Love Bites

by Annabelle Costa

  _____

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my years of working as a phlebotomist, it’s that men are the worst babies there are. The bigger and burlier the man, the greater the chance he’ll be terrified of my itty bitty butterfly needle. My current patient is proving this adage correct. Mr. Ramirez is built like a pro-wrestler, with biceps the size of my waist, but he’s hemming and hawing about letting me draw his blood.

  “What is this test for anyway?” he asks me. Even though the test he’s getting was written clearly on the slip of paper he handed me when he came in, and also, I’ve already answered this question for him. Twice.

  “It’s a test of your cholesterol, Mr. Ramirez,” I tell him patiently.

  “Yeah, but I’m saying why?” he presses me. “Why do they gotta know my cholesterol? What does it even mean?”

  “I think that’s more of a question for your doctor,” I say, “but generally, high cholesterol can cause stroke and heart disease. So I’d imagine that’s why your doctor wants to know if your cholesterol is high.”

  Mr. Ramirez looks at the needle doubtfully. “But do you gotta draw so much blood?”

  “It’s not that much.”

  “It’s a whole tube!” he points out. “Can’t you just take a few drops from my finger?”

  I’m trying to patiently explain to him that the lab can’t run a test with just “a few drops of blood” and that a test tube of blood really isn’t very much. A test tube literally does not even fill an eighth of a shot glass, but this guy acts like I’ll be sucking out his life force. Except before I can talk him into it, our receptionist Cathy pokes her head into the room.

  “Brooke?” she says. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  “Okay, it’ll be a few minutes,” I say.

  Cathy’s voice drops a few notches. “He says he’s a detective. Detective Richard Bateman—that’s what his badge said.”

  I nearly drop the needle I’m holding. I look at Mr. Ramirez, who looks relieved by the interruption. “That sounds important,” he tells me. “You should probably go talk to him.”

  I sigh and put down the blue tourniquet I’d been trying to persuade Mr. Ramirez to let me wrap around his biceps. I go out to the waiting area, my knees trembling under me. I don’t know why I’m so scared. It’s not like I killed Sydney. I want her killer to be found more than anyone.

  I recognize the detective without Cathy having to point him out to me, even though he’s not wearing a police uniform. He just looks like a cop. He’s in his early forties, with black hair and penetrating dark eyes. He’s wearing a dark jacket and tie, and you can tell he’s the sort of man who looks most handsome in a suit.

  The detective rises when he sees me appear in my scrubs and long white coat. “Ms. Nelson?” he asks.

  I nod, squeezing my fists together.

  “My name is Detective Bateman,” he says. He holds out his hand to me, and I’m embarrassed by how clammy mine is.

  “I’m Brooke Nelson,” I say, then feel like a moron because he obviously knows my name.

  “Is there somewhere here we can talk privately, Ms. Nelson?” he asks.

  “Uh huh,” I manage. I glance over at Cathy, who is looking at me curiously. She’s such a freaking busybody—everyone in the lab will know about this before lunch. You’ll never believe it—Brooke almost got arrested. I cringe just thinking about it.

  I lead Detective Bateman to a room that doesn’t seem to be in use. There are two plastic chairs in the room. He sits gracefully in one of them and I sort of collapse into the other. The detective keeps looking at me with those dark eyes and it’s making me wonder if I did something wrong. I bet he’s good at getting criminals to talk. I feel a sudden urge to confess to him that I jaywalked on the way to work this morning. Twice.

  “Ms. Nelson,” Bateman begins, “I’d like to talk to you about Sydney Lancaster. Have you heard the unfortunate news?”

  Unfortunate. That’s one way of saying that my friend went and got her throat slashed.

  “Yes,” I murmur. “It’s… terrible.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “You and Ms. Lancaster were friends, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Close friends?”

  “Medium close,” I say lamely. Whatever that means. God, I’m answering questions like I’m twelve years old.

  “How long have you known her?”

  “Um… maybe… two years, I think?”

  He nods. I expect him to write down what I’m saying, but he doesn’t. He’s just listening. “How did you meet?”

  I scratch my head, trying to remember. “I think… I met her at a party. Some friends of ours had a party and Sydney and I were both there. We got to talking and after the party we went and got drinks together and… well, that was it.” Ugh, this is the most boring story ever. “We just started hanging out after that.”

  The detective looks at me thoughtfully. “Was it just friendship? Or was it more than that?”

  Oh my God, does he think Syd and I were hooking up?

  “Just friendship,” I answer quickly.

  He nods. I look down at his left hand and notice a lack of a wedding ring. He’s a guy who’s good-looking, smart, and obviously has a good job—I wonder why he’s not taken. Maybe he’s divorced. Maybe the long hours of being a policeman got to his wife. Maybe she wanted him to promise that he’d take a safer desk job, but he was like, Dammit, I need to be out on the streets! You can’t chain me to a desk, woman!

  Or maybe not.

  “I understand that you were supposed to meet up with Ms. Lancaster last night,” he says, breaking into my fantasy about his marriage gone wrong.

  My pulse quickens. “How did you…?”

  “We saw a bunch of text messages from you on her phone,” he tells me. Right, of course. “It sounds like you and Ms…. Gabrielle Lewis were supposed to meet her for dinner last night? But she didn’t show up.”

  “Right,” I confirm. “Gabby and I… I mean, Ms. Lewis and I were waiting for her, but she didn’t show up.”

  “Where did you think she was?”

  I shrug. “I guess… she was dating some new guy. We thought she ditched us for him.” An idea occurs to me. “Did you talk to the guy she’s been dating? Does he have an alibi?”

  Bateman smiles thinly. “Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to locate Ms. Lancaster’s alleged boyfriend.”

  “Alleged boyfriend?”

  He sighs. “Much like you, all her friends insist that she was dating someone, but none of them knew anything about him. Including his name.”

  “You don’t even know his name?” I breathe.

  He shakes his head. “He was obviously being very careful not to be found. Did Ms. Lancaster ever mention a name?”

  “No.” I bite my lip. “Except… well, one time she let it slip that his name starts with H.”

  The detective gives me a look like I just told him the most useless piece of information he’s ever heard. “Okay. Was that his first name or his last?”

  “I assumed first name, but it could have been last, I guess,” I say lamely.

  He looks disappointed, and I can’t blame him. As much as I want to tell him something that will lead him to the killer, I know everything I’ve told him has been completely unhelpful.

  “One more question,” he says, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward slightly. “Do you know a woman named Angela O’Malley?”

  The name doesn’t sound familiar. I shake my head no.

  The detective smiles grimly. “Okay, never mind. Shot in the dark.”

  I don’t know what that means. But I file the name Angela O’Malley away to Google when I have a chance.

  Bateman stands up from his plastic chair, which creaks angrily at his shifting weight. He holds out his hand for me to shake. “Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Nelson. That’s all for now.”

  “Oh.” I wipe the sweat off my hand before I shake his this time. “Do you�
� I mean, are there any leads? Do you think you’ll catch the guy who did this?”

  He hesitates. “We’re doing everything we can.”

  That probably means no. They probably have no clue who killed Sydney.

  That means whoever did it is still out there somewhere, probably laughing their head off at how inept the police force is. Maybe ready to strike again.

  For a moment, I consider telling Detective Bateman about that feeling I got yesterday, like I was being watched. But no, he’ll just think I’m nuts. Even I think I’m nuts. I don’t have to let the cute detective think so too.

  Chapter 4: Brooke

  Somehow I make it all the way to my lunch break without Googling the name Angela O’Malley. But the second the lab slips stop pouring in, I whip out my iPhone. The first thing I see is a text message from Jamie asking how I’m doing, so I take a second to let him know that I’m okay. With that taken care of, I type in the name:

  Angela O’Malley.

  There are plenty of them. Facebook turns up a bunch of results. There’s an Angela O’Malley who’s a masseuse I can befriend on LinkedIn. Angela O’Malley just won an award for Employee of the Month at a furniture store. Angela O’Malley just turned eighty and had a big party!

  And then there’s a news article about an Angela O’Malley.

  I click on it and am immediately sorry I did. A thirty-year-old woman named Angela O’Malley was found murdered in a park about two months ago. Her throat was slashed.

  I do another search to find out if there are any more articles on Angela O’Malley between then and now, but I don’t see any. Does that mean they never found whoever killed her? Is the murderer still out there?

  Does Detective Bateman think the same guy killed Sydney?

  I can’t stand it another minute. I select Gabby’s name from the short list of speed-dial numbers on my phone, which now includes her, Jamie, the lab, and my parents. She answers breathlessly.

  “What?” she gasps. “What’s wrong?”

  “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  “Because,” Gabby says, “our friend was murdered yesterday. How could something not be wrong?”

  Good point. “Did you know someone named Angela O’Malley?”

  A long pause on the other line. “No…”

  I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Relieved, I guess.

  “Who’s Angela O’Malley?” Gabby asks.

  “Never mind,” I mutter.

  “Brooke,” she says. “Last night, I literally slept one hour. In fifteen minute spurts. I am not in the mood to play games. So just tell me. Who’s Angela O’Malley?”

  I sigh, knowing that my best friend will never, ever let this go. I tell her all about the visit from the detective and how the last thing he asked me was about Angela O’Malley. And then I told her what I found on the internet.

  “Holy shit,” Gabby breathes. “He thinks Sydney was murdered by a serial killer…”

  “That’s crazy though,” I say. “It was her boyfriend. That guy she wouldn’t talk about or introduce us to.”

  “Right, but that could be his MO.” I hear crunching on the other line. Gabby eats when she’s upset. “He meets a woman, spends a couple of months dating her, and then when he gets bored, he moves in for the kill.”

  “I don’t know, Gabby…”

  More crunching. “Brooke, we’ve got to figure out who this guy was that she was dating. We know that’s who did it. If we could find him…”

  “Right, but the police are on in,” I remind her. “If a real detective can’t figure it out, what possible hope do two women with absolutely no experience with detective work have of finding him? We are not going to find him before the police.” I shake my head angrily. “I mean, come on. You know it always drives me nuts when stuff like that happens in books.”

  “Fine,” Gabby grumbles. “We’ll let the police handle it. Sheesh.” She lets out a sigh. “If you won’t help me with that, at least answer me one question.”

  “Let’s hear the question.”

  “Did Jamie Kramer spend the night at your apartment last night?”

  For a moment, I’m too surprised by the question to respond.

  “Because when you called me last night, he was there, wasn’t he?” she points out. “I heard him in the background. And it was awfully late. I mean, really late.” I hear another crunch on the other line. “No judgment if he did. I’m sure you were very upset and can’t be held accountable for—”

  “Goodbye, Gabby.”

  “Oh, come on!” she says. “You can tell me! He’s a nerd, but he’s a nice guy. More than passably cute. Pretty hot, actually. I think that you should—”

  “Goodbye, Gabby.”

  She grumbles again, but gets off the phone. I’ve now eaten up over half my lunch break trying to solve the mystery of Angela O’Malley, and all I’ve done is upset myself. I barely have time to grab a hot dog from the cart outside the lab.

  It’s a typical humid day in Manhattan in mid-July, which means the heat hits me like a punch in the face the second I get outside. I feel my red hair sticking to my neck and wish I’d brought a hair tie. Fortunately, my favorite hot dog cart is right down the block and the line is never too long. (Gabby claims it’s because the hot dogs contain E coli, but that’s yet to be proven.)

  “Ah, Miss Brooke!” Ahmed, the hot dog vendor, says when he sees me. “You want the usual?”

  Is it pathetic that I’m on a first-name basis with a hot dog vendor? And that I have a “usual” at a hot dog cart? At least it means I’ll die of dysentery before anyone can murder me.

  “Yes, thanks, Ahmed,” I say.

  I watch as my buddy Ahmed pulls out a nice long hot dog and piles on ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut. (Don’t worry, I’ve got tic tacs in my purse.) As I’m waiting for the masterpiece to be completed, I start to feel a prickling sensation in the back of my neck. A cold feeling that runs all the way down my spine.

  Someone is watching me.

  I whirl around, certain that there must be someone directly behind me, breathing down my neck. But when I turn, there’s nobody there.

  Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m in mid-Manhattan—there are like a hundred people behind me. But nobody within ten feet of me. Nobody who appears to be watching me. Everyone is going about their business, walking past me, studiously avoiding eye contact like we’re all taught to do.

  “Miss Brooke?” I turn back to look at Ahmed, who has a deep crease between his gray eyebrows. “Are you all right?”

  “Have you ever gotten a feeling like someone is watching you?” I say.

  I’m not sure why I suddenly felt compelled to confide in the hot dog vendor. Ahmed is apparently not just my friend, but my closest confidante.

  “No, not me,” Ahmed says. “But my brother—he used to say that all the time.”

  “He did?”

  Ahmed nods. “Yes. But he’s at Bellevue now. Mental ward.”

  Oh God.

  I shove two dollars at Ahmed and grab the hot dog. But before I get back in the building, I toss it in the trash. For some reason, I don’t feel very hungry anymore.

  _____

  I can’t sleep.

  I started out in my bed at eleven-thirty. At midnight, I moved to the couch and read for a while. At a quarter to one, I went back to my bed. And I’ve been there for over an hour now, doing my damnedest to turn off my brain. I’ve literally counted sheep jumping over a little white fence in my brain. I did a relaxation exercise I found online. I masturbated.

  But somehow, I’m still awake.

  I lie on my side, staring at a crack in the paint on my wall. I keep thinking about my interview with Detective Bateman. About how they can’t find Sydney’s boyfriend. No trace of him anyway. Yet he’s out there. Somewhere.

  And he might not have just killed Sydney. He might have killed that other girl too. He might be looking around, trying to choose his next victim right now.

/>   I get a prickling sensation in the back of my neck. It’s the same feeling I’ve had multiple times now, ever since I found out about Syd—like I’m being watched. But this is the first time I’ve ever felt it while in my own home. Yet it’s the strongest I’ve ever felt it. I feel nearly complete certainty there is someone behind me, watching me in my bed.

  I roll over in bed. The walk-in closet is right behind me.

  The door to the closet is partially ajar. The lights are off inside. There’s nothing in that closet except my clothes.

  Except then I hear it. A loud creak from within the closet that fills the entire room.

  I sit up in bed, clutching the blanket, my heart pounding in my chest so loud I can hear it. Holy shit. There’s someone in my closet.

  But no, how could there be? How is that possible?

  I slowly get out of bed, never taking my eyes off the closet door. The door doesn’t budge. There are no further noises from within. The closet appears empty.

  Maybe I just imagined the noise. Or maybe it was the building settling. Or maybe it was a rat.

  Please, God, let it be a rat.

  I stare at the closet door for a minute, willing myself to check inside. I’m certain there can’t be anything in there. How could there be? I’ll just turn on the light, look inside, and then I’ll know I’m alone in here. And then I can go back to sleep. (Yeah, right.)

  I take a step toward the closet, my heart beating so fast that it nearly hurts. I might have a heart attack over this, I swear. I hold my breath, trying not to think of how relieved I’ll feel when I open the door and see nothing but clothes and (way too many) shoes. After all, that’s what’s likely to be in there. How could there be a person hiding in there?

  Yet. I did hear a noise.

  Screw it. I can’t do this.

  I back out of my bedroom, still keeping my eyes on the closet. I find my iPhone, plugged into the outlet in the living room. I reach for it, wondering who I should call. I have Detective Bateman’s number in my purse, but I would feel ridiculous telling a policeman to come check out a boogeyman in my closet. No, I can’t call Bateman.