The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1)

by Loreth Anne White

  Angie waited until his eyes met hers again. “Can you tell me about the early hallucinations?”

  “Auditory and visual,” he said.

  “So she heard voices? Saw things that weren’t there?”

  “Just … minor at first. She didn’t even know they were not real, or anything to worry about.”

  Angie’s pulse quickened. “And you didn’t tell me about it? Even though she’s been suffering all these years?”

  He pushed his plate to the side. “Well, you didn’t notice either. It’s not like you spent much time here lately.”

  Her jaw tightened. “You could have told me.”

  “And what could you have done?”

  “I don’t know! Understood, maybe, what was going on in her head. Been less short-tempered with her, with you. Come around more. Maybe I wouldn’t have taken my mother’s emotional distance so personally in my late teens. Maybe I would have had some context for why I so often felt locked out as a kid.”

  “Locked out?”

  “By you and her.”

  “That’s nonsense—all kids—”

  “What else have you lied to me about?”

  “It wasn’t a lie, Angie—”

  “By omission, yes it was.”

  He surged to his feet, his quick Italian temper puffing out his chest, coloring his cheeks, flashing into his dark eyes. “I don’t know why you get so angry—always so damn angry about everything!” He flung his arm out in her direction. “It’s that job of yours. Working sex crimes. It’s made you suspicious about everything and everyone.”

  Coolly, she got up, started gathering the plates and cutlery. “I need to go. I’ll wash up.”

  She carried the plates into the kitchen, dumped them into the sink. Bracing her hands on the counter, she lowered her head for a moment, a vise of anxiety squeezing at her temples. What was her dad going to do now, alone in this big empty shell of an oceanfront house? What about Christmas? She truly hated this time of the year—detested the thought of making an effort. The farce of it all.

  Guilt weighed sudden and heavy on her shoulders. Guilt at her own selfishness—because she’d be obligated to come and visit her dad more often, and she didn’t have the time. Or inclination, even. She did not want to listen to him going on about her work as a cop. But he was going to need her.

  And what of his wedding anniversary, come January?

  Aging parents, families, were never easy. There was always so much love, hurt. Regret. All muddled together. And now there was a sense of time lost. Somehow she’d let these past years flow under the bridge without noticing them. Really noticing. And now it was over. Her mother gone. Still here, but gone.

  Inhaling deeply, she began to rinse off a plate, stilling as her thumb moved over the blue flower pattern along the edge. A memory, like a piece of bright-yellow sunlight, sliced into her mind—one autumn afternoon spent shopping with her mother for this crockery set at the big old department store downtown. The Hudson’s Bay Company. Her mom used to love that store. Maybe in her more lucid moments she still did. Would her mother even be able to recall that day now, this set with the cornflower pattern that they’d bought together?

  It had been eight years ago. Angie had promised to drive her mother downtown because her mom’s car had been in the shop. But Angie had been distracted by a case—she’d just made detective, and all her mom had been fretting about was whether the thirty-two-piece dinner ensemble would still be on sale when they got there. It had irritated Angie—her mother’s preoccupation with the inane.

  And then suddenly life had passed her by. She’d woken up one morning and her mother was gone—lost in mind, a lifetime of precious memories erased from the hard drive of her brain. What did that do to the concept of “self”? Memories defined a person. Without autobiographical memory, the face in the mirror was a stranger’s. One became an alien, flailing around in a constant, unrelenting present with no touchstones to guide one into the future and out of the past.

  Angie flattened the thought, rinsed off the second plate, and stuck it in the rack. She dried off her hands and returned to the living room to get her coat.

  She found her dad sitting by the fire, his big frame crumpled into an old leather La-Z-Boy, which her mom had tried forever to persuade him to ditch. Yet there it still hunkered in its corner next to the hearth, like a dinosaur relic of some past era among her mom’s plush cream sofas and chairs. He’d put the tree lights on, and a fat glass of whiskey rested on the table at his side. Flames were dying to glowing embers in the hearth. He was paging through an old photo album, his head bowed.

  Angie went to his side, placed her hand on his shoulder, gave a small squeeze. “You going to be okay?”

  He nodded. He was staring at an old photo of the three of them, taken the first Christmas after the car accident that had occurred during his sabbatical in Italy when Angie was four. The legacy of that accident was evident in the fresh pink scar pulling up the left side of Angie’s lip—the photo had been shot before further surgery had restored her mouth to a more even, but never perfect, shape.

  He turned the page. Another photo of Angie with her mother. This one taken when Angie was maybe six years old. Spring. Lush green grass. Cherry blossoms. The sun was gold and angled low. The rays threw a halo of copper around her mother’s strawberry-blonde hair, and it made Angie’s darker hair gleam like burnished red cedar. The O’Dell Irish legacy, courtesy of her mother’s genes.

  A tightness began to build in Angie’s chest.

  Her father glanced up, something unreadable and strange entering his face. “Take it,” he said, closing the album and looking away.

  “I … I don’t think so, Dad.” She didn’t have time to sit and page through these memories, these little pieces of their lives that had been trapped in time under the protective plastic sheets on the thick pages of the album. She had another Justice Institute exam to take. She was registering for as many courses as she could to bolster her bid to join the elite of Metro PD’s integrated homicide unit.

  “Please,” he said, voice thick. “Take it away, with the other boxes. Just for a while. It’ll stop me from looking, kitten.” Angie’s heart beat a little faster at his use of her old nickname. Her father hadn’t used it since she was maybe ten. She came around, sat on the ottoman at his side, took the leather-bound book of memories from his big hands. She opened it at the beginning. Her mother pregnant. Her tummy growing. The day Angie was born.

  “She made it for you. Your life from the minute she knew you were on the way. It’s … too … painful right now, you know, for me to look at these things.”

  Angie gazed upon the image of her mom in a hospital bed, wearing a blue gown, cradling her newborn. The haze of dark-red hair already evident on baby Angie’s head.

  “You were so tiny,” he whispered, turning his face toward the dying coals. She heard the catch of emotion in his words. She knew there were tears in his eyes. The tightness began to intensify in her chest.

  She turned to another page. The day of her baptism—her mom and dad holding her as a baby in a long white, lace-embossed gown. The priest in his ornate robes at their side. Another photo showed them all at the beach. She skipped forward several pages. Emotion whammed through her chest. She caught her breath and gently touched the image. She could almost hear her mother’s voice from that day, feel the warm summer breeze against her cheeks, taste the rich, sweet taste of plump Okanagan cherries. Slowly, Angie turned the page. There were pictures of more family holidays, Angie’s first day of school, her first Holy Communion, learning to sail at camp, her prom, graduation.

  A picture of Angie in her brand-new police uniform, her mom standing proudly at her side, long hair billowing in the breeze.

  Gently, Angie moved her fingertips over the contours of her mother’s face.

  “I’ll miss her.”

  “I already do,” said her father.

  She closed the book. “I’ll borrow it,” she said. “I’ll b
ring it back by Christmas, how’s that? What are you doing for Christmas, Dad? You want me to get a turkey?” Shit. She’d said it. Committing. At one of the busiest times of the year at the station. Perverts—bad guys didn’t take holidays. In fact, things got worse at this time of year.

  He rubbed his brow. “I’ll figure it out.”

  An errant log caught flame, and the fire crackled. Wind moaned.

  She nodded. “I’ll see myself out.” She got up, hesitated. “Go easy on that whiskey, okay? Get an early night.”

  He nodded, his face still averted from her gaze.

  “Night, Dad.”

  Angie loaded the boxes and album into her car. Outside, wind tore at her hair, and fog came in thick off the sea. She could hear the crash of waves on rocks down below.

  The snow was coming down heavily and sideways.

  CHAPTER 2

  Angie rounded the corner and hit the unprotected strip of Dallas Road that ran along Ross Bay. Wind and driving snow slammed into her. Waves crashed and boomed along the concrete road barrier, and fog billowed in over the bay. Leaning forward for better visibility, she slowed her unmarked Crown Vic, her wipers struggling to clear arcs in the snow smearing over her windshield.

  As she neared the lowest dip in the road, her tires entered a stream of seawater spilling over the wall. Debris and foam hurtled across her windshield. The beams of her headlights bounced back at her in the fog and silvery snowflakes. She rounded the curve, and something dashed suddenly out into the road in a swirl of mist and foam. A blur of pink entered the glow of her beams. Angie slammed on the brakes, her Crown Vic skidding sideways as it planed on the seawater that had puddled in the dip.

  A small girl in a pink dress stopped right in front of her car, then spun around and disappeared up into the dense, leafless tangle of roots and branches that grew tightly up against the side of the road.

  She stared, heart hammering, skin hot. Clouds cleared for a moment, but the child was gone. No other vehicles—not one other soul in sight. What the …

  She pulled over to the side, flicked on her police lights, grabbed her flashlight, and removed her Smith and Wesson 5906 service pistol from the lockbox mounted in her console. She loaded her weapon. Blue and red light pulsed in the fog as she opened her door, got out. She drew the hood of her jacket up against the driving wind and snow pellets.

  “Hello!” she yelled into soup of fog. “Anyone there?” Wind snatched her words, tossing them up into the hedge of tangled trunks and branches that screened the old cemetery above. A strange, eerie sensation filled her.

  She walked a few meters up the road, panning her beam through the twisted branches along the embankment. “Hello!”

  A voice, soft and susurrating, whispered … Come playum dum grove … Come down dem …

  Angie froze.

  She spun around.

  Come playum dum … come …

  The eerie sensation turned to ice in her chest. She swallowed, walked a little farther along the road, ducking as debris blew at her. No sign of the kid on either side.

  She climbed back into her car and rubbed her wet face hard with the palms of her hands. And for a while she just sat there peering into the mist, her police lights still strobing into the storm. But the child did not reappear.

  Pink dress? About four or five years old? Shit. No kid would be out in this weather, alone. Especially not dressed like that. And how could she have heard that whisper over the crash of waves and howl of wind? Angie realized her hands were trembling.

  Her father’s words filtered into her mind.

  The first indication I had that she might be experiencing hallucinations, delusions, came in her midthirties … We thought it was PTSD, from the car accident in Italy …

  Cold, she told herself. Just wet and cold. And exhausted—worsening insomnia since July taking its toll. She hadn’t slept for four nights straight now. That’s why she was shaking. She flicked off her lights, reengaged the gears, and pulled off slowly, wipers clacking.

  A drink. She needed a stiff drink.

  She needed to get this shit out of her head. She glanced at the clock on the dash. She’d promised herself she’d tone things down—it’s why she’d booked time off work. It’s why she was making an effort to help her mom and dad this weekend. She’d thought focusing on family affairs might help settle the urge in her. But once the thought had entered her head, Angie knew where she was going. What she would do. In spite of herself.

  She’d do what she always did when she hit a bad hurdle, when she needed to find a way to cope—to blow off steam. Just the thought of it made her feel better already.

  CHAPTER 3

  We all lie … We all move within six degrees of separation from one another.

  Angie knew the instant he walked into the bar that he was the one.

  Slowly, she sipped her drink, keeping her eyes trained on him as he sifted through the gyrating crowd—it parted for him like the Red Sea to Moses beneath the sparking disco ball. He moved with a command presence. She could feel the techno thump of the music resonating up her bar stool, and the pulse matched the beat of her heart as she watched him.

  He stopped a moment, scanning the bar patrons as if searching for someone. He stood a head taller than the crowd, his shoulders broader than average. Light danced off his hair, which was ruffled and the dark blue-black of a raven’s feathers. His skin was pale. His eyes … she couldn’t see the color from here, but they were wide set under dense brows. Strong features, she thought, ones that hovered between handsome and interesting. There was an otherworldly air about him, a vaguely worn yet incredibly alert look.

  He turned, caught her eye.

  A sense of trepidation rustled through her—he didn’t quite belong. Not here, in this club. There was something slightly off about his presence. But this only fueled her interest, her adrenaline. He held her gaze for a moment, and when she did not look away, he started to come toward her seat at the bar. Warning bells began to clang deep inside her mind as he neared. Heat rose in her body. Angie swallowed.

  Don’t think. Just feel. Stay in control. Rule # 1: Always stay in control.

  The Foxy Club was Angie’s hunting ground. It was located just off Highway 1—the road out of town that led over a mountain pass and up the island. From the outside the Foxy was a bleak, square building squatting on a cracked parking lot. A big billboard with flashing lights promised adult entertainment to motorists passing by. Tonight happened to be “Seventies Disco Night” with “Big Bad John” spinning bass-laden tunes under period disco balls. On the long and narrow stage behind the bar, female strippers in white patent leather go-go boots, tiny thongs, and silver wigs made seductive love to their poles. On this night they were paired with a male dancer who’d poured his muscular body into a tighty-whitey disco suit. He undulated his way between the strippers and their poles, thrusting his hips to the beat and pointing to the sky like something out of the old Saturday Night Fever movie … stayin’ alive … ah ha ha … stayin’ alive …

  Yeah. Story of our lives. Just trying to stay alive—to live a little and fuck a few people along the way.

  Because, as Angie knew all too intimately, at the heart of all life, and death, was sex. She was acutely aware of how sexual proclivity ran the gamut from “normal,” to deviant, to deadly. And the Foxy showcased sex in many of its forms. It was a place men came to buy it. And a place she could get it for free. Her own personal game of Russian roulette. Her own way of flipping a bird to mortality, the sometimes apparent futility of it all.

  Her own way of stayin’ alive … ah ha haaa …

  The club’s motel on the opposite end of the parking lot rented rooms by the hour. She’d already paid for one upon her arrival. The lights dimmed suddenly and shifted from hot reds to blue as the song changed. She knocked back the rest of her drink, relieved to finally feel the beginnings of a nice fuzzy buzz. She motioned to the bartender for one more as her target approached her stool.

  He
smiled, and Angie inhaled, a zing spearing down into her belly. Even better up close. Nice white teeth, incisors a little lower than the rest, giving him a deliciously feral air. Creases fanned out from eyes that were such a dark blue they almost looked purple in this light. Fuck, he’s fucking beautiful. But still a little beat-up looking, just the wrong side of perfect.

  Quite simply, he stole her breath.

  And somewhere, far off, those mental warning bells started to clang louder—five alarm. And in the recesses of her consciousness she heard the words, Don’t touch.

  Not this one. Too attractive to you. Not the profile you’ve set for yourself. Never take one that makes you feel vulnerable in any way …

  “Hey,” he said.

  She nodded and took a deep swallow of the fresh vodka tonic that the barkeep had just placed in front of her. Just stay in control. Leave first. Leave early. No names.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” he said, bracing his right hand on the bar, leaning across her, his mouth close to her ear in order to make himself heard over the music.

  She held up her glass. “I’m good.”

  “A dance, then?” He held her gaze. She didn’t blink. Slowly, she set her drink down on the counter and came to her feet, closing the space between them. He straightened up but did not step back. It forced her to look up at him. He was even taller than she’d anticipated. Broader.

  “How about a room?” she said.

  Now he blinked. And she noticed a flicker of unease pass quickly through his eyes. Angie smiled, turned on by her own power to put that glimmer of wariness into a big man’s eyes. It shifted the traditional balance of power. In her line of work, the victims were nearly always female. Or children. Innocent children. And the aggressors were nearly always male. She continued to meet his gaze, waiting for him to process her question. When he did not reply, she grabbed her leather jacket off the back of the stool and started to negotiate her way through the throbbing dancers toward the red exit sign above the rear door.