Kiss Me With Knives

RAYMOND'S CONSEQUENCE

"I am only going to ask you this once Wiston. Where is she."

Wiston Briar opened his eyes slowly. He had been drifting in and out of sleep for the past hour, the medication making everything heavy and slow. But the moment he heard that voice he was wide awake.

Valmot was standing at the foot of his bed with no doctor and no nurse beside him. Just Valmot in that same dark suit, hands in his pockets, looking at him the way you look at something you have already decided about.

"I don't know where she is," Wiston said.

"That is the wrong answer."

"I'm telling you the truth. She left this morning and I haven't heard from her since. She won't pick up my calls."

Valmot moved to the side of the bed and looked down at him. Wiston had faced difficult men in his life. Men who shouted and slammed tables and made threats that filled the whole room. Valmot was not like any of those men. Valmot was quiet in a way that was so much worse because you could never tell exactly how far he was willing to go until it was already too late.

"She packed a bag and left her apartment tonight," Valmot said. "You are going to tell me right now if you helped her plan that."

"I didn't. I swear to God I didn't. I have been in this bed since yesterday, how could I have helped her do anything."

"You have a phone Wiston."

Wiston went quiet.

"Did you call her," Valmot said. "Did you tell her to run."

"She's my daughter and I will always concern myself with her wellbeing no matter what I signed. You want your money, fine, but you will not use my child as a pawn in this, I won't allow it."

"She is my collateral." Valmot pulled a chair from the corner of the room and sat down beside the bed and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Still calm. Still that same voice. "And when collateral disappears it means someone helped it disappear. So I am going to ask you one more time and I need you to think very carefully before you answer me. Did you tell Mirella to leave."

"I called her," Wiston said finally. His voice broke on the words. "I called her after you left her apartment. I told her to go somewhere safe. I told her not to stay there."

The room went very quiet.

Valmot sat back in the chair and looked at him for a long moment without speaking. Wiston could feel his own heart monitor picking up speed and the sweat gathering at the back of his neck. Valmot's silence was always worse than whatever came after it.

"You told her to run," Valmot said.

"She is my child. What did you expect me to do."

"I expected you to remember what you signed." Valmot stood up from the chair and straightened his jacket. "I expected you to remember that your signature is the only reason you are still breathing right now. I expected you to stay out of things that no longer concern you."

"She will always concern me."

"Not anymore." Valmot moved toward the door and then stopped with his back to Wiston the same way he always stopped, that same pause that meant he had one more thing to say and whatever it was Wiston was not going to like it. "The doctors here have been really good to you, you know? Very thorough, very attentive, like they are actually trying to help." He turned his head slightly but didn't fully look back. "It would be a shame if that level of care became difficult to maintain."

Wiston stared at him. "You can't do that."

"I already did it once tonight when your daughter said no," Valmot said.

He walked out of the room.

A nurse came in about ten minutes after Valmot left. Young, clipboard in hand, the kind of face that was usually warm and easy. But when she looked at Wiston's chart something shifted in her expression. She checked it twice like she was hoping she had read it wrong the first time.

"Mr. Briar," she said carefully. "I need to let you know that your treatment plan has been updated."

Wiston looked at her. "What do you mean updated."

"Some of your current medications have been removed from your plan effective from tonight." She kept her voice professional but Wiston could see she was uncomfortable. "The authorization came through about an hour ago."

"I didn't authorize anything."

"No sir." She paused. "It wasn't authorized by you."

Wiston felt something drop in his chest. "Show me the form."

She hesitated for a moment then turned the clipboard toward him. Wiston looked at the bottom of the authorization form where the approving party had signed off.

The name was Valmot Knox.

Wiston stared at it for a long time without moving. Valmot had not come to that room to make threats. He had come to deliver a message he had already acted on before he even walked through the door. The medication being stopped. The doctors becoming unavailable. All of it was already done before Wiston had said a single word.

He had walked in holding all the cards and Wiston had been sitting there thinking he still had options.

He never did.

He reached for his phone with a shaking hand and Mirella did not pick up.

He tried again and got nothing. He dropped the phone on the bed beside him and just stared at the ceiling. For the first time since all this mess started Wiston Briar understood clearly there was no way out of this that wouldn't cost his daughter something. He had run out of road and this time he'd dragged her down with him