by Mia Thompson
As the man’s dark eyes locked with hers, Chrissy suddenly wasn’t sure her daddy would come at all.
The man squinted at her fingertip, then drove the knife into it. The faint sound that came out of her mouth was nothing compared to the cry inside. The pain seared down her finger, and her hand.
The man dangled the detached, bloody fingernail in front of her face. The lifelong protective walls, which had been set up to shield Chrissy from malevolence, crumbled to the ground.
Nothing she’d ever been taught could’ve prepared her for this moment. From this day forth, Christina Kraft knew she would never be the same.
• • •
It was Salsa Saturday.
The True Serial Catcher was stuck with the one at home, chopping up tomatoes, wishing she was chopping up a killer.
While the rest of the family enjoyed the festivities, the True Serial Catcher didn’t care about Salsa Saturday, Thai food Thursday, Monday Movie Night, or any other family fun day with matching first letters. She only cared about Sapphire Dubois and the mysterious man. He’d been gone when she turned around and the only mansion nearby belonged to the Duboises.
She wanted to know what he wanted with Sapphire and about the appetite she’d seen in his eyes. She’d tried to go back, but the one at home had locked her up and forced her to be a part of the “family.”
As they sat down to eat their beloved tacos, nachos, and burritos on their beloved Salsa Saturday, the one at home glanced at the TV in the living room. The True Serial Catcher noticed it too. It was the latest report on the missing Beverly Hills women. They’d finally been found. Two heiresses and one wedding planner, buried at the latter’s house. They spoke of Erika Phelps the most, and many people cried over the loss of this woman.
Erika. Erika, The True Serial Catcher repeated to herself.
Not many dared to choose Beverly Hills’ secure community as killing grounds. It took someone special to navigate the grabs, someone who could amalgamate with the prey, someone like the charming man with the hungry eyes by Sapphire’s mansion.
The True Serial Catcher saw her window of opportunity widen. The quick glance at the TV could not be unseen, and the one at home had to leave, right in the middle of precious Salsa Saturday.
With the dictator, the one who ruled their dwelling, gone, the True Serial Catcher was free to go.
As the woman on her left, whom they called mother, turned the Lazy Susan to pass the pinto beans, the True Serial Catcher got up and walked out the door. They yelled after her to come back, but nothing could stop her now.
She was going to figure out what this man’s connection to her predecessor was, and then, she would take him down.
Chapter 9
Sapphire held the birthday card as she opened the door to the mansion. Not her mother’s mansion, not Charles’s mansion, but her mansion.
Weird. She’d never thought of it as home, more like she was a temporary resident; now she owned it. So, when she broke what she thought was her mother’s window to get inside the other night, she’d broken her own. Bummer.
After she left DubCorp, she drove home, and parked up the hill of the mansion. She spent hours watching the house, hoping to catch a man who looked like he came straight from the Mad Men set, staking her out. Her father never showed, nor did Jon Hamm.
Sapphire headed for the fridge, passing the usual: paintings, furniture, naked mother riding a fugly stranger on kitchen table, cookie jar.
“Sapphire, you’re early!” Her mother yelled in panic. “I said seven o’clock.”
Sapphire grabbed a bottle of water and headed for the stairs as she looked down at the birthday card again.
Take a life to save another, it said.
Sapphire hurried to the attic, her sanctuary, to get her things. She wasn’t sure how to interpret his note. All she knew was that it involved killing. She had to get to him before new instructions followed.
Sapphire reached up feeling a jolt of adrenaline. Though she hated what her father was putting her through, she couldn’t help but feel the old excitement come back to her as she opened the attic flap. She hadn’t been in there since sometime before the wedding-that-wasn’t, and the thought of being surrounded by her precious things was warming.
She stood, brushed her pants off, then looked up. “What… the… hell?”
The walls were bare, the floor empty. Her wallpaper made up of articles of unsolved cases: gone. Her secondary closet: gone. Her first and favorite “Closed” folder on Thomas Broker: gone. Her old tranquilizer gun, her wigs, her maps: gone, gone, gone.
Sapphire grabbed the roots of her hair, staring at the absence of her life’s work. Aston took it, she realized. This was the evidence he was talking about. You mother—
“Daaaarling! Aren’t you coming back down?”
Sapphire left the attic, her face warped in horror. Gone. Gone. Gone. She dragged her feet down the stairs, feeling the panic. Without her tools, her supplies, how was she supposed to find her father?
“Daaarling!” Vivienne shouted again.
“What?” Sapphire held her hands out as she walked into the dining room. “What!”
“Our weekly mother-daughter dinner. I didn’t expect you so early.” Vivienne stood before a catered meal. The fugly man sat a few chairs down, now dressed and armed with a notepad.
“We don’t have weekly mother-daughter dinners,” Sapphire exclaimed. “We don’t have yearly mother-daughter dinners.”
“See how she speaks to me,” Vivienne told the fugly guy who scratched away at his notepad. “I’m your parent, young lady.”
Parent? The closest thing to parents Sapphire had were Julia and Father O’Riley. “What’s he still doing here?”
“This is Søren. He wanted to meet you and help. He’s a life coach, sort of.”
“Really?” Sapphire’s mouth puckered. What they’d been doing on the kitchen table looked less like life coaching and more like backwards cowgirl.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Sapphire,” Søren beamed. “Let’s have a bite, and chat. What’s this story your mother told me about trout?”
Sapphire sat down and stared at the plate of Kobe beef, the anger about the attic still pumping through her. “I know this is hard to remember, but I’m still a goddamned vegetarian.”
“Language, Sapphire.” Søren pointed his steak knife at her. “Cursing is a tool of darkness.”
Sapphire stared at the stranger. She did not like him.
Vivienne waved her fork and sighed. “Just eat around it, darling.”
Sapphire looked from her delusional mother to the rare steak, bleeding on the lettuce beneath.
“I can’t stay, because…” She was about to make up an excuse about having to prepare for tomorrow’s trial, but didn’t. Partly because tomorrow was Sunday—no court. Partly because she realized she owed no excuse to a mother who banged strangers on the kitchen table. Instead, she put her palms on the table and nodded to the small party. “Mother, guy-I-don’t-know.” She pushed her chair out, and headed for the door.
“Sapphire… Sapp-hi-re!” Vivienne’s high heels clacked against the marble as she ran after Sapphire into the kitchen.
“How are we ever going to fix our relationship if you keep running away?”
Sapphire turned. “I was perfectly happy with our broken relationship. I was used to it! Just because you decided to be sober for a week or two, doesn’t mean I have to jump on board.”
“I haven’t had a drop since the wedding, Sapphire.”
“Bah!” Sapphire rolled her eyes, and they landed on the kitchen table. An envelope leaned up against a small box. Sapphire was scribbled on the front.
Her stomach plunged. Already? Of course that was the point: to give her no time to think.
“Where did that come from?” Vivienne asked. “I was just in here.”
Sapphire snatched the box and envelope off the table. Who was he, freaking Houdini?
“What is it?”
Vivienne looked over her shoulder with curiosity. Sapphire walked into the bathroom and locked the door. When she opened the card, two Polaroids fell to the ground. One landed face up, the other face down. The face up photo showed Chrissy, laying stiff on a cot, her face pale and her eyes frozen.
Two knocks. “Darling? Are you okaaay?”
“I’m fine! Go away!” Sapphire read the card.
Happy 9th Birthday.
Pick One.
“Are you having trouble pooping? Are you eating enough fiber?”
“No!” Sapphire tore open the box. Inside lay a Polaroid camera and an envelope, pre-addressed to a P.O. Box.
Sapphire understood what he wanted. She reached down, her body stiff with anxiety. Pick who will die, Chrissy or the person on the face down Polaroid. Sapphire was supposed to kill whoever was featured on the face down Polaroid, then send a picture of the body to the P.O. Box.
“No, you’re not having trouble pooping? Or no, you’re not eating enough fiber?”
“My digestive system is fine. Leave me alone, woman!” Where was her uninvolved, emotionally dead mother when she needed her?
Sapphire reached to pull the picture off the tile, then flipped it over. She sank to the ground and stared at the photo.
It was Father O’Riley.
• • •
If Aston had to listen to Barry absentmindedly sing “If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it” one more time he might kill someone. Barry over himself, preferably.
They’d raced from Modesto to Eloise Parker’s house to find a mess of dug up and tagged bodies, including Parker and the Phelps heiress. It was the worst he’d seen since he got transferred to Beverly Hills, and the worst the Beverly Hills team had seen, period. Some puked, others got sudden “allergy problems” and had to leave the basement. For once, Aston didn’t make fun of them. His years at the LAPD had made him used to gore and death, but not immune to the murders of innocent women. Aston wanted to make an ass-hat out of this killer. More so after being the one to break the news to the devastated parents.
After the news crews stormed the place, Aston and Barry went back to his studio to work. The paperwork from the Beverly Hills Killer lay in one pile, the papers for Sapphire’s case in another, the burglar file in a third, and the papers Detective Meadows gave them were spread across his coffee table. Somewhere in this mess was the key to the thing that had been going around in Aston’s head lately. He knew there was a connection, but the thread was too thin to follow.
Aston rubbed his tired eyes. “What does it mean?”
“It means,” Barry explained, “he should’ve married her when he had the chance.”
“Not the song, all this! The killer, the burglar, the vengeful Copycat…” He waved the notes he and Barry made while trying to profile the new vigilante. “Focus!”
“Focusing,” Barry nodded. Two blissful minutes passed before he started humming again.
Aston grabbed the heaviest folder he could find and bashed his partner in the head with it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Barry held his hands up in defense, then broke into a smile. “I’m just happy. Remember Ginnifer with a G? Hot, sweet, total marriage material?”
Aston sighed, eyes back on the papers. Nobody was marriage material to him. Poor Barry had grown up with parents who were happy together. He’d never know what a bad marriage could do to people.
“Well…” Barry laced his fingers and stretched with pride. “She called me back earlier, and I’ve got a date with her tonight.” He looked at the time. “In fact, I should probably go and get ready.”
There was a knock at the door.
“A date? Forget it. You’re staying here until we crack this thing.” Aston stood up. “And you’d never catch me picking a chick over police work. Ever.”
Aston opened the door to see Sapphire Dubois. He turned back to Barry. “Get out.”
His partner stood.
“No, Barry, sit. I’m not staying long.” Sapphire pushed past Aston, then went straight to his closet and started going through it.
“What are you doing?” Aston asked, then noticed Barry still there. “Seriously, man, three’s a crowd.”
Barry stood.
“No stay,” Sapphire hissed and he sat back down. “I’m just here for my, um… stuff.”
“Your stuff?” Aston repeated with humor. “Ooh, your stuff. You can speak freely in front of Barry. I trust him.” He nodded over to his partner, then frowned. “Why are you still sitting?”
Barry stood.
“Sit!” Sapphire ordered, then pushed Aston out of the way to pull out his drawers. “Where is it?”
Aston crossed his arms amused and leaned against the wall. “I can guarantee you it’s not in my underwear drawer.”
Sapphire dropped his boxer briefs to the floor then moved onto the table with their paperwork. “This will be a lot quicker if you just tell me where it is.”
“Don’t touch that,” Aston said, quickly. It was best Sapphire didn’t know about the Copycat. Who knew what shit she’d get herself into.
Sapphire moved back to his closet and threw his shirts on the floor in a frenzy. Aston sighed. As much as he wanted to keep her here, she was messing up his color coordination; it’d taken him, like, four hours to get the shirts in order. “It’s not here, Sapphire.”
Sapphire crossed her arms. “Then where did you put it? Your office, Barry’s place, where?”
“Nooo,” Aston chortled. Damn. “If you admit it, I might tell you.”
“I came for my stuff. Isn’t that admittance enough?”
He pulled the closet door closed and leaned into her. “Say it.”
“I’m,” Sapphire said, eyes closed, teeth gritted, “the Scherial-Cascher.”
“I’m sorry, you’re the Cereal Cashier?” Aston leaned his ear to her mouth in amusement. “I couldn’t quite hear with all that teeth gritting. You are…?”
“I’m the damn Serial Catcher, okay! Which, by the way, dumbest name ever. Happy?”
Aston looked down at her as his body almost touched hers, and felt his face soften.
“No, I’m not happy,” he said, earnest eyes on her. “I’m working my ass off, along with your lawyer to clear your name.” He moved closer and to his surprise, Sapphire didn’t pull back. “See, you and I are like Rachel and Jim.”
“Huh?”
“You know, Bill and Pam.”
“What?”
Aston groaned, damning Barry and his dumb analogies. “I’m trying to say, Paris was real. It wasn’t all an act to get you home.” Their proximity caused heat. It ran through Aston’s body like a bolt.
She stood silent as her expression gradually changed from frustration to something calmer.
Aston’s voice turned lower, deeper. “Remember that day, when we didn’t get out of bed at all? When we ordered pizza, just to realize… French pizza tastes like ass.”
Sapphire let out a quick laugh. Their lips were only inches apart, as Aston’s finger carefully slid to her back, and pressed against her warm skin. He took in her scent, her presence, and the charge between their bodies. He leaned in and pushed his lips to hers.
A second, that’s what he got. A fucking second.
Sapphire pushed at his chest. She backed away from him in panic. Whatever spell he’d had her under was temporary, and now broken.
“What?” Aston held his arms out. “What else do you want me to do to fix it? Tell me and I’ll do it!”
“You can’t undo it, Aston.” Sapphire looked at him with a mix of frustration and wonder. “I don’t… I don’t trust people. But when we walked through that airport, I trusted you, and you…” Sapphire shook her head as her voiced died out.
She didn’t have to finish. Aston knew. And you demolished my trust.
They looked at each other for a few seconds, then Sapphire held her hand out. “I said what you wanted me to say. Now where’s my stuff?”
“What do you need i
t for?” Aston’s eyes narrowed. “I really hope you’re not thinking about hunting the Beverly Hills Killer while you’re in the middle of a trial. Do you understand how fast they will sentence you if you get caught?”
Sapphire stared at him without blinking. “You said—”
“I said if you told me, I might give it to you. And I’m not going to.”
Sapphire let out a humorless laugh, then bumped him with her shoulder and headed for the door. “Let me know when you’re done being an asshole.”
“Well buy a watch, baby, because it’s going to be awhile,” Aston shouted before she slammed the door. He looked down at his crotch. “Shit.”
He exhaled, trying to mentally reverse the boner she’d given him. Aston smacked the lights off then fell on his bed with a thump.
“So, um…” Barry’s voice emerged from the darkness, “I’ll just take off then.”
Had Aston’s words buy a watch not tumbled in his mind, he may have been mortified that he didn’t realize Barry was still there, and that his partner had witnessed the show. Watch. Watch. Watch.
“Barry?” Aston sat up at the image of the old coot crying about the 1937 Rolex.
“Yeah?” He heard Barry walk over to him.
Aston fumbled in the dark until he found Barry’s arm. At least he hoped it was his arm. Otherwise, pretty impressive. “What did you say the name of the guy who paid Sapphire’s bail was?”
“Ah, Woodland, Archer.”
“And how much was the black market value for everything the burglar stole?”
Barry turned on the light, then grabbed the papers and added the items on his fingers. “Just over one point three million.”
“And how much was Sapphire’s bail?”
“One point three mil—holy crap.” Barry drew an excited breath. “What does that mean?”
“One: Archer Woodland is our burglar. Two: he wanted Sapphire out. The question is why?”
• • •