Look What You Made Me Do

by Elaine Murphy

  She chooses the first option.

  “Hello.” It’s not a question. Her voice is flat.

  “Where are you?” My voice is ragged but firm.

  It takes her by surprise. “What?”

  “Where are you?”

  A pause. “The theater. I’m buying popcorn.” Becca goes at least twice a week to buy movie popcorn, her favorite food. She doesn’t even see a movie. The staff know her and let her into the concession area without a ticket.

  Brampton only has one theater, and it’s downtown, a twenty-minute drive from my place. If she had anything to do with the man in my apartment, if she’d sent him in to scare me and lurked nearby to feast on my terror, she couldn’t have gotten to the theater this fast. I don’t think it’s likely she had anything to do with whatever’s really going on, but I’m grasping at straws. They’re all better than the alternative. Than the reality.

  “I want to FaceTime,” I say. “Now.”

  I switch the call, and after a second, so does Becca. She’s holding the phone too close to her face, but I can see the familiar red walls, the gold trim of a framed poster. There’s the general din of a busy theater on a miserable Sunday night, and in the midst of it all, there’s my sister. She’s so confused by the tone of the call that she hasn’t even put on her smugly righteous face.

  Her jaw drops when she sees me. “What the hell happened to you?” she exclaims, her surprise genuine. She’s such a shitty actor it’d be easy to tell if she was faking.

  “Show me the theater,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Show me!”

  She rolls her eyes but turns the camera so I can see the dated interior, the concession stand, the popcorn machines, the passing filmgoers glancing at her strangely. She gives me a 360-degree view, stopping when she’s in focus again. “Satisfied?”

  I run my tongue over the jagged shard of tooth. “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Someone was here,” I say, the words breaking as they tumble out. “Waiting. In my closet.”

  Her eyes bulge. “What?”

  “He—I—He—”

  “Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

  I shake my head. “No. But he—I—”

  Becca waits.

  “I think it’s him,” I blurt, recalling the glowing white eyes I’d seen in the dark trees at Kilduff, the ones watching us bury Angelica. They were too far away for me to say for certain it was the same eyes I just encountered in my closet, but it doesn’t matter. The signs of someone in my house, the visit from Greaves, and now this. It’s all that makes sense.

  “Who?” Becca demands.

  “The killer,” I whisper, my hand shaking so hard the camera can’t focus. “Footloose.”

  She makes a face. “That’s such a stupid name.”

  Tears pour down my cheeks. “I know.”

  “Do you still have both your feet?”

  I rasp out a laugh, though nothing’s funny. “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m coming over, but if you’re not bleeding to death, I’m getting popcorn first.”

  “Okay,” I say, the word sounding like a wheeze.

  “I’ll get you some, too,” Becca adds, the most compassion of which she’s capable.

  She hangs up, and I watch the screen go dark. Greaves’s card sits on the table, next to my purse. Under normal circumstances, a person who found an intruder in her closet should call the police, let them investigate, let them protect her. But if I’m right and the person in my closet is Brampton’s other serial killer, then Becca, unfortunately, is my only hope.

  Chapter 5

  Oh. My. God.” Becca’s in the doorway, gaping at me, shutting her mouth just long enough to chew the popcorn she keeps shoveling in. She didn’t get me a bag after all because it was “too expensive.” We both know she ate it on the way over.

  “Look at your teeth!” she exclaims, like I knew she would. When Becca sees a bruise, she has to press on it. My front tooth is sheared off at an angle, leaving a dark hole in the center of my smile, and it’s visible anytime I open my mouth, no matter how little I move my lips. I’m upset, clearly, and I know I’ll suffer at the dentist tomorrow, but there’s nothing like a potential serial killer in your closet to put things into perspective.

  Of course, Becca doesn’t see it that way. “It looks terrible,” she adds when I don’t flinch. “It’s super noticeable.”

  “Uh-huh. Are you coming in or are you just going to stand there?”

  “Oh, am I allowed in now?”

  “Temporarily.”

  She’s too lazy to go back out into the rain and drive home so I know she’ll stay, even if I don’t welcome her with open arms. Not that I ever have.

  “Fine.” She kicks off her boots, one landing halfway down the hall, and hangs her coat on the doorknob, where it immediately slides off and crumples on the floor. “So,” she says, “you think Footloose was in your closet.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did he get in?”

  “Through the front door. I went out to put the trash cans in the shed and didn’t lock the door. He must have come in then and waited upstairs.”

  Becca frowns, munching on her popcorn as she climbs the steps in tight jeans and a fuzzy pink sweater. She looks like a sorority sister here for a sleepover, not one serial killer investigating another.

  I follow her into my room, where she calmly surveys my closet. The painting was moved to the far side to allow for Footloose’s escape, and Becca eyeballs the place where he’d stood.

  “No,” she says finally.

  “No, what?”

  “No, he didn’t come in while you moved the garbage cans.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because it’s fucking pouring outside, Carrie, and there’s no water in here. None on the stairs, none in the hallway. It’s dry.”

  I want to argue with her because Becca becomes impossibly more awful when she’s right, but what she’s saying is true. Footloose hit me, and his hand was warm. There was no wash of cold clinging to him as he ran past, no wet footsteps on the floor. The clothes in the closet are dry. I was too stunned to notice the obvious: He’d been here all along.

  “What?” Becca asks. Her popcorn crunches as she watches me speculatively. She doesn’t know how to be sympathetic. A dying animal is just a curiosity, a terrified sister an interesting specimen.

  “I was awake all night,” I say. “I was in the living room. I couldn’t sleep.”

  She goes to the window and peers into the darkness. Rain splatters against the glass, twinkling in the light. There are no balconies or eaves outside, and the only drainpipe is on the back of the house, too rickety to bear the weight of a grown man. There’s no way to enter the house from this level. Only the front door opens on the main floor, plus the kitchen window, which is locked. The unfinished basement has two window wells, both barely big enough for a cat to fit through, never mind an adult.

  “Why not?” Becca asks.

  “Why not what?”

  “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

  “Because of everything that’s been going on!”

  “Because of Footloose?” she scoffs. “I mean, I get it. It’s alarming to think there could be a serial killer in Brampton, but why would he target you? I’ve been reading the papers. It sounds like all the people he killed are homeless or addicted or lost—none of them had family who loved them. You do.”

  I take a breath and tell her everything about the past week—the closed curtains, the moved painting, the credit card—wrapping up with Greaves’s visit this morning. At first, she looks bored, like I’m making something out of nothing, but the more pieces I add to the pile, the more interested she becomes. But she’s not giddy, the way she gets when she watches one of her horrible plans unfold. She can’t take pleasure in other people’s success, she can only document the suffering. I’d already come to the same conclusion, but I know now for certain. It’s no
t her.

  I should be relieved to know my sister isn’t tormenting me, but I’m not. Because Becca’s the devil I know. Footloose is the serial killer I do not.

  “Well,” she says eventually, licking butter off her thumb, “the good news is, he doesn’t want to kill you.”

  “What? He—”

  “Obviously, he could have killed you. He’s been in your house, like, a dozen times, but he hasn’t tried to hurt you. I mean, he probably came in here today while you were throwing away the Soda Jack and has just been waiting the whole time, even while you slept.” She gestures to my face. “And he only hit you because you surprised him. Oh man.” Her eyes light up. “One time, I ran over this girl—she wrote, like, six letters to the store complaining about my ‘poor attitude’ and, like, lingered in the food court when I was having lunch, bringing her friends and calling me names, saying they’d shop at other stores. Like, whatever, bitch, it’s not like you ever bought anything. Anyway, I had enough so I wrote her back and pretended to be from management, and we set up a meeting”—one of Becca’s favorite murder techniques—“and I ran her over. Then, when I went to wrap her up in the carpet, she fucking moved, Carrie. It was so scary. I almost peed.”

  I stare at her. I don’t see what this has to do with anything. And I don’t like the story.

  “Anyway.” She shrugs, not getting the sympathy she apparently believes she deserves. “She was mostly dead and in a lot of pain, twitching and stuff, so I smothered her with the carpet. It was probably best for her. Then, you know. The rest is history.”

  “What is the point of this?” I demand, my early calm evaporated. Hearing a tale of woe from one killer after a close encounter with another isn’t exactly helpful.

  Becca looks startled. “The point is, he doesn’t want you dead yet, Carrie. He had you on the bed, ready to die, and he just left. All those things that have been happening? He’s playing with you. So we have some time.”

  “Time until what?”

  “Until he gets tired of this. But that’s the wrong question.”

  I scrape my hands over my face. “Oh my God, Becca. What’s the right question?”

  “Time for what.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Exactly. Time for us to figure out who this guy is.”

  “The police are working on that.”

  Becca lifts a disdainful eyebrow. “The police haven’t even noticed two serial killers in the same town for, like, ten years.” It’s an insane point, but it’s fair.

  “So how exactly are we going to find him?”

  She shrugs, the gesture too simple to be anything other than plotting. “I have some ideas.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then what, what?”

  “Assuming we find him, what do we do?”

  Becca frowns at me. “Then we kill him. What else would we do? Befriend him?”

  Cold snakes up my spine as though Footloose is still in the closet, listening to every word.

  “We kill a serial killer,” I echo, my voice weak and distant.

  Becca dumps the last crumbs of popcorn into her mouth, her lips shiny with butter. “Uh-huh,” she says. “I mean, look what he did to your tooth. It’s hideous.”

  * * *

  It takes hours, but eventually I fall asleep in my own bed. Becca takes the couch, and when I stumble downstairs the next morning, I half expect to find a serial killer trussed and waiting on the living room floor, Becca standing over him like a game hunter with her trophy.

  No such luck.

  It’s 8:03 a.m., and Becca is sitting cross-legged on the ottoman, eating a bowl of cereal and watching cartoons.

  “Hey,” she says, glancing up. “How’s the tooth?”

  “Still broken.” I’d emailed Troy last night to say I had to have emergency dental work done today and wouldn’t be in. Then I searched online until I found a dental surgeon who takes walk-ins. They open at nine, and I’ll be there bright and early to get my smile fixed.

  “He didn’t come back.” Becca trails me into the kitchen, her spoon clinking against the edge of the bowl as she continues to eat.

  I flip on the light, wincing against the fluorescent glow, and find the box of cereal sitting on the counter, still open, half a dozen colored fruit flakes sprinkled around it. I shoot Becca a look but don’t comment, putting the kettle on the stove and turning the flame up to high.

  “Nope,” she says, switching it off. “Your tooth is broken. Your root is exposed. If that hot water touches it, you’ll die. Or wish you were dead. So to speak.”

  I carefully probe the tooth with my tongue and decide it’s not worth the risk. Or the argument. I don’t especially want my sister here, but there’s something calming about her nonchalance. I know her lack of concern has more to do with her inability to process emotions and less to do with the severity of the situation, but it still grounds me. We’re here. We’re alive. We have a plan.

  Sort of.

  Becca pours herself more cereal. “Go get dressed,” she says. “I’ll take you to the dentist. When you look normal again, we’ll start our investigation.”

  I hide a flinch. “I look perfectly normal.”

  She shrugs.

  When I’m finished at the dentist, the plan is to swing by Hartmann’s, the store from which I apparently bought forty-eight cans of Soda Jack, and talk to a guy Becca says she knows who works there. I don’t know what information we might find that the police haven’t already, but I don’t have any better ideas so I guess I’m on board.

  I ignore my grumbling stomach and go back upstairs, taking a quick shower and gingerly brushing my teeth. The broken tooth tingles, and my split lip stings, the memory of last night coming back like a strike of lightning. I grip the countertop and force myself to breathe, my heart pounding so fast it feels like I’m swaying with it, like the whole room is moving, my world spinning out of control. I’m not just going along with Becca’s plan because it’s easier than arguing with her. I’m doing it because if I don’t, then I’m stuck here, waiting for Footloose to make his next move. I did that last night and failed spectacularly. At least this way it feels like I have a say in things.

  “Hurry up!” Becca hollers.

  Slathering on moisturizer, I wince when I touch the invisible bruise at the edge of my mouth. I hastily dry my hair and change into jeans and a sweater before heading downstairs. Despite her urgency, Becca’s lounging on the couch, eating what must be her eighth bowl of cereal. I check the kitchen, where the box lies empty on the counter.

  “About time,” she says behind me, making me jump. She strolls in and sticks her bowl in the dishwasher, half a cup of gray milk sloshing into the machine. “Now let’s go get your face fixed.”

  * * *

  When I climb into Becca’s car three hours later, I’m physically and emotionally drained. On the surface, I’m fine. The numbing took care of the root canal, but the nauseating grit of tools on teeth, filing down the shard to do the temporary filling, cotton pads stuck against my gums, has taken its toll. I’m starving, and I’m exhausted, and all I want to do is curl up in bed and never move again.

  “Let’s see,” Becca says.

  I turn to face her, not at all wanting to, but knowing it’s pointless to fight. Repaired tooth aside, I look terrible. Dark circles are smudged beneath both eyes, and my split lip reopened and is now bright red and puffy on one side. Still, I shape my mouth into a grimace so Becca can see the results. I brace myself for her insult, but all she does is peer closely and say, “You can hardly tell,” and start the car.

  I close my eyes in relief and exhaustion, my head dropping back against the seat rest. The light midday traffic makes the trip to Hartmann’s a quick one. Becca drives like the psychopath she is, and even without rush-hour obstacles to make things interesting, she still weaves in and out of the handful of cars she finds, veers sharply into the parking lot, and stomps on the brakes. I jolt forward in my seat with a muttered curse.
r />   “You know what your problem is, Carrie?” she asks without prompting.

  I’m already shoving open my door, gulping in the frigid November air to quell the nausea curdling in my stomach.

  “The serial killer trying to frame me for murder?”

  “You don’t know how to make an entrance. You’re so…” She gestures to me, her lips pulled down in a dramatic frown. “You.”

  I scoff and start walking toward the entrance.

  She hustles along beside me. “If you did this by yourself, you’d tiptoe in there and meekly ask for assistance. And if they told you no, you’d say okay and leave. That’s not how things work.”

  “That’s how they work for normal people.”

  She tugs open the door and gestures me inside. “Normal is boring.”

  “How would you know?”

  She laughs before striding past me into the shop. I’ve only been to Hartmann’s once before, sticker-shock sending me back out as quickly as I’d come in. It’s a high-end grocer that caters to home cooks who think they’re fancier than they are and people in the neighborhood who are unwilling to make the ten-minute trip to the nearest regular grocery store and have enough money not to care.

  The aisles are narrow, the carts small, and classical music wafts out of unseen speakers. There are no national brand items here. Everything is artisanal and organic, imported and important. And expensive. A twenty-two-dollar chocolate bar the size of my thumb. A clear glass jar of truffles, priced by the ounce and guarded by a man with an apron and a scowl. The meat counter offerings include steak and chicken, but also ostrich, alligator, and wild boar. At this time of day, the store is busy with shoppers who don’t have to work or who can afford to determine their own hours, and us. A serial killer with a high ponytail and puffy yellow jacket, apparently selected to be the opposite of meek, and offensively normal me.

  For whatever reason, Becca weaves her way through the aisles, reading the ingredient list on an eleven-dollar jar of tomato sauce and contemplating a box of gluten-free vegan ladyfingers.