The Fixer

by Jessica Gadziala

  My voice sounded like I spent the night gargling glass. It felt as such too.

  "He ever get inside before?"

  "Not that I'm aware of," I told him, gut clenching with the idea that maybe he had been before, just watching me sleep, masturbating in my very room. "That's his camera," I informed them, pointing to where it was laying lazily in the center of my floor. "It probably has his blood on it," I informed them when Quinton went to move toward it. He stopped short, looking back at me. "I flung it at him," I explained.

  There was a slapping noise, making my head jerk over toward Finn, feeling my heartbeat speed up - the only sign in my system about what had happened just hours ago - but finding him snapping on rubber gloves, then moving over toward the camera. He turned it in his hands for a second, turning it on, hissing, then off again, popping out the memory card, and handing it to his boss who quickly pocketed it.

  I was in my right mind enough to feel a stomach-drop at the idea of him - and maybe the rest of his team - getting to look at the images inside that camera. Likely, all images of me. And I couldn't know for sure what kind of pictures those might be. Were they just the typical creepy stalker shots of me coming and going from the house and local hotspots? Were they shots of me through my windows before I wised up to him being there, always making sure I was completely covered up, pulling the drapes. Or, worst of all, were there up-close pictures he had snapped from inside my house?

  The idea made me feel queasy.

  I was just going to try to lock that one in the vault for later.

  Or never.

  Never was good too.

  "What do you need from us, Finn?" Quinton asked as Finn moved back over toward his bag, pulling out a box of black bags, taking one out, throwing the camera inside, then reaching for the gun as well. I figured maybe those were not as easy to dispose of as my bedsheets and drapes. He had been separating things to help him take them out.

  Out of my house.

  My house that was an active crime scene.

  It was right then that the enormity of the situation seemed to press down on me.

  They were going to cover up a murder for me.

  Murder.

  I was a murderer.

  "Oh, God," I groaned as my stomach flipped and churned, sending bile up my throat.

  "If you're gonna puke, do it in the fucking toilet," Finn snapped, making me jerk back.

  Quinton gave me a shrug. "Told you how this was gonna go," he answered the question in my eyes.

  And he had.

  He told me Finn was going to be brass, no-nonsense, and would bark at me.

  I couldn't expect kid gloves from a man whose job it was to get rid of dead bodies, right?

  I nodded a bit tightly, then bolted, slamming the door of the bathroom behind me.

  I had thought I would swallow it back, but as the copper smell of the blood met my nose when I took in a deep breath, there was no way.

  I had just managed to blow my nose, and reach for the mouthwash when there was a light knock on the door.

  "One minute," I pleaded, swiping at my cheeks with my shoulder as I twisted off the cap of the mouthwash, then tipped back the bottle.

  "We need to go, Aven. Finn wants us out."

  I swished and spit, repeated, then capped my mouthwash, reaching to pull the door open.

  "Mouthwash too," I heard Quinton call back to Finn. "You ready?"

  "Can someone be ready for any of this?" I asked, shaking my head.

  "I can. My team can," he told me, voice brooking absolutely no argument.

  "I wasn't questioning your abilities," I told him as I followed him out.

  I didn't doubt that they could do this, that this was what they excelled at. Fixing things. That was their job. That was what paid for their fancy website that had to set them back a small fortune. I shuddered to imagine the rate they charged for services such as these.

  But, I guess, if you wanted to stay out of jail - which, well, everyone did - then you would do whatever was necessary, even if that meant selling a kidney to make it happen.

  "Come on," Quinton said as we hit the kitchen.

  "I'm coming," I grumbled a little, wondering why he was snapping at me.

  "I'm talking to the dog," he told me, sounding almost a little amused that I thought he was addressing me in that tone.

  Mackey.

  How the hell had everyone - my stalker dude included - gotten past him?

  "He won't come," I told him, pointing toward the leash on the table beside him. "You kind of need to corral him over toward the door, then get the collar on."

  Quinton's head turned to me, brows lowered like I was daft. He turned back to where Mackey was doing a low, rumbling growl in the doorway that led into the back room. He reached for the leash, pushing down the clip. "Come on, let's go," he barked at the dog, doing that commanding voice thing that only some people seemed capable of. And to which Mackey, incredibly, stopped growling, and slowly came over, head down, letting Quinton slip the leash on.

  "Sure he will. You just need to make it clear you're the boss, babe," he said, giving the leash a small tug so the dog would fall into step with us as we headed toward the door. "Don't," he demanded when I went to reach for my purse. "I doubt you want us to keep destroying your shit," he explained, reaching for it himself. "So you need to keep that evidence to yourself until you get fully cleaned up."

  With that, we moved outside, my bare feet smacking against the cold, damp autumn ground. My eyes darted around, paranoid, wondering if there could possibly be anyone around to see me leaving looking all beaten up and guilty as hell.

  "In," Quinton called, making me look over toward where he was putting Mackey into the backseat of a very expensive-looking car.

  I made no mention about how, when I brought him home, he destroyed my headrest, because, well, Mackey was being uncharacteristically staid, moving to sprawl out on the backseat before Quinton slammed the door.

  "You get in too," he told me, making me realize that he was holding the passenger side door open for me.

  "Right," I said, giving him a nod, trying to scrub the dirt off my feet on a small patch of fluffy, uncut grass. "Don't worry about the fucking carpet," he told me, shaking his head like I was being ridiculous.

  I was pretty sure his car cost as much as my house.

  So I wiped another two times before sliding in.

  "Keep your hands clasped on your lap," he demanded, then shut the door, going around the hood, climbing in himself, then arching over me. "Just doing your belt," he told me as he reached for it. "The fucking NBPD likes pulling me over for bullshit reasons. Let's not give them one when I have a battered woman in my front seat, okay?"

  I gave him a nod as he buckled himself, then reversed out of my driveway fast enough to make my stomach pitch again. But it seemed to accept that there was nothing left in there to throw up, and calmed right back down as we drove out of my secluded side street, then onto the main drag.

  I guess I had somehow missed the address of his office building, focusing on the phone number I needed. Because there was no way I wouldn't have balked at the part of town he was situated in. Namely, the bad side. The really bad side. I was in the kinda bad side where no one really kept up their houses very well - likely because they were barely keeping food in their cabinets, so there was nothing leftover for new exterior paint - and the street lights kinda flickered. Here, though, this was where you didn't park your car if you didn't want the rims and radio taken. This was where you didn't walk alone at night because, well, it was gang turf.

  This was not the part of town where you opened a fixer firm.

  Except, it was.

  I knew the building before we were even close to it, when it just came into view. Because amid a sea of half-crumbling buildings with people loitering about, there was one building that looked completely and utterly out of place with its beautiful red brick fronts, not a single chip to be found, with fresh mortar in between, and what se
emed like a brand new set of stairs leading up to the fancy black and glass front doors. The windows all gleamed. There were cameras everywhere. And everyone walking around seemed to, oddly, cross the street to avoid walking in front of it.

  Quinton pulled the car down a narrow space between his building and the abandoned one next door, the space so small that I felt my shoulders hunching as he barreled through it, seriously wondering if he was seconds away from knocking off his mirrors.

  But then the alley opened to a back lot with an excessive amount of security lights, and a single door that led into the building.

  "Come on. Let's get the clean-up part over with," he said, hitting my buckle, then getting out to open my door, reaching in to pull Mackey out as well.

  With that, and not a thing else, he led me across the newly paved parking lot that I was sure was blackening the bottoms of my feet, but at least it wasn't scraping at the skin there. The back door had a punch code that seemed about fifteen digits before it clicked open, and I was ushered inside.

  I wish I could say this room had the same 'wow-factor' as the outside had. But that would be an outright lie. This room was, well, surrounded by black-out glass, and only had one door to the side, and plain tile floor. That was it. I wondered a bit fleetingly if that was because people like me - all covered in evidence - came in this door instead of the front.

  That thought was affirmed a moment later after Quinton plugged another set of numbers into a panel, and opened a door that led right into a bathroom. But not a normal bathroom. It was one giant stainless steel room with a toilet, sink, shower head, and a drain in the floor. There was no actual tub or shower enclosure; the whole room was the shower. And every last inch of it was made out of stainless steel, which, I guess was easy to clean. No grout. No places for tiny particles to escape into.

  "Alright," Quinton said, nodding. He moved over to attach Mackey's collar to a bar that was likely meant to hold a towel, then reached for his cell. "Jules, I need a nail kit, a set of women's clothes. I don't know... medium?" he said, eyes moving over me much the same way Finn's had, assessing, penetrating. "Yeah, no. I'll be fine. Just the bag. Oh, and some dog shampoo."

  With that, he hung up the phone, and we waited in tense silence until there was a light slam outside the door, prompting Quinton to walk over, open it, then pull a simple shipping box inside. Then I watched as he reached inside for a small box and an even smaller bag. "Take a seat," he said, jerking his head over toward the toilet. "This won't feel too great," he informed me, but his voice was lacking regret, like he knew how necessary it was, so there was no reason to feel bad about a little discomfort.

  I sat.

  He kneeled in front of me, taking one hand at a time, scraping under the nails, hard and deep, painful enough to make my hand jerk automatically as he did each nail. The scrapings dropped into the bag, then he went for the clippers, cutting each of my nails short enough to expose a tiny bit of the nail bed beneath, making me sure that there was going to be a soreness in my fingertips for a day or two until they got used to it.

  "Alright," he said, getting up to go back to the box, taking out a paper shopping bag, and dropping in the scrapings and clippings. He came out with the dog shampoo, looking over at Mackey as he turned on the water, and reached for his leash to drag him over. "Yeah, I know," he said as Mackey whined. "Trust me, I am not going to enjoy this either."

  He attached the leash to the spout in the wall, and set to work, grumbling as much as Mackey was whining and growling. But even with the dog's teeth showing threateningly, he just kept doing what he was doing, scrubbing every last inch of the dog in case there was any evidence to be found there.

  "Christ," he growled when he was done, taking Mackey out, and pushing him into the hall we had come in. "Jules," he said into his phone again. "Yeah, the dog. It's all show when he growls," he added as a warning before putting his phone down on the floor near the door.

  And I got to watch with no small bit of surprise, and maybe even a bit of excitement, as this gorgeous man actually reached for his own clothes. His hands undid his half-off tie, then tossed it into a black bag as he kicked off his shoes. Next, his fingers worked off his belt, which went into the bag as well. Then he set to unbuttoning his shirt, making short work of it, then tossing that aside as well.

  It was official; he was gorgeous everywhere.

  His chest and abdomen were all solid bits of chiseled muscle covered in a smattering of black hair that was enough to be manly, but not so much that he looked like he had some kind of man-beast condition. That hair disappeared into the waist of the pants that he was, oh lord, pulling off.

  Finally realizing how much I was staring, my head dropped, my gaze going to the non-reflective, but shiny floor, catching his feet as he stepped out of his pants, then kicked out of his socks.

  Thankfully, nothing else hit the floor after that.

  "Aven," he called a moment later.

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm not naked," he said, sounding almost a little amused. "You can look at me."

  Ugh.

  It was almost like a challenge.

  I took a breath, forcing my head to lift, but doing it so quickly that his body blurred. I only managed to spot a bit of black that was his boxer briefs before my eyes found his face.

  "Alright," he said when he had eye-contact. He reached into the box, pulling out a smaller box as well as another big black bag. "You need to get all your clothes off, and drop them into this bag. Then you need to use the hairbrush in here to go through your hair. Do it until your fucking arms get tired," he said, and I guess he was trying to make sure any hairs from my attacker ended up in the bag and not stuck to my head. "Then you need to get in the shower with these," he said, tipping the box to show me shampoo and soap, "and scrub until you are red. Scrub everywhere. Face. Ears. Feet. Places you know there is no evidence on, we need those spots red and squeaky too. Once you're done with that, here are towels," he said, producing a set of white ones. "Dry off, then get into these clothes," he told me as he stacked more on top of the pile. Including, thankfully, shoes. I hated being barefoot. "Got it?"

  "Got it," I agreed.

  "Once that is all done, knock on this door," he said, meaning the one we came in. "Jules will come get you, and bring you to me so we can talk about your case."

  "Okay," I agreed, giving him a nod because my voice didn't sound nearly convincing enough.

  "Breathe, Aven," he said, making me realize he was right, I was mostly holding my breath, judging by the tightness in my chest, the way my lungs were screaming. "Everything is fine. I get a lot of shit went down, but I need you to just keep focusing on the next step. Right now, the next step is to get clean. After that, knock. After that, follow Jules. That's it. That is all you need to focus on. That," he said, giving me a small smirk, "and breathing." With that, he moved toward the door, nearly naked as the day he was born, giving me a full view of his muscular boxer brief clad ass, and a singular tattoo on his back left shoulder, something I couldn't make out from across the room.

  Then he was gone. And I had steps to follow.

  Somehow, repeating them over and over to myself seemed to make it possible to keep my mind blank about what happened, just stay present, do what needed to be done.

  I wasn't sure how long I was in there. But my arms felt like Jell-O by the time I finished with my hair, stripped, then made my way to the shower, turning the water on hot to warm the chill I seemed to feel down to my bones.

  Then I scrubbed until every inch of me felt overly sensitive, raw almost.

  Only then did I towel off, finger comb my hair since I used the brush for the evidence removal, and made my way to the clothes I had piled on the sink. I found a simple black t-shirt that was, unfortunately, a bit small for a medium. And I was finding myself braless. I sighed out my breath, pulling the material on, trying not to focus on how you could see the complete outline of my breasts and nipples through the fabric. The pants were simple yoga one
s, black with a white stripe down the side. The shoes were the kind you buy to slip into your purse to slide your aching feet into when the heels you wore out became way too painful. They pinched a little tight thanks to my un-dainty feet, but they fit well enough.

  I took a deep breath, looking at my reflection in the mirror.

  I had tried to avoid it, but somehow found myself too curious to keep my eyes averted.

  My eye looked worse than it actually felt. It was easy enough amid the shock and then the scratching, awful feeling of my throat not to feel the ache there at all, though it existed, dull but insistent. The semicircle of blue was smattered with purple, and I wondered if it would look better - or worse - by the end of the day. My throat, well, it looked like I had been strangled. There was no way around that assumption. There was a band clear across the front of my throat that tapered off into little circles at the edge where his fingers had dug in. Like my eye, it was dark blue with some purple accents. And I wondered how the hell I was going to be able to cover it up, what kind of makeup those poor abused women used to cover up the evidence of their husband's beatings.

  I guess it was something I could Google when I got home.

  I took another breath, trying to steady myself, made a wide berth around all the evidence on the floor, and knocked on the door.

  There was hardly a pause before it opened to reveal a woman who couldn't be much older than legal drinking age. Petite, but tall, she was almost scarily good-looking, the kind of pretty that almost made you want to look away with her porcelain skin with the tiniest smattering of freckles if you looked close enough over the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks. Her smooth red hair was left down to drape the shoulders of her simple charcoal gray dress that skirted that professional and sexy line perfectly. Her feet were clad in heels that made my own feet ache just in sympathy. And her impossibly light blue eyes were focused on me, looking me over, making sure I followed the rules.

  Only then did she give me a warm smile. "Your dog is eating Gunner's football," she told me, smiling like this was the best news she had heard all week. "I can't wait to see him get pissed about it. Don't worry, I will take the heat," she told me, making me wonder what kind of relationship the two had if she liked ticking him off. It sounded like a brother and sisterly bond to me. Which was kind of sweet. I envied being close with coworkers. I used to have that at my old salon. At my new one, I was off in the back room like some leper, waiting for all the vaginas to come my way.