by A B Whelan
My bare feet give off a faint thud as I drop to the floor. I drink thirstily from a water bottle, feeling the tightness in my neck and upper back. It’s a constant, uncomfortable feeling that’s embedded deep into my tissues, driving me mad. At this late-night hour, there are no respectable places open to get a massage, so I must find another way to get rid of this numbing pain.
Meredith’s face flashes across my memory for the umpteenth time, and I grunt with rage as I clamp my head between my hands. “Leave me alone! Leave me the fuck alone!” I yell, down on my knees. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to talk to her.
I don’t want to hurt her.
For the third time, I take a cold shower, hoping it will help clear my head. It does, but only for a little while.
Lying on my back in bed, I watch the blades of the fan rotate around, trying to hypnotize me.
I’m restless. I’m anxious. I’m hurt.
I reach for my laptop on the nightstand to look at Meredith’s Instagram page. She’s changed her profile bio since yesterday: “Remember, at the end of the day the number one person you must love is you!”
“Bitch!” I blurt out, scrolling down her recent photos with shaking fingers. Every single one is a selfie. Even if she posts a picture of her little girl, it’s still a selfie of Meredith with her daughter in the background.
“Narcissist bitch!” I grunt as I smash down the screen of my laptop. I push it to the edge of the bed, knowing that there will be no sleep for me tonight.
I pull my research from the desk drawer and violently massage my aching right shoulder. I feel like someone is living inside of me—an alien crawling underneath my skin. No matter what I do, I can’t get rid of this nagging feeling.
My index finger follows the lines as I run over my list. Everything seems to be in order—has been for weeks. I no longer have the self-restraint to postpone what I must do. “What you can do today, don’t leave for tomorrow,” my father used to tell me.
I’m doing it tonight.
Armed with purpose, I secure the paperwork and the burner phone in a portable safety box. After locking it with a pin code, I place it in my backpack. I throw on a faded t-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts. I step into my running shoes and head out.
I jog along the lit streets to my storage unit, located about two miles from my home. The low-security facility allows me to access my storage without checking in, which is why I chose this place. The lighting has always been mediocre in the east wing of the building, but since I broke the nearest lightbulb last year, which the management hasn’t replaced yet, only a faint orange glow illuminates my path.
I push the gate up to access my belongings. Inside is a white sedan registered to Bill Champ, a fifty-four-year-old homeless man living in the dark alleys of Los Angeles. It’s a three-year-old Honda Accord—one of the most popular cars in the area. It also can’t be traced back to me.
After I get into the driver’s side, I reach back and check under the seat for the duffle bag. My fingers touch the coarse fabric. Still there. I’m all set.
Instead of using an online navigation service that leaves a digital footprint, I use an ordinary old-fashioned map to find my way to Meredith.
On the road to San Marcos, I don’t listen to music; I don’t need any pacifier. The restlessness is gone. Now that I have a specific goal in mind, my focus is aimed and sharp.
I park five blocks from Meredith’s home, next to a giant pepper tree for extra coverage. The street light closest to me is out. I took care of it a few days ago. In this part of the town, changing a lightbulb takes about a week. I know. I’ve tested this.
I remove my black leotard bodysuit from the duffle bag and change into it. The eye area is the only part of me that remains exposed after I pull on my gloves. I compared the shoe impression that was lifted from a series of home invasions in this neighborhood by the police to match the soles of shoes I purchased in a thrift store. I spent the extra time to create the same wear patterns shown in the forensics evidence file I acquired on the internet. It’s not a perfect match but close enough.
The shoe is a size and a half smaller than my feet, and I wince as I pull them on, but I’ll manage.
Once I make sure the streets around me are empty, I slip out of my car and creep along the shadows of the trees and houses to get to my destination.
On Wednesday nights, Meredith always leaves her daughter with her mother while she works the night stripping. She’s brought home a different guy nearly every night I’ve had her under surveillance. I only hope tonight will be different. My plan won’t work if someone else is in the picture.
To stop myself from worrying about things that may not happen and keep my focus, I check the time on my phone. It’s 1:37 a.m. When I left home, I gave myself enough time for delays, which haven’t occurred thus far, so I have plenty of time to fortify myself mentally. Once I embark on a hunt, I become the predator. Going home without killing my prey isn’t an option. I failed once and almost went mad during the aftermath. I felt as if a loose end of a rope was dangling against my chest and face all day long. It took me months to shake the feeling.
Tonight, I’m a man on a mission once again. A real man. A tough man. I’ll prove it to this little bitch that I’m not some soft puny toy for others to play with. I screwed it up with her this past spring when she tried to hit on me at a bar. She said it was cool to be gay. I’m not gay! I’m a man, like my father. One day, I’ll get married and have kids who I will love and won’t abuse. The only problem is that I can’t find one decent woman in this country worthy of being a mother.
I have to give credit to Meredith for having the sense to take her daughter to a safe place before letting strangers into her home, but she is rotten all the same. Her little girl deserves better. Based on my research, Meredith’s parents have more than enough money to support their daughter through community college so she could raise her little angel in peace. That means Meredith purposely chose this despicable lifestyle to spite them. She had the support to make something of herself, but she wants to be scum. Then I’ll treat her like one.
A pair of headlights beams through the dark street. I pray it’s the old beat-up Mercedes C-Class with the broken taillight Meredith drives, because I’m starting to lose my head.
It’s her, and she is alone. She is imbalanced on her feet as she staggers from the car to her front door, fumbling for her keys. She must be drunk or high, or both. She could have killed herself driving intoxicated, condemning her daughter to grow up an orphan. The woman wants to die. Don’t worry, Meredith, I’ll help you with that.
I silently follow her to the entrance, but she is too dazed to notice me. As the door cracks open, I push her inside the dark foyer. She falls forward, but I catch her before she hits the floor. There is a strict order of injuries she must suffer before she dies. I’m not the mastermind of this crime, only a humble follower.
Terror brings her eyes into focus. The seriousness of the situation immediately sobers her up. I wonder what she must be thinking as I hold the cloth over her mouth and nose. Is she praying to God for help? Is she making promises that she will change her lifestyle if she survives this attack? Maybe both? Maybe she just wondering why her? Perhaps nothing at all.
As the effects of the chemicals take their toll, her eyes roll back, eyelids lower, and she goes limp in my arms. I gently lower her body onto the laminate floor and begin rolling her in stretch wrap from neck to ankles. Then, I pull out a knife and my checklist and go to work.
16
As I lie submerged in a few inches of water, I'm violently shaken like a ragdoll by someone whose face is dark and blurred to the point I can’t make out any features. Stiff fingers dig into my flesh, lacking kindness or empathy. Over the splashing sounds, echoing voices bounce off the ripples of water in my flooded ears, struggling to hear the words. I think someone is telling me to wake up, but I lack the will to engage. I don’t fight back. My mind refuses. It’s so not like me to
allow someone to treat me this way, but I do. An icy cold splash shocks me into awareness, and with a robust intake of air, my eyes snap open, and I violently sit up.
Doug is leaning over me. I stick my hands into the mattress to raise my head higher before I drown. As my brain processes the information, I realize that it was all a bad dream.
“Finally,” Doug grunts, setting the empty glass on the nightstand.
I feel my chest. My shirt is drenched. “Did you just pour water on me?”
“I couldn’t shake you out of your nightmare! How many Bacardis did you have last night?”
“Two. I didn’t even finish the second one.”
Doug throws a bathrobe onto the bed next to me. “There’s an agent from the FBI here to see you.”
I’m in no condition to talk to anyone, especially a coworker or my boss. My whole body feels as if a train ran me over last night. I’m dumbfounded because I have no recollection of going to bed after Doug and I returned home from watching the fireworks.
“Did you get a name?” I ask, pushing my feet into a pair of slippers. It’s a task I struggle to accomplish because one of the slippers keep sliding away from me. Did I have a stroke last night that paralyzed one side of my body?
“I didn’t catch her name. A slim black lady.”
“Anaya,” I breathe.
I pull my hair back and secure it with a clip. I tie the belt around my bathrobe and drag myself to the living room. I find Agent Reed sitting on the sofa, paging through a photo album she must have grabbed from underneath the coffee table.
The shuffling noise I make gives me away. Anaya looks up, and at the sight of me, her eyes shrink with surprise.
“Rough night?”
“You don’t say,” I whisper, trying to ignore my skull-splitting migraine. “I guess I’m living proof that special agents are humans too. We go through the same miserable shits everybody else does.”
Anaya raises the photo album in her hand. “You guys have been to some amazing places,” she comments as she lays the booklet on the table.
“Used to. We’re like an old married couple now,” I groan. “Minus the marriage license, of course.”
I don’t know why I’m sharing personal matters with my work partner. I’m usually not the open-book kind of coworker.
Doug emerges from the kitchen and pushes a glass of fizzing water into my hand. “It’s Airborne. It might help. I don’t know.”
I’m dizzy and need to sit down. I choose the farthest single seat from my friend. If I stink as bad as I look, I don’t want to subject her to that discomfort. I never leave the house without showering. My mother nailed that into my head when I was a little girl. “You never know what happens once you leave the house. You might get into an accident and be transported to a hospital. You’d die of shame if you didn’t have clean underwear on.”
Anaya shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sorry for barging in on you like this. I must have called a dozen times, but you didn’t answer.”
“I might have muted my phone last night. Honestly, I don’t remember,” I say massaging my forehead.
She drops a file onto the table. “I think our Piggyback Killer has struck again. We have another body.”
I’ve been so wrapped up in finding my alleged brother that the Piggyback Serial Killer we’ve been chasing slipped my mind.
“How do you know it’s him?”
“We don’t, but I have a strong feeling.”
From the corner of my eye, I spot Doug eavesdropping.
“Where is the crime scene?”
“San Marcos.”
“We’ve never had a victim this close to us before.”
“True, and there’s another inconsistency. A series of burglaries in the area for the past seventeen months. The perpetrator chose homes of women who lived alone and always hit the homes when nobody was there. About three weeks ago, a young woman was killed during what seemed to be a robbery.”
She turns the report toward me and pushes the whole package to my hands. I see brutal crime-scene photos of a young woman lying in a pool of blood. The sight of blood never made me faint, but I’m balancing on the edge right now. Keeping the contents of my stomach down is a task I may not be able to tackle.
“The police connected the crime with all the other burglaries using footprints left behind the scene,” she continues, though I’m sure she noticed how my face drained of color. “During the investigation, it became evident that the homeowner wasn’t supposed to be home so early that night. A change in her work schedule equated to her return to her home at an earlier time. She likely surprised the intruder and paid for it with her life. Now the last victim …” Anaya glances at her notes. “Meredith Falcone returned home after 2 a.m. as usual. If the perpetrator did stalk her prior to the attack, as the police suspect he did with all the other victims, he must have known he had plenty of time to ransack the empty house before the victim returned home. It seems as if he was waiting for her so he could kill her.”
“Predators evolve. Maybe he enjoyed the rush of killing three weeks ago and wanted the same adrenaline high again.”
“Perhaps, but I think we should still drive out there and investigate.”
“I’m on paid leave, remember?”
“Not anymore. The chief will call you, if he hasn’t done so already.”
“What changed his mind? He was rather adamant about me staying out of sight.”
“When we got a call from the local PD about this case, Brestler convinced the chief that our special investigation is more important than a piece of missing information from your background check. The chief is reasonable. He agreed.”
“How come I wasn’t notified?”
“I’m sure he called you. Did you check your phone?”
I sip at the fizzy drink. “No, I didn’t.”
“How much time do you need to get ready?”
Never in my life have I felt so reluctant to go to work. It would take a miracle to look presentable on such short notice in my condition, but need drives me to act. “Thirty minutes? Maybe less.”
“All right. I’ll make you some breakfast,” Anaya gets to her feet with a deep sigh. “Go jump in the shower. Brestler is meeting us there.”
I slowly crawl out of my armchair. “I picked the right night to let loose, didn’t I?”
I’m rewarded with her sweet smile. “As you said, we are human, like everybody else. Just don’t mention it to Brestler. He’s a bit more old-fashioned than I am.”
I move my hand in a circular motion in front of my face. “Like Brestler won’t notice this.”
*****
When I return, somewhat refreshed, Doug and Anaya are laughing loudly in the kitchen. It’s a bit annoying to see them being so friendly as if this wasn’t their first time meeting. Doug has a unique talent to strike up friendships with women in record time. I’m not armed with that skill set for the opposite sex.
I smell eggs and coffee. My stomach turns.
As excruciating as it is, I eat because I don’t want to seem rude. As I poke at my egg, I can’t get the sight of blood in the shower out of my head, wondering what kind of sex games Doug and I played last night, resulting in internal injuries to this extent.
A nagging feeling prompts me to pull Doug aside and ask him about last night, but Anaya keeps checking the time and urging us to get moving, so I don’t have the chance to talk to Doug in private. If I want to get back into the good graces of the chief, I better hurry up and bring my best self to work today. We need to nail that son of a bitch before he kills again.
Doug puts his hand on mine as I place a dirty dish in the sink. “Don’t worry about it, honey. I’ll take care of it.”
I give him an appreciative nod because Anaya is studying us, yet I can’t help but watch him with suspicion. I don’t remember ever waking up in such a pitiful state after a party, and I partied hard in college.
“Don’t forget, I’m going to Irvine today. I won’t be back unti
l Sunday night.” Doug’s statement catches me at the front patio.
“Good luck!” I offer, pushing the strap of the laptop case up higher on my shoulder. “Don’t forget to feed the fish before you leave.”
17
Anaya gazes at me over her straight arm resting on the steering wheel as we crawl forward at a snail’s pace north on Interstate 15. We are meeting Brestler and the local lead investigator assigned to the serial homicide cases that have been terrorizing San Marcos.
“You and Doug are so sweet together,” Anaya says, smiling teasingly.
I find it interesting how people can make such a statement based on a snippet of information they observe in someone’s life. I’m not complaining; I do the same. It’s human nature, I guess. Maybe that’s why most of us gravitate toward thrillers. We want to know what’s happing behind closed doors. Our curiosity is a monster with an insatiable appetite that can never be satisfied. So, we pry and pry.
“We have our moments,” I remark, not looking up from the paperwork spread across my legs. I’d rather not talk about my love life with Doug this morning. I may not say the things Anaya would want to hear. “How’s Alex?” I ask, setting up a detour for our conversation.
Anaya’s been dating a dental technician she was introduced to by a colleague of ours a couple of months ago. After their first date, the two of us stalked the guy online, hoping to uncover some dirty secret he’s been harboring. There is no way a handsome forty-year-old man with a thick head of light brown hair and athletic body hasn’t been able to find a match for himself all these years. He had to have a weird fetish or be a sexual deviant to keep the ladies from marrying him. To our surprise—maybe disappointment—we couldn’t find anything incriminating on him. He was well-liked by his coworkers, an active part of the community, and coached youth flag football. He built houses for those in need with Habitat for Humanity and was the perfect man that every woman dreams of marrying. I couldn’t have been happier for Anaya. Truth be told, I was a tad bit envious of her. That first wave of excitement and anticipation that washes over a new relationship is the best part of every relationship. Doug and I already settled into a life of routine and habits, and we aren’t even married. But since Anaya started dating this new guy, I lived through her stories, soaked up her enthusiasm, and fed on her energy.