by Rick Mofina
But the monster inside refused to be denied.
The police are mocking me, saying I’m dead. How could they not revere his five masterpieces and doubt his return?
But Bowen did not want this. Claire was his salvation. He had a new life, a good life. He had buried the monster deep inside himself.
No, I’m living a lie; Claire will destroy the being that I am. She told me she couldn’t have children. Things changed when she pursued her intention to have a baby, to change me, to control me, put me in a cage.
That was not my life. Living like this never was my real life.
No one would ever understand what I am: a supreme creature with needs that are all-consuming. There was so much yet to achieve. I was on the brink of dispatching that woman and her cub in the car wreck. It would have been a perfect crime. Why did I stop?
It would have been wrong, that’s why Bowen stopped.
There’s no right or wrong for what I am.
Yes, there was. Bowen had seen it in the face of the father of number one. That’s why he went to him, to search for a moral answer.
No, I’m deceiving myself. There’s no wrong. No morality. No conscience. No remorse. I cannot deny what I am. Look at the truth. I’ve already started work on new projects; started hunting again.
Amber.
I got into her bedroom and near enough to drink in her breath.
But Bowen had stopped, not only because Amber had stirred but because he’d caught himself standing over her, a reflection in a mirror of his hideous mask and the reason he wore it-to convince himself that he was not the other being. Bowen was not the vile monster in the mirror, and to prove it he’d abandoned the Amber project with every intention of destroying the other being once and for all.
Bowen’s head ached. The being demanded he finish what he’d started because the stars were aligning.
The clock was ticking.
Bowen sat motionless staring at the paper. He saw nothing, heard nothing but the pounding of his heart.
“Are you all right?” Claire entered the kitchen, preparing to leave for work. “Who were you talking to? You sounded angry.”
Running a hand over his face he went to the counter to freshen his coffee and nodded to the cordless phone on the kitchen table.
“A telemarketer called.”
For a moment Claire gave him a look that bordered on doubt.
“Really, I never heard the phone ring?”
“Maybe you were in the shower or drying your hair?”
She resumed putting on her earrings. “What was the call about?”
“He was trying to sell me financial planning services and would not take no for an answer. He started to piss me off.” Robert sipped some coffee. “I’m thinking about leaving this morning for the cabin. Get in some fishing. Maybe spend the night or two, before my next trip.”
“I think that’s a good idea, given all that’s happened.”
“And what about you, what’ve you got going today besides work?”
“Not too much, lunch with Julie, to catch up, gossip, girl stuff.”
“Have fun.”
Claire collected her bag, kissed Robert goodbye, then nodded to the newspaper on her way out.
“I read that horrible story,” she said. “Thank God that’s over with. I hope the creep is dead.”
Robert watched through the window as Claire drove off, her words echoing in his mind.
21
Los Angeles, California
“There you are. Oh, my God, you must be walking on air!”
Claire’s friend Julie Glidden got up from the table in Cafe Pinot and hugged her.
“Hey, stranger, it’s been a while,” Claire said.
“Sure has. You look fabulous.”
“So do you, I love your new cut.”
“I thought I’d try something casual.” Julie flashed her beauty-queen smile, made an exaggerated sweep of her new angled bangs. “Speaking of new, when you told me the baby news on the phone, I thought, wow! And then that mild-mannered pilot husband of yours does his superhero impression. It’s all coming together for you.”
“I’ve been lucky.”
“No, it’s karma,” Julie said. “The wheel is turning. It’s been a long, rocky road from Minnesota to where you are now.”
“When you put it that way, I can’t argue.”
“No, you can’t.” Julie patted Claire’s hand. “It’s so good to see you. What’s new?”
Right off, Claire told her about having to save a patient from her estranged husband who’d assaulted her in the parking lot.
“I want you for my bodyguard.” Julie grinned.
Over menus, drinks and lunch, the two friends caught up.
They’d been college roommates at the University of Minnesota. Back then, Julie was studying law and after graduating, she’d moved to California, continued her studies and passed the state bar exam. She’d taken junior positions at several law firms before she’d landed a job with the California Attorney General’s Office investigating fraud, which bored her.
Three years ago, after beating breast cancer, Julie realized life was too short to not do what you want to do. She loved investigative work. So, she left the AG’s office, got her private investigator’s license and found a job with a big private detective agency.
She moved into a bungalow in Woodland Hills with her life partner, Phillipa, a set designer. They had no kids but wanted one, a subject that always came up whenever Julie and Claire got together.
“Phil wants to adopt a baby from China.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want to adopt, too.”
“I thought you were looking into surrogacy or a donor for Phil?”
“Yes, we did, but I think we’re ready to take the China option.”
“Sounds like you’re playing chess.”
“I know that didn’t come out right. But just think, Claire, if it all worked out at the same time for us, we’d have birthday parties to schlep our brats to.” Julie laughed. “I’d love that.”
After they finished their salads they took their time with a dessert menu before giving in and deciding to share the apple tarte Tatin with ice cream.
“Okay, so you start treatment in a few weeks,” Julie said. “The doc promises you’ll be pregnant in no time. Have you and Robert got a lot of romantic dinners planned?”
Claire gave her a smile that faded a little too soon.
“Seriously,” Julie said. “How’s Robert with all of this? He must be ecstatic.”
Claire hesitated long enough to change the mood.
“He’s excited.”
Julie’s eyes narrowed as she stared at her friend.
“What is it, Claire?”
Claire searched the downtown skyline for an answer.
In the quiet of their table, the surrounding chink of cutlery, the restaurant’s din became overwhelming. As Claire contended with her unease, she tried to wave it off.
“It’s stupid.”
Julie leaned forward and lowered her voice.
“Tell me, what’s wrong?”
A nervous laugh escaped Claire. Here she was, the professional, licensed to help people with their problems, yet helpless in the face of her own. “I don’t know. I’m a little troubled about Robert these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s been withdrawn, pensive.”
“Because of the baby news? Maybe he’s nervous. You know, it is a milestone kind of thing.”
“No. It started weeks ago. It’s like he’s keeping something from me.”
“Like what? What do you mean?”
Claire shook her head.
“What?” Julie asked.
“It’s silly.”
“Try telling me what you’re thinking.”
“The other day at home I overheard him when he was in his office on the phone. I think he was talking to Cynthia, his ex-wife.”
“So?”
> “He never ever talks about her or his life with her. That little incident concerns me. I know he was up very early that morning-he could’ve been up all night talking to her.”
“What were they talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you ‘think’ he was talking to his ex-wife. Do you know for sure he was talking to her?”
“No. That’s just it. It happened right after the crash and when I asked him about it he said he was talking to a reporter who’d emailed him about the crash and asked him to call.”
“Okay, so, then it was a reporter. He was the big hero, so that makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but not long after that I found a photograph on the floor of his office. It was like it had been dropped or fell out of something. It was a picture of Robert with his arm around Cynthia, with ‘happier times’ written on the back.”
“Did you raise the photo with him?”
“No, I left it exactly where I’d found it. I have old photos of Cliff somewhere. But I don’t know about this. It’s making me a little anxious.”
“So what are you saying? He still has feelings for her? He’s having phone sex or an affair? He’s lying to you? What?”
“Maybe. Yes. No. I’m not sure. I don’t know.”
“Don’t you keep in touch with Cliff?”
“No. Not at all. I just hear things through the old school grapevine that he remarried, has two kids. That’s it.”
Julie bit her bottom lip as she thought for several moments.
“Want me to do some digging for you?”
“On Cliff?”
“Robert.”
“Gosh, no. Spy on him? No.”
“No, I’m not talking about surveillance.”
“What are we talking about?”
“A few things, I could start small.”
“I don’t know, Julie.”
“Look, you want to know if he was talking to Cynthia, right?”
“No. I should just ask him what’s going on.”
“You did and he told you, didn’t he?”
“Yes and I asked him about his pensiveness the other night at dinner.”
“And?”
“He said he was a little shaken by the crash, going through a little post-traumatic stress. And he said he was preoccupied with rumors that his company might be making cuts.”
“And does it end there? Are you satisfied he’s told you the truth?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know.”
“Look, you’re about to have a baby with this man. You owe it to yourself, and to your future, to deal with this nagging suspicion.”
“Hypothetically, what would you do?”
“I could find out who he called, or who called him. Give me all of his numbers, your numbers, the dates and times you think he was talking to Cynthia and I’ll look into it for you.”
“I don’t know about this. I don’t want him to think I don’t trust him- I’m just not…”
“Claire, it’s what I do. He’ll never know.”
22
Greater Los Angeles, California
The freeway rushed under Robert Bowen’s SUV as he headed east on the 210 toward the mountains.
Before leaving L.A., he’d taken care of a few matters. It was now late afternoon but traffic was still good. The Los Angeles Times article was folded in his bag.
He needed to think.
Problems were rising around him. Everything was at stake. The police were hunting for him. Claire was determined to bring a baby into their lives; and the darkness within him-the force he thought he’d conquered-was back full bore and fighting him for control.
As his wheels ate up the highway, his mind swirled with a million concerns. He loved Claire. He’d worked hard to build what he had with her. He could not lose it. He wanted to be a father-wanted a normal life.
But the monster inside him was relentless. For as long as he could remember he’d struggled against it. At times he was convinced he’d put it to rest. Then he would see a woman, the right type of woman, one that would give him a metaphysical vibration. He’d become enthralled by her smile, her look, her everything.
It would arouse him and the monster would take control.
He would stalk her, study her, and obsess about her until a spark would ignite a glorious, all-consuming inferno, leaving him to question his fate as a force from hell.
Will I ever escape this curse?
How much longer can I exist as two beings?
He searched the distant mountains for the answers, letting the hypnotic rhythm of the road carry him back through his life to his earliest memories.
Pain.
He’s staring at a naked lightbulb burning bright against dark flashes as the leather belt slices through the air, whip-snapping over and over.
Each lash bites into his tender skin.
He is four, maybe five, years old. Wedged into a corner, he tries to shield the blows but his foster mother grips both of his tiny hands in hers and with alcohol-laced grunting, she continues beating him.
“Don’t ever piss in your goddamn bed again! Do you hear me? You’re lucky to be alive! You’re a filthy little worm!”
He’d been told that he was orphaned as a baby after his parents had been killed in a car crash. He’d been placed with social services and moved from home to home.
At age six or seven, he was placed in yet another foster home. His foster mother, who’d lied to social services in order to get her check, was an unstable, manipulative drug addict. Whenever she was working her shift at some dive bar, she left him alone with her boyfriend: an ex-con who watched pornographic movies in front of him.
At that time, he felt the stirrings of another force within him, one that compelled him to spy on his foster mother as she undressed, showered or had sex with her criminal lover. One summer afternoon when she was on the apartment balcony tanning in a bikini, she caught him staring at her cleavage and slapped his face so hard he bled.
He glances out the window at the vapor trail of a jet cutting across the sky. At that moment he wishes he were flying above the earth, above the pain and humiliation this bad woman is inflicting on him.
He also wishes he were smashing her head with a hammer.
Eventually, he was passed to another home where his foster mother was an ex-prison guard who looked more like a man than a woman. She had a teenage foster daughter. One day, he was alone in the house with her. She was in her room putting on makeup, drinking beer and smoking pot. She saw him in her mirror, watching.
“Stop staring at me, you little asshole!” She pauses for a second before her eyes glint with an idea. “Come here, it’s time you learned the truth.”
She takes him to their foster mother’s bedroom, goes into a dresser drawer and produces a photocopy of an old news clipping.
“You can read, right, moron?”
The short news article reports that:
A newborn baby boy was found in a Dumpster at an abandoned northeast apartment complex, according to police. A homeless man searching for cans in one of the large trash bins near the old Stone Mill building found the infant in a bloody blanket…
“This story is in your file. It’s about you, garbage boy. And you know what I heard? Back then, they called you the throwaway baby. They never found your whore mother and all the families that tried to adopt you brought you back because you’re a freak.”
At that moment he struggled to comprehend that his fate was more than being unwanted and unloved.
I am nobody. I came from nowhere. I was never meant to be.
He’d come to realize that he was utterly alone in this world. His isolation deepened, giving shape to the second being growing inside him, the one that was taking control.
He was not alone. The other being was with him and together they were better than all of them. They would make them, and everyone like them, pay. One day, everyone in the world would know and fear his name.
; He retreated to his dream of becoming a pilot. He lost himself in books, spending hours alone in the library reading about aviation, aviation history and aviation engineering. He read entire sets of encyclopedias, classic literature and textbooks on science, everything he could find, gaining knowledge while strengthening his determination to escape his misery.
During this time, as he grew into his teens, he’d continued passing through a succession of homes. Nearly all of the cities and towns he’d lived in blurred by like the suburbs along the freeway.
His time with one family changed him forever.
In one small town, his foster father was a barely educated, self-pitying man whose job was to destroy life. He took him to his workplace.
“You ain’t ever seen nothing like this.”
The old man worked in the slaughterhouse at the edge of town, where he was “the killer.” He spit on the ground, as if to dare you to challenge him. “Because that’s what I do for a living.”
The stench from the barns was choking. The mooing, the clang of chains and rattle of metal gates was deafening. The cattle were prodded along the chutes one by one toward the death pen where his foster father waited. When the animal was positioned, he fired a penetrating steel shaft from a bolt gun point-blank into its head.
Crack.
The animal collapsed dead.
The side of the pen opened, a chain was affixed to its leg. It was hoisted and hung from an overhead conveyor and cut so all the blood drained from its carcass. It was then moved farther through the process.
“Right now, I am God,” his foster father said, standing there in his rubber apron and gloves as blood swirled around his boots. “I control life and death.”
He passed the gun to him and nodded to the pen.
“Go on, you give it a try.”
His heart beat faster.
He felt the weight and seductive power of the sticklike device in his hand. Amid the stinking chaos of the slamming steel pen, the mooing, clanging chains and snorting, the frightened animal lifted its head to him, its nostrils flaring.