Stalking Sapphire

by Mia Thompson

  * * * * *

  He stood over the hills and watched with humor as the second officer left the mansion. He had been waiting for this moment for days. He was about to cut the girl’s head off when he realized he wanted to do more. The souvenir he had picked wasn’t good enough. The first item belonged to her, a representation of what she was and what she had done wrong. The second was a representation of him and who he was. He hadn’t figured out what he was going to do for the third one quite yet and had lain sleepless the night before trying to come up with something. Then he thought it needed to represent what was to come: a token of her future punishment.

  “Go to her home,” came a voice.

  “Thank you, my Lord,” he replied.

  Now he knew what to do. The token would be taken from her house. After, he would finish Shelly off. Wrapping up the trilogy once and for all, he would put the head on Sapphire’s bed.

  He hadn’t expected her to get away from the officers as much as she had managed to. The body parts had been sent in public so that she wouldn’t be able to exclude the police.

  He made his way down the hill and walked up to the mansion when he saw someone in the window. Immediately, he saw what God’s actual plan for him had been. He wasn’t there for a souvenir at all. He was there to make sure she would suffer so much more. It was all perfect. God had laid it all out so flawlessly for him.

  He rang the doorbell and waited patiently, hearing its music echo inside. As the sounds of footsteps walking across marble floor grew louder, so did his smile.

  The handle twisted and the housekeeper opened the door.

  “Yes?” she said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

  “Hello, Julia.”

  * * * * *​

  Aston drove down the 101 listening to classics from the sixties on the radio when he decided to switch channels after the second run of the same Beatles song. A man reading the news in a monotone voice came on. Aston was about to switch again when something caught his attention.

  “Monday evening, police in Thousand Oaks found a man by the name of George Rath hanging from a meat hook at the old slaughterhouse. He had recorded a tape of himself confessing to the murders of five women whose bodies had been found in the area over the past year.”

  “Motherfucker,” Aston said, shaking his head. It was the pattern of the Serial Catcher, and the Thousand Oaks police had chosen to overlook it or were too stupid to see it. Then he remembered Julius Capelli.

  Capelli and Aston were partners for about three months at the downtown station before Julius transferred to the Thousand Oaks district. He and Julius had one obsession in common…the Serial Catcher. For a second Aston thought about abandoning his original plan and heading to Thousand Oaks since he was already going in that direction anyway. Then he saw something on the opposite side of the freeway heading toward L.A.

  A white Range Rover. Luckily, it was rush hour and the traffic on the other side was barely moving. He twisted his body around awkwardly—he was at the wrong angle to see the rear license plate, but what he saw instead was good enough. Long dark hair on the driver’s side.

  Aston swerved to the right, cutting off a Jeep Wrangler that laid angrily on the horn, and he headed for the next exit.

  * * * * *

  Sapphire knew something was wrong the minute she stepped into the mansion. It was too quiet.

  She knew her mother was off with her “Pilates instructor” because it was Friday, which also meant Charles was at therapy. The kitchen was empty and the TV was on a Dharma and Greg marathon, which was odd because it was four in the afternoon.

  Every day, Julia took her break at 3:59 on the dot, grabbed a cup of coffee, and planted her ass on the couch to watch the newest episode of her soap, Los Amigos. Although, ironically, they seldom acted like they were just amigos.

  “Hello?” she yelled. Julia must have called in sick and stayed at Antonio’s. Of course she did; she was still mad at Sapphire. Knowing Julia and how hurt she had been, it would take Sapphire a long time to get back on her good side.

  The back door slammed shut.

  Sapphire moved toward the sound and could see mud tracks on the white marble floor leading up to the door. They weren’t Julia’s. The tracks belonged to a man. Aston’s most likely.

  The front door squeaked as it closed and the sound travelled through the house and up to Sapphire.

  “Hello!” Aston’s voice rang loud and clear—Sapphire’s entire body tensed up.

  She yanked the back door open to see a shadow of a person jump down from the top of the tan stonewall surrounding the mansion’s rear.

  She picked up the pace, moving to where the shadow had disappeared. She knew it was him. She knew it to her core and there was no question about it. Something caught her eye as she passed the pool…something that didn’t belong. A solid dark mass at the bottom of the pool.

  The mass took the shape of a person with dark black hair floating.

  “Julia!”

  Sapphire dove into the pool without a second thought and swam to the bottom of the deep end. She opened her eyes in the heavily chlorinated water and came face-to-face with a pale Julia.

  Sapphire grabbed Julia’s body and kicked with her legs, but as much as she pulled and as hard as she tugged, they weren’t going anywhere. The chlorine was starting to hurt Sapphire’s eyes and her vision became blurry. Something was attached to Julia’s leg. Sapphire reached down and felt it. It was rope, strong rope that had been wrapped around Julia’s leg multiple times. The rope was attached to a cement block, the kind they had around the pool area to build a bogus tropical-looking waterfall.

  Sapphire tugged on Julia again and could feel herself getting lightheaded. She knew she should go up for air and dive back down, but she couldn’t leave Julia. She struggled until she finally untied all the rope and got Julia up to the surface.

  She gasped for air and swam with Julia to the pool’s steps. Once above the water and without the deceptive light of the pool, Julia’s face was tinted light blue and her lips were a deep purple.

  Sapphire screamed at the top of her lungs as she struggled to get Julia up to the edge of the pool. She could hear herself speaking but had no idea what the words were. She could hear the water in the pool splashing back and forth from the motions, but nothing else. It was as if she was wearing earplugs and a hand was clenching her heart in an iron grip.

  She got Julia up on the ground and held her in her arms as she cried.

  “Move out of the way!” Aston appeared out of nowhere and pushed Sapphire to the side. He began giving Julia CPR.

  Sapphire sat there for what seemed like forever, waiting for something to happen, holding Julia’s cold hands in hers.

  “Please don’t die,” Sapphire repeated over and over, hoping that if she said it enough it would make everything all right.

  “Come on,” Aston said as he pumped Julia’s chest.

  All Sapphire could focus on were Julia’s purple lips. Every second felt like an eternity; a million images went through Sapphire’s mind. Images of Julia putting on her red lipstick for her first date with Antonio and how she smiled in excitement. Images of Julia standing uncomfortably in the midst of a crowded audience filled with the Beverly Hills upper class as Sapphire finished first in the 400-meter sprint. Julia reading to Sapphire at bedtime. Julia not leaving her side when she had mono at the age of seven. She was the solid object in Sapphire’s otherwise abstract world. The only person who had ever loved her even though it wasn’t biological; Julia was her mother.

  Aston suddenly stopped CPR and pulled his hands away.

  Chapter 15

  Sapphire had a particular recurring dream that came from a memory…a memory that always started with young Sapphire blowing out the candles on a cake Julia had baked for her.

  When Sapphire finally closed her eyes and felt the comfort of sleep taking over, she wished for that dream. So that she could see Julia. Talk to her. But she didn’t dream of her eighth bir
thday that she had spent with Julia. She dreamt of nothing. A dark nothingness of sleep was all she had. As if it was all she could bear. Nothing.

  Antonio woke her up. He was standing above her holding two coffees. She yawned, cracked her neck, and sat upright in the chair where she had curled up to sleep.

  “How are you doing?”

  Sapphire didn’t know how to answer, so she just took the coffee hoping it would be disgusting. She didn’t deserve good coffee. It was neither good nor bad, so she allowed herself to drink it.

  Antonio pulled up the matching chair next to hers and sat down. He turned his eyes to Julia. She looked like an angel lying on the bed of white with her dark hair curling around her face. Tubes and needles stuck out of her body connected to machines and IVs.

  When Aston had pulled away, Sapphire thought that was it. Julia was dead and her life would never be the same. When Julia coughed up water and started breathing, Sapphire cried from relief but realized quickly after that something wasn’t right.

  She remembered flashes and pieces of Aston pulling her into the back of the ambulance and sitting her down next to Julia on the stretcher. Though she was breathing, Julia’s eyes remained closed. In the ambulance and all the way to the hospital, they remained closed. After several hours, the doctor finally came into the waiting room and explained that Julia had been under water for approximately fifteen minutes. It cut off so much oxygen to the brain that she was now in a coma and the next forty-eight hours were critical. If she woke up, the doctor couldn’t guarantee in what condition it would be.

  “How could I have let this happen?” Sapphire said, not letting go of her grip around Julia’s hand.

  “You didn’t let anything happen. Things just do,” Antonio answered, letting his eyes rest on Julia.

  “How can you be so calm?” she asked, almost annoyed. Since he arrived, he had been calm as a cucumber. He had arranged for Julia’s belongings and even brought Sapphire’s car to the hospital so that she could leave if she wanted to.

  “I have to pretend so that I can ignore the fact that it feels like someone is ripping me apart on the inside.” Antonio turned to her and for the first time she could see it in his eyes. Pain. An inhuman amount of pain.

  “I’m so sorry, Antonio. I’m so sorry…I just want to make it right. The dinner. She was so hopeful about it and…that was the last time I saw her. We had the worst fight and I said the most selfish things.”

  Antonio shook his head. “People have fights. You didn’t know what was going to happen, so don’t put that on yourself.”

  “No. It’s not just that. You don’t understand. It really is my fault. She is lying here because of me.”

  Antonio locked eyes with her and for a second it looked like he believed her. He opened his mouth to say something when someone knocked on the frame of the open door.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Aston asked, nodding to Sapphire.

  They walked out of the hospital and sat down on a bench. Aston lit up a cigarette as an older woman was rolled by in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached. She and the nurse gave Aston a dirty look, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “Look, I know what you’re going through is hard, but you have to understand, I know you’re not telling me something,” he said, his face stern. “You have to tell me before anyone else gets hurt here.” Aston’s eyes met hers and they were sweet…full of compassion. He hesitated a few times as his hand hovered above hers, moved to his hair, his knee, back over her hand, and then finally into his pocket. He changed positions as he sat on the bench, resulting in his leg touching hers. Making it look like an accident.

  Sapphire sat silently as she contemplated it. Was it time? She obviously wasn’t good enough to catch the guy, and Julia, her Julia, was hurt because of it. Obviously she couldn’t tell him what she did, but where was she supposed to start then?

  Her chest felt heavy and it was getting hard to breathe. She felt trapped in her own skin, unable to break loose.

  “I…ah…I…,” she whispered, her voice unsteady. She couldn’t seem to form any solid sentences, even in her mind. “I don’t know anything,” she heard herself say.

  The compassion in Aston’s eyes disappeared in an instant and his leg drew away from hers. He stood up, frustrated, shaking his head repeatedly. “You…you stupid fucking brat! Do you not understand the situation you are in? Your housekeeper was just drowned and who knows who else is next! You have no choice. You have to tell me, or I can’t help you!”

  “She wasn’t my housekeeper!” Was all Sapphire could get out. The guilt, the hurt, the pain, the anger, and the sadness all became one and Sapphire had to do something. She couldn’t bear to be herself anymore. She had to get away from them all: anyone who reminded her of Julia.

  Aston watched her and she could tell a new train of thought hit him. “Fine. Let’s go inside. Unless you want to go somewhere?”

  “No. Nowhere,” Sapphire said and walked inside, formulating a plan to shake Aston.

  * * * * *​

  Aston’s car was parked in the best place possible for his plan. He had been waiting for about fifteen minutes and was getting impatient. He was starting to doubt his intuition.

  He made it clear that he was going to the bathroom and specifically told Sapphire to keep her ass in the chair expecting her to take the opportunity and do the opposite.

  The elevators opened and Aston smiled. “Excellent work, Detective,” he told himself since no one else was around to give him credit.

  Sapphire looked over her shoulder a few times before she managed to get to her car. She jumped in and drove off.

  Aston crept after, determined not to lose her this time.

  * * * * *​

  Sapphire closed the door to the Volkswagen and started walking toward the dingy bar down the street, stopping once to give a toothless homeless man ten dollars.

  “Jeshush lovsh you!” he yelled after her.

  The bar was crowded by the kind of downtown people who didn’t care that the tables smelled like vomit and the floor like piss. The sound of sappy country music escaped an old jukebox at the far end of the room, skipping in its track every so often. The place was a dump and exactly what Sapphire needed, because it was exactly how she felt right about now.

  She sat down by an extra sticky spot by the bar and ordered a beer from the wonderfully bad-mannered bartender.

  “Mary?”

  Sapphire heard the name being called but didn’t react, just kept her eyes peeled on the nasty-looking beer that the bad-mannered bartender was pouring her.

  “Mary! Over here.” It was Marco, sitting by himself in a booth on the other side of the bar.

  At first Sapphire thought about bolting out of there. She didn’t want to be around anyone who knew her. Then as she glanced at Marco she realized he didn’t know her; he knew Mary. She’d stay until she finished her beer and that was it. Maybe he could take her mind off them all. Julia, Shelly, even Aston, that bastard.

  “Marco,” Sapphire said and got up just as she received her beer.

  “Come sit with me!” He said, patting the space next to him in the booth.

  Sapphire sat down by him and was immediately hit by his intensely masculine and welcoming cologne. He smelled re-he-heally nice. Unlike Sapphire who had a pretty severe case of vending machine coffee breath and whose grubby clothes reeked a bit of hospital and incurable self-hatred. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me? This is my hangout. I live just a few blocks down.” He looked at her with his dark brown eyes and Sapphire felt a little tingle in her stomach. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. I kind of wanted to explain myself for before.” He paused, tapping his finger to his whiskey glass. “I…I just don’t want you to think I ask all my clients out. Because I don’t. Just…Just you. So don’t think that. Do you…think that?” He was nervous and it was adorable for a guy who appeared so tough on the outside.

  Sapphire shook her head at him, suddenly
feeling a smile draw on her lips for the first time since Julia went to the hospital. It felt good. Unauthentic? Hell yeah, but good. “No, I don’t think that,” Sapphire replied. “But I do think we should order another round.”

  * * * * *

  Aston ordered a Captain and Coke as he watched her from the other side of the bar. His first drink had gone down quicker than expected. He knew he could leave. He was, to be honest, somewhat disappointed when he found out the truth about Sapphire. In his mind, he had created all sorts of scenarios about what Sapphire did when she snuck out of her house. That night it all came to a big fat belly flop.

  He had heard about people with her issue before and was pretty sure that it was considered a fetish nowadays. Rich people who dressed down, went to the city slums, and found it exciting to have sex with people below their social status. After all, she had sex with him. He was below her class and apparently, she went down to the low-income areas, met up with men, and seduced them.

  He was appalled, and for the life of him, could not figure out why he didn’t leave the minute he realized it. He felt angry, betrayed almost. He didn’t want her to be what she was.

  The guy, who looked like some sort of UFC fighter, gently touched Sapphire’s cheek to remove an eyelash and Aston cringed. Suddenly he felt nauseous and looked down at his drink. The Captain was apparently not agreeing with his stomach at all.

  “Give me a beer,” he told the bartender.

  When he turned back, Sapphire was sipping from her drink, smiling and laughing. For someone whose non-housekeeper, as she claimed, had almost drowned and was in a coma, she didn’t seem to be in very much pain. Not that he didn’t believe she was upset. He knew she was; her reaction had been more than genuine. She simply seemed like someone else.

  The grossly handsome guy next to her looked at her as if she was something to eat. For some reason, Aston wanted to walk over, pull out his gun, and shoot the guy in the knee. Or balls. Aston watched him and realized something. Could it be that the perp he was looking for was one of her sexual encounters? Someone who had been scorned and was retaliating against her? It made perfect sense. The guy she was sitting with now was new, and there was an obvious want coming from him, so he was not the guy. Aston scanned the room for someone other than himself watching them. After a 360, he landed back on Sapphire and saw the grossly handsome guy lean in for a kiss or to whisper something; Aston wasn’t sure.