by Olive Balla
A man in his mid to late forties stood from behind an antique oak desk, pushed back his custom fitted, ergonomically perfect chair, extended his hand, and moved toward Frankie.
The man stood at somewhere around six foot-three. His carefully styled, sandy-colored hair flourished above a broad forehead. An artful and precisely symmetrical salting of gray adorned the sides. His tan face offered a sun splashed backdrop against which to display his unnaturally colored eyes, something between lapis and violet. And his face bore a carefully calibrated smile of pure plastic.
The attorney’s office attire consisted of lizard skin cowboy boots, designer jeans, and a yellow Polo shirt. He wore a turquoise and silver bolo tie, the style and rich patina of which proclaimed it to be from the 1950s, give or take. A brown tweed jacket, complete with twin leather elbow patches, had been carefully folded over the arm of an overstuffed leather chair in one corner.
“Good afternoon Miss O’Neil, I’m Jeremy Flatte.”
Frankie shook the proffered hand, and the attorney waved her toward a wood Mission style chair strategically placed in front of his desk. He reclaimed his seat.
“What intriguing choice of eye color.” Flatte placed his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, positioning his manicured hands to best display his diamond-studded horseshoe ring. “But doesn’t it mess with your head to see the world through one blue and one yellow contact?”
“I don’t wear contacts. It’s all DNA. Just weird genetics.”
“I see.” The attorney’s smirk said he wasn’t going to fall for that story. “Well, they certainly make for an interesting look.”
Frankie’s eyes slid upward from Flatte’s face to the framed certificates and licenses arranged on the wall behind his desk. That the attorney had earned a doctorate in Jurisprudence from Pepperdine University answered her unspoken question as to why Tim would have hired him. But how had he paid the man’s undoubtedly astronomical bills?
“For the most part, Tim left everything he owned to you, with the exception of a couple of small bequests. If you have any questions, I’m at your disposal.” The attorney paused, an inquisitive look on his face.
Frankie glanced around the office. “I’m concerned about your fees. Tim only recently graduated from medical school and his student loans are enormous. I’m pretty sure whatever funds are in his bank account will not be enough to continue covering your services.”
The attorney rubbed the palms of his hands together. “I don’t know anything about Tim’s level of debt, but all my fees have been paid in full. My records indicate he always paid within a week of receiving my invoices.”
Frankie’s eyebrows rose as if by their own volition. “Sorry?” Her voice cracked like a twelve-year-old boy fighting puberty.
The attorney’s eyebrows defined a quid pro quo arch at Frankie’s surprise. “I said my fees have been paid. You’ll want to get copies of your brother’s bank records for a full picture of his finances.”
Flatte bared his teeth again in what he seemed to think of as a rapport-building smile. He opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a file about a quarter of an inch thick, and pushed it across the desk. He spent the next several minutes explaining the nature of Tim’s will and of Frankie’s role as executrix.
“I hope I’m not out of line, but I’m curious about something. Did your brother strike you as being worried about anything?”
“What makes you ask?”
“He seemed uneasy the whole time he was in my office. I don’t know how else to describe it, other than to say he acted like a man trying to put his house in order. It’s almost as if he knew something was going to happen to him. Then when I read about his, um, his accident, it just seemed kind of ironic.”
When Frankie didn’t respond immediately, Flatte glanced at his diamond-encrusted watch, pushed his chair back and stood. “Sorry, but I have another appointment.” He walked to his office door, opened it, and looked expectantly toward Frankie.
“What do I—”
“Call after you’ve looked over Tim’s financial records. I’m sure you’ll have a better picture of things by then.”
Frankie did a slow walk back to her vehicle. She’d hoped the attorney might have been able to at least give her a hint regarding what had been going on with her brother. Instead, she was coming away with even more questions.
She spent the rest of the day at her church office, where she made some calls and did some paperwork then stuck her head into Pastor Dan’s office to give him an update on her situation.
“This is the first vacation you’ve taken in three years,” Pastor Dan said. “You’ve got a few days still coming. As long as music for the services is covered, do what you have to do.”
After thanking her boss, she tossed a goodbye at the church secretary and headed for the parking lot.
As she neared her car, a flash of blue caught at the corner of her eye. She whipped her head around in time to see the Camaro speeding directly at her. With only a split second in which to react, she threw herself onto the hood of her vehicle. Frantically, she curled her fingers over the metal lip behind which lay the windshield wipers and held on tight against the impact she felt certain was to come.
But none did. The driver gunned the engine and sped past, barely missing Frankie’s flailing legs. He pulled out of the parking lot and burned rubber into the street.
But this time he’d made a mistake. This time Frankie had clearly seen his face.
She slid off the hood to land legs planted wide, her weight on the balls of her feet in fighting posture. Heat pulsed in her blood and pain shot up both arms as her fingernails ground into her palms. She stared at the rear of the receding vehicle, her eyes straining to read the license number that was all but obliterated by mud. Whoever this guy was, he was no longer satisfied with merely following her.
Forewarned is forearmed. As if on cue, Uncle Mike’s voice sounded in her ear.
“So speaketh the dead sage.” Frankie instantly regretted her tone, even if it was only aimed at the aural memory of her uncle. “Sorry, but if you’re going to keep hanging around, at least make yourself useful and warn me before something bad happens.”
Instead of heading home, she drove to a hardware store. She purchased two lengths of steel pipe that would fit into metal brackets at the sides of her front and back doors, thereby rendering them nearly impervious to break in, two high intensity motion activated lights, a motion activated digitized recording of a large barking dog, a police issue taser gun, and three king sized containers of Man Down pepper spray.
While standing at the checkout counter, she pulled the packaging off one can of pepper spray and put it into her purse. She carried her purchases to the Volvo, opened a second package of pepper spray and put it into her glove compartment.
Once home, Frankie spent a couple of hours installing the Katy bars and setting up the motion activated barking dog. She’d have to wait until the next day to install the spot lights, but at least she’d made progress. And forewarned was definitely forearmed.
“Bring it, ass wipe.”
Now if she could gin up the confidence those words implied.
Chapter Sixteen
Next day Frankie installed the spotlights. She attached one to the header above her front door, the other above her back door. If she’d done everything correctly, they’d light up the whole freaking block anytime someone came within a hundred feet of her place.
After she set up the barking dog sound machine, she set it off several times until she was pleased with the volume. Even though she knew it was only a recording, the deep-throated woof interspersed with growls made her upper lip break out in a reassuring cold sweat.
Happy with her handiwork, she worked in her herb patch until the sun went down. The smell of sage and basil wafted into the air as she pruned the plants. Warmth from the compost she’d nurtured into dark, rich soil sent waves of earthy fragrance into the air as she turned it with a pitchfork.
The newly planted perenn
ials would, hopefully, erupt after a winter during which they’d sink long, healthy roots. In the spring, she’d sow seeds for the annuals.
She slapped her gloved hands together to dislodge the dirt in which she loved to dig and headed into her house. She’d just engaged the barking dog and was in the process of slipping the Katy bar into its brackets when her conscious mind registered something her subconscious had been screaming from the time she walked in.
She threw the bar onto the floor, grabbed her purse off the kitchen table, yanked the door open and ran back outside. As advertised, the barking dog machine kicked into high gear the instant the back door opened. Her eyes darting around the yard, she fumbled in her purse for her phone.
“Someone’s in my house,” she said to the emergency operator. Holding the phone so tightly her hand began to cramp, she made her way around the house, let herself out the side gate, and walked to the front. Her eyes surveyed the dark street for any sign of movement, she stepped onto her driveway. Her front spotlight flashed on, momentarily blinding her in its intensity. At that point, she’d have been unable to see anyone, even if he’d been standing on her foot.
The female voice asked some questions and told Frankie to stay on the line, offering assurance that someone would be there soon. Within a few minutes, a police cruiser pulled up, its red, white, and blue lights flashing like Fourth of July fireworks. A couple of neighborhood doors opened just wide enough for the occupants to watch the goings on.
“You’ve had a break in?” the young officer said.
Frankie nodded and pointed to her house. “I live there. Someone must have come in while I was working in the back yard.”
“Did you see the intruder? Can you describe him?”
“No, but I did smell him.”
“You smelled someone?” The officer’s voice sounded puzzled, but he maintained a carefully neutral expression on his face.
Frankie blushed. “I…I don’t wear perfume. I’m allergic, so my nose is sensitive to fragrances. I smelled men’s cologne.”
“I see.” The officer slowly nodded his head while studying her face. “Okay. Please stay right here.” He unsnapped the strap on his sidearm and turned toward the front door.
“You can’t get in that way.” Frankie pointed her index finger and made a circular motion with her hand. “You’ll have to use the back door. Um…the front’s locked.”
Double-bolted and barred. All but sealed with pine pitch. Tim’s playful voice teased.
“Not funny,” Frankie muttered.
“Pardon me?” the officer said.
“I was just saying it was funny that whoever got in knew to avoid the spotlights.”
In a few minutes the officer returned with assurances the house was empty as well as odor free. “At least it was empty except for a cat that nearly got itself shot. Scared the bejeezus out of me. Jumped right on top of my head.”
“Sorry. I should have warned you about Collette.”
The officer nodded. “And the huge dog I never saw.”
“It’s not a real dog.” Frankie pasted what she hoped was a guileless smile on her face. “It’s a digitized recording, supposed to be a deterrent.”
“I see.” The officer nodded his head as if what Frankie said made perfect sense. But she had a feeling he could hardly wait to get back to the station and tell his pals about the ditzy woman and her Alcatraz cum apocalypse prepper security.
“Did you open a bedroom window after you went back inside?”
“No. Why?”
“The window screen is still in place but the window is open. No way to know if someone used it to gain entrance because of the xeric rocks under it.”
“I guess I forgot to close it.” Frankie avoided the policeman’s eyes.
All that high powered security she’d put in place, and she blithely leaves her window wide open. A side window—the only spot that wouldn’t light up like the sun in the face of an intruder.
A door slammed somewhere down the street. Frankie jerked at the sound, her hands flying to her face.
“The lights are not a bad idea.” The officer spoke in a gentle voice. “But you may get complaints from your neighbors, especially the nearest ones.” He suggested she accompany him through the house to determine if anything was missing, had been moved, or if anything had been left behind that didn’t belong. The two headed toward the back yard.
Once inside the house, Frankie turned off the dog. With the officer walking ahead, they made their way through the house while Collette eyeballed them threateningly from atop her usual perch.
Nothing out of place. Nothing missing. In spite of herself, Frankie felt a bit disappointed. If something had been taken, she’d not look like such a looney toon.
Another thought blossomed like a mushroom cloud. Maybe her illness had metastasized and her sick brain was no longer satisfied with merely sending out voices. Maybe it had decided to throw olfactory hallucinations into the mix. She chewed on her thumbnail.
“We’ll check with the neighbors,” the officer was saying. “Maybe someone saw something.” Pretending not to see the deadbolts and the Katy bar as Frankie unblocked the front door, the officer handed her the usual business card with a case number on it and left.
As soon as the patrol car was out of sight Frankie nearly ran to her pantry. She pulled open the doors and touched each of the cans, boxes, and bags of food three times. She ran through the ritual again and again, until her panic began to subside. Then she added an extra time for good measure.
Once her breathing returned to near normal, she went to her bedroom and flung herself onto her bed. She grabbed up the canister of pepper spray kept on the nightstand, placed her thumb lightly on its pressure trigger, and clasped it to her bosom. For several minutes she lay staring up at the ceiling.
What if she wasn’t in the process of losing her mind, what if she’d already lost it? What if her body was actually sitting in some institution rocking mindlessly back and forth while her alive-and-well uncle Mike and brother Tim shook their heads and said how sad that Frankie had gone completely mad?
Tears ran down the sides of her face and onto the satin pillowcase.
****
Larry listened to Frankie cry from the shadows outside her bedroom window. He wanted to go to her, to hold her and stroke her hair.
“Don’t cry, Beauty,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He lifted his treasure to his nose and breathed deeply of its lavender fragrance. At the right time, he would return the blue satin hair ribbon he’d just taken from her bureau. He’d offer it to her, and she would look at him with eyes full of gratitude.
Chapter Seventeen
Frankie sat in a forest green leather chair across from Dr. Demaris. The therapist, sitting with her long slender legs crossed at the ankles, pushed the red button on a small digital recorder on the coffee table, folded her unexpectedly strong, square-shaped hands in her lap and looked into Frankie’s face.
“Tell me about the name you’ve given the voice. Have you ever known anyone named Jenny?”
Frankie shook her head. “I don’t think so. It just seemed like a good name for her.”
“How would you feel about asking her to tell you what she wants?”
“You mean ask her to talk to me?”
“That seems a good place to begin.”
“No offense, but that sounds whacked out. I mean, the whole reason I’m here is to make her go away. Besides, she doesn’t really exist, right? She’s a product of my imagination.”
“No offense taken.” Angela smiled. “But our imagination stems from our subconscious. And your subconscious is trying to get your attention by using a child’s voice. A child in obvious distress.”
“You’re saying Jenny’s voice is me talking to myself?”
“Pretty much.” Angela dragged an empty chair over and placed it in front of Frankie. “Pretend Jenny is sitting in this chair. What would you like to ask her?”
Frankie looked into her therapist’s eyes. “I’d want to ask her—”
Angela held up her hand. “Don’t ask me, ask her.”
Frankie turned her head toward the chair and tried to envision a seated child. “Who are you and what do you want from me?”
At the therapist’s instruction, Frankie then sat in the empty chair and pretended to be Jenny. But after a couple of minutes she shook her head. “How can I answer my own questions? I’m sorry, I’m just not getting anything other than what I’ve already told you.”
“It’s okay. We’ll try something else next time.” Angela crossed to the door and held it open. “Your assignment is to get into a dialogue with Jenny. Ask her what she wants from you. Write down whatever she says and bring it to your next appointment.”
Feeling like she’d failed an important exam, Frankie left the office.
****
Next morning Frankie awoke out of a troubled sleep. Although she’d heard it was possible to consciously control what takes place in one’s dreams, she’d never been able to achieve that state of lucid dreaming. Instead, she awoke in sweat-soaked pajamas with the feeling that things were spinning out of control.
“What do you want from me?” she said into the dawn-lit room.
No answer.
“So you’re only going to torment me when you feel like it, is that it?”
Silence.
“I hereby give Jenny permission to tell me what’s going on.” The volume of Frankie’s voice had risen a couple of notches and the familiar tightness in her neck was kicking up.
“Then bite me.” She stepped out of bed and headed for the kitchen pantry. After reviewing her food stores, she slipped into her jogging outfit and slid her socked feet into her gel heeled walking shoes.
The walks relaxed her, and today her thoughts suggested it was time to go through Uncle Mike’s papers. Other than his will, she’d been emotionally unable to handle seeing his notes and private papers. And she’d already put it off too long. Besides, maybe touching his papers would help her feel closer to him. At least it would take her mind off Tim’s murder and her inability to find his killers. And maybe a break was just what she needed.