by Jaye Maiman
I felt her hand on my knee. With an exaggerated Southern accent, she said, “Are you breaking up with me, or proposing?” Her tone was teasing. A little snort of disbelief escaped from me. How ironic. K.T. was resorting to humor to defuse the moment, a tactic I’d turned to a thousand times in the past.
“K.T., I’m serious. If you want to bolt, do so now.”
Her features hardened. “You’re serious.” She shoved the plate aside and scraped her stool closer to mine. “Do you want me to leave? Is that it?”
Geeja appeared suddenly and leapt onto my lap. The cat had an uncanny sense of timing. I rubbed her under the neck and smiled sadly. Without raising my eyes, I said, “I want you to do whatever you need to do. But if you are going to leave, for heaven’s sake, do it now.”
She sucked in her breath abruptly. “You’re scared.”
I didn’t correct her.
“Of what? Is this still about parenting? Is that it? Are you freaked out about being with me when I start up again?” She pushed herself to her feet and started pacing, talking more to herself than to me. “Of course. This time, you couldn’t pretend to be a third party. Neither of us could. You’d have to be a real partner, not an innocent victim of my maternal urge—”
I stood abruptly and seized her gently but firmly by the shoulders. “K.T., stop. This is not about having a baby.”
Her gaze drilled into mine. The disbelief in her eyes was almost palpable. A tremor exploded in my belly. “You want the cold, hard truth? I’m sorry you lost the baby, but ever since you did I’ve had this inexplicable noise in my head. Parenting is absolute insanity. Look what it’s done to Beth and Dinah—”
“So that’s it—”
“No! No, that’s not it.” I tried to control my voice. “I don’t know why I feel this—it’s like some alien has possessed my mind—but I keep thinking…Oh boy.” My next words made me shake my head in astonishment. “Maybe this was fate. So that you and I could do this together. So that I could be a real parent with you.” My eyes brimmed. “So the baby could be ours.”
K.T.’s lips parted and the hard glaze that had coated her eyes these past few hours cracked like a sheet of caramelized sugar. They turned warm and liquid. “Oh, Robin, if I could believe that—”
I laughed through my tears. “Believe it. If there’s one thing I wouldn’t lie about, it’s this.” My hands dropped. “But that’s why I need to know. You haven’t been real pleased with me lately, not that I blame you, so—”
She stepped into me, shushed me with her lips. The taste of her mouth was intoxicating. I pressed her against me, kissed her with an urgency that shook me to my toes. All of a sudden, she jumped backward. I cursed myself. She’d felt the gun.
Moment of truth. I raised my shirt, revealing the butt of the gun. “This is a part of my life, K.T.,” I said, raising my chin. “I don’t enjoy my work, but I am proud of it. You’re right, I can’t save the world, I can’t make up for killing my sister, but I can help make a small difference to a handful of people who are suffering grief you cannot even begin to imagine. At times, I can even bring peace to people who’ve lost their loved ones to unthinkable crimes. I want to do that for Ryan.”
A delicate fingertip reached for the gun. She touched the metal and shivered. Then, all at once, she tugged it from my pants and slipped it into the knife drawer. “Let’s go upstairs, Robin.”
She quieted my question with a butterfly flutter of her fingertip along my lips, then led me up to the bedroom. K.T. insisted on undressing me slowly, gazing at me intensely all the time, pausing to lick the side of my neck, a shoulder blade, the mound of my breast along the line of the bra. Her touch was at once tentative and insistent. When I tried to touch her, she shook her head and gathered my hands by the wrists and held them tight against my belly. Then she finished stripping me, the only sound in the room the sigh and intake of our breathing.
Friday, May 7
I don’t remember for how many hours she made love to me, only that at the end, my body was limp, my legs quivering. We’d curled against each other, her mouth buried in my hair, and wept. Sleep, when it came, was a dark, still night without stars or demons. The respite lasted until shortly before dawn.
The phone jolted us apart. My arm instantly sprang across her body. “Hello.” My heart raced.
Silence on the other end alerted me to trouble. I crawled over K.T. and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Who is this?”
“You should learn to mind your business.” The voice was muffled, disguised.
“Chamelle?” I demanded.
A taut laugh. It echoed inside my head. “Things could get nasty.” There was something strange about the voice. I struggled to identify what was wrong. “Do you know who I am?” the caller asked teasingly.
K.T. was sitting bolt upright, the sheets tucked tightly under her arms. Terror gleamed in her eyes. I mouthed, “Get dressed now,” then reached for my pants and said, “I have an idea.”
“Do you know why I kill?” Curiosity and disdain curdled the voice.
My hands shook so hard, I couldn’t find the tag of the zipper. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“I don’t kill at random. I’m not a butcher. For each death, there’s a reason, an action of and for the gods, who watch and exact payment. Enough said. Know my warning’s real. Tonight someone in your house will die—” My gaze snapped to K.T., who was frantically buttoning her blouse. “Tomorrow, if you don’t heed this call, you will follow.”
“I swear, if you hurt anyone I love—”
“Are you about to threaten me? Don’t. And if you think the police can help you, think again. If you contact them, I will know, and you will have signed your own death sentence.” Another laugh, this one louder. And then I realized what had disturbed me about the voice. The sound was stereophonic, coming not only from the phone, but also trailing in through the open door of my bedroom.
The killer was in my home.
Chapter Thirteen
The first thing I thought was, the gun is downstairs. I almost laughed. Then I noticed K.T. huddled in the corner, hugging herself, waiting for me to say or do something. One look at her eyes and I knew she’d located the voice at the same instant I had.
I hit the plunger on the phone, but the killer had kept the line open. As long as he hung on, I couldn’t dial out. I slammed the phone onto the bed and grabbed K.T. by the elbow. There was a rattle downstairs, as if drawers were being opened and closed in rapid succession. A thud sounded on the stairs and we both started. All of a sudden, Mallomar darted into the room and slithered under the bed. At almost the same moment, my black cat Geeja leapt from the dresser, her body growing like a blowfish on a line. She tore between my legs and darted for the steps before I could grab her.
I closed the door, bumped the dresser against the door with my hip and told K.T. to open the window. She stood there, her brow drawn with fear and confusion, clearly uncertain of what to do. I didn’t blame her. The fire escape fronted the building and we were four stories up. Whoever was downstairs would expect us to take the single and most obvious escape route available. It was the last thing I intended to do. I forced myself to be calm.
“Okay, baby, we’re going out the window. There’s a drainpipe off to the left and the corner’s constructed with stepped brownstones. I want you to go first. As soon as you get close to the yard, jump and scream at the top of your lungs. The picnic table is in the far left corner, remember?” She was squeezing my hand so hard, I winced. “Honey, please, go!”
She rested one hand on the sill, the other on her belly. I knew she must still be sore, but she glanced at me only once and as soon as I nodded, she swung out the window. I reached out and pressed my palm to the pipe. A fine rain had begun to fall, making the pipe slick. K.T. was struggling to retain her grip. Resting my full weight on my hands, I leaned out the window as far as possible to monitor her progress, listening with dread to the clang of K.T.’s hands slapping along the metal. I darted t
o the bed, ripped off the bedding and pillows, then tossed them to the ground below her. I prayed the pipe would hold for her, that the killer wouldn’t think we’d take this way out. And then the image of Carol sprang to my mind. Bile spirted into my throat. We weren’t the only ones at risk.
A faint creak sounded behind me. He was on the stairs now. I couldn’t wait anymore. I hoisted myself through the window, poised to swing over to the corner. I wanted K.T. to get closer to the ground before I added my weight to the pipe, but I was aching to latch onto the pipe. She was perched about fifteen feet from the yard when the window below me squeaked, sweeping open with force. I glanced down, shocked.
Beth stuck out her head, saw K.T. and blurted, “Oh, my God!”
I shouted, “Get everyone out of the house now! Now!” Beth’s attention snapped up toward me, then back to K.T. “Beth,” I warned in a tone she had to remember from the last time I’d plunged her into my nightmare world. “Now!” She disappeared and K.T. leapt off the drainpipe. I watched her arms flail and then she hit the ground, her feet sliding out from under her. She lay there, curled like an S, still and unmoving.
A knock came on the door. Almost polite. The rap of a room service attendant, not a homicidal maniac. I heard my name whispered in an insane muffle and I howled wildly as I vaulted for the drainpipe. The stress of K.T.’s descent had weakened the joints. A metallic pop rang in my ear and I half fell, half slid down the pipe, my feet scrambling for a foothold. I was two-thirds down when the pipe ripped out of the foundation. I fell in slow motion, time enough to hear the crash in my bedroom, to hear the sounds of Beth, Dinah and Carol scrambling through the back door. Then the world flickered and disappeared.
* * *
My fingers curled into grass wet with dew. I groaned and shifted my weight to one side. Something pinned my feet in place and I kicked them free. The linens I’d thrown had somehow tangled around my ankles. The smell of disturbed earth wormed into my nostrils and made me sneeze. I blinked, saw nothing but green mist, then blinked again. Slowly, my eyes focused. I was still in my back yard. Almost instantly, I patted myself down, expecting the warm stickiness of blood. My clothes were damp, but I found no wounds. After another minute, I propped myself up onto my elbows. No one else was near me. Not even K.T.’s prone body. My chest tightened.
Spinning onto my bruised knees, I surveyed the yard, searched the grass for footprints, then whirled around. The door leading to the second floor of Carol and Dinah’s apartment had slammed shut suddenly. Had he dragged K.T. inside? The thought coursed through me like wildfire. I ran toward the shed, crashed inside and grabbed the first weapon I found. A hacksaw I’d used to trim the metal fence surrounding the yard. Wielding it in my hand like a bayonet, I tiptoed up the metal stairs, then turned the knob as slowly as possible. It was still unlocked. I sidled through the narrow doorway and gulped for air. To my ears, my ragged breath whined like the engines on a plane positioned for take-off.
A cold, gray sunlight poured into the small room Beth used as a study. Nowhere to hide in here, except the closet on the far wall. With a sinking gut, I noticed the door was slightly ajar. I edged it open with the point of the saw. Empty. A burst of relief ripped air from my lungs. With my eyes fixed on the doorway, I backed up and tried the desk phone. Dead silence. The killer must’ve cut the wires in the basement. For an instant, the prospect of searching not only the four floors of the brownstone, but also the musty shadows of the basement, overwhelmed me. Then I thought of K.T. and gritted my teeth.
I two-handed the saw and tiptoed into the hall. To the left was Dinah and Beth’s bedroom. Or at least it had been. I glanced inside. The bed was unmade on one side. Tortoise-like, I crept through the apartment, noting dully that someone had slept on the couch I’d given Dinah years ago. Nothing had been disturbed. Except for the gallery of photographs that had lined the living room wall. All of them had been removed, leaving ghostly squares on the wall, places where a shared life had once been celebrated. This defacement was not the killer’s work. I exited the apartment into the shared entry hall, sniffed something vile and base in the air. A grim realization stung me. The killer had returned to my home.
The stairs creaked under my feet. From above, I heard the patter of feet, as light as rain on the window, then a shriek pierced the air. Damning caution, I flew up the steps, ready to spear the saw at my assailant. The door thundered as I barreled through, taking in at a glance the smear of blood on the kitchen counter. I surveyed the room frantically. Mallomar was curled in a ball under the rocking chair, trembling violently, a willow on the edge of a tornado. Storming into the kitchen, a knot stone-hard in my throat, I retrieved the gun from the drawer where K.T. had placed it earlier. Before we made love. Before the world turned darker than shadows. A bloody knife rested in the kitchen sink.
I tossed aside the hacksaw, hefted the gun with grim satisfaction and headed for the stairs to my bedroom. The rush of blood to my head made sweat pearl up on my forehead. My pace was steady now, my purpose clear. This time I’d kill not just to protect myself. I’d kill for revenge.
The blood trail dotted the wood floor, guided me to the horror that I knew lay ahead. With each step, my mouth tightened, my finger tense against the trigger. Not grief, but fury controlled me. I reached the landing, took a deep breath, then kicked open the bedroom door. The sight curdled my stomach juices. With a strange sense of distance, I felt myself wobble, then slide to the floor, a wail unfurling in my belly and speeding through my body with the force of lava spewed from an erupting volcano. The gun thudded to the floor.
Geeja’s body rested on my bed, her sleek coffee-brown torso sliced into two neat halves, her organs spilling madly onto the pillow where I’d slept moments ago.
Vomit burbled from my lips and then I let the howl explode. I remained there, rocking on my knees, for what seemed an eternity. Then with wracking sobs I stood and approached the bed. The killer had long gone. I knew that now. This was his warning to me, his statement of black art. The note next to her butchered corpse was a note just nine bitter words long.
Next time, K.T. No cops. Your investigation ends here.
I wrapped Geeja’s remains in the stained mattress cover, her blood seeping along my forearms, tears blinding me. I held the crimson bundle against my chest, curled into myself and bawled. No more, I urged myself. At least not now. With one foot, I dragged toward the lamb’s-wool tent in which Geeja liked to sleep and wedged the load inside. Suddenly, I was gasping desperately for air. I reeled toward the window and heaved again. Finally, finally, the spasms stopped. A faint cry, carried toward me on the wind.
Across the way, in the adjoining yard, I spotted K.T., Dinah, Beth and Carol huddled inside my neighbor’s ancient metal shed. The eye contact I made with K.T. even at this distance sent sparks through me. I spun on my heel and boomed down the stairs, dashing through my friends’ apartment. The air in the back yard now felt like moist silk, a shroud of grief that whirled around me, suffocating yet welcome. I ran across to the picnic table, climbed on top and hurled myself over the fence. K.T. was running toward me before I landed.
For a while, the tears would not stop. We seesawed against each other, lost in a mad dance of grief and relief. My howls scared Carol and soon her high-pitched cry echoed mine. Beth separated us abruptly and began to furiously examine the length of my body, the triage nurse in her determined to establish whether or not I’d been hurt. The only coherent sound I managed to make was a name. Geeja. K.T. grabbed my hand in instant understanding. Beth covered her mouth. But the reaction that sank in deepest was Dinah’s. She stood off to one side, holding Carol limply in her arms, her eyes glaring at me. Nearly twelve years ago, Dinah had been with me when a six-week-old gangly Geeja had loped across a dairy farm and flung her long-legged body against my feet, her contented mewl leaving me no option but to adopt her at once. A grumble rolled through my chest. The disgust written now on Dinah’s face sealed off any chance we might have had of continuing a friend
ship.
I closed my eyes and continued to weep.
In a daze, I heard Dinah hand off Carol to Beth, with an abrupt, “I’m moving to Boston immediately. We’ll settle the financial stuff over the phone.”
As it turned out, the neighbors weren’t home so we had to climb back into our yard. Dinah stormed ahead and disappeared before the rest of us made it inside. I collapsed into the desk chair and could go no further. Beth wanted to call the police, but I almost tackled her when she offered to go outside to use the pay phone. “No police,” I shouted. Not at least until I’d had time to think and plot out my next step. If the killer’s plan had been to scare me off, he’d taken the wrong tactic entirely. There was no way I’d go on knowing this madman was free, watching, waiting, stroking his sick, cruel ego.
The road to peace was paved with his blood and I had no illusions about the sacrifices his capture might require from me. But I would not risk K.T. or Beth or Carol. My pulse slowed.
“Stay here until I get back,” I said.
K.T. rushed to my side and demanded to know where I was going. Beth brushed a hand along K.T.’s arm. My friend and I exchanged glances. After our experience with a kidnapper last year, Beth had a keen understanding of what was going on for me. In a hushed tone, she said, “We have to trust her. Believe me.”
The trip up to my apartment plunged me back into the nightmare. With grim determination, I sponged off the counter, then mopped my way up the stairs. I gagged briefly in the doorway, then set about methodically cleaning the room until the only remaining signs of disturbance were the bloodied mattress and the scarlet bundle cradled in the cat’s tent. Sunlight glinted off the barrel of my twenty-two. I tucked it back into my waistband, grabbed a change of clothes, then tucked Geeja’s remains under one arm and returned to Beth’s apartment.