by Julia Derek
He blew out a long breath and faced me. “Fine. When does he want to get started?”
I cheered inwardly. He was so damned predictable! But who was I to complain?
“Let me ask him and get back to you,” I said, forcing my features to stay unmoved. I had to seem like there was absolutely nothing funny about this subject. “He’s going away for a short business trip tonight and won’t be back till the weekend.”
“Okay,” Shane said, then added in a cool voice, “If there isn’t anything else, will you please excuse me? I haven’t eaten for several hours and I’m starving.”
I got to my feet. “No, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure you were okay and that we were on the same wavelength. I’ll be going then.”
I walked past him and up to the front door.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t just show up at my place,” Shane said. “Could you call me before you come here, see if I’m here first?”
“Fine. I’ll do that in the future.” I opened the door and gave Shane a quick wave goodbye.
Once I was back down on the street, I texted Jordan to tell him I was done and for him to leave Sophie’s apartment. I stressed that he must wear the baseball hat, the glasses, and the fake teeth in his mouth or Shane might recognize him. Sometimes, he forgot how crucial that was. Wearing different clothes wasn’t enough of a disguise. The chance that they would bump into each other in the stairwell was small, but I wasn’t about to risk it nonetheless.
I inhaled the pleasant May air, enjoying the smells of late spring. Now all I had to do was to get started working on the remaining details of Ariel’s murder.
31
Shane
I was still shaking, even though Mom had left my apartment minutes ago. I hadn’t seen or heard from her or Ariel since the night I’d throttled her, and I was still mad at myself for having fallen for her hoax. It was exactly the kind of stunt she’d pull and I had walked right into it. I had just reacted, like a trained monkey. I needed to learn how to control myself better. Well, at least I had managed to keep it a secret today that I actually knew where Sophie was.
That was a step in the right direction.
Sophie had called me on my cell phone the night before, telling me in her own words what had happened to her. She’d called from somewhere in California. She hadn’t wanted to tell me exactly where.
We had spoken for about ten minutes before she’d had to go. Well, she had been the one talking mostly while I had listened. She explained that she had called primarily to ask for my forgiveness. She felt terrible having ditched me like that, but she just couldn’t handle any more drama in her life right now. She had freaked out when she’d sobered up after our night at Papi’s and decided it was best that she took off. She desperately wanted to help me, but she was so scared that she would accidentally reveal her betrayal to Mom and then she would die.
When I had asked her why she was so convinced Mom would kill her, she told me that, a few weeks ago, when they had met up, she had spotted a thick, blue, leather-bound journal in Mom’s tote bag. It looked like an old school diary, big and unwieldy with a lock on it. When Mom went to use the bathroom, she had pulled it out and discovered that it wasn’t locked. She opened it at a random page and read about a triple murder Mom and Dad had committed decades ago. The dramatization of the gruesome murders reminded her about a triple murder case that a friend of her mother’s, a detective, had been working. The unsolved case had eventually led to the detective’s wife divorcing him.
Sophie had paged through the thick diary and seen other murders described—dramatized—with numbers after them. It didn’t take long before she had figured out that the numbers were some form of rating. Unfortunately, she had been so immersed in what she was reading that Mom caught her and told her that if she told anyone about it, she would kill Sophie’s mom and then kill Sophie, too. And those murders would receive a ten-rating, because Mom would see to it that both were as grisly and inventive as possible. She would see to it that especially Sophie’s mom suffered.
At the end of our phone call, Sophie promised she would get back to me in a few days. She hoped that, by then, she would have found the courage to do the right thing, come back and help me destroy Mom. The woman had to be stopped. She was true evil.
I had thought about her call for several minutes afterwards, wondering if Mom might have put Sophie up to it. Nothing in her voice had indicated her being forced to say what she was saying, but maybe she was a great actress like Mom. Then I remembered how she had told me about having found Mom’s diary and how Mom had written about and graded her murders. In other words, physical evidence existed connecting Mom to lots of murders. It was very unlikely that Mom would reveal that physical evidence of any kind existed, which led me to conclude Sophie had called of her own volition.
I had a fleeting memory of finding a blue leather-bound journal somewhere in Mom’s drawers when I was about eight and reading about just what Sophie had mentioned. It had a lock on it that I had easily picked. Was that the diary Sophie had been referring to? It had to be. I dug as deep as I could into my memory to see if I could retrieve any more information about the big journal, but all I could remember was that I had asked Mom about it and she had brushed it off by saying that I must have found the notebook she used to work on scenes and jot down plot ideas. She then told me to forget about it; the contents weren’t meant for young kids to read.
I suddenly remembered having seen a similar blue, leather-bound journal on a side table in the sitting room in Ariel’s penthouse. I had been so busy wondering what Mom had done to Sophie that I didn’t think about it at all until Sophie had brought it up yesterday.
Had I seen Mom’s old journal? Could she really be so stupid that she left it out for anyone to see? I didn’t think so. It had probably just looked similar. I did think she still had the journal somewhere, and that she kept writing in it. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself. If only I could get my hands on those writings…
I had figured that Mom would be in touch with me one way or another, hopefully revealing her next step. Now I knew she wanted to make nice. She clearly had something else on her mind that she needed from me.
I went into the kitchen to make myself some eggs to eat as I pondered what that could be. Opening the fridge, I discovered nothing but Coke, peanut butter, and jelly there. I had totally forgotten to go grocery shopping, I had been so out of it lately. Forget about sleeping. I didn’t think I had gotten any sleep since the morning I discovered that Sophie was gone.
It was only seven p.m., so there was plenty of time for me to go food shopping before the grocery store closed. Swiveling around, I grabbed my wallet and headed out.
When I was about to leave the apartment building I bumped into the grumpy, thirty-something guy who lived on Sophie’s floor. I might as well ask if he’d seen Sophie leave:
“Um, excuse me, but I was just wondering if maybe you saw Sophie—you know, your neighbor—the other night. Like, late at night, leaving with a suitcase?”
He glared at me with that sour, now clean-shaven face, then said, “My neighbor’s name is Ella Stoyanova, not Sophie. Well, it was Ella. She moved a couple of weeks ago without explanation. No one has lived in that apartment since then. I’ve seen you knock on the door a couple of times. I wanted to tell you not to bother, but, then, um, I never did.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable.
I stared at him. What the hell was this dude talking about? No one had lived in the apartment for weeks? Why would he say that? And who was Ella Stoyanova?
“Did you see a psychiatrist yet?” he asked before any of the thoughts in my mind could become questions and squinted at me with a kinder face. It made him look way more appealing.
“A psychiatrist? Why should I see a psychiatrist?”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve seen you around a lot since you moved in. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re experiencing some kind of… some kind of hallucinati
on.” He sighed. “I don’t know what else to call it. All I can tell you is that you’ve been talking to air a lot. You should see someone to figure out why you do that. It doesn’t seem normal.”
“I’ve been talking to air?” I eyed him, searching for clues that told me this guy was pulling my leg. He had to be. When I couldn’t find any, I thought I knew what was going on. Mom must have put him up to this.
“How much is she paying you?” I demanded to know, locking him with my gaze.
He frowned at me. “Who?”
“My mother. Jennifer Hanson. How much is she paying you?”
He took me in for a short, silent beat, then said, “While that name does sound familiar, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just told you what I’ve seen. I thought I was doing you a favor, but clearly I was mistaken. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have to make an urgent phone call.” He pushed past me and strode into the small lobby where he began climbing the stairs to the next floor.
I watched him as he disappeared, utterly confused.
32
I remained deep in thought when I returned from the grocery store later. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe my grumpy neighbor had been telling me the truth. Basically, he had told me I was nuts and that Sophie was only a figment of my imagination. After he left, I had spent the next several minutes wanting to beat his skinny ass until he confessed that he was working for Mom, who loved to fuck with my mind. But now I had this weird sensation in my gut that he might be right, and it was terrifying me. While waiting in line to pay in the grocery store, I had checked my phone’s call log for the California number Sophie had used to call me yesterday. When I found it, I would call it and see who answered. But I never found it. I checked many times. The number was definitely not in my phone.
For a brief moment, I had been able to assuage my fears by telling myself that it had to do with some kind of technical malfunctioning. But now that I had gotten back to the apartment building, I stopped near the mailboxes. I took a closer look at the handwritten label on Sophie’s mailbox. A painful knot formed in my stomach. Not only did it appear uncomfortably fresh for someone who had lived a year in an apartment, but the handwriting, now that I studied it, looked very much like my mother’s… Putting down the grocery bags, I peeled off the sticker only to discover that the name under it was Ella Stoyanova.
I felt suddenly dizzy. Pull yourself together, Shane, I ordered myself. There will be a reasonable explanation to all of this. The guy is working for Mom.
The words made me calm down and get going, but deep inside I already knew they were only lies I was telling myself to feel better.
I decided that I would call the building management the next morning and ask them what was going on with the apartment. They should know. I wished they were open late at night so I could ask them immediately, but of course that wasn’t so. I would just have to grin and bear it, wait until the next day rolled around.
I tossed and turned in bed until it was morning again, then I had some breakfast consisting mostly of strong coffee. When it was past eight, I called management, praying they started the day early at least.
A female voice picked up, informing me that I had called SVT Management.
“Hello, my name is Shane Hanson and I live in apartment 2 A on 142 West Ninth Street in Astoria. Well, my mother is probably on the lease, but I live here.”
“Yes. How can I help you?”
“The neighbor above me is being very loud. I can’t sleep. They’re playing music late at night. Is there something you can do about that?”
“Hang on a sec.” Classical music began to play as she put me on hold.
A minute later, she was back. “We have a new tenant in that apartment. Her name is SueAnn Beck. Do you want us to call her and talk to her?”
SueAnn Beck… Why did that name sound so familiar? Did I know this person? Either way, I didn’t want management to call her and complain. “Um, no. Is it possible for me to do it myself? I mean, call her myself? See, I don’t want to be sneaky about it. I feel that it would be better if I called and spoke to her directly.”
“We’d prefer to do it. Situations like these are best handled by management.”
“Do you know what? It was only the one night that she was loud. Now that I think about it, maybe she was having a house warming party. How about if I go upstairs and talk to her myself if it happens again? On second thought, I don’t want us to start off on the wrong foot.”
“You can do that. You don’t want us to contact her then?”
“No, please don’t. I feel bad calling now. I don’t want to get her in trouble. It really wasn’t that big a deal.”
I apologized some more, said goodbye, and hung up the phone. Then I left my apartment and climbed the stairs up to the third floor and knocked hard on my grumpy neighbor’s door, feeling sick all the while. As I had disconnected the call, it had dawned on me why the name SueAnn Beck had sounded so familiar. It was the name of my elementary school teacher. I strongly suspected it was actually Mom, though, using that name as an alias. I soon heard footfalls on the other side and then how someone turned the lock. The door swung open and he stood in the hallway, wearing gray sweatpants, a ripped white T-shirt, and his ashy blond hair was all messed up. He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn, like he had just awoken.
“I’m sorry to come here so early, but I really need to talk to you,” I rambled, feeling like an ass. He must have been sleeping. “I’m really sorry for waking you up.”
Much to my surprise, he stepped aside and offered me to enter his apartment. I did.
He walked into the adjacent living room and told me to have a seat on the old green canvas couch there. He plopped down on an armchair and said, “I’d offer you some coffee, but I’m out of it. All I have is water and really bad herb tea. What’s up?”
I waved a dismissive hand. “It’s fine, thanks. I’ve had plenty of coffee already. You told me yesterday that I was talking to some… um… imaginary person?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, I did tell you that. I’m sorry if I upset you—I can be a bit blunt—but I thought you should know. I would’ve wanted to know if I were in your shoes.”
“It’s okay. I just wanted to talk to you some more about it.” I swallowed hard. “See, it looks like you might be right.” I felt like I was about to start crying. It took all I had to control myself. I couldn’t fall apart in front of my neighbor.
He didn’t say anything, just contemplated me with compassion in his gray eyes. Then he gave a small, close-lipped smile. “I’m happy to talk to you about it. Don’t worry, it’s not that unusual to have imaginary friends even for adults. Or hallucinations, as that is what they really are. I would’ve told you sooner, but I was working on this website and I was on a deadline. I develop websites for a living. I couldn’t allow myself to get distracted. But better late than never, right?”
“Right,” I muttered, still struggling with my emotions. So I was crazy then? The fact that lots of other people might be crazy, too, didn’t make me feel any better.
“I know someone who hallucinated,” he continued. “She used to hallucinate a lot. It’s my brother’s girlfriend. That’s how I knew what must be going on with you. There’s help, you know. You should be able to make the hallucinations stop.”
“Help?” I croaked, staring at Steve. I was feeling horrible all of a sudden. Only a moment ago, it had dawned on me that, if I was crazy and experienced hallucinations, Mom had been playing me all along. Oh God… I groaned and grabbed my head, leaning my elbows against my knees. Somehow, she had known that Sophie didn’t exist. She had known and had wanted me to lash out at her in front of Ariel. She had wanted him to turn against me, and she had succeeded.
“Are you okay?” my neighbor asked, sounding worried.
I removed my hands from my head and blinked a couple of times. “Yeah, I am. Sorry, I just realized that someone has been using my… um, hallucinations against me.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
33
Jennifer
“You’re absolutely sure it will work?” I asked Jordan. He and I had just finished making love in a boutique hotel in downtown Manhattan. I was lying on my back and he was next to me, propped up on his elbow, gazing down at me with love in his gaze.
He stroked hair away from my forehead. “Yes, Jen. I am 100 % sure. I told you I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes more than once.”
That was true; he had told me, using lots of detail since I had demanded it. During his many years working as a personal trainer at a chichi fitness studio here in Manhattan, he had witnessed not one, but two older men dying from heart attacks related to anthracyclines. Anthracyclines are a class of drugs used to treat leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, breast cancer, and sarcoma. While an effective cancer treatment, they are toxic for the heart, severely weakening the heart muscle. Both men who had died from heart attacks in Jordan’s studio had been taking anthracyclines, one because he had cancer and the other because his wife had been taking the drug to treat her breast cancer. He had mixed up his own meds with hers, ingesting a large dose of anthracyclines by mistake.
The former had been Jordan’s client.
Jordan leaned down to place a soft kiss on my forehead. I smiled at him, thinking about how sad it was for him that I didn’t feel as strongly for him as he did for me. I loved having sex with him and he was a great partner in crime. But he was still dispensable. If there was an autopsy of Ariel and they figured out he had ingested anthracyclines, Jordan would have to disappear. I would have to kill him and hide his body well. I could then blame Ariel’s murder solely on him. The motive would be his love for me. He’d wanted me all to himself. I had plenty of evidence that would support this theory. Plenty of evidence that Jordan was practically obsessed with me, and that he had not only gotten the anthracyclines, but that he had also given them to Ariel. I would make sure I wasn’t around when that happened so the murder couldn’t be pinned on me. I’d make sure the authorities found out that one of the men who’d died at his fitness studio had been Jordan’s client. In other words, he had intimate knowledge about the side effects of anthracyclines.