Lost Hours

by Lorena Franco

  “Paula was involved with Parker.”

  “It doesn´t surprise me a bit. It was all part of her plan. If I had known that Paula was Parker´s aide, I would have linked her to the child´s crime. From the moment she left the mental hospital, her sole purpose in life was to kill the son of the man who killed her parents in the crash. She started with an innocent child, “Peck mumbles, truly upset, “and finally she did Parker in. I know what you´re thinking, Tischmann: if I hadn´t protected her, if I had stopped her cold and locked her up when she killed her fellow inmate or the watchman, none of these crimes would have been perpetrated.

  “It´s a shame that we can´t turn back time.”

  I hold back the accusation that he was an accomplice to murder. I do it because maybe the investigation I´m involved in could have been solved if I hadn´t fallen for her.

  “What about Mrs. Hemsley?” Peck asks, ignoring the dismayed expression on my face.

  “Samantha. We cut her loose on Wednesday, free of all charges. Poor woman, I asked her forgiveness a hundred times, but she hasn´t said a single word. I haven´t heard from her since then, though I was told she didn´t show up for work the whole week.

  “We should go see her.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I feel very sorry for her.”

  My phone rings. I frown when I discover it´s Stuart.

  “What is it?”

  “Samantha Hemsley has committed suicide.” Says Peck seriously before I can digest what I´m hearing Stuart say.

  PAULA

  Friday, October 18, 2013

  “We´ll get through this.” Matthew tries to cheer me up, caressing my cheek.

  “My God, Matthew, if you knew the horrible things I´ve done. I´m the most horrible person in the world.” I mumble through my tears.

  “It´s OK Paula, we all make mistakes, and things work out in the end.”

  “Thank you for being here Matthew. For standing by me no matter what. God, God, God… “ I repeat, dismayed. “I didn´t mean to harm you. Honestly. I didn´t want to…”

  Matthew holds me tightly, trying to put me at ease. But as I run my hands down his bare back, a thin veil of blood trails my fingertips. I don´t know where it´s coming from, and as I look towards the lake, I see Joana, smiling.

  “What are you lovebirds doing here?”

  “Trying to calm Paula down, Joana. She needs our comfort.”

  Then, as Joana comes closer, she pulls Matthew away from me and kisses him passionately. I watch them, shocked by the increasing flow of blood running down Matthew´s back, trickling down to mix with Joana´s in a glistening puddle.

  My dream ends with the deep lake turning crimson as the outlines of my husband and best friend disappear in the mist, leaving me to rest on the dry, scorching ground under which their bodies lay interred.

  I wake up in the driver´s seat of my car and start crying. The ghosts from the past are back. The dead are back to haunt me. Still drowsy, I can see Josh, with a deep cut in his neck, hiding behind a tree. He is looking at me. He opens his mouth, saying something to me, but I can´t tell what it is.

  I remember. My mind has finally awakened. The clock has stopped and the fear returns. Madness has taken over once again, opening the door to the monster I have always been.

  PAULA

  Friday, September 6, 2013

  “Oh God! I´ve missed you, Josh!” I whisper in his hear as he shoves me roughly onto the copy machine. Josh thrusts into me furiously, silent. He knows I´ve always liked to fuck violently.

  It was a Friday night in September, no one left in the office. I waited impatiently in my office until everyone was gone and Josh had done a few lines of stuff, so I would get it on with him. His eyes were unfocused, the effects of the drug evident in every movement, he could barely utter a word. No matter. After all this time, I had him just where I wanted: inside me.

  After he came, he pushed me roughly against the wall and shut himself in the bathroom. Thrilled after the forbidden pleasure, I straightened my skirt, got into my car and drove home. Before going up to the apartment, I smoothed out my hair and retouched my lipstick. I applied a few drops of my favorite perfume to my neck so Matthew wouldn´t suspect my cheating, and climbed happily up the stairs.

  Ten past ten at night.

  On entering the apartment, I was drowned at once in the aroma of a perfume that was not my own. I stopped in the foyer and listened to the whimpers and giggling coming from the bedroom. Enraged, I charged into the bedroom, knocking the door aside, only to find the sweaty naked bodies of Matthew and Joana on my bed.

  Both turned to look at me, bewildered and afraid, so paralyzed was Matthew that he didn´t even consider taking his cock out of Joana. I said nothing. I just stared at them with hatred and disgust, even though only a few minutes earlier I had been doing the same with another man. But Josh wasn´t Joana; he wasn´t Matthews best friend. My husband and best friend had betrayed me.

  Through my mind, fluttered the vision of a beautiful child, Meredith, the little girl I had murdered, forcing her to ingest a bunch of pills, only to get back at the man whose father´s recklessness had destroyed my life. It had been by chance that I discovered that Samantha´s hidden daughter was also Josh´s. Meeting her at the park, though, was not a coincidence. I even found out the school she attended. That day at the park, it was so easy to lure her away from the swings, offering to show her a cute puppy. Young Marie, a seventeen-year-old schizophrenic, fat and dumb, let me cut her veins in her own bedroom. The watchman, whose skull I shattered years later, was screwing the nurse, neglecting his vigilance over a crowd of unhinged teenagers. Then there was him. Inspector John Peck. He was like a father to me, my first love, the man who deflowered me when I was fifteen. I was excited by his being a lot older than me, and I suppose he was excited that I was underage, with perky smooth breasts and an unused shaved pussy. From what he told me, his wife wouldn´t make love to him. She hated him, despised him because he couldn´t make her pregnant. I took advantage of his bitterness, and he protected me, responsible in part for what I ´ve become.

  The dead came back into my mind, as I continued watching the two lovers.

  I turned and went to the kitchen. Matthew followed without even taking the trouble to put on his boxers. And then, I turned and stabbed him with the knife I found in the kitchen drawer. Blood poured out of his abdomen copiously, he opened his eyes wide, staring at me in disbelief, unable to utter a question: «Why? Why did you do this to me? »

  With tears in my eyes, I ran to the bedroom, still brandishing the knife, still dripping Matthew´s blood. Joana, scared witless, covered herself with the sheet, starting a scream that never ripened as the knife pierced her heart. She didn´t even have a chance to defend herself.

  Callously, with my husband´s dead body lying in the living room and my best friend´s in my bed, I wiped the knife thoroughly. If not done immediately, there will be dry traces on it that will never come off. I put the weapon back in the drawer, wrapped Matthew´s body in the living room carpet, and then pulled Joana´s body to the living room to repeat the procedure with the bedroom rug.

  Sometime later, I dragged both bodies down to my car, put them in the trunk and drove the five hours to Lake Hemlock. I used to go there with my parents when I was a child, until that son of a bitch - Josh´s father - killed them in the crash.

  It was totally dark, and I knew there would be no one around in those early hours of the morning. Soon, the tourists would stop coming to the lake altogether; the lake is not a nice place in the winter. I drove down long overgrown paths and parked the car near a cove. I pulled the bodies out of the trunk and let them roll to the edge of the lake. Taking a shovel I always carry in the trunk, – which, by the way, belonged to my grandfather who used to use it to plant lemon and orange trees in his garden in New Jersey - I began to dig. I can´t remember how many hours I was at it, but dawn was approaching as I stopped, sweating and panting, to stare into a decently deep hole
. Remorselessly I pushed to two lovers, one on top of the other. I covered them slowly with the loamy soil, packing it tight, artfully smoothing it at the end as I watched the sun rise. I knew it might be years before their bodies were discovered.

  Once finished with the task, I rinsed the shovel in the lake as well as the bloodstains in the trunk of my car. Exhausted, I drove back the five hours to my Soho apartment.

  I wiped the floor and the knife clean again when I got home, put the bloody sheets into the washer and dropped onto the davenport. Silence. Darkness. Oblivion.

  CHAPTER 12

  JOSH PARKER

  Tuesday, October 8, 2013

  The last nine years of my life have been an unrelenting hell. Since I lost my daughter, with whom I was allowed to share only a few days, everything has been going from bad to worse.

  I torture myself thinking that if I hadn´t met her, she´d still be alive. She´d be fourteen, a lovely teenager. I would still be unaware of her existence, would have never stepped into a children´s park, never read Peter Pan… And Meredith would have lived without a father figure in her life. But she would have been happy. She would still be alive… alive…

  Samantha stopped talking to me for months after she returned to the agency. She transformed into another person. It wasn´t just the deplorable physical change that shocked me. She was distant and cold with me. I knew our affair was over, but for the good of the agency, our professional relationship was quite formal.

  I still worked till all hours of the night. I kept pushing myself more than anyone else did. I won many awards, but also lost others. Charlotte and I got together again.

  She had never stopped loving me, and through these years, regardless of my multiple infidelities and my sever addiction to cocaine, she was always there for me. She left the agency after we got married and I am so sorry to have pushed her into the drug scene.

  A few months ago, we had to skip our idyllic vacations at La Toscana, Italy, because she was hospitalized with an overdose. It was a miracle that she survived, yet she still continues to consume the drug daily, getting thinner and more emaciated every day. We promised to give it up, and from now on everything will improve. We will become parents and lead a healthy, normal life. We don´t want to end up in Vermont again, at three in the morning, not knowing how the hell we got there.

  It´s seven PM and Paula is still in her office. She looks over at me with those demented eyes, as she always does. I know that sooner or later, she will come to my office to try to seduce me. A month ago I fell for her tricks and we started doing it again. After so many years, in which not a day has gone by without her constant harassment, she caught me in a weak moment when I was high on snort. I couldn´t refuse.

  I wonder why I haven´t fired her. Why do I still keep her as one of my assistants? Why, after the thousands of threatening messages – which I promptly erase – in which she tells me she will kill herself if I don´t screw her again, that she can´t live without me… Why do I still keep her close? I can´t deny that I´ve always been attracted to her, but something about her makes my hair stand on end. I try to keep our relationship as professional as possible, but I can´t treat her the way I do Lisa of Nicole. I can´t look straight at her and smile, she might take it the wrong way.

  She gets up from her chair, smooths her provocative pencil skirt and comes into my office.

  “Do you need some help, Josh?” She asks.

  The truth is I do. We are working on an important campaign, with millions riding on it, and we are behind schedule.

  “Let´s go over to the meeting room. We will be more comfortable there.” I reply without looking into those fiery green eyes that, not too long ago, seemed the most fascinating in the world.

  She sits beside me, paying close attention to each of the ideas for the story board. For the first time in a long time, she is more focused on the work than on me, and I feel relieved. I´d hate to be pushed into doing something I don´t want.

  It´s a quarter past nine. We are tired, and before I can suggest breaking for the night, she takes the lead.

  “Should we take a break?” She fondles the inside of my leg.

  I pull back at once, getting out of my chair, picking up the pile of papers scattered on the table top.

  “No, I want to get home early. Charlotte´s expecting me for dinner.” I answer curtly.

  “Come on Josh, quit playing hard to get. The other day you were making eyes at me. What are you waiting for? We´re alone, there´s no one left in the office.”

  She stares at my crotch, gets up and takes my cock in her hand, roughly. I pull back again, staring her down frostily.

  “Besides, you´re so hot…” she whispers, coming closer and closer. Again, I pull back. But before I can get out the door, she grabs my arm with surprising strength and looks at me with those demented fiery eyes I´ve gotten used to.

  “Do you think you can just fuck me and then leave me?” She asks with a threatening tone. “Who do you think pushed all those pills down your little girls throat?”

  Totally taken aback, I look at her. I can tell she´s telling the truth.

  “What are you saying, Paula?”

  My voice breaks, I feel a knot in my throat that prevents me from speaking and my legs turn to rubber.

  “Sit down!” She orders, raising her voice.

  I sit and pay attention. I want to hear what she has to say, I want to know the truth, though I´m terrified at what it might be.

  “Meredith, right?” She nods, walking back and forth in the meeting room. I look at my watch, it´s twenty to ten. “She was a lovely child, and easy to deceive, too. She was on a swing in the park when I approached her and told her I had a puppy I wanted to show her. I took her to my car. No one saw us. I´m quite resourceful, you know?”

  I´m struck dumb. I can´t utter a sound. Only a snort has put me in this state in the past.

  “She quickly discovered there was no puppy, but it didn´t matter, she said she was glad I had taken her because she was mad at her mommy and daddy who had left her with the sitter. They didn´t want to take her with them. We went to my parent´s house. Oh, by the way, I´ve already told you about my parent´s death. A drunk driver killed them in the spring of 1987, but I didn´t tell who it was. Can you guess?”

  Before she can say another word, I know who it was.

  “It was your father, Josh. Your father, a drunk, reckless driver who snuffed my parent´s lives that night in the damned car accident. But that´s not the story. I´ll get on with it. On Saturday night, Meredith and I had pizza and watched a movie. Then, when it was time to go to bed, I read her a book: Peter Pan. She told me you read it to her every night since she met you. She also told me that I read it much better than you did.” She laughs, shakes her head and stops in front of the table from me. “On Sunday afternoon, I told her we were going to eat some delicious candy. She swallowed three pills without complaining. I had to shove the rest down her little throat. She had a sweet death, Josh. She didn´t suffer. I promise, I took care of her.”

  I hold back my fury and frustration. I could kill her. Smash her against the glass and crush her skull.

  “And if you think I´m going to let you walk out that door, knowing what you know, well, you are very wrong.” She mutters.

  “Go ahead, Paula. Kill me.”

  I surrender. I want to go. I deserve it.

  With superhuman strength, she swings her clenched fist at the glass partition. It shatters and I am amazed that her knuckles are unscathed. She comes towards me, brandishing a shard of glass, sharper than any knife. Before she slits my throat, she looks at me and laughs, waving a little bag of cocaine she had hidden in one of her folders.

  It´s ten o´clock when she strikes. I´m glad to join my little daughter, who, as Peter Pan, has been in Neverland for the last nine years.

  PAUL

  Saturday, October 19, 2013

  There is a warrant out for Paula´s capture and arrest. I´m checking her back
ground, something I should´ve done from the start, only to discover that she´s married to a Matthew Hawkins.

  I went to her apartment, right beside Jimmy´s place. We had to knock the door down. Everything looks normal, as if they would be back at any moment.

  I check up on Matthew, a freelance designer without a fixed job. This makes my work harder to find his whereabouts. But in his e-mails, I find a lot from his mother, asking him to get in touch, and from a couple of pissed-off clients, complaining about undelivered projects from two months back.

  I get in touch with Matthew´s mother. I can tell she´s upset upon hearing I´m a police inspector, she tells me she hasn´t heard from her son since the beginning of September and that Paula hasn´t been in touch either.

  We put the man on the missing persons list and begin to search for him.

  “What a flake… she did her husband in too. How much do you want to bet?” Stuart laughs, getting on my nerves as usual.

  I can´t rebuke him, neither can I argue against his assumptions, because deep down inside, though I don´t want to believe it, I agree with him. Paula is a mental case whose first killings -covered up by Peck – have turned her into a monster. A heartless criminal. The Goddess I once saw in her is gone, but my obsession with her remains.

  In the evening, once rid of Stuart´s prattle, I go to Jimmy´s. I greet the bouncer, who, as usual, puts on airs but finally agrees to answer my questions. I show him a picture of Paula and he shakes his head an turns his eyes.

  “Some kook,” he begins, “she´s the one that jumped all over me the other night, when I laughed at her because she was talking to herself. She was screaming all kind of nonsense at the thin air. She even pretended she was pushing someone. And that´s not the first time. I can´t recall what night it was, but she stumbled out of here, drunk as a skunk. She was talking to herself and couldn´t stop laughing. The barman can tell you, she´d order two Bloody Marys, and would only drink one! She left half of them on the bar.