Lost Hours

by Lorena Franco

  “It has nothing to do with Josh. I had a fight with a friend, that´s all. That ape laughed at me and I totally lost it.”

  “What did you fight with your friend about?”

  “Something stupid.”

  She is lying. I know because she avoided eye contact and scratches her nose discreetly.

  “It wasn´t something stupid.” I reply.

  “I think I better go.”

  “No, don´t leave Paula. I won´t ask any more questions. I promise.”

  She stares into my eyes intently, puts the empty glass on the table.

  Unexpectedly, she pushes me back on the sofa and straddles me, pinning one of my arms with one hand, and unzipping my pants with the other, pulling out my hardening cock, caressing it.

  She smiles mischievously, unbuttoning my shirt, kissing my chest and sliding her tongue to my navel playfully, finally covering my erection with her lips and moving rhythmically. Minutes later I´m inside the body of this goddess, remembering every inch of her flesh, every nook and cranny, every kiss and caress.

  When I wake up, Paula is not in bed with me. Groggily, I bumble towards the kitchen to find her, naked, fixing some coffee. I could get used to this. I could get used to waking every morning with Paula, watching her wander around the apartment in her birthday suit.

  “Good morning.” I greet.

  “Coffee?”

  “What time is it?”

  “It´s eleven in the morning. We really overslept“ She laughs.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Yes. Thanks so much Paul.”

  “Now are you going to tell me what really happened?”

  “I´d rather not. It was just an argument between friends. That´s all.”

  “It didn´t have anything to do with Josh?” I insist.

  “I already told you it didn´t.” She answers patiently. With drink our coffee in silence, but it´s not an uncomfortable silence. It feels just right. She looks at me and laughs.

  “Would you like to do something today? I don´t know, maybe a picnic in Central Park? Every autumn, when I was a kid, my parents took me to Central Park for a picnic.”

  “That´s charming, but I´ve got things to do.” Her answer disappoints me.

  “Tomorrow, first thing, I´m going to the agency.”

  Her green eyes open wide as she exclaims, “Oh?”

  “I´ve got a suspect.”

  “Really? Who is it?” She asks enthusiastically, as if it were some kind of game.

  “Samantha Hemsley.”

  “Samantha? No, it can´t be.

  “Did you know that she and Josh had a child?”

  I want to study every detail of the expression on her face as she takes in the information. She opens her mouth slightly, rolls her eyes but is unable to speak. I decide to continue.

  “Josh and Samantha´s daughter turned up dead in an alley on the Upper East Side in September of 2004. She was murdered. It seems someone fed her an overdose of pills. You didn´t know anything about this? You were already working at DIC, weren´t you?”

  I can feel her tension and bewilderment. She seems to be trying to remember something, she is speechless. It hurts, the information was like a bucket of ice water hitting her when she least expected it. I guess some questions are being cleared up, but also, it hurts to realize that a person you loved at some point in your life turns out to be a stranger. Or worse. A monster.

  PAULA

  September, 2004

  This was the perfect time of my life. I had finally met the guy whom I thought was the love of my life and work was going well. Having a place to go each morning and a steady income is security; having someone to hold you each night, that´s luck. This is why other people´s problems were not my concern, especially when talking about Josh Parker. Our relationship was strictly business, and a malicious part of me rejoiced that his relationship with Charlotte was going downhill. Lately they seemed sort of distant and Josh never talked about our affair again. He had forgotten about me, and I about him. End of story.

  Yet it´s true that for a while, Josh had been more sedate. He wasn´t staying until all hours and he seemed to be less worried about being the best idea-man in New York, there seemed to be other priorities. Also, he was in Samantha´s office constantly. I would observe them from my workstation, sensing something going on between them, though I never actually saw anything. Their conversation seemed to be normal, rising in tone sometimes, but, in the competitive environment of an agency such as this, there is always competition and tension. Each and every one of the projects we worked on had to be perfect. Samantha applied pressure to Josh, and Josh was a genius.

  However, there was a before and after at DIC. It happened in September of 20014. Suddenly, Samantha stopped coming in to the DIC office. No explanations were offered and Josh took over her post – and office - as director, juggling his previous and new positions as best he could.

  Josh was quieter than usual, he seemed sad and somehow listless, nothing to do with the fiery passionate man I knew.

  No one seemed to know what happened to Samantha. The fact that she was a high executive at DIC and came from one of the well-to-do families of New York, helped to keep the saucy news from cropping up.

  Samantha returned in January of 2005. She had gained weight and seemed older and haggard. She wasn´t the trim attractive executive director I had known. You could almost say she had aged twenty years, and nobody knew why.

  PAULA

  Sunday, October 13, 2013

  “Paula?” Paul touches my bare shoulder to get my attention, scrutinizing me.

  “What?”

  “You´ve been silent for the last five minutes. “What were you thinking about?”

  “I haven´t the foggiest, Paul.” I answer shrugging lazily.

  This new information has really shocked me, to the point that I´m rendered inarticulate.

  “Just around those dates, Samantha disappeared for a while and Josh took over her job. But I don´t know more than that. No one does.”

  “Do you think Josh might have been involved in the death of his daughter?”

  “For God´s sake, Paul… No. Josh was no murderer, there´s no way he could have done that, specially not his own daughter. As for Samantha, I´d as soon walk on glass. No, I refuse to even consider it. There´s just no way.

  “I´ve been working on the hair samples we found at the crime scene, but we haven´t been able to identify anyone with a criminal background, or even a record. It couldn´t have been anyone else. I´m sure it was Samantha, Paula. I doubt she could have committed the crime, but she could have hired a few thugs to do her dirty work for a couple hundred. It was a vendetta for the death of her child. That is, if Josh was responsible for the murder of his child, which we will never know for sure.

  “I have to go Paul. This is too much for me, it´s too…”

  I run to the bedroom and get dressed quickly. I must get out of the apartment. I need to get away and forget about Josh. How could it be possible? Josh and Samantha? It must have been before I started to work at DIC, the product of furtive romance or a quick entanglement; a girl child. A Girl who was murdered. It gives me the chills just to think about it, I want to throw up.

  I finally arrive at my apartment and drop on my bed, closing my eyes, trying to get away from the nightmare this whole thing has become.

  But the nightmare follows me into sleep.

  «Be still, Paula, be still» a child voice urges.

  «They are coming to get you. Careful! They are coming Paula… they are getting close. Real close. » I am scared, curled up in a fetal position, naked, laying on hot, dry soil. My skin is burning. It hurts, but I don´t care. Around me there is only darkness and suddenly that blackness turns red. It´s blood: the blood of the dead. And those dead are coming for me. «Run! Run, Paula!» The little girl screams. «It´s too late, Meredith. It´s already too late. » I tell her. I close my eyes. The dream ends and when I wake up, I look upon Matthew´s
bare back as he lays on his side of the bed. Still shaken by the disturbing dream, I ask myself a question that keeps torturing me: How is it that I know your name? Paul never told me the name of Samantha and Josh´s daughter. I remember it well; Meredith. Her name echoes in my head and a thousand daggers puncture my heart.

  “Matthew… Matthew…” I whisper in his ear. As he turns, Matthew is not Matthew, but Josh. His piercing blue eyes, extensively bloodshot stare at me, and his cracked lips, sickly purple, approach mine in desperation. From his neck, there is a copious flow of blood and he begins to emit weird gurgling noises I can´t understand.

  I´m terrified! I scream. I scream ceaselessly until it all goes away. I wake up, this time for real.

  It´s five in the afternoon of a weird Sunday. I haven´t eaten anything all day, I feel weak and wobbly. I don´t want to sleep, but I don´t want to be awake either. I stare at the mobile phone. As if it could provide all the answers I need, but it mocks me, laying there silent.

  I think about Joana and the argument we had last night and the candor of her words. No, she doesn´t know where Matthew is. She was telling the truth.

  Momentarily I am overcome by fear, thinking that Matthew might be involved in Josh´s murder. It sounds strange, but yes, it could be.

  I close my eyes and try to visualize the last time I saw Josh: in my mind´s eye I picture him squeezing my breast and licking my neck, pinning me against the glass partition of the meeting room. I get moist just thinking about it and it makes me sick. I leave the scene and head for the elevator and I see a shadow. It´s a man, the same height as Matthew, he might have the same hair color too, the same profile, though I can´t see. I was so scared that I was only thinking about escaping, about getting home. Maybe Matthew saw us, he might have been enraged by what just happened and decided to end my harasser’s life.

  I open my eyes and begin crying. No, Matthew can´t be a murderer, I can´t have spent nine years of my life with a killer. No, no, no ,no.

  17:30 hrs

  I decide to call Paul.

  I can´t tell him what I saw in my mind´s eye, what was stored in some hidden corner of my subconscious the night Josh was murdered. I can´t because I don´t want anything to happen to Matthew. I also don´t want Paul to know I´m married. This last bewilders me, it makes me feel like a bad person for having betrayed my husband with another man.

  “Paul? What was the girl´s name? Samantha and Josh´s daughter.” I need to know.

  “Meredith.”

  Meredith. I called out to her in my dreams, but, why? How was it possible for me to know her name if I had never heard it?

  “Why Paula? Did you remember something?

  “No, I was just curious.”

  “Are you OK? Would you like to meet?”

  I hesitate. I´m a sick unfaithful woman who wants to meet the man on the other end of the line. A nymphomaniac that wants to be screwed again and again, hard, to forget about Josh, Matthew and the little girl that appeared in my dreams to re-open old wounds from the past that never quite healed.

  “Yes,” I reply, “I´ll be at your place in fifteen minutes.”

  I hang up the phone and smile. I can´t help it. I walk into the bathroom and stare at my haggard face in the mirror. The tears have left my eyes swollen and my skin is as pale and dry as the wall.

  As I apply some moisturizer, I hear an incessant dripping coming from the studio. It´s the nightmare once more, except this time I´m awake.

  I walk softly towards the studio, which is only a few feet away from the bathroom, and open the door.

  As I peek inside, I can´t believe my eyes. It´s ghosts or images created by my mind. Yet I see them clearly as if they were solid, even if I know it´s impossible. Josh is backed against the book case as Matthew, with the fire of rage in his eyes grabs him by the neck and lifts. Both look at me and laugh. They laugh like madmen when they see my fear. I let out a shrill squeal and slam the door shut.

  I run into the kitchen and with trembling hands pull out the bottle of Xanax. I swallow a couple of pills and return to the bathroom to finish my makeup. I decide not to return to my apartment for a couple of days. Matthew´s absence is going to end up driving me crazy.

  As I walk to the inspector´s house, I feel I might lose it completely at any moment. I try calling the man I still consider my husband one more time, and leave a desperate message in his inbox:

  «Matthew. I know the truth. Please, don´t run away. We can talk it over. We can fix this. Please come home… I love you. »

  PAUL

  Sunday, October 13, 2013

  Paula shows up at my door wearing a pair of washed out jeans and a green sweatshirt, two sizes too big on her. She looks worried and her eyes show evidence of recent crying.

  “Come in Paula, sit down and tell me the whole truth.”

  “There´s nothing to tell Paul.” She replies, playing nervously with a lock of her scraggly red hair.

  “Are you sure? I´d hate to find out from other sources that you have been keeping information from me.”

  “I’ve had dreams.” She shakes her head in denial, running her fingers through her hair. She wants to forget all this. She wants it to go away, and so do I. “That´s why I asked you for the girl´s name. I don´t know how, Paul, but I knew it. I knew her name: Meredith… Meredith” She repeats whispering softly.

  “It could be that Josh told you and you had forgotten.”

  “No. No, that´s not possible.”

  I like you Paula. In case you hadn´t noticed… I like you a lot. But I know you are hiding something from me and I want to know what it is. You know more than your letting on. Did you see something the night Josh was killed?”

  She puts a hand to her heart and cries disconsolately.

  “Take is easy, now.”

  I slide close to her and embrace her. I can´t ignore my protective instinct responding to her weakness. But I know she´s not telling me the whole truth. The minutes run slowly and I wish we could stay like this for ever. Having her in my arms, smelling her lavender lotion, caressing her red mane.

  “Samantha will pay for it, won´t she?” She asks looking me in the eye.

  “She will, if it was her.” I answer forcefully.

  She nods and seems to calm down a bit. She kisses me we´re on our way to making love again. This woman has trapped me. I´ve become addicted to her flesh.

  CHAPTER 9

  PAUL

  Monday, October 14, 2013

  It´s morning, and I smile to find myself entwined in Paula´s naked body. This time it´s my turn to get up and fix us some coffee. It´s seven o´clock and it promises to be a rough day, I´m not looking forward to having to deal with Samantha´s sad gaze.

  I have to procure a judicial order and it´s quite possible that she´ll end up in jail if she refuses to cooperate.

  Paula comes into the kitchen minutes later wearing her faded jeans and oversized sweatshirt. She looks sort of haggard and I offer her a cup. She nods and sips in silence as I watch her closely.

  “Will you be going in to the agency today?” She asks seriously.

  “I have to stop by to get a judicial order first.”

  “Is Samantha in custody?”

  “Not yet. Not until I question her and I hope she´s willing to talk. I was at her apartment on Saturday and she kicked me out.”

  “I see… it must have been hard for her to lose her child in such a ghastly way,” she whispers, “but I refuse to believe that it could have been Josh. Josh was good, Paul. He might have been sick, maybe he inherited his mother´s schizophrenia, but I just can´t see him taking the life of a child. His own child.”

  “Have you ever heard the story of the wolf, Paula?” She looks at me questioningly.

  “An old Indian,” I begin to explain, “was talking to his grandson and told him: «I feel as if I had two wolves fighting inside my heart. One of the wolves is furious, violent and vengeful. The other is full of love and compassion. » So the g
randson asks: «Tell me, grandfather, which of the two wolves will win the battle in your heart?» And the grandfather answers him: «The one I choose to feed. » We all have a good and a bad wolf inside us, Paula. We can´t know, or even guess, what the people around us are capable of doing.”

  Crestfallen, Paula finishes her coffee and leaves the apartment without saying a word.

  Two hours later I arrive at DIC with a judicial order for Samantha. Stuart is with me and he has been badgering me for over an hour about why I didn´t take him with me when I went to question Samantha on Saturday.

  “If it turns out that Samantha murdered Parker, it will have been me who cracked the case, boss.” He says threateningly. “I don´t know where your head has been this whole week Tischmann, but it has been I who discovered a bunch of things you let slide.”

  I feel greatly tempted to punch him in the face and smash him against a wall. But he is right. I don´t know where my head has been since I walked in on my wife and found her with another man. Since I met Paula.

  Softly, followed by Stuart, I open the door to Samantha´s office. She is talking on the phone, and hangs up as soon as she sees us. She ignores Stuart, but directs a hateful look at me that I had been expecting.

  “I have a judicial order.” I tell her. “Are you going to answer my questions now, or am I going to have to take you down to the precinct by force?

  “Do what you have to do.” She replies rolling her eyes and shrugging. I look at her hands. There are no traces of cuts or scratches that might have been caused by glass shards from the shattered partition, which by the way has been quickly replaced.

  “Mrs. Hemsley, why didn´t you tell us you had a child by Josh Parker?” Asks Stuart.

  “Don´t call me Mrs., God damn it!” She screams infuriated, rising from her comfortable leather chair. “You see this girl? Do you see her?” She asks violently, showing us the picture on her desk. It´s evident that Samantha has seen better days. Days when her figure was slim and desirable, when her skin was velvet soft, irresistible. “This girl is dead! And you idiotic policemen have no idea who did it.”