by David Beers
John slowly understood the meaning.
Multiple people per day.
He used a knife for all of them.
And then he remembered seeing his father. “What happened to Dad?”
Harry grimaced. “That’s a tough one, bud. He didn’t make it out. He’s still in the motel room.”
Tears came to John’s eyes, the first emotion he was able to show since waking. “He’s dead?”
“It looked that way when we left.”
“Why did I do it? Why would I hurt him?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy for the whys to any of this. I don’t know why I died, John. Where was your god then? I don’t know that either. I don’t know why you killed your pops anymore than I know why you killed any of the rest. Why do you think you did it?”
John listened to Harry’s light voice, sounding like someone barely touching piano keys.
“I never knew why I did any of it. I still don’t.”
“Come on now, John. It’s just you and I here. No one else. We can talk—hell, we’re basically brothers. Who knows more about you than me? Let’s get to the bottom of this so that when we get home, we don’t have to deal with it anymore.”
“My grandmother—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know there’s something to that, John, but that’s not the only reason is it? If so, what about your sister? What about your mom? None of them were plagued with this.”
“It didn’t transfer,” John said, an edge in his voice. “It only transferred to me.”
“That’s what your mom said, isn’t it, but is that the truth, John? The whole truth?”
John closed his eyes and shook his head. “Yes. That’s the truth.” He heard the sound of a lighter and smelled the smoke from a fresh cigarette.
“Nope. I’m not going to play that game. Not tonight. I want to hear it. All this goddamn guilt you’ve carried around your whole life, bowing to some dead man and begging forgiveness. Tonight, you tell me why you do it.”
“I already did.” Tears came now.
“No, you told me why your mother said you did. All those years she went to that goddamn psychiatrist and she never told him the truth, did she? All that money but never really wanted to get down to it, to the very bottom of what was happening. It’s amazing when you think about it. That’s what your father was talking about, you know? The guilt? He knew. Finally, at the fucking end, he remembered. I imagine he had some heavy guilt on him, too.” Harry shook his head, taking another puff.
“What are you talking about?” John said.
“The truth is that she never admitted it, not even to herself. Not even in that notebook she filled up and handed off to your father, giving him the responsibility that she refused. She wanted to keep it a secret forever, even though your father witnessed it all. She wanted to act like it never happened, but your father remembered at the end—though too late to do anything about it.”
“No. That’s not true. She didn’t hide anything.”
“How long did you watch it happen, John? How many years?”
He only shook his head and felt hot tears rolling onto the palms of his hands as he held his face.
“TELL ME YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” Harry screamed, his voice unleashing like fires from hell, coming to finally burn the world once and for all.
“I don’t want to.”
“AND I DON’T GIVE A GODDAMN. HOW MANY YEARS?”
“I don’t know! Years and years.”
“That’s right,” Harry said. “A long fucking time. Now tell me what you watched; tell me everything you saw and say it out loud for once in your miserable fucking life.”
“No,” John said, shaking his head vigorously.
“She hit him, didn’t she? And you watched it. Your mom beat the shit out of your dad in front of you. Where was Alicia? Why didn’t she see it?”
John whimpered as he spoke. “She did it when Alicia wasn’t there.”
“Why?”
“Because she blamed me,” he whispered into his hands.
“What did she blame you for, John?”
He shook his head again, not wanting to say it.
“No, no. We’re close. We’re so goddamn close and we’re going to finish all of this very soon. But we’re going into it with clear eyes, you understand? What did she blame you for?”
“Being ….” But his words deteriorated into tears and nothing but sobs filled the car.
“She blamed you for being born, didn’t she? Because she thought Clara’s mark had skipped Alicia, but the postpartum depression was really fucking strong after you, and she became convinced that you were going to be the reincarnate. Postpartum normally ends after a few months, right? Well, not here. No, no, John. It stretched on and on, at least this belief. She screamed at your father. Screamed and slapped him until he bled. What did she do when she got done beating on him, John?”
“Me,” he said.
“Yes. You. She turned to you every time, because while she hated your dad for getting her pregnant, she was fucking terrified of you and what you’d become. So she screamed and sometimes she slapped you, too. How old were you?”
“Seven.” The word was a harsh whisper intermixed with body racking sobs.
“Yup. Seven years old. Right around the time you beat the hell out of that kid, huh?”
The car was topping out at about one hundred and twenty miles-per-hour; Harry ripping through the night as if he wanted them both dead.
“So what did Daddy do? He told her if she didn’t start seeing someone, he was taking you both and leaving. Then Mommy went to Vondi and lied her little ass off for so long that she actually believed it. But somewhere in between those slaps and beatings, something started changing inside your tiny little brain—didn’t it? Some wiring that went wrong and then kept going wrong.”
“Stop,” John said.
“NO! Not yet. The wiring went wrong and Mommy didn’t have the goddamn guts to do anything about it because some part of her, some part way down deep, knew she created this. Perhaps some of it was there to begin with, a little bit of Grandmommy left over, but nothing like this. Nothing like what you’ve become. So Mommy protected you up until she couldn’t anymore, but she saw the end. You didn’t know it until Daddy showed up tonight, that she saw all of this. She saw it with you because she saw it with her mother, and here we fucking are, John. Driving down the road on the way back home to finish what your mom started all those fucking years ago.”
Kaitlin Rickiment felt herself drowning.
Not in water, but blood. Her own blood. It filled her lungs, and panic gripped her as she realized she wouldn’t be able to breathe very soon, because your lungs couldn’t work if they filled with blood.
She opened her eyes and gave a huge gasp for breath as she did, trying to stay alive. Her back arched off the bed and she gripped for something, anything, to hang on to above.
Kaitlin held the position for a few seconds, her eyes open and her breath rushing in and out.
A dream.
It was a dream.
She slowly dropped back to the bed—her eyes still staring straight ahead at the ceiling—as her mind tried telling her body to calm down.
A few minutes passed before she was breathing normal again and her thoughts flowed coherently.
She looked over at the clock. Four in the morning. She blinked hard twice, wiping away any remaining remnants of sleep. The dream was too real. Far too real.
Eve. Call Eve.
She reached for her cellphone and found Eve’s number. She dialed, not caring about the time. She couldn’t care about it because that dream was too fucking real.
“Hello?” If Eve had been dreaming, it certainly wasn’t one that brought her anywhere near the point of waking.
“Eve, I’m sorry. Can I come over? I’ll explain when I get there, but I can’t stay here anymore.”
“Now?” she said, sounding like she was waking a bit more.
“Yes, now. I’m sorry.”
“Come on over. I have to be at work at eight, okay?”
“That’s fine,” Kaitlin said. “Do you mind if I stay while you’re at work?”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Kaitlin hung up the phone and looked at it for a solid minute. She wanted to make the next call but she didn’t know if she should. That dream, Kaitlin had never felt anything like it. This wasn’t fear from someone looking into her apartment—that had been bad, but this was incomparable.
Kaitlin was going to die and had no doubt of it.
Somehow, her own blood would kill her. Drowning from the inside out.
Kaitlin found the cop’s number, a business card mixed in with other garbage on her nightstand. She typed in the numbers and listened it as it rang. Three rings passed before someone answered.
“Detective Merchent.”
“I’m so sorry. It’s Kaitlin. Kaitlin Rickiment. Am I waking you up?”
“No, no. Calm down, honey. What’s going on?”
“I, I …,” but Kaitlin suddenly found her ability to explain fleeing. How did she tell this woman that a dream made her certain that death was knocking on doors looking for her and only a few houses away.
“Okay, just breathe. Take a few breaths. Don’t worry about telling me anything. Just breathe.”
Kaitlin listened, focusing on her chest as she inhaled and exhaled.
“How do you feel?” Merchent asked.
“I can talk.”
“Good. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Something is about to happen. To me. I’m going to die if I stay here any longer. I’m going to my friends as soon as I get off the phone with you, but I don’t know if this is one of those things like the police pulling me over all those years ago. I still might be in danger over there. You said to call, so I did. I don’t know what else to do.”
A few seconds passed and with each one Kaitlin felt more certain that the woman had either hung up or was about to call her crazy and then hang up.
“Alright, what’s your friend’s address?”
“Huh?” Kaitlin said, so intent on being told to fuck off that she barely heard the response.
“Your friend’s address. Will you give it to me?”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. One sec.” She quickly thumbed through her phone and found Eve’s address in her past GPS history. She read it off slowly, wanting to make sure the detective had it.
“Okay. I got it. Go over there immediately. I’ll call you back as soon as I can, okay?”
“Thank you,” Kaitlin said, emotion filling her throat.
15
Present Day
Alan heard his phone ringing, slicing through his sleep like a bullet through water. He awoke almost immediately, reaching for the phone before he truly knew he was doing it.
“Tremock.”
He blinked a few times, seeing something he hadn’t expected. No curtains hung on windows and he wasn’t looking at his nightstand where his phone usually lay. He stared out across the office.
“Are you working, Alan?”
He blinked, awake but not remembering much.
“No. What’s up? What time is it?”
“It’s a little after four.”
His mind switched gears as easily as a high performance sports car, moving from where the hell he was to where Susan was supposed to be. “Are you there yet?”
“Almost. Another hour. Listen, I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“You remember the lady from Starbucks?”
“Rickiment? The one that gave us the sketch.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “Her. I went and saw her; I gave her my number and told her to call me if she ever needed anything. She just did and says she’s in danger—”
“What? How?”
“Goddamnit, don’t interrupt for a second. Just listen. I didn’t ask questions about what and how. I told the girl I would help her and that’s what I’m going to do. I need you to go immediately to the address I’m about to give you.”
“Right now? It’s four in the morning, Susan.”
“And you’re sleeping at the goddamn office again, so don’t bullshit me. I’m down here in Mexico, as a white woman, at four in the morning, for you. So get over there and look after this girl for me until I get back, okay?”
Alan heard the emotion and knew what he had to do. He didn’t understand why or what he would get out of this, how it would help bring him closer to Hilt, but he’d do it. “What’s the address?”
He listened and copied it down on the pad in front of him.
“She know I’m coming?” Alan said.
“She knows I’m doing something to help her,” Susan answered. “Take down her number too.”
Alan wrote it next to the address.
“I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming. How long will it take you to be there?”
“Probably twenty minutes,” Alan said.
“Okay. Thank you. I mean that, Alan. Thank you. I’ll call you once I know more down here.”
“Be careful,” he said.
“You too.”
Alan hung the phone up and looked around the office again. He woke so quickly for Susan’s call, but not for any of the others? Marie was going to kill him if she’d been calling all night and he hadn’t answered. Now he had to call back and tell her he still wasn’t coming home and that he didn’t know when he would be either.
Why? She would say.
Because I have to go look after a thin twenty-something-year-old female.
That would go over swell.
He went to his missed calls. None. Not a single one. Marie hadn’t called. Alan fell asleep at the office without calling his wife, and she didn’t call to check on him. A lot of things had happened in their marriage, but never this. If he slept at the office, one always called the other.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Alan said to the empty room.
Going to check in on this girl, I suppose, because that’s what obsessed cops and shitty husbands do. Now, should I call Marie?
No. He wouldn’t wake her.
Alan grabbed his keys and weapon from the desk drawer.
Twenty minutes later, he wasn’t knocking on Kaitlin Rickiment’s apartment, but someone else’s. Alan went to the address Susan gave him, though this was a small one story house instead of the run down apartments where he first met Kaitlin.
A black girl opened the door, but Alan categorized almost all women in their early twenties as girls, sexist or not. He could see Kaitlin standing behind her, arms folded under her breasts and peering over the black girl’s shoulder.
“Are you the cop?” the black girl asked.
Alan nodded, showing his badge hooked to his belt. She looked back to Rickiment.
“It’s him,” Rickiment said.
“Okay. Do you want to come in?”
“For a few minutes, I think. I’d like to talk to you, Ms. Rickiment, if that’s okay? When we’re done, I’ll probably go out to my car and wait there if that’s okay with everyone.”
The black girl looked back to Kaitlin again.
“Mind if we talk for a few?” Alan said.
She nodded. “Okay.”
“What’s your name?” Alan said to the black girl.
“Eve. You’re Detective Tremock?”
“Yes.” Alan extended his hand and Eve took it.
“Come on in,” she said. “You two can use the living room if that’s okay. I’ve got to get ready for work.”
Alan watched as Eve walked around the couches and into the back hall. Kaitlin stood just inside the house, a very, very small foyer which led directly to a kitchen in front of them and a small living room to the right, which then fed off to the hallway Eve went down.
“Here okay?” he said, waiting on her to move first. This wasn’t an interrogation and he could tell the girl was frightened of him, at least somewhat. He didn’t remember being rough with her
last time.
Even if you were, would you remember? You’re forgetting a lot of important things lately, like calling your wife.
He had an urge to look at his watch, to see what time it was and then try to calculate how angry Marie would be when he finally made it home. He’d call soon, once he thought she and the kids were up.
“Sure,” she said quietly and then walked into the living room, sitting down on the loveseat. Alan followed and sat on the couch.
“You’ve spoken with Detective Merchent, right? She came and talked to you a little while ago?”
The girl nodded.
“She called me this morning and said that I needed to come because you were scared. I don’t know anything other than that, and I’m just wondering if you could talk to me about it.”
The girl didn’t look at him, but stared at the coffee table in the middle of the room.
“Someone is after me,” she said. “I think they’ve been after me ever since I talked to you, or at least since I did that sketch.”
“Why do you think that?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t believe me anyway; I’m not even sure Detective Merchent does.”
Alan looked at the girl and saw the remnants of terror all over her. The way she kept holding herself. She wouldn’t look at him. She wasn’t necessarily terrified now, but she had been a few hours ago, and now she flirted with shock.
“We don’t have to talk about why,” he said. “Would you tell me what you’re scared of then? I’m asking, Ms. Rickiment, because I need to know what to protect you from and how best to do it.”
She sighed, a short and fast breath of air. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone. No one’s approached me on the street, but I know someone is coming for me. I think they’re coming right now. The only thing I can imagine is that it’s the man I saw in the store with Mr. Stinson.”
The girl paused for a solid thirty seconds, but as Alan was about to open his mouth, she spoke again.
“That doesn’t feel right, either. Not wholly. I don’t know why or how to explain it, but I get the feeling that man isn’t coming or that he isn’t coming alone at least, but I don’t know who else it could be.”