He’s simultaneously annoyed and relieved, throwing a wet dishrag over his shoulder. “I let her know you were coming home, but I didn’t think she’d show up uninvited.”
I can’t turn her away even if I want to, so I wave to Aaron and Brett, Parking Lot Crime Fighters, to let them know she’s welcome. Her footsteps pound up the flight of stairs, and she hammers on the door.
“I missed you so much, you whore!” is her shouted salutation before she throws her arms around me and whirls us in a half-circle. “How are you?”
Jack rolls his eyes and heads back for the kitchen. He’s never been a fan of women calling each other bitches and whores, because apparently it’s sexist—how come we can call one another that, but men can’t?
I find that strange coming from him, since I can’t remember a time he’s used either.
“Okay,” I say, and Elena pulls back to inspect me with sharp faux-amber eyes.
Elena has the generic good looks required of every wannabe starlet, though her hair color is from a bottle, her skin from a tanning bed, and her eyes from 1-800-CONTACTS. Even without the maintenance I think she’d still be pretty—unlike me, who requires pounds of it to look halfway alive. When I’m made-up I’m a completely different person. I used to wish I was that girl all the time, but being unnoticeable might make for a nice change.
How can I carry on with the actress thing when I don’t think I’ll ever want to be on camera again?
Elena’s the lead on that sitcom I’ve been cast in—a small town girl who comes to live with her whacky best friend slut of a cousin—me—in sunny LA. She’s had to dye her hair so we look plausibly related. The only thing going for me is my hair—my agent said he’d kill me if I dye it. I wonder what he’ll say when I tell him I’m a) pregnant and b) newly brunette.
“Shit,” she says when she pulls away, and smacks herself in the forehead. Her palm carves a dent in the layer of foundation she’s painted on. “I brought a bunch of stuff for you, but of course I left it in the damn car. I saw you on the balcony and lost my mind.”
“What stuff?”
She tosses professionally blown-out and highlighted auburn hair over her shoulder. “Flowers. Food. Magazines. Books. DVDs. I didn’t know what would be appropriate, so I just bought everything. Hallmark doesn’t make sorry you were kidnapped cards.” Her eyes dart toward Jack. He’s hunched over the sink, scrubbing dishes. Chances are good he can’t hear much over the stream of the tap. “Are you really okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You weren’t—?”
What is everyone’s obsession with rape?
I shake my head.
Her earnest eyes search mine. For what? It’s anyone’s guess. “Jack text me when they found you. He thought I’d want to know. We’ve all been worried.” She clenches my hand. For someone so little, she’s pretty strong. “I told Brandon and Kelly I was coming by. They would have come too, but the day jobs prevented it.”
Brandon and Kelly, our onscreen on again/off again significant others. They wait tables, too. Between swapping horror stories about bosses and customers, we have a lot in common. Elena, not so much. Her great-grandmother died, leaving her independently wealthy. Though that money hasn’t seemed to help in her quest for fame.
My cheeks begin to hurt under the weight of my fake smile—why did I think I was ready for company?—but the landline saves me from an immediate response.
The caller ID tells me it’s Jackie, the middle-aged woman I frequently pull doubles with.
Jack answers my unasked question with a small smile. “Maybe I should have kept the news they’d found you to myself.”
FIFTY-TWO
Lisette cradled her office phone between her neck and ear, flipping through faxed reports as she barked at the person on the other line. “I want updates on the hour tomorrow,” were her parting words before she slammed the phone down and looked over at John.
“Large-scale contracting jobs aren’t giving us much. Seventy-five percent of the names on that list let uniforms poke around their houses. The other twenty-five percent refused to consent. We won’t get anywhere with warrants, but we’ve managed to cross off a lot of non-consenters through their alibis.” She consulted the printed pages. “Twelve more names. I’m not holding my breath that we’ll find anything.”
The clock ticked over to nine p.m. John stifled a yawn. “Might be about time to pack it in.”
“I’ve got a few hours left in me. I’ll hold down the fort if you want to head out.” She swept her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and brushed overgrown bangs out of her eyes.
“Sleep might do you some good, you know.”
She waved him off. “I won’t get any sleep. I’ll go home and lay there until I get bored and come back.” She tapped a nail on a dusty box she’d had messengered earlier. “At the very least, I can get through this box of old case files. I still need to check in on Brooke, too.”
John stood and collected his belongings. “I’ll see you in the morning. Call if you find anything. Don’t worry about waking me up.”
He never really slept, anyway.
FIFTY-THREE
The phone rings yet again, as soon as I lock the door behind Jackie and Quinn, two co-workers from Norm’s. I never realized I was so popular, and I’m not sure I like it much. The visitors haven’t been trickling in; they’ve been in floods.
Jack answers the phone on autopilot and holds it out for me. “Sergeant Jennings.” The look on his face makes it clear he finds the company and phone calls irritating. I’m sure he’d rather me hole up in bed until the Rapture.
I take it from him and slouch on the couch beside a sleeping Stripes. “Hi.”
“How are you feeling? You’d better be getting some rest.”
“I’m okay. We’ve had a lot of visitors.”
“If the company bothers you I can call patrol in your parking lot, tell them not to let friends up. I don’t want you overexerting yourself or getting stressed. It’s bad for you and the baby.”
I peek through the blinds overlooking the parking lot. Aaron and Brett’s relief sit there, engine idling. Two people are inside the unit, but I only see their hands from this angle.
Refusing visitors won’t bode well. Then people would blow up the answering machine with worried messages. They need to see that I’m fine, and I can’t blame them. I’d do the same if it had happened to a friend. “It’ll stop eventually. I guess it’s nice they care.”
She grunts. “I’m going to be stuck going through some stuff tonight, so I won’t be able to see you till tomorrow. There’s some things we need to go over.”
“Things? Like what? More voice modifiers?”
“More questions. I know, they’re fucking annoying, but we’ve found new information. I’ll head over around lunchtime with a pizza. I know pregnant women have weird-ass cravings, but I refuse to get anything with anchovies.”
Fine by me. I don’t eat anything that once breathed water. “I’ll see you then.”
We disconnect. The second I press END another call streams through.
Jack and I trade grimaces. It’s going to be a long night.
FIFTY-FOUR
I close my eyes for the first swing.
Clearly this is a mistake. I miss my mark and graze her hairline, but I feel her skull give way beneath the hammer’s head. Blood spurts when her chin smashes into the granite.
When she rolls onto her back, her mouth hangs slack. The impact made her teeth slice through her tongue, and half of it dangles loose from stretching tendons. Her eyes turn white when they roll up in her head.
I feel my own ticket to hell being punched in.
“Strike one,” he says. “You can do better than that.”
I hope he chokes on those words, and the cigarette I hear him smoking through the PA. Nothing beats a cigarette after an orgasm. I guess this is his.
Abby’s still motionless. I hope she’s dead.
“She’s not dead yet
.”
“Will you shut the fuck up?” I turn around, the hammer swinging from my hand, and glare at the ceiling.
“Will you do it right the first time?”
Tears prick my eyes. I can’t tell if they’re from anger or sadness, but I think it’s a mixture. Abby’s skeletal chest rises and falls with shallow breaths when I turn back to her.
The only thing that may make this easier is that her eyes have closed. Her hand brushes my kneecap when I melt to the floor, poising the hammer to strike. It quivers in my grip before I bring it down on her forehead.
The second blow gets more blood flowing, and the third exposes bone and something gray and fleshy.
My stomach constricts like twisted bubble wrap when she exhales a red mist and shudders.
The craters I’ve carved into her forehead ooze red rivers down her ear. I bury my face in my hands and cry so hard it’s painful, my heart stuffed in my throat and a ringing in my ears.
I hope she knows how sorry I am. When I peel my hands off my face, they’re smeared with blood and snot and flecks of squishy gray matter.
***
Jack’s arm is slung around my waist when I wake up. He must have carried me to bed with him. He’ll never stop taking care of me, no matter how crazy I get.
The alarm clock on the IKEA nightstand ticks over to three-oh-five.
Stripes’s undulating, furry belly rises and falls against my thigh. I scoop him up and press him into my face. He yelps in surprise but eventually settles into my pillow and decides it’s high time for a bath.
My spine stiffens when a hand curls around my shoulder. “You okay?” Jack’s voice is thick. I used to think it was sexy when his voice is tired and husky. I might still think it is, but my brain seems to have cut ties with most emotions.
I reach up to hold the hand wrapped on my shoulder. “I’m fine.”
He nods, bare chest pressed into my back. He doesn’t need to say anything—I can tell what he’s thinking. I’m worrying him. Again. I flick Stripes’s tail out of my face and earn myself a dirty look. “I’m not used to sleeping long. I was never really able to.”
Stripes runs his sandpaper tongue over my finger. I don’t know why it makes me want to cry. Whenever I’m upset, he’s the first thing I search for, but I always fall to pieces once I’ve gotten him in my arms. Jack says it’s something about their fur and warmth that makes them good for emotional therapy. The kids with terminal cancers love when the Humane Society brings animals into the hospital.
Jack’s lips brush my neck. “I get it. But you have me and your guard tiger. We’ll take care of you while you sleep.”
I reach over to snatch the cordless handset up.
Jack clicks on the bedside lamp and sits up, too. “What are you doing?”
I press *69 when the dial tone blares. “I remembered something. I have to talk to Lisette.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“No,” I snap, pushing off the blankets. “What if I forget?”
“I doubt that’d happen.”
I don’t. It seems like I’ve forgotten everything except the way Abby’s broken body looked beneath those lights.
Lisette answers, interrupting the second ring. “What the hell are you doing up, Brooke?”
I’d ask her the same, but she sounds strangely alert for just after three in the morning. “I had a dream. It reminded me of something.”
“Go ahead.”
I pause, wondering how to articulate it. “He left me in there for a little while, after Abby died. I always thought he was alone, but after…the hammer, I heard something weird.”
“I thought you couldn’t hear anything from up there?”
“I couldn’t. Not normally. I think he accidentally bumped the microphone or something. It turned on for a few seconds before he must have realized, and turned it off.”
“What was weird about it?”
“It sounded like…I don’t know, like sex.”
“Like moaning or some gross shit? Headboard banging around? Slapping?”
I can feel my cheeks flush. “No, it was two different voices. It’s the way they were talking. I could tell they weren’t deciding what to eat for dinner. It sounded like sex. To me. I guess. Not porn-star fake screams, but, you know. Like how people talk during…it.” I trail off stupidly as Jack wraps his hand around the back of my neck.
“All right,” she says after a long pause. “I’ve made a note. Let me know if you remember anything else. But tomorrow. Go to sleep, for God’s sake.”
My love of art is all that remains of my sensitive side, so it would be egregious not to take pains to look after it.
There was an avant-garde performance in one of my houses. The overseer of the establishment tells me this happens often; perhaps I can show you some time.
The woman involved was something of a masochist, which took away from the enjoyment in a minor way. It’s better with an unwilling participant. Regardless, it was interesting. I’d never realized how prevalent cannibalism truly is. Certainly not as taboo as it’s made out.
I refused the punch, after learning the ingredients. The others seemed to enjoy it, if their red-stained teeth and enormous pupils were any indication. I imagine it had been laced with some sort of hallucinogen, since after a few sips the majority stripped naked.
You’d never know the clients are of high class and stature. I suppose when you peel away money and status, we’re all the same primitive beings.
The woman didn’t die; there’s a physician onsite. He dressed her wounds as best he could, though I rather believe she’ll think twice the next time someone proposes tying her to a pole and letting the clients run rampant. I wondered if she would need skin grafts to repair the areas they’d sliced away. At least a few blood transfusions, since she’d slipped into unconsciousness near the midway point.
They say find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.
I suppose this means I’m lucky.
Monday at 4:01 a.m.
IP Address: 75.84.67.69
Sent via contact form by an anonymous viewer on your website
FIFTY-FIVE
I’m not sure how long I slump there next to Abby’s body. One endless, cold moment tiptoes into another, and I do nothing but watch and wait, long after I’d stopped crying, which hadn’t lasted long to start with.
Thinking isn’t a phenomenon occurring in my burnt brain. Maybe it experienced an electric overload that made all unnecessary actions fizzle. Either way, it doesn’t matter, and I’m not sure anything will again.
“You know this is your fault, right?” his voice asks above me. “She’s dead, and you’re not. Where can you go from here?”
I imagine I’ll go the way of all that passed through here before me. Dead.
“There’s only one thing left to do,” he says, and I hear my future in those words. “Only one way to stop that series of pictures.”
As if on cue, still-frames flip through my mind. One after the other, so fast they’re blurring, but not fast enough that I can’t see them clearly. Two empty pupils of two different sizes, brain matter leaking from an open crack in the skull, half a tongue hanging from cracked, parted lips. The hammer still in my hand. I don’t have an image of my own face, but my creative subconscious conjures one to superimpose. A Brunette Brooke with black eyes, a face like some idol of a wicked god, carved of bone-white wood.
“Jack won’t love you after all this. That baby would be better off dead than with a mother like you. So what now?”
“What now?” I echo dully, legs splayed, thighs rolling outward. They’re almost the same color as the floor. “You’ll tell me, I’m sure.”
“Wouldn’t it be tragic if something happened to Jack? A convenient car accident, or a mugging gone wrong. That can be arranged.”
Thinly-veiled threats can’t punctuate this fog, so I stare at my thighs until my eyes cross.
“Perhaps I should let you take a moment to reflect
on tonight’s events before we pack up,” he says.
And I do.
Though I don’t stay strictly on the path of Abby, straying into overgrown thickets of the past; things I hate reflecting on.
Thick, stubby sausage fingers peeling the sheets back, Old Spice, hot breath that reeks of Blue Moon and chewing tobacco.
“Oh, no,” I tell him, tightening my hold on the blankets like they’ll somehow protect me.
“Oh, yes,” he says and claps a hand over my mouth. His eyes are blue but look like black puddles through the weak glare of my alarm clock. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
And it always did startle me, though in all honesty I can’t say why.
***
I don’t wake up covered in a film of cold sweat, which may be something to be proud of, though my analysis might be skewed.
The alarm clock’s red numbers shine on Jack’s sleeping face. Five twenty-two. Stripes groans softly and pokes my nose with the pink pads of his paw.
“Meow,” I agree, and throw the blankets over us.
FIFTY-SIX
John pushed into the homicide department, travel mug of coffee in hand, and headed for Sergeant Jennings’s office.
“Enter with caution,” Holmes said, looking up from his desk calendar with an arched gray and bushy eyebrow. “She bit a messenger’s head off ten minutes ago.”
“She’s not a morning person?”
Holmes laughed. “She is. When she’s actually slept the night before.”
A weaker man might have been frightened at the prospect of being reamed by a sleepless Sergeant Jennings, but John rapped on her door anyway.
“What?” came her muffled snap. “Leave the fucking mail with Holmes.”
He pushed the door open and froze in the threshold. Lisette glanced up through mussed bangs, on all fours. Photographs, police reports and case files obliterated the carpet.
“I wasn’t expecting you until later.”
He picked his way to an open chair and dropped his briefcase. “Have you been here all night?”
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