some sort of disagreement with your wife? Business problems? Personal?”

All of the above.

“My time has been consumed by Strike Down. A lot depends on the outcome of this week.” My watch buzzed and I checked it.