Trouble Comes Knocking

by Mary Malcolm

  I nodded, no reason to argue.

  Giddiness bubbled inside. For the first time in my life I had purpose. I would not screw this up.

  ****

  “So how then did you get arrested?” Officer Len asked one last time.

  “Not my fault,” I said. “Remember I told you about the guy who stopped me on the street? Roger Ridley? Well, he showed up again.”

  ****

  Normally Halloween gave Aunt Dolores excitement hives, but with everything that had happened I don’t think she felt it as much as usual. We sat at the kitchen table eating chili before all the trick-or-treaters arrived. The doorbell rang. “Ignore it,” she said, “probably someone sellin’ magazines or cookie dough or somethin’.”

  I dipped my biscuit into the gravy, but a knock sounded. “Maybe it’s early trick-or-treaters?” I pushed away from the table. “Let me go check.” The sun hadn’t gone down, but who knew? Some parents were pretty funny about when their little angels went out.

  I opened the door expecting a pirate and instead found a ghost. “Lucy. You don’t know me, but you have to listen.”

  I slammed the door, leaning against it and trying to slow my hammering heart.

  He knocked again, then spoke loud enough for me to hear through the door. “You’re in danger. You and your sisters. Look. I’m here because I was a friend of your parents. I knew you when you were little. I helped protect you.”

  “You tried to lock me away,” I said, eyeballing my phone across the room. I wanted Dee to call the police, but if I shouted, he would hear me.

  “I wanted what was best for you and still do. Look, you can’t stay here. There are people searching for you, for all of you. I found you, and they will too.”

  I opened the door. “Let them come.” I looked him up and down. I didn’t see a villain but instead a tired, worn-out man. Like he’d been running for a long time and hadn’t had a chance to stop. “Wait, what do you mean all of us?”

  “You and your sisters.”

  “Julie is dead, and Kat is at Voeller Institute in Elmer.” I paused for a moment. “What is it people want from me, anyway?”

  “You’re special,” he said. “You all are. Let me in, I’ll explain everything.”

  Though a huge part of me wanted to shove him back and tell him to go away forever, a larger part recognized he might be the only link to my parents. I motioned him in.

  Aunt Dolores was waiting in the living room. “Lucy, you need me to call the cops? Get my gun?”

  “Not yet,” I said, not looking away from Roger. “Tell me what you know about my parents.”

  “They’re safe,” he said. “They didn’t kill anyone, but they can’t be with you. You’re in too much danger.”

  I shook my head. “Why am I in danger? I’ve never done anything.”

  “It’s not what you’ve done, it’s who you are. People are looking for you.”

  “You said that already. I’ve been to Elmer. I know what Julie did and that people think I’m her.”

  Roger, who had been pacing slightly, stopped dead in his tracks. “Wait—you went to Elmer?”

  I took a step away from him. “Yes. I know about the institute. I know about my sisters.”

  He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “No, no, no, this is all wrong.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a cell phone. Dialing a number, he stepped away from me.

  I faced Dee. “I don’t know what to do,” I said, crossing arms over my chest. “He’s making no sense.”

  “I’m calling the cops.”

  I turned back to Roger. “Look, either you stop your cryptic talk, or you can leave.”

  He hung up the phone and turned back to me. “It’s too late. I can’t protect you now.”

  My mind flashed: I saw Roger in different scenes throughout my life. Standing across the street from my high school. Walking alone on my college campus. Eating at the mall when I worked at the cologne counter. Standing on the other side of the street while I walked through Sundance Square. In the lobby during my first day at HGR.

  He had been there all along. Protecting me? Stalking me?

  I grabbed his shoulders and shook. His hair fell into his face, and he took a step back, eyes wide.

  “Tell me about my parents,” I demanded.

  “It-it’s too late,” he said again, taking a step away. “I can’t be here, I’m in danger now too.” With that he stumbled out the door and onto the porch.

  Just then, tires skidded around the corner and a car slowed in front of my house. A gun appeared at the window. I screamed before the shots rang out.

  Blood poured down the front of Roger’s shirt from five separate holes. He fell to his knees and then back. I knelt beside him on the porch. “Please, tell me what I need to know.” I pressed my hand over the wound closest to his heart. Blood pooled around my fingers. As if from a distance, I heard Dee talk to 911, though I felt her standing behind me, then kneeling. She held her apron over the remaining holes.

  He took a phone out of his pants pocket and forced it into my other hand. “Mark Wilco.”

  “Who is Mark Wilco?” I asked, needing more from this dying man. “Please, my parents. Where are they?”

  “Mark Wil—”

  The sound of sirens echoed off nearby houses. “Please, stay with me. I don’t know what to do.”

  He tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. I took his hand and squeezed it. “Roger, please. Please.”

  “Shady Grove,” he managed. His hand went limp, and his eyes glazed over. Footfalls stormed up the stairs; police pushed me out of the way so the paramedics could take over.

  I scooted back and tucked the phone into my pocket before pulling my knees up to my chest. Dolores placed a hand on my shoulder. She hadn’t spoken. We laced fingers, and she knelt beside me. We didn’t say anything. The men worked on the only connection I had to my parents, then he vanished into the back of the ambulance.

  A couple of unmarked police cars showed up minutes later. Captain Matheson among them. “So why is it when there is a body to be found in this town, it’s somehow connected to you?” He shook his head in ill-humored arrogance.

  I glanced down at the blood. My insides boiled. A man died. A man with information about my family. My missing pieces. White hotness flashed in front of my eyes as I looked at Matheson.

  ****

  “That’s why I punched him,” I told Officer Len. “A gut reaction. Wrong, in every way, but completely unavoidable.”

  Officer Len closed the notebook he’d been writing in and tapped the end of his pen against the table. “Look, Lucy. You’ve been through a lot. No question in that. But you can’t go around punching people either.”

  I peeled a bit of the Styrofoam from my cup. “I’ve never punched anyone before in my life,” I said, not a bit apologetic for the shiner I’d given Matheson. “I truly am sorry for having done it this time.” I wasn’t.

  Officer Len stood and walked out of the room. I heard him talking to someone on the other side of the door but couldn’t decipher what they said. A few minutes later he came back in. “Commissioner Whittaker likes you. He thinks you deserve a chance to move past this. He’s going to talk Matheson out of pressing charges, but in exchange, you’ll have to go through regular counseling with the department shrink while you’re working here.”

  I nodded.

  “One more thing.” He leaned in. “Captain Matheson is hard-nosed but a good cop. Don’t let him bulldoze you. If you can get him on your side, he’ll be a great resource. Do you understand?”

  Again I nodded, but didn’t.

  “Good. You’re free to go.”

  I walked out of the interrogation room and straight toward the elevator. Eli joined me as I waited. “So you’re free, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  He nudged me with his hip. “Good. We have another case to work on, and I think your skills will come in especially handy.”

 
“Can it wait until I’ve slept?” I asked, stifling a yawn.

  He took me by the shoulder and led me from the elevator. “Sleep later, you’re gonna love this.”

  A word about the author…

  Mary Malcolm lives in North Texas, where she spends her days wrangling feral roommates and her nights writing until the sun is up again. She does not sleep. She does, however, believe people should take chances and follow their dreams. Except for the dreams where they’re being chased by men wielding chainsaws.

  Mary lives on a steady diet of coffee and chocolate and hopes one day she can travel to Chile to pay homage to her soulmate, Pablo Neruda.

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