by Leo, Cassia
“I met Izzy at her place of employment,” I begin, but Stanley clears his throat to interrupt me.
“You mean to tell me you both moved here from Vegas within a few weeks of each other, bought houses right next to each other, and both were using aliases, but you didn’t know each other until you met at The Junk Drawer?” he replies, continuing to shake his head in disbelief. “I don’t buy that for one second. Come on, King. I don’t take you for someone who’d come up with a lame story like that. You seem like a smart guy. So how about you do the smart thing and start being honest with me now, before you land yourself in some real hot water.”
Real hot water? Is that how we’re referring to federal prison these days?
I take another slow breath to prevent myself from rolling my eyes. “If you want to talk about my life in Vegas, we’ll have to do that through my lawyer. But I’m happy to discuss Izzy if you’d like to continue doing that.”
He considers my words for a moment before his shoulders seem to relax. “Okay. We’ll do this your way. Vegas is off limits…for now.”
Nothing like threatening to bring in a lawyer to buy yourself a little breathing room in a police interrogation.
“How about you tell me what it was like growing up in Tennessee?” Stanley continues. “You said you liked to hunt? Who taught you to hunt? Your father?”
I shake my head. “My dad left when I was eight. My mom taught me how to hunt and fish. She took us camping a lot in the Great Smoky Mountains. I know the Andrews Bald and Clingman’s Dome area like the back of my hand.” Inside, I smile at the thought of sending this guy on a wild goose chase through the mountains. But my conscience gets the better of me. “But I haven’t been to Tennessee since I got back from Afghanistan almost six years ago. Not a whole lot of good memories there anymore.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
I shrug. “Didn’t really get along with my sister too well growing up. She kinda blamed me for my dad taking off. Then, my mom passed away while I was overseas, and she refused to wait the nine days I needed before I could fly back for the funeral. So I missed the service.”
“You missed your mother’s funeral? That’s rough,” he says, a note of sympathy in his voice. “Especially since it sounds like she taught you just about everything you know. You mind me asking how she died?”
“Drunk driver.”
I don’t mention the drunk driver was my mom. I’m sure he’ll find that out soon enough.
Stanley’s left eyebrow shoots up. “Ooh, I bet that pissed you off.”
I tilt my head back a bit and look him in the eye. “No, sir. No one knows when their time will come. I didn’t know my mom would be taken from me so soon, but it does me no good to be angry about something I can’t change.”
He holds my glare for a moment before he blinks. “You learn that philosophy in AA or are you a church-going man?”
I shake my head. “Neither.”
Stanley eyes me for a bit, glancing at the witness information form in front of him occasionally. “I suppose we should talk about your friend. What’s his name? Edwin Santos?”
“He goes by Santos,” I correct him.
He smiles. “Right. He was in the military with you, wasn’t he?”
“Nope,” I reply simply. “He served in a different unit and was discharged years before I was. Never met him until I moved to Vegas.”
Stanley perks up. “You ready to talk about Vegas now?”
I look him dead in the eye as I shake my head slowly.
He chuckles. “All right. Maybe we can come back to that later. So tell me about Santos. Why’d he come here with you?”
I continue to look him in the eye for a bit longer before I allow one side of my mouth to curve into an easy smile. “I think you should ask him that.”
7 Izzy
July 27th
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in the Carolina countryside, and my first day off as the proud new owner of a rusty ranch-style house on the lake.
I want to spend the day obsessing over the latest news about my disappearance, but there’s been nothing reported in more than two weeks. The Las Vegas Police Department doesn’t exactly pull out all the stops for a missing prostitute. I guess almost-prostitute is probably more accurate.
Besides, there’s only one thing I should be doing today: making a trip to Home Depot.
As I stepped outside my front door, I hear the rhythmic crack of nails being hammered into wood. The sound is coming from Colton’s property. He seems to be replacing some wooden floorboards on his back porch.
He doesn’t appear to notice me, but I have to force myself to look away from his body and the way his skin glistens with sweat in the morning sunshine. I sure wouldn’t mind him nailing me with his hammer.
Oh, God. Did I really just think that?
I drive through the sun-soaked dirt roads and down the shimmering hot highways into the neighboring town of Hickory with the intent of doing some house shopping.
In town, I park my truck in the Home Depot parking lot, since I’ll definitely need to make a stop there before I head home. Then, I set off into the sticky summer heat to get an ice cream cone, which I plan to enjoy as I do some window shopping.
I’m only halfway through my cone, and a couple blocks from Home Depot, when I spot a quaint musical instrument shop in a strip mall with a gorgeous collection of guitars in the window. Without hesitation, I toss my ice cream cone into a nearby bin and head inside.
The baby-blue acoustic-electric guitar in the window display shimmers in the sunshine, like a shining glass of water in a vast desert. I haven’t bought myself a new guitar in more than four years.
I’ve repaired the tuning pegs and bridge pins on my guitar more times than I can count. The built-in electronic tuner on the side of the guitar has been broken for 2 1/2 years. There’s a crack on the waist that effects the resonance, and I’ve had to replace the output jack once already. I can’t really justify replacing the jack again now that it’s having the same issue with spotty sound quality.
But upon closer inspection, the guitar in the window appears to be a mid-level Fender. It’s probably not much more expensive — or sturdy — than the one I’ve been barely holding together for the past four years.
I am about to turn around and head toward the back of the shop, where the more expensive guitars seem to be located, when a salesman approaches me.
He’s tall and thin, a bit like my dad, with the smile that feels more genuine than I would expect from a salesperson.
“Can I help you with something, miss?” he asks politely. “You want to try out that Fender? She’s a real beauty, huh?”
I smile and shake my head. “Actually, I was—”
I stop speaking when I hear the sound of a bell ringing as someone enters the shop. But it’s not the presence of another customer that stops me. It’s the way this customer’s eyes seem locked on mine as he enters the store and heads straight towards the back of the shop.
The guy is huge. At least six-foot-four with dark, chin-length hair tucked behind his ears and tattoos down the sides of his thick neck. The black, short sleeve button-up shirt he’s wearing barely conceals his muscled biceps. It’s also just tight enough around his waist to show the outline of a gun holster on his hip.
He looks like a younger, more clean-cut version as Danny Trejo’s character in the movie Machete.
Concealed carry is not legal in North Carolina without a permit. Open carry is legal. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from having a small .380 stuffed in the waistband of my shorts.
I’m not exactly a law-abiding citizen anymore. And judging by his appearance, I’m assuming Machete isn’t either.
“Actually, what?” the salesman asks.
I chuckle. “Actually, I was just going to look at your songbooks first,” I reply. “I’ll just be over here. I’ll let you know if I need help. Thank you.”
“Sure thing. I’ll just be right over there at the re
gister,” the salesman says pointing at the checkout counter behind him. “We have some nicer guitars at the back of the store. If you’d like to see some of those, I’d be happy to show them to you.”
I smile and nod at him as I head toward the sheet music and songbooks.
Machete is in the guitar section, which means I’ll have to wait him out. And as he glances in my direction then moves on to admiring the next guitar, I let out a frustrated sigh. He doesn’t seem to be in any rush to leave or make a purchase.
After twenty minutes of leafing through guitar tabs for songs I already know, I decide I can’t linger any longer. I head over to the guitar section to admire a black acoustic-electric Gibson Hummingbird guitar with a thin gold stripe along the outer rim.
I’m about to turn around and signal to the salesman for him to get the guitar down for me when Machete takes a step sideways to cozy up next to me.
“Nice guitar. You have good taste,” Machete remarks.
Something about the fact that he’s carrying a concealed firearm and he doesn’t have a Carolina accent makes me nervous. I consider asking him a question about guitars, to expose his possible lack of knowledge, but my heart is pounding so fast I can hardly breathe. Something feels very wrong.
“It’s too expensive,” I reply quickly, then I spin around and leave the store without another word.
* * *
I wander around the strip mall for a bit, looking over my shoulder quite often, before I head back toward Home Depot, which happens to be right next to a PetSmart store that’s holding Saturday pet adoptions.
Thinking of the odd encounter with Machete, I reason that picking out the biggest, ugliest dog they have would probably be a good idea. It will help a dog that may not otherwise get adopted, and it may give me a little peace of mind, provided the dog doesn’t turn out to be a complete softie.
As I cross the parking lot and step onto the sidewalk in front of the big-box pet store, I walk right past the wire cages containing the sleeping cats. Perusing the dogs enclosed in the plastic playpens, I observe three Chihuahua’s, one medium-sized dog that appears to be some type of Labrador-mix, and a large dog with a mottled blue coat.
Judging by the pattern in his fur, his ice-blue eyes, and his crooked teeth jutting out at all angles from his underbite, he looks like he might be some type of bulldog mixed with a husky or shepherd.
He’s ugly and a bit dumb looking, but his body is thick and muscled with a large blockhead that looks like it could make mincemeat out of a large man’s leg. He’s perfect.
“Can I meet him?” I ask the older woman with frizzy grayish-brown hair who’s sitting in a lawn chair and staring at her phone.
She smiles. “Her,” she replies as she rises from her chair. “That’s Bella. Isn’t she gorgeous? She’s an Australian shepherd-bulldog-mix.”
Bella? Gorgeous? Not exactly the name or descriptor I’d use for this dog.
“She’s beautiful,” I reply as the woman opens a panel on the playpen to let me inside with Bella.
“She’s a sweetheart,” the woman says, holding the panel open as I step in. “She’s been at the shelter for almost nine months. We try to bring her out to Saturday adoptions as often as possible, but we can only bring so many dogs. And I am required to tell you that she’s been adopted twice and returned twice because she barks at houseguests. But she’s been chipped since she was just a few weeks old. She has no bite history whatsoever. She’s just so…different looking. The barking can be scary for some people.”
Who would bring a dog back just because it barked?
“You poor thing,” I remark as Bella continues to lie there, making no attempt to stand up and greet me.
“She must like you,” the woman declares. “She normally gives a couple of warning barks when she meets a new person.”
My heart aches as I imagine this poor dog being shuffled back and forth from the shelter, to PetSmart, to a new home, then back to the shelter so many times. Maybe she even got her hopes up, thinking she would get to stay in that comfy new dog bed, only to have that hope ripped away from her time and again.
I take a step toward her, and she lifts her head, but she doesn’t get up. “Hey, Bella,” I say in a non-threatening sing-song tone.
She still doesn’t move, though I sense a bit of hesitation, like she might be ready to bark or growl if I get any closer.
I think of something my dad once told me: Dogs don’t want to hurt you. They just don’t want you to hurt them. Instead of towering over them, get down to their level, and they’ll usually turn to mush.
Without hesitation, I get down on my knees to greet Bella. “Do you want to go home?” I ask, and her big shepherd ears perk up. “Do you understand that word, home? Do you want to go home?”
She lets out an affirmative bark and her tail wags as she comes over to greet me by licking my face.
The woman chuckles. “I guess that’s a yes. I’ll go grab the paperwork.”
I laugh as Bella continues to lick my face and neck. “Do you think I can change her name?” I ask as she returns with a blue folder and a pen.
“Of course,” the woman replies, opening the playpen for me to come out. “Just call her by her new name and tack on Bella at the end. For instance, if you named her Cupcake, you’d just refer to her as Cupcake-Bella for a few days. Then, you can just drop Bella. You know what you want to name her?”
I step out of the playpen and stare at my new dog for a moment. It doesn’t take long for me to realize who Bella reminds me of, with those blue eyes and mangled teeth. “I think I’ll name her Steve.”
The woman laughs. “Steve? Why Steve?”
I shrug. “She kind of reminds me of Steve Buscemi.”
The woman shakes her head as she opens the folder and pulls out a few forms. “Well, I hope Steve has a long happy life with you.”
I’m suddenly overcome with emotion as I realize Steve is my only family now. “So do I.”
* * *
The woman from the shelter is nice enough to let me leave Steve in the playpen while I make a quick trip to Home Depot. At the store, I pick up some power tools, wire mesh, and wooden stakes to create a temporary enclosure for Steve on the side of the house. Then, I spend an hour — and more than $500 — at PetSmart, stocking up on dog food and supplies, like a state of the art dog house with entry flap and a heater for the winter.
When Steve and I arrive home, I decide not to put her on a leash so she can get accustomed to staying near me while she’s on the property. As I round the back of the truck to let Steve out the passenger side door, I spot Colton in his backyard.
His shirt is off, and he’s sipping a beer as he sits on the grass facing the lake. I want to go over and say hi to him, but I don’t want to seem needy or clingy. Besides, I don’t know how Steve will react to him.
I peel my gaze away from Colton’s beautiful back muscles and turn toward the truck. Steve’s blockhead is tilted back, her eyes slightly shut as she pants in the summer heat. She is gorgeous.
“Come on, Steve-Bella,” I say, opening the door. “Let’s get you inside so you can cool off while I set up your new dog house. Then, maybe we can go play fetch in the backyard.”
And maybe Colton will join us.
But after fixing Steve a gigantic bowl of food, I realize it’s almost four p.m., and I haven’t eaten anything other than half an ice cream cone. I can’t lose weight or let my blonde roots grow out. I have to maintain my new appearance.
I decide I’d probably be better off staying inside the air-conditioned house with my new dog, where I can gorge on peanut butter and potato chips to make up for all the walking and shopping I did.
I didn’t realize — when I decided to add fifteen pounds to my new look — how hard it would be to maintain my weight.
As I watch Steve licking her metal bowl clean, a lump forms in my throat as I recall my mom getting frustrated with my dad because he would stuff himself with burritos and pizza and never gain
ed an ounce. As difficult as it is to maintain my new curves, it’s not just my need to stay disguised that keeps me motivated.
The roundness of my breasts and hips makes me feel more soft and beguiling. I see the way men — men like Colton — look at me now. It’s a bit scary and thrilling, but it’s also a huge confidence boost.
I sigh as I pick up Steve’s food bowl and wash it in the sink as I gaze out my kitchen window, in the direction of Colton’s backyard. It would be great if I could figure out how to use my new feminine figure to get myself laid by someone who doesn’t live right next door to me.
* * *
I’m woken in the middle of the night by a loud banging noise outside my window. Sliding my hand into the hole I cut out of my memory foam mattress, my heart races as I grab my .380 and slowly slip out of bed. I disable the safety switch and point the gun at the door as I creep through the darkness.
I listen at the door for any more sounds, but I don’t hear anything, so I very slowly and quietly use my left hand to turn the handle. Tip-toeing out of my bedroom, I raise the gun again, my finger coiled and ready to squeeze the trigger at any moment.
I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear what sounds like someone tapping or scratching on a window.
What the fuck? Did they find me? Am I going to die tonight?
No, don’t think like that, Izzy. You’re going to shoot the coward who came to surprise you in your sleep, then you’re going to leave.
But, first, get the keys to the truck!
I snag the keys off the hook in the kitchen and stuff them in my bra as I head toward the back door. Opening it slowly, my hands start to tremble from the adrenaline coursing through me.
The dry dirt feels cool on my bare feet as I make my way toward the left side of the house, where my bedroom window is located.