by Willow Rose
That could have been you. You could have had him here with you right now, breastfeeding him, walking him in the stroller, worrying why he wouldn’t sleep, feeling exhausted from the lack of sleep yourself. Being annoyed with him.
Robyn sips her iced tea and tries to look away while the woman disappears with the stroller. They never got to finish the nursery, so it is all unpacked in his room upstairs. She keeps the door closed. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to go in there again.
The sun is going down soon and dusk slowly settles upon her. There is still life in the condos across the street from their house. Lamps are lit outside, dogs are running around, women and men are sitting in chairs outside, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. Robyn wonders if it is because the condos are so small that people are always hanging out outside. Or is it because they don’t want to be alone? She wonders what they have been through to get to where they’re at. If they too have suffered unbearable losses.
“Who are you?”
Robyn is pulled out of her train of thoughts by the small voice of a child. She looks at the sidewalk in front of her house. There, in the light of the streetlamp, she sees a girl. A young girl she guesses is around four or maybe five years old. But when you don’t have children of your own, it is often hard to tell. She could be small for her age. She seems older by the look in her eyes.
Robyn tries to smile. “Hi, there. I’m Robyn.”
“That’s a nice name. I’m Suzy.”
“Hi, Suzy. What are you doing out here this late?”
“Oh. I’m just riding my bike,” she says.
“That’s nice. But it’s getting dark. Don’t you think you should be getting home? Where do you live?”
The girl turns and points at the condos across the street. “Right there. My mom and I just moved in two days ago. Ours is the place in the corner, right by the lamp.”
Robyn looks, but doesn’t really know which one she’s talking about.
“Guess that makes us neighbors then,” Suzy says.
Robyn chuckles. Mostly because it is amusing how old the girl sounds when she talks. “I guess so,” she says. “But don’t you think your mom wants you to come home now? It’s a school night.”
“She’s not home,” she says with an indifferent shrug. “Are you sad about something? You look really sad.”
“Your mom is not home? Is someone else home, then?”
“Nope. Just me. It’s okay. I’m a big girl now.”
“How old are you, Suzy?” Robyn asks.
She stands up tall. “I’m six.”
Six years old and home alone on a Tuesday evening after dark? That can’t be right.
“Do you want me to walk you home?” Robyn asks.
“It’s okay,” Suzy says. She puts her bike on the grass, then walks up to Robyn. She throws her arms around her in a warm embrace. Startled at first, Robyn soon relaxes and closes her eyes, breathes in deeply, and feels more comforted than she has ever been since she lost the child.
“What was that for?” Robyn says with a sniffle when she lets go of her.
“I figured we both needed it,” the girl says. “You looked like you could use it and so could I.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Robyn says. “It was very nice.”
“Yeah, sometimes life’s a bitch, you know?” the girl says.
Robyn almost chokes. “Excuse me?”
Suzy shrugs. “Life’s a bitch. You just gotta learn how to roll with the punches. That’s what my mom always says.”
Robyn looks startled at the girl. “What else does your mom say?”
Suzy shrugs again. “Not much. But it’s okay.”
“You said you just moved here. Where from?” Robyn asks.
“Baton Rouge.”
“That’s far away from all of your friends. Do you miss them?”
“I didn’t really have any. We only lived there two months. I did have one friend, Jessica, and I do miss her, but that was when we lived in Gulfport. My favorite place was a town called Beaumont. Do you know that town? We stayed there for two years and I had a lot of friends, but then we had to move. Again. We also lived in Dallas once, but that was only a few months.”
“That’s a lot of places,” Robyn says, surprised. She has only lived two places in her life. Boston and now New Orleans. She can’t imagine what it must be like to move around constantly like that.
“I know. My mom likes to move. A lot. She likes going new places. It’s like starting all over every time, she says.”
Suzy pauses and Robyn senses she doesn’t agree with her mother, but also that she doesn’t have a say in it at all.
“I should get home,” she says and starts to walk down the stairs. “It was nice talking to you.”
Robyn waves. “Likewise.”
Suzy grabs her bike and Robyn watches as she looks both ways before she crosses the road, a car coming right behind her, barely avoiding her. Once on the other side, the girl raises her hand and waves. Robyn waves back, feeling uplifted for the first time in four weeks.
Chapter Sixteen
July 2016
Blake is rushing across Canal Street. He reaches the harbor and hurries. It is almost two o’clock and that is when she gets off of work. He spotted her the first day he and Salter came to New Orleans. To cheer the boy up a little, he took him to try a real authentic beignet at Café du Monde. She works there as one of the waitresses.
Blake spots the green pavilion outside the café and looks at his watch. It is two o’clock now and he knows she is getting ready to leave.
Damn Salter for making him late today. He hadn’t been hungry all morning, then all of a sudden, he wanted food. Blake had grunted and ordered room service, but had to be there when it arrived, to make sure Salter didn’t try anything.
Blake always makes sure that Salter can’t move when he leaves him alone. He ties him to the bed and puts a show on TV so they can’t hear him if he yells. That’s the good part about expensive hotels. The walls are thick. The privacy of the guests is important.
Blake has worked on his plan for what will happen and he is getting more and more pleased with what he has come up with. If everything goes well, he is sure to have Mary suffering for many years to come, well for the rest of her life, really.
And that is his plan.
The more he thinks about it, the better it feels. And he is more and more sure now that he is not going to kill his sister. Instead, he’ll make her have to live through the loss.
Oh, the cruelty.
Blake spots the blonde girl when she walks out of the back of the café. The place is crawling with tourists, as always, and today the line is all the way into the street. Why people are so crazy about these sugar-covered atrocities is beyond Blake. He thought they were quite dull. But he had liked Lisa, their waitress. He had liked her a lot. She was just his type. The bare legs under her skirt, the apron hugging her small waist, the pouty lips and long blonde hair. And she is maybe ten years older than him.
Just the way he prefers them.
He follows her at a distance. Having followed her the past three days, he knows where she is going and where she lives, but that’s not the point. It’s the pursuit in itself that is the thrilling part. The fact that he can be right behind her, planning when and where to attack, and she has absolutely no clue.
That’s what keeps him awake at night.
She stops at a stoplight and a small boy approaches her, drumming on a bucket. Some tourists give him money, but the girl doesn’t. She’s a local. She sees him every day. She knows he isn’t poor. He is just really good at drumming and trying to trick a few dollars off the tourists. Blake has seen him do the same thing every day since he started to follow the girl. And every time, he succeeds. Right before the light changes, a woman hands him a ten-dollar bill. Blake smiles as he sees the boy put it in his pocket, then move to the side to let the people pass. He knows that as soon as the light turns red again, the little drummer
boy will be at it again.
Blake follows the girl through the French Quarter until she reaches her apartment on Royal Street. He watches as she gets her keys out of her purse, and in his mind, he imagines himself running up from behind, pushing her inside, grabbing her by the ponytail, and raping her. The very thought makes everything inside of him shiver in delight.
Chapter Seventeen
July 2016
At precisely two thirty-nine, I spot him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his black leather jacket first, then his face. I can’t breathe. Literally. I am standing on the other side of the street, but I haven’t been so close to my brother since the day I realized he had killed someone and he threw acid in the face of my best friend.
My heart is throbbing when I watch him walk. I want to run over there and rip his throat out. I want to yell at him, ask him what he has done to my son. But I don’t. I wait. I want to know what he is up to. I want to make my move when I am ready, when it is the right time. If he sees me here, I risk him running away, and then I’d maybe never find my son. I can’t risk that. Blake can’t see me. Luckily, he doesn’t notice me; his eyes are on something else.
What is he doing?
I realize his eyes are fixated on someone. A woman. She is walking about a hundred feet ahead of him. When she slows down, so does Blake; when she stops to help a tourist with directions, he stops and looks at a window display. She doesn’t notice him, even though I find him pretty obvious. He probably thinks he is James Bond or something ridiculous.
Joey is standing behind me, around the corner of a small shop. I am sure he has seen him too, but I don’t want to turn and look at him, afraid of losing Blake out of my sight. I feel frozen, while the blood is boiling in my veins.
I have no idea what to do.
I watch as Blake follows the woman, and as they continue and make a turn down Royal Street, I follow them. I cross the street and place myself in a flock of Danish tourists, chatting along in an odd language that sounds most of all like they’re constantly mad at each other, or throwing up. I can’t decide which. I recognize the flag on one of their bags. They laugh a lot and walk really close together, so I can blend in with them easily.
The woman stops in front of some building, a typical New Orleans style house, with iron wrapped balconies and porches, and flowers spilling over the edges. It has green shutters over the windows.
Blake observes the woman as she locks herself into the building and I can tell he is scheming something by the way he stares at the door even long after it is closed.
What are you up to now, Blake?
The Danish group is gone and I walk inside a small souvenir shop to watch him through the window. Joey joins me inside a few seconds later. We stand there between decorative masks, festive shirts and caps, and all I want to do is cry. Cry and scream. I want so badly to approach Blake, but I don’t dare to. There is no way he will tell us where Salter is if we do.
“This is tougher than I expected,” Joey says. “I wanna…I just wanna…go over there and…”
“I know. Same here, but we can’t. We gotta let him take us to Salter first.”
I feel Joy’s frustration. Like me, he wants to just take all the small snow globes and throw them against the wall. Then pull the masks down and step on them. I know how he feels.
“He’s leaving, come,” I say and grab Joey’s shoulder.
We hurry to the exit, but as we do, a flock of Bulgarian tourists enter, with wide smiling faces and excitement in their voices. When we finally get out, Blake is nowhere to be seen.
“Where did he go?” Joey asks.
“I don’t know!” I am almost yelling. I run around the corner, but can’t see him there, then run down another street, but can’t see him there either. Joey is right behind me.
“I think we lost him,” I finally say. “Damn it!”
Chapter Eighteen
July 2016
“I can’t believe we lost him!”
Joey is breathing in ragged breaths. He is frustrated, angry, and desperate. Where the heck does a person disappear to so fast?
And where is Salter? Is he even still alive?
Joey refuses to accept the fact that Blake is gone. He can’t believe he was so close to him, so close to finding Salter, and then let it slip right out between his hands. How could he have been so stupid? Why did they go inside that store?
Mary looks at him, her eyes wide in worry. He can tell she is fighting the urge to cry. “Where did he go, Joey?”
“I…I don’t know. We should never have gone inside that store. That was a stupid move.” He can hear the reproach in his voice, and he knows it’s not fair nor a very good idea, but he lets it happen.
Mary’s eyes are on him. “So, now you’re saying it’s my fault? I didn’t make you go in there, Joey. I was just afraid Blake might see me; that’s why I went in there. I had nowhere else to hide. Blake would have seen us otherwise. At least now we have a chance that he doesn’t know we have found him. There is no telling what he might do to Salter if he finds out we’re close.”
“If Salter is still alive,” Joey says.
Mary lifts her hand in the air and starts to walk. “I am not going to stand here in the middle of the street and listen to more of this.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to walk the streets and see if I can find him. That’s all I really can do right now.”
Joey exhales. He feels terrible. But he really needs someone to blame and it’s just become a habit of getting angry with Mary when something goes wrong. For everything, really.
“I’m coming with you,” he says and catches up with her.
“Are you sure about that?” she says. “I might do something stupid again.”
“Well, I’m used to it,” he says.
She stops, turns, and looks at him. He knows that look. Why does he keep saying stuff he knows will hurt her? Is he looking for a fight?
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” she asks.
“It means you run the show around here. I don’t have any say in all this.”
Mary stares at him. They are talking loudly now and a group of passing tourists stare at them as they walk by. “You don’t have a say? What do you mean you don’t have a say in all this?”
“You make all the decisions. Maybe I would have done things a little differently,” he says.
“Like what? What exactly would you have done differently?” Mary asks.
“First of all, I wanted to let the police deal with this. You told me not to tell the police anything. Maybe this nightmare would have been all over if we told them what we knew!”
“What? I thought we agreed on this, on doing it ourselves.”
“You agreed. You and Chloe agreed. I didn’t.”
She sighs. “All right. Let’s say we went to the police. Exactly what would you have told them? That we have hacked into the surveillance camera of a bank and found his picture? That all we know is that he walks past this camera every afternoon but other than that he could be anywhere? You know, first of all, they would arrest us for the hacking part, then maybe if we got them to alert the authorities here in New Orleans, they might send out a search, maybe put a little picture in the news, and then what would happen, huh, Joey?”
Joey exhales. He knows she is right and that angers him even further. Why is she always right about everything?
“Come on, tell me, Joey. What would happen?”
“I know,” he says and rubs his face. “Blake would disappear again.”
“Exactly. At least now we have a chance. And an advantage. We know he is here, but he doesn’t know we do. And we know exactly where he’ll be tomorrow at two thirty-nine. Today was a step forward for us. Today we got to see him for the first time. Tomorrow is our chance to do better than today. We will get him eventually. I am not leaving till we do.”
Chapter Nineteen
July 2016
Debra staggers through
the door to their suite. Jack is holding her, making sure she gets inside safely. Both of them had a little too much to drink at the Carousel downstairs after dinner. Debra plunges on the bed.
“What a great day,” she whispers.
Jack throws himself next to her with a deep sigh. “It sure was. You really know how to have a great time.”
“Oh, man, the food on the boat. I will not forget that for a long time. And the band? Oh, my. I will never forget it. Sailing up and down the Mississippi River. Best crawfish I ever had.”
Jack laughs; he leans over and tries to kiss Debra, but she moves away. He sighs, disappointed.
“Sorry, babe. I really have to pee,” she says.
She hurries to the restroom and closes the door. She closes her eyes and slides with her back against the door to the floor, wondering how she will get out of having sex. After a day like this, Jack will definitely want to, and it is getting harder and harder to refuse it. She is running out of excuses.
In the beginning, when they just met, she had done it. To seal the deal. But only a few times. After that, she couldn’t get herself to do it anymore. She simply couldn’t stand the old man smell, the flat butt and loose skin. She enjoys being with Jack a lot and loves the life that comes with it; she sure could do a heck of a lot worse, but she simply can’t stand the thought of…no, she simply can’t do it.
Maybe I can stay out here till he falls asleep? Tell him I am not feeling well? That something must have been wrong with the food? Nah, I used that last week. Maybe tell him I drank too much? Yes, it’s been awhile since I used that.
Debra sits on the cold floor wondering how long it will take for him to pass out. She thinks back on how she later had told him that she wanted to wait till after they were married. That he had to make an honest woman out of her before she would put out again. It had worked like a charm. A week later, he took her to some game and proposed on the big screen. The crowd had gone wild and Debra had thought it was perfect. After all, marriage was what she wanted more than anything. Once they had tied the knot, she would never have to work again for the rest of her life. She would never have to struggle for anything again.