by Sarah Zettel
Dana was not here. Not now. But she had been. She’d been brought here or sent here or coaxed here.
To watch her father die.
Outside, an engine gunned, tires squealed. Beth tried to move, but she stumbled, and by the time she got to the window, all she saw were taillights. The town car was gone. She was on her own.
She stood there, fists curling and releasing, dropping that shotgun in that other room. Dropping it, and dropping it again, and again.
Stop it! Stop it! You are not there! You are here! You are here and now, and where’s Dana?!
Where is your daughter?!
Beth forced herself to turn back toward the room and the stench. Now she saw a flash of white in the blood beside his head.
Knife?
No. A nail file. A glass nail file. Dana had told her Chelsea carried a nail file like that. It had a wicked-sharp tip and could get past metal detectors, Chelsea said. You could sharpen the edge too, she said, if you had the time.
There was a phone on the floor with the nail file. A small, thick iPhone, several generations old, probably reconditioned. Its screen was smashed, like somebody had stomped on it.
The backup phone. Chelsea said Dana kept a backup phone. Because sometimes she didn’t want Beth to be able to track her.
Sirens cut the air—high, painful wails and sharp air-horn bursts. Through the flapping curtains, she saw lights flash red and blue. Police. At least two carloads of them roared into the parking lot.
Beth grabbed the phone and the nail file. She ran to the bathroom and dropped them both into the toilet.
Doors slammed. Voices bellowed.
She flushed, but the trash didn’t go down. She flushed again.
There was the static of radios and more shouting, and she was here, trying to flush away the evidence.
Boots drummed against concrete. She needed to run too. Again. But this time there was nowhere she could go.
“Police!”
Beth sank slowly to her knees and raised her hands.
PART THREE
HIDE-AND-SEEK
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Maybe she slept. Maybe she just passed out. Dana had no way to know. The next thing that penetrated her mind was Jeannie shaking her shoulder.
“We’re here, honey. Here. Put this on.”
The blanket peeled back. Hands urged her upright. Her palms and face felt scraped raw. Her neck hurt. Her head hurt.
Somebody dragged a sweatshirt down over her and yanked the hood over her face as far as it would go.
What’s happening? She tried to look up, but somebody shoved her head quickly down and pushed her out of the car.
It was dark.
That someone (Jeannie?) wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steered her, stumbling, up some steps toward a dark doorway and down a dark hall.
There were more stairs. She stubbed her toes on the first one and again at the top.
She hurt so bad. Back, neck, head, throat, hands.
Another dark hallway. Another dark door. A light snapped on. A door slammed behind them, and a lock turned. She saw burgundy carpet through the tunnel of the sweatshirt hood, and the corner of a table.
“There. It’s okay now. You can come out.”
Dana pushed the hood back. She blinked in the track lighting.
They were in a bedroom. It was all pale oranges and brick reds. A Navajo blanket hung on one wall. Gauzy curtains looked out onto a patio, a green lawn, and big trees. The place smelled like laundry, or air freshener.
Dana started to shake. She wrapped her arms around herself.
Jeannie stepped into her line of sight. She brushed the hair back from Dana’s forehead. “Oh, honey. Just look at you.”
“I am,” growled a man behind her. “We have got to get her cleaned up. Now.”
Dana whipped around. Todd had changed clothes and was now wearing a green T-shirt and jeans.
The change made her aware of how she looked—her shirt rumpled and stretched, her hair everywhere, her skin itching in a hundred places because she was covered in dried blood.
Dad’s blood.
A flash flood of shame roared through her, and Dana thought she was going to drown. She tried to push herself above it, but she couldn’t.
“How…how…”
“It’s okay, Dana.” Jeannie pulled Dana close and rubbed her arms, trying to smooth away the goose bumps. “Todd, take it easy. She’s been through a lot, okay? Come on, hon. He’s right—let’s get you cleaned up.”
Todd waved a gesture of dismissal and headed back out into the hall. Jeannie tried to turn her toward the bedroom doorway, but Dana stayed rooted to the spot. She listened while Todd clumped down the stairs.
“What’s happening?!”
“I’m sorry, hon. I am. I’ll explain everything. But we really, really have to get you cleaned up.”
She’d stabbed her father. It was an accident—an accident. But her hand still felt the little homemade knife slide into him. She still saw his look of surprise as he stared at her.
Footsteps were coming back up the stairs. Todd was coming for her.
“What is he…why’s he…”
“Shh, honey,” breathed Jeannie, but it was too late. Todd had already opened the door, and he’d heard.
“Why’s he here?” Todd drawled. “Gosh. Where else should I be but with my own family?”
“I…want to go home,” Dana whispered. Like a baby. She hated herself for it, but she couldn’t stop it, like she couldn’t stop the shakes or the tears that trickled out of the corners of her eyes.
“Yeah, well, that’s not an option,” snapped Todd.
“Please.” Fear filled Dana to overflowing. She wanted this not to be happening. She wanted it to have never happened.
She wanted her mother.
“Listen to me.” Todd stalked forward. Jeannie pulled Dana back, but not far enough. He loomed over her. She saw his stubbled jawline tighten. “You killed a man. You killed your father. You do not go back from that.”
No. No. He’s not dead. He can’t be dead. I didn’t. I couldn’t. “That’s not…that’s not what…” I was trying to help him! I was trying to get him away from you!
“That’s exactly ‘what,’” said Todd. “And that’s what the cops are going to see, and what your mother is going to see, and what the rest of the world is going to see the second this ends up in the news.”
“But only because you were there! You were trying to…to…”
“I was not the one who brought a fucking shank! I was not the one who started screaming and shoving.” He leaned in close. “You don’t have a mommy and you don’t have a home. You don’t have anything at all anymore, except her.” He jerked his chin toward Jeannie. Then, something seemed to occur to him, because a wide, open, entirely cheerful grin spread across his sharp face. “Her and me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Elizabeth Jean Fraser,” the detective said as she sat down on the other side of the table from Beth. “I’m Detective Nalini Patel.” Beth had already been in custody for hours, and she’d been passed along to a lot of different people. They’d photographed her face and hands. They scanned her fingerprints. They scraped under her nails. They took her clothes and bagged them up and gave her a receipt to sign. They brought her here to this interview room, where she sat wearing some outsize sweats and paper hospital slippers.
Nalini Patel was a woman about her own height. Her skin was a warm, earthy brown, and she wore her black hair in a herringbone braid. She had a small diamond stud in her nose and another above her eyebrow. She favored thick slashes of rosy eye shadow. She wore a gray jacket and a blue blouse and black slacks. Her accent told Beth this person came from a family that had lived, worked, and died in the Windy City for generations.
“Are you okay, Ms. Fraser?” The detective dropped the stack of stuff she’d carried in onto the table. There were manila folders and a zippered envelope and, of course, a lot of forms. “
You want anything?”
I want my daughter. I want my parents so I can choke the life out of them. I want Doug to be alive so I can send him home for Susan to clean up and for his other children to pity.
I want to never have been born. I want to have never believed I could have a child.
“I am exercising my right to remain silent,” Beth croaked. “I want to have my lawyer present for any questioning.”
Detective Patel did not seem particularly perturbed by this declaration.
“You are not currently under arrest.”
Detective Patel opened the top file and started flicking through papers. Her demeanor remained cool and tired. She was another member of the system—chronically overworked and surviving on habit and some remaining belief that she was making a difference.
It was hot and stale in the room. There was the one-way mirror, just like on all the cop shows. Beth wondered if there was someone back there now.
Probably.
There was no clock or window or any other way to tell how much time had passed since the patrol had hauled her out of the hotel room and away from Doug’s body.
“I’ve been told your lawyer is on his way, or is that your boss’s lawyer?” Detective Patel raised the eyebrow with the diamond stud.
Beth did not answer. The police had taken away Beth’s cell phone. Since then, she had been given the obligatory phone call on the station’s landline. She’d used it to wake up her lawyer.
I have to get out of here.
“What were you doing in room one twenty-one of the MaxRest America Extended-Stay Hotel?” Detective Patel asked.
Dana, what were you doing there? How did they get you there? What have they done to you?
“Did you arrange for Mr. Hoyt to meet you there?”
Saying nothing was easier than Beth had thought it would be, especially as tired and strung out as she was. Although, if she stopped to think about it, she had a lot of practice saying nothing to the cops. She could do it for a little longer. She just had to remember the feel of that improvised knife in her hand and all the blood. And Dana’s phone, smashed on the floor beside her murdered father.
I have to get to her.
Patel didn’t seem to mind Beth’s actual silence any more than she had her declaration that she intended to keep quiet.
“I understand you and Mr. Hoyt have a long history. He is your daughter’s father, I think?” She paused, waiting for Beth to confirm this. “We’ve been talking to Mrs. Hoyt. She says he might have been having some money trouble.”
Poor Susan. All that time trying to keep Doug’s life together. Trying to make everything just perfect for him so he’d finally, finally be happy.
“Had he said anything to you about needing money?” Patel flicked through another few pages. Her nails were neatly filed and polished navy blue. The color of a Chicago cop’s uniform, Beth realized. Detective Patel had a sense of humor.
“I have a report here that he came to your workplace last Friday. Was that usual for him to meet you there?”
Detective Patel did not wear a wedding ring. There was no hint that she ever had. She also, evidently, had exhausted the store of information in her printed pages. She set them down and folded her hands on top of them.
“Look, Ms. Fraser,” said Detective Patel. “If there’s an explanation for this, I want to hear it. Maybe he was bugging you for money and you wanted to arrange for a nice, quiet place to talk the situation over. He was your daughter’s father. You wanted to spare him embarrassment if you could. But he was upset, and he got pushy. Maybe even desperate. Maybe he grabbed you and you defended yourself.”
Don’t look at her. Don’t fall in with all that fake sympathy.
“You’re better off talking to me.”
No. I’m not.
“Because it’s not the first time you’ve done this, is it?”
Beth’s head snapped up.
To her credit, Detective Patel did not smile. “You have a previous conviction for aggravated assault in San Francisco. You only almost killed the guy that time.”
“He took my daughter.” The words were out before Beth could think, before her mind replayed the detective’s words: You only almost killed the guy that time.
Detective Patel nodded. “Is that what happened? Did Doug threaten to try to get custody of his daughter if you wouldn’t help him out? Or was he going to tell her something out of your past that maybe you wanted kept hidden?” She paused. “By the way, Ms. Fraser, where is Dana? Do you want me to call her and let her know you’re okay? And you’re going to need to make arrangements for someone she can stay with. I hate to tell you this, but you’re probably going to be here awhile.”
Beth’s mouth went dry. Her ears were ringing again.
Detective Patel reached into the zippered pouch and pulled out two evidence bags. One held the smashed cell phone. The other held the neatly honed nail file, stained dark red along its entire length.
She laid these out on the blank space of tabletop between them and folded her hands.
“Do you even know where your daughter is right now?”
CHAPTER FORTY
Dana wanted to be sick. Violently, immediately. She wanted to vomit up everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The last forty-eight.
Her whole life.
“Oh great, Todd, that’s really helping.” Jeannie propelled Dana past him and out into the hallway. It was white and polished wood. “Why don’t you do something useful like get us something to eat? The poor kid’s starving. Come on, hon—let’s get you cleaned up.”
Jeannie shut the door on the moss green tiled bathroom and locked it. She turned on the water in the sunken tub.
“Get those clothes off.”
Dana didn’t move.
“You need to get cleaned up, hon. I’ve got some things you can borrow.”
Dana still didn’t move. “What’s he…” she choked. “You said—”
“Shh! Shh!” Jeannie pressed her hand against Dana’s mouth. “Honey, I am so sorry,” she said softly. “Believe me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He got suspicious, Dana. He was going to make trouble. He was going to tell your mom you’d been planning something with me, so when he came and got me, I had to go with him.” She lifted her hand away. “I thought I could keep him away from you.”
“How’d he even find you?!”
“I told you he would. I told you both,” she added bitterly. “Look, it’s all going to be okay. We’ve just got to lie low for a little while.”
“But…”
Jeannie took hold of both of Dana’s shoulders. “You listen to me now. We are so far up shit’s creek there’s no way back. You have to trust me or it’s going to get even worse.”
Dana couldn’t speak. She was practically standing on Jeannie’s toes right now. Dana could smell cigarettes and lily of the valley perfume and beer. The steam was rising from the hot water in the tub, and that was only making it worse.
As if it could be worse.
Dana didn’t know what to do. She did know she had to get the blood off her—off her hands and her face and her throat. All of it. Right now. So she stripped down and climbed into the tub as quickly as she could. But she couldn’t make herself stand up to turn on the shower. Instead, she huddled in the middle, her arms wrapped around her knees.
“Okay, okay, that’s good.” Jeannie worked the drain so the water started to rise over Dana’s toes.
Her toes didn’t have any blood on them. She could look at her toes.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Some place Todd found.” Jeannie was pulling toiletries off the vanity. Shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel in Easter egg colors. “They’re going to be watching all the roads, and with the cameras and stuff, we have to hang tight for a while.” Jeannie knelt by the tub’s edge and covered Dana’s hand. “I know this sucks, hon—believe me, I do know. But we have to stay put. Just a few days. Just until the cops take t
heir eye off the ball.” She cupped her hand around Dana’s cheek. Like Mom did. “You are not going to jail, Dana. I am getting you out of this, even if I have to tell them I killed your father myself. But while we’re here, we’ve got to keep Todd sweet, okay? So, you’re going to hear me say some things and do some things that are…not what I’ve been telling you, all right? But whatever you see, you just say to yourself, ‘She’s keeping him sweet until we can split.’ Go on. Say that.”
“She’s keeping him sweet until we can split,” whispered Dana.
“That’s it. And as soon as we do split, we’ll get a message to your mom and tell her what happened and make sure she knows you’re okay. That’s the plan. You just have to hang onto that.”
Dana couldn’t make herself answer, so she just nodded. She didn’t really agree, and she knew something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t come up with the questions she needed. She was too exhausted and way too sick.
When she closed her eyes, she saw her father and that last, confused look. She wanted so badly to explain to him what was really happening.
“Okay.” Jeannie smiled and held out the bottles of toiletries. “Here you go. You’ll probably end up smelling like…I don’t know what…but it’s what we got.”
Dana stared at the things. She knew what they all were, but somehow, she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do with them.
Jeannie sighed. “Okay, let me help you. Dunk your head.”
Dana dunked and came up gasping. Jeannie poured out some shampoo, making a stream of extra coldness down Dana’s head. Her hard fingers massaged Dana’s scalp, and Dana dunked again. She was handed a washcloth so she could wipe off the blood.
It flaked off her skin and stained her nails. All the blood that had sprayed out of Dad’s chest and dripped down the front of his shirt. He was so confused. He was so angry. He’d grabbed her—he’d grabbed her and she’d screamed, and he’d thrown her backward and she’d…she’d…