Lead or Lipstick (Sword and Lead Book 2)

by Rhiley McCabe

  Copyright © 2020 Rhiley McCabe

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the author

  Books in this series

  Prologue

  Verity

  I finally spot the house, his house. A tall suburban duplex nestling quietly, far-removed from other similar houses in this sleepy town, every domicile separated from others by a miniature-sized picket fence that seems inadequate. What exactly is the use of a picket fence? Definitely couldn’t be defense or protection, maybe it just signaled where your house stopped and your neighbor’s started... That seems sensible. Detective Joy’s house seems not to need the picket fence, because it sits leisurely without one. A gnarled and wobbly-looking tree, more than half of its roots are above the earth, is leaning towards the house (almost on it) like the two objects are long-time friends caught gossiping. It’s almost whimsical.

  I ignore my feelings of sentiment, swapping them for logic. My headache has started with an immeasurable force, which leaves me shaky and also provides me with much-needed clarity. Going around the back, I climb the gnarled roots of the gossipy tree, its branches reach to a precarious place near the upstairs bedroom window. I believe it’s my luck. The window itself is locked and some sort of burglary guard surrounds it. Breaking the glass on lower pane, I unlock both burglary guard and inner lock. Shimmying my way into the house, I land crouched on all fours.

  By now my headache has gone from a dismissible throbbing to a screaming pain – it feels like my head might split open at any point. I clamp down on my lower lip, nails digging into my palm so deeply they leave crescent-shaped cuts. I struggle to navigate my way out of what seems like a study, judging by a large mahogany bookshelf. Trudging around on weak legs that are barely holding me up in my current state, I steer my way to the only room in this house that has a light turned on. I’m on autopilot, too many things to focus on at the moment.

  There’s no one here, but some clothes are laid out on the bed, along with what seems like a brown leather holster of some sort. It takes a while for me to process exactly what I’m looking for and in that time, the shower I didn’t realize was running turns off with a loud squeak. I immediately dive for the gun in the belt, aiming it at whoever is making their way out of the bathroom and right towards me.

  “Who...” Detective Joy starts, but falls silent upon noticing the gun in my hand. A minute passes with both of us staring each other down. He’s naked, I realize, heat filling my face at my body’s reaction to his naked self. It’s an echo of someone else, a lifetime ago. He doesn’t make a move to cover himself, choosing instead to stare at me like an unruly child. I am forced to look elsewhere.

  “You don’t want to make this any more complicated than it already is, Verity,” he says in an even voice that sounds civil but feels like ice.

  I swallow hard, wetting my lips before speaking.

  “I just want to talk,” I plead earnestly.

  He reaches out for something beside him, far out of my eye view. I immediately remove the safety on the gun, clicking it and hating how well my body remembers this. In another life, I’ve stood in this same position, holding people at gunpoint; in another life I’ve probably pulled the trigger too. He stops short, something in the way I say it must tell him I’m as unstable as I look.

  “Don’t do it!” I warn, surprising myself with how loud and firm my voice is, despite my splitting headache.

  “I just want to get my towel,” he informs, holding his hand up.

  Lowering the gun, I nod for him to cover up. As he does, he surreptitiously reaches for something else. I catch the movement in the corner of my eye and immediately turn the gun back to him.

  Men! a voice inside my head scoffs. Shoot him! This comes with such a force it’s threatening to melt my brain.

  “No! No, no! Please!”

  It takes a minute for me to realize it’s my voice not that of the detective, that’s uttering the pleadings.

  Shoot him! the voice says now, much louder than I could ever imagine possible. I feel something wet and viscous go down my nose at this point. It doesn’t stop, meandering downward into my mouth. I lick my lips and taste it, making no move to wipe it off. Detective Joy looks stricken, reaching out to me.

  “Stay back!” I warn, pleasantly distracted by the metallic taste in my mouth.

  Shoot!

  The pressure in my skull becomes a blinding white light of pain, searing and hot, forcing me to see stars. I hold my head, pleading now. I’m vaguely aware the gun is in my hand, I feel the cool metal at my temple. Every so often, I point it back at the detective to make sure he stays in place. When the pain doesn’t subside, I pull the trigger, hoping to get some quiet.

  The pain clears immediately, and so does the noise. I open my eyes to see Detective Joy drop to the floor in front of me, his eyes as large as saucers. I gasp, the horror petrifying me.

  How did I get here? How?

  Chapter 1

  Verity

  Three weeks earlier...

  I stare openly at the packet of dye in my hands. The color red has never been my color, but apparently I had no say in this, like other things taking place recently in my life. There’s no choice other than to accept it.

  I see my mirror image glaring back at me with a wad of damp, synthetic red-colored hair wrapped in a sad bun, sitting atop my head. My mind races with questions... Questions only one person can answer.

  I sit in the corner of the child’s room. No toys, no books, just a threadbare mattress on the ground, a bed sheet barely covering the expanse of the entire bed, serving as both sheet and cover, exactly how it had always been. At one point I was impressed with just how well I had recreated this safe space in my head. Now, though, the eeriness of it settles like an uncomfortable wooly cloak around me, and unlike real life, I can’t shrug it off easily.

  There she is, leaning in the corner opposite the one I’m sitting in, a bored, passive look on her face. We’re mirror images of one another, but that is where our similarities end and I suspect. That’s also the source of her much-needed contempt.

  “Did we really need to dye our hair?” I ask wanting to fill up the emptiness with something, anything at all, I’ll take it.

  “Yes,” she replies curtly, examining her fingernails, currently a shade of Robin’s egg blue. I hate blue, she knows that, which is probably why my real fingers are wearing that same look.

  “Why?” I ask, pushing past her feelings of resentment.

  “Trying to blend in,” she throws out in an offhand manner, pushing off the wall and walking across the small expanse of the imaginary room.

  “Red’s hardly the color for blending in,” I joke, trying for a lighter mood, but it falls flat.

  Her reply comes in a barely concealed “Hmpf.”

  It’s been weeks since the train station incident where I walked away from the one named Adam. He’d offered to buy me – us – a drink. I’m not entirely sure why I walked away, but I felt so much better afterwards. The other me, th
e mirror me, was angry, I could sense that from an entire galaxy away. But in the small confines of the headspace we shared, the heat of her hate was far more intense.

  No one took the reins from her like that, no one at all. She enjoyed being in control and I usually didn’t mind. Having her in control meant I didn’t have to do so much, I didn’t have to get hurt, I could just watch passively. But lately I had found myself in weird situations that made my terrified of myself.

  A month and a half ago I woke up in the middle of the night to find Ethan, my neighbor, trying to stuff himself in her mouth. It was a horrifying ten seconds before the other me took over, thrusting me into a troubling darkness. The thing is, I don’t remember saying more than a few words of greeting to him, and so how he ended up in my apartment will forever remain a mystery

  Still, I woke up with an aching jaw that felt slack. Heaven knows what actually happened. But as usual, I never asked. Call it what you like, fear self-preservation, whatever... Some things were better left unsaid.

  There was another time too, the time where I came to and found my hands covered in a sticky red liquid that had a repugnant, sour and metallic smell. Realizing what it was, I screamed in panic and once again, the other me took over.

  Till this day, I’m not sure if that was a dream or it was real. My reality and the other one had begun to blend into each other recently and I didn’t know where exactly to draw the line, or if there was even any stupid line to start with. There are holes in my memory. Some are no larger than buttons, but others, the size of craters, leave me terrified and exhausted when I stumble into them.

  An example of the small button sized hole is when I faintly taste beer on my tongue late one night, but I’m sure, I don’t drink. Not ever, not at all. The crater-sized hole is waking up in another state, to a different hair color and a tattoo the size of a dragon from my neck all the way to my upper arm, with no memory of the last few weeks at all. No matter how hard I tried to wrack my brain, nothing was ever really true anymore. It felt like things were constantly slipping from my grasp; memories, thoughts, everything. At some point I probably won’t even remember my name.

  “Verity Anne Jones,” I whisper out loud, a few worried lines forming across my brow. “Verity Anne Jones,” I repeat with more clarity. “That’s my name yeah?” I asked out loud, to one in particular, but receive an affirmation all the same. That seems to quell my rising fears – at least my name is still my name.

  “How did I end up here?” I try again, fingers crossed, hopeful. There is no answer to my second question. One thing at a time I guess. I retreat to the quiet place in my head, probing around the dark for her. The anger I talked about making everywhere hazy. “I’m sorry, about the guy on the train... But it didn’t feel right, I’m not that type of girl,” I explain when I finally find a spot she’s occupied. There’s still no reply to this, but at least I’ve placated her and hopefully we can move on.

  * * *

  The contents of my purse offer no clues. All I have is gum, my expired driver’s license (I haven’t renewed it since forever, Angel usually helped with that), matte lipstick in colors I don’t believe I’d ever wear, a ticket stub for a place called ‘Tinkers,’ which has a line drawing of a nude woman on it. I set it aside; maybe I’m a woman of the night now? Who knows, really? The rest are odd knickknacks, nothing of real value, so I end up stuffing it all back into the bag.

  So much for finding out where we — I — am, and what I do now for a living. I didn’t even get to bring my camera with me. There’s a pang of loss that hits me, making me reminisce. The PI thing was supposed to last longer than this, at least in my head it was. But we had to leave, because she said someone was coming for us, so I let her take us out of apartment 12A with nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse.

  Whoever was coming for us must’ve been scary, scarier even than her, because she sounded frantic, almost losing her mind. Maybe it was the detective with grey eyes. He didn’t seem scary, with his crow’s feet and five o’clock shadow speckled with grey hair. He really didn’t feel scary, but he did have a no-nonsense air around him, so maybe that was the person we ran from.

  There’s a sudden knock on the door, jarring me and bringing me back to the present. I walk nervously to the door, I’m not sure why I’m nervous, but the feeling’s there all the same. I open the door just a crack. Peering out, I see a little girl standing in the hallway.

  “Hey there...” I greet, opening the door and hoping I don’t sound as confused as I look.

  She looks up at me, big brown eyes and skin the color of honey seen through a glass. She doesn’t say anything.

  “Nice pigtails,” I say, but she still doesn’t respond.

  “Hey neighbor, I was wondering if you could watch Bebe for me tonight, I gotta run,” a big man announces, getting out of the apartment, locking the door behind him. I feel her struggle to take control, she knows this person, even if I don’t, but I won’t let her. She can’t give me the cold shoulder and expect to just take over whenever she wants.

  He squats down to the little girl’s eye level, ignorant to the turmoil going on inside me. She stiffens at his action, eyes downcast, biting her lower lip. I stare unabashedly at her reaction.

  “Be good,” he warns in a voice that can only be described as ‘hard as nails’. The girl, Bebe, nods agreeably, never once looking up. Turning to me he winks suggestively, running his tongue over the piercing on his lower lip and says, “I owe you one.”

  My face flares up at that and I quickly reach out for the little girl, pulling her inside with me as he leaves.

  “You can take off your sweater, it’s warm inside,” I offer, mildly amused that he decided to dress her so warmly.

  She shakes her head in response, still refusing to look me in he eye. Her behavior tugs at my heartstrings so I lean down and pull her to me ever so slightly.

  “You’ll be hot in here if you keep your jumper on.” I try my best to sound patronizing while I help her out of her sweater, she lets me, and that’s when I see the purple bruises all over her arm. Bruises that remind me of another scared girl...

  Chapter 2

  Detective Joy

  “Joy? Hello, Joy?” Peyton asks too loudly for the small room we’re in. I’m vaguely aware of his snapping fingers in my face. He’s a blurry figure in front of me and it takes a while for all my senses to fully function but when they finally do, I’m in for it.

  The sun’s rays coming in are so strong it makes me feel like I’m staring directly at the, well, sun. I wave dully in the direction of the only open curtain, hoping he’ll understand my Morse code. And apparently the universe does believe a rundown drunk like me is still worth something, because Peyton surprisingly gets my meaning and draws the curtain closed, plunging me back into a comfortable darkness. I sigh in relief but don’t make a move to stand up... Not just yet.

  “You’ve really done yourself in this time, huh Joy?” Peyton carries on conversing, his voice a fine blend of mockery and disappointment. I open one eye at this, studying the hard lines etched in his face, but I don’t acknowledge his comment... It’s too early for a conversation.

  We’re in the living room of my new luxury apartment in the heart of the city. I’m laying face down, sporting a one-of-a-kind hangover while Peyton is seated in an armchair, facing both me and the coffee table that has become my regular dining spot since I moved here. Its top is littered with cartons of cheap Chinese takeout. Egg rolls, pork fried rice and cans (and cans and cans) of six-pack. He’s right. I’ve really done myself in.

  His phone rings abruptly, an annoying high-pitched whine that jars me to alertness and I curse in response.

  “Detective Peyton here,” he answers walking out of the room, giving me a sour look.

  Ah yes, the big promotion that got him reinstated and moved old boy Peyton here up in the ranks. It also paid for this giant monstrosity of an apartment in this downtown suburban neighborhood that caused Rita to pretend barf
whenever Eleanor dropped the girls off. I knew what she thought about the place, I’d felt exactly like that when they ‘surprised’ me with this gift. After what happened to my daughters in the last place, the force (and the mayor’s office apparently) thought it fit to give back to someone who had “served his state so diligently.”

  Everything that had happened in the last few months had proved me to be more of a fraud than I could ever imagine. The medal, the mayor’s recognition award, the house, the promotion, the families coming up to me, thanking me for giving them closure, for catching the bad guy, ridding the streets of this evil person and making sure this evil never repeated itself again. Lies! All lies!

  Sure, Angel was six feet under now and would never hurt anyone again, but Verity still walked free. After disappearing like a ghost, tracking her down was next to impossible – it was like she fell off the grid all of a sudden. It seemed too calculated, too perfectly timed to just be coincidental. Everyone said I should let it go, that the murders were solved. They’d found evidence linking Angel to at least three of the five deaths, so what if Verity’s DNA showed up in one case? That didn’t mean anything, did it? It didn’t mean she was a killer. She was an ex at the time, and exes revived old flames at some point. It was only natural.

  But it wasn’t. The more I tried to rationalize it, the more confusing it became. Like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube with oily fingers, too many things slipped comfortably into place, and too many things were annoyingly unexplained. It gave me a headache just thinking about it.

  A female voice rang clear through the apartment, calling out for Peyton, causing me to get up abruptly and suffer the consequences. Peyton never said there was going to be someone else with him. Our ritual never involved other people, what’s changed?

  “He’s in the living room,” Peyton announces, I could almost hear the smile in his voice... Payback – all is right with the world once again.