Great Exploitations: Sin in San Fran by Nicole Williams

 

     
     
    REVENGE. IF I didn’t realize some of it soon, I was afraid I would be overwhelmed by it. I was already possessed by it, so there was no place further to go than to be crippled under the weight of it.
    For the first time in years, more than one person’s name was on that revenge list. The name that had dominated my list wasn’t even in the number one spot anymore. No, the number one spot was held by the devil himself, also known as Rob Tucker.
    After beating me unconscious, he’d visited me at the hospital every day, his arms overflowing with elaborate flower arrangements or boxes of hand-dipped chocolate truffles. Yesterday, he’d brought me a sapphire bracelet. I guess he wanted his gift to match the color of my bruises.
    He always showed up with a wide smile and warm eyes, stroking my hair as if I was more pet than person. He discussed the extravagant weekend trips we could take together once I was healed up. After the first day he’d visited, Rob hadn’t mentioned what he’d done to me—beat and kick the shit out of me—and the only thing more disturbing than that was the way I’d catch him scanning my bruises as if he was proud. It was sick. The whole damn thing.
    Yet there I was, still deep in the Errand I should have abandoned the instant I woke up in the hospital. But I didn’t quit. More like I couldn’t quit. I’d apparently rather risk death than quit something I’d fully committed to, and I’d rather die a hundred gruesome deaths than let a snake like Mr. Tucker get away with what he’d done.
    I was contemplating how quickly and succinctly I could close the Tucker Errand—although pouring a vat of hot oil on him was almost as appealing—when my door opened and in slipped my faithful and punctual daily visitor. The other daily visitor. My face lit up when Henry Callahan meandered in with his messy hair and easy smile.
    “You’re looking a million times better today,” Henry said before kissing my forehead.
    His kiss held the comfort of a parental kiss but the heat of a lover’s. My hands twitched to pull him back before he sat in the chair beside my bed. Whether the drugs they were pumping into me were messing with my head, or Rob Tucker had knocked some wiring loose, or I’d woken up in an alternate reality, my confusion about Henry had increased two-fold. Or three-fold. Or whatever-the-hell-fold it was that left me unable to tell up from down.
    “And you’re still a bad liar,” I replied as I sat up.
    I’d only been in the hospital for four days, but we’d developed a ritual of going for a walk together. The first day he’d had to push me in a wheelchair, but on the second day, I was too stubborn to let him do it again. So we’d been walking together—slowly—to the hospital courtyard ever since.
    “I’ll take being a bad liar as a compliment.” Henry grabbed my hands and helped me up before finding my slippers.
    “You take everything as a compliment.”
    He grinned at me as he slid my second slipper into place. “Life’s a lot easier to wade through when I live in a state of delusion.”
    “That’s the secret?” I shrugged into my robe. “I thought the secret was sustaining on a Prozac cocktail.”
    “When all else fails, that’ll do the trick, too.”
    Henry wove his arm through mine as we made our slow journey to the hall. When we passed it, I glared at the wheelchair tucked into a corner. Walking a few halls might take me twenty minutes, but I hadn’t gotten as far as I had by taking the easy road. Henry was patient and never mentioned the wheelchair. He knew me too well for that.
    “I’ve been thinking, Eve . . .”
    I took in a breath and steeled myself. As much as I enjoyed his visits, I didn’t enjoy our conversations. At least most of them. The ones centering around what had happened to put me in this sterile environment in the first place most of all.
    “Tomorrow I’ve got a board meeting, which means I actually have to be at work. No more