The Cage Sessions(20)

I step over to the balcony and look out at the hills that have become a sort of home. It's only been a week, but I'm going to miss this place.

"Before we go back," I say, "I have something to tell you."

He zips up his suitcase and just looks at me. Guess the tone in my voice is alarming.

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner," I say, "but I got swept up in this place... in you. I want you to know something."

He just puts his hands on his hips and stares at me, his tattooed chest muscles busting out of his black sleeveless shirt.

"I got a call last week," I say as I sit on the bed.

Then I proceed to tell him everything. The mysterious message about Arely Gutierrez-Machado. Detective Gomez. The recent murder in Brimford.

His face drops. He sits on the bed. I've never seen Damien Cage look deflated before. It's like someone popped him and let all the air out.

"Why didn't you mention this sooner?" he says in a hollow voice.

"Because," I say, "I'm going to be brutally honest here. I wasn't sure if you did it or not. But it's ridiculous. What would a rock star like you want to accomplish by killing two street thugs way up north? How could you have even possibly pulled it off with your lifestyle? It's ridiculous. So I thought I would tell you because this trip... being here with you... convinced me that I can trust you fully. And I know you didn't fly up to Brimford, Massachusetts on a dark night in January 2011 to kill some two-bit criminal."

He just sits and stares, motionless. I put my hand on his arm. He doesn't move.

"Damien," I say. "What's wrong?"

"I have something to tell you too," he says.

Uh-oh.

My heart starts thumping and my breath goes shallow.

"Three years ago..." he says then stops.

"Yes?" I say, a sheen of sweat breaking out all over me.

"Three years ago I did fly up to Brimford, Massachusetts on a cold dark January night to kill a two-bit criminal."

I'm shaking now.

"You did what?" I say, my voice trembling.

"Marcellina's cousin," he says, "He killed her. He got her hooked on heroin again."

Oh my fucking God!

"But see, he started killing her years before," continues Damien. "When he first taught her how to shoot up in an old abandoned building."

A strange thing happens to me. I'm in the room with a man confessing murder to me. But a calm washes over me. I don't feel afraid. Not at all.

"It was right before coming here the first time," he says. "I told Jasmine I was going to South America but first... I flew up there. In a disguise. With a gun. I paid a guy to find him for me. Found out he goes to this club."

"Club Cabrillo," I say.

"Yes," he says. His voice is without emotion, like he's almost not even here. "I've never told anyone this. Nobody but Arely knows I was there. And now you."

"It's okay, Damien," I say. "I understand why you would kill somebody like that."

"That's the thing," he says. "I didn't kill him. I was going to. That was the plan. I just couldn't do it. Big tough guy Damien Cage had him. He was on his knees. And I just couldn't do it. I couldn't pull the trigger. See, Arely was smart. He knew. He didn't try to fight me. That's how he stayed alive. He just got down on his knees to die like a good little obedient puppy. If he had tried to knife me, I could have done it. But I couldn't pull the trigger with him on his knees in the snow."

"But he was killed that night."

"No," says Damien. "That was January 16, 2011. He was killed two nights later on the eighteenth. I was already here in South America."

"So who killed him?"

"I don't know. I put out some feelers anonymously but never found out anything. He had an enemies list a few miles long so it could be any one of a hundred people."

I'm relieved.

So relieved.

But then, I get angry. Angry at Arely Gutierrez-Machado. He killed Marcellina. Our Marcellina. I get it.

I sit next to him, putting my hand on his thigh. He clasps my hand.

He's breathing heavily.

"I love her too," I say.

"What?" he says.

"When you care for someone, you care about what they care about. You care about her. You love her. If you love her, then I love her. I have to. It goes with caring for you."

He looks hard at me.

And he sees I mean it.

I do.

I can never have him fully. She'll always have a piece of him. I could be like most women and not settle.

But I understand reality too well. He can't do anything about it. He will always love her.

The best I can hope for is that a part of him can love me at the same time.

"It feels so good to share that with somebody," he says as he turns and looks at me. "I'm so glad it was you."