One Kick: A Novel

by Chelsea Cain

“Kick, I need you to listen to me,” Bishop said.

  One of his hands was inside James, his fingers pressed inside a bleeding wound.

  “There are going to be a lot of people here soon,” Bishop said. “You need to put the knife down. I need you to sit in that chair.” He thrust chin toward at James’s desk chair. “And I need you not to contaminate the crime scene. Do not touch anything.”

  One of James’s shoes was untied. His face was so pale.

  Bishop was wrong. He couldn’t be alive.

  What would she and Monster do without their James?

  The pain in Kick’s chest tightened.

  Monster.

  She put her fingers in her mouth and tried to whistle, but her mouth was too dry and all she managed was a panicked croak.

  “My dog,” she said. She looked around, frantic. He was there. He was hiding. She took a step back and felt a piece of paper stick to the sole of her sandal. She kicked it off and saw that it had blood on it. She took another step, backing away.

  “No,” Bishop said sharply. “We have to wait for backup. I haven’t cleared the apartment. It’s not safe.”

  There was blood smeared on his forehead, like he’d touched his face with a blood-covered hand. “Stay here with me,” he said. His gray eyes were intense, and she knew that he meant it, that it was important, that she should do what he said. “I can’t leave James right now,” he said.

  It didn’t matter. There was nothing he could say.

  It was happening all over again. Monster was lost. It was Kick’s fault. She had to find him. This time she would find him.

  She stumbled out of the living room and into the hallway.

  “Shit,” she heard Bishop say under his breath.

  She didn’t even try to avoid the empty bottles now. She didn’t care how loud she was. James’s bedroom door was closed at the end of the hall. Kick felt a glimmer of hope. James had put Monster in the bedroom and closed the door. Monster was so blind and deaf, he wouldn’t have barked; he wouldn’t have made a sound. He was safe.

  “Talk to me, Kick,” Bishop called.

  “I’m in the hall,” Kick called back. “But it’s okay. I think James shut Monster in the bedroom.” Of course James had protected Monster. He loved Monster too. Kick had the knife at her side now and was batting water bottles out of her way with her feet. Poor dog, he’d probably been in there for hours. “I’m almost to the bedroom,” Kick called excitedly. “I’m going to open the door.”

  “Don’t touch it with your bare hand!” Bishop called back. “Find a clean rag or use—”

  Kick didn’t hear the rest. She had already turned the knob and thrown open the door, ready to welcome Monster into her arms.

  The sound came out of her stomach, a gut-wrenching wail that made her light-headed, made her legs go weak. She dropped to her knees and the knife fell from her hand and clattered on the floor.

  Bishop was hollering for her, yelling her name. She struggled through sobs for enough air to be able to respond.

  “Is it the dog?” Bishop called.

  Tears dripped down Kick’s neck. She managed a great, shaking breath and called out, “Uh-huh.”

  Her shoulders heaved. She was sobbing so hard that no sound came out, so hard that it physically hurt.

  He was lying by the foot of the bed. She crawled forward on her knees until she reached him. His frosted eyes were half open. “Pretty boy,” she whispered, stroking the fur on his muzzle. Blood glistened around his mouth and ear. She glanced at his belly where he’d been opened up, his insides spilled out on the floor. Then she leaned forward and put her face against his, breathing him in. He was still warm. She had lost him once. And then they had been reunited. But he was lost forever now. He had died alone, with no one who loved him.

  Kick lifted her head, choking back sobs, and slid her arms under her dead dog. Monster rolled against her chest as she picked him up, his head lolling over her arm. The weight of him was different, denser, like he was her dog but not. She struggled to her feet. She could feel the wetness of Monster’s blood against the fabric of her dress, staining her. His tag jingled with each of her steps and she carried him down the hall into the living room.

  Bishop was leaning over James and had started CPR chest compressions. Kick stumbled toward them with Monster, but Bishop stopped her with a look.

  “Put the dog down!” he commanded “That’s evidence. Goddamnit. Kick, you’re contaminating the scene.”

  Mucus clogged Kick’s throat. She couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t evidence. This was Monster.

  “Drop the fucking dog,” Bishop snarled. “Now.”

  Kick buried her face in Monster’s fur, sank to her knees, and let him roll gently out of her arms onto the floor. Now he looked dead, his body slumped unnaturally on the floor. Kick adjusted his legs so that he would look more like himself, like he was sleeping. Her hand grazed something on the floor. It was James’s wire talisman. It had been flattened, stepped on. Kick reached for it. Bishop wasn’t paying attention to her anymore; he was focused on James, his arms straight, his hands pumping against James’s fragile breastbone. Kick stared, wide-eyed, at the disfigured wire man.

  James.

  Bishop’s hands were covered in blood, his face taut with concentration as he compressed James’s chest again and again and again. Kick scrambled on her hands and knees to the other side of James’s body. She glanced around frantically for something she could do, some way to help. Bishop’s sweatshirt sat in a heap on James’s belly, soaking up blood. Kick pressed her trembling fingers against it and applied pressure. She copied Bishop’s hands, palms stacked, the fingers of the top hand threaded between the fingers of the bottom one. The little wire man was wrapped around her finger like a ring. She could feel the pump of every chest compression under her own hand. It almost felt like James had a heartbeat.

  24

  JAMES’S ROOM WAS EMPTY. It would not have been strange, except that James never went anywhere. Kick backed out of the room, into Mr. Klugman’s basement, and ran up the stairs to the kitchen. She didn’t see anyone. She ran to the back window and looked into the yard, but the pool was empty. She felt a tiny seed of panic tickle at her throat, like a spider crawling up the back of her tongue. She flew through the house, the dining room, the living room. Had everyone left? Had they left her alone?

  She was almost crying then, when she heard voices coming from the garage. She was so relieved that she almost opened the door without knocking. She caught herself, and knocked, and her father’s voice called for her. When she opened the door, there they were, her father and Mr. Klugman. The garage door was open. The bright San Diego sun poured in. It was so warm, like not being outside at all.

  “It’s Miss America,” Mr. Klugman said, and Beth beamed.

  “I thought you’d left,” she said.

  “Mr. Klugman got a new car,” her father said.

  The car glistened red, like cherries.

  “Where’s James?” Beth asked.

  “He’s gone,” her father said.

  Beth knew better than to ask any more questions.

  25

  JAMES WAS GONE. THEY had taken him away on a stretcher.

  Kick didn’t know who these people were. But they were leaving her alone, stepping around her on the floor. She had pulled Monster halfway onto her lap and held him in her arms. His body was limp and heavy. Her dress was covered in dog hair and blood and something like blood, but stickier. The floor was red where James had been. Bloody footprints made tracks across the papers strewn around the room. Kick recognized the shapes of her own sandals.

  James’s wire man was ruined. She didn’t know how to fix him. She twisted the ring she’d made of him around her finger. James would be furious.

  Where was he? She remembered Bishop sitting back, letting the paramedics take over compressio
ns, seeing them loading James on a stretcher. Someone took the sweatshirt out of her hand and put it into a plastic bag.

  And then James was gone.

  The paramedics were gone.

  She smoothed down the fur over Monster’s forehead.

  Bishop was still there. He was talking to one of the men with guns.

  FBI agents. That’s who they were. They were all carrying Glocks. Like the ones who’d come for Beth. Only Kick was Beth. Kick was Beth that night at the farm. She could still hear Frank’s voice in her head.

  “I had a dog,” she said, remembering.

  Frank was motionless. “What was its name?” he asked.

  There was shouting.

  “You took her to see him?” a voice said incredulously. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  It was Frank.

  His voice—now, here, in this room. For real. Kick strained to locate it.

  But it was Bishop’s voice she heard. He was talking to someone who had just come in. “I don’t work for you, Frank,” Bishop was saying. “I didn’t have to call you. I could have just walked away.”

  Kick threaded her fingers deeper into Monster’s fur, unsure what was real.

  She watched Frank point a finger in Bishop’s face. “Not even you are that much of a prick,” Frank said.

  A poster on the wall had a picture of footsteps on a white sand beach. Your Dream Vacation, Today! it promised.

  “It’s him,” Bishop told Frank. “James was one of his victims. This? It’s him. There’s security footage of the conversation at the prison. You know who to talk to about getting a copy.”

  Monster’s head was so heavy. “She’s a kid,” Frank said, his worried eyes glancing in her direction.

  “Not anymore,” Bishop said.

  Frank came toward her then, carefully making his way around yellow plastic evidence markers, pausing to find a spot to place his foot.

  “Don’t touch her,” Bishop called to him. “Her clothing hasn’t been processed. And she doesn’t want to let go of the dog.”

  Monster looked peaceful. She had closed his eyes. As long as she didn’t look below his shoulders, she could almost believe he was asleep. James was asleep. They could sleep together.

  Frank was standing above Kick now, and she was gazing up at him. His rust-colored eyebrows were still thatched with blond.

  “Are you really here?” she asked. She wanted to reach out, to touch him, to see if he was smoke. He was shorter than she remembered him. His eyes were squintier. Seeing him now, she realized that he wasn’t even that old. She was the old one. She was as old as the universe.

  Frank lowered himself into a squat. “I show up when you need me. That’s our deal.”

  Kick moved her fingers over Monster’s head, feeling his skull, his realness. “He killed my dog,” she whispered.

  Frank’s mouth twitched. “I know.” He turned his face to his shoulder for a moment and when he looked back his eyes were red. “But it’s time to go now.”

  “I don’t want to leave him alone,” Kick said. She could feel Beth’s panic in her chest. Beth had never liked Frank. Beth had wanted to shoot him dead. “Don’t take me away from him,” she begged.

  Frank rubbed his eyes with a thumb. “When I found you, you couldn’t even say your own name, remember?” he asked. His shoulders rose and fell. “But you told me about your dog; you remembered Monster’s name. And that’s how I knew who you were. He helped get you home.” His jacket hung open, and Kick could see his Glock 27 with Smith & Wesson .45 ammo, close enough to snatch. “And he has been a great dog, hasn’t he?”

  Kick looked down at Monster. This would be the last time she’d see him, his graying muzzle, his furry ears, his rough nose.

  Oh, Monster, no.

  Frank reached out and petted Monster’s neck. He cleared his throat. “He’s not warm anymore, is he?”

  Kick swallowed back tears, coughed, and shook her head. He wasn’t warm.

  “It’s time to go,” Frank said again.

  She could do this; she had to do this. Frank helped her slip out from under Monster’s body. Frank got to his feet and held his hand out to her. “Come on.”

  She went with him. Maybe because that’s what she had done all those years ago at the farm, when he’d led her out of Mel’s basement, up the rabbit hole, out into the world. Maybe she was just tired. The blood on her yellow dress had started hardening and the fabric scratched her skin as she moved.

  Frank pointed at the floor, at the blizzard of papers and blood. “Very carefully.”

  She tried to step where he pointed. Around James’s Cthulhu mug, which lay broken on the floor. Dog hair fluttered from her dress as she moved. A dozen people inched around the perimeter of the living room, taking pictures, writing in small notebooks, coming and going. A Glock 22, a Glock 23, a Glock 27.

  “Where’s James?” she asked. Her voice no more than a whisper.

  “I’m going to take you to him,” Frank said. “We just need to have a look at you first.” He led her over to where Bishop stood on a square of plastic sheeting and positioned her alongside him. The sound of the plastic crinkling under her sandals made her teeth hurt.

  A camera flash went off.

  A woman stepped in front of Kick. She was wearing blue latex gloves and a black FBI windbreaker and she had a friendly, freckled face. She didn’t have a gun. She gave Kick a reassuring smile. “I’m Mina,” she said. “Well, Benjamina. My parents were expecting a boy.” She had kind eyes, and Kick focused on them. “I’m just going to do a once-over, make sure you haven’t picked up any hair or fibers that might be useful in the investigation.”

  Kick felt her head nod.

  Frank had his hands on his hips and was looking around the room, emitting a low whistle. “Was the place tossed?” he asked.

  Notes layered the floor. Printouts papered the walls. James’s dartboard was still on the floor where it had fallen. Kick felt a pang of guilt that she hadn’t hung it back up.

  “It’s how she thinks,” Bishop said.

  How did he know how she thought? He didn’t know her at all.

  “Well, it’s going to take all night to process,” Mina said. She made a swiveling motion with her finger and Kick, always obedient, turned around. The collage Kick had made the night before fanned out across the wall in front of her. All the missing boys, all her erratic notes, and behind them an array of exotic destinations: See Italy! Cruise the Maldives! Visit Israel!

  Bishop turned around, too, so that they were now facing the wall side by side.

  Between them, at eye level, was the photograph of Adam Rice above the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Around Adam, circling his image, ten pictures of other dark-haired Caucasian boys from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children website. Kick’s eyes moved from image to image, each one clicking into place.

  “You figured out a lot,” Bishop said, nodding at the wall.

  “James saw the pattern,” Kick said. Her voice sounded small and faraway. “He’s good at patterns.”

  But she was not. She hadn’t seen it, and it had been right in front of her. The coloring, the slight build. If she’d taken a photograph of James the day they’d met, she could have put it right up on the wall along with the missing boys. “The person who was here,” she said. “It’s him. The man Mel talked about.”

  “Did you see James’s wrists?” Bishop asked.

  Kick felt a flush of cold settle on her skin. She tightened her fingers together so that she could feel that the wire talisman was still there.

  “Fresh ligature marks,” Bishop said.

  The activity behind them faded into white noise. It was just Kick and Bishop and the wall and James’s blood. “Why?” she asked. After all this time, why would he come back for James?

  “Take off your shirt,” Fr
ank said to Bishop, and Kick was startled back to the reality of the apartment, the police, the crime scene investigators, everyone picking over James’s possessions.

  Bishop sighed. “Excuse me,” he said to Kick. He turned around and pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it in a plastic bag. Kick was surprised to see the scattering of black stitches still in his back, the skin still inflamed; surprised to realize that it had only been a day since the paramedic had sewn up Bishop’s wounds.

  Frank held a box of Huggies baby wipes out to Bishop. “Clean yourself up,” he told him.

  Mina picked something off Kick’s shoulder, and Kick turned her attention back to the faces of the missing boys. The wet slurp of wipes being pulled from the box punctuated the conversation behind her, and she could smell their distinctive talcum scent. Her eyes moved down the wall to the notes she’d written on torn copy paper. They were highlighted and circled in purple: Former weapons dealer. But doesn’t like guns. Excellent driver. Private jet. How did he get the scar on his neck? Island. Adulterer. Wife. Entitled asshole.

  Something plopped onto the plastic sheeting at her feet and she looked down to see one of the used wet tissues, pink with blood, discarded near Bishop’s heel. Her gaze moved up his body. The muscles in his long arms tensed as he rubbed the blood off his hands.

  “You’re done,” Mina said. Still dazed, Kick turned back to the room. Mina was putting away her tools. “We’ll need the dress,” she said to Frank.

  Kick looked down at the front of the dress, the blood, Monster’s fur, the last traces of her dog. “No,” she said, pleading. “Frank, please.”

  Frank coughed and looked away.

  “Everything on the dress is from the dog,” Bishop said. “The blood on her hands belongs to the victim. And you’ll want her shoes.” Bishop drew another wipe out of the box and started scrubbing the blood out of the beds of his fingernails.

  “Yeah, okay,” Frank said.

  Kick let them do what they wanted to her, position her for whatever photographs they needed. Someone unbuckled her shoes and spirited them away, leaving her barefoot on the plastic sheeting.