The Girl on the Stairs

by V. J. Chambers

  “Yeah, in retrospect, maybe they weren’t terrible parents…” Ariel seemed unsure. “I know she complained about them all the time.”

  “She did?”

  “Well, not like she wanted them dead. I don’t think she wanted them dead.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply anything,” he said. “Back to the bruise.”

  “Right, well, I think we were all changing into our pajamas.”

  “Oh, girls really do that?”

  “What?”

  “I thought the idea of teenage girls all taking off their clothes together in one room was a male fantasy. I just didn’t think that actually happened.”

  “Well, we weren’t quite teenagers.” Ariel was laughing.

  Sam blanched. Right. He’d just made himself sound really creepy, hadn’t he? “Sorry. I guess I was aging you guys up quite a bit.”

  She was still laughing. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not creeped out. Anyway, at the time, you wouldn’t have been much older than us, would you?”

  “Age is funny at that time of your life,” said Sam. He would have been seventeen back then. Not as creepily-too-old as Nicholas Todd, but old enough. He definitely wouldn’t have been attracted to twelve-year-olds back then, even under normal circumstances. And after everything that had happened with Hannah, he hadn’t felt attraction of any kind. Not really. “I interrupted you again. Go back to the bruise.”

  “Okay, well, it was on her left side, underneath her collarbone, and it looked to me like someone had slapped her. Like I said, I thought I saw sort of imprints from fingers. I said something about it, and Lola laughed like it was no big deal and said she fell down the stairs. I asked her how the stairs did that to her, and she said she fell down the stairs and ran into a doorknob. Which I don’t even know how you do.”

  “So, you think she was lying?”

  “Kind of,” said Ariel. “But, you know, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m not sure it makes sense for it to have been her parents that did it.”

  “No?”

  “Well, she complained about her parents a lot. She was always angry with them. If they were hitting her… well, why would she cover for them?”

  Sam considered. “That does make sense. Generally speaking, if someone’s abused, they’re too afraid of the abuser to say anything against them in public. The abuser makes sure that the victim keeps her mouth shut.”

  “Right,” said Ariel. “So, I was thinking… well, what if it was Nick?”

  “Nick gave her the bruise?”

  “Maybe he gave her more bruises too. He was older than she was. He was obviously violent, because he killed people. And he had no good reason for being so close to a girl her age. I think maybe that makes more sense than her parents.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Sam. “Thanks for your help, Ariel.”

  “No problem. Let me know if you need to talk again sometime, okay? I’m happy to go over anything you want.”

  *

  Sam knocked on Lola’s apartment door.

  She opened it. “Oh, it’s you. I thought maybe Nick was here, and he was going to be polite before he strangled me.”

  “I saw the police car when I came in,” said Sam.

  “They drive by occasionally,” said Lola. “They aren’t here all the time.”

  “Well, it’s something, right? Makes you feel safer?”

  She rolled her eyes. Apparently, she didn’t feel very safe. “I guess you want to come in?”

  “If it’s okay.”

  She stepped away from the door. He was surprised to see that her entire apartment was spotless. All of the trash and clutter from last time was gone. Everything looked tidy and neat. “You been cleaning?”

  Lola fidgeted. “Yes.”

  “Looks nice in here.”

  She went over into her living room and sat down on the couch. “Why are you here?”

  He followed her. “You know, I don’t understand you. The last time I saw you, you were begging me to help you out. Now I show up, and you act like you don’t want to see me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sorry I didn’t give you a hello kiss.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “If you’re here to say something, just say it, okay?”

  The only chair in the room was a papasan. Sam always felt like the circular chairs were hard to sit in. But he settled into it anyway. “I need you to be straight with me for once. I need you to explain some things to me about what happened both before and after the murders. I know it’s not easy for you to talk about, but now is the time. I’m running out of other people to talk to. You’re the only person who has these answers, and I need you to give them to me.”

  “You think I’m still cooperating with your book? I told you I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

  “When?”

  “When the reporters came to my house.”

  “You know I didn’t tip them off.”

  “So you say.”

  “Besides, the last time I saw you, you came to my house and gave me a hand job, so excuse me if I thought you’d forgiven me.”

  She sat up ramrod straight on the couch. Her voice was a hiss. “I told you that doing stuff like that is a problem I have. I bet you’re going to put that in the book.”

  He tried to sit up in the papasan chair, but it wasn’t really possible. “As it happens, I’m not. It doesn’t make me look good either.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Are you really saying you’re not going to let me interview you for the book?”

  “Are you really saying you’re still writing the book?”

  “If I wasn’t writing the book, I wouldn’t be talking to you. It’s not like we’re friends or something.”

  She sagged back against the couch. “No, I guess we’re not.” She inspected her fingernails. “Okay. Ask your questions.”

  “You’ll let me interview you?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  Sam got out his recorder. “Okay, there’s two things. I want to know what happened with the Hendersons, your first foster family.”

  Lola made a face as if something smelled bad. “Lucas and Jamie Henderson.”

  “You didn’t like them.”

  She dug out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. “They’re religious fanatics, but if you talked to them, I guess you know that.”

  “I only really talked to Jamie, but yes, she did seem pretty religious.”

  She blew out smoke. “And you know all about religious fanatics, don’t you, Sam? Considering the way you grew up?”

  He tensed. He wanted to demand—again—how she knew all of this stuff about him, but he squelched the urge. That was what always derailed his interviews with her. She brought up his past and distracted him from finding out about hers. He simply nodded. “You could say that.”

  She raised her eyebrows, as if he’d passed some sort of test.

  “I know why she said things didn’t work out with that foster home. I want to hear your side.”

  She sucked on the cigarette. “Well… I didn’t like it there. I was angry, you know. I guess I was still grieving. My whole life was so fucked up. And Lucas Henderson was… creepy.”

  “Creepy how?”

  “He had this way of… leering at me.”

  “So, you didn’t like the way he looked at you?”

  “It was more than that.”

  “Did he do something to you?”

  She sighed. “Not physically. Not exactly. But I did catch him watching me. A couple times, I was changing clothes, and I’d turn around and see him at the door.”

  “You didn’t close the door when you were changing?”

  “Closed doors were against the rules at the Henderson house,” she said. “They said they needed to be able to keep an eye on us. For our safety or something.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re acting like it’s not a big deal,” she said.

  “I’m not. Luca
s made you uncomfortable. I understand.”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “I could tell that he was working up to something. I knew that he wasn’t going to be satisfied with just watching. Not forever. So, I had to figure out a way out of there.”

  “You didn’t think of reporting this? To your social worker? To another adult?”

  Lola smoked. She studied the tip of her cigarette. “I was pretty sure no one believed anything I said. So, no, I didn’t think to go to an adult.”

  “Instead, you went to your foster brother.”

  “He wasn’t my brother.” She gave him a nasty smile.

  He looked away.

  “Dwayne was just… there. He was around, and he was nice to me, and he’d been stuck at the Hendersons for years, so he was even sicker of them than I was.”

  “That’s interesting,” Sam said. “Jamie seemed to think he was very happy there.”

  Lola rolled her eyes. “She would.”

  “And when you say he was nice to you, what do you mean?”

  She flicked ash into her ashtray. “Jamie told you about the blow job.”

  “She might have mentioned it.”

  Lola crumpled into the couch. “I guess that’s when it started. My problem.”

  He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he tried to think of a delicate way to put it. “You attempted to trade… favors for his help running away?”

  “Oh God, you make it sound disgusting.”

  “Well, is that what you mean?”

  She stubbed out the cigarette, even though it was only half smoked. “It was not exactly like that. I mean, he was nice to me. I tried to be nice back. And I knew that guys wanted that kind of thing. I mean, Nick never shut the fuck up about it.” She pulled her feet up onto the couch and wrapped her hands around her knees. “Anyway, it didn’t exactly work. But I did get taken away from the stupid Hendersons, and they eventually put me somewhere else. That was where I met Nissa. It was better there.” She huddled on the couch, looking like a little girl again, as if talking about it had taken her back to feeling helpless and lost.

  Sam felt sorry for her. She’d really had a difficult young life. “I have to ask you another question, Lola, and you might not like it.”

  She turned to him. “I don’t like any of your questions.”

  “Well, it’s only that this story you’re telling about this Dwayne guy sounds suspiciously like the story that Nick told about you.”

  “What?”

  “Nick said that you wanted him to kill your parents. He said that you offered him sex in exchange for it.”

  “But I already explained that.”

  “I know, but you can see why it might look suspicious.”

  “Oh, hell, everything about me looks suspicious.” She got up off the couch and flounced out of the room.

  Sam didn’t move. Did that mean the interview was over? He waited for a minute, and then he stood up. “Lola?”

  “What?” Her voice was muffled.

  “I know this isn’t easy, but if we just get through it…”

  Lola came back. She put her hands on her hips. “Can your recorder pick me up from over here?”

  “Sure,” said Sam.

  “Good, I wouldn’t want you to miss anything.” Her voice was hard.

  “Lola—”

  “Look, here’s the way it went down. I got into a thing with Nick. He didn’t turn out to be the person I thought he was. Then I got into another thing with Dwayne. But he didn’t really help me that much. He couldn’t even steal the car without Lucas stopping him. And we didn’t get away. So, it doesn’t look to me like I was some kind of criminal mastermind, Sam. It looks to me like I was a very confused little girl who was trying the best she could while shitty things kept happening.”

  Sam took a step towards her. “I’m sorry. I’m not saying you’re a criminal mastermind.”

  “You think it.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Sam. You don’t trust me.”

  “I don’t…” He struggled for words. “I don’t understand you. One minute you seem like a victim, the next minute you seem like you know everything. You twist things, Lola. You’re always throwing stuff from my past into my face, and I never know where I stand with you.”

  “I never know where I stand with you.” She shot out her jaw. “You say you’re on my side, but you don’t act like it.”

  “Well, you don’t act like you’re on my side.”

  “Did I ever say I was?”

  He rubbed his face. “Look, it’s okay. You can calm down. I’m not accusing you of anything.”

  She went over to the coffee table and got another cigarette. “I think you’re always accusing me of something.”

  “I’m not.” He gestured to the couch. “You want to sit down? I have a few more things I need to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t all? What else are you going to throw at me?”

  “When we talked before, you made it sound like there was a possibility that your parents abused you.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She glowered through the cigarette smoke.

  “You said that it was hard to talk about. You said that you told things the way you wished they were.”

  “Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean that they…” She sat down heavily on the couch and massaged the bridge of her nose. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “My parents and I didn’t have a very good relationship. I told you that they were the best parents ever, that they indulged me and let me do whatever I wanted. But that wasn’t true. We fought all the time. They were really strict. They wanted me to be respectable and responsible like them, but I was different. But they weren’t abusive, they were just… assholes.”

  “So, why lie about that?”

  She shrugged. “I guess because it was hard. I wanted them to be perfect. Because when they died, it destroyed me. But… somewhere deep down inside, some part of me was relieved. Some part of me was glad they were gone.” Suddenly, she broke down in tears.

  Sam lurched forward. He sat down on the couch next to her.

  She buried her face in her hands. Her voice was thick with tears. “It was just a little part of me. Not the whole part of me. But then after they were gone, everything was so much worse. And I thought that this must be my punishment for not loving them enough. For feeling that tiny bit of relief. I never should have felt it.”

  There was no sound in the room except for Lola’s crying.

  Sam wasn’t sure what to do. He started to reach for her, then thought better of it. He just made his voice gentle instead. “Hey, you can’t do that to yourself.”

  She was still sobbing.

  He didn’t know what to do. Everything inside him was screaming at him to comfort her. He wasn’t wired to let a woman sob and not do anything to try to make her feel better. He rested a hand on her shoulder.

  She threw herself at him, buried her face in his shirt, and cried.

  He rubbed her back. “Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered.

  She clung to him.

  He shut his eyes. He held her.

  After a while, she began to quiet. She lifted her tearstained face to look at him. “It wasn’t my parents that ever hit me or hurt me.”

  “It was Nick, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “It was Nick.”

  He brushed her hair out of her face. He looked into her eyes.

  She looked up into his. The full force of her tears had subsided, and she was so close. She was in his arms.

  He could smell her, the scent of cigarettes mingled with some kind of floral perfume. He touched her face again, cupped her cheek with one palm.

  Her lips parted.

  He shut his eyes. His face dipped down, down…

  And he was kissing her.

  *

  Sam pounded the steering wheel in his car. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  He wasn’t supposed to let anything else happen with Lola.
He definitely wasn’t supposed to be kissing her.

  But she’d been so close, and she’d been sad and hurting, and he’d wanted to comfort her. And the minute he started comforting her, it had seemed…

  It had seemed natural.

  But this was screwing everything up. He couldn’t kiss Lola. He couldn’t get involved with Lola.

  For one thing, he couldn’t be sure she was telling the truth about anything. Sure, she seemed genuine, and he thought that her story made sense. Todd was shaping up to be a really bad guy. It was difficult to think someone like him could be manipulated by a twelve-year-old girl. And Sam could see the girl that Lola had been. Sometimes, when she let her guard down, she let out that innocent, vulnerable person. She’d never quite lost it. So Lola hadn’t been a saint when she was twelve. That didn’t mean that she had killed her parents.

  Of course, that could all be an act. He’d seen Lola’s moods shift so quickly. And he couldn’t help but remember what Petra had said. Lola might be trying to set him up for a libel case. If they were involved, then it would be easy to make it look like he had a grudge against her.

  Still. She hadn’t manipulated him into kissing her just then.

  No way.

  Well, he supposed he wasn’t exactly sure. Maybe she could have, if she could cry on cue. Had it seemed as though she burst into tears out of nowhere?

  He couldn’t handle these guessing games anymore.

  He might never figure out Lola Ward. It might be impossible to figure her out. He had to focus on the book instead. If he could figure things out enough to write the book, that would be enough. The book was the most important thing.

  After he finished the book, he’d never have to see Lola again. He could get on with his life and move on. No matter how mysterious she was, she’d be part of his past.

  Anyway, he couldn’t let anything happen with her again. He couldn’t kiss her, couldn’t be tempted by her. He had to keep his hands off of her. Maybe it would be better if he communicated with her by phone from now on. Then he wouldn’t have physical contact with her at all.

  Furthermore, he wasn’t even attracted to her. He didn’t want to be with her. He didn’t even want to fuck her.

  Yet, anyway.

  It was like Rachel. When he’d first met Rachel, he hadn’t had any desire to be with her in any way. He’d seen her as a pitiful woman, and he’d wanted to help her. But somewhere in his brain, some wires were crossed or something, and his penis seemed to perk up whenever he started feeling like he wanted to help a woman.