Stalk Me

by Richard Parker

  “Why can’t you make them for me today?” he whined.

  “I’m already late for work. Just eat. I have a headache.” She didn’t but she knew she soon would have.

  “The car’s outside again,” Kevin casually said, as if it were his way of punishing her for the breakfast.

  Marcia crossed to the blind and looked out from the kitchen window to the other side of the street. He hadn’t been teasing. The car was there. Black Toyota Corolla with a smoked windshield. It had been parked outside with someone inside the evening before. She’d gone out to the sidewalk to ask the driver if they’d needed directions, but they’d immediately driven off. Marcia thought she could see a figure at the wheel. What model was Ted driving now? She heard its engine start, as if it had been waiting for her appearance. If it were still there when she and the boys came home, she’d call the cops.

  *

  Mimic watched the window and wiped the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief. The kids had been spying on him from their bedroom the night before and had probably told Mom he was there again.

  He’d parked up in the same spot in front of the freshly planted cherry trees just up from the O’Doole house yesterday and gradually got to know the lay of the lower-middle-class neighbourhood. Much more populated than Kelcie’s. Family homes one side, ball park the other. The area was currently unused though, and signs warned people not to walk there, because new grass seed had been planted. The street was also the thoroughfare to the local school and so got busy around three thirty but was otherwise quiet.

  He’d get what he came for, even if it meant leaving three bodies behind for the local police department. The O’Doole mother was compact, feisty, the sort of woman who would fight him to her last breath. He’d have to stay alert with that one.

  He could already visualise her incapacitated and him working on her. He would tell her it was necessary before he finished. He liked to give his targets a heads-up about their demise if he felt it was owed. To at least inform them they weren’t just victims of an opportunist.

  Now he’d play a few rounds of golf, go back to the hotel to grab a shower, maybe have a steak dinner, a nap and a few gin martinis to loosen him up. Then it would be time to drive back here. They would probably have all gone to bed by then and he could deal with them separately in the early hours of the morning. Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey. One room to the next. There was no father on the scene, so he’d have a healthy amount of undisturbed hours to work.

  He was about to turn into the road, but a convoy of SUVs were heading towards the school. It was the early run. While he waited for them to pass, he picked up his iPad and skated his finger over the screen. Again he found the online article about old Virginia Greenspan being mutilated with a broken bottle in Bigfork and the attempted arson afterwards.

  *

  Beth couldn’t focus on the road or the signs, only knew she was driving in roughly the right direction. It was early evening; she didn’t want to go back but had no reason to stay any longer. She had to concentrate and find her way to Calais, but her mind was locked on the encounter she’d had in the house in the woods. Had they been hiding something from her, or was she reading nuances into the conversation that simply weren’t there?

  The rain came down heavier and soon the wipers were powerless against the torrent streaming down the windscreen. The noise of the droplets on the roof was deafening. She glanced at her mobile on the dash and noticed she had a message. It was probably Jody checking up on her. She listened to it.

  “Mrs Jordan, I was given this number by Maryse Plourde. My name is Rae Salomon.”

  Chapter 26

  Beth could scarcely hear her over the noise of the rain. She screwed up her face.

  “I shouldn’t be calling you, and must ask for your complete confidence. Maryse explained why you wanted to contact me. I was at the roadside with your husband. He spoke to me. I couldn’t understand a lot of what he said, but one thing I definitely did.” She paused. “Allegro.” She whispered and then hung up.

  Beth pulled the car over and stared at the phone as the weather continued to batter the car. She tried to call the number but it had been withheld. She was about to put the phone back onto the dash when it rang.

  “Beth Jordan?” It was the same voice.

  She was talking to a dead woman. A response stalled.

  “You’re not the police?”

  “No. Sorry, but Maryse told me...why did she tell me you were dead?”

  “Officially, I am. And I insist it remains that way or this conversation has to end. Do I have your word?”

  “Of course.” But Beth was already sceptical.

  “I was sorry to hear about the loss of your husband.”

  “Maryse showed you the clip?”

  “She didn’t need to. I’ve seen them all. It was how they located me.”

  “Who?”

  “I moved from Luxembourg to live with my aunt in Touffreville three years ago to escape a bad scene. I got involved with the wrong man. Knew too much about his operation for him to feel secure about us breaking up.”

  “Operation?”

  “The less you know the better. He was a people trafficker. He sees me as property as well.” Her voice tapered dryly and she seemed to collect herself. “I thought I’d escaped him and took a job, but I didn’t realise I’d end up in a viral clip. I knew my time was running out when it started circulating.”

  “You faked suicide?”

  “I had to persuade them to stop looking for me for good.”

  “How do I know this is really you? Can we meet?”

  “Out of the question.” She said flatly. “I’m risking my safety even contacting you.”

  “Do you have a camera on your phone?”

  There was a pause. “No.”

  “Please, if you do, could you just snap a picture of yourself and send it to me.”

  “I said I don’t have a camera.”

  “I promise to delete it immediately.”

  “Please don’t ask that of me again.”

  “OK. Can you at least tell me if you’re still a smoker?” Beth recalled the aroma of cigarettes and mint on her breath as she’d stood over her at the roadside.

  A beat. “No.” She said suspiciously. “I’ve just given up.”

  She’d covered herself with that response. But why would she be trying to deceive Beth, anyway? She tried to think of a specific detail from the crash site, that couldn’t have been gleaned from looking at the clips on the Internet. But Beth’s own recollection was sketchy. “You remember only one word my husband said. Are you sure it was Allegro?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes. That is all I remember. Allegro.”

  “Allegro?” The word had no significance for Beth. “And you don’t remember anything else he said?”

  Another long pause. “No. Look, this is a personal security risk I could really do without. I hope this has eased your mind. I have to hang up now.” She did.

  Beth stared through the water sliding down the windscreen. Allegro. What relevance could the word possibly have to Luc while he lay dying?

  She pulled back into the driving rain. A few moments later her phone buzzed. She picked it up and found an image had been sent. It was a close-up of Rae. It was definitely her.

  A couple of minutes passed and then the phone rang again. Beth snatched it up and took her foot off the accelerator. “Hello?” Nobody responded, but she could hear someone breathing on the other end. “Rae?” But she got the feeling it wasn’t.

  Whoever it was hung up.

  Chapter 27

  Allegro became a one-word mantra during Beth’s return journey. It was the make of a British car, but it certainly wasn’t a vehicle involved in the accident. She knew it was a term for tempo, but Luc had no interest in music beyond Motown.

  When she searched for it online back at Jody’s using his tablet, she found a dizzying number
of results – it was the name of a Polish-based auction website, a luxury restaurant in Prague, a typeface designed in 1936 and a software library for video game development. It was also a passenger train service between Helsinki and Saint Petersburg, a Mexican airline and, as well as a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, a 2005 movie directed by Christoffer Boe. At the more obscure end, it was a cryogenic gravitational wave bar indicator – whatever that happened to be – and John Marco Allegro was a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar.

  None of it had any relevance to Luc. Had Rae misheard?

  But finding any trace of the word became an incentive for Beth to finally open the blue envelope containing Luc’s computer passwords while Jody was still in bed and she could do it alone. Digital legacy. She pulled her robe tight around her, took a sip of her coffee and put the cup down on the table. Sliding the envelope out of the folder, she didn’t give herself pause to think.

  Beth messily tore it open, unfolded the first slip of paper and found her own passwords scrawled on it. She only had two. Luc had told her she shouldn’t use the same passwords for all of her accounts, because if one were hacked it would be easy to access the others. She alternated between different234 and different567. If one run of numbers didn’t work then she knew she simply had to enter the other. It wasn’t security-conscious enough for Luc, but then she didn’t have as much sensitive information to protect.

  She opened Luc’s to find a list of eight accounts and as many separate passwords. His handwriting was boxy and tiny and pressed through the paper, and she imagined him painstakingly penning the words. He hated writing, said it gave him hand cramps, and didn’t want to scribble anything with a pen other than his signature.

  She recognised some – “michaelmas2009” was a reference to their wedding day that fell on October 11th and she knew that nicolaide48131 was an amalgamation of his mother and father’s names and birthdays. “Pogerola” was an Italian village they’d stayed in for their honeymoon in Amalfi and was a password they both used to access their online photo account.

  The others were just sequences of what looked like random letters and numbers to her. They were for pensions and private investment funds so obviously had to be more intricate. No mention of Allegro.

  She looked at the half-eaten dry bagel on the arm beside her, because its smell suddenly seemed overpowering. Beth felt clammy nausea crawl quickly over her and made a dash for the bathroom. She didn’t make it in time and trailed vomit through its door to the sink.

  “Are you all right?”

  Beth spat into the plughole but her stomach heaved again. She could hear Jody moving about in his room. He slept naked and she knew he would be hurriedly throwing something on. “Yes,” she managed before her shoulders rose to eject the little she’d recently eaten.

  “Can I... get you something?” he said awkwardly from behind her, a few moments later. “There’s mouthwash in the cabinet.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll clean up the carpet.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  She ran the tap and filled her mouth with water, but knew she hadn’t finished. “Honestly, I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

  “I’ll make you a cup of your mint tea.” He strode off in the direction of the kitchen.

  Beth heard him fill the kettle and blinked the moisture out of her eyes.

  When Jody left to do some shopping, he asked her if she needed any specific groceries. Beth said no, even though she did and slipped out of the house soon after him. She was back less than ten minutes later.’

  She couldn’t pee on the stick. It was as if her body had locked itself tight against confirming what she already knew. She tried to relax herself, then strained until her temples pounded. Placing her head in her hands and leaning forward, she repeatedly shifted her position on the seat. She hadn’t passed water that morning even though she’d drunk a couple of cups of tea in readiness. After what felt like half an hour, she finally felt the warm liquid flow weakly out of her.

  She’d already taken the tester stick from its foil wrapper and followed the instructions, allowing the small trickle to flow for a few seconds before holding it in the stream.

  Now she had to wait another three to four minutes.

  When the blue line appeared and confirmed she was carrying Luc’s child, Beth felt nothing but cold inertia. What she’d thought was the sickness of expelling the trauma of the crash was the beginnings of something that had been actuated before it. It was what she’d wanted. It was why she’d stopped taking the pill and not told Luc.

  Chapter 28

  Beth remained seated with her panties and jeans binding her ankles. She mentally calculated, remembered them making love on at least three occasions during their getaway in Gîte Saint-Roch, the last one being their final night, just before they’d got into the car and she’d driven them to the restaurant.

  The stresses of the mugging and the move had meant it had been more or less off the cards for a good few months leading up to that. She’d instigated it each time, tried to get Luc to let go of what had been preoccupying him. He thought she was still taking the pill. Beth hadn’t been since the previous July. She’d prepared a part of herself, girded it to have the confrontation with him should it ever lead where she wanted. But months had passed and she’d begun to believe it never would.

  It looked as if the life inside her had been conceived in their most significant place. But the notion of Luc’s ending in the crash there and the beginnings of someone else leaving with her was too poignant to contemplate.

  How would she have felt about this news if Luc were still alive? She imagined his reaction. When he was confronted with the reality of what they’d created, would he really have been as unyielding as he’d been in the past? She imagined the embrace they would have shared. It was something they would have faced together. Now she had to alone.

  She knew Jody would be supportive. He seemed to be making it his mission to look after her following the years they’d spent out of each other’s company. But nobody could make the decision for her. If she had the baby, could she really live with the heartbreak of seeing Luc’s likeness? Was that meant to be her recompense? Beth still hadn’t begun to deal with the trauma of his death. How could she possibly be expected to face such another intensely emotional ordeal so quickly afterwards?

  Perhaps it would be her redemption, but she wouldn’t be respecting Luc’s wishes. But if he’d known what lay ahead for him, would he have thought differently about bringing a part of himself into the world?

  It was a hard truth, but what Luc wanted was no longer relevant. This was what she hadn’t expected to be in possession of. She thought about all his old clothes and his digital legacy and realised it was inconsequential. A new life seemed like something she’d been gifted, however, but she still couldn’t summon any emotion above her own flat assessment of the situation.

  She had to be pragmatic, though. How could she possibly bring up a child if she didn’t have a roof over her head? She’d already had an awkward conversation with her employer. They’d had to fill her position while she’d been out of commission. There was no guarantee the house would be sold anytime soon, and even before she could think about that, there was the long process of probate to endure. She’d barely considered how Luc’s stake in his company would be disbursed. He’d invested everything in it and his wealth was tied up in its fluctuating performance. Nothing would be straightforward.

  She looked down at the dirty carpet of Jody’s bathroom. Again, she thought of herself lying in a coma in her hospital bed while they cremated Luc – both of them unaware of the new life that had started in their absence.

  *

  Mimic touched the boy’s face and then smelt the adolescent sweat on the tips of the blue surgical gloves he’d snapped on in the garden. Fifteen year-old Kevin slept obliviously to his presence, breath hissing from his body. The room’s smell was comforting, cookies and Vaseline. It reminded Mimic of sleeping in the top bunk when he was a kid, ol
der brother below and both sneakily watching the creature feature with the sound turned low while Mom and Dad were in bed.

  The boy’s eyes darted under their lids and Mimic wondered what innocent dream he was enjoying. Then his breath snagged in his throat and his head shook once, quickly. Mimic gripped the ketchup bottle tighter and waited. The boy’s dried lips parted, air found exit and his frown vanished.

  Mimic knew it was the sort of sleep that would make it easy to lift the boy from the bed, arm under the neck and the other behind the knees. He could be carried out to his waiting car and still not wake. No swab of ether necessary. It was something he’d done effortlessly in the past but he couldn’t now, not with all his extra pounds.

  Mimic turned from the boy and grimaced at the plastic-framed mirror on the drawers. The deposits at the corners of his mouth looked vivid yellow in the night light. There was no halting the incursion of age. That was something that didn’t sit well. It brought Mimic back into the domain of ordinary people.

  He left Kevin’s room and cocked an ear to the mother’s. Even under the chatter from the TV, he could hear her breathing escaping her like a hog. Mimic cracked the door with one rubber finger.

  Padding to the end of the bed there was a distinct difference in aroma compared to the kid’s room – perfume, body cream and halitosis. There was a spilt bowl of tortilla chips on the floor beside her Kindle. One blow to the centre of her forehead with the bottle would ensure she wouldn’t even open her eyes. Mimic watched her sleeping on her back for a while, willing her to wake. Marcia didn’t, not even when he rolled her onto her side to stifle the noise grazing the backs of her nostrils.

  After he’d stunned and strangled them, he’d have to smash the ketchup bottle if the blows didn’t break it. The Bigfork crime necessitated him defacing the bodies with the jagged glass. What a sick fuck. And he was still evading the police as well. Probably sitting at home right now, not realising the precedent he’d set.