As she settled into the squeaky leather seat of the convertible, the phone rang in her hand. Heart leaping with gladness, she toggled ‘Answer’ without looking at the Caller ID, expecting Dawn to be available to talk on a break. Her amare’s voice would surely soothe the hurts and offenses of the day.
“Hello, darling one,” she sighed in relief.
“Hullo, is this Miss Mallory Moore?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice queried.
Embarrassed, Mallory replied in the affirmative. “Y-yes. I apologize, I thought you were someone else calling.”
The woman laughed on the other end of the call. “I’m sure. My name is Dr. Margaret Sheehan, and I’m calling from the North Yorkshire Cold Case Unit, the CCU. We’d like to talk to you regarding Oliver Ulster – would you mind popping down for a visit?”
Mallory felt cold, the sensation sweeping from the top of her head, and down to her toes. Whatever could Oliver Ulster have to do with the CCU? “Eh… I suppose so,” she responded guardedly. “I’ll be there within the half hour.”
The Jag roared to life.
_____________________________________
Detective Superintendent Phil Ross and Dr. Margaret Sheehan entered the near-barren interview room, where a leggy brunette was waiting for them. It was darker than normal, Dr. Sheehan leaving half the lights off to keep a feeling of calm flowing. She could tell seeing Lilith LaFey in the flesh for the first time would always be a memory burned into her psyche. The lighting muted, Lilith's trademark green eyes shone out of her pale face as she looked up at Margaret. But that face was now framed by dark brown hair, courtesy of dye. It made the moment caught between times... unforgettable.
Seated on the other side of the metal table, the woman’s stoic appearance didn’t fool Margaret.
“May I get you a cup of tea or coffee?” the forensic psychologist offered with a smile, and she took a seat beside Ross, all the while observing.
“I’m fine, thank you,” the ghost replied, with a borderline brusqueness.
Margaret noted that Lilith... Mallory, she decided it was better, was subconsciously grinding her teeth as well. ‘Hardly surprising, given the fact she was the sole survivor of a family assassination,’ she thought to herself. She continued to watch as ... Mallory … shifted uncomfortably in the chair, now that two pairs of eyes were on her.
With a harrumph as he cleared his throat, D.S.I. Ross assembled some black and white photos within the file he was viewing, as Margaret made pleasantries to get their guest settled.
“So, Mallory… I can call you Mallory, yes? How are you feeling today?” she solicited congenially.
Her efforts proved futile as Mallory Moore clasped her hands together beneath the table, muttering again that she was fine. The victim was using classic concealment gestures: an expressionless face, paired with hitching of the shoulders as she attempted to control her respiratory rate.
Carefully taking a photo from the small collection, DSI Ross laid it on the table before Mallory. “Miss Moore” he began carefully, “do you recognize the man in this photo?”
Margaret watched carefully for the micro expressions on Mallory’s face. The green-eyed shapeshifter may have been attempting to control every emotion, to prevent them from showing on her face as it were, but micro expressions were involuntary. She recognized both Anger and Contempt from the woman’s eyebrows drawing down and together while her lips narrowed. The lips’ corners tightened to rise on only one side of her face, and the edges of her nostrils flared.
It was shockingly quick even to Dr. Sheehan, but faces never lied.
Frowning openly now, Mallory leaned forward to see better under the dim fluorescent lights. “Yes, I recognize him,” she admitted cautiously.
Dr. Sheehan nodded, her affirmation meant to be supportive in what appeared to be a sore subject. “Can you tell us your relationship to him, Mallory?”
Mallory hesitated. Though Margaret thought there was no shame concerning her relationship with Dawn Rose, she wasn’t sure that Mallory wanted to admit the details to two complete strangers; one whom she knew was already analyzing her.
"I..." she began, but her voice faltered.
Reading into the situation, Margaret exchanged glances with Phil. "Mallory, would you feel more comfortable talking with a female officer present in the room, instead of this old coot?" she ventured. Mallory's hostility and reluctance to speak might be directly related to an authoritarian male's presence.
Mallory was silent for a moment. Her efforts to see the remainder of the police photos in the file DSI Ross had in front of him proved useless; it was too dark to decipher the images to any recognizable degree. Yet, she must know that this did not pertain solely to the intrusion at her home by the Ulster boy, and the Neanderthal still locked up at HM Holme House.
"Dr. Sheehan," she addressed Margaret coolly, "I don't care if a chimpanzee is present in the room, I would simply like to know why you have invited me to attend this interview and where my girlfriend's father fits into it."
Ross jolted a bit in his seat, and gave an embarrassed laugh.
“Girlfriend's father, yes," Margaret finished, saving the interview. "We weren't aware of that, Mallory…" she fibbed and tread lightly, holding her palms flat against the table in a gesture of peace.
Did she truly not know? Margaret kicked Ross beneath the interview table, warning him to stop any antics he had cocked up.
“I can't see why you would be," Mallory replied, eyeing Ross with distaste. "Its my private life."
"Of course," Margaret answered respectfully. Taking a deep breath, she met Mallory's eyes. "I'm sorry. We’ve asked you here today so we could inform you of a development concerning the murders of your family in 1998.”
Mallory's eyes flashed, and she visibly stopped breathing before drawing in air once more.
"M-My family?" she stuttered, clutching at the edge of the cool table. A rush of adrenaline released an overload of the fight or flight chemical messenger into her body.
Margaret was ready for it. She stood up, and opened the door just quickly enough to see Mallory Moore run through it, and out of the CCU.
_____________________________________
The cottage driveway’s gravel flew wildly as the car screeched to a stop outside, drawing Dawn’s attention from the book she’d pilfered from Mallory’s collection. Her lover didn’t exactly seem like the Jack Kerouac type, and she’d been correct. The inscription she found inside was a penciled heart around the initials (J.L. and M.C.)
When the front door slammed shut, Dawn winced and looked up. She had wanted to tell Mallory about how fantastic her exams had gone, but it appeared that she was still in a bad mood. Sister Eileen had found Dawn shortly after the exams ended. The nun had made her promise to “take care of Mallie’s heart,” and told Dawn that Mallory was a prickly sort.
Mallory stomped into the library nook, eyes still flashing with anger. They zeroed in on the book in Dawn’s hands. “Where did you get that?” she snapped.
“Oh, hello sunshine! I see you’ve found my Kerouac collection. My day sucked, so I’m going to be an asshole now,” Dawn bantered playfully, trying to insert some levity into the foul air caused by Mallory's mood.
After snatching the book from Dawn's hands, Mallory stared at them, and blinked rapidly. She stepped backwards, gulping great swaths of breath, and slipped the book back into its spot on the shelf.
Mallory rubbed at the book spine tenderly with her fingertips before turning furious eyes back to Dawn. “Did you know?” she seethed. “Was it some sort of game for him? Dropping the pretty, lost girl in the midst of the woman who was once the lost girl?”
Dawn stood up, resenting the ill treatment. “Did I know what? Listen to yourself! Calm down for a minute.”
Clawed fingers flew to Mallory’s hair, and she tugged roughly at it. An anguished whine escaped her lips as her chest heaved – warring with the indecision at hurting the one she loved the most.
Dawn l
ooked down at her dainty hands, her hands that had loved and touched Mallory so intimately. They reached up to touch her face, confused at what Mallory found so odd about both. To her, hands and face were as they always had been - pale, soft skin that stretched taut over the sinew and bone that Mallory had adored many times.
“Did you know, Dawn?” the question fell from Mallory's trembling lips like a prayer, a thinly veiled hope muddied by pain. “Did you know that your father killed my family?”
A sharp gasp ripped from Dawn's lips as she shook her head, stepping away from the woman vacillating somewhere between vicious rage and complete breakdown. She didn’t fear Mallory – but this... this wasn't her Mallory.
“No! My father is a rat bastard, Mallory… But he’s not a damned murderer!” she denied. He couldn’t be. Steven was a cruel, strict father, and a shrewd businessman. However mean or cold he seemed, what had been done to Mallory and her family was on a whole new level of evil.
Her heart broke at the expression of disbelief that came across Mallory’s face.
“That’s not what the Cold Case Unit told me they suspected today!” she shouted at Dawn, unable to keep control of her anger any longer. “Your ex-fiancé probably is singing like a canary! Dear God, he and that meathead were armed last week,” Mallory puzzled out, tears rolling down her face like a weeping angel. Against the strained, sharp lines of her eyes and cheekbones, they looked strangely out of place.
Dawn reached toward Mallory, wanting nothing more than to comfort, to wipe away the tears.
Mallory recoiled, throwing Dawn’s touch off with a jerk of her arm. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” she commanded, revulsion dripping from every word.
She turned towards the stairs and fled to the top before the Dawn could blink, slamming and locking the bedroom door behind her.
Her world thrown on axis, Dawn followed. At the closed bedroom door, she set her teeth and pounded against the wood with her fists. “You don’t even know for sure if my father had anything to do with it and all of a sudden I am nothing to you? I’m not him, Mallory!” she cried. “Who’s the child now, huh?”
At no response from inside the bedroom, she pounded the door once more with all of her strength. “Damn it, you said you loved me. You said you kept your promises… I don’t have anywhere else to go!” Dawn shouted. “Let me in!”
“Go away!” Mallory screamed back, the shadow of her feet peeking from beneath the door to meet Dawn’s shadow.
Dawn wailed in frustration and wild hurt before clambering back down the stairs. Grabbing her purse, she fled into the night. The only person that had ever truly seen her heart now refused it, and the pain was more than her mind could take.
‘Run,’ it told her.
Chapter 12: Utrimque (Both Sides, Now)
“Have you seen this girl?” Mallory asked a passing couple on the sidewalk, her voice desperate. She was disheartened when they merely shook their head and walked away without really looking at the picture of Dawn.
It was the only picture of Dawn she had, sent from her iPhone to email two days ago. She had printed it out, tracing every curve and edge of the face, while bitter tears made each staggering breath salty. Numerous calls to Dawn’s phone begging her to call back had gone unanswered on Sunday, with texts garnering the same result. Yesterday morning, the phone company’s monotone recording told Mallory that the number had been disconnected, and was no longer in service.
Most of the townsfolk gave her a wide berth. She had dressed in a khaki car coat with the collar popped, and a black cloche hat in July. However chilly the morning was, Mallory was only trying to hide in plain sight. There had been murmurs around Middlesbrough for weeks now from the popular McGovern family about her recent dismissal from St. Augusta’s, and it only solidified the gossip into truth.
She had always been considered a loner by the populace here, keeping to herself at her cottage in Tollesby. But by the time the had heard she’d walked the entirety of Acklam, Berwick Hills, Coulby Newham, as well as the metropolitan center yesterday looking for Dawn Rose, none would actually speak to her.
Today she walked the sidewalks of Brambles Farm, the part of Middlesbrough where St. Augusta’s stood as a beacon. Mallory Moore was nothing if not brazen, and the citizens that approached her only did so out of curiosity. They still didn't talk to her.
She felt like a sideshow attraction, a Jezebel worth spitting at.
As Joan Morrow bustled down the street with her young daughter on one hip and her son toddling on one side, Mallory saw an opportunity.
“Joan! Joan, wait!” she called after the harried redhead.
She ran across the street, dodging slow, honking cars to pull up just in front of Ms. Morrow. The woman looked like she’d seen an apparition, and took two steps back.
“M-Miss Moore! Are you quite alright?” she trilled, clutching her baby girl unconsciously closer.
‘Easy now,’ Mallory thought to herself. ‘Don’t act like I'm a total nutter.’
“Of course, Joan…” she responded half heartedly, running a finger behind her ear to tuck some escaped hair back into a low bun. “I was just wondering – Dawn’s been away for a few days now, and I can’t seem to find her anywhere. Have you seen her?” Mallory held up the creased paper to remind Joan of what she looked like.
Ms. Morrow’s guileless glare had Mallory’s confidence deflating immediately. She didn’t let it show on the outside, instead raising her chin in defiance and meeting the shorter woman’s disapproval head on. How quickly a simple 'hello' could degrade into a staring match when you addressed the elephant in the room.
“Perhaps she’s gone back home to London, as she ought to have. She’s a good girl.” Joan intoned coldly as she stepped to one side. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Mallory gritted her teeth and fisted her hands. As she watched Joan Morrow scurry down the sidewalk, her frustration with the past two days burst forth. “I wish I could, Joan… But I can’t. Because there is no excuse for you! You, you... sanctimonious... argh!” she yelled, causing the Tuesday morning walking commuters to stare in astonishment.
Her pulse and composure eventually returning to normal, Mallory folded the picture of Dawn back up, and slid it delicately into the pocket of her light trench. However rude Joan had been, she had to admit the woman might be correct.
After crossing the street, she slid into the seat of her blue Jaguar, and started it. Mallory dialed Information, asking to be connected to the Middlesbrough Railway Station, while crossing her fingers that the next train wouldn’t be too long off.
_____________________________________
At the CCU, several case experts were hard at work, and none the wiser to the recent developments. Rather, this morning they focused on past events, carefully piecing together evidence to get them all on the same page. The last team that had worked on the LaFey/Christopoulos murders had long since moved on, or retired.
The current unit pathologist, Dr. Eve Hart, stood by a whiteboard containing several photos. "I was just going through the LaFey murder scene," she explained, as Detective Superintendent Ross stood to the side.
"This was Mia Christopoulos," she murmured, lifting her hand to an autopsy photo of a woman with evident stab wounds. “She was attacked in her sleep."
"Thank God for small mercies," Dr. Margaret Sheehan muttered, eyes fixed on the grisly picture.
"Not quite," the pathologist contradicted her. "According to friends of the family who were interviewed, Mia was a very light sleeper."
"Christ, tell me she didn't wake up during the attack?" Phil Ross questioned, his typically gruff tone dismayed.
"Unfortunately, she did," Eve confirmed. "From the presence and location of Mia's blood, plus her daughter Lilith's statement, Mia sustained several stab wounds, " she revealed curtly. "None were serious enough to have killed her straightaway."
Her hand gestured across three photos of the couple's bedroom underneath. Then. Dr. Hart reached
for Ross’s right arm, holding it in front of him in a defensive position. "Mia instinctively raised her right arm to deflect the attack. Her attacker then stabbed wildly, inflicting four additional stab wounds, one of which punctured her axillary artery."
Bringing her attention back to the whiteboard, Eve tapped the first photo in a line of three. "The trail of blood from the bed followed to across the landing," she droned. An uncomfortable chill settled upon the team.
Peccatum in Carne: Sins of the Flesh (The Three Sins of Mallory Moore Book 1) Page 15