by Jenna Rae
Her arms throbbed from when Del grabbed her and pushed her into the closet. Del was so fast! Lola barely registered the sound of glass breaking and then she was under Del, in the dark, being dragged on the floor.
The boy who looked like Curty and Donny was asking her questions, and she tried to focus. There was writing on the wall outside. Did she know what it was? Had she seen anyone? Heard anything?
Lola shook her head and fought a wave of nausea. More writing? Was it the same word? She felt vague and dreamy, a state that she was loath to leave. But Del needed to see that she was okay, she could tell, and she forced herself to snap to attention. The glass in her hand was tilting, and she leaned down to put it on the floor
That movement reminded her that her side hurt, and she looked down and saw blood all over her pajamas, all the way down one side of shirt and on the inside of her sleeve and down her pants all the way to the floor and on her sock, too. This reminded her of the kitties, of the blood and how they’d been slit open like purses, and she wondered if she could have been slit open like that and not have noticed it.
“Did I go away?”
The boy who was not Curty or Donny eyed her with wary concern.
“Did I go away?” Lola repeated the question, but then she remembered that the boy wasn’t in the closet with her. Did she go away? She didn’t think so. She had a little lost moment in the closet, but it was only a moment. And then the pain hit, and she felt woozy again. I’m falling asleep, she thought, but it was the hole. She couldn’t go away, not now, not when Del was so upset.
“I fell apart when The Creep killed Buttons and Queenie,” she explained to the young officer, who looked at her like maybe she was going around the bend. That was such a funny expression, going around the bend.
“Like it’s a road,” she said, which didn’t improve the boy’s faith in her sanity one bit, she saw that. “Which seems to suggest inevitability, doesn’t it?”
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice actually cracking, and Lola smothered a laugh. Wow, that hurt a lot, and she gasped.
“Maybe it’s more than a level two,” she explained. He didn’t know what that meant, did he? She’d come up with the code when she was a little girl, as a way to determine how serious an injury might be—levels one through five, five for an injury that could maybe kill her. It was important to know how bad an injury was.
“Because of the laws,” she said to the policeman. “Because of the bad secrets.”
“Ma’am?”
“Don’t ever,” she whispered, shaking her head, “ever call any woman ma’am, okay? I don’t care if she’s a hundred and twelve, it’s miss or miz, every time.”
“Okay, m-uh, miss.” He frowned at her, clearly unsure how to respond, and Lola realized that she wasn’t going away after all. Well, she thought, how about that? I didn’t go away. I didn’t want to, and I didn’t, so there.
When Del looked over and saw Lola bossing the rookie, she fought a smile that fell when she stepped closer.
“Holy shit, what the hell happened?” There was blood all over Lola, and Del cursed softly—how could I not have seen that, felt that?
I held her, Del thought, looking down. There were smears of drying blood on her jeans, her shirt. I didn’t even notice she was hurt. I pushed her, made her sit down on the curb like a fucking perp.
“I’m sorry,” she said, helplessly.
Lola made a face. “I forgot—it didn’t hurt until just now.”
“What do you mean?” Del was frowning at her, but Lola didn’t know how to explain it.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Del, but it was just like that. I thought it was a level two. I still think it’s a level three, at the most.”
Del couldn’t respond for a minute. What the hell does that mean? “Yeah, okay. Lift up your shirt.”
“I didn’t go away at all. I mean, I think.”
“Okay.” Del frowned at her. “Either you lift up your shirt, or I will. Which is better for you, Lola. You decide, okay?”
“I—Del, I don’t want to. Please?” Lola gave the rookie a look, and he made an exasperated noise.
“So, officer, did you notice that the victim was bleeding out, or were you too busy sitting on your ass watching me do your job?” Del didn’t bother to even look at him.
“Del!”
“What?” Del looked from the sullen rookie to the indignant, bleeding Lola. “What?”
“It’s not the boy’s fault! It’s dark in here. And I didn’t remember, or I would have said something. Be nice.” She was breathless by the end.
Del shook her head. “Yeah.”
Lola frowned. She looked a little lost.
Del barked at the rookie to call for an ambulance. She kneeled in front of Lola and pulled up her shirt, exposing a ragged, five-centimeter gash maybe two inches below the ribcage. It didn’t seem all that deep, but it was still bleeding and would need stitches, at least. The gut was a dangerous area for a laceration, and she was reluctant to do anything at all. She looked up at Lola’s face, trying to gauge her blood loss by her mental state.
“You don’t know what happened?”
Lola shook her head. She actually looked embarrassed, and Del smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way.
“Well, it doesn’t look too bad, but I bet it hurts like hell.”
“A bit.”
Del narrowed her eyes. She’d bet the farm it hurt a hell of a lot more than a bit. Lola’s breathing was shallow, her color bad. But her eyes were clear, and the bleeding was a trickle, not a flood. She stood, tucking the bottom of Lola’s shirt into the bottom band of her bra to keep it out of the way. It was a strangely intimate thing to do. She’d never have done that with any other victim, and she couldn’t meet Lola’s eyes after that. Was it inappropriate? It was practical, that was all. She knew the EMT would need to be able to access the wound. She sent the rookie upstairs to find a clean towel, snatched it from him, and pressed it firmly against the gash.
“I know it hurts, but I want to stop the bleeding.” She put Lola’s hand on the towel. “Can you hold that? Huh?”
Lola nodded.
“Well, let’s figure it out, okay? Let’s figure out how you got that cut in case you need a tetanus shot or something.” She didn’t look to see if Lola responded.
She turned on the lights and looked around. There was a small trail of blood smears leading from the living room to the closet. “I’m gonna retrace my steps, see if I can figure it out.”
Del barely had time to take a single step before saw a small flash of something shiny under the armchair the rookie had just vacated. She grabbed an evidence baggie as an automatic reflex and lifted the shiny thing. It was a Christmas ornament, a star maybe, and it was broken and bloodstained. She fished around under the chair with a pen and batted out the other half, also tinged with Lola’s blood, and put both pieces in the baggie.
“Well,” she said, turning to Lola, “this must have fallen off the tree, and when I tackled you, you must have landed on it. Sorry about that.”
Lola was smiling. “Del,” she giggled, “what are you going to do, arrest it?” She pointed at the baggie and really laughed, but that hurt.
“Oh. Oh, hmnn.” Lola pressed her lips into a thin line.
“Whoa,” Del said, leaning over and peering into her eyes. “Take it easy. Just breathe nice and easy for me. Can you do that? Just sit there for a minute and try to relax. I know it hurts, and I’m sorry, but they’ll be here in a minute. I’m gonna flag them down.”
Lola nodded, her eyes wide and dark, and Del escaped to stand in the doorway. She stood frozen, not wanting to let Lola out of her sight and not wanting to look at her. She’d never been squeamish, not ever, but looking at Lola’s soft skin and seeing how fragile it was, how that little plastic thing had torn through it so easily, was disturbing. She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want it to have happened. She glanced over and saw Lola watching her and look
ed away again. Finally, an ambulance arrived. She waved them in and stood back. Lola called out to her from the gurney.
“Del?”
“I’ll come see you in a bit, Lola. I have to stay here.” She turned away, not wanting to see the hurt and disappointment on Lola’s face. By the time she looked back, Lola’s eyes were closed. Had she fainted? Del tried to assess the blood loss. A pint, maybe a bit more? Not enough to kill her.
She called Tom Phan and begged for his help. She called Jones. She called her captain, who surprised her by authorizing a full-scale investigation. Yes, she could have a forensics team. Yes, she could have Phan as a partner. Yes, she could do whatever she needed to. Yes, this was a priority. She hung up the phone. She was relieved to finally have some support and the tools she needed, but she was shaken by the fact that Captain Wonderbread, as she privately thought of him, considered the situation dangerous enough to warrant priority status.
She wandered the house, gloved and bootied now, not sure what she was looking for. Something was off. She was missing something. Was it Lola? Was Lola playing her? It wouldn’t have been hard to scratch herself with the ornament and draw attention to her injury. Getting hurt made her seem less like a suspect. Del played through the possibility, watching the scene unfold in her mind with Lola as the bad guy: she’d have had to bring the ornament with her, in her pocket or something. She’d have had to anticipate that Del would push her down or cover her. She tried to see it, but it just wasn’t there. Am I at all objective?
No, she wasn’t. But she was pinging all over, and it wasn’t on Lola. Not right now, anyway. She let her gaze wander aimlessly over each room of the house as she made her way through it, taking it in as though she’d never been in Lola’s home before. She noted the orderliness of each room, the worn look of the furnishings. Everywhere she looked, things were neat and cozy and organized. Nothing was out of place, but it wasn’t compulsively clean, either. It was in Lola’s bathroom that she got her first major thrill of hyperawareness—something was wrong in there. She turned in a slow circle and took in every detail. The rug was slightly askew, and she resisted the urge to straighten it with her foot. The curtain was hung at an angle. Maybe Lola had tried to do it herself. Del smiled faintly. There was a large print on the wall opposite the large, mirrored medicine cabinet. A Kandinsky, bright geometrics. It too was hung slightly askew. Everything in the room that Lola had put there was a little imperfect. Somehow, that was cute. Just like everything Lola did. Del again ran her gaze over the sink, the shower, the toilet, the print, the medicine cabinet.
Something was wrong, something was off. She slowed down even more, aware of her breathing, of her stomach growling, of the sound of her bootied feet slowly rotating on the tile. There! The shadow cast by the medicine cabinet on the wall behind it was off somehow. This was an older house, and the light came from the globe in the center of the room. In a newer house, there would be lights over the mirror. Del fought her first impulse, to reach up and see what was up there. Instead, she closed her eyes for a second. What could it be?
And then she knew. It was obvious, really. What would a bad guy hide in a woman’s bathroom? A camera. Of course. She pretended to nose around in Lola’s medicine cabinet for a minute, long enough to give a surreptitious glance that confirmed her suspicion. She went from room to room again, finding a camera everywhere but in the upper hallway.
She was still considering what to do when Wonderbread called to tell her that she was off the investigation. She was both a witness and a personal friend of the victim, which made her a liability. Phan would lead, and Dominguez, a decent detective Del had worked with a few times, would be his partner. But he understood that she’d want to stay involved, which wouldn’t be a problem unless she made it one. They would move Lola to a secure location. Did she want to handle that, go with her? Del fought disappointment.
What changed his mind? She filed the question away for later. Del’s foolishness with Janet? He probably thought she and Lola were more than friends. Hell, half the department probably did. Whatever.
She shifted Lola’s purse, which she’d grabbed on the way to the patrol car, to her other shoulder. Jesus, the thing was heavy. Ugly, too. How did Lola lug this monstrosity around? And why? She got the rookie to give her a ride to the hospital. Then, halfway there, she redirected him to the station and called Phan. Would he pick up Lola? And could they talk later?
***
“Just relax, miss, we’ll take good care of you,” the man in the ambulance said, and Lola closed her eyes. He was nice, the way he smiled at her and tried not to hurt her when he put the thing on her side. He saw that the thing under her was bumping her neck, and he fixed it, smoothed it away and nodded when she smiled her thanks.
“Okay? We’ll be there in a few minutes, and you’re gonna be fine, miss.” His warm brown eyes crinkled at her, and Lola tried to smile again, but she couldn’t remember how. She was a little woozy, and the lights were too bright, and she tried not to think too much about the blood and the kitties and the way Del had looked at her like she was broken again. There was some jostling, and then she was inside, and the air was close and still.
“Wake up, Lola.”
Lola opened her eyes to see a man with piercing blue eyes staring at her. He wasn’t the man who was nice and told her to relax. This man leaned closer and closer until he was only an inch away from her. Why was he doing that? He sniffed her hair and smiled a bad smile. Fear slithered through her, and she shuddered, which hurt her side. Lola could smell his toothpaste, his shampoo and some other smell, something familiar—she frowned. Who was this man? Why did he seem familiar?
“Hello, there. You remember me, don’t you?”
It was The Creep! It was the man who attacked her and killed the cats! She tried to scream, but his hand was hard over her mouth by then. She made a small, useless noise against his palm and stared at his wide, hypnotic eyes in horror.
“I’m so glad we got this time alone together, my pretty little whore. I’ve missed you.”
She tried to bite his hand, to scoot away, to twist her head to the side, but he was impossibly strong. Every movement hurt her side, but it didn’t matter. That was a level two injury or maybe three, and this man wanted to make a level five injury, and she had to get away. She squealed and bucked uselessly.
“Knock it off!” He was angry, hissing at her. “Stupid bitch! Listen! Damn it, you stupid little slut, listen to me.”
Her head was swimming, and she grasped for clarity. She was in an ambulance, and she was strapped to the gurney, and The Creep was alone with her. Where was the nice man? The Creep put his hand on her throat, and she tried not to cry. He was very, very angry. His eyes glittered, and she tried to convince herself that he wasn’t going to kill her, that he wanted to talk to her, but her body didn’t believe it.
She flailed uselessly against the restraints and his hands. She didn’t want to go away. If she did, he would kill her. She was sure of this, and she knew with a surprising certainty that she wanted to live. She wanted to live, and she would not live if she went away. But the hole opened up, and it drew her away, and she was gone.
***
When Del finally got to the hotel just after dawn, she peered at Lola from the doorway, unsure of her reception. Lola looked shrunken, except for her wide, wide eyes. She looked drugged. Her face was white. She shivered but didn’t seem to notice it. She was staring at nothing. Thank goodness, her eyes cleared when she noticed Del. She sat up straighter, licked her lips. Was she glad to see Del, or was she bracing herself?
“How you feeling?” Del was slow in closing the distance between them. Lola might be afraid of her, might associate her with the bombing. Might blame her for being useless. Might blame her for tackling her. Might be, probably was, had every right to be hurt about how Del had pushed her away and not even noticed that she was hurt and then ignored her and let her go off in the ambulance alone. And let her get stitched up alone and got Phan to bri
ng her here.
Lola made a face. “Okay. Hurts a little.”
“I’m gonna wash up. Out in a minute.”
She took her time and stood facing the mirror without really seeing her reflection. Instead, she mentally reviewed the crime scene. The appliances were toast. The dark substance on the floor was mostly dirt and laundry detergent, but the pipe bomb had destroyed the linoleum. It looked like a nightmare in there, but there was no structural damage. There was no real damage done on the exterior, except the window and the paint, but it would be a bitch to paint over those letters. Sanding, cleaning, priming, repainting—thank God the house had been painted only months before. Otherwise the whole thing would be faded, and she’d have to paint the whole damn house to make it match. Or someone would. Lola could probably afford to hire a painter.
Del wanted to go over the house from top to bottom. How long had he been there, in the backyard? Why hadn’t the motion-activated floodlights gone off? They worked. She’d checked. Had he been able to see them in the kitchen? There was a camera in there, of course, but had he been watching? Had he seen her down two beers in a few minutes? She couldn’t drink, at least until this was over. It had been careless. Her reaction time had been slowed down, her senses dulled. She couldn’t afford to be careless like that anymore. She hoped she’d covered her discovery of the cameras well enough. She’d told Phan about them, and she was hoping maybe the two of them could come up with a way to use them against the bad guy. Maybe. It was about time she got ahead of this guy. He’d been playing with Lola. The image of a cat toying with a little mouse danced in Del’s head, and she shook it away.