by Melissa Marr
“Yeah, you too, Jules.” Sharon sounds like she’s done exactly what she has, tossed something she wants into a fire to do the right thing, and I wish I could say or do something to make up for that, but the reality of the world is that it’s not a meritocracy. Doing the right thing doesn’t equate to rewards. In reality, far too often it leads to problems.
Once Sharon hangs up, I open my email. There are a few pictures of a woman who is almost certainly Teresa Morris. She doesn’t look like she’s the heiress in the photos her mother gave us, but she’s the same woman. Dozens of tattoos cover her body—including the flower bud. The tattoo of the victims of the Carolina Creeper marks her wrist.
How did she escape? I debate whether to call Andrew or Henry first. Then it hits me, awkwardly and frighteningly, that Andrew called her Tess. It’s not what most of the articles call her, or what I call her, but I think back over what Sharon told me and realize that she said Teresa is going by "Tess" now.
How could Andrew have known that? Was there an article or . . . Did he know her? He would have told me.
And yet I cannot stop the doubts that fill me. He lied to me. He wants me to stay away from Henry.
He called her Tess.
I remind myself that Henry investigated Andrew. I remind myself that I trust him. He’s been my lover for over a year. He isn’t a killer.
He isn’t the Creeper.
My lover is not the killer.
Why did he call her Tess?
For the first time since I went to bed with Andrew, I doubt my own judgment. I don’t call him. I don’t call Henry either. What does Henry know that he’s not told me? I try to think about his attitude to Andrew. Is he colder toward Andrew? Does he know a secret that I ought to know, too? Surely, if they had any reason to think Andrew was a suspect, Henry would tell me.
No, I can’t call Henry or Andrew. I’d have to tell them how I know where Theresa is. This is on me.
I have enough money to fly to New Orleans. I don’t know what I’ll say to her when I find her. As much as I want the answers she probably has, I don’t know what to do. I’m used to talking to detectives or employees at various medical examiners’ offices. Mostly, I deal with mourners, and there’s a vast gap between mourning a loss and surviving horrors.
I’m not prepared for this. Maybe the logical thing to do is to tell Henry. How do I tell him without sharing my suspicions that Andrew knows more than I realized before now? How do I explain why I found Teresa? Do I tell him that Andrew called her Tess? That Sharon found her?
I look at flights. It’s often expensive to fly last minute, but New Orleans isn’t that far from North Carolina by air. There are a few cheap options, airlines selling off last minute tickets. It’s a short, easy trip. I could do it, go there right now. It’s not like she’s somewhere in Europe or Canada or even somewhere remote in the U.S. like Montana or Idaho or those other states that seem like they’re surely all wilderness I don’t know how to handle. She’s in a fairly busy city, one filled with tourists.
I flit between the flights and hotels. I look at my schedule and my budget. I can maybe swing going for a week. Uncle Micky can handle the work here, and I doubt that he’d object to me getting away to clear my head.
Dealing with Andrew and Henry . . . that’s a bit more complicated.
I don’t know if I can find her, but I don’t know if I can afford not to try. I stare at Teresa’s face. She doesn’t look like the girl in the pictures I have of her. The only pictures we had were when she was in her early twenties, and she looked like a lot of young women with money. This woman doesn’t look like that. She has the appearance of someone who could be homeless or five minutes from it. There’s something hard about her.
She’s sleeping in one of the pictures Sharon sent. Tattoos spiral down her arms, across her shoulders, along her calves and ankles. It’s the one on her wrist that I keep looking at. It’s nearly identical to the one I saw on what remained of Ana Menendez. The next picture is different. Teresa is standing in the same park that shows up in most of the tourist brochure pictures of New Orleans. It’s shot from farther away. She looks like a wraith, a junkie, starving. It could’ve been in any number of cities, in any number of years. She’s a woman lost.
And she isn’t aware that her picture is being taken.
Unlike the vulnerability of the one of her sleeping, this is a different kind of invasive. I have no doubt she was unaware of both photos. And I have no doubt that whatever has happened to Teresa Morris, it wasn’t good.
She’s alive.
I save the photos to my phone. Copy and re-save them, edit them slightly—adjust the lighting only—and then email them to myself and re-save again. Then, I call Andrew.
“I have to go out of town,” I tell him as I start throwing clothes into my bag. “I’m on my way to the airport, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He’s quiet.
“Andrew?”
“You didn’t mention a trip.”
I force a laugh. “Yeah? And you didn’t mention who gave you a black eye. We had other stuff to talk about, right? We always do.”
“Right.” His laugh sounds no more genuine than mine probably did. “Where are you headed?”
“Oh. Just New York,” I lie. I have to until I’m sure I can trust him. “A friend’s getting married. I can call you when I’m back . . . ”
“Good. That’s good. Alone?”
“Yes," I snap. "Okay . . . I’m going to—”
“I love you, Jules. I know you don’t want to hear it, or maybe you don’t even want me to feel it, but I do.”
I notice that I’m shaking. I can tell myself that it’s simply because I want to do this alone, or because I don’t want to go away with him, or even that I don’t owe him the whole truth. The reality is that whatever he’s hiding unsettles me.
“I’ll call you when I’m back,” I say.
It’s the most I can add without further lies.
20
A Girl with No Past
Once Edward and I were married, his brothers came by whenever they wanted. Before that, he’d apparently told them to stay away.
“Is he good to you?”
I looked at Edward’s younger brother. The oldest one, William, barely spoke to me. The younger brother, Buddy, watched me carefully. He catalogued my bruises, my cuts. He knew that Edward had to send me to the shed twice now.
“Edward loves me.” I looked down as I said it.
Earlier that day was the first time Edward hit me repeatedly. I wasn’t sure what to do. I would learn over the next few months, but the first time was a surprise. I hadn’t been completely sheltered as a child. My family was affluent, and if not for the choice to walk away from them, I suspect my life would be completely unfamiliar to me now. I’d left though, walked away without a backward glance when my mother’s latest husband made a pass at me—and my mother blamed me for it.
I was nineteen then.
At the time, it seemed like the worst thing that had ever happened, could ever happen. Then, years later, I learned about real violence.
It was before I’d learned how much he needed to hurt women.
There would be things that hurt worse, but that day I hadn’t even spoken before his fist connected with my face. There was no warning, nothing.
I stumbled backwards. “What—”
He closed the distance between us and hit me a second time. “I thought you were better than the rest of them.”
I didn’t reply. I might not know why he was angry, but I understood that speaking had led to a second strike. I didn’t want a third one.
“What am I to do, Tess? How am I to be okay when I have to worry about you? Do you want to upset me?”
I reached up to touch the blood I could feel on my chin. I touched my teeth with my tongue to see if any were loose. Doing so revealed that my tongue was bleeding.
“Were you with someone else, Tessie?”
“No, Edward! I just wen
t for a walk—”
He had my throat in his hand then, and I knew that there would be fingerprints.
“I thought you were special, that you could be trusted.” He shoved me backwards, and I stumbled.
“I can be!”
He stared at me. “Where were you? Were you with someone else?”
Buddy walked into the room, took one look at us, and turned away.
“Do you want to fuck her?” Edward asked him, dragging me across the floor by my throat as he turned.
“She’s yours.” Buddy didn’t even look at me. He kept his gaze firmly fixed on Edward.
“If she’s going to be a whore, she might as well do it for you.” Edward’s hand tightened.
“I don’t touch your things, Edward.” Buddy shook his head.
“No one should touch my things without my permission.” Edward’s attention dropped back to me. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Edward. I was wrong to go out. I won’t leave the house again.”
“Ever.” He stared at me. Then Edward said, “I don’t want to have to hurt you, Tess. Prove that you’re a good wife.”
“I am. I swear it, Edward.”
I heard footsteps as Buddy turned to walk away.
“You won’t go out again alone,” Edward announced. “I don’t want to worry like this again.”
I nodded. It hadn’t seemed like a big deal when I went, but I knew he worried. I didn’t want that--or want him to hit me again. I thought I was special. I thought that I could be good enough.
“Sometimes I need to do things, Tess. I thought if you were here, I could stop. I thought you . . . I don’t want to hurt you. You know that, right?”
I nodded again.
“Do you love me?”
“I do.”
For a moment, he stared at me. I knew he was possessive. I thought it would get better when he was sure of me. It still wasn’t enough.
He was silent, and I was afraid.
“I trust you, Edward.” I leaned in and kissed him.
He said nothing.
“I belong to you. I love you,” I reassured him. “No one else. Never anyone else.”
Finally, he spoke. “And you trust me to decide what’s best?”
It wasn’t really a question, but I answered. “Whatever it takes for you to feel better. I want to be with you, Edward, and I want you not to worry.”
He shook his head and pulled me closer. “Don’t ever leave me, Tess. Swear it.”
“I swear. I love you, Edward.”
“I’ll kill you if you leave,” he told me.
“I’m here. I’m not leaving.”
Sometimes, I think that if I knew what he’d intended to do I’d have said something else. The rest of the time, I’m honest enough to admit that I would’ve agreed to anything to keep from being the one he hurt.
I know that I survived being his wife because Edward hurt other women instead.
I’m alive because he killed other women instead.
During those first months when I realized who he was, what he was, when I had to admit that I slept next to a sociopath every night, I still thought there was an answer. I thought I could be enough—because Edward thought that.
I snorted the cocaine he gave and swallowed the lies he told me. His brothers knew about the women, too. When I heard the first one scream, I asked Buddy to help her.
To help me.
Nothing changed.
I stayed in the house. I felt like a pet sometimes when he left and set the alarm. There was no phone. There was no way to go out without an alarm going off—and not one that went to a police station.
I only tried that once.
He killed the next woman in front of me.
21
Tess
I feel out of sorts, out of my skin, the moment we step off the plane. It’s wrong how quickly you can go from home to a strange land when you fly. As a girl, I liked it, but it’s been years since I was on a plane. I couldn’t afford the sort of holiday trips I was used to growing up, and Reid simply didn’t like to take me with him if he had to travel. He limited his travel. Sometimes, when he took trips, he used a different name. There was a guy, Robert, who made up fake IDs. Reid had several. I still have all three of mine. I used to think Reid would find me if I used any of them, so I have another name I use if I have to have ID—Teresa Adams.
“Are you okay?” Michael prompts as we climb into the black car that he’s hired to take us to the apartment he rented. I expect he’ll leave me there while he goes to his meetings. That, at least, is comforting to me. I need time to adjust, to listen to the music from home that I carried here, to take a few more pills without having to hide it. I need my tethers.
Few things about this trip make me feel okay. The weather isn’t humid enough, and the streets are so silent without the music I use to help keep me focused. There are sounds, horns and voices and the omnipresent rumble of a city, but it’s not my city.
He leaves with the sort of kiss Reid used to give me when he left for work, a reminder that I matter. It’s sweet, reminding of the man Reid could be when he wasn't so focused on the pretty things. People wouldn't understand that if they knew, but Reid was kind when he wasn't awful. He laughed and brushed my hair and brought me breakfast in bed. When he was happy, I was happy. I miss that. I miss mattering to someone.
Maybe that's why I am here with Michael.
The apartment has more personality than my own, but not as much as the one Michael is renting in New Orleans. Both of his rentals are obviously decorated to announce their location. His place in New Orleans has photographs of jazz singers, an overflowing bowl of beads, a few parade throws that sit on the mantel, and other assorted announcements that this is a space intended to “feel like” you belong in the city. Those of us who do, don’t need to prove it.
This apartment functions the same. I wander around the space. It’s sterile. I like that part. Combined with the jazz through the headphones, that is soothing. It reminds me a bit too much of Sterling’s house, the casual minimalism, overdone black and white. She had such a stage. I think that was during the era of the husband before the one she had when I left. Gregory. He was new money, kind in a way that heralded his short tenure from before the wedding.
The flowers in the vases are bright and fake. The bedroom furniture is some sort of reclaimed item that was undoubtedly too expensive for its value, but clearly on trend at some point. Sterling would be at ease here. Teresa’s friends would be too. I suspect the remnant of Teresa that I can’t smother is comfortable too.
For a change, I embrace the girl I used to be. The woman who was horrified by life with Reid. She’s the person I need to be to face a weekend here.
The mere thought of it makes me feel like running. Teresa remembers too much. I add an extra pill.
Too soon, Michael’s back. I don’t remember intending to sleep, but maybe I took too many Klonapin.
“Tess?”
I nod. That’s me. “My mother called me Teresa.”
Michael paused. “Do you want me to call you that?”
“No.” It’s fuzzy in my head, but I know that I’m Tess. The rest helped. The lack of dreams helped even more. The pills are doing what they must. “When I was here before, I was with her. She called me Teresa.”
I watch Michael do that thing he does when he’s feeling unsure.
“We need to meet Elizabeth in two hours. We could—”
“Walk.” I stand and stretch. “We can walk to where we’re meeting her.”
Again, the pause. Michael doesn’t know what to do, and I can’t explain. I’m too quiet. I try not to be, but I am. Being away from New Orleans makes me feel like I’m going to slip.
“Sure, Tess.” He smiles, a fake smile, the one I saw when he first arrived in my city, the one in his pictures. He’s more real with me usually, but not here. Not now.
Coming here was a mistake—but I already knew that. The only question is how much of
a mistake it was. I open my luggage and pull out the sort of dress Teresa would wear. It’s familiar, like donning the armor that I used to wear so easily, and constricting all at the same time. Tasteful, simple, black. I bought it at a thrift store, but it’s still the right sort of dress.
The fact that it doesn’t conceal many of my tattoos is a different sort of comfort. I am Tess playing dress up as Teresa. Hopefully, that means I can be the best of both parts of myself.
“You look perfect,” Michael says as I slip on tasteful low heels.
He’s already guessed that I have a past with money. He’s seen my scars, too. There are only so many details he can be allowed to know.
As we leave the building, Michael watches me. He holds my hand as we walk along the streets of Manhattan. We’re meeting his agent. I remind myself of that over and over. It’s a business meeting dressed up like a meal.
“Elizabeth is a bit brusque, but she’s really looking forward to meeting you.”
I nod.
“Are you okay?” Michael stares at me too long again, not missing a step, but fixing me in his gaze long enough to make me squirm.
It strikes me that he’s different here, too. I’m less tethered. He’s more so.
“I don’t leave New Orleans,” I remind him. “I haven’t left her in years.”
He laughs. “You do realize the city isn’t really a woman, Tess.”
Again, I nod.
“It’s not home. This place isn’t home,” I offer when he glances at me again. It’s the best I can say. I don’t tell him that it makes me remember being Teresa. I don’t tell him that Teresa couldn’t handle what Reid had done. Or what she has done.
I am some part of the same person, but I am not wholly her. I sift through all of the memories I can access, and I remember only the things I have to. Right now, I must remember being Teresa. She would be comfortable in Midtown.
I must remember being Teresa and still not fall apart. I'm not sure I can. Being several versions of me at once is hard.
The city doesn’t look like it’s changed since I was teenager visiting with my mother. Back then, being in the city was about shopping and lunches at whatever restaurant happened to be declared acceptable to people like her. Vaguely, I wonder if she’s somewhere in the city now, trying on overpriced shoes that her latest husband will buy.