The Body Finder

by Kimberly Derting

  He saw the terror in her eyes as she curled up into a protective ball, shivering and silent as the silver duct tape held her mouth closed.

  “I swear to you…I won’t hurt you…” He whispered the words over and over again while he popped the trunk and set her inside gently.

  His promise made, he smoothed her hair tenderly with his hand before slamming the trunk shut.

  He whistled to himself as he pulled his car back onto the road.

  It had been a good night.

  CHAPTER 2

  AFTER THE FIRST FEW ROCKY DAYS OF SCHOOL, at least as far as her feelings for Jay went, Violet started to feel better. Not that the butterflies had vanished or anything, but like so many other things in her life, they faded into the background of her day-to-day activities, becoming more like white noise. And that was something she could deal with.

  The girls didn’t stop converging on Jay—it was quite the opposite, in fact—they seemed to be multiplying, following him around en masse. And while Violet didn’t complain outwardly, Jay was starting to, which made Violet feel even more secure in her position at the top…for the time being anyway.

  He grumbled to Violet about their sudden lack of privacy at school, protesting about the throng of girls that waited for them in the parking lot, or at his locker between classes, and even in the cafeteria at lunch. He began to notice girls individually, and each one had some annoying habit or an irritating personality flaw that grated on his nerves a little more with each passing day.

  None of the girls noticed, or cared, that he didn’t give them the time of day. But Violet couldn’t help feeling smugly satisfied, although she kept her mouth shut and her opinions—even though she agreed with Jay—to herself.

  She was grateful that he never seemed to tire of her.

  Outwardly at least, nothing had changed between the two of them. They drove to school together in the morning, walked to classes they shared, ate together at lunch, and parted ways when she dropped him off again at his house, only to talk on the phone in the evening. It was nice. And even though Violet silently craved more, it was comfortable.

  And this Friday afternoon was no different.

  Violet dropped her backpack on the floor inside her front door. It was the area that her mother not-so-fondly referred to as the “shoe graveyard,” where everyone who came in left their coats, shoes, umbrellas, and in this case, a backpack.

  She smelled dinner already, and she knew that her mom was making lasagna. Not because of the aroma drifting out to meet her, but instead because, when her mom actually cooked something, that was what she made. And it wasn’t of the homemade variety either, but one of the prepackaged, mass-marketed frozen ones. That, and a fresh loaf of French bread from the bakery, made up the meal that Violet had eaten more times than she cared to count. Her mom wasn’t exactly what you’d call a domestic diva.

  “Vi? That you?” her mother called from the kitchen.

  Violet kicked off her shoes and followed the scents.

  “Hi,” Maggie Ambrose greeted her daughter as she stepped into the airy, farmhouse-style kitchen. “How was your day?”

  Violet grabbed a pop from the fridge and sat at the table. “Pretty good. How was yours?”

  That was all the encouragement her mom needed. “I’m almost finished with the painting I’ve been working on—you know, the one with the river? I can’t wait to show it to you.” What she lacked in cooking skills, she more than made up for in enthusiasm for her work.

  Violet looked at her mother’s paint-covered smock and the rainbow of colors crusted beneath her short fingernails, and she smiled. “Mom, I think you got a little of that river on you.”

  Her mom looked down at her fingernails and grimaced. “Yeah, occupational hazard, I guess.” And then she changed the subject. “I hope you’re hungry. I’m making lasagna for dinner.”

  “Great,” Violet responded with as much zeal as she could muster under the circumstances. It was probably the only hot meal she would get all week, so she didn’t dare complain about it, for fear that her mom might go on strike permanently.

  “Oh, and don’t forget, you’re babysitting for Uncle Stephen tonight.”

  Violet made a face, but her mom stopped her before she could actually argue.

  “You promised, remember? They asked you over a month ago, and you said you would do it.”

  She was right, and Violet knew it, but it didn’t stop her from whining a little. “Yeah, well, a month ago it seemed like a good idea. Now, not so much. Besides, it’s the weekend.”

  Violet loved her little cousins, but they weren’t exactly her ideal Friday night dates.

  Her mom raised her eyebrows. “Oh, and did you have big plans, Cinderella? Big night at the ball?”

  Violet laughed at the sarcasm in her mom’s words. “No. But even nothing is better than babysitting.” She sighed, knowing there was no way out of it. “Fine. I’m gonna go do some of my homework before I head over there.”

  Violet went to her room and flopped down on the mass of rumpled blankets piled on top of her bed. She thought about studying, but she had all weekend, and right now, with the down comforter reaching up around her, she decided to close her eyes…just for a minute….

  And then another. Her breathing became even…steady…and soon she drifted off….

  It was the smell that jarred her back to consciousness. Not the familiar smell of melting mozzarella and marinara sauce, but something acrid—harsh—that felt like it was burning the skin inside of her nose.

  She opened her eyes and looked around her.

  She wrinkled her nose against it. The smell seemed to be right on top of her, but she couldn’t begin to imagine what it might be. She winced, holding her breath as she sat up, alarmed.

  “What the—?” She scanned the room, not sure what she was looking for.

  But there it was. Right in front of her.

  The cat had jumped up on her bed while she’d been dozing, and the smell was coming off him in nearly visible, rippling waves, like heat coming off the desert sand.

  “Carl!” she accused the fat tomcat at the same time she was scooping him off her bed and racing him toward her bedroom door.

  She tried not to inhale as she rushed him down the stairs while he struggled against her hands, trying to wiggle free before she could toss him outside. It was a dance they had done before, and as usual, Violet won, slamming the door in the poor cat’s face.

  The smell couldn’t actually be blocked by the barrier of the door, but the distance created some relief from it, at least enough so that Violet was able to breathe again.

  It wasn’t the cat’s fault, not really. That was the thing about these unusual echoes that only Violet could sense: they worked the other way around too.

  The echo, whatever it happened to be for that individual creature, would also attach to the one responsible for the death—forever marking the killer.

  Carl had helped her to figure it all out when she was just a little girl. That was when she’d noticed the correlation between the dead mice and the broken birds that he would leave on their doorstep, each one with a distinct color, or scent, or feeling that only Violet could distinguish, a sensation that had nothing to do with the animal itself.

  And Carl would carry that very same imprint on him, as if he’d somehow been stained by the killing. The sensory imprint was identical to the echo that was left on the body, and as far as Violet could tell, no two echoes were the same. They were distinct. Unique.

  She also knew that animals that hunted—like her cat—could often carry several of these sensory markings, these death imprints, at once, which would fade only over time but never really vanish.

  Carl had been a lifelong hunter, and while Violet knew that it was just part of his nature, she couldn’t help being irritated when the sensations he carried with him were unpleasant for her.

  Unfortunately, this time it was especially objectionable.

  She wandered restlessly aro
und the house for a while, trying to find a place where the pungent odor couldn’t find her, but there seemed to be no safe-zone for her…at least not entirely. So she decided it might be a good night to get out of the house after all, even if it was to babysit for her aunt and uncle.

  She quickly gathered her things, including her backpack filled with homework, told her mom she’d grab something to eat at her uncle’s house, and all but ran to the relative safety of her car.

  Her uncle Stephen, her dad’s brother, was the youngest of four boys and was at least eight years younger than either of Violet’s parents. He was also the chief of police in their small town and was the polar opposite of her father. Namely, he was funny, at least when he was off duty. When he was working, he was no-nonsense and serious…exactly like her dad.

  His wife, Violet’s aunt Kat, was only in her early thirties, but she was one of those women who had a youthful quality about her that made it hard to pinpoint her age just by looking at her.

  “How do I look?” she asked Violet.

  “Why are you asking her?” Stephen Ambrose complained when his wife ignored that he was standing right beside his niece.

  Kat rolled her eyes at him like he was a slow-witted child. “Because all you care about is whether I’m done changing or not. You would say I looked good in a flannel nightgown if it meant we could leave.”

  He smiled at her. “You would look good in a flannel nightgown.”

  Kat shot Violet an apologetic look. “See what I have to live with?”

  “I think you look great,” Violet told her aunt and meant it. Then she added, “But lose the necklace, it’s a little too much.”

  Her aunt nodded, as though she’d been thinking the same thing, and pulled the long chain over her head. “See? That’s why I ask her.”

  “Good God, woman, we’re just going to the movies,” he teased her.

  “No, no, no. Dinner and a movie. This is date night, my friend, and don’t you forget it.” She poked him in the chest as she spoke. “Besides, I don’t get out enough. I want to look good.”

  Uncle Stephen snaked his arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her up against him. “You do look good. Are you sure we have to go out?”

  Her aunt shook her head and ignored him, giving Violet last-minute instructions for cleaning up after dinner, putting the kids to bed, and emergency contact information, all of which Violet already knew.

  “Kathryn Ambrose…” her uncle announced, trying to get her attention. “Let’s go. She’ll be fine.”

  They left in a flurry of good-bye kisses and “be goods,” aimed both at the kids and at their niece. When the door was finally closed, Violet went to where her cousins sat and began cleaning up their dinner mess.

  Joshua didn’t really make a mess, his plate was tidy, and there were hardly any crumbs to wipe away from his spot at the table. Like Violet’s dad, he was neat and meticulous.

  It was little Cassidy’s high chair that looked like a bomb had gone off. The two-year-old had ketchup on her hands and her face and even in her hair, and it took Violet about fifteen minutes to clean her up.

  At least bedtime was relatively painless.

  Cassidy was exhausted, and fell asleep in Violet’s arms as she rocked the toddler.

  Once it was all over with, Violet flopped down on the couch, grateful for a moment’s peace. Until the doorbell rang.

  She was torn between wanting to be cautious about who was on the other side of the door and not wanting the noise of the doorbell to wake the sleeping children…especially a cranky two-year-old.

  “Who is it?” she called out in a loud whisper from the inside.

  “It’s Jay!” she heard him quietly call back.

  She smiled and unbolted the door.

  The sight of him standing there made her pulse burst. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged, coming inside without waiting to be invited. Violet knew that her aunt and uncle wouldn’t mind; she and Jay had been kind of a package deal for as long as she could remember. Everyone was used to the two of them being together.

  “Your mom told me where you were, so I thought I’d come hang out.” He made himself at home, sitting down on the couch where she’d just been. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

  She didn’t bother replying; she just sat down. She was cold, so she leaned against the side of the couch and shoved her feet beneath his legs, letting his body heat warm them. He surfed through the channels until they found a movie they both agreed on, even though it was already more than halfway over.

  This was how it was with the two of them—the effortlessness they had.

  She made a bowl of microwave popcorn, and they watched the rest of the movie while they joked around, and while Violet tried to forget how close he was sitting…and how warm he was beside her…and how good he smelled.

  Even before the credits were rolling they were already talking about other things, the movie forgotten. They discussed their new teachers, and what they had heard about them from other students who had gone before them. And they gossiped about rumors going around at school, like who was dating who, and who had broken up over the summer.

  Violet was purposely avoiding discussions about all the girls who had suddenly noticed Jay, but he didn’t seem to have the same aversion to the topic, and eventually he asked, “So, what about that note from Elisabeth Adams?”

  Lissie Adams was the last person Violet wanted to talk about right now, but she couldn’t just ignore his comment. This time the teacher wasn’t there to cut him off.

  “Weird, huh?” And then the question that Violet was almost afraid to ask came tumbling from between her cursedly loose lips. “So, are you gonna call her?”

  She tried not to care about the answer, and she concentrated on keeping an indifferent look on her face.

  “Nah. I’m not really interested.”

  Violet was stunned and a little afraid that her mouth might actually be hanging open. “Why? Why wouldn’t you want to go out with Lissie Adams?” She was amazed that she sounded like she was trying to talk him into calling the popular senior, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She couldn’t understand why any boy wouldn’t want to date Lissie.

  He just shrugged. “I’m just not.” And then he asked the question that Violet was most afraid of. “Why do you care if I call her?”

  “I don’t,” she lied. “I’m just surprised. I thought you would’ve called her already.”

  “Hey, did you hear about Brad Miller?” he asked, already forgetting about the Lissie conversation. “He got his car taken away for getting another speeding ticket. Of course he tried to tell his parents that it was a setup.”

  Violet laughed. “Yeah, because the police have nothing better to do than to plan a sting operation targeting eleventh-grade idiots.” She was more than willing to go along with this diversion from conversations about Jay and his many admirers.

  Jay laughed too, shaking his head. “You’re so cold-hearted,” he said to Violet, shoving her a little but playing along. “How’s he supposed to go cruising for unsuspecting freshmen and sophomores without a car? What willing girl is going to ride on the handlebars of his ten-speed?”

  “I don’t see you driving anything but your mom’s car yet. At least he has a bike,” she said, turning on him now.

  He pushed her again. “Hey!” he tried to defend himself. “I’m still saving! Not all of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths.”

  They were both laughing, hard now. The silver spoon joke had been used before, whenever one of them had something the other one didn’t.

  “Right!” Violet protested. “Have you seen my car?” This time she shoved him, and a full-scale war broke out on the couch.

  “Poor little rich girl!” Jay accused, grabbing her arm and pulling her down.

  She giggled and tried to give him the dreaded “dead leg” by hitting him with her knuckle in the thigh. But he was to
o strong, and what used to be a fairly even matchup was now more like an annihilation of Violet’s side.

  “Oh, yeah. Weren’t you the one”—she gasped, still giggling and thrashing to break free from his suddenly way-too-strong grip on her, just as his hand was almost at the sensitive spot along the side of her rib cage—“who got to go to Hawaii….” She bucked beneath him, trying to knock him off her. “…For spring break…last…” And then he started to tickle her while she was pinned beneath him, and her last word came out in a scream: “…YEAR?!”

  That was how her aunt and uncle found them.

  Violet never heard the key in the dead bolt, or the sound of the door opening up. And Jay was just as ignorant of their arrival as she was. So when they were caught like that, in a mass of tangled limbs, with Jay’s face just inches from hers, as she giggled and squirmed against him, it should have meant they were going to get in trouble. And if it had been any other teenage boy and girl, they would have.

  But it wasn’t another couple. It was Violet and Jay…and this was business as usual for the two of them.

  Even her aunt and uncle knew that there was no possibility they were doing anything they shouldn’t. The only reprimand they got was her aunt shushing them to keep it down before they woke the kids.

  After Jay left, Violet took the thirty dollars that her uncle gave her and headed out.

  As she drove home, she tried to ignore the feelings of frustration she had about the way her aunt and uncle had reacted—or rather hadn’t reacted—to finding her and Jay together on the couch. For some reason it made her feel worse to know that even the grown-ups around them didn’t think there was a chance they could ever be a real couple.

  With her spirits dampened, she hoped that at least her cat wouldn’t be around when she got home.

  CHAPTER 3

  SLEEP WAS HARD TO HOLD ON TO THAT NIGHT, elusive and slippery, evading her at every turn. She was restless, and her dreams were segmented and disquieting.

  Swaddled in the darkest part of the night, everything suddenly felt wrong to Violet. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was that was bothering her, but it was there nonetheless, that unnamed distress, looming over her and making her feel helpless…powerless.