by E. M. Parker
Olivia sat down at the edge of the bed. “I need to talk to you too.”
Fiona sat at the opposite end, taking long, deep breaths in a vain effort to calm her nerves. “Me first.”
“Okay.”
There were so many things Fiona wanted to say that her mind scrambled to find the appropriate starting point. “How do you handle living here, with Noah, and the constant noise, and everything that seems to happen?”
“I have my headphones and my music. That helps me not hear the noise and the arguing. I mean, I still hear it, especially Noah’s terrible music, but it’s not as bad. I also stay in my room a lot.”
“But honey, you shouldn’t have to do that. This is your apartment too.”
“He doesn’t think so. He always tells me that until I start paying the bills, I don’t have the right to say anything.”
“And your mom lets him talk to you like that?”
“She can be just as bad as he is. Sometimes worse.”
“What does worse mean?”
A faraway thought momentarily distracted Olivia. “I don’t feel like talking about it.”
“Are you ever able to talk to anyone about it? Friends maybe?”
“What friends?”
“How about teachers?”
Olivia looked down at her feet. “Nobody understands. Sometimes I don’t think they even want to understand. So I don’t bother them with it.”
“Well, I’m here, and I want to understand. Help me do that.”
Olivia suddenly stood up and walked to the window.
“What are you doing?” Fiona asked.
“I need to look out for my mom’s car. Like I said, I don’t know when she’ll be back, and the last thing I want is for her to see you here.”
Trust me kid, it’s the last thing I want too. “Don’t worry about that now. Just come back over and sit.”
Olivia surveyed the parking lot for a few more seconds before finally feeling comfortable enough to walk away from the window. “No sign of her.” She retook her seat on the bed. “I’ll look again soon, just to make sure.”
“Okay. But for now, why don’t you tell me what you know about Donald Tisdale.
Olivia let out a deep, labored sigh. “He was killed.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know.”
“You have to be more specific.”
“He was killed because he wasn’t a nice man.”
Fiona struggled to manage the frustration in her voice. “Do you know who killed him?”
After a long hesitation, she nodded.
“Who was it?”
“I’m worried that you won’t believe me.”
“I know it’s a scary thing to talk about, but you have to trust me.”
Olivia’s eyes suddenly welled up with emotion and she rushed to cover them with her hands.
Fiona gently uncovered her face. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’ll protect you.”
After taking a moment to compose herself, Olivia nodded. “I believe you. But I’m still scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Scared to tell you who killed him.”
“Okay. Let’s start with something else.”
“What?”
“Tell me why Donald Tisdale wasn’t a nice man.”
“Because he hurt people.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know.”
“Did he ever hurt you?”
Olivia shook her head.
“Then who did he hurt?”
“You know.”
“What do you mean? How would I know?”
“Because you’ve heard it.”
Fiona felt her frustration rising again. “I don’t understand.”
Olivia suddenly stood up from the bed, walked over to the corner of the room where her bedding was, and hit the wall with an open palm.
“That.”
She then closed her hand and began pounding on the wall with all the force she could muster. “You’ve heard it before, right?” she shouted with a fury that seemed to grow with each strike.
“Yes, I have. Now please stop.”
Olivia complied. Exhausted from the display, she sat down on her makeshift bed to catch her breath. “She does it because she’s trapped here and she’s trying to get out. But she can’t.”
“Who?”
Olivia reached into her sleeping bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it, studied it for a moment, then stood up, refolded the paper, and brought it to Fiona.
She gasped the instant she opened it.
The immaculately-detailed hand drawn portrait depicted a smiling girl of about seven or eight-years-old, staring longingly out of a window onto the busy street below. It was titled Lost in Dream, with the neatly-scripted signature of D. Tisdale. Aside from the incredible craftsmanship of the drawing, one thing caught Fiona’s attention immediately: the girl, with her short pigtails and oval-shaped eyeglasses, looked just like Olivia did in the photos displayed in her living room.
Fiona’s mind immediately went to the conversation that she overheard between Detective Sullivan and Natalie about an incident between Donald Tisdale and Noah. Iris had suggested that it involved Olivia’s older sister, but Fiona questioned that now.
“Donald Tisdale drew this?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Olivia nodded.
“When?”
“I don’t know. It was a while ago, I guess.”
Fiona handed the drawing back. “You must really like it if you’ve kept it all this time.”
Olivia’s soft face suddenly hardened. “Not so much.”
“Then why do you have it?”
“Because it helps me remember.”
“Remember what?”
“What she looks like.”
The revelation washed over Fiona like a tidal wave, and if she wasn’t already sitting down, she would have been swept completely off her feet.
“Your sister. This is your twin sister.”
Olivia nodded. “Her name was Hannah.”
“Was?”
Olivia walked back to her pile of bedding and slipped the drawing back into its rightful place inside the sleeping bag. “This picture is one of the few things that helps me remember her. And these.” She pointed to the eyeglasses she was wearing, eyeglasses that Fiona now knew belonged to her sister. “She had an extra pair.”
She also now knew that the little girl who never smiled in any of the pictures was Olivia. It made all the sense in the world now that she’d met her. But it didn’t make the resulting sadness any less debilitating. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so very sorry.”
Olivia took her seat on the bed. The tension in her features was gone, replaced with something that was neutral and unfeeling. “My mom says that things sometimes happen in life that don’t make sense. That’s the one thing she’s ever said to me that I know is true.”
“Can you tell me what happened to Hannah?” Fiona asked hesitantly. “I know it’s really hard to talk about, so I understand if you can’t…”
“She’s dead,” Olivia answered without any identifiable emotion.
Fiona gave herself a moment to recover from Olivia’s blunt answer. “How did it happen? Does it have something to do with that picture? With Donald Tisdale?”
She knew the answer long before she asked the question. But as had been the case with every other difficult circumstance that arose in her life, denial was the safest, most readily available option. Unfortunately, there would be no conceivable way to deny the words that Olivia spoke next.
“Hannah always talked about how much she liked his drawings, and he wanted him to teach her. My mom and Noah said she couldn’t talk to him, but she ignored them and went to see Mr. Tisdale anyway. She started telling me about all these cool drawings that he had of the mountains and forests and things like that. Then he told her to go stand by the window so he could draw her. She said it was
the coolest thing ever and she wanted to have it. He told her that the only way she could keep it is if she promised to come see him again so he could make more drawings of her. So she did. I told her that she shouldn’t do it, that mom and Noah would be mad. But she said they were wrong about him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. She begged me not to tell anybody, so I didn’t. Then she went to school one day while I was home sick, and she never came back.” The thought made Olivia tremble. “I guess she was the one who was wrong about him.”
There wasn’t any defense in Fiona’s vast arsenal to shield her from the heartbreak that she felt at that moment. She struggled to find an appropriate follow-up question. “Was your sister ever found?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know that she died?”
“It’s been almost three years. She wouldn’t just leave and never come back. She would never leave me.”
“Did the police ever think that he had anything to do with Hannah’s disappearance?”
“No.”
“Even with the drawings?”
“The police said the only drawing they found of her was the one that Mr. Tisdale gave to Hannah. They said it didn’t prove anything. Nobody will ever believe it was him, especially now that he’s dead.”
“Then why are you so certain?”
Even with the long silence that Olivia used to mentally prepare herself, she still struggled to formulate the words. “Because… she showed me.”
Her disbelief thoroughly suspended, Fiona didn’t bat an eyelash as she asked the question, “How?”
“She comes to me in my dreams. Tells me things. Shows me things. She comes to me when I’m awake sometimes, but it’s a lot scarier, so I tell her not to do it.”
Before Fiona could even consider a response, Olivia stood up from the bed and walked to the window. When she turned back to Fiona, all the color had drained from her face. “You have to go.”
“What’s the matter?”
“My mom is here. You have to leave, now!”
Fueled by her sudden rise of panic, Olivia grabbed Fiona by the hand and forced her off the bed. “Hurry.”
With the panicked girl still leading her by the hand, Fiona scurried out of the bedroom and into the dark hallway, but the sound of muffled conversation stopped them before they could get any further.
“Oh my God, she’s here,” Olivia cried.
The next sound Fiona heard was a key sliding into the door.
“Come on, you need to hide.” Olivia led them back into the bedroom. “Get in the closet.”
“But wait, how am I supposed to–”
Olivia cut her off mid-protest. “Just go. You’ll be safe in here until I can get you out.”
Without another word exchanged between them, Olivia pushed Fiona into the closet and closed the door. Olivia’s footsteps quickly moved across the wood floor before suddenly coming to a stop. Next came the rustling of her makeshift bed.
Natalie’s booming voice streamed in from the living room. “Yeah, I just got home. No, it went fine. Jesus, why is it so dark in here? Hold on, Noah. Olivia? Where are you? I hope you’re still in bed.”
Footsteps in the hallway led to the opening of Olivia’s bedroom door. “Hey, are you asleep?” Natalie asked in a compassionless tone.
Olivia responded with a deep breathing meant to signify that she was.
Natalie sighed as she closed the door. Heavy footsteps then moved through the hallway into the living room where her telephone conversation resumed.
“Yeah, I just checked on her. She’s still asleep, thank God. I swear, I can’t deal with the whining anymore.” She paused. “Christ, Noah. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s always sick with one thing or another, you know that. But if she misses much more school, the goddamn truancy police are gonna show up at our door.” Another long pause. “I don’t know if they’re still looking for you. I haven’t seen those detectives around here all day, so I seriously doubt it. What could they possibly want anyway? They’re still too busy trying to figure out who killed that miserable old fuck Tisdale.” Natalie’s footsteps echoed through the wall as she began pacing. “Of course they shouldn’t suspect you. No one is telling them anything about you. Stop being so damn paranoid.” After listening to a response that she apparently did not like, Natalie began screaming into the phone. “I’d like to see you try it, Noah! I’d really like to see that! Whatever, I’m done! Have a nice day, prick!”
Natalie continued talking after that, but it was apparent that the conversation was now with herself.
“If he even thinks about putting his hands on me again, I swear to God…” Her voice grew louder as she began pacing the hallway outside Olivia’s bedroom door. “I’m so tired of this shit, all of it. I could end everything in five fucking seconds; I don’t think he understands that. But I’ll do it. I’ve done it before, I can easily do it again. Bastard wouldn’t even see it coming.” There was a sudden bang as Natalie hit something. “Just like that.”
Fiona held her breath as Olivia’s door slowly creaked open. After a few seconds, Natalie closed it and started walking down the hall, hitting the wall, and knocking objects to the ground as she did. “Just like that!” Natalie’s angry tirade culminated with the sound of a heavy door slamming shut.
Fiona thought for a moment that Natalie had left, until she heard the yelling, more distant now, but still in the apartment.
As the nightmare scenario loudly played itself out in Natalie’s bedroom, Fiona barely gave any thought to the fact that she was trapped inside the closet of an apartment that she had no business being in, with no reasonable hope of getting out without a fight that she wasn’t the least bit prepared to take on. All she could think about was how she was going to make sure that Olivia did not meet the same fate as her sister, because from everything that she could see, it was only a matter of time.
Suddenly, as if she were reading Fiona’s mind, Olivia whispered confidently, “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way out of this. Just hold on a little bit longer.”
Crouched uncomfortably in the blinding darkness of that closet, Fiona wanted to believe her. But the thin thread that she had been hanging on to ever since she first arrived here finally snapped, plunging her into a black hole of nothingness that felt like it went on forever, and ever, and ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“MAYBE YOU SHOULD LET ME RUN POINT this time,” Detective Greer suggested as he and Sullivan prepared to reenter Donald Tisdale’s apartment. “Ghosts and goblins don’t scare me one bit. I’ll take rattling chains over an AK-47 pointed at my head any day of the week.”
Sullivan was more than happy to take Greer up on his offer, even if she didn’t appreciate the humor associated with it. “I never said it was a ghost.”
“Then what was it?”
She took a moment to consider her answer. “Something not at all pertinent to our investigation.”
“Meaning it doesn’t warrant further consideration?”
“Exactly.”
Greer smiled. “Well in that case, ladies first.”
Sullivan rolled her eyes as she walked past him into Tisdale’s apartment. “Just when I thought chivalry was dead.”
“What can I say? Momma taught me well.”
She felt the chill the moment she walked in. When she glanced over at Greer, it was obvious that he felt it too. “It may not be a ghost, but it’s damn sure something.”
“You ain’t lyin’,” Greer said. “Apparently that ventilation issue hasn’t been addressed.”
Sullivan walked to the thermostat. “Sixty-eight degrees.”
“Coldest sixty-eight degrees I’ve ever felt.”
“You ain’t lyin’.”
Greer chuckled. “Okay Shaft, where should we look first?”
“The only thing that Arthur Finley said was that the paintings were stashed away somewhere in the apartment. He never said where.”
“I’m pretty sure there isn’t much new ground to c
over after forensics had their way with the place. So, remind me why you think this is even remotely worth our time?”
Sullivan wanted to credit her intuition again, but she feared that the card wouldn’t play nearly as well as it did twenty-four hours ago. “Because the techs could have found the artwork and not thought twice about it. And if there are still pieces in here, even something small that we could have originally missed, they might give us our only insight into who Tisdale was. I’ve read that you can tell a lot about the mindset of an artist based on the work they produce.”
“Yeah, I could tell after one look at The Potato Eaters that van Gogh was more than a few cans short.”
Sullivan smiled. “That painting is kinda creepy, isn’t it?”
“More like nightmare-inducing. I always thought it should have been called The People Eaters, because I’m positive that girl was cutting into a loaf of cooked brain.”
Something turned in Sullivan’s stomach that caused an involuntary activation of her gag reflex. “You should really shut up now.”
“I’m just saying. Are we doing this because you think we can find some weird shit like that in Tisdale’s collection?”
Sullivan hadn’t consciously considered that before, but now that Greer had suggested it, she couldn’t deny being intrigued by the possibility. “Let’s just focus on finding the paintings before we start psychoanalyzing them. This may very well amount to nothing, and if it does, at least we can say we tried.”
“The good news is that we don’t have much space to cover. I start poking around in here.”
“Okay. I’ll start in the bedroom. We can flare out from there until we meet in the middle.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Greer started in a small pantry space in the kitchen while Sullivan moved down the hallway to Tisdale’s bedroom. Thankfully there was no thumping inside the walls or ceiling this time, only the disquieting stillness of a recently abandoned space.
If Tisdale had any artwork in his bedroom, it wasn’t on display. In fact, the only ornamental touch in the entire space was a poster-sized calendar on the wall above the bed that featured the city skyline framed by a burnt orange sunset. It was titled The Magic of Denver. Tisdale had faithfully crossed out each passing day of the year, all the way up to his last on April 12th.