Writing on the Wall

by Jenna Rae

  Kneeling to pick up the small pile of wrappings, Lola wondered why the kitties hadn’t come to investigate. They’d probably been scared away by the noisy kids—just as well, she thought. Buttons had a habit of biting things that weren’t food and making herself sick. Queenie wouldn’t deign to engage in such silliness, but she did like to kick around anything that fell on the floor. Not to have fun, mind you, but to teach it a lesson.

  Lola smiled at their very different personalities. How could those little animals have become so important to her? Maybe it was just her loneliness, but she thought of them as having deeper thoughts than even some people. She rolled her eyes. They liked to eat and clean themselves and chase invisible prey—they were not contemplating the state of the universe. But they were good company, and she wanted to see how they would react—surely they hadn’t ever seen a Christmas tree?

  The mess cleared up, Lola started to worry that the kitties might have gotten out when the kids had brought in the tree. She’d kept an eye out, of course, but there’d been a lot of kids, and she’d been distracted. Two slinky cats could easily have slipped out in the confusion.

  “Okay, don’t panic,” she told herself, and she checked their downstairs hiding spots before heading upstairs.

  “Kitties,” she called, “kitty, kitty, kitties!” At the door to her bedroom, she stopped, mouth open to call for the cats. She was frozen in place by a bitter, metallic smell she recognized as blood. It was too dark to see, and she was suddenly sure that she did not want to turn on the light. Still, her hand fumbled toward the switch and flicked it.

  “Oh, oh, no,” she heard a faint voice cry out. She heard it whimper too. She forced herself forward even as she wondered who was making those sounds.

  “You are, Lolly,” Orrin said. “Look.” He was whispering almost tenderly. “Open your eyes and look.”

  There, in a tableau that drew the air from her lungs in a whoosh, were Buttons and Queenie. They were on the bed, lying on their backs. The cats were almost unrecognizable with their bellies sliced open. Blood was dried on and around them, and their eyes were open and unseeing. She felt her body shaking, she heard her breath rasping through her throat, she felt herself sliding into the hole, and she was gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was an alarm going off in Del’s mind, had been ever since she’d gotten home from a quick run after work. She’d called Lola and gotten no answer, and she’d been sure there was something very wrong. She unlocked Lola’s front door, glad she’d gotten a key from her, and crossed over to the radio that was perched on a pile of books. She snapped off the sounds of “Silent Night”—she shouldn’t, not really, but it was making her crazy.

  The house was very, very quiet, then, and Del uncoiled her senses and tried to read the house. Her whole body quivered with adrenaline. Her nostrils flared, her ears strained for any sound. Nothing. Nothing at all. Lola’s purse was on the entry table, keys, too. Shoulders dropped, knees soft, Del settled into a crouch. She was light on the balls of her feet, and her invisible feelers stretched out, listening, smelling and searching—for what, she couldn’t have said. A bad guy? A body?

  She felt the weight of her backup and duty weapons. She kept her hand near her waist as she checked each downstairs room, noting that all of the lights, save those on the tree, were off. Living room, clear. Kitchen, clear. Laundry room, clear. Powder room, clear. She opened the door into the garage and squatted down to look. Nothing but the car and a couple of recycling bins. She locked the door from the garage into the house and eyed the open part of the upstairs hallway. All the lights were off up there too.

  She eased up the inside edge of the stairs with sweat tracing a cold line down her back. She checked each room as she passed it. Guest bedroom, clear. Hall bath, clear. Office, clear. One room left. She slowed as she headed toward the master bedroom at the back of the house. There was something on the ground, and she tried to see it, but it was just a lump. In the dark, it could have been a blanket, a jacket, anything. A body, maybe. Lola, dead because Del was too late.

  Headlights from a passing car flashed light across the hallway, and she saw that the lump was Lola. She looked like a deflated balloon, twisted and lifeless on the floor. Del’s heart jigged in her chest. Cool it. She fought the impulse to dart forward. Was the bad guy still in there? Was Lola alive? She didn’t look it.

  She had a bad moment then. If Lola was dead, if the guy had killed her, Del wasn’t sure she could control herself, wanted to control herself. She was hoping that he was still here. Her trigger hand twitched closer to her weapon, and she forced it away. Her breath was too fast and too shallow, and her body tensed and flexed. She was losing control, losing focus.

  What if Lola was alive, and Del was standing here, hyperventilating and letting her bleed out? She’d never lost control in a crisis like that, and it shook her. She took a second to catch her breath, look around, ascertain the wisdom of moving forward. She didn’t let herself move an inch until she was sure that she could do so with calm and control.

  She pulled her weapon and crept down the hall until she was standing over Lola. When Lola inhaled, Del let out the breath she’d been holding. She was alive. Unconscious, but alive. No obvious injuries. Del looked up and saw dead animals and blood. She saw giant letters scrawled on the wall over the bed. She cleared the room, trying to take in every detail. Drawers had been opened and dumped. The closet was open and looked empty. She cleared the bathroom, then checked the victim for injuries and carried her down the stairs. She put the victim on the couch and turned on the light.

  The victim was cold and motionless and white. Breathing was shallow but regular. Del grabbed the lamp and held it close with one hand while pulling up the eyelids with the other. The pupils contracted appropriately. Del pulled the blanket off the back of the couch. She chafed the wrists and lightly slapped the cheeks.

  Finally Lola came around. She was groggy at first and seemed confused by Del’s presence. But she was Lola. She was alive, and she was herself. Then Del saw the memory hit—she must have seen the dead animals. Her eyes widened, her mouth stretched to form a giant O, and the little bit of color she’d started to regain drained in a moment.

  “I know,” murmured Del. “I’m sorry. Did you see him?”

  Lola’s mouth snapped shut, and Del watched her. Lola appeared to be okay. Shaken and disoriented, but okay.

  She shook her head.

  “Listen,” Del said, when she felt Lola’s pulse regulate and saw her eyes return to normal. “I need to know. Are you sure you didn’t see anyone? Are you hurt? Were you drugged? Did anyone hurt you?”

  Lola looked at her blankly. Then she looked down at her limbs and felt her head and face, like she was taking inventory. Finally, she shook her head.

  “I have to call it in. Do you need an ambulance?”

  Lola shook her head.

  “You sure? Huh?”

  A wordless nod.

  “Okay. Stay here. Just rest here for a minute while I make the call.”

  Lola grabbed her hand, her eyes huge and pleading.

  “I know, just give me a minute. You’ll be able to see me the whole time, okay?” Lola nodded with clear reluctance, and Del pulled her hand out of Lola’s cold fingers. She backed away, unable to tear her gaze from Lola’s eyes. They were dark with pain and fear. They burned into Del, and she couldn’t look at them and turned away.

  Del shook her head. Her emotions were running wild. She was angry and scared and worried and guilty and confused. Those eyes were killing her. What she wanted to do was take Lola in her arms and warm her and reassure her and stop her shaking. But it was work time, not friend time. She cleared her throat. She could certainly make the call right here, but she needed to get away from those eyes.

  “Just wait here.” I’m breaking my promise, she thought. She shrugged and made the call.

  She snuck a glance at Lola, who was staring off into space. Del looked away from her. She needed to do
something. She couldn’t just sit around, holding Lola’s hand.

  She got the first patrolman on scene to take Lola outside. An EMT was just pulling up, and she wanted Lola checked outside, away, somewhere else. She needed to think. She drew diagrams of the rooms. She tried not to think about Lola, about what might have happened. About how she went for a run to relax after work and was therefore gone instead of checking on Lola first thing. She watched the EMT through the window.

  Finally, the exam was done, and the EMT waved her out. He recommended a more thorough medical exam, but Lola panicked at that. At least she was talking now.

  “Del, I swear, I’m fine. Please, I really, really don’t want to go to the hospital. Please?”

  The EMT looked to Del to work her, but it was too hard to look at Lola’s scared, pleading eyes.

  Del shrugged. “I guess she’s okay, if she says so.”

  Not professional. She knew it. But it was too hard to insist on something that would upset Lola. Del wished she could go back to the person she used to be, the one who could just stop feeling things when she wanted to. But it looked like that person was gone, and seeing Lola scared and sad and lost didn’t help. It made her feel crazy inside.

  Del called Phil and explained the situation, asked if Lola could sleep in their guest room. Phil was still on the phone, hesitating, when Marco ran over, carrying a blanket. Phil groaned and hung up as Marco bundled Lola up and led her like she was a sleepwalker. Phil passed by them when he came over to ask if she thought it was the same guy who’d attacked Lola before, if it might not have been random.

  Del hesitated. “Maybe, and maybe,” she replied, worried that he’d refuse to let Lola stay.

  He eyed her with a speculative look. “Any chance he’ll come back and look for her?”

  Del waggled her hand. “I’ll be here and keeping an eye out, but, uh, you know how to shoot, right? You still have that pistol?”

  He nodded and headed back without another word. He would spend the night perched on a chair with his dad’s loaded pistol in his hand. That was obvious from his face and demeanor. Phil was a nice guy and almost a friend, but Del was more than willing to sacrifice Phil’s night of sleep for Lola’s safety.

  The night passed in a blur. A two-man forensic team covered every inch of the house, and Del took pictures, notes and statements from the neighbors. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. There were no fingerprints, no footprints outside. No obvious points of entry.

  Was it the same bad guy? What did he want? He’d been looking for something. What was he looking for? Lola had said that the guy who jumped her tried to get her inside, and Del had assumed that this was so he could hurt her in private. What if he was trying to get her inside to show him where she’d hidden something? What was Lola hiding?

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Lola met Marco at the base of the stairs, he folded her in his arms without a word. She tried to keep her cool but didn’t struggle when she started crying again. She felt like she could cry for a week and still be full of tears. But finally she pulled away with a wry smile.

  “Sorry about your shirt.”

  He shook his head. “Want some coffee?”

  Phil insisted on making breakfast for the three of them, though Lola just played with the food and gulped down a scalding cup of coffee. It was only after breakfast that she finally remembered to thank them for their hospitality.

  “I didn’t remember where I was when I woke up,” she admitted, “I don’t remember coming here.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Marco murmured, shaking his head.

  “It was so kind of you—I’m sorry for imposing like this. I swear, I’m not usually this much trouble,” Lola said.

  Phil had been using a piece of toast to sop up the last of his egg yolk, and his eyes darted to Marco’s face. Marco shook his head slightly.

  Lola put down her cup and took a deep breath. What was going on? Phil was pleasant, but she got the sense that he was unhappy with her presence. Did he not like her? Did he worry that she was bringing danger to him and Marco? She realized that whoever had killed Buttons and Queenie might not be done. He might want to hurt her, and he might be willing to hurt other people to get to her. She should never have allowed them to bring her home. What if something terrible had happened to them?

  “I should go,” she declared, standing up and ignoring her wooziness. “I have to go now.”

  They protested, of course, but she saw that Phil was relieved, and she thanked them again, resolving to send flowers or cookies or something, with a thank you note. And not put them in danger again. Marco and Phil had helped her twice now, and she’d barely acknowledged it. She needed to do something nice for Del, as well. She should already have done so.

  As she stepped through her own front door, Lola saw Del standing near the Christmas tree, just looking at it. Even from the entryway, Lola could see her weariness and worry. Had Del stayed here all night? She flushed, feeling that she should have reacted more calmly to the situation, instead of zoning out and leaving the whole mess to Del.

  “Del,” she began, “I’m so sorry. I just kind of fell apart last night. I don’t really remember too well, but I—”

  Del held up her hands. “Don’t apologize. You had every right to be upset. Did you get any sleep?”

  Lola nodded. “You?”

  Del shook her head.

  “You must be exhausted!”

  Del grimaced and shrugged. “Not my first night without sleep. I had a team dust the place and take some pics. They were pretty thorough, but I wanted to make sure. I had them sample the blood, but it’ll take forever to get it back.”

  “The blood?” Lola was confused. “You mean, like, to see if they were drugged? Maybe they didn’t feel any pain?” She heard the hope in her voice and felt childish for it.

  “Well, maybe, I guess, but...” Her voice trailed off as she saw Lola’s confusion.

  Del looked speculative and softened her expression. Lola saw her decide to do so and was struck by how transparent Del’s moods and thoughts were sometimes. She’d seemed inscrutable, at first. Was Del letting her guard down around her more, or was she getting better at reading Del?

  “Why don’t I go ahead and take your statement, now, is that all right?”

  Del’s voice had taken on the tone that Lola had learned meant she was on the job. It was professional, warm and cool at the same time. It worked, she noticed, as if from a distance. She felt calmer and more focused.

  They sat at the kitchen table for over an hour, with Del taking notes and asking Lola questions. They went over everything, and Lola was surprised to find that she remembered many small details about the day, like the name of the leader of the Christmas tree kids, and what time she’d left for the store, and what she’d eaten for lunch, and what time she’d noticed that the cats weren’t nosing around her legs like they usually did.

  She did fine until she got to the hard part, the part about going upstairs, and then she stopped talking. Del waited and said nothing. She wasn’t impatient or irritated or mad. She just waited. Lola took a deep breath and described what she’d seen on the bed as dispassionately as she could: the cats, their eyes, the blood, the bloody blankets. There was a long silence as Del looked down at her notes.

  “Okay, Lola, that’s good. You’ve done a great job.” She paused, and Lola tensed. Del’s tone was deliberately casual, and that made her nervous. “So, was there anything else in the room that caught your eye?”

  Lola frowned. She went back over the memory as though it were a photograph. She remembered smelling the blood and looking in the room and seeing them there, dead and bloody and defaced. She forced herself to linger over the memory for another minute and shook her head.

  “No,” she said finally, “I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything else.” She searched Del’s eyes, wondering what was wrong. Had she forgotten something important? Had she missed something?

  “Okay.” Del
smiled at her, and it was a professional smile.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Can we go take a look at your room? It’s not as bad as it was. Just a little empty.”

  Lola nodded, too nonplussed to do more than follow Del up the stairs.

  Her room looked foreign, somehow, not at all like the one she’d decorated so carefully and come to feel at home in. She paused for a second, wishing that the whole thing had been just a bad dream. The white mattress drew her eye, though there was no blood. Somehow the whiteness made the room ghostly. She forced her eyes away from it to find out what she’d missed.

  “Oh!” She was shocked out of her dreamy state. “Oh, my God!”

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the ugly letters defiling her pretty lavender wall. The large watercolor painting she’d chosen with such care was gone, and in its place was the word “whore.” The painted letters were huge and dark and squared off. The word looked official somehow, like she’d been tried and found guilty by some tribunal.

  “Oh,” she repeated, unable to form any more coherent response.

  It felt like Orrin was shouting that word at her, calling her that ugly name. She could hear his voice in her head. She could smell his stale breath and feel his hot, dry skin and the ropy muscle beneath it. She was hit by a wave a fear and revulsion and staggered against Del.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Del offered, but the only place to sit was the bed, and Lola never wanted to touch that thing again.

  “God, no! I mean, sorry, no, thank you. I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

  She stood swaying, her eyes skittering around the room. The dresser was a mess, the drawers upside down on the floor in a sloppy heap on top of her clothes. The closet had spilled its few shirts on the floor. A half-dozen hangers hung empty on the rod, abandoned and white in the darkness of the closet. There was the painting, the one from above the bed, propped against the wall near the closet door and ruined—slashed through.