by Rebel Farris
I sang my song I wrote for him into his ear, tuning out the commotion.
Is this the end,
of what I knew?
Is this the end,
of what we used to be?
One of the policemen hooked his hand under my arms and tugged on me. I hugged Jared tighter and kissed his forehead.
“No, I can’t leave him. He’s going to wake up. We’re going to Bali to get married soon. I can’t just leave him here.” I looked up at the officer, pleading with him.
“Ma’am, you’re contaminating a crime scene. I need you to leave the room, now.”
“Crime scene?” I asked.
“Maddie, come on,” Asher coaxed. “Come with me outside. We’ve got to let them do their jobs. It’s going to be okay.”
“Where’s the EMTs? We need to get him to a hospital. They can help him. He has to get better. He said he’d never leave me again.”
Asher pulled me out from under Jared’s body and picked me up, carrying me from the room.
Something about leaving the room, the change of the texture of the air without the laden coppery smell of blood, or that I knew I had left him back there, alone with strangers—the tears finally broke free. I wailed into Asher’s shoulder as reality came crashing into me. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe. What would I tell the girls? This couldn’t be happening. I wanted to go back to denying it. I pulled away from Asher’s shoulder and realized I was covered in blood—Jared’s blood. Why didn’t I see that before?
Asher set me on the couch in the old part of the studio. He sat down next to me and pulled me to him and cried with me. I don’t know how long we did that, when a police officer approached.
The officer bent down into my line of vision. “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to stand and turn away from me. And place your hands behind your back.”
“What? Why?”
“I need to take you downtown for questioning.” His tone was wooden and matter-of-fact.
I looked to Asher, hoping he would rescue me somehow.
Asher nodded to me. “Just do it, Maddie. I’m calling Bridget. They can’t hold you for long. You didn’t do this.”
I felt numb as the cold handcuffs slid over my wrists. The officer led me outside to a waiting police car. Along the street, news crews and photographers gathered. They went into a frenzy of shouting questions and camera flashes. I blinked, unable to comprehend what was happening as the officer placed his hand on top of my head and pushed me into the backseat of the squad car.
Now
The first thing I notice when I start to regain consciousness—my mouth is dry. Like someone had packed my mouth with cotton while I was out. The second thing I notice is the taste. The taste is so vile it has me rolling over to expend the contents of my stomach before I even open my eyes.
Luckily there isn’t anything for me to expel because the third thing I notice is that I’m laying on something really soft. It’s cloud-like and comfortable, but also has the smooth silkiness of—sheets. I’m in a bed. I blink several times, trying to get my bearings.
It’s dark. A thin sliver of faint light is the only thing I can make out of my surroundings, but it smells wrong. The air smells metallic, like rust and steel. This is not my bed. I search my memory, trying to reconcile where I am and how I got here. There are only bits and pieces. Nothing whole to grab onto.
I see a face. Blake. I try to remember the last time I saw him; I think it was at the gym years ago. No that’s not right—it was when he installed my alarm system. My heart rate picks up. He had access to me—to my home because he knew how my alarm system worked. I feel like I’m going to throw up again, but not from the taste. Dex was right, I did know my stalker, he just played such a minor role in my life that I never gave him a second thought.
Memories start flashing behind my closed eyes. The car wreck—being rear-ended by Blake and pushed into the intersection for another hit. The twinkling lights that played off the shattered glass as time suspended. Then the smell. Taken.
I’m not supposed to be here. I reach out and feel for the edge of the bed and then move my feet to hang off the end and reach the floor. Cold. Hard. It’s made of some sort of stone, and I’m definitely barefoot. I run my hands over my body to check for clothes now that I’m thinking about it. I’m wearing something, but it’s not my clothes. The T-shirt is too large to be mine, and the bottoms feel soft like sweats, not my jeans.
Somebody dressed me, undressed me. I can’t settle on which’s more disturbing. I need to move. How come sickos can’t just kill you in your sleep? Why do they wait until you’re awake and make a big to-do about killing you?
Shoving off the bed with my hands, I settle my weight on my legs, and the world spins. It’s like this one time we went to the Watermelon Thump out in Luling. They had a carnival ride there called the Gravitron. It resembled a silver spaceship, wider on top than the bottom. It spun around so fast that you could turn upside down on the wall and never fall. My head is the Gravitron, pulling me back to the bed.
If it weren’t so dark, I could find a focus point to help. I try again to stand up and barely manage to find my footing. My legs are weak, shaky. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know I was drugged, for sure, but I don’t know where I’m at, or how long I’ve been here. And I don’t know what my injuries from the wreck look like. I could be dying and not know it.
Putting one foot in front of the other, I move toward the light, swinging my arms around to avoid running into anything else that could be in this space. With each step, my footing feels more firm. When I reach the door, I run my hands over it. It’s smooth, not like a door in a house, but like one you would find in an office building. It’s big, too, as it takes me a moment to locate each edge and I’m forced to sidestep. My arms aren’t long enough to span it.
I feel around for a handle and find nothing. I push, and it doesn’t give. Just as I begin to rethink my assessment that this is a door, I remember the pocket doors that Portia was so proud of when they built their lake house years ago. I press my palms to the door. They’re sweaty now, so I gotta wipe them on the pants and try again. I push left first, with no success, but it glides with ease to the right.
Silence.
I’m in luck that I’ve managed to get this far without calling attention from my captor. The open door reveals a hallway that is lit only by the moonlight coming from a large picture window at the end of a hall. The opposite end opens up into a room with faint light coming from it. There are two other doors in this hall as well.
What is this place?
I choose the window first. It’s better to figure out where I am and plan an escape route.
Stepping carefully, I try not to make a sound. As I grow closer, I realize that the window is set in a brick wall, and when I look out, I see that I’m on a third—maybe fourth floor of a cinder block building. Outside, there’s a dirt lot with mounds of gravel sporadically placed. Beyond that is nothing. Just flat land and a few copses of trees. The light pollution is faint. We’re out in the country.
With sinking certainty, I know I’m not in Austin anymore.
I turn back to the hall, and something catches the moonlight, reflecting it off the bare hall in shades of white and red. I jerk, my heart thundering in my ears. The light flashes again, and I realize it’s moving with me. I look down. The dragon pendant. Its ruby eyes seem to glow in the moonlight.
Dex.
I’ve no idea how long I’ve been out. My hands aren’t covered in blood, so long enough to be cleaned up, but I’m still covered in scratches, so not long enough to heal. I tuck the pendant beneath the shirt before I go back down the hall.
Stealth is my motherfuckin’ middle name. I’ll be out of here before anyone realizes I’m awake.
I try to pump myself up to control the fear, but it’s not working as well as I hoped. Reaching the end of the hall, I press my back against the wall and sidle up to the opening
. I take a long, deep breath and try to slow my rapid pulse and build up the courage to look around the corner.
It’s nothing but a large empty space—concrete floors, more cinder block walls, and identical windows that fill the exterior wall. There’s a large, well-worn sofa in the center and a plastic folding table with several computers on it. I consider making a dash for the computers, but the screen saver is on. I’m sure that my kidnapper isn’t dumb enough to leave it alone without password protection.
The thought suddenly occurs to me that the door near the window is probably a stairwell. Most industrial buildings, the stairs are near exterior walls with emergency exits toward the bottom. I hear a toilet flush and running water coming from one of the other two doors.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I run as fast as my inept feet can take me to that last door. I gotta take the chance—if it’s a closet, at least I can hide there. I’m a foot away when the door to the bathroom opens, and light floods the hallway.
“Good. You’re up,” the familiar voice says.
My feet, still semi-numb and tingly, lose their coordination, and I stumble. The urge to look back and make sure my ears aren’t deceiving me is too great.
I turn. I blink several times to ensure that I’m really seeing what I’m seeing. But never in a hundred years would I imagine this. My mouth drops open, and I struggle to find my voice.
“Detective Martinez?”
Then
“Do you know why we’re here today?” asked the lady sitting across from me wearing an ill-fitted, boxy-looking pantsuit.
Beyond her was a window. I noticed the sunlight reflecting off a car in the parking lot the window overlooked. It was a beautiful day, the kind that inspires people to go outside. The perfect complement to good news.
The news that day was the furthest from good news you could actually get. At least, if you were me.
“I’m not really sure how to answer that. I’m not dumb, I get it. But since we’re both reasonably intelligent adults, and the answer quite obvious,” I sighed, “I’m not really sure why you’re wasting the effort to ask it.”
“Okay, Miss Dobransky. Madeline, right? Can I call you Madeline?” She looked down at the manila folder in front of her.
I forced myself not to roll my eyes, that’s how much that question annoyed me.
“No, it’s Madelaine—notice the A in it. Nobody calls me that, though, so I’d rather you not.”
“Well, the media calls you Laine, but I assume, like most famous people, that you probably don’t go by that name. What do your friends call you?”
“Look, we’re not friends, so you can just call me Laine, like everyone else.” My tone was bored, flat. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone at that moment. I wasn’t trying to be defensive, but everything my brain spat out sounded rude. My attention was drawn back to the window as fluffy white clouds floated by in the bright blue sky. It felt perverted for the weather to look so beautiful; inside me was a raging storm of emotions that I couldn’t even begin to process or comprehend.
“Okay, Laine. Can you tell me about your relationship with Jared Wilson?”
My focus snapped to her dull brown eyes. Strands of blonde hair had fallen from her ponytail to frame them. Her face was pretty but weathered with age, cheeks reddened like the faintest hint of sunburn. She wore no makeup. Her face was plastered with an earnest expression like she cared. That’s what they wanted you to believe. That they cared about you. Your safety and health were their utmost concern.
I didn’t buy it, though, because like everyone else, she already had an opinion of me. Anything I said would confirm that opinion. If I contradicted her opinion, her brain would just tell her that I was lying, so why even bother.
She didn’t stop staring at me, so I decided to just answer her. I felt like we would be here all day if I just stared out the window the entire time.
“I loved him. Still do, actually. He’s the love of my life and my biggest regret. Does that clear it up for you?” I moved my focus back to the clouds.
“What do you regret about your relationship?”
“Seriously? Anything. Everything. Have you ever met your soulmate?” I looked at her, but her expression never changed from the impassive, pleasant expression she’d had since she walked into this room. She wasn’t going to answer my question, so I just continued. “Well, it’s not something you want to happen to you at a young age. A soulmate is a responsibility, and when you’re young, you’re just too stupid and immature to handle something that big. You’re bound to fuck it up. Not with anything earth-shattering, but little mistakes here and there add up. And before you know it, it’s broken. And you’re still too young and stupid to know how to fix it.”
I looked back to the clouds, ready to sign out of that conversation. I just wanted to go home.
“Does that answer your question?” I asked, refusing to look at her again. To be honest, her unchanging facial expression was starting to creep me out.
“Can you tell me about your relationship to…” She flipped a small notebook open. “Lawrence Russo?”
That caught my attention as overwhelming guilt and shame rocked through me. I looked back at her and considered my words carefully.
“What is it that you would like to know?” I said in a fake pleasant tone.
“We just want to know what happened. Were you raped?”
“No!” I snapped, my voice grating harshly, even to my own ears.
I was done with this circus. They’d had me trapped in this room for almost eight hours. The sun was shining, and I’d yet to go to sleep since I woke up the morning before. I was fucking exhausted, but they didn’t seem care. They weren’t looking like they were going to start giving a shit anytime soon.
She just stared at me without changing her stupid face to any other expression. Not frustration, not anger, which I felt was oozing out of every pore of my face at that point. I slammed my hand down on the table in front of me. She startled. Finally, a human emotion. I fought the urge to gloat over her reaction.
“You know what? I’m done talking to you. Where’s Detective Martinez? I’m only going to talk to him. So you can leave now and go find him because I’m not playing this game with you.” I made shooing motions with my hand and then looked away.
“I’m the lead detective on this case, not Detective—”
“Did you not hear me? I’m not talking to you. I want to talk to my lawyer, now. Is she here yet?”
“Okay, Miss Dobransky, I’ll leave. You understand you’re not permitted to leave this room. There are armed officers outside the door. I’ll notify your lawyer of your request.”
I didn’t respond, and the door softly clicked as it shut behind her. I leaned my head back against the pillow behind me and shut my eyes. The door opened again, the sound of voices in the hallway giving away the entrance of a new person. My eyes flew open, expecting to see Bridget, but it wasn’t her.
The woman who entered wore medical scrubs.
“I just need to check your blood pressure and temperature,” she said softly, like she was approaching a wild rabid animal.
I tried to readjust the grimace on my face to make her not look so scared of me.
“Do you think I can get the remote for the TV?” I asked, trying to ease the tension a bit.
“It’s right here, built into the bed.” She pointed to the array of buttons on the railing of the bed I was lying on.
She pushed one and the television blinked on. The volume was too low to hear, but I was thankful for that as a local news station was playing a video taken of the incident in the restaurant from the night before. I shut my eyes as she adjusted the cuff around my arm and it started to inflate.
The door opened and shut again, followed by the clack of heels approaching. I opened my eyes and looked into the concerned blue eyes of Bridget.
“It’s about fucking time,” I said to her.
&nb
sp; She didn’t react, just pulled up the chair next to my bed and sat.
“It took us a while to find out where you were. Asher said they put you in a police car, and I went to the station, but you never showed up. And they weren’t real eager to talk to me about you or your case.”
“I don’t know what happened. I just remember being put in the back of that car and waking up here in this room, without my clothes or a phone.” I shook my head like that would knock the memories loose.
“Yeah, the police officer that was bringing you in said you lost consciousness en route to the station, so he brought you directly here. How are you feeling?”
“How the fuck do you think I’m feeling, Bridget?” I snapped at her but instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry. Fuck.”
The nurse—or at least I assumed she was a nurse—held a thermometer in front of my face. I scowled at her as I opened my mouth.
“Well, since you can’t talk, let me tell you what I’ve got so far.” Bridget settled back in her chair. “The coroner declared a time of death that put you sitting at a gas station on camera with Asher at the time. So, you’re no longer a suspect. Before that, though, Sloane’s brother showed up to make a statement and give you an alibi.”
“What?” I tried to shout around the thermometer.
“Miss, you can’t talk until this beeps.” The nurse tapped the little unit in her hand that was attached to the metal stick in my mouth.
The beep sounded, and I flung the thing at her. “Are you done yet?” I glared at her.
She wrote the reading down on her clipboard, unhurried and no longer fazed by my attitude. I stared her down until she left the room, then turned back to Bridget, who was looking at me like I’d grown a second head.
“I know asking if you’re okay is a dumb question, but I’ve never seen you like this. You’re being a bitch. And that’s usually my job.”
I shrugged, not at all phased by her assessment. “Isn’t it one of the stages of grief? I’ve already been through denial, now it seems I’m on to anger. I can’t help it if everyone—everything, is pissing me off. I’ve been here too long. I want to go home.”