Lotus Effect

by Trisha Wolfe

  “You made this happen,” Drew says, disgust evident on his shadowed face. “You were always so jealous of Chelsea, fearful of her stealing me away. You manifested your own fear. And when it came true, you did the most unoriginal thing.” He scoffs. “Got knocked up. To keep us together. To trap me. To ruin me. I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

  Still the psych professor. Still trying to teach me about myself. I look down, stare at the dark water lapping between the slats.

  A flash of my dream. A glimpse into the past. My vision tunnels as his words generate a sensation, an image. Fear encases me as the sharp slash of a razor-sharp blade tears into my flesh. Red stains my skin.

  I blink the memory away, trying to stay in the present. “You attacked me,” I say. “Right here. On the dock.” I touch my unbandaged hand to my stomach, the pain alive and real.

  Drew’s beautiful face draws together in anger. “You forced me, Cynthia. You wouldn’t listen to reason when it came to—” He breaks off, turns his head away. “My intent wasn’t to end your life.”

  But my death was the result, and he felt no remorse.

  The way he feels none now.

  I sense Torrance moving closer. “It was astonishing,” he says. “See, when Cam changed her mind and didn’t follow me home, I remembered you were here. I came back.” He pulls my hair loose of the bun, strokes the strands. “I’d never witnessed anything so passionate. I was in awe. All my life, I felt this hollow, empty void. This lack of emotion that I hid from the world. Nothing made me feel…until I saw the beautiful, violent dance between you and Drew.”

  I cringe away from his touch. “You hide well.”

  “It’s a learned skill.”

  All my training, all Rhys’s training, and we both missed the clues. Torrance is a psychopath. Lack of empathy did more than allow him to watch my brutal murder; it fostered something dark and deviant inside him. Ignited a sick desire.

  Torrance wouldn’t rescue me from the lake. He’s not built that way. “You left me to drown,” I say, piecing the night together. “Then what? You went home and jerked off?”

  His laugh is callous. “Well, yes. But first I cleaned up the scene. I understood enough to know that Drew’s crime was one of passion. He left behind the murder weapon”—he prods the tip of the knife between my shoulder blades—“so I hosed down the dock. I made sure my source, should I ever need anything in the future, would be safe.”

  That’s why there was no DNA or any evidence to test, and how Drew made it back in time to be with Cam. “Why did you do it?”

  “To torment me,” Drew answers. He pulls out a crumpled wad of letters.

  “Blackmail?” I ask, appalled. It seems so petty, to have suffered these years for something so inconsequential as money.

  “No.” Torrance steps forward, his shadow looming in the moonlight. Those shallow, dark pools stare right through me. “He had answers. I wanted to know what he felt when he first thrust the knife into your belly. Gutting you like a fish. And when that wasn’t enough, stabbed and raked the blade over your chest, mutilating someone that he once loved.”

  Ripping the letters in half, Drew shreds them into small pieces, then tosses them into the lake. Torrance sent the note to me, I realize. He’d been playing some twisted game, stalking both killer and victim.

  “Are we done yet?” Drew says. “Let’s get this over with.”

  My gaze flits between the men. Adrenaline mounting. I take a step away, and Torrance raises the knife.

  “Patience,” he says, watching the moonlight glint across the weapon. “You know, I tried not to be this way. I resisted the urges. I relived that moment in my mind, never acting on it. Until Agent Nolan showed up. His probing questions ignited that spark all over again…and I just had to know what it felt like for myself. I thought Jo would be perfect, then I waited for the right moment. Once I was confident I could pull it off, I finally did it.” His handsome features mutate into a lethal scowl. “But it was lacking. It wasn’t even close to that first time.”

  Fear still clawing internally, I lift my chin in a show of bravado. Now this, I understand. “You experienced a first kill vicariously. As a voyeur. A killer never gets that first experience back. It’s a never-ending chase for a high, like a drug addict.”

  A haunted void fills his dark gaze. “Jo was supposed to be perfect. I memorized everything… But do you know how hard it is to actually replicate a murder? TV makes copycat killings look so easy. It’s not. Fighting the victim…wounds inflicted in the wrong places. It’s fucking hard.”

  I swallow, sending the acrid taste of bile into my bowels. He killed Joanna. So senselessly. He tried to replicate Drew’s attack…his murder…and he’s flippantly comparing the act to television. His voice is passive. Unaffected. His act of violence an afterthought.

  I glance between them, pulse slamming my arteries. I have to keep them talking, find a way out. “Which one of you killed Cam?”

  “I tried again,” Torrance admits. “But her body—” He shakes his head. “She wasn’t right. The baby was too far along. Drew kept whining.”

  My gaze snaps to him. He was a part of her violent end. He helped take her life, take her away from her child and family. “You’re weak. Pathetic,” I say. “A disgusting narcissist.”

  “It was a necessity,” Drew says. “She could implicate me. She had to know if she ever said anything… She shouldn’t have met with you. But I made sure her baby would be all right. I called 9-1-1 from her house.”

  Filmy acid roils my stomach. How can he justify taking Cam’s life? The same way he justified killing me?

  “And we needed to practice.” Torrance circles me, and dread flares in my veins. “So we could get it right this time.”

  “You lured me here.”

  “For a reenactment,” Torrance confirms. “It’s what’s missing. We need an ending.”

  Fear cramps my muscles, every fiber of my being screaming to run.

  Torrance holds out the hilt of the knife in Drew’s direction. “The knife I used to cut Cam’s limes that night. Ironic, isn’t it? That Andrew here would choose this one from the bar.”

  “What’s to stop me from using it on you?” Drew asks.

  Torrance scowls. “Because you want the investigation to go away. You want your victim to stop dredging up the past. So that you and your wife can live your cozy little, white picket-fence life. So that you can finally be free.”

  “You’ll never be free of this, Drew,” I say. “My partner will piece it together. Agent Nolan won’t stop until he proves it was you and you’re locked away. Freedom gone.”

  Drew accepts the weapon. “Like hell I won’t be free.”

  Everything happens fast then. I try to dart past Torrance. His long arms surround me. He grabs my waist and hauls me around to face Drew. He locks my arms behind my head, holding me in place.

  “This way,” Torrance says, breathless, “I get the perfect view.”

  I struggle against his hold, my feet kicking out at Drew. I can feel Torrance’s excitement against my back as Drew raises the knife.

  “In a way, we’re doing this for you, Cynthia.” Torrance locks his arms tighter, an iron-clad grip. “Do you really want to live in a world where every single person in your life betrayed you? Do you want to keep running? What kind of life is that?”

  My chest engulfs in flames, my breaths sawing my lungs like the sharp blade in Drew’s hand. He’s watching me, marking his moment to strike. “Don’t, Drew. You don’t have to do this. Not like last time…”

  Time folds. I tunnel through a wave. A moonless night. Blackness all around. The crickets and frogs. Drew on the dock. Coming toward me. A rising bubble of hope that he’d come to talk, to work things out…before I see the hatred marring his handsome features. Then the blood-stained lotus in the water…

  As I blink into the present, a serene calm washes over me. “Who planted the lotuses at Joanna’s crime scene?”

  This stops Dre
w’s advance. “What?”

  Torrance forces me forward. “She’s stalling. Do it, Andrew. Finish what you started.”

  I close my eyes. I don’t believe in the supernatural. I don’t believe in premonitions or ghosts, or victims reaching out from beyond the grave. We can spend our whole life searching for meaning, for a sign, and in the end, the only answer to life is to live.

  During our partnership, Rhys made sure I knew more than the basics of self-defense. He never considered me a victim, and he made sure I’d never be one again.

  Drew arcs the knife in the air and bites his lip in concentration. He thrusts the blade into my stomach, and pain lights up my nervous system. A scream wrenched from the bottom of my lungs imbues the early morning air. As the weapon is yanked free, Torrance covers my mouth.

  “Again!” Torrance shouts.

  The silver blade glistens with my blood. I try to latch on to a thought—a plan. In his attempt to silence me, Torrance freed my arm. I grip the coin roll and, mustering every ounce of strength, I throw my body into the swing and strike his face.

  He curses. The distraction is enough to free myself. I wriggle loose of his arms and fall to the dock. Vomit claws up my throat, the piercing pain in my abdomen beginning to throb. My heart pulses in my ears, my vision wavers.

  No. I’ve been through worse. I’ve survived worse.

  Drew doesn’t hesitate; he barrels toward me. I manage to roll out of his reach. The knife strikes the dock, the blade wedged between the planks. Just enough time…I wrestle the handcuffs from my pocket.

  Torrance didn’t think they were a weapon. Something to laugh off like the wrapped coin roll. I use them now. I clutch my fingers around the curved steel and make a fist, then aim for Drew’s face. My knuckles blaze with the force of impact.

  “Oh my, God.” I breathe through the pain as I click the cuffs open.

  Drew holds his face, covering the red gash on his cheek. “You bitch.”

  From my peripheral, I see Torrance coming my way. As he goes for my legs, I let him seize me, drag me backward. Then I rear up and latch one cuff around his wrist.

  The sky is becoming a gray-blue backdrop as morning peaks against the horizon.

  With the breaking light, I fight against Drew as he dives on top of me. He forces my back to the dock. Torrance mounts my shoulders. Drew’s hands slide around my neck, and a blind moment of panic snares me as I realize—if I let this happen—they’ll finally kill me.

  I secure the other cuff to Drew’s wrist, locking him and Torrance together.

  In the distance, a siren sounds. The noise cracks against the morning, a splintering echo from my dream.

  “Fuck.” Torrance releases my shoulders and yanks against the handcuff.

  Drew fights back, dragging his accomplice across the dock. They both lunge for the knife.

  I use the forgotten moment to inch backward. I scuttle away from the carnage, a red slash of blood in my wake as I escape.

  I watch Drew punch Torrance, and Torrance retaliate with an elbow to Drew’s nose. Blood spurts against the gray sky. But it’s Torrance who retrieves the knife. Fear petrifies my limbs and I stop, frozen. Trying to be unseen. But Torrance doesn’t advance on me.

  Horror webs through me as Torrance slashes the knife downward—again and again—severing Drew’s hand at the wrist. Drew releases a primal wail that rends the air. Torrance kicks away from Drew, and the bloody, severed hand.

  I’m cold, my blood drained, as Torrance stands and walks toward me, knife held at his thigh.

  He stands over me. And I know this is the end. All the fight evaporates, and I suddenly become accepting. I love Rhys. I got to be with him once and to finally understand what it means to be truly loved in return. I found my answers. I can let go.

  The whoop whoop of a police siren smashes through the hollow morning, compelling Torrance to look up. He must decide that my demise isn’t worth what precious time he might have left to escape.

  “Maybe next time,” he says, sending the blade into my arm.

  A flesh wound. A taunt.

  Torrance flees the pier, leaving me behind.

  It’s over.

  I rip the bandage of coins from my hand and toss it aside.

  I lay my head back against the wooden planks of the dock. I let the pain grow and ebb as the lake laps against the posts.

  I breathe and stare at the sky, watching the dark clouds roll across, and then he’s towering from above.

  “You slutty, little bitch. You don’t get to take everything from me.”

  Drew descends on me, tearing the knife from my flesh with his good hand. I raise my arms to block his attack as he slashes, splitting my skin, my arms becoming bathed in dark-red.

  I try to claw at his face, but I’m fighting blind as blood leaks into my eyes. Then the bite of cold water stings my body.

  We fall into the lake. The murky water swallows me.

  30

  That Night

  Lakin: Then

  I’m seated at the end of the dock, my feet dangling over the edge. I thought about laying down right there, just giving up, forgetting about Drew and Chelsea and the baby…

  I wanted the silent night to swallow me.

  Footsteps sounded on the dock. A slow, hollow thud against the planks.

  I quickly got to my feet and turned, recognition slamming into me full force.

  “Drew?”

  Elation fluttered in my chest, until I remembered the last thing he said to me during our fight.

  Should’ve never fucked you.

  I swallowed the ache as he slowly approached. “Why are you here?”

  “Do you know how embarrassing it is to have the cops escort you home?”

  “Drew…” My eyes closed for a brief moment. “I’m tired. I’m just too tired to do this again.” I stuffed my hands into my hoodie pockets and started toward the other side.

  I made it a few feet from him, deciding to hurriedly sidestep, when I glimpsed the knife in his hand. Shock snatched my breath. Ice-cold fear prickled my skin.

  “We’re not done yet,” he said. His breath wreaked of alcohol. He tapped the flat of the blade against his jean-clad thigh. “What do you plan to do about the baby, Cynthia?”

  I stepped backward. I’d never feared Drew…not in this sense. But there was something off in his voice. He wasn’t himself, the way he kept tapping the knife. Even when we were shouting in each other’s faces, a glass vase thrown against the wall. Shards spraying, fists hitting walls… I didn’t fear he’d physically harm me.

  “Stop, Drew. You’re drunk.”

  “We can be together,” he said, ignoring me, advancing. Knife tapping. “I just can’t have a baby ruin my life.”

  I shook my head slowly. “So, you want me to get rid of it and then we’ll live happily ever after?”

  “It makes more sense than trying to raise a child no one wants, doesn’t it?”

  “And what about Chelsea?”

  “She’s nothing to me.”

  “I saw you. The way you looked at her…” I tried to force the image away, the memory still painful. Me walking up to his door. Her answering. Them together. I went to tell Drew about the baby, and instead I came face-to-face with my nightmare. “How could you make me feel like I was the crazy one? Like I was imagining things?”

  “So you won’t get rid of it?”

  I felt as if I’d been slapped. “No, Drew. I’m not just getting rid of it. This is my body. My choice.” Anger surging, I forgot the knife as stormed forward, needing to escape.

  Drew blocked me. “I’m not much for philosophy, but Wittgenstein was pretty brilliant when he said: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

  Confusion twisted inside me, and then a terrifying reality shattered my world as Drew planted the knife in my belly.

  31

  Of Past and Present

  Lakin: Now

  The memory bursts. Cold water tunnels down my throat as I rel
ease a muffled scream beneath the black water. Thick stalks tangle my arms, my hands moving too slowly through the water to clear a path.

  A sudden, sharp pain brings me back. Drew lances my side with the knife again. And I’m awake. The dream-like trance forgotten as I claw at his arm underwater, desperate for air.

  Blood clouds the water, obscuring my vision further. I feel the blade swipe my shoulder, and I grab hold of Drew’s forearm. Our eyes lock. Through the murky lake water and the red haze of our mingled blood, I sense our bodies sinking.

  He attempts to thrust the knife at my chest, but I have both hands anchored to his arm, the struggle twisting us farther down into the lotus stems. I kick out and plant my foot against his stomach. He tries to use his other arm to dislodge me—but he’s without a hand, the wound too new and shocking for him to use to his advantage.

  His face twists in rage, and finally he drops the knife. I watch it drift down, becoming lost, before the severe grip around my throat steals my senses. Panic flares, and I gulp down lake water in an effort to scream, my temples pulsing with pressure as my vision darkens.

  Teeth gritted, Drew clamps my throat, squeezing my windpipe. I latch on to his hand, my fingernails digging into his skin, as I rake for freedom. Then Drew presses his lips to mine, stealing the last of my breath. The kiss of death.

  I’m submerged beneath the overpowering fear of it.

  I’ve died before.

  I can feel death’s oily tentacles winding around my body.

  My feet touch the bottom of the lake. And just as my eyes close, a cold and calm peace settling over me, Drew releases my neck. He kicks off the floor, his body propelled upward.

  I’m not dying.

  I grab hold of the lotus stalk snarling my arm and loop it around his leg. Halted, Drew panics, bubbles frothing from his open mouth. My chest burns with the need for air as I watch Drew struggle uselessly against the lotuses.

  I remember…the feel of the coarse stalks tugging at my hair. My hands frantically searching for a way out of the underwater maze of vines and darkness.