Stalking Sapphire

by Mia Thompson

  When he got back to the car, Sapphire watched as he knocked the pack of cigarettes against his wrist before opening it. He glanced over at her and his eyes lit up. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Sapphire shook her head and looked away nonchalantly. Nothing, she repeated to herself, reminding herself. It seemed it was something she had to do often in his company. Remind herself. Not to stare. Not to follow urges. Not to feel.

  Aston placed his hands on the wheel and smirked. “You drool when you sleep.”

  “I do not.”

  “You do. You drool an insane amount. I’m surprised you don’t have to sleep with a bib with the amount you drool.”

  “You have no proof.”

  “I don’t need proof. I saw it just now and I saw it…” Aston’s voice died off. The words never spoken lingered in the silence of the car. The night they had been together was now vivid in both of their minds.

  Aston cleared his throat. Perhaps about to say something, perhaps to fill the awkward silence.

  A voice broke in from the radio.

  “Two-four-six-one,” the voice called out and Aston grabbed the radio mouthpiece.

  “This is two-four-six-one.”

  “We just got a call from the Glendale police. They got a call that matched the description of Shelly McCormick off Chevy Chase and Pine. The witness was driving by and saw a young woman standing in the middle of the road. He looked away for a second to turn his stereo down and then the girl was gone. Do you want me to send a unit?”

  Aston and Sapphire looked at each other, and then Aston pushed down on the mouthpiece. “I’m about five minutes away from the Glendale exit.” Aston hit the gas and they took off. As they got back on the freeway, he reached his arm backward and let his hand search amongst a mess of paperwork and coffee cups until he found what he wanted. He rolled down the window and stuck a siren onto the roof then turned it on. The siren blared as Aston got up to 120 MPH. Sapphire couldn’t talk. Couldn’t breathe. She was scared that if she did anything, the opportunity would pass and Shelly would be lost.

  Within ten minutes and with the help of Aston’s siren, they were on the road where Shelly had been seen.

  They both saw the white church towers peering up behind a wall. The bell tower and a few of the upper windows were covered up with large plywood pieces.

  She and Aston glanced at each other and he veered into the right lane heading towards it. Just as they were a few yards away a car pulled out from the church’s parking lot and peeled off to the right.

  “What are the odds that someone is at, what looks to be, an abandoned church at five in the morning?” Sapphire asked and was pleasantly surprised at how nice it felt to say it aloud to someone instead of having it as an inner dialogue with herself.

  “Exactly,” Aston said as he took the siren from the roof turning it back off.

  “What are you doing? Why not just chase after and pull them over?” Sapphire asked.

  Aston slowed down and started creeping after the car at a decent speed.

  “Two reasons,” he said. “If you were a kidnapper slash killer, what would you do if you had a body in the trunk of your car, dead or alive, and a cop tried to pull you over?”

  “I’d probably make a run for it,” Sapphire said, slightly annoyed with Aston as she watched them pass the boomed up old church.

  “Second. What if he already moved her, and what if he just did a clean of the place and was heading toward her new location right now? If we caught him, he would never admit to kidnapping anyone, and she would be left for dead somewhere.”

  They followed the car another four, five miles before they finally watched it pull into a dead end.

  * * * * *​

  Shelly cried as he sat her down in the chair she hated so much. She shook as he tied her up with the ropes that had strangled her arms for so long. Through her tears, she looked again at the room she had spent all those hours in. If the walls could speak, they’d speak of fear, sorrow, and despicable actions.

  “Can’t you see I’m only trying to help you?” he said, frustrated. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wrapping.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, afraid of the answer.

  “I’m making you my final present.”

  Shelly cried hard, choking on her sobs. “For who?”

  He smiled and stroked her cheek. She pulled back, disgusted to her very core by his touch. “For someone very special. Someone who needs to be taught a lesson.” He backed away, studying her as if he were a painter and she, his canvas.

  “You have to excuse me for being a little disorganized, but we have to move fast before anybody finds you. I was in such a dilemma, where should I move you? Where do I have time to go before you die from blood loss? Which will be soon. Then God spoke to me and said you should be cleaned of your sins in his house.”

  Shelly did something she knew she would regret. “The only voice in your head is your own. You’re fucking crazy.” Then she spat him right in the face.

  He wiped his chin and stared at her with cold, dead eyes as though he was above her. “Forgive her, Father, for she knows not what she does,” he said in a monotone voice. In his hands, he held a metal symbol. He clasped the symbol with tongs over a flame from a lighter until it turned red. He let go of the lighter and walked up to Shelly with the hot material.

  “What are you doing?” she asked feeling the familiar panic again.

  “I thought of a necklace at first. Then I thought, too much jewelry, and that this will be more understandable. What do you think?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but held the tongs out and put the sizzling metal to Shelly’s neck. She screamed, feeling the blood in her neck boil and her flesh melt. Just as she thought she’d pass out from the intense overwhelming pain, he stopped and pulled away.

  “Pardon me; I left my tools in the shed upstairs. I’ll be right back to cut off your head.”

  He disappeared and Shelly closed her eyes. She had nothing to do but wait and try to ignore the pain. Wait for the end. When he came back, it would be the last time she had to hear the creaking of the door and his footsteps coming down the staircase. It would be the last time she would wonder in fear what would happen to her. It would be the last time she was his prisoner. Soon everything would be over.

  Maybe this was right, she thought, maybe she should die. What life would have awaited her if she had managed to escape?

  Would she be able to sit there on Sunday mornings at family breakfast and pretend like none of it ever happened? Would she be able to grab a drink with her friends and laugh at all the stupid things they laughed about?

  Compared to what was happening to her at that moment, everything else was insignificant or ignorant. She felt like she knew more than everyone else, like she had somehow been invited to another world where they could never go. She would hate them, yet simultaneously envy them all for what they didn’t know and hadn’t experienced. She would have to live with her disfigurement that would remind her of nothing but him. How would she ever be able to see life the same way? Trust anyone? Look into the eyes of her beloved little sister Miriam and say she believed in innocence? She loved and missed her family, but had she returned, she would not have returned the same.

  It was better this way; she knew that now. She had only one request that she dared to wish while she waited. She could feel herself dying and her body giving up. That was how she wanted to leave her life. Not by his hands, so that he would not be given the satisfaction.

  Then it started. The footsteps to the door. The jingling of the keys. The lock and the opening.

  Her breathing sped up; she knew she was seconds away from the end, and she started hyperventilating.

  Let me die right now before he gets his hands on me, she thought and started to feel herself drift away.

  As the footsteps made their way down the rickety stairs she grew increasingly more lightheaded. The only sound she could hear was the one of her own heart
beat, and the room started to sway from side to side and objects warped into odd shapes and colors. A sudden darkness appeared from the corner of the room, growing and growing as it made its way towards her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him entering. But, she realized quickly, it wasn’t him at all. Instead of the man who had stolen her life, a different man and a woman her age appeared from behind the wall. They stopped and stared at her. The young woman looked at her with pain in her eyes.

  “Oh my God,” she heard the young woman say in a faraway voice. She leaped toward Shelly and the man followed. As he came closer, she saw a shiny golden emblem attached to his belt. He was a cop.

  * * * * *​

  He watched from a darkened corner as the cop carried Shelly out. Sapphire followed him and just as they walked out through the door, she turned around. He felt like she was looking right at him, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. Then she turned and followed the cop.

  He grew angrier with every second that passed. He had seen the car pull into the parking lot through a crack in the plywood when he went for his tools. He watched as Sapphire and the man looked around and went inside, and hid as they made their way to the cellar door. They had taken all his work away from him and Sapphire would surely be punished for it.

  * * * * *​

  Aston and Sapphire had watched as the car they were following stopped and a mother and her two little girls stepped out. The mother was talking on the phone, frantically and holding a road map upside down. She had been lost, and only drove into the church’s parking lot to turn around. As soon as they realized their mistake, they made their way back to the church and found Shelly.

  When Sapphire first saw Shelly tied to that chair surrounded by a pool of blood, malnourished and tortured, she felt sick to her stomach. Besides from just the unnerving amount of blood, the floor underneath Shelly was also covered in vomit and stunk of urine. Sapphire was staring at her own creation.

  They left for the hospital just as the police arrived at the old church and began ransacking the place. Sapphire would have killed to get her hands on the evidence there and cringed as she realized the police would leave her little, if anything at all.

  Now Sapphire stood next to Aston and watched as Shelly was rolled away on a stretcher down the hallway of Glendale Memorial Hospital surrounded by medics and doctors. It was then, finally, that a huge wave of relief hit her and suddenly, she knew, without a doubt, that Shelly would be okay. She was safe, alive, and that was all that mattered. At last Sapphire could breathe.

  “Mrs. McCormick. We have Shelly. She’s lost a lot of blood, but she is alive,” Aston suddenly said into his phone.

  Sapphire leaned closer. Close enough to hear what was said on the other side of the line. There was a long silence, then cries: a mother’s worst fear dissipating.

  At that moment, Sapphire vowed to herself that she would catch him. Not Aston. Not any cop. She wanted to do it for Shelly and for Julia. She wanted revenge so badly she could taste it. She wasn’t afraid of him and wanted to stand face-to-face to make sure he understood that she wasn’t.

  Aston disappeared for a while and when he came back, he held a sketch in his hands and showed it to her. “Does this look like the symbol on her neck to you? I should have snapped a picture before they took her in, but the nurse got pissed off when I pulled out my phone.”

  Sapphire looked at it. “Pretty much. What now?”

  “Now you are going home. You will be under round-the-clock protection, and as soon as Shelly wakes up I’ll get what I need to nail the guy.”

  “Fine. I’ll go home,” Sapphire said with every intention not to.

  “But I still want that list,” Aston said and waved to someone behind her. “These officers will escort you wherever you go.”

  Sapphire turned around to find three officers standing behind her.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little bit overkill?” she asked, annoyed.

  “Not with you.”

  Chapter 17

  Sapphire spent her day at the hospital with Julia, four espressos, and three Beverly Hills police officers. Julia still lay motionless and Antonio hadn’t left her side since she was brought in.

  “It’s been over thirty-six hours,” Antonio said. He looked destroyed and his hands were constantly trembling. “What do I do if she doesn’t wake up, Sapphire? I don’t exist without her.”

  “You should eat something first of all,” she said, mostly because she didn’t know how to comfort him, but also because she hadn’t seen him eat since they got to the hospital with Julia.

  “I guess I’m a little hungry,” Antonio said and left the room with a zombie-like shuffle.

  Sapphire rested her forehead on Julia’s arm as she held onto her hand. “Julia, I want you to know that I’m sorry,” she whispered and closed her eyes, listening to Julia’s breathing. “I was angry and childish and there is not another living being on this planet who deserves happiness as much as you do. You have to wake up, Julia. You have to. Not for me, but for Antonio. The man loves you more than I’ve seen anybody love anyone. Which might not be a lot in my world, but it’s worth something.”

  She wiped her tears when one of the officers wandered past the doorway and stuck his head into the room, looking around.

  “Just checking.” Then he moseyed on.

  Despite the four espressos, Sapphire was exhausted when she got home. Vivienne stood in the kitchen pointing wildly to the fridge. Next to her stood a small Asian lady, nodding at Vivienne with big eyes.

  “We keep the food in there!” Vivienne shouted.

  “Yes,” the small Asian lady said, nodding.

  Vivienne moved on to the oven. “We cook the food in here!”

  “Yes,” the small Asian lady said, nodding.

  “What are you doing?” Sapphire asked angrily because she knew exactly what her mother had done. “She’s not dead, you know! She is coming back!”

  “Well, how long do you assume that will take?” Vivienne asked.

  Sapphire wanted, like so many times in the past, to slap her mother across the face. “I don’t know. Isn’t the main thing that she will get better? Has she not been your right hand and done everything around the house for fifteen years?”

  “What am I supposed to do? Cook? Clean?” Vivienne said, disgusted. “I need help around here. I can’t do everything by myself and if my housekeeper can’t do her job, then I have to get another one.”

  The three policemen stood silent in the background as Sapphire looked at her so-called mother and boiled over with anger. “She wasn’t a housekeeper!” she screamed, louder than intended.

  Vivienne scoffed and the small Asian lady looked from one to the other, confused.

  “If she wasn’t a housekeeper, then what the hell was I paying her for?”

  “She was there for me all the time, in all the ways you weren’t. Who do you think came to PTA meetings, recitals, birthdays, for crying out loud? If it wasn’t for her, I would have been sitting alone at the Mother-Daughter Dinner when I was twelve! Do you even understand what she gave up to be here for me? To do your job?”

  Vivienne blinked at Sapphire looking shocked. Well, as shocked as she possibly could with all that Botox. How had she not known? How was it possible that she hadn’t seen all the things Julia did? How did she not know she was a terrible mother? Sapphire had never seen Vivienne speechless—drunkenly unable to speak but not speechless—and normally she would have enjoyed this long-awaited moment, but she didn’t. Her mother actually looked hurt.

  “I’m sorry, this isn’t going to work out,” Sapphire said and gently led the small Asian lady to the front door.

  “Yes,” the small Asian lady said, nodding.

  Sapphire placed her outside the door and waved. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “Yes?” This time she didn’t nod.

  Before Sapphire turned back into the kitchen, she wondered what type of scene she’d walk i
nto. Was her mother crying? Anger Sapphire could handle, but not tears. Or maybe, she realized, tears would be good. Healthy, a new Vivienne with emotions.

  But when Sapphire turned around the corner, there weren’t any tears. Vivienne had noticed the officers and was busy putting one foot behind her neck while standing on the other. “My yoga instructor says I’m a natural.”

  The officers nodded in unison and applauded in awe.

  Sapphire took the opportunity to escape up to the sanctity of her room. She began her search for Shelly’s symbol on the Internet and spent the next hour online, squinting at the bright screen.

  Next thing she knew she woke up to the sound of her phone ringing, her face planted on the keyboard. Apparently, she had fallen asleep. Still tired, Sapphire looked at the phone caller ID. Unknown. She picked up, hoping it was Aston calling about Shelly.

  “Hello,” Sapphire said.

  The other line remained silent.

  “Hello?” she asked again, suspicion rising within her. She could hear the other person’s shallow breath and nothing else. She sat up straight.

  “Who is this?” she asked, not expecting an answer. “It’s you, isn’t it? Listen to me very carefully. I’m going to find you. I will find you and I will cut off your balls and shove them up your ass. Should you come anywhere near me, or anyone I know again, your balls up your ass will seem mild compared to what I will do to you. Do you understand?”

  A crackle from the sudden rush of air, then the call disconnected.

  * * * * *​

  A naked woman with a perfectly and surgically constructed body dove into the cool Pacific Ocean from the edge of the boat.

  John watched her as he held his phone to his chest. She was very angry with him. He didn’t think she could ever get angry, but now he had managed to make her furious. She had told him she would find him, cut off his balls, and shove them up his ass if he came near her again. Then he had panicked and hung up.