by A. S. French
Over the last two days, she’d discovered the town wasn’t as rigid as she first believed. There were good people in Angel Springs, and she hoped it would be only a matter of time for Grace to achieve what her hard work deserved.
Grace reached out to touch Astrid’s arm. ‘You know I’ll continue helping you even after tonight.’
‘I appreciate the gesture, but I’m confident we’ll have solved everything when we leave that party.’
A fat fry hung from Grace’s mouth. ‘You think we’ll find Alex and discover a serial killer before the clock strikes midnight?’
Astrid lifted her hand to Grace’s face, removing the fry and eating it herself. The taste of fatty food between her lips warmed her soul. ‘All the answers are in that house, Grace; I’m sure of it.’
‘And what about Daniel Gideon and the thugs hired to kill you?’
Astrid leant into the uncomfortable plastic booth and kicked out her feet. ‘They weren’t trying to kill me yesterday; that would’ve been too quick for Gideon. He wants to see me suffer. Those men are here to snatch me, and then take me somewhere so he can torture me. His fragile masculinity won’t allow for anything else.’
‘So you’re just going to wait for them to come for you?’
‘They’ll make a mistake.’ Astrid was convinced of it, though she didn’t want others being put at risk because of her. ‘People like that always do.’
Grace finished her drink and left the rest of her food. ‘I love your self-assurance, but I have doubts.’
Astrid stood. ‘Don’t worry about it, partner; we’ll see them soon enough. Now we have to go and give Christina Sanchez what news we have.’
‘Do you think Alex is still alive?’
‘She’s been missing for more than a week; the chances of us finding her alive are slim. But I’m not giving up until I know what happened to her.’
The smell of the murder dungeon filled her head, the image of those four sets of initials stamped on to her brain.
Grace paid the bill, and they headed to the collection of mobile homes. Outside the trailer park were several women looking suspiciously like nightclub bouncers. Astrid registered something she’d missed the first time she was there.
‘What do you notice most about this place?’ she said as they parked and got out of the car.
Grace scanned the area. ‘You can’t miss the large number of random dogs running around.’
As she spoke, a skinny greyhound ran up to them. Astrid stuck her tongue out at the animal, and it scampered away.
‘That and the fact there are no men here,’ Astrid said. ‘Young lads and teenage boys, I remember from the other day, but no adult males. I’m surprised I didn’t notice it last time. It must be a refuge. Do you know who owns this place?’
‘I don’t. I always assumed it was some private company charging exorbitant monthly rentals. It’s the American way.’
Astrid strode through the middle, staring at the mobile homes rooted into the ground. Pots, plants, ornaments and other miscellanea were propped up against the wheels and around the sides of the vehicles, embedding them into their environment as if they were living things with deep roots far down into the concrete. There was colour and vibrancy everywhere she looked, something she’d been oblivious to before. Even without speaking to any of the residents, she felt this was a real community.
She sensed people scrutinising them as they strode towards the Sanchez home, watching the curtains twitching as they went. Up ahead, a group of women sat outside the trailer, chairs and boards pushed up against the front so you couldn’t see the bottom of it. A grill was cooking in the middle, a sweet aroma of barbecue wafting through the air. Christina turned to them as they got there.
‘You’ve come to give me bad news about that torture room they discovered this morning.’
‘We found that place, Ms Sanchez,’ Grace said.
‘And Alex?’ Sanchez poked bits of meat around on the grill, no tremor or motion in her voice.
‘It was empty,’ Astrid said. ‘We came here to tell you what led us there and why we think someone has been snatching kids in this town for a long time.’
Christina Sanchez continued to cook and hand out food to her friends as Astrid recounted what they’d discovered, including the events at the youth centre and Alex’s appearance at Manny’s cabin. Christina was stoic and unemotional, apart from the occasional twitch in her eyes. Astrid had observed many people dealing with upsetting news over the years; most broke down and wept, but a few, mainly men trying to appear brave, kept their emotions in check. Alex’s mother was doing her best to hold everything in, but Astrid assumed the tears would flow once she was away from friends and neighbours.
‘I promise you, Christina, I’ll know what happened to Alex by the end of tonight.’
Grace stared at Astrid in amazement, but Christina was like a blank space as she spoke.
‘One day, it seems like you have forever; the next, you wonder where it all went. The hands have fallen off the clock, and there’s a huge gaping piece of eternity waiting to swallow you up.’ Smoke drifted from the barbecue, and resignation seeped out of her. ‘I tried to stop her from doing those things she did, the protests and the activism. I even encouraged her to behave as other teenagers, to smoke and drink and mess around with boys or girls. It didn’t matter to me as long as she was having a good time: as long as she was acting like a kid and not an adult.’ She stared straight into Astrid’s eyes. ‘Why do they have to be the ones to right all of our mistakes?’
Grace stepped forward. ‘We still don’t know what happened to Alex, Ms Sanchez; so, don’t give up hope.’ With a faint smile, she dragged Astrid from the women who were speaking to Christina. Perhaps Alex’s mother would open up to them.
Grace’s nails dug into Astrid’s arms.
Astrid frowned at her.
‘Have you been taking lessons from Cope?’
Grace stopped walking and pulled her to one side. ‘Why did you promise her you’d know what happened to Alex by the end of tonight? Getting her hopes up like that will only make things worse for her.’
‘What do you think happened to Alex after Manny’s place?’
Grace pulled in her chest and rose to her full, magnificent height. ‘I’d guess she left his cabin through the back and went out of the woods the other side.’
‘She went there looking for a phone and didn’t find one.’ Astrid peered at Grace. ‘Wouldn’t she have continued with that search?’
‘There are no other houses or buildings in that area.’
It was Astrid’s turn to pull Grace forward, this time in the direction of their car. ‘Of course there are; she must have returned to the spot where she was harassed.’
Grace stopped as they got to the car, her face a bundle of confusion. ‘Why would she go back to the youth centre after what they did to her?’
‘Think about it, Grace. She needed to call somebody, and there was only one other place to get a phone outside of town. I don’t think she felt safe on her own in those woods, and she’s got enough sass to double back and get through that fence. Those people didn’t break her spirit; they just reinforced it. She went there, snuck in, found a phone, then waited for someone to come and pick her up. Did you see all the security cameras dotted around when we were there? They’ll have all their video stored on the computer. All I need to do is find out where it is and go through the records; then we’ll have something to tell Christina.’
Grace climbed into the car. ‘You’re making a lot of assumptions, Astrid.’
‘This will be solved when we walk out of Brady’s mansion tonight, trust me.’
Grace drove away, but didn’t look convinced. ‘What about the initials on the door?’
‘We’ll see what your Forensic colleagues come up with.’
A pack of dogs barked at them as they pulled out of the trailer park.
‘So, what’s next for us?’
Astrid smiled at her friend. ‘No
w, we have to get you dressed for the ball.’
20 House of Mirrors
‘I’m not wearing a dress.’
The shout was loud enough to rattle the cups in the kitchen. It shook Astrid from her thoughts as Grace barged into the living room.
‘You’re going naked, Grace? I don’t think my heart could take that.’
Grace’s eyes flashed like lightning in the night. ‘You know what I mean. Why do you get to go to the party like that, and I have to dress up?’ She pointed at Astrid’s jeans and leather jacket. ‘I’m not a show pony.’
Astrid glanced over, the corners of her lips fighting a smile, her eyebrows raised. ‘Well, first of all, I don’t have a dress with me, and I doubt any of yours would fit me; and second, you’re the best distraction I can have in that mansion when I sneak off to find the video surveillance and anything else which might help us.’
Grace slumped into the chair, the ocean blue dress crawling above her knees; she dragged it down and shook her head.
‘That’s nice, calling me a distraction.’
Astrid stared at her. ‘Well, you’re distracting me now.’
The frustration seeped out of Grace. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had a night out.’ She appeared to have got over her irritation.
‘Are you booking us a taxi?’
Grace tried to cross her legs, but failed, then pulled at her dress to make it longer. ‘It’s okay; I’ll drive. It will be easier to leave Brady’s mansion if we have transport.’
Grace grabbed the keys and they left. Astrid watched her struggle to get comfortable in the dress as they got into the car, which amused her no end. Grace turned on the radio and settled for a jazz station. Something sounding like it was written for elevators screeched out of the speakers, a loud wailing cacophony which could only have been played on instruments dug up from Satan’s basement.
Astrid furrowed her brow and grimaced. ‘You don’t really care for music, do you?’
‘I know enough to recognise when someone is quoting Leonard Cohen to me.’ Grace reached over and flicked through the stations. ‘What would you prefer, Ms Snow?’
She bounced through rock, soul and country before Astrid stopped her on a channel playing eighties pop. The Go-Go’s sang about having the beat as they headed out of town.
‘This is why you need someone younger to teach you about good music, Grace.’
She ignored the jab. ‘What’s the plan once we get inside the mansion?’
‘Did you notice all the cameras when we were on the estate the other day?’ Grace nodded. ‘That much surveillance means there’s a control room in the building. Hopefully, they’ll have a digital record of everything they’ve filmed in the last week, and I can search through it for when Alex was there.’
‘Won’t that be dangerous?’
‘It is what it is. We won’t discover what happened to Alex without taking risks.’
‘As long as nobody gets hurt.’
They didn’t argue about it, travelling through Angel Springs as Astrid noticed the billboards promoting Bob Brady’s re-election had increased in number overnight. They drove past a large photo of him smiling over the town, his shining white teeth putting her in mind of someone who wanted to eat baby birds right out of the nest.
‘How come I haven’t seen any publicity for whoever Brady is running against?’
Grace stopped whistling to Bruce Springsteen to answer the question. ‘Brady is a shoo-in, so no pretender to his throne will waste money on ads when they know they’re going to lose, especially when he can outspend them ten to one.’
Astrid scanned the internet on her phone as the Boss gave way to Prince. ‘I guess his popularity knows no bounds in Angel Springs.’
Grace laughed. ‘Well, I’ve never voted for him.’ Their destination was no more than five minutes away. ‘I worked the police security details at one of his rallies a few years ago and saw what he was like backstage.’
‘Seeing a politician in the wild is never a pretty sight.’
‘I only got close to him for two minutes, but that was enough. When he didn’t have to put on a show for the public, being with him was like a trip through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat.’
Grace approached the Brady estate while Morrissey sang about running down to the safety of the town. The car slowed as they acknowledged the security outside the grounds. It was easier getting into the compound the second time; no scowling youths waited for them as the iron gates opened and they entered. They parked in a different spot because of the circus attractions the Senator had organised to entertain his guests.
Stilt walkers garbed as flappers and Gatsby rejects lined the entrance as acrobats perched on the building’s railings, occasionally tumbling and falling between floors. An adult carousel was to the right, and servers attired as clowns wandered everywhere, handing out drinks and canapes. A group of teenagers dressed as cheerleaders led four baby elephants around the grounds.
Grace whistled as they stood and admired the spectacle. ‘The Senator spared no expense for this.’
Astrid gritted her teeth. ‘I’ve always hated circuses.’
And she had good reason. Her parents had organised a trip to a visiting circus for Courtney’s tenth birthday. Her sister was unusually friendly towards Astrid that night, holding her hand as their mother and father ushered them between the attractions. Astrid remembered it being the last time she’d believed her family was doing something nice for her, even though it was for Courtney. She’d enjoyed watching the Cirque du Soleil on TV, but this wasn’t that: it was all clowns and animals.
After the horse dressage and acrobats, Courtney sneaked Astrid away from their parents, and they ducked into a small tent for what her sister described as a special present for Astrid. It turned out to be a group of jokers with painted-on evil faces and fake axes covered in blood. They jumped out and howled at her. She fell to the floor, her screaming only stopping when her mother picked her up and laughed at her. That’s when she discovered it was her parents who’d set the whole thing up as a gift for Courtney. All her sister had wanted was to humiliate and terrify Astrid, and her parents were all too willing to organise it.
She pushed the memory into the shadows as they strolled into the mansion. A wall of glass hid the grand hallway, not ordinary mirrors, but ones that twisted and distorted your appearance. She lifted her hands towards them, the reflection altering her fingers so they looked like long, withered branches on a skeletal tree. As she stared at herself, it reminded her of what she’d witnessed in the river earlier, when her shadow had transformed into a mangled, painful vision of Olivia. She stuck a fingernail into her palm to get rid of it.
The distorting glass hypnotised Grace, her body shrinking inside it. ‘I guess I finally look normal.’
Astrid stood at her side, so they resembled a human salt and pepper set. ‘There’s no such thing as normal in this world, partner. People who think like that, who adhere to outdated societal modes of what’s acceptable and what isn’t, are too vanilla to appreciate the real beauty of life.’
Grace held a finger to her face, the two of them watching it twist like liquid flesh until it didn’t appear to be part of her anymore.
‘What do you mean by vanilla?’
Astrid took Grace’s hand. ‘Vanilla is boring and bland.’ She squeezed her partner’s arm. ‘It’s better to be exotic and unusual rather than that.’
As Grace laughed and her face contorted in the mirror to resemble something from Picasso, other guests followed in behind them, the mirrors becoming one heaving mass of warped human beings. Up ahead, the wall of glass parted into the banqueting area of the mansion. A great banner proclaiming the re-election of Senator Brady stretched across the ceiling. He stepped out and addressed the gathering crowd.
‘Welcome, friends, to my humble home.’ He extended his arms like Christ on the cross. ‘Please eat and drink until you can eat and drink no more.’ Out from behind him sprang a glitterati of c
ostumed performers, jumping and tumbling into the room and between the startled masses: grim-faced clowns, agile acrobats, scantily clad females and muscular he-men, and many others. ‘Follow and enjoy my entertainers and make sure you contribute to my campaign wholeheartedly.’
As he grinned, streamers burst from above, and party music blasted through the mansion. Astrid watched the people behind her disappear in the twisted mirrors, replaced with the family she wished she’d never known. Lawrence pointed at her while holding a whip, slapping it against his leg, each whack increasing the width of his smile until it threatened to slip from his face. Her mother, Gloria, sucked on a bottle of booze as if it was an umbilical cord as she wrapped herself in a Union Jack. Courtney stood between them, cradling a baby who could only have been Olivia. She ogled Astrid, her eyes telling her sister she had something she’d never have.
As Astrid continued to stare at them, Grace whispered to her.
‘This is great; you’ve got an excuse to go in every room now if you say you were only following one of these performers.’
Astrid gazed at a distorted version of Courtney sneering at her, transferred from her memory and into the mirror.
‘I need alcohol first.’ She seized a glass of champagne from a server dressed as a southern belle of the Civil War.
Worry lines appeared across Grace’s face. ‘We have to keep a clear head, remember.’
‘I have to blend in, partner.’
She downed the drink and grabbed another one, the warmth of the booze chipping away at her hallucination until her family disappeared. She strode towards the table of food, grabbing a sandwich that wouldn’t have satisfied a tiny bird.
More people came into the mansion as the piped music dissipated and a band struck up some terrible jazz fusion. Astrid devoured the sarnie in a gulp before sticking a finger into one ear. She scanned the area, watching Brady shake hands and grin his way to adding more money to his re-election fund.