You Can Never Tell

by Sarah Warburton

  “Just send the police.” I definitely saw a faint light moving inside the building. A flashlight or maybe a phone? The only thing worse than knowing Lena was lurking somewhere in the world was the realization that she was here, right here. And the only way to pin her down was to play her game. I stopped listening to the dispatcher’s instructions.

  Lena had my makeshift weapon, my car keys, and my cell phone.

  I hung up and dialed my own number.

  And Lena picked up. “Hey, girl, what’s taking you so long?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Right in front of you, Sleeping Beauty.” The warmth in her voice was a wicked contrast to the coolness of the emergency operator.

  In front of me the museum waited, its glass-fronted entrance an impenetrable pool of darkness.

  “The police are coming.” Was I warning her or threatening her?

  “Like I couldn’t be done and gone long before they get here. Don’t pretend you don’t want me to.”

  As long as Lena was in the museum, Aimee was the one in danger. But the minute Lena left, my family could be in her sights. Even if she disappeared, Michael and I would never feel safe again.

  Maybe I could keep Lena talking until the police arrived. “Is she alive?”

  “For now. Think you can talk me out of it?” Of course, she could see right through my futile hopes. Then she whispered, “I left the door open for you …”

  And she hung up.

  The silence in my ear was like a flashlight being turned off. If I couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her, I wouldn’t know where she was. To keep her from vanishing, I had to go after her.

  The museum’s front doors were locked, but Lena had gotten in somehow. The caterers must have been among the last to leave, and they would have used the back door. I hadn’t even tried it when I’d woken up on the pavement. The alarm should be set, but no security system would be a match for Lena. She’d probably disabled it. But maybe I’d catch a break and by entering the museum I could silently trigger it.

  I handed the phone to the sanitation worker and said, “Stay here with your truck. The police are coming. Call them back at 911 and keep them on the line. I have to go in.”

  “What’s in there?” he called after me.

  But I didn’t slow down to answer.

  I sprinted around to the back door. It was unlocked. Inside, I dashed up the narrow stairs into the room where we’d staged events. The smell of food and antiseptic cleanser lingered in the air.

  “Lena?” I called.

  No one answered. I ran into the atrium, my steps echoing, the only light the occasional flash of red or orange in the ghostly glass ribbons overhead. From somewhere, I heard Lena call, “Cold.”

  I stopped short. Crossing that expanse felt like being on stage, with the galleries looking down on me and the glass wall at the front of the museum exposing me to the street. From here I couldn’t see the red flashing lights of the garbage truck. Would the men stay there until the police came? Were they even there now?

  I paused by the front desk, fumbling under the edge of the counter for the panic button. I pressed it hard, over and over, but it had no more effect than the crosswalk button when the light’s still red.

  “Ice-cold.” Lena’s voice filled the space around me, blithe and playful and impossible to locate.

  But I stayed behind the desk for a moment and looked up, scanning the darkened edges of the museum. Light from the street filtered in through the front windows, and the emergency exit signs still glowed red. I couldn’t see Lena at the edge of the atrium, on the broad staircase, or in the shadows of the overhead galleries.

  “Come out. I’m here,” I shouted, and the echoes insisted here, here, here.

  “Not the way the game is played,” Lena answered, but I still couldn’t pinpoint her whereabouts. Maybe above me? She was definitely watching. Then I thought of the security monitors. Had she disabled those too? I had to take the chance. The security office was across from the bathroom, and I sprinted toward it.

  “Cooler,” Lena’s voice urged, and then I stepped on something large and uneven and flew sprawling. A crumpled mass, a human form. I crawled closer and saw a security guard, not Jared, an older man with his hand outstretched and his hat lying next to him. I took his wrist, feeling for a pulse. His skin was warm, and I thought I felt a flutter against my fingertips, but I wasn’t sure. His face was in shadow, but I could tell his eyes were closed.

  “Hello,” I whispered. As my eyes adjusted, it seemed the shadows around him grew deeper. I put a tentative hand to the side of his head and felt something sticky matted in his hair. I jerked back, and my knee hit something hard. A darkened flashlight. I picked it up but didn’t turn it on, clenching it like a handrail for stability.

  “Quit fucking around and get your ass up here, Kacy,” Lena called, and then there was a long scream, echoing through the rooms. Aimee.

  I slipped off my cardigan and pressed it tightly against the man’s head. I didn’t know if he was alive. But I knew Aimee was. For now.

  I took the stairs in huge leaps, my feet slapping against the polished marble, the flashlight a comforting weight in my hand. There were three galleries up here, fronted by a balcony that overlooked the first floor. As I reached the top of the stairs, Lena shouted, “Warmer.”

  I darted into the closest gallery, filled with statues constructed of something brittle and light. I grazed one, and it moved with a brushy sound like ash blowing across pottery.

  I heard the sound of scuffling feet behind me, and I paused. Each of the three pathways connected at the back and opened out onto the same balcony. Lena could have been ahead of me, entered the central gallery, and now be behind me again. As long as she was moving, she wasn’t enacting horrible torments on Aimee. And the scuffling—surely that was the sound of more than one person’s feet.

  But I was afraid to ask if Aimee was okay. Asking would only draw Lena’s attention to my interest, make her wonder how much I cared, maybe piss her off. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want anyone to be murdered, that somewhere a part of me was still kneeling by the security guard as he lay bleeding, maybe dead. She would misread my interest in Aimee and react to it, and the last thing I wanted to do was give Lena something to push against. She was the equal and opposite force, the inevitable reaction. That was how we’d first become friends, wasn’t it? I’d hurled a mug and then she’d matched it, shattering another against the wall. But this time, it wouldn’t be an inanimate object that she broke.

  “Come find me,” I called, my voice stronger.

  “I don’t think you want to see what I have with me.” Horrible mirth ran like a dreg-filled current through her voice.

  “Forget about Aimee. Let’s talk, just the two of us.” With effort, I kept my tone light. At any moment, Lena might decide the fun was over and she could kill Aimee. I knew she could.

  “We are talking. And Aimee’s fine. She’s just listening now. Aren’t you, bitch?” she hissed.

  There was a thud, like a piece of furniture being knocked over. Aimee must be struggling, but now I had a better bead on her location. Right next to me, one gallery over. I put on a burst of speed, running lightly, silently I hoped, past the fragile statues and down to the end of the gallery, the security guard’s flashlight in my hand, still turned off so it wouldn’t give me away.

  I rounded the corner into the central gallery, the one that had featured in so many of my nightmares. Winged Victory was still in the center, a form as dark as if all the shadows had fused into the shape of a looming angel.

  And just beyond it, Lena was waiting for me, silhouetted against the feeble light from the front of the museum. With her preternatural instincts, she’d heard me, of course she had. Actually, thanks to the security cameras in my house, she’d always known where I was, every second of the last year. There was no point in pretending to hide.

  I switched on the flashlight.

  She was smiling, the same wa
y she had when meeting me for a walk or handing me a margarita poolside. Even with her newly dyed hair, she looked like the same woman who’d sat next to me at Bluebonnet meetings and picked me up for impromptu lunches out and spent so many hours talking. She looked delighted to see me.

  But she wasn’t alone.

  Aimee’s arms were twisted behind her back, a strip of silver duct tape across her mouth and Lena’s arm around her throat. Aimee’s metallic champagne cocktail dress was wrinkled and askew at the neck, and she wore only one shoe, its stiletto heel throwing her further off-balance. Tears shone on her cheeks in the flashlight’s beam, and smudged mascara bloomed around her eyes. When she saw me, she struggled more, but Lena pressed the tip of a knife right against her jugular.

  Maybe I had imagined vengeance and humiliation for Aimee, maybe I’d thought she’ll be sorry, but I’d never wanted to see Aimee afraid for her life. I didn’t want to watch her die.

  How long had we been here? Surely the police would arrive soon. Warily, I approached, stopping next to Winged Victory. Cold seemed to radiate from its raised wings, but they offered the illusion of shelter.

  And now I could see more clearly how the sharp point of the blade indented the skin of Aimee’s throat. No, not a knife. Scissors. The ones from my purse. My breath caught.

  Lena watched me, her smile unchanging, a challenge in her eyes.

  “What do you want, Lena?” My voice was colder than I’d intended.

  But Lena only grinned, the warmth and friendliness of her expression chillingly at odds with the situation. “It’s what you said, Kacy. Remember? ‘The world should be fair.’ This is our chance to even the score.”

  Hearing my own words pierced me, and I couldn’t help myself. “Just let her go. You’re better than this.”

  “But I’m not.” Now her grin was wolfish. “You don’t have to be either. You don’t have to be hurt or angry or patient. You can get even. Being a good girl for so long, what did that get you? Just another wife and mother. Another automaton moving from the house to the grocery store to lunch with the girls. Fuck that shit. You don’t have to be good anymore.”

  My hand trembled, and the oscillating flashlight beam made Lena and Aimee seem like a flickering film projection. “I’m not good,” I whispered. A good wife wouldn’t have left her traumatized husband alone; a good daughter would never have put this burden on her elderly parents; a good mother would never have abandoned her daughter to chase a monster.

  Lena shook Aimee by the scruff of her neck, and a whimper escaped from behind the tape. “This stuck-up liar pretended to be your friend, but she was just using you the whole time, laughing at you. Even after she got it all—the job, the money, the prestige—she couldn’t let you go.”

  All the times I’d complained about Aimee flashed through my mind. The way Lena had taken my side when I’d received Aimee’s postcards, how good it had felt to have someone angry on my behalf. Had I set these events in motion? And mixed in with my guilt and fear, was there the tiniest thread of satisfaction? I felt sick.

  Lena’s hand moved, and instead of the point pressing against Aimee’s jugular, now the open blade rested straight across her neck. “She thought she was untouchable. She’s too stupid to be afraid.” With the other hand, she jerked Aimee closer and started walking backward toward the balcony connecting all three galleries. Lena was so much taller that Aimee struggled to remain upright.

  I wanted to stay in the shelter of the statue. I wanted to turn and run, leave the museum, ask the sanitation workers to take me home, never leave Grace for a second ever again. But if I left, Lena would definitely kill Aimee, and then she might wait months, even years, before striking again. I just had to stall her until the police arrived. Could I see something on the street outside the museum? I wanted help so badly that it might be my imagination.

  My whole arm was trembling now, the flashlight bobbing like a buoy on choppy water.

  Aimee’s wide eyes were locked on mine, but my full attention had to be on Lena. “What are you waiting for?” Lena called softly. She’d dragged Aimee all the way out of the gallery until they were standing together against the balustrade. “Get out here, Kacy, or I’ll just toss her over.”

  Did she mean it? Cautiously, I approached, stopping just out of reach. The front windows provided enough light that I lowered the flashlight, but I kept it on. The weight of it made me feel stronger.

  Lena kept the blade of the scissors tightly pressed against Aimee’s throat. If the police were really out front, this might be almost over. But whether they followed me up the back stairs or broke down the front door or even landed with a SWAT team on the roof, the moment Lena saw them, I knew she’d hurl Aimee to her death.

  I had to make her believe I was playing along. “What do you really want, Lena? Why am I here?”

  She smirked. “I’ll make you a deal, Kacy. If you stab this bitch like she deserves, I won’t kill her. I’ll let you both go. How about that, bestie?”

  And she was my bestie, my soul sister, my fearless leader. I’d missed Lena, my best friend always right next door, only a text away, ready for any adventure. Now my heart was breaking. How could I know her so well and have missed everything else that she was: methodical, voyeuristic, deadly?

  There was no way I could stab Aimee. She was right there, between Lena and me, the corners of her eyes drawn down, pleading, begging me not to hurt her. I’d thought I’d wanted her humiliated and penitent, but now I just wanted her safe.

  I took a step and reached out my hand. If Lena gave me the scissors, I’d have some power back. Maybe I could cut Lena, then Aimee and I could run, maybe …

  But Lena had always been able to read my expressions.

  “Just so we’re clear.” She yanked Aimee so she was bent backward, hanging over the balcony. “If you decide to screw me, she’s going over. Those tile floors will smash her skull.”

  For a second, I saw that she really wanted to throw Aimee over, that the sight of a broken body bleeding in the middle of the pristine museum was exactly what she wanted. But then she looked at me, and like a screen coming down, the mask of “my friend Lena” fell back into place.

  I stretched out my hand, edging closer.

  “Christ, you look like you’re going to touch a snake.” One hand still wrapped around Aimee’s neck, she stretched the other out to me. There were the scissors, the same stainless-steel ones I’d used to cut my hair just hours earlier.

  My fingers wrapped around the open shears, and I took them gingerly. Lena laughed again. “You’re not going to do much damage way over there. Get closer.”

  I took another step as slowly as I dared. “So I stab her, you let us go, and what, just disappear? You had disappeared. You were free. Why come back for me at all?” Take your time answering.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see smaller lights through the large windows, flashlights like policemen would have. They were here, but if I really looked, Lena might turn around and see them too.

  Her mouth twisted in amusement. “Nice try. You know, we could have had the best fucking time if you weren’t so weak. Thelma and Louise–ing our way all across the country. And forget that blaze-of-glory bullshit. I’m talking down in Mexico, drinking real margaritas on the beach.”

  And I could see it—sitting shotgun beside her like I had so many times. Riding a buzz as the sun went down over the ocean instead of her swimming pool. That feeling of finally being on the inside, having the full force of Lena’s attention, becoming unstoppable.

  I must have hesitated, because she said, “It’s not too late to say yes. I love Brady, but that man’s a walking id with no fucking impulse control. But you and me, we’d be smart. We’d pick the bad guys, make the world a better place, and you know we’d never get caught.”

  Even in her escapist fantasy, Lena was killing people. I knew her, but I’d never understand her. And even without the brutal undercurrent, blowing off my life for a never-ending vacation wasn’t m
e. It was all a lie. My life wasn’t my own any longer; it was Grace’s and Michael’s and my parents’. And, God help me, Aimee’s.

  I glanced down at the scissors, then back up at Lena. “Actually, you and Aimee are a lot alike.”

  “The hell we are,” Lena shot back.

  “Waiting for your moment, biding your time.” I regretted the words the moment they were out, but there was no going back.

  The creases around Lena’s eyes deepened with irritation. “Quit fucking around and stab the bitch. Or do you need me to get you in the mood?”

  She ripped the tape off Aimee’s mouth, but instead of screaming, Aimee squeezed her eyes shut, a whimper escaping her lips. “Isn’t this everything you dreamed about? She stole, and she fucked your boss, and she lied, and she set you up. And when they were firing you and smearing your name, she didn’t just stand there, did she?”

  Lena gave her another shake. “No, she joined in with her bullshit and her froufrou little lies. I know this type. She hates other women. You were her competition and her fall guy. Are you going to let that stand?”

  My hand was cramping around the blade of the scissors slick with my sweat. “I don’t want—”

  “You do want this. You’re just too nice to say so.”

  I heard the faint sound of a door closing, and the relief almost buckled my knees. I wasn’t alone. The police would be here soon.

  “Last chance, Kacy. You do it, or I’ll have to. Either way it’s on you.” Lena braced herself, and I knew how quickly she could bend and slide her arm behind Aimee’s knees to flip her over the railing.

  I stepped forward, my hand still outstretched, and the point of the scissors hit Aimee under her arm. She screamed, and in the depths of the museum, the noise swelled. I dropped the scissors and the flashlight, both clattering on the floor.

  Lena gave me a look of utter disgust. “You are a weak-ass bitch.”

  Then, just as I had imagined, she bent to slide her arm behind Aimee’s legs. Before Lena could flip her over, I lunged, grasping at Aimee’s bound arm. I missed, but my knee caught Lena in the nose. She staggered backward, losing her grip on Aimee.