by W E DeVore
Seeing his expression change, Q stopped eating. “What is it, cowboy?”
Tears formed at the corner of his eyes and he silently shook his head. Before he could stop her, she snatched the offending photographs from his hand. When she saw the one on top, she had to stare at it for several moments, failing to discern what she was seeing. It was her face, slack with pallid desire. A thumb rested on her lower lip. Her bare breast was visible in the lower left-hand corner, as was the face of the angel tattooed on Ben’s chest.
She shuffled the photographs to look at another. She was straddling Ben in profile, holding his mouth to her breast, arching back in ecstasy. The source of her pleasure was clearly visible and disappearing into her hips.
Turning to the last image, she began to tremble in terror. She was alone, eyes closed, completely nude in the tangled sheets in the bed at the apartment behind the Cove. Written on the wall behind her head in red permanent marker was ‘BURN BITCH BURN.’
She emerged from her trance, her eyes searching for Ben and finding him looking at the pictures over her shoulder with a horrified expression on his face. Sanger’s elbow was leaning on the table as he rubbed his forehead between his thumb and his first two fingers.
He abruptly stood up and walked out of the restaurant, pulling out his phone on the way.
“These look like they’re from the other night,” Ben said. “Someone was watching us. How?”
“I don’t know. The blinds were drawn, weren’t they?”
Sanger stormed back in and threw two twenties on the table. “Come on. We’re leaving. Right now.”
He picked up his coat and tie and grabbed Q’s wrist, pulling her to her feet and along behind him with Ben quickly following.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Away from here,” he replied tersely.
As soon as they reached the car, Sanger instructed Ben to take them to the Cove.
“When?” he asked, turning around in the passenger seat to look at Q. “When did they take those?”
“Probably two days ago. The day we got the last package at the Orpheum. I went to Ben after I left you at the station.”
“You sure?” he asked.
She looked at the pictures in her hands and flipped through them again. “I don’t know. We spend the night there a lot. The last time was three or four months ago when I was on break from tour. How could I know one way or the other?”
“A bruise, a scratch, the angle of the light, anything in those pictures that would tell you for sure it was two nights ago or four months ago. It’s important, Clementine. I need to know. When did they take these?”
Ben pulled into the parking lot at the Cove and cut the engine in front of the apartment door. He reached for the pictures and Q handed them to him. After examining them for several minutes, he said, “It was two nights ago. For sure.”
He gave the photos to Sanger.
“Condom,” Ben said. “You can see the condom I was wearing in one of the pictures. We have to be careful because of the miscarriage. It was definitely two nights ago. The fucker followed her, Aaron. He followed her from the Orpheum with you to the station and then here to the Cove. She walked here alone. He could have hurt her.”
Sanger got out of the car and Ben and Q trailed after him. Ben unlocked the apartment.
“Take me through it,” Sanger said. “Set this place up just like it was the other night. Lighting, furniture - whatever. Then, go sit on the bed.”
They did as they were told, and Sanger walked back outside without saying a word. Ben held Q’s hand as they sat on the bed, waiting for him to return. “You can’t be alone anymore. You need to be with somebody wherever you go. I think we should buy you a car. I don’t want you walking everywhere and taking the damn streetcar all the time.”
“I’m safer on a streetcar than I am in a parking lot, Ben.” Knowing that she was speaking from personal experience, he couldn’t argue with her logic. “But no more walking alone after dark. That’s for damned sure. I’ll take an Uber or something.”
“No,” he said. “You call Ms. Alethia. We’ll hire her for the month. You’re not getting in a car with a stranger. Did you see anyone the other night?”
She tried to remember any faces she might have noticed from the time she left the Dark Harm rehearsals to the time she arrived at the Cove. “No. No one threatening, anyway. I’m usually on high alert if I see a man alone anywhere near me. I would have noticed. I know I would have.”
“Maybe he was older?” Ben asked. “Would you feel threatened by a man, say walking his dog, about Daddy’s age?”
“I don’t know. It’s a vibe. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s not a man,” she said. “I don’t think I would have even blinked if I saw a woman following me. But that doesn’t make sense.”
The door flew open and Sanger stormed in. “Why doesn’t it make sense? It makes perfect fucking sense to me.”
“How in the hell did you hear that?” she demanded.
He pointed to the two windows at the foot of the bed. “The window nearest the bed. I held up my phone and used a free listening app. You can hear everything in here. It’s not well-insulated. You can see the two of you clear as day right through the crack at the bottom of the blinds and hang out behind the dumpster for cover if you had to or squat right under the damn building. Hell, with a fucking selfie stick, you could just sit back and film the whole thing to watch whenever you wanted, later.”
Sanger approached and handed Q his phone. She saw a picture of her and Ben sitting right on the bed looking back at her.
“So, what? Burn Bitch Burn just happened to figure out that the blind is broken enough that he could watch us fuck?” she yelled. “What in the hell is happening?”
Sanger yelled back, “I don’t know, Clementine. But Derek’s been here enough over the last year to take a look or two. You ever think of that?”
Q stood up and began pacing the floor. “For fuck’s sake. What does that have to do with this? Not now. Focus, Aaron.”
“You don’t think it’s weird that your stalker turns up the minute that asshole gets back from his European tour?” he demanded.
Ben interrupted, “Aaron, I’m pretty sure that Q and any person who’s ever bought a Dark Harm album, would have noticed Derek Sharp following her from the police station to the Cove. Let’s all calm down.”
Sanger took the phone from her and shoved it into his pocket before grabbing a chair from the table and turning it around to straddle it. “Clementine, tell me why you don’t think it makes sense that Burn Bitch Burn is a woman.”
His knees began to bounce with nervous energy and the more his body moved, the more afraid Q became. Sanger was normally the stillest force in the room, attracting any movement around him to quiet itself. Seeing his inability to stop his own jitters just made hers that much worse. She sat next to Ben and willed her body to stop trembling.
“Please stop moving like that, Aaron. You’re freaking me out,” Q whimpered and Ben put his arm around her, pulling her closer.
Sanger took a deep breath and smoothed his hands over his thighs. He apologized and repeated his question more calmly. “Why couldn’t Burn Bitch Burn be a woman? Come on. Tell me what you’re seeing that I’m not. Help your poor hungover friend out.”
He winked at her and flashed his effortless smile, forcing a wave of calm through the room. “You see it. I know you do. Help me see it, too.”
“I don’t know. They want control,” she said. “They don’t like that Derek doesn’t control me. That I’m not under his spell. Does that make sense?”
He nodded. “Sure, it does. But why does that matter?”
“It just seems like a man would care more about that than a woman would. A man who looks up to Derek, who wants to be him, who admires him. And they know he wants me, and I don’t want him, so, by extension, I don’t want Burn Bitch Burn, either.” She exhaled out the remains of her terror. “Also, they’re so obsessed with my pur
ity. That just doesn’t seem like something a woman would get so hung up on, you know? What do you think?”
“It’s not my area, Clementine. I only see the result of an obsession like this, not the process. Why do you think I’m so worried?” His eyes apologized for his inability to stop her current situation and he continued, “Everything you said could just as easily apply to a woman. She wants to be you. Thinks you should be flattered by Derek’s attention, but you not…”
“What about the religious stuff?” Ben asked. “I’m with Q on this. It’s too…”
“Patriarchal,” Q finished.
“That’s just the Bible being the Bible,” Sanger replied. “Trust me, this a lifetime of studying it with my dad and listening to my mom counter all that bullshit with logic.”
Ben glanced over at Q. “Darlin’, are you sure you can trust Derek?”
Q deliberated his question seriously but couldn’t come up with any situation in which Derek would do something so reckless and bizarre. “Yes. It’s not him.”
Sanger leaned forward. “How do you know?”
She shrugged. “I don’t, really. It’s just… I trust him. I don’t know why. But I do. He wouldn’t do this. Something happened to him… hurt him. He wouldn’t threaten somebody like this. He just wouldn’t.”
Sanger acquiesced. “Well, from now on, you need to look out for anybody out of place, male or female. Stranger or friend. And, you need to install that security fence around your property. I told you to do it when the first fucking letter arrived.”
Ben said, “I’ll set it up first thing in the morning.”
Sanger studied the two of them and stared through Q for several minutes. Before she could ask him what he was thinking, he stood up and said, “I’ve got to go.”
“We’ll give you a ride,” Q said.
“No. I need to think. You two, stay together. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t do anything stupid. I need to go dark for a few hours and think this through. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Sanger left the apartment and Ben said, “Should we be worried?”
“About Sanger?” Q asked, and Ben nodded. “Nah. Hopefully, he’ll call Rex. He’s got a plan. It’ll be ok.”
“It’s got be weird for him. Seeing those pictures of us.”
Realizing her best friend had just seen her naked, Q cursed under her breath. “I didn’t even think about that. Poor Aaron.”
“He’ll get over it. How are you?”
“Freaked,” she replied. “I need to call Derek and tell him about this. At least they didn’t send those photos to him. Then I’d really be freaked.”
Her phone rang, and she saw ‘Cincinnati’ flash on the screen. “Speak of the devil and he’ll give you a call.”
She answered and put Derek on speaker. “What’s up, Cincinnati?”
“Dearest angel, I’m calling to inform you that our relationship is over. I’ve just received the most shocking images of you. Cheating on me with your own husband, of all people. I thought I meant something to you.”
Q inwardly cringed and suddenly started to laugh as Derek continued his ironic soliloquy.
“Imagine, if you will, how it felt to find an envelope of the most salacious photographs of my Archangel, my raven-haired muse, my lovely goddess of purity and light riding Ben Bordelon like she was racing in the Kentucky Derby. I am absolutely heartbroken. Distraught. Devastated. And I’m sure some other words along those lines, but my thesaurus app just crashed on me. On a side note, I had no idea you could bend that far back. Brava, angel.”
She stopped laughing when Ben’s frown deepened to a scowl. “Watch it, Cincinnati. We got the same pictures.”
Derek’s tone suddenly changed to raw anxiety and his voice sounded very small and very alone. “Did yours have a lovely note attached? Because mine did.”
“Read it to me,” she said, bracing herself for what would come next. For the duration of BBB’s reign of terror, Q had been the one in need of calming. Derek had taken each attack in stride. Hearing the fear in his voice made her instinctively brace for battle.
“No, I can’t,” he replied, barely above a whisper. “I wish I’d never seen it. I should have taken this more seriously.”
“Are you ok, Derek?”
“No, not really. I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep tonight. Look, angel, you don’t want to hear it. Trust me. Besides I can’t read it to you. It’s not like the others. I’m on my third glass of tequila just to keep from throwing up. This is out of control. I need Spot’s number. That’s why I’m calling.”
“No. Just bring it with you to the studio in the morning. I’ll have Sanger come with me. We’ll deal with it then. There’s nothing we can do about it tonight, anyway.”
“Is Ben with you?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Tell him I’m sorry, will you? I can’t believe I’ve gotten you into this mess. This is too much. I’ll see you in the morning. Come over at eight, would you? I know it’s early, but like I said, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping…”
“Don’t let it get a foothold, Cincinnati,” she said, sensing the darker reaches of Derek’s memory were beginning to intrude on his consciousness. “Call Fi. So, you won’t be alone.”
“Already have somebody on their way, angel. But thank you.”
“Please, not Kyle’s sister,” she stated flatly.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” he said. “But alone is the last thing I want to be right now.”
When Q hung up, Ben covered her hand with his. “You’re right. It’s not him. Come on, let’s go home.”
Chapter 12
The Path Not Taken
“Derek, quit it,” Q said for the tenth time in as many minutes.
He squinted at her and tilted his head sideways. “I’m not doing anything, angel.”
“Yes, you are. You keep looking at me like…”
“Like I know what face you make when you orgasm?”
She shoved him back and stood up to start pacing the room again. They’d been in the Son of Perdition offices with Derek’s manager for almost forty minutes, waiting for Sanger to show up.
“Where are you, cowboy?” Q mumbled to herself. She pulled out her phone again to see if he’d texted her or she’d somehow missed his call.
Derek’s manager, Brian, said from behind his desk, “Do you want to see it while we wait?”
She looked to Derek for advice and he gave her a sympathetic smile. “It’s not going to get any better with him here, Q. You may as well know what you’re facing now. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Q sat back down beside him on the grey suede couch. “Why didn’t he call me back last night, Derek? It’s not like him. He always calls me back.”
He gave her a helpless smile. “Maybe he was busy.”
She nodded. When she’d arrived at Son of Perdition that morning, she’d expected Sanger to be there waiting on her. Once she’d realized that not only had he not returned her phone calls the previous evening, but that he hadn’t shown up at the appointed time for which she’d begged his presence, she’d convinced herself that somehow the situation with Charter Real Estate had escalated at exactly the worst possible moment, and Sanger was lying dead somewhere at this very moment. She knew she was being irrational. Every pore on her skin yelled at her that she was being irrational. But Q couldn’t listen.
She picked up her phone and dialed Sanger’s number one more time, saying to his voicemail, “Aaron, it’s me. Please, cowboy, I’m freaking out here. If you’re on a case and you can’t come to Son of Perdition, I understand. Just call me or text me and tell me that. I’m about to jump out of my skin.”
Q put her phone away and looked around at her audience. “Ok, let’s just see it. How bad can it be?”
Brian stood up and handed her a piece of white paper and she regarded the plain Arial font, struggling to comprehend what she was reading. Sixteen words in, she pushed the letter away. She knew ho
w she’d been raped. She didn’t need to read a third-hand account of the attack.
“I think I get the gist,” she said, feeling physically ill. “I don’t want to read the rest. Out of curiosity, though, how many different objects does this person want Derek to rape me with?”
Derek flinched and covered his face with both hands. “I don’t like this, Brian. Who is this person? This is different than the others.”
Brian smoothed back his greying blond hair that was slightly longer than one would generally expect from a legal professional. “Whoever it is, they don’t like her,” he said, gesturing to Q. “I say, she goes.”