What She Doesn't Know

by Tina Wainscott

  She stared at buds black as death. “Thank you. I’ve never seen anything like these. They sure are…dramatic. I’ll put them in a nice va—ouch!” When he’d shoved the bouquet at her, a thorn pricked her finger. She sucked on the tiny pinprick.

  “Sorry ‘bout the thorn. Thought I’d gotten all of those. Well, have a nice day.”

  He tipped his cap and walked down the steps. She looked at the bouquet. That was the only thorn on any of the stems.

  A few minutes later, Emmagee walked back into the kitchen.

  Rita was putting the flowers in the vase she’d found beneath the kitchen cabinet. “Strange traditions you have here: black roses for a condolence bouquet. Henri brought them just now.”

  “That’s no tradition I ever heard of.”

  “People are so nice here, at least some of them. Even Christopher has his moments.” Rita started to pick up her coffee, but felt her stomach turn at the aroma. She set it down and took a seat at the table.

  Emmagee dumped out dirty water from the bucket. “It’s getting to you, ain’t it? New Orleans, I mean.”

  “It does have a magic all its own.”

  Emmagee slanted her a wise look. “Does it have anything to do with Chris?”

  “No, of course not. He doesn’t even like it here.” Her voice sounded airy and thin as gauze.

  “Ah, I think it calls to him. He says he orders the coffee from a shop here, won’t even drink regular coffee. He jus’ has some bad memories. He needs some better ones. Hey, what’s wrong? Your head’s a’tilting.”

  Rita held onto the edge of the table. “I feel a little dizzy.”

  “Baby, you can’t be getting morning sickness already!”

  Rita forced a laugh. “I’m sure that’s not it. I was in a car accident a few weeks ago. Sometimes I still get dizzy.” She pushed herself to her feet, then had the strangest sensation that she was floating. She checked, just to be sure. “Think I’ll go upstairs…lie down.”

  “Sure thing. Need some help on those stairs?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. I’ll be careful.” If she did get sick, she wanted to be alone. That old inconvenience thing was hard to break out of.

  She navigated the stairs by clutching the banister. As soon as she reached the landing, though, she started to feel better. Maybe it was one of the cleansers Emmagee was using.

  She glanced down to find Emmagee watching her. “I’m fine.”

  The girl shrugged and went back into the kitchen. Rita sucked in a deep breath to clear her mind and then looked over at Brian’s bedroom door. “I wonder if anyone’s responded.” Her words sounded slurred.

  When she walked inside, it seemed the room was deeper and that the computer was blocks away. She took another breath and started the journey, using furniture to guide her. She dropped into the chair and stared at the screen. Even it looked farther away. She reached out and touched the flat, cool surface.

  It took three tries before her hand connected with the mouse. Her throat tightened. Was this some kind of delayed reaction from the accident?

  After navigating the passageways, she reached Xanadu’s continuing story line. There was a new entry. From Sira. Rita blinked, trying to make the letters stay together.

  Sira wanted to know who this stranger was, this Atir. She didn’t like this sudden intruder and was suspicious about Alta’s intentions. After all, he had been her lover for more than eight months, and she had been part of Xanadu since the beginning. If anyone deserved to be queen, she did. Atir would get a visitor who would give the intruder a poison apple. Rita couldn’t hide from a woman scorned.

  Rita blinked several times, staring at the correct spelling of her name. A typo? No, Sira was playing the game, too. She’d know exactly who Atir was.

  The room tilted, and she felt herself shrinking. Worse, she couldn’t feel the chair anymore. The odd floating sensation had returned. All at once, her bones turned to rubber, and she slumped to the floor. She tried to call out to Emmagee, but her mouth wouldn’t obey her command. What’s happening to me?

  A poison apple. The words drifted through her mind. No one had given her an apple. Only…roses. She hadn’t eaten them, for gosh sakes. No, no, not eaten. Just put them in a vase. Henri wasn’t Sira. He was an old man.

  With no wrinkles on his face.

  Rita’s vision undulated like a moving fun house mirror. She kept trying to open her eyes wider, tried to move the hand lying in front of her. It wouldn’t even twitch. A drop of blood oozed out of a hole in her forefinger. Seemed to have a luminescent quality. Like pearls. Like blood red pearls.

  The rose had pricked her.

  What did he put on the thorn?

  She tried hard to get up. It took a long, long time to even move a little. Legs were feeling rubbery. Had to get…where? Who to trust? She heard a humming noise downstairs, like a thousand bees. Bees were coming to sting her. Get out! Hide! She couldn’t move. Maybe they wouldn’t see her. If she didn’t move. The black carpet looked like oozing mud, and she was sinking into it.

  Then she saw a shadow moving just beyond her vision. What was happening? She tried to lift her head. Everything looked tiny and far away, like looking in the wrong side of a telescope. Whenever she could turn her head, everything flowed in a colorful stream.

  “Chris,” she said in a slurred voice.

  “No, baby, it’s not Chris,” a disembodied voice hissed. “Sira wants a word with you.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Christopher knew he’d hurt Rita by not including her in on his errands. He needed some time alone to sort through everything.

  He maneuvered through French Quarter traffic and people, Metallica’s booming bass pounding into his head. Walking into the LaPorte this time seemed strange. It wasn’t Brian’s hotel anymore, wasn’t his father’s hotel. For the first time, he appreciated the building’s charm and beauty, with its ornate railing and fancy detailing around the windows. Inside, it was too stuffy for his tastes, too formal. The employees nodded at him, obviously at a loss as to what to say. He knew the feeling.

  He walked back to the offices to find Tammy, but she wasn’t there. He wanted to see her reaction to Brian’s death. When he looked in Brian’s office, he found Millie, Tammy’s assistant, sitting at the computer.

  “Where’s Tammy?” he asked without preamble, making her start. He walked to the desk to see if she’d switch screens or close down whatever she was working on.

  She didn’t try to hide whatever she was doing. “Home. She dragged herself in and looked like hell. Trent took her home a little while ago. He said he’d be back in a bit. They’re both taking it pretty hard. We all are.” Millie’s eyes were red-rimmed, too.

  “Yeah.” As he headed back out through the lobby, his gaze trailed over the colorful flower arrangements in the vases—and stopped on the last one. Black roses. As black as his mood, black as death.

  All these years he’d lived his life answering only to himself, having only himself to take responsibility for. Now he had Brian’s funeral to arrange, Rita to take care of, and the hotel to deal with. They all weighed down on him, pushing him into the plush seat at the funeral home as he waited for Mr. Royce to return with the paperwork forty minutes later.

  The music was probably standard funeral home fare, soft and light, with an upbeat touch to soothe the tortured souls ready to bid loved ones goodbye. And open their checkbooks. He snapped his grape gum and sank lower in his chair. Brian’s death left him empty. Not sad or angry, but the same emptiness he’d felt his whole life. A long time ago something had been shut off inside him. He didn’t know how to turn it on again, or if it could be turned on.

  He used to relish that emptiness. It had kept him together, especially through the mindless days after Sherry’s death. Now he caught himself searching for a nugget of emotion, something to prove to himself that he was human. Rita had done that to him. She made him want to feel, made him want…more.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. LaPorte,”
the man said, returning to the paneled office. “If you’ll just look these papers over and sign here. We take care of everything so you can grieve in peace.”

  Great, funeral slogans.

  He ran his fingers down his face and focused on the words in front of him. A simple ceremony, internment in the family crypt, some people would cry, some would wonder why he wasn’t crying or wonder why he’d come back at all.

  No one wants you here. Had Brian regretted those words?

  He signed the papers and tried to shake off the thoughts. He finished his business with Mr. Royce, then walked out into the dingy, cool day. He got into his car but didn’t start it yet. What would he leave behind? Some cats, an old house, and a successful business, with no one around to take any of it. Like Brian. Neither of them had ever thought beyond their own life. He leaned forward until his forehead pressed against the steering wheel.

  The king of nothing.

  He picked up the car phone. After a few rings, Emmagee answered.

  “Hey, it’s Christopher. Rita around?”

  “She is, but she wasn’t feeling too good. She went upstairs to lay down.”

  “She okay?”

  “Said she got dizzy sometimes since her accident. I’m sure she’s all snuggled into bed. Want me to get her?”

  For a moment, he did. He wanted to ask her if she’d like to talk to Dumas with him. “No, don’t bother her. How much longer you got?”

  “Oh, a couple of ten minutes. I’m going to sweep up in the courtyard when I’m done with the floors. I won’t vacuum upstairs, so’s I don’t bother her.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you could hang around until I get back, all right? See you in a bit.”

  Next he called information and got security guard’s address. As he drove toward the Quarter, mindful of the parade routes, he had the urge to turn back to the house. He chided himself and kept going. The last thing Rita needed was to have him wake her up if she wasn’t feeling well. And the last thing he needed was to need Rita.

  Dumas didn’t live in the greatest of areas. Christopher approached the three-story apartment complex with the rusted galleries surprised at the pity he felt. Not for the man’s living condition, but for the mess he’d been thrown into.

  Dumas’s expression went from down in the dumps to downright regretful when he saw Christopher at his door. “You’re probably here to fire me. Well, you’re too late. The agency’s already done it. I didn’t do no drugs. I told the police, the agency, and I’m telling you, too.”

  “I know. Can we talk?”

  Dumas absorbed Christopher’s exoneration and then stepped back to let him inside.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “You really want to hear it? ‘Cause no one else bothered to hear my side of things.”

  Christopher sat on a faded armchair. “I’m listening.”

  Dumas lowered himself onto the couch and took a cup of coffee in trembling hands. “Everything was going along jus’ fine, you know, like always. I was talking to Brian about my wife who died last year, bless her soul. This maintenance guy came in with two cups of coffee, said he figured I could use a cup. Thought that was mighty nice of him. I drank part of it, wasn’t real hot.”

  A guy. “What’d he look like?”

  Dumas squinted his bloodshot eyes. “Average. Brown hair, brown eyes, maybe. Nice-looking, but nothing special.”

  “Small guy?”

  “Yeah, I s’pose so. He wasn’t no Rock, that’s for sure.”

  “But definitely a man? Not a woman dressed up like a man?”

  “Well, course not. He was a guy.”

  It sounded like the guy who’d been lingering outside Brian’s room when the doctor had told them he might be coming out of the coma. Christopher thought about the man who’d tried to force his help on Rita and got a sick feeling in his stomach. So there were two of them, then. A man and a woman.

  “He started talking ‘bout these monkeys,” Dumas continued, “describing their yellow eyes, sharp teeth, and black hair, how he thought he’d seen some in the hospital. Now that doesn’t make sense thinking back on it, but at the time, he had me looking for the things under Brian’s bed. Then I got dizzy. Everything in the room got weird, wavy kind of. I could see all these squares and triangles floating around. I done pot as a youngster, but this was different. This was wild.

  “I told the guy, who was all wavy too, that I wasn’t feeling right. He pointed and said there was one of the killer monkeys right there in the corner. They were in the air, on the floor, everywhere. I freaked out. Never did like monkeys, man. Swear, if my hair wasn’t already white, it would be now. The police figured I’d dropped angel dust, locked me up for the night.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “How am I going to get another job with that on my record? I didn’t do nothing, honest.” He looked at Christopher, as if gauging whether he believed the story.

  “You think the guy slipped acid in your coffee?”

  “Was the only thing I could think of. But why? Why would he do that?”

  Christopher stood, jamming his hands in his front pockets. “We’ll get this all straightened out, get the charges dropped and your job back. Give me a few days.”

  Dumas’s eyes widened in hope before dimming again. “Brian died, didn’t he? While I was”—he made crazy motions with his arms—”freakin’ out.”

  “Yeah, he died. But it wasn’t your fault.”

  He left before Dumas could do more than thank Christopher for believing him. When he got back to the house, he was going to find out who belonged to the Sira ID. He had one more stop to make, but as he pulled away from the curb, it was Rita who haunted his thoughts.

  CHAPTER 20

  Fear became a living thing inside Rita. She imagined it as a snake, writhing inside her, making her stomach churn. She had to be hearing things. No one seemed to be in the room, at least as much as she could see. Everything was still so small. There was another sound, a humming that went on for a second, then stopped, then started again. She could see the humming, a vibrating silver streak floating through the air.

  “Whazz happening?” she said, or at least that’s what she tried to say. Her words sounded all garbled. Her lips felt numb. “Whadd jugive me?”

  She had the sensation of floating out of her body, like she was watching, and the room wasn’t really the room at all. Maybe it was another gray place.

  No, not gray. Salmon. The salmon walls were undulating, like a school of fish. The color kept getting brighter and dimmer, brighter and dimmer. And it was making noise. She could hear the color, like a tiny instrument wailing, making the texture throb. She saw it, heard it, but none of it seemed real. She stared at it, felt as though she were moving to the beat. But it wasn’t there. There, but not there.

  “Poishon,” Rita said.

  “Only a dose of ketamine, baby. Just enough to make you pliable. You’re going to do exactly what I tell you.”

  Hands squeezed her shoulders, pulling her toward the wiggling squares of light. The French door, she thought. Then someone crouched over her. A monster! Rita pushed the monster away and stumbled to where she thought the door out of the room was. Hands grasped her arms and jerked her back. She tried to fight, tried everything within her power, but her body would not cooperate. Her blood had turned to Jell-O, her limbs to rubber. Was she melting?

  “Rita, are you listening to me?” a voice hissed from the monster face.

  She couldn’t see eyes in the face of gold and black, only ghastly black holes. She had seen that face before. Her mind could not get around the thought, though. Where?

  Fingers pressed into her cheeks. Her flesh felt like clay. Finger marks would stay in her face forever.

  “Rita!”

  She nodded in response.

  “We don’t have much time.” Words floated at her, those silver waves again. “Listen to me, you little witch. I don’t know who you think you are, but you are not the queen of Xanadu. You will never be the que
en. I am the only ruler, not Alta, not Christopher LaPorte, and certainly not you.”

  Sira. That’s who this was. Rita tried to say something, but her words got lost before she could even attempt to open her mouth. She had lost control of her body, and this horrible thing was hovering over her. Call for help. Run! Fight, dammit! Her body would not cooperate.

  “I will not let you contaminate our world,” the thing said, tugging Rita toward the small squares that had converged to form one big square. Over that triangles and circles danced. Rita let herself drop to the floor. If she couldn’t fight, she wouldn’t go, either. The floor felt wavy, shifting and moving beneath her.

  “I want you to stand, Rita. Come on, stand.”

  Her body now chose to cooperate, but only under Sira’s commands. How could this be happening?

  “Very good.” She helped Rita walk out onto the balcony. Not walk; float. If Sira hadn’t been holding onto Rita’s arm, she would have floated away. Dizziness assailed her, closing in the edges of her vision. More nausea. Not morning sickness. Rita wanted to laugh at that. She thought she made a noise. Not a laugh. A sob.

  Sira kept walking her toward the far end of the balcony. It was miles away; Rita didn’t know if she had the strength to make it. When she looked at the railing to her right, she shoved away from it. It was melting, slithering toward her like snakes.

  She hated snakes. Or was that Indiana Jones who hated snakes? No, she did, too.

  Strange sounds converged around her, and then became the music she was so familiar with. Velda! Maybe she could help. Rita mustered all her strength and opened her mouth to scream. No sound. No feeling, either. Had Sira cut out her tongue? Fear became even bigger. No more intestines inside her, only snakes. Run, she told herself. Get away!

  “You’re going to take a fall head first. Go on, up the stairs. Go, Rita.”

  The words swirled around her like a carousel, colorful and loud. And out of tune. She shrank back from the melting staircase and bumped into the monster behind her. She tried to push it away, but her hands were limp.