by Tiya Rayne
My brush strokes recaptured everything. It repaints their smiles, the look in their eyes, the strands of their hair, to the lines in their faces. I paint it all out on my canvas and store it in my head.
The sound of my name being called has me opening my eyes. A tall guy in a blue button up shirt and khaki pants smiles down at me. His eyes are a dark shade, I can’t determine the color under this dimly lit fluorescent lighting. Stubble covers his chin and jawline.
A band-aid is under his right eye. His dark brown hair is parted on the side in a short cut. Even without the badge around his neck, I can tell this guy’s a cop. He has a strong 5.0 vibe.
“Are you Brooklyn Creedmoor?”
“Yes.”
His smile widens as he holds out a hand for me to shake. “I’m Detective Richard Long.” I shake his hand briefly. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a word with you.”
I glance over to the nurse’s desk again. She quickly turns away as if she hasn’t been listening.
“I already talked to the detective. I was supposed to be waiting for the coroner to identify my sister’s body?” This time the nurse looks over to the cop expectantly. Now I’m wondering if this is who she was on the phone with.
He stumbles over his words for a second. “Detective Shaw, right?”
“Yeah.” My mind recalls the older overweight man that asked me about my sister’s known enemies.
The new cop nods. “I see. Shaw is my partner usually, but he was called away for another case. I didn’t get to debrief him before he left. You wouldn’t mind answering a few of those questions again, would you? I told the coroner I’d bring you to him as soon as we’re done.”
I’m not a very trusting person. I’ve been told that a few times—well more than a few times—but I grew up in foster care and you learn quickly not to trust everyone. So, I don’t know if I’m getting bad vibes because something seems off about these two or if I’m being my usual everyone’s a threat self.
The cop must notice my hesitancy because he softens, his shoulders relax, becoming less threatening. “Please, Ms. Creedmoor, I’m only trying to figure out what happened to your sister.”
It’s those words that finally get me off my ass. It’s the blunt reminder that someone took my sister’s life.
“And after your questions, you will take me to see my sister?”
“Absolutely,” he answers assuredly.
I grab my coat off the chair beside me. I want to see my sister. The faster I talk to this detective, the faster I can see Albany.
Standing to my feet, the officer’s smile widens. “Right this way.” He holds out a hand.
In silence, I follow the tall man down through the winding walls of the hospital toward the elevator. He looks over to me a few times on our journey but never speaks. We finally climb on the elevator and he pushes the lower level button, closing the doors.
“It’s eerie. You look exactly like her.” His voice cuts into the quiet.
I don’t have to ask who he’s talking about. Albany and I were identical twins, some people would say mirror twins. We had the same butterscotch skin complexion, same wide dark brown eyes, dimples and button nose that turns up at the end. The only difference is that I have a dime-sized birthmark above my right eyebrow. On days like today, when my bright red natural curls are hanging over my forehead, you can’t see that birthmark. However, that’s the only difference.
My reply to the detective is simply. “Yeah, I know.”
There was one more difference between my sister and I, and I’m pretty sure the cop notices it too when his eyes drift subtly down my curvier body. I’m a full cup larger up top than Albany was, and my hips and ass flare out a little more at the bottom. When the slight smile breaks across the detective’s face, I roll my eyes.
Yeah, he definitely notices the difference.
The elevator dings and the doors open to another long white hallway similar to the one I was just in. The detective and I walk a little ways down the hall until we get to a door that reads security.
Detective Long opens the door and steps aside for me to walk in first. Something catches my attention out the corner of my eye. Down the hall, staring at the bulletin board on the wall is a tall man.
I thought Detective Long was tall, but this man is taller than him. I can’t make out much of his features because I can only see his profile. His dark brown wavy hair is in a messy ponytail at the back of his head.
A few pieces have come loose in the front and hang in his face. From the side, his strong pronounced jawline makes him look like a well-sculpted statue and his aristocratic straight nose adds to his allure. His black duster style coat paired with his black jeans and biker boots give me bad-boy vibes.
As if he can sense me staring at him, he turns toward me. For a split second, I’m in a cheesy romance movie. Never have I seen a man so damn attractive.
All sound stops, the world around me fades as haunting amber eyes meet mine. The sound of my heartbeat echoes in my ears. I’m pretty sure it’s only a split second that he and I stare at each other, but it feels like a lifetime.
“Ms. Creedmoor?” Detective Long’s voice breaks through the silent moment, turning my attention back to him.
His brows crease as he looks over his shoulder to find what I’d been looking at. In the spot where the mystery man once stood… is nothing. He’s gone.
Did I imagine him? There’s no way my mind could conjure up a man like that. He was so real, the urge to paint him has my fingers twitching.
“Are you okay?” the Detective asks.
I only nod my head as my gaze goes back to the spot mystery man stood in. With one last look, I head into the small room.
A long rectangular table that runs the entire length of the room houses about ten different TV monitors all with split screens of the different floors of the hospital. Most of the floors are busy with doctors, nurses, and patients. But some floors—like the one I am on—have empty hallways.
“Have a seat,” Long offers as he points to a blue chair.
Taking a seat, I place my jacket in my lap and turn back to the monitors again. My gaze skims quickly over the screens. Anything to distract me from the man sitting in front of me or the reason he’s here.
“Thank you for giving me a few minutes,” Detective Long starts.
I nod my head but remain quiet. I didn’t pay much attention to the detective earlier. Only taking in enough of his appearance to determine he’s a cop. However, the more I stare at him, study him, I pick up a few other subtle details.
My canvas pulls up in my head as I paint him. There’s a long strand of straight hair on his shirt. He has a lover or a girlfriend. Not wife because there’s no ring or tan line where one should be.
His girlfriend is a redhead, lighter than my near burgundy color. His nails are short and a yellowed color. He’s a smoker and a biter.
Strange he doesn’t smell like cigarette smoke, it’s a different scent. I also notice that even with the bandage under his eye, he’s attractive. Not overwhelmingly good looking, but I imagine a lot of women swoon over his gray eyes and clean-cut hairstyle.
He too thinks he’s attractive. I can tell by the way he keeps smiling at me.
“Can you tell me a little about your sister?” he asks with a grin planted on his face that probably has women falling all over him.
Not this one.
“Albany was an introvert, quiet, she hardly ever talked to anyone,” I answer his question the same way I answered the fat cop when he asked.
“When’s the last time you heard from her?”
Again, the same question as the other cop. It takes only a second to think back.
“This morning. We always call each other in the morning and at night before bed.”
It’s our routine. Sometimes life got in the way and we would forget, but we never went longer than a day or two without hearing from each other. Even if only a simple text message.
“Hmm,
” he hums. “Did she call you tonight?”
“No, but she did send me a text around 7:00 p.m.”
He leans forward in his seat. “What did the text say?” he asks eagerly.
I pause before I reply. I feel like I’m answering all the same questions. “You can’t call your partner and get this from him? He wrote it all down.”
It’s not like the text had included some kind of evidence as to who killed my sister. Obviously, if it had I would’ve reported it beforehand. This seems like an intrusive question.
He gives that smile again.
“Brooklyn, can I call you Brooklyn?”
I nod. It’s not like he isn’t going to do it anyway.
“Brooklyn, the first 48 hours after a murder are the most important to solving a case. Trying to track my partner down for this info is wasting time. Besides, we’re trying to figure out a timeline for your sister’s death. That’s all.”
That pang in my chest hits again. My sister is dead. I have to keep remembering this because it still feels so unreal. It feels like I’m dreaming and at any moment I’ll wake up from this dream and she will be lying across my bed, listening to me tell her about how crazy my day was.
I sigh. “It said, T.T.F.A.”
“T.T.F.A?” He looks confused. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Looking down at my hands in my lap, my eyes water. I have to clear my throat before I speak. “It’s something we used to say when we were kids. It means, Today, Tomorrow, Forever, Always.”
It was our little mantra growing up in foster care. It got difficult at times, going from home to home. Albany and I were all we had. We needed a little uplifting every now and again.
TTFA became that thing we clung to. It reminded us that no matter what, we had each other’s back. I would always be in her corner and she would always be in mine.
“I see,” he says. “And that was all that was sent? She didn’t say anything else? No secret message or video?”
I look up at the detective. Once again, that feeling comes to mind. The one that has my trust issues flaring up.
“No,” I reply.
I’m not lying, although there is something odd about the way she wrote the message. The first three words were spelled with a number, 2day, 2morrow, 4ever, and the last word was spaced out, A.L.W.A.Y.S. However, I don’t tell him this.
I trust only two things in this world, my sister and my gut. And right now, my gut is telling me to keep that info to myself.
“Do you have any other family? Someone else she was close to? Maybe a boyfriend by chance?”
“No, it was just Albany and me. We had no family.”
A name rolls around my head. One Albany spoke of often. He stood out to me because she never talked about the men she dated.
She had boyfriends when we were growing up. Albany was gorgeous and easy to get along with. There was always some guy following her around.
I knew she went on dates because she would often tell me she had plans, but she never discussed the men. Other than telling me—if I asked—that it was a bust or a good date. That’s how I knew this guy was different.
Before I can mention him, Detective Long speaks. “That’s right, you’re the Creedmoor twins.” He chuckles. “I remember hearing about that story.”
I cringe. I hate being remembered by that. It wasn’t easy to get away from. Especially when the dumb-as-fuck caseworker assigned to our case decided to give us the same last name as the damn psychiatric hospital we were abandoned at only hours after we had been born.
My mother—whoever she was—dropped us off at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens. She couldn’t even take us to the right fucking hospital. I mean, damn there had to be at least fifty firehouses on her way to that damn hospital and she bypassed them all.
Either way, she didn’t want us. Rumor has it there was a write up in the paper and even the news did a segment on us. However, after nearly a week of coverage, the attention died, and we became permanent fixtures in the foster care system.
“Yeah,” is the only reply I have for him.
“Well.” He scratches at his chin. “I’m going to need to confiscate your cell phone.”
“What? Why?”
“As I told you, Brooklyn, we’re trying to solve your sister’s murder.”
“And you need my cell phone for that for what reason? I know damn well I’m not a suspect.”
“Should you be? You’re acting rather suspicious, don’t you think?”
Is he fucking insane? The thought alone of what he’s implying pisses me off. I’ve never so much as hit my sister. I’d never do anything to hurt her.
I’m officially over this bullshit investigation. If I need a lawyer, I’ll get one. I can’t afford it, especially not on a damn teacher’s salary, but I’d find a way. I shoot to my feet.
“This is bullshit. I’m leaving.”
“Sit down, Ms. Creedmoor.” The authority in his voice has the reverse effect on me. Exactly like when I was a child.
“Fuck you,” I snarl. “I’m leaving.”
Turning toward the door I go to make my exit, but he shoots his hand out and grabs ahold of my wrist in a painful grip. Immediately, the atmosphere in the room changes. It dawns on me that I’m on the lowest level of this hospital.
There aren’t any nurses roaming the halls or doctors in white lab coats floating around like the other floor I was on. There’s no one here, not even patient rooms. Well, there was tall and mysterious, but I’m not a hundred percent sure I didn’t dream him up.
Right as I come to the conclusion that I may have to whoop this cop’s ass, the door to the small room opens. In walks a frazzled man that looks as if he’s seen way too much shit and not enough sun.
“There you are. He told me you would be in here.” The guy looks like Doc from Back to the Future. “I’m Sheldon, I’m the coroner.” He reaches for my hand, completely oblivious to the tension in the room.
Detective Long let’s go of my arm as Sheldon takes my free one into his with a clammy shake. The moment he lets go, I discreetly run my palm down the side of my leg.
“What in the heavens are you doing in here?” Sheldon asks, pushing his large square glasses up his nose. Finally, he notices Detective Long still sitting.
“Oh. Hello, Detective.”
“Sheldon.”
Sheldon turns back to me. “Right this way, Ms. Creedmoor. We still need you to identify the body,” he says as he escorts me toward the door.
“Brooklyn,” Detective Long calls out my name, stopping me in my tracks. I glance over my shoulder at him. “I’ll be keeping in touch.”
Even though it’s said with a smile, I feel the ominous threat behind those words. I have no idea what this cop’s deal is. There is no way I can be a suspect in my sister’s murder. However, that strange feeling in the back of my mind tells me this cop is definitely someone I need to avoid.
I leave out of the room with Sheldon at my side. The moment the door closes behind me, Sheldon sighs.
“That detective is too tightly sprung. People don’t understand what stress does to the body,” he says conversationally. “It causes a lot of gastrointestinal problems. Have you ever seen what stomach acid can do to your esophagus?” He couldn’t possibly be asking a serious question, so I don’t answer it.
Besides, my mind is stuck on the fact that I’m about to see my sister for the first time ever, without life in that sweet loving face of hers. I have no idea what I’m going to see when I enter this room. They didn’t give me much detail about how Albany died, only that she was murdered.
What will I find when I walk in here? Sheldon stops in front of a door with simple black letters that read Coroner.
“Are you ready?”
It takes me a moment to reply. Closing my eyes, I breathe in and exhale to still my nerves. I paint a picture of Albany in my head.
It was the last time I saw her alive. Her long straight hair was parted down the middle with
a few wand curls at the ends. Her head was tossed back in mid laugh as I told her about my students that day.
She loved hearing the crazy stories about my art class. Her brown eyes had sparkled with mirth as my cat, Samson, laid in her lap. That’s how I want to remember her.
No matter what I see when I enter this room, that’s how I want her image to remain in my head. I finish the mental painting, capturing all the details of that day from the setting sun coming through the window, to the way the bird hopped around on my balcony. When I open my eyes again, I immediately feel calmer.
With a nod, Sheldon pushes open the door and holds it for me to walk in. No turning back now.
Chapter 2
The Stranger
Brooklyn
The first thing I notice is how cold the room is. It isn’t very big either. Beige walls, linoleum floor with a drain in the middle.
One wall has a built-in counter and sink with lots of storage. The back wall looks like a large meat locker with its metal doors. The room is very brightly lit.
It isn’t the horror movie vibe I thought it would be. I envisioned dead bodies in clear bags, hanging from the ceiling like dry cleaning. This place is clean and non-frightening. In the middle of the floor is a row of metal gurneys, one with a white sheet on top. I already know what’s lying under that white sheet.
“Right this way,” Sheldon says, directing me toward the gurney.
I don’t know how my legs get me to this sheet. It has to be pure muscle memory. My mind definitely isn’t in control.
Sheldon gives me only a second to gather myself before he pulls the linen back. A gasp catches in my throat. My eyes blur and I clutch a hand to my chest.
Albany.
“Is this Albany Creedmoor?”
My words will not form. There’s no way I’m getting anything out past my lips. I nod my head as the first tear falls down my cheek.
“All right.” Sheldon goes to place the sheet back over the body.
I shoot out my hand to stop him. He doesn’t ask any questions. He only lowers the sheet back to her chest.