Faster Than the Speed of Love

The first time Brian told Lois he loved her, there was a girl dying in the back seat of Peter's Chevrolet. Her name was Caroline Dufresne. She was 19 years old, and she had spent the last 40 minutes begging them to take her to a hospital.

Peter was driving. Brian sat beside him, watching the speedometer climb past 80 as they approached a curve on Route 31 outside Spencer, Massachusetts. Lois was in the back seat, pressing her sweatshirt against Caroline's stomach.

"She's bleeding through it," Lois said.

"Then press harder," Brian answered.

"She needs a doctor."

"She needs to keep her mouth shut."

Caroline made a wet, bubbling sound. Peter glanced in the rearview mirror. "Jesus, Brian. What the fuck did you do to her?"

Brian didn't answer. The Chevrolet reached 95.

"Slow down," Lois said.

Peter accelerated.

"Peter, slow the fuck down!"

Brian turned around. "Lois, look at me."

She was crying.

"Look at me."

She did.

"I love you."

It was the first time he'd said those words. For the rest of her life, Lois would remember that he had been smiling.

Thirty-one years later, Brian sat at his kitchen table writing a novel called Faster Than the Speed of Love. He had finally figured out how it should end.

Lois stood in the doorway holding a laundry basket. "Are you seriously writing another book?"

Brian didn't look up. "That's generally what writers do."

"Writers finish books."

"I've finished three."

"You've finished three manuscripts. There's a difference."

Brian stopped typing. That was Lois. Always finding the precise distinction that would make him feel small. She had become exceptionally good at it during their 23 years of marriage.

"Did you need something?"

"The mortgage is due Monday."

"I know."

"And the electric bill."

"I know."

"Brian."

She lowered the basket. "I'm leaving."

He looked at her. She had said it before, usually after arguments about money. But this time her voice was calm.

"I found an apartment in Worcester. I signed the lease yesterday."

Brian studied her face. "Does Bonnie know?"

"Yes."

"Peter?"

"Probably."

He nodded. "So everybody knew except me."

"I was afraid of how you'd react."

Brian returned to his keyboard. "Well, congratulations. You've ruined the ending."

"What?"

"My book."

Lois stared at him. "Jesus Christ, Brian."

She walked away. He listened to her footsteps climb the stairs.

Then he opened a second document. It contained 47 pages of observations about his wife. Her schedule. Her passwords. Her medications. Her friends. The money she kept hidden beneath the bathroom sink. He added a line.

Friday. Apartment in Worcester. Bonnie involved.

Then he returned to his novel.

Peter arrived at six carrying a twelve-pack. He was 53, overweight, and employed by a roofing company that had stopped trusting him with vehicles after his third drunk-driving arrest.

"Lois here?"

"Upstairs."

Peter placed the beer on the table. "Bonnie says she's leaving."

"Apparently."

"Shit."

Brian opened two cans. "I need you to do something."

Peter sighed. "Every time you say that, something terrible happens."

"That's an exaggeration."

Peter looked toward the ceiling. "Is it?"

Brian slid a printed page across the table. Peter read the first paragraphs. His expression changed.

"Where did you get this?"

"I wrote it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a writer."

"Brian."

"Keep reading."

Peter pushed it away. "You can't publish this."

"Why not?"

"Because it's what happened."

"Not exactly. I've changed a few things."

"You used her real name."

"Caroline's been dead 31 years. I doubt she'll complain."

Peter stood. "You're out of your fucking mind."

Brian opened his laptop. There was a photograph of a young woman lying on a stained mattress. Her eyes were open. Her hands had been tied with an electrical cord.

Peter's mouth fell open. "I thought you burned those."

"I told you I burned them."

"That's the same thing."

"Not remotely."

Brian closed the laptop. "Sit down."

Peter sat.

Bonnie had never liked Brian. She tolerated him because Peter had known him since high school, and because Lois had become her closest friend. Over the years, she'd watched Brian reduce a confident woman into someone who apologized for buying the wrong coffee. But lately something had changed. Lois had stopped apologizing.

On Thursday afternoon, Bonnie helped her pack dishes into boxes.

"Did you tell him about the lawyer?"

"Not yet."

"Good."

Lois wrapped a plate in newspaper. "I found something in his desk."

"What?"

"A photograph."

"Of what?"

"Remember that girl who disappeared in 1995? Caroline Dufresne?"

Bonnie frowned. "Vaguely."

"She was a friend of ours."

"I know."

"Brian always told me she ran away."

"Didn't she?"

Lois shook her head. She removed a folded photograph from her purse.

Bonnie examined it. A young woman lay on a mattress, apparently unconscious. Blood stained her shirt.

"Jesus Christ."

"Look at the corner."

A man's hand rested on the mattress. His wrist bore a distinctive tattoo of a black anchor. Peter had gotten that tattoo when he was 18.

Bonnie dropped the photograph. "Where did you find this?"

"Brian's desk."

"Have you shown the police?"

"Not yet."

"Why the hell not?"

Lois stared at the picture. "Because I was there that night."

Brian's novel began with a proposition. Love is merely the name people give to possession when they wish to feel virtuous about it. He was proud of that sentence.

He had spent years collecting observations that supported his theory. Mothers who smothered their children with expectations. Husbands who monitored their wives. Women who threatened suicide when their boyfriends attempted to leave. Everyone wanted ownership. Brian simply believed in acknowledging it.

He had loved Caroline once. Or believed he had. She was beautiful, impulsive, and entirely too interested in other men. When she rejected him, he'd arranged for Peter to invite her to a party.

The four of them had driven into the woods afterward. Caroline had been drinking. Brian had not.

What happened next was something he had spent 31 years describing differently, depending on his audience. To Peter, it had been an accident. To Lois, a misunderstanding that got out of control. To himself, an unfortunate consequence of Caroline's inability to appreciate how deeply he cared.

In the novel, he intended to tell the truth. Most of it.

Peter returned Friday morning. He looked exhausted. "Bonnie found out."

Brian continued typing. "Found out what?"

"About Caroline."

"That's unfortunate."

"Lois showed her a picture."

Brian stopped. "What picture?"

"The mattress."

"Interesting."

"Interesting? My wife thinks I'm a fucking murderer."

"Are you?"

Peter slammed his fist onto the table. "She was alive when we left her!"

Brian waited.

Peter lowered his voice. "She was alive. I know what I saw!"

"That's what we've always told ourselves."

"You said you went back."

"I did."

"And?"

Brian smiled. "That's in chapter 12."

Peter grabbed the laptop.

Brian didn't move. "Go ahead. Break it. The manuscript's backed up."

"Delete it."

"I don't think so."

Peter leaned across the table. "If Bonnie leaves me, I'll tell the police everything."

Brian considered that. "Even what you did while Lois was unconscious?"

Peter froze.

"That's what I thought."

Lois remembered little of the night Caroline disappeared. There had been beer, then something stronger. Brian had handed her a drink shortly before they left the party.

She remembered Caroline arguing with him. Peter pulling onto a dirt road. Brian telling Caroline she needed to appreciate people who loved her. Then darkness.

The next clear memory was the Chevrolet speeding along Route 31. Caroline was bleeding. Brian was smiling.

For years, Lois accepted Brian's explanation that Caroline had fallen onto broken glass during a drunken argument. Peter had taken her to a hospital after dropping Lois off. Later, when Caroline disappeared, Brian claimed she'd left Massachusetts to escape an abusive boyfriend. Lois believed him because the alternative was unbearable.

Now she sat in Bonnie's kitchen.

"Why didn't you go to the police?" Bonnie asked.

"I was 20. I was terrified. Brian said I'd be charged too."

"And after that?"

Lois looked down. "Every year made it harder."

Bonnie said nothing.

"I married him eight years later."

"Why?"

"He was the only person who knew what happened. He made me believe we were protecting each other."

Bonnie reached across the table. "You're telling the police now."

Lois nodded. Neither noticed Peter's truck across the street.

Brian had already written the ending when Peter called.

"She's going to the cops."

"Who?"

"Lois. Bonnie's taking her."

Brian looked at the clock. "How long?"

"Maybe an hour."

"Come over."

"I'm not helping you hurt anybody."

"Peter, you've been helping me hurt people since we were teenagers."

"That was different."

"Of course."

Brian disconnected. He reread the final chapter.

The woman discovered that her husband had murdered a girl decades earlier. She threatened to expose him. His best friend intervened, and the woman died. The husband then killed his friend in self-defense.

A tragedy. Two deaths. One survivor.

Brian printed the chapter. Then he retrieved a steel pry bar from the garage.

Peter arrived twenty minutes later.

"I want you to read something," Brian said.

"Fuck your book."

"Just the ending."

Peter read silently. "You wrote that I killed Lois."

"Fiction."

"And then you kill me."

"Self-defense."

"You're planning to murder us."

Brian laughed. "That's dramatic."

Peter threw the pages down. "Bonnie's going to the police. Lois too. It's over."

Brian opened the refrigerator. "Remember what Caroline said that night?"

Peter closed his eyes. "Don't."

"She said she'd tell everyone."

"Brian."

"She said her father would kill us."

Peter began crying.

Brian opened a beer. "Then you hit her."

"I was trying to stop her screaming."

"With a tire iron."

"She was going to ruin our lives!"

Brian nodded. "There it is."

"What?"

"The truth. You weren't angry because she rejected me. You were angry because she'd tell people what we'd done."

Peter stared at him.

Brian took a drink. "Know why I kept the photographs?"

"Because you're sick."

"Because I understood something you never did."

He set down the can. "People don't need to be innocent. They just need someone else to be guiltier."

Peter looked toward the doorway. Lois stood there. Bonnie stood behind her. Both women had heard enough.

For several seconds, nobody moved. Then Lois spoke. "Where is she?"

Brian sighed. "Hello, sweetheart."

"Where did you leave Caroline?"

"Lois, this isn't the time."

"Tell me."

Brian looked at Bonnie. "Did you bring your husband here to confess?"

Bonnie's expression was rigid. "I brought him because he said he wanted to tell us the truth."

Peter stared at his wife. "You called me."

"After Lois called the police."

Brian's smile disappeared. "You called the police?"

Lois nodded. "They're coming."

Brian looked around his kitchen. "Well, I suppose we should all sit down."

Lois shook her head. "Where is Caroline?"

Brian glanced at Peter. "Would you like to tell her?"

Peter stared at the floor.

Brian sighed. "Fine. I went back the next morning."

Lois covered her mouth. "She was alive?"

"Unfortunately."

Peter began shaking his head.

"She'd crawled out of the ditch. Made it about 30 yards. I found her against a tree."

"Stop," Peter whispered.

"She asked for water."

Lois made a strangled sound.

"I gave her some. Then I explained I couldn't take her to a hospital."

Bonnie stepped backward. "What did you do?"

Brian looked at her. "She was already dying."

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?!"

"I finished what Peter started."

Peter lunged. The men collided against the counter. Brian struck him with the beer can, splitting his eyebrow. Peter grabbed Brian's throat. They fell against the table. The laptop crashed.

Brian reached beneath the table for the pry bar. He swung blindly. The steel struck Peter above the ear. Peter collapsed.

For a moment, Brian seemed astonished. Then he looked at Lois. "See?"

She backed away. "See what?"

"How quickly it happens."

He lifted the pry bar. "One second someone loves you. The next, they're trying to kill you."

Bonnie ran toward her husband. Brian struck her across the shoulder. She fell screaming.

Lois grabbed a chair and drove it into Brian's chest. He stumbled backward. The pry bar clattered onto the floor.

She ran for the door. Brian caught her hair. They fell together.

"After everything I've done for you!" he screamed.

Lois drove her elbow into his face. He released her. She scrambled toward the door. Brian grabbed her ankle.

Then Peter reached for the pry bar. He swung once. Brian's grip loosened. A second blow struck his temple. The third landed after Brian stopped moving.

"Peter!" Bonnie screamed.

He dropped the bar. Brian lay on the floor, blood spreading beneath his head. Nobody spoke. Outside, a siren approached.

The police found Brian dead and Peter sitting beside the kitchen table. Peter surrendered.

Bonnie was hospitalized with a fractured collarbone. Lois spent the afternoon answering questions about a night in 1995 she'd spent her adult life trying to forget.

Detectives eventually located Caroline's remains beneath a collapsed hunting shed outside Spencer. Peter was charged in connection with her death. Prosecutors also reviewed Brian's death, although witnesses described the blows as an attempt to stop an ongoing attack.

Bonnie filed for divorce. Lois moved to Worcester. For the first time in 23 years, she slept without wondering what mood her husband would be in when he woke.

But she didn't sleep well. She still heard Caroline begging. She still remembered the speedometer. And Brian smiling as he told her he loved her.

Four months later, a package arrived at Lois's apartment. The return address belonged to an attorney handling Brian's estate.

Inside was a manuscript. Faster Than the Speed of Love. Brian had left instructions for it to be delivered to Lois after his death.

She nearly threw it away. Instead, she began reading.

The opening chapters described Caroline's disappearance. Brian portrayed Peter as a violent drunk and himself as a reluctant participant.

Halfway through, Lois discovered a chapter about their marriage. Brian described their wedding, honeymoon, and first house. He described the precise moment he realized Lois would never leave him. It was the afternoon he'd shown her a photograph of Caroline. He'd told Lois that if the police learned what happened, they'd arrest her too.

She believed me. That was when I understood the usefulness of a shared secret.

Lois felt ill.

Brian described the years that followed. The arguments he'd started deliberately. The friendships he'd undermined. The jobs he'd encouraged her to quit. The money he'd hidden.

Every act had been calculated. Every apology rehearsed. He recorded it with the fascination of a scientist studying an animal in a cage.

Then Lois reached a chapter titled The Experiment.

Brian described visiting Caroline's mother eight months before his wedding. The woman was still searching for her daughter. He'd introduced himself as an old friend and offered to help. He'd brought groceries, repaired her porch, and listened while she cried. He'd even accompanied her to the police station.

Lois remembered those visits. She'd thought they demonstrated compassion. Now she read what he'd written.

Her mother told me I was the only person who hadn't forgotten Caroline. I found this amusing because I was the only person who knew exactly where Caroline was.

Lois went to the bathroom and vomited. When she returned, she continued.

The final chapter described a future in which she discovered the truth and threatened to expose him. It described Peter's involvement. Bonnie's discovery. And the confrontation that would follow.

Not every detail matched. But enough did. Brian had been imagining their deaths for years.

At the bottom was a handwritten note.

Lois,

If you're reading this, then I was right about everything.

You always said love meant wanting what was best for another person. I disagree. Love is the willingness to do whatever is necessary to keep what belongs to you.

I loved Caroline. I loved you. And when Peter tried to take everything away from me, I loved myself enough to stop him.

Love doesn't make people good. It makes them honest.

Brian.

Lois stared at the signature. Then she noticed a date beneath it. February 14, 1995. Six months before Caroline disappeared.

She looked again at the opening pages. The descriptions of Caroline's injuries. The location where her body had been found. The conversations Brian claimed to remember. And she understood.

The manuscript hadn't begun as a confession. It had begun as a plan.

Brian had written Caroline's death before he killed her. He'd written Peter's betrayal before Peter betrayed him. And he'd written Lois's destruction before asking her to marry him.

For 31 years, Brian hadn't been documenting the consequences of love. He'd been testing how much cruelty he could commit in its name.

Lois closed the manuscript. She placed it inside the envelope and called the detective investigating Caroline's murder. Then she sat in the silence, thinking about that night on Route 31.

The speeding Chevrolet. Caroline bleeding in the back seat. Peter gripping the wheel. Brian turning toward her with that terrible smile.

She'd spent 31 years believing he'd said I love you because he was frightened and needed her. Now she understood. He hadn't been making a promise. He'd been conducting his first experiment on her. And she'd spent the rest of her life proving his theory.

Brian had given his novel a ridiculous title. But he understood something about himself that Lois never had. He could get from love to murder faster than anyone else could get from love to safety.