Fatal Intimacies (Romantic Suspense)

by Ali, Isabelle

Garcia moved out of the way as two people from the ME’s Office placed the body on a gurney and began to haul it out. He watched until it was wheeled out of the room and turned back to Candice who was scanning the bathroom.

  “No weapon, huh?” she said.

  “No.”

  “I bet you hate these ones.”

  “Yeah.” Garcia stepped out and stared through the windows in the bedroom. He walked out to the living room and found Michelle Barlow’s purse. He put on some latex gloves and then took out her cell phone. He searched in her recent calls and then checked her messages. Under “Contacts,” there was no listing for a husband, mother or father. But there was one for “Big Sis.” Garcia took out his own phone and dialed the number.

  4

  “Yes, is this the sister for a Michelle Barlow?”

  Jessica felt a heaviness in her gut. No one ever started a conversation off that way that had good news. “Yes. This is Jessica Barlow. And who is this?”

  “Ms. Barlow, is Michelle currently residing at 56 North Street in Seattle?”

  “I think so.”

  A pause. “This is Detective Thomas Garcia with the Seattle Police Department. Are you somewhere you can come down and meet with me?”

  “I live in Texas, Detective. What’s going on?”

  Another pause. “I’m afraid your sister has passed.”

  Jessica went numb. Every part of her felt like clay and she nearly dropped the phone. Memories flooded her mind. Images of playgrounds, and schools, and dances.

  “I’m sorry,” the detective said.

  “How?”

  “She was killed.”

  “Killed how?”

  “We believe it was a homicide at this point in the investigation.”

  “By who? What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s all we have for now. Your sister was killed in her apartment by an intruder. Possibly someone she knew.”

  Jessica shook her head. “This can’t be happening.”

  “Is there anyone here that you know of that I can speak with? Friends or relatives?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Michelle in almost two years. I don’t know who she was around.”

  Jessica heard voices in the background, and the detective giving some orders. “Ms. Barlow, I’d like to call you later. Perhaps tomorrow. Would that be alright?”

  “Y—Yes, that would be fine.”

  “The Medical Examiner will call you as well regarding arrangements for the body. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  She hung up and stared at her phone like she didn’t know what it was. She placed it down on the desk. The words on the computer screen in front of her didn’t make sense right now. A pain was welling up inside of her, but it wasn’t here yet. All she felt was unbridled shock. She closed her eyes and then a thought hit her.

  That couldn’t have been a real call. It had to have been Sarah, or maybe even Michelle. She was always fighting for attention. Maybe she thought this would be funny? Jessica picked up her phone and googled the Seattle PD’s homicide division and their phone number. She dialed and asked for detective Thomas Garcia.

  “I’m sorry, Detective Garcia is out on a call. Would you like his voicemail?”

  “Um, no. Thank you.”

  She hung up. Laying her head down on the desk, she wanted to cry. To get it over with now and get all that emotion out so that it wouldn’t be inside her anymore. But she couldn’t. It just sat in her belly and in her throat and wouldn’t let go.

  Jessica rose and went out to the front room. The kids were watching some show with a dog puppet on the Disney channel. She sat next to them, staring blankly at the screen.

  5

  Jessica sat on the porch with the teacup lightly burning her fingertips. She took a sip and stared out into the street. Sarah sat next to her. To her credit, she had come over, made the tea, and sat out here with her without saying a word.

  “You’re waiting for me to talk,” Jessica said. “But I don’t have anything to say.”

  “I only met Michelle once. She was… spunky.”

  “That’s one word for it. She was reckless. She would walk into a party and strangers would give her drugs and she’d take all of them. Not one or two hits. She’d take everything that was offered to her. My parents thought she would become a junkie.”

  “Was she?”

  She shook her head and took a sip of the tea. “I don’t think so. We hadn’t talked for almost two years, so who knows for sure.”

  “Why didn’t you talk?”

  “I don’t know. It just felt like we weren’t clicking. Like we tolerated each other but we couldn’t see eye-to-eye on anything. The last time I spoke with her, we got into a fight. I don’t even remember what it was over now.”

  Sarah thought a moment and then took a deep breath. “Did you call your parents?”

  “Not yet. I don’t even know what I’m going to say to them.”

  “Tell them the truth.”

  “I don’t know the truth. I called and spoke with another detective and they asked me a bunch of questions, but they didn’t really have any information for me. They don’t know why she was killed.” She placed the tea down on the table next to her. “Do you want to know the worst part, Sarah? I know I should be devastated. She was my only sister. We should have been closer than anybody. But I don’t feel anything. I’m just numb.”

  “It’ll come. Our emotions control us, Jessica. And they work at their own pace. It’ll come when it’s ready. You loved her.”

  “I feel bad that I’m not taking this harder.”

  She placed her hand over Jessica’s. “It’ll come, trust me.” She leaned back in the seat. “So what are you gonna do? Are you going out there?”

  She shook her head. “She’s already gone. I don’t know what that would do. Besides, who would I leave Jacob and Ruth with?”

  “They can stay with me.”

  “No, foster care rules are pretty strict. They have to stay with another state approved foster family if I’m out of the state.”

  “So they’ll be fine. And I’ll check up on them. I think you need to go out there, Jess.” She rose. “I’ve gotta go. Meeting Ty at the Circle Lounge. Call me later?”

  “Sure. Thanks, Sarah.”

  When she was gone, Jessica went for a walk. The neighborhood she lived in was upscale with only a few minor drawbacks. One was the family that lived across the street from her. They were a middle aged couple that had been married too young in life. They fought at all hours and everyone in the neighborhood could hear them. The police had been called at least half a dozen times. More than once, Jessica had seen the husband being dragged out in handcuffs. Despite the black eyes and mysterious bruises, the woman never left.

  Around the corner was a small grocery store owned by an elderly man named George Ross. Jessica walked there and ambled around the store a while. She finally chose a Diet Coke and put it on her Visa.

  A memory came flooding back as she paid. As a child, she and Michelle would save their pennies. When they had enough, they would hop a fence near their apartment building and go to the grocery store next door. They would purchase strawberry milk and candy bars, as much as their money would allow, and then sit on the fence and eat them and talk.

  Jessica thought it was around fifth grade for Michelle and sixth for her; the closest they had ever been. They would talk about who they were going to marry and what boys at school were cute. Which teachers were treating them unfairly.

  And then Jessica went to middle school.

  It was only a year difference, but some sort of change happened in Michelle. When she got to middle school, she didn’t spend time with Jessica anymore. Worse, it didn’t seem like she wanted to spend time with her. She had her own group of friends, and not a group that Jessica wanted to be around. One of the girls had a tongue piercing, and Michelle had followed suit. Now, it was hardly something to be noticed. But fifteen years ago it wa
s a sign that something was wrong. Her parents had put Michelle in therapy, and after that, the rift between them and her grew so wide, it could never go back to what it was.

  As Jessica walked out of the store, she thought about the last conversation she had with her sister. She tried desperately to remember what they had fought over. As if remembering would somehow make her feel less awful about it.

  But the memory just wouldn’t come.

  6

  As Thomas Garcia closed the file on his desk, a sense of achievement flowed through him in a way he hadn’t felt for years. The suspect was in the interrogation room and the arrest was about to be made.

  The case had been an old one. Two men got into an argument outside of a strip club in downtown Seattle. One of the strippers, named Diamond, had apparently been dating one of the men and sleeping with the other.

  But Diamond, unfortunately, had been shot when her lover pulled out a firearm and let off six rounds. Killing her and her boyfriend. That left no witnesses, and a case that grew so cold, every detective that caught it thought to put it in the open-unsolved drawers in the basement.

  It wasn’t until Garcia followed up on the case that they had their big break. Though the initial investigators had interviewed everyone at the club, they didn’t interview everyone that had been there that night. Garcia painstakingly went through the club’s credit card receipts at the bar and found one for near the time of the murder. When he followed up and went to the man’s house, he admitted that he had been in his car, with one of the strippers, and had seen the shooting but was too frightened to come forward. He gave them an excellent description, which led to a composite sketch pasted on every news channel for a night.

  Using the sketch, the man’s own brother turned him in for the five thousand dollar reward money.

  And now, after six hours of interrogation, the suspect had gone through in detail the night of the murder. Though he claimed it was in self defense. But that didn’t matter. Something for the lawyers to fight over. Garcia had gotten his collar.

  As Garcia rose from his desk and grabbed his suit coat to head home, three uniforms walked by. They stopped and clapped, hooting obscenities. He nodded, smiled, and said, “Thank you.” He hoped he wasn’t blushing.

  Out in the parking lot, he climbed into his black Mercedes S Class and headed home.

  Home was nothing more than a condo, but it was a condo overlooking Puget Sound. An inlet of the Pacific, Puget Sound had the appearance of a large lake with all the benefits of an ocean. Including the mournful cries of humpback whales, which Garcia listened to late into the night several times a year.

  But he didn’t feel like being alone right now. Stopping at a red light, he picked up his phone from the passenger seat and texted his fiancée, Miriam.

  Can i come over?

  Aren’t we hanging out tomorrow?

  Garcia hesitated a moment. Yeah, nevermind

  No, it’s fine. Come over

  The drive to Sandy Hill was long. Garcia had his window down and listened to jazz on his phone connected to the car stereo. The air was salty from the ocean wind blowing in and the city glowed like a gem in his rearview mirror as he climbed the hill to Miriam’s house.

  The house was really a mansion. A gift from wealthy parents for Miriam’s graduation from Harvard. She had always wanted to live in Seattle, and her mother’s company owned several salons out here. They’d met one day at the mayor’s house. A mixer for some charity that rang fake to Garcia. But the mayor was a personal friend. A former cop that had been there when Garcia needed him. So he’d went and Miriam had been the center of attention in a $4000 Donna Karen dress. His own black suit with white button down shirt suddenly didn’t look as glamorous that night.

  Garcia stopped in front of the house on the gravel driveway that looped around the porch and went back out onto the street. He walked to the portico and rang the bell. Miriam answered, dressed in her workout clothes.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  He walked in and pecked her on the cheek. She turned and headed through the atrium and front room.

  “Make yourself at home,” she shouted. “Be out soon.”

  “Okay.”

  With his hands in his pockets, his strolled around the mansion. Several works of art were up on the walls and a suit of armor from the Middle Ages sat in a corner. Something her father had given her for no particular reason that Garcia could discern.

  He sat on a leather couch and tapped his fingers on the armrest. A good twenty minutes went by before he rose and followed Miriam back.

  She had an exercise room packed with top of the line equipment. She sat on a bike and peddled with earbuds in her ears. He walked to her and she noticed him and took one of the earbuds out.

  “I’ll be done soon. You know I need my workouts.”

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing to the mirrored walls. “I just didn’t want to be alone right now.” A long pause. The emptiness was filled with the metallic whirling of the bike. “I closed a big case today.”

  “That’s nice,” she said, toweling her neck.

  “Yeah, it was that one at the strip club that everyone thought was a dead case.”

  She didn’t reply, and instead placed her hands on the front bars and ducked her head low. “Sweetie, I really need to concentrate.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  Garcia walked to the front room, hesitated a few seconds, and then left the house. He got into his car and drove back along the coast to Puget Sound, taking the scenic route.

  When he got home, he poured himself a glass of wine and sat out on his balcony. The condo was two bedrooms and modern looking with white carpets and plenty of light, but the view was why he had purchased it.

  Puget Sound appeared still as glass. It’d been several days without rain or winds and the waters had calmed. Out in the distance, he could see the twinkling lights of a ship as the sun sank behind the mountains.

  He exhaled loudly, and took a drink.

  7

  Jessica could see her sister on the precipice of a cliff. The sky was crimson and there was no sound, but her sister was saying something to her. She looked as sweet and innocent as the last time Jessica had seen her. No piercings, tattoos or scar art. She reached out for her and Jessica tried to grab her hand, but Michelle tipped backward and fell.

  Jessica screamed.

  She jolted awake, her shirt clinging to her with sweat. Her surroundings looked unfamiliar a moment, and, slowly, her bed, her closet and laptop that lay next to her came into focus. She was in her room, in her house.

  She put her face in her hands, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. The clock on her nightstand said 4:56 a.m.

  Convinced she wasn’t getting back to sleep, she rose and changed into her workout clothes. After a drink of water, she headed outside.

  The Austin sky was black as coal and the air was cool. But the chill rejuvenated her. It gave her goosebumps and she stood still a moment and enjoyed it.

  When she finally did start her run, she thought back to her dream. She could still see her sister’s face. Her lips were moving, trying to tell her something. But no words came. Behind her was a great expanse of lifeless desert. A red sky above that gave everything a cherry tint.

  Jessica was halfway around the block when her guts felt like they were in knots, squeezed together tightly by a fist. Her entire body lost the will to move and she slowed, and then stopped. Staring down the road that led into the city. The warmth of tears caressing her cheeks was the first thing she felt. She didn’t know what it was and had to reach up and touch them. She felt nothing a while… and then everything tumbled out.

  Her knees felt weak. Her hands were trembling. She sat down and leaned against a fence. The tears came and she began to sob. She saw her sister again. This time at a wedding that was never going to happen. In a delivery room that wouldn’t be filled with the cries of her children. She saw long conversations they were supposed to
have as they grew older. Complaining about husbands they both loved dearly.

  She saw an entire life that would never come into existence.

  Jessica wasn’t sure how long she sat there and cried, but when it was over, she rose and went back to the house. After a quick shower, she sat in the front room and read until the kids were awake.

  “Guys, before you grab breakfast, can you come in here please?”

  Ruth ran right in and sat next to her on the couch. Jacob got a bowl of cereal first and then plodded in as if he were about to be asked to do chores.

  “I have to leave for a little bit.”

  The two children looked to each other. Jacob was the first to speak. “Where you going?”

  “Seattle. I won’t be gone long. I had a sister that you guys never met. She’s passed away and I need to tie up a few things there.”

  “Passed away?” Ruth asked innocently.

  Jessica hesitated. “She’s not with us anymore. She’s in heaven.”

  “But, when are you coming back?”

  “As soon as I can.”

  “But, you said you would never leave us. You said you would never leave.”

  The young girl’s face was contorting with emotion. Jessica put an arm around her and kissed her head. “And I never will leave you. I’m only going to be gone a short while. I promise.”

  Jacob said, “Where we going to stay?”

  “They’ll have another house near here and Aunt Sarah is going to check up on you. And I’ll call you everyday. I’m hoping to be gone a week at the most.”

  Ruth began to cry. The type of child’s cry that sounds like they can’t breathe. Jessica pressed the little body against hers. Jacob’s brow furrowed as he watched.

  “Guys, I will be back. I promise you. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Okay,” Ruth said, out of breath.

  They sat in the living room a little while longer, and then Jacob went into the kitchen. Eventually, Ruth gave her a kiss on the cheek and went downstairs to her room.