“Isn’t that just another prepackaged emo store for prepubescent boys infatuated with My Chemical Romance?” I answer.
“No, it isn’t. Just try it.”
“Fine,” I relent, after pondering a good solid minute. “Where is it?”
***
Shay
“Hey, thanks for coming with me, and thanks for not pressuring me to talk,” I say in an apologetic tone.
Trish leans down through the open window of the car. “No problem, babe. But don’t get used to it. You’re going to have to spill eventually, and I’m not going to go so easy on your bitch ass next time.”
“Okay,” I concede. “Hey, let Raphael know I’ll be in the office on Monday, K?”
“You got it.” She closes the door.
Awesome day of shopping with Trish. I think it’s weird that she’s not ready for me to meet her new boyfriend. He sounds a little sketchy to me, but hey, if he makes her happy.
After dropping Trish off at her place, I head over to Dad’s. This is the last place I thought I would end up, but here I am. I can do this. I tell myself over and over that it won’t be so bad. I’ll get things worked out with the insurance company, and once I find out how long it’s going to be before I can move back into my house, maybe I’ll look for a short-term rental. It’s funny how having a little cash in the bank can change your outlook on life.
The bags make a thud when I drop them on the bed in my old room. I admire my new outfit and freakin’ awesome new boots. I really miss the old ones, but these are pretty damn swag.
So hungry. I head for the kitchen and open the fridge. Nothing but condiments, take-out containers and beer. “Seriously? It’s little wonder I fell in love with an alcoholic.” I close the fridge and check out the pantry, but it’s as empty as the fridge.
With eyes forward, I walk down the hallway, careful not to set off any emotional land mines by getting caught up by all the family photos on the walls that will instantly kill my shopping high. Turning into my room, I see that Dad’s office door is open.
“Go see,” the voice in my head whispers. I’m already intrigued, so taking the three extra steps down the hall isn’t a stretch.
Entering the office, I notice the foul smell of old cheese, sweat and cigarettes. Dad’s been smoking again, and in the house. Mom’s going to be pissed. I recognize my mistake and laugh out loud. “Dad can do what he wants, I guess.”
There are papers everywhere: case files, drawings, crime scene photos and copies of my comic panels. I take a closer look at everything and pick up some of the Post-it notes attached to packets of artwork.
One reads “Chicago, June 23rd. Comic Con. Shay/Murphy three found dead. Page thirteen in issue 4.”
“Holy shit. Dad’s connecting me to these murders.” I gasp. How could my own father think I could have something to do with this? I hear the door from the garage open up and my dad’s voice.
“One simple thing, Eli, contain her.” He’s good and pissed. “I didn’t see her car out front.”
Nope, you sure won’t. I parked in back so no one would know I was here, especially Eli.
“She did what?” He pauses. “Okay, I’m going to see if I can find her. You call around. I’ll stop by in a bit to talk with you and McNab.”
Dad rounds the corner into the hallway and stops short when he sees me. “Gotta go.” He hangs up, slides his phone in his pocket and meets my stare. “I’d like to know what you are doing with those, Doodlebug.”
“Can the ‘Doodlebug’ bullshit, Dad.” I squint at him, mad as hell. “‘Contain me?’”
“Yes, contain you. And I won’t be having you speak to me that way.” He takes the files from my hands and pushes past me into the office.
“That’s not okay. I’m not some animal to be contained,” I spit, working hard to remain strong, not just angry.
“Shayleigh, I’m not going to argue with you about this. You are in a heap of trouble, and you’re actions aren’t doing anything to make things better. You have to stop running off.” His tired blue eyes are wavering.
“Running off?” I inhale deep for the diatribe I’m about to let loose on his ass. “First of all, I’m twenty-two years old. I’m not a child. I answer to myself and my boss.” I stop to take another breath, and he cuts me off.
“What about your God?” he asks quietly.
“What?”
“Your God, do you answer to your God?” He sits in the chair behind the desk.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? What does God have to do with this?” I can’t tell whether he’s serious or if this is one of his diversionary tactics. Growing up with a cop as a dad wasn’t easy. It meant navigating a professional interrogator.
“Shayleigh, I’m worried about you. We all are.” He gathers up the files on the desk, closing them to obscure my view. “When was the last time you went to Confession?”
“No Dad, we aren’t doing this. This has nothing to do with Church, nothing to do with God.” I close my eyes to compose myself and rein in my anger to keep from saying something I’ll regret.
“Doesn’t it, though? When was your last Confession?” He insists I answer.
“No it doesn’t; this is one of your diversion tactics that you use on your perps. I’m your daughter, not a suspect.” I fold my arms across my chest and try not to pout.
He’s silent. It is always so exhausting with him trying to figure out what he’s thinking or what his meaning is. I glare into him, unrelenting, when it dawns on me. I open my mouth to say the words slowly. “You think I’m a suspect.”
His continued silence speaks volumes. My mouth hangs open in shock. “So what do you suspect me of?”
“When did you last go, Shayleigh? Did you go before your mother’s funeral, or how about your sister’s?”
“Are you blaming me for their deaths?” I shoot back.
“Did you go to Confession?” He sounds like a broken record.
“Mom died of cancer and Elise killed herself. How could any of that possibly be my fault?” My voice reaches an upper register and I’m losing control. Tears threaten at the corners of my eyes. He remains silent. I slam my open palm on his desk. “How!”
“Because, Shayleigh, if we had been a family and pulled together for each other, maybe they both could have survived their illnesses.” And there it is. He blames me. Mister never home, mister works eighty hours a week.
“How dare you,” I spit through gritted teeth. “You. Were. Never. Here.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, I spin around and head for my bedroom to get my stuff and get the fuck out of this Goddamn house.
“Shayleigh, do not walk away from me when I’m talking to you.” He chases me to my room.
I gather my bags, but he’s blocking the doorway. “Get out of the way.”
“No, you think I’m going to let you run off again so you can have everyone all upset? Wrong.” He remains in the doorway.
“Dad, move or I’ll move you,” I say with as much earnest as I can.
“You’ll move me?” He raises his eyebrows in disbelief.
My hands are trembling with fear. It moves up my arms to my body until my entire frame is shaking in terror. I’m trapped is all I can think and feel. “Get out of my way.” I scream wildly and knock into him.
His expression is riddled with shock and remorse as he recovers from me knocking him out of the doorway by way of bulldozing through. He wasn’t expecting it or I never could have done it. I immediately feel like the biggest piece of shit on the planet for pushing my dad. But feeling trapped in like that isn’t going to work for me. I felt like I was going to explode.
“Where are you going, Shayleigh?” he calls after me.
“Away.” I say it low and steady.
“Shayleigh, I’m sorry. Let’s talk about this. Please stop.” He’s chasing me through the kitchen to the back door.
“No.”
He follows me down the back steps and to
the car. “Please don’t go.” His voice is quiet and defeated. “I need you.”
His words stop me dead in my tracks. Never before has anyone made that type of proclamation. He needs me? I turn around to face him. “Dad, I’ll be back tomorrow. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stay.” I throw the bags in the car and get in.
Driving away from him is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but I feel like I can’t trust him. When he had me cornered in the room, I nearly lost it. I can’t have that. I need to maintain my mental strength. Tears stream freely down my face, and, as if in response to my sorrow, rain pelts the windshield.
The clouds usher the darkness of night on faster than normal, which has me spooked. I want to run into my studio to get my supplies, but thoughts of Bailey having been here last time run rampant with my imagination. I dig through my backpack until I find my taser. Armed and ready, I run into my studio with fear of the unknown and unseen chasing me like a dark demon.
Haphazardly, I scoop up my pens and ink bottles. I run for the door, my breathing shallow yet labored. “Shay, get a grip on yourself.” Taking another deep breath, I walk out the door. Once I reach the car, I realize I didn’t get a Bristol board to draw my panels on. “Shit!” I slam my hand on the steering wheel.
Well, you can never have too much Bristol; a quick run to the art supply store is on the list of things to do. The further away from my house I get, the more the fear that nearly crippled me subsides. Of course I was sure to take the long way around so I didn’t have to drive by Gary and Alice’s house. Once I hit downtown Melbourne, I run into the art store to get my Bristol boards. Since I have nowhere to be, I take a few extra minutes looking at pens and charcoal.
Once I’m back in the car, beachside is apparently calling to me, and without realizing it I’m on the Melbourne Causeway heading east. Stopped at the light where I would turn to go to the park, I look down the winding road. Part of me wants to go there, but I know this isn’t the time. They will look for me there. Why can’t they just leave me alone?
A honk from behind rattles me back to attention. I wave and go through the light. Driving down A1A, I’m trying to decide what hotel to stay in. I pass by the motel where we found Elise, and a chill spears through me.
The Radisson Suites comes into view, but I just can’t talk myself into spending that much, so the Oceanside will have to do. Moderately priced and pretty damn clean, it’s a winner. After I check in, I unload my bags into the room. I get settled in pretty quick, turn on the TV and determine there isn’t shit worth watching. The sliding glass door affords a view of the beach. The rain is still coming down pretty hard, and it’s obscuring the shore. There’s only a brief show of whitecaps in the distance that break through the darkness of the night.
There’s an overhang on my balcony, so I decide to break open the pack of clove cigars I picked up at the smoke shop in Orlando. They are really cigarettes, but apparently clove cigarettes are now illegal, so they’ve been repackaged as cigars. I inhale the smoke deeply and slowly. Instantly, I feel just a little relaxed. The smoke is erotic in my lungs and I let it out slow and watch it mingle in the air with the mist from the rain. I’m mesmerized by this for the duration of the cigarette and want another. “You know what will go with this?” I say to myself. “You guessed it, some of that Mike’s Hard Lemonade.”
What happened at my dad’s is weighing pretty heavy on me. But I’m not going to call him. I’m not even going to turn on my cell phone unless I need to make a phone call; otherwise, I’m sure there’s just a ton of messages from Eli trying to “talk me off the ledge.” “Fuck him.”
I catch myself doodling with the hotel pen and pad between swigs of lemonade. “Well, Shay, time to get to it.” This is what I’ve been avoiding, but I know I have to get this out. Laying out a single sheet of Bristol and readying my pens, I close my eyes and breathe for a moment to bring myself back to that place. I take another drag off the cigarette and blow it out, watching it curl. There’s a breeze that’s coming in through the open sliding glass door, and it feels damp, just like that place I was trapped in. My pen makes contact with the paper, and I draw it out.
Chapter 35
Nice Boots…
Shay
Time for another smoke. My lungs may fall out or at least try to run away to save themselves. Fuck it. It’s my life, and those little bitches can stay put. I put my hands on my chest as if to confirm I’m in charge. I lean on the balcony and watch the fat raindrops driving down from the heavens like the tears of the dead.
My new panels are just too surreal, I can’t look at them. Honestly, they’re giving me a serious case of high anxiety. A six-pack isn’t enough to relax me from those memories. But getting them out is the best thing for me. Even still, I feel a peace. I’m finally alone, without so much noise in my head from Eli, Dad and Aiden.
“Aiden.” It slips from my lips like a whisper, and a tear sneaks down my cheek. “Time for another drink,” I announce to myself, heading for the mini fridge with the cigarette still in hand.
A knock on the door. What was that? I peek up over the top of the mini fridge and eye the door like it’s going to morph into something else. I’m staring straight at it as if daring it to make the sound again. It does.
With drink-in-hand, I peer through the peep hole to see a very wet McNab standing on the other side. “Fuck.”
“Shay, open the door please,” he asks.
While taking a drag off my cigarette, I open the door, but I don’t let him in.
He coughs from the smoke I blow in his direction. “Hey, kid. You okay?”
“Yup.” I lean against the doorframe and take a drink.
“Can I come in please?” There’s something in his eyes that I can’t resist, even though I really want to just go back to being alone.
I step aside as a gesture for him to enter. “Since you said ‘please.’”
He slides by me, careful not to make contact. I resist the urge to be playful. For some unknown reason I don’t feel like I can be in charge and playful. Stupid.
McNab walks all the way into the room and checks out the drawings on the bed without picking them up. He moves them around to get a better view of the pages obscured under others. “You’ve been busy.”
“Yup.”
“So what’s going on with you, kid?” He stares straight into me with those emerald-cut eyes.
My gaze falls to the floor while I shrug one shoulder, causing the strap of my tank top to slide off.
“Chatty tonight, huh?”
“Not really,” I say.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. “Whoa, uh uh. No phones, or you’re out.”
McNab holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m just turning it off.” As if to confirm his proclamation, the phone makes a power down noise. “So is this where you were?”
Seriousness clouds my demeanor and I nod without looking at the pictures. “It was pretty awful.” I acknowledge him with another nod and take a drag off my cigarette.
“You want to talk about it?” His tone is laden with genuine sympathy.
“No.” I thought he was supposed to be observant.
“You’re going to need to sometime.” He walks toward me, hesitating the closer he gets.
“Not now.” I walk straight for the sliding glass door to get some air.
“When you’re ready, I’m here,” He offers, following behind me.
“You want a lemonade?” I ask, knowing he’ll say no.
“Sure. In the fridge?” Huh, didn’t see that coming. He grabs a bottle from the fridge and pops the cap off with his belt buckle. I look down at his belt buckle. “You know it was a twist off, right?”
“Yeah, but the way I did it was much cooler. I have to do something to recover from drinking chick beer.” He winks at me.
“I didn’t think I’d be entertaining,” I say, leaning back on the balcony.
He joins me
outside and sits in the lounge chair. “New duds?”
“Yup, I took myself shopping. I couldn’t very well go walking around in Aiden’s skin forever.” I never take my eyes off the shore.
“Clothes.” McNab corrects my slip.
“Yeah, clothes.” I take a drink.
“Nice boots.” He raises his eyebrows.
“Wanna fuck?” I smile.
“What?” he asks, seemingly wounded by my words.
“Wanna fuck?” I look at him like he’s the crazy one.
“Um, I’m flattered, but–”
I stop him right there. “No, McNab. ‘Nice boots, wanna fuck.’” I look at him expectantly and he just shakes his head perplexed. “It’s a saying.” I think about it for a second, “Or an aphorism. Oh I don’t know fuck it. I’m an artist, not a linguist, Jim.”
“Ah, a Star Trek reference, that I get.” He stands up and joins me at the railing.
We’re silent for a good long while, and I light another cigarette. “So where’s your little bag of tricks? You feel safe being near me without all your holy water, sage, talismans and shit?”
“I have protection.” A crooked smile pulls at the corner of his lips.
“So we’re back to the boots thing, huh?” I push into his shoulder with mine, and he immediately tenses up. “Sorry, I forgot. ‘Nobody touches McNab.’”
“S’okay, kid, I’ll cut you a little slack.” He bumps back into my shoulder, but I still feel the tension.
The silence goes on for a good while longer. McNab never takes a drink from his open bottle. It feels like a solid ten minutes, and I can’t remain quiet anymore, no matter how badly I want to. “So I suppose you’ve got Carl out in the parking lot digging around in my head.” My entire body sags in defeat.
“Nope, just me,” he answers. “No one even knows I left.”
“Really?” I look up at him with what I know must look like giant doe eyes.
INK: Vanishing Point (Book 2) Page 22