It’s that same effect as with the body bags outside the Fálcon, subtle yet definitely there. Or, should I say, not there.
Transparent. Like I can see through her. Like she’s there but isn’t.
Penley’s thin, but she’s not that thin! How is this happening again? Why?
I flip on the light, spinning around to face the black corkboard behind me. The other shots, my father—I never checked to see if the effect was happening with the photos of him. Did I just not notice?
My eyes race along every picture pinned to the wall, and not a single one has the effect. No problem with these shots—just a man who’s been dead for twelve years!
So it isn’t the lens after all. The new one did the same thing the old one did. Must be the camera, then. At least I hope it’s the camera.
I remember a business card that Javier at Gotham Photo once gave me. On the back he wrote his cell phone number. I think maybe he was fishing for a date. Nonetheless, he said I should call him anytime I have a problem with my pictures.
I think this qualifies.
The only question now is where I put that card. I start with my wallet, shuffling through ATM receipts, my AmEx, Visa, Discover, driver’s license, a frequent-coffee-drinker card from the Java Joint.
Javier’s card isn’t there.
I check all the drawers in my bedroom, including the one in my nightstand. It’s amazing how much junk I accumulate. Do I really have to take a book of matches from every restaurant I eat in, for God’s sake?
C’mon, Javier’s card, where are you?
I try to think back to when he handed it to me. When was it, what time of year?
Winter, I decide.
Maybe it’s still in a coat. In fact, I’m pretty sure I know which one. A shearling I splurged on—a beautiful “just gotta have it” that I saw in the window at Saks. I ate a lot of tuna fish sandwiches for dinner that month, as I recall.
I also recall Javier complimenting me on it... when he handed me his card.
I’m pretty impressed with my memory as I head for the hall closet. Maybe I’m not completely losing it.
With any luck, I’ll reach Javier and we can meet. I’ll show him the pictures, he’ll study my camera, and he’ll tell me what’s wrong. Simple as that. Mystery solved.
First things first, though—that card of his.
I open the closet door.
At least I try to. It’s stuck. The knob twists, but the door itself seems to be jammed. Oh, brother. Now I’m not so sure I want to get into this closet.
But I have to, so I pull harder. Then harder still, with both hands. It’s almost as if the damn door is locked from the inside; only that’s impossible, isn’t it? This closet’s never been locked. Who would lock it?
Changing my grip on the knob, I really put some muscle into it. I yank so hard my shoulders ache.
Slowly, the door begins to give—until it flies open.
I look inside.
Oh, no! Oh, God! Help me!
And then I’m screaming at the top of my lungs.
Chapter 45
“KRISTIN, WAKE UP. Wake up!”
My eyes snap open, and I gaze around, confused and out of sorts. Not to mention petrified. Everything is soft focus. “Where am I?”
“You’re in my apartment,” says Connie. “On the planet Earth.” She looks concerned, scared, even.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
“Am I okay?” Connie shakes her head in disbelief. “My God, the way you were screaming, I thought somebody was trying to kill you in here!”
I can see sunlight slicing through the blinds. It’s morning, and I’m lying on the pullout couch in Connie’s living room on the Upper East Side, that much I’ve got figured out. Everything else is sketchy at best.
“I... don’t... remember....”
“You came here last night, hysterical,” explains Connie. “You were going on and on about this dream and some pictures you’d taken—oh, and you were telling me about your closet. The one in the front hallway? Is any of this ringing a bell?”
“The cockroaches...”
“Yeah, you said there were a million of them. It was horrifying just to listen to you describe it.”
That’s the last thing I remember. The entire closet was crawling with cockroaches. Maybe not a million, but a thousand, and I’m deathly afraid of cockroaches. They got in my hair, on my face. The rest is a blank.
Connie takes my hand. “You were quite the mess, sweetie,” she says. “I gave you two Xanax and put you to bed. You slept straight through the night, not a peep.”
Until now.
The hotel, the four gurneys, the hand. The same dream, only I had it in a different location. It travels.
“What can I get you, Kristin? How do you feel?” Connie asks.
Like shit.
With a sound track to boot. Will I ever figure out what this song in my head is? I wish Connie could hear it; maybe she’d know what it is.
But she can’t. So I don’t mention it, or anything else. If I don’t understand what’s happening to me, how could she? Plus, I don’t want to frighten her any more than I have already.
I’m fine, I tell her. “In fact, what time is it?” I ask—panicked. “I can’t be late for work.”
I pull back the covers, and Connie stops me.
“Hold on,” she says. “This is serious, Kris. You should’ve heard yourself last night, the things you were saying. Something’s very wrong. I think you need to see that psychiatrist of yours again.”
Been there, done that.
“I’m so sorry I scared you,” I say. “I’ve been having this recurring dream, and it seems so real. I guess I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”
“What about these pictures you were ranting about? Ghostly images? Transparencies?”
“Part of the dream,” I lie.
Am I embarrassed about going bonkers? Ashamed? Why can’t I talk to one of my best friends about this?
Connie regards me for a moment. “At least call in sick,” she says. “You need to relax.”
“I can’t, Connie. The kids depend on me.”
“Let the Pencil take care of them today. She is their mother, after all.”
“Really, I’m fine.” I fake a smile and swing my feet to the floor. Then I give Connie a little wink. “Do you think I can borrow some clothes?”
Chapter 46
DONNING A PAIR of black slacks and a putty gray turtleneck from Connie’s closet, I’m out of her apartment in less than ten minutes. Normally it takes me a little longer to get ready for work. Then again, normally I don’t have someone—in this case Connie—eyeing me as if any moment I might climb onto a chair and begin shouting, “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!”
So as I walk into the Turnbulls’ building and ride the elevator up to the penthouse, I experience something new and different. Being early.
Good. No chance of Penley waiting for me at the door.
Instead, it’s Sean I see immediately. He’s sitting on the floor of the foyer, engrossed in the bright-colored Legos scattered around him. He doesn’t even hear me come in.
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
Sean glances up, beaming. “Hi, Miss Kristin!”
I kneel next to him. “Whatcha building? Looks impressive. Sha-zam! What is that?”
“A supergalactic missile launcher that will save the world from the evil aliens of planet Thunder.”
“Wow, are they planning to attack us?”
“I think so,” he says with the cutest nod.
I automatically give him the once-over, checking to see that he’s properly dressed for school. He is, from his head right down to his little toes, which happen to be covered by his Jimmy—or is it Penley?—Neutron socks.
“Where’s Dakota?” I ask.
“She’s in her room.”
I straighten up, barely taking a step before Sean adds, “We’re not supposed to bother her.”
“What d
o you mean?”
“She isn’t going to school today,” he says, his eyes glued back on the Legos.
“Is she not feeling well?”
“I don’t know for sure. Mommy seems pretty mad, though.”
The words twist my stomach into a million knots. Maybe Dakota came down with a cold. Or maybe she couldn’t keep a secret.
I kneel next to Sean again. “What did you hear Mommy say, sweetheart?”
He snaps another Lego into place. “Hey, look at this, Miss Kristin!” Sean makes a whoosh! sound, waving his missile launcher back and forth.
“That’s neat,” I say, struggling to be patient. “But can you tell me what Mommy said? You remember, Sean?”
My mind explodes with the thought of Dakota spilling the beans to Penley: “I saw Miss Kristin at Nana and Papa’s house—she and Daddy were together!”
Is this how it ends? How this insane house of cards comes crashing down?
I peer over my shoulder at the door to the apartment. The instinct rising inside me is like a power surge to the brain.
Run!
Get out of here!
You don’t want to face her!
But before I can make a mad dash, I hear Penley’s mincing footsteps around the corner of the foyer. I turn to look, and there she is, staring right at me.
“Speak of the devil,” she says.
Chapter 47
“SEAN, DEAR, CAN YOU GO to your room, please?” asks Penley, her voice actually kind of gentle and sweet. Too sweet, I’m thinking. She’s overcompensating for what’s to come, the bloody showdown when it’s just the two of us out here.
Is it too late to make a run for it?
Sean scoops up his missile launcher and shuffles off toward his room. I’m half tempted to beg him to stay. Penley wouldn’t try to kill me in front of her stepson, would she?
Not knowing what to do, I stoop and begin gathering the remaining Legos on the floor.
“That can wait,” she says. “Come, we need to talk.”
Dressed in her workout clothes—what else?—Penley leads me into the living room, motioning for me to have a seat on the green satin couch against the wall. She takes one of the two armchairs facing it, and we both settle in.
“So, how was your weekend?” she asks.
I can’t believe it. She’s toying with me! The pleasant smile and friendly tone. She never asks about my weekend. Never.
“It was fine,” I answer.
“Do anything special?”
“No, not really.” Oh, yeah, I did see and talk to my dead father. Almost forgot.
Is she trying to get me to confess; is that her game?
Nothing doing. I’ll tell her the same thing Michael told Dakota. We’re planning her surprise party. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!
“How about yourself?” I ask, matching her broad smile tooth for tooth. “Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Very nice,” she says. “We spent yesterday out in the country at my parents’ place.”
“Oh?”
“I mentioned we were doing that, didn’t I?”
“You might have.” Actually, you didn’t, Michael did.
“You know, you should come out with us sometime,” she says. “It’s on the water; there’s a pool and tennis court. It’s a very nice escape from the city.”
Oh, you’re good, Penley.
If this is how you want to play it, I’ll make it easy for you. “Gee, I bet the kids really enjoy it.”
“They truly do. What kid doesn’t enjoy being around the water?” She folds her legs. “Strange, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Dakota.”
Finally... here we go.
“Yes,” I say. “Sean mentioned she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Actually, I’m not sure what’s wrong with her. By the time we were heading home yesterday, she seemed a little off. She doesn’t have a temperature, and it’s not her stomach. Something’s bothering her, though. Any ideas?”
I don’t say anything. Every muscle tenses, and I brace myself for the moment. Surely this is when she lays down her cards.
Instead, all Penley does is shrug.
“I’m sure Dakota will be fine. She’s tough, takes after Michael,” she says. “Just in case, I thought we’d keep her home from school today.” She flicks her wrist. “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I barely manage a swallow. “No?”
“Guess who I spoke to last night?”
As long as it’s anyone but Dakota, I couldn’t care less at this point. I’m swimming in relief. “Who?” I ask.
“My friend Stephen.”
It takes me a moment to connect the dots. “Oh, the guy from your gym—the cute one?”
“Exactly,” she says. “The very cute one. So, tell me, do you have any plans for tonight?”
“Uh...”
“Because you do now.”
Chapter 48
“DID YOU KNOW that some female cockroaches mate once and are pregnant for the rest of their lives?”
“Wow,” I say, nodding my head and feigning amazement rather than repulsion.
The guy wipes his nose on his sleeve while making some weird clicking noise in his throat that I’ve never heard any other human make. “No wonder there are so many of the little suckers, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “No wonder.”
Of course, things could be a lot worse. This guy could be my blind date for the evening. Instead, he’s my nooner. The exterminator. On my lunch break, I meet him at my apartment. Actually, outside my apartment. There was no way I was going back in there by myself.
Anyway, he’s a fittingly creepy-looking man with thick black-rimmed glasses that magnify his eyes. He sort of reminds me of Stephen King, the pictures I’ve seen of him, anyway. Of course, pictures lie.
“Thing is, cockroaches are basically built to survive almost anything,” he says. “Did you know they can hold their breath for up to forty minutes?”
“Interesting. You are full of information, aren’t you?”
He adjusts his spray nozzle. “So, you saw them in the closet here, huh?”
I nod. Yeah, just a couple thousand of them.
“Then that’s where we’ll start.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
As he reaches for the closet door I stand back. I don’t want to look. I don’t even want to be here.
“Hmm,” he mutters, looking around. “Mmm-hmm, hmm, hmm.”
“What?”
“There’s not a single dropping on the floor.” As if correcting himself, he raises a palm. “Not that I don’t believe you, of course.”
I watch as he flicks on his flashlight, shining it against the closet walls.
“What about your neighbors?” he asks.
“What about them?”
“You all get along?” He wipes his nose on his sleeve again. “I’ve had situations where one neighbor sabotages another with cockroaches—you know, letting them loose in vents or through holes they drill. Happens more than you’d think.”
I immediately try to picture Mrs. Rosencrantz, or her Herbert, doing something so wicked. I suppose I wouldn’t put it past them.
We walk the rest of the apartment. Every nook and cranny gets sprayed and resprayed. A few times I even try to tell him that he missed a spot.
“What’s in here?” he asks at the last door down the hallway.
“That’s just my darkroom.” I open the door for him, flipping on the light.
He walks in and looks around, intrigued. “Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm.”
After a few quick squirts of his spray nozzle, he notices the pictures pinned to the walls. He stops at one of my father.
“You know this man, don’t you?” he asks.
“Why do you say that?”
“His expression—the way he’s looking at you and not the camera. In fact, I’d say you know him quite well.”
“You’re
right. He’s my father.”
He leans in, really examining the picture. “Was he a good man?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, was he—”
“No, I heard you okay. That’s kind of an odd question, don’t you think?”
“Actually, I think it’s the only question... for all of us, that is. In the end, we’re only the sum of the choices we make, right?”
Oh, great, the existential exterminator.
I’m beginning to get the heebie-jeebies from this guy. It’s bad enough that he looks creepy; does he have to talk creepy as well? I can feel an attack of the hives coming on.
“And how did you know my father is dead? You said, Was he a good man?”
He shrugs. “I guess I just assumed.”
From looking at a recently developed picture of him?
We’re talking serious heebie-jeebies now. This guy can’t leave my apartment fast enough. It’s possible that he’s as scary as thousands of cockroaches all by himself.
“So are we all done here?” I ask hastily.
“I’m sorry. I’ve offended you, haven’t I?”
“No, it’s okay. I think I’m a little on edge thanks to the roaches.” Among other things.
He pats his trusty spray canister. “Hopefully we’ve taken care of that for a while.”
“About how long does the poison last?”
“A month or so.”
“That’s all? You’d think there’d be something better in this day and age.”
“You mean something that lasts forever?”
“Exactly.”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid there’s only one thing in this world that lasts forever.”
“Let me guess. Love?”
“No,” he says, leaning in close. “That’d be your soul.”
Chapter 49
AT HALF PAST EIGHT, I walk into the bustling Elio’s on Second Avenue near 84th Street and scan the bar area, keeping in mind the description I’ve been given. Tall, dark, very handsome, answers to Stephen.
If you say so, Penley.
You’re the boss. And believe you me, if you weren’t, there’s no way I’d be going through with this blind date! Not right now especially.
“Excuse me, are you Kristin?”
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