“Yes sir. Hope that I helped some.”
David walked out the door thinking about what this girl had just told him. He made a mental note to go to the Fluff n’ Stuff. It sounded like Amber was a regular there and maybe someone knew how to contact her. If the information the young girl just gave him was correct, then his girlfriend was bisexual. That thought intrigued him though he wasn’t sure why. He was more intrigued by the fact that she had seen a twin of Amber. A more subdued version. Someone like Lila. His cell phone rang.
“Balducci,” he answered.
“Tinkerbell, it’s me.”
“Whatcha know Joe?”
“We found where Olberman had dinner that night. He came to the Echo Lounge and he did have a female companion. The waiter ID’d the picture saying it looked like the girl that was there that night with Carl. What do you think of this, David?”
“Hmm,” David said thinking. “We have got to find Amber. I think she is the missing piece in this whole puzzle. Send Cummings to Lila’s neighborhood to interview the neighbors. Let’s meet there and see what we can find in Lila’s house.”
“Ok,” Joe agreed. “See you in a few.”
David and Joe met at Lila’s house. They knocked on the door, hoping that Amber would answer. But of course, that would be too simple, so David stood guard as Joe picked the lock. David kept watch, making sure that no one was watching them too thoroughly. Even though they were police officers, they really didn’t have a warrant to search the place.
In record time, Joe had the door open and they entered the small house. They could see that the layout of the house lent itself perfectly to a roommate situation with the kitchen and living room in the middle and a bedroom with a bathroom on either side. The kitchen was small, but neat and clean.
They searched in the refrigerator but saw nothing that would cause any wonder. Just the same staples you would find in any fridge; milk, butter, eggs, veggies; nothing to cause any excitement. They looked in the freezer to see if there was anything thrilling, but again, there was nothing there to cause any comment. Just some Moose Tracks ice cream and a lot of frozen dinners. They looked around a little bit more and David noticed something curious. Going over to the counter, he looked at the butcher block that sat there.
“Hey Joe,” he called. “See anything interesting here?”
Joe came over. “Yeah there’s a knife missing.”
David pulled out all the knives to see which one was gone. “Looks as if it’s the big fucker,” he said. “But she’s doing damage with something heftier than a big kitchen knife.”
“Interesting,” Joe said and they moved into the living room.
Again here, there was nothing to be found. It wasn’t very big and there wasn’t a whole lot in it. David and Joe pulled the cushions out of the couch to see if there was anything in there, but they found nothing but a quarter and a piece of lint.
“You take the bedroom on the right and I’ll take this one over here,” David told Joe. “But we have to be careful since we don’t have a warrant here.”
Joe agreed and the two men put on latex gloves to not contaminate the scene with their fingerprints. David walked into the room he was to investigate, and he knew instantly that this was the room that belonged to Amber. Not just any Amber, either. His Amber. Her distinctive scent overwhelmed him and he closed his eyes, thinking about the way she had reacted in his arms. Instantly he grew hot at the thought of the way it had been between the two of them.
Amber’s room was just as wild as the girl herself was. You could see the love for life even in the way she had things in her room. Everything was an animal print including the sheets on the bed. It fit Amber. He looked at the makeup on her dresser and picked up the bottle of perfume, smelling it to feel her here next to him.
Clothes were a bit strewn about the floor and David picked his way gently through the piles. He saw the outfit that she had worn the other night laying next to the bed, as if she had crawled out of it and in between the sheets. He picked it up and held it next to his face. He thought about the way she had freely given her body to him. Instantly, David could fill himself growing hard, thinking about the way hair had splayed all over his bed. David knew that he needed to keep his emotions and attraction for Amber under check so he didn’t throw the case. He looked through her nightstand hoping to find any bills, journals, or papers of any sort. But there was nothing there to identify the occupant of the room.
He walked over to the bookshelf to see what books his beautiful angel was interested in. There were a few flowery romance novels, the latest Stephen King book, a novel called Aware, and several anatomy books. David wondered why she had so many scientific books and thought that maybe she had been a nurse or a pre-med student or something. He fought back the obvious explanation; the cop explanation. There was also a photo album sitting on the shelf, and he pulled it out to look at it.
In it were pictures of Amber as a little girl. She had the same curly hair and the same mischievous smile. There were pictures of Amber with her mother and father. They looked like strict people to grow up with. But it was obvious Amber didn’t want for anything. Then there were pictures of Amber in a wedding dress. She looked happy enough. As the pictures went on, the pictures of Amber were less and less frequent and in the last one, there was a picture of Amber and the man that had been the groom in the previous pictures. There was no trace of the laughter in Amber’s eyes. She looked dead and very unhappy.
David flipped through the album again, but there was no identifying information anywhere in the book. He looked back at the last picture to the unhappy Amber. He felt the need to save her. It was obvious that her marriage had been anything but perfect and David wanted to show her that it could be different between the two of them. It was the same protective feeling he held for Lila. Weird.
David then went into the closet to see if there was anything of interest in there. Surprisingly, the closet was huge. It was almost as big as the bedroom itself. Amber had shelves on one side and a chest of some sort on the other. On the shelves, David saw an assortment of computer equipment, watches, cuff links, and other valuables. His mouth grew dry. He would be willing to bet that some if not all of this equipment would match the missing items in the case file.
He walked over to the chest to open it up. It wasn’t just a chest but a deep freezer. Puzzled and scared as to why anyone would have a freezer in their bedroom closet, David opened the lid. He gulped as he peered into the icy box. He had been a cop long enough to know what probably awaited him. Hell, anyone who had ever seen a horror movie knew what was inside. Please no, Amber, he thought, don’t let it be so. There were all sorts of paper wrapped packages inside. He randomly picked one and opened it. Sure enough, it was a hand. It was perfectly frozen with no trace of decomposition. He set it down on the floor of the closet carefully. The next package he opened contained a male penis. David’s heart paused, suddenly feeling very, very doomed. He went to go get his partner.
He gently walked out of Amber’s room and through the living room into the other bedroom. This room obviously belonged to Lila. It was very simple and plain with nothing out of place. It wasn’t ugly, it just was simple muted hues with nothing frilly or loud. It was interesting to see how the two girls had decorated their rooms so differently.
“Found anything Joe?” he asked his partner.
“No, nothing. She keeps her room very pristine. She doesn’t have anything in here that has anything to do with her past.”
“Um, would you come look at what I found in the other room?” David asked.
“What, you finally found your dick?”
“Not mine … ”
“Oh, shit.” Joe said. “Ok ok, I’m coming.”
They walked back across the living room and back into Amber’s.
“Now this is a bedroom,” Joe said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“Watch it,” David growled. “This is my woman we’re talking about here.”
“Come look at the closet,” David told him.
The two men went into the closet and David pointed out the shelves to Joe. Joe whistled. “Well, I guess we know how she paid the rent on time.”
“There’s more,” David said. He led Joe over to the freezer and showed him what he had already unwrapped.
“Holy shit!” Joe exclaimed. “Are all of the parts in here?”
“I dunno,” David said. “I only unwrapped a couple of them. We need to put them back and get a warrant to search this place properly. And I don’t want to be the one to do the searching. I don’t want to know any more.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Let’s put all this shit back and get the hell out of here. We’ll file for the warrant from the judge, and wait to see what Cummings digs up about Lila’s past and what he found out from the neighbors.”
David shook his head in agreement. But inside, his heart was cracking. That wave of loneliness passed over him again and he knew that it wouldn’t go away anytime soon. Perhaps never.
“David, look,” Joe stopped and pointed to the corner of the closet.
David pushed some clothes out of the way and was confronted by a cold corpse falling towards him. He grabbed at the woman’s stiff shoulders and shoved her back in. He put his hand to his chest, waiting for his heartbeat to settle down, and looked at his equally mortified partner.
“Holy crap. Shit Joe, this is deeper than I thought.”
“Wonder who she is,” Joe said. “She can’t be dead that long, she doesn’t even smell yet.”
“We’ll have to check the missing persons. See if anyone fits the description. Also, we need to see if we can get Lila to tell us anymore about Amber,” David told his partner. “Amber has all the answers.”
“Yes,” Joe agreed. “Oh, and David? You have a fucked up taste in women, anyone ever tell you that?”
THIRTY-ONE
Lila had spent the whole night in her holding cell. She didn’t sleep and had never been so petrified. She knew that she had been locked up in here with killers and drug users and rapists. Why was she in there with them? But she had to remind herself that she was a murder suspect. She shuddered, not thinking it was possible for her to ever have been considered such a monster.
She had run out of tears long ago. She had become almost numb to the predicament she was in. Maybe if she could detach herself from the situation, she wouldn’t be so scared. At least the rest of her cellmates had left her alone. And early in the morning, she had been escorted back to the interrogation room where she had been in the day before.
Lila sat in the room all alone. She was so scared. She had never experienced anything like this in her life and didn’t know what to expect next. They had to believe her, she was telling the truth. She put her head in her hands, but no tears came. She had been crying for so long that she had none left. Lila felt empty. Alone and empty.
Tired of sitting at the table, she got up and walked around the room. She knew the door was locked, and didn’t bother to try and open it. Even if it had been unlocked, she knew that she had no place to go. The overwhelming feeling that she was all alone in the world overtook her and she leaned against the wall, as a wave of grief threatened to swallow her.
Regaining her composure some, she looked at the camera in the corner. It was taping her every move and her every word. She stuck out her tongue at the camera, and then smiled a little at the childish gesture she had just made. It wasn’t very mature of her, but it did make her feel a bit better. It occurred to her that most psychopaths liked to stick their tongues out at law enforcement as well, but she shook that thought off at once. She wasn’t a murderer. She was Lila. Just boring old Lila. She walked to the other end of the room.
This wall was covered with a huge mirror, and Lila had seen enough cop shows to know it was two-way. CSI was one of her favorite shows. She leaned into the glass and was surprised when she discovered that if she looked close enough, she could faintly see what was on the other side. She watched as the two policemen flipped through paperwork.
She turned around to lean her back against the mirror and thought about how white that one policeman had gotten when she had mentioned Amber’s name. She wondered if he knew her. He didn’t seem like the type that would be Amber’s friend, but then again, Lila knew that she really didn’t know very much about Amber. But still Lila thought that there must be some connection between Detective Balducci and her roommate. After all, he had called her Amber when they first met. Then he totally turned pale when Lila mentioned her name. She just wished she knew what was between the two of them.
Lila turned around and watched the two detectives hard at work again. She hoped that they were looking for things to set her free and not for things to keep her constrained. She didn’t want to go to jail. She wanted to go curl up on her couch and forget all about this madness. Just then, another police officer walked into their room. Lila watched with interest as he talked to the original two. He handed Detective Balducci a big batch of papers and talked to him for what seemed like an eternity.
She watched as Detective Balducci listened intently, his face looking whiter and whiter. He leafed through the papers that the third cop had given him. He apparently didn’t like what he saw in the file because he was looking more and more upset. Maybe it was the evidence to set her free, Lila thought. About halfway through the file, Detective David Balducci dropped the papers all over the floor and fled the room.
*
Amber was driving and driving, she didn’t know where to go. She didn’t want to endanger anyone she knew, so driving to a friend’s house was out of the question. The thought of collecting a new piece for her perfect puzzle briefly crossed her mind. What better place to hide out then in the hotel room of some random out-of-towner? She didn’t have any of her equipment handy, though. Her entire stash of GHA was back at the house, which was undoubtedly under surveillance. It seemed as if she had been driving forever, but in reality it was only a few hours. She got to the state line and couldn’t make herself cross it. She parked the car and got out, looking over into the next state knowing that this was the point of no return. She knew that she needed to go back and save Lila. She needed to make sure that the police understood that Lila hadn’t killed Carl Olberman. Maybe she could get Lila free without them knowing Amber had any involvement.
Amber got back into her car and turned around, thinking about what she had done. All she ever wanted to do was save women from men. All men were the same. They only wanted one thing, and were assholes about getting it. She knew that she would never let another woman be hurt by a man, emotionally or physically. No woman would ever have to undergo the pain of her past. No man would ever have control while she was around. It was her mission to make sure that the male of the species paid for what he had done to her while creating the perfect man in the process.
Taking a deep breath, Amber put her car in gear and headed back. No matter what, she knew she needed to help Lila. So again, she drove.
THIRTY-TWO
Detective David Balducci dropped the papers he was holding and fled the room. He knew he was going to throw up, and wanted to make it to the bathroom before he vomited all over the place. He heard his partner calling him, but knew that he couldn’t stop. He pushed his way to the other side of the police station and into the bathroom, where the contents of his stomach emptied all in the toilet. He heard the door to the bathroom open.
“David, are you ok?” It was his partner, Joe.
“Yeah,” David answered back weakly. “Must have been something I ate.”
He came out of the stall and went to the sink. He splashed some water on his face and into his mouth to rid it of the remnants. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked as if he had seen a ghost. He could see Joe in the mirror standing behind him. He knew from Joe’s stance that he did
n’t believe David’s excuse. Who would?
Joe looked at David critically, “You sure there’s not something you want to tell me?”
David looked Joe squarely in the eye, “I can’t tell you now. I’m not sure I even understand it. We need to ask Lila a few more questions, and we have to find Amber. No matter what we do, we have to find Amber.”
“You sure you’re up to this?” Joe asked David. “Last time we talked to Lila, I had to knock you out of some sort of weird reverie.”
“Nope,” David said. “I have control over myself now. I’ll be fine. She just threw me before. Now I know what to expect. Let’s go find out if Ms. Lila Patterson knows anything else.”
The men walked back down the hall, and David went into the observation room to gather up all the papers that he had strewn about. He wanted to make sure that no one else got a hold of this information until he had finalized what he was doing.
He walked into the room, and was again taken with Lila’s sedated beauty. She hid her looks well, hiding behind the drab lonely girl look. But beyond the façade, she was gorgeous. And again, he had this feeling pass over that made him want to run up and hug her.
The night had been wearing on Lila. Her face was even paler than it had been the day before. It was in stark contrast to her dark hair and it made Lila look even more fragile. David hoped he could make it through this interview without doing something stupid.
“Lila,” he started. “Tell me everything you know about Amber.”
“She’s not in any trouble is she?” Lila asked, worried.
“No,” David assured her. “We just need to know everything you know about her.”
Lila was a little shocked by the change in direction of the questions. She wasn’t expecting this, but it was a pleasant change from the questions that she had no answers to before.
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