by Jenna Rae
“Who do we call? What do we do? Is there someone watching the boats?”
“I don’t know!” Lola shook her head. “I don’t—do you have your cell?”
“Here!” Marco shoved his phone at her, but she could only stare at it blankly. It was just a dark screen, and she groaned at him helplessly before handing it back.
“How do you make it work? Can you call Del? She’ll know what to do.” Lola heard the blind confidence in her voice and realized how childish she sounded. But then Marco was dialing the phone, somehow, and she listened while he left a message for Del and one for Phil.
“Tom,” she suggested. “Del’s partner, Tom Phan. I have his card.” She dug it out and handed it to Marco, who was able to reach Tom and explain what was happening.
“He says he’ll make sure the right people know,” Marco said, holding up his phone to take pictures of the rogue boat as it was tossed on the powerful waves of the open channel. “At least the owner can show the insurance company what happened.”
“Take a picture of the empty place,” Lola urged, as the runaway boat bobbed in and out of view. “For the owner of the little boat that got smashed up. For their insurance.”
“Right. They can identify it by the slip number. Good.” Marco took several pictures of the surrounding area, then cursed softly and tucked the phone into a pocket. The rain she’d predicted had finally arrived. As they turned to leave, Lola bumped into a large homeless woman covered by garbage bags.
“Oh, excuse me, are you all right?”
The woman nodded and ducked her foil-covered head, reeling away toward the wharf. Lola and Marco watched her as she staggered first in the direction of the boats and then veered toward Pier 39, where the tourist attractions were centered.
“Funny, it almost looked like she was going toward a boat, didn’t it?”
Marco shrugged. “Let’s get out of this rain, sis.”
“You got it, brother.”
They trotted toward the car, heads down, and headed for home with a loudly shared sigh of relief. It wasn’t until later, after she’d gotten warm and dry and was sipping a large mug of coffee, that Lola wondered why Tom had answered his phone but Del hadn’t. She called Del’s phone from the kitchen and left a message.
She did some writing, discovering after a time that she’d managed to incorporate a runaway boat into Olivia’s story.
“Oh, silly,” she chuckled. “Olivia as a sailor, though, that’s kind of interesting.”
She could picture Olivia at the helm of a beautiful craft, the wind blowing her lovely hair away from a sun-pinked face. She was tanned and muscular, healthy and lithe, full of confidence and courage. Lola was enthralled with this image of Olivia. Unmoored from conventional ties, Olivia could sail the world as a young woman. But why? What would it mean? How would it work? There was something there, something about the sea as mother or the unconscious or something, and Lola let the story play in possibilities. It was some hours later that she was startled out of Olivia’s universe and back into her own. She realized she had given Olivia one of Del’s little quirks, her habit of pushing her hair off her forehead when she was stressed.
“How much of fiction is autobiography?”
Orrin guffawed, and Tami’s snide, snorting laugh rode behind his. “You think you’re a writer? You’re a fake, Lolly. You’re nothing.”
Lola shrugged. “Maybe everyone is, Orrin. You ever think of that?”
She smiled at the silence that met her words. Maybe the truth would set her free, like the gospel said. Only the truth wasn’t found in some distorted version of ancient spiritual teachings, maybe. Maybe the truth was found in her own imperfect, confused and confusing, all-too-human self. And maybe writing was the only way she could decipher the truth. She rested her fingers on the keyboard and closed her eyes.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Chapter Thirty
The moment is coming. I can feel it. I must prepare myself. I fast. I pray. I take the blue pills and the red pills and I let my friend soothe me. Her fingers trail lightly over my skin. Her presence is a balm to my overworked mind, and I breathe her in.
“Do you like this?” Her whisper wafts down through the thick fog around me, and I nod.
“I want to help you,” she murmurs, and I nod again.
“You do.”
“Is she the one?” Her thoughts are a sharp rapping now, no longer on the mission but on herself. “Will you save her?”
“You don’t want me to save her. You want me to get her out of your way. I won’t help you gain the spoils of your sin, my friend.”
She pulls away. “You don’t mind the spoils of my sin when it suits you.”
I open my eyes, reluctantly forced to deal with the pettiness her ego has wrought. Even the broken branch can be of use, I remind myself. She is like the divining rod and has led me to the healing waters. Her motives are irrelevant, as long as I keep them in mind and anticipate her next moves. I have always been a consummate chess player, and my friend, dear though she is, serves the mission only as well as she can.
“You and I soothe each other. We heal each other’s wounds. But it is nothing more than that. You deceive yourself with your foolish fantasies about what a mate is. You play like a child.”
She is angry now and gathers her things. She snaps on her clothing, such as it is, and brushes her hair with sharp cracks of the brush. “You idiot. What can a man do that a woman can’t?”
I start to say, make babies. But then I think of the babies I have killed, and I drift away on a current of grief and guilt and shame. I was a child, I remind myself. I was ignorant and afraid and merely human. Still, I feel the time slipping back until I am watching the scenes from my movie again and lost in them.
When I am recalled to myself by the chill of evening air on my skin, my friend is gone. Ah, well. She has already served her purpose. It may be that I must save her, after all. Or nudge her toward where she was headed when I met her and let her kill herself. I shrug away the subject. My friend is a distraction now, one I can ill afford. It is time to make the final preparations, and I must focus on the mission.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Has it occurred to you that the whole thing—”
“Seems a bit too coincidental? Yeah. But I don’t know.”
“Okay, let’s run it down.” Phan ticked items off on his fingers. “One, Janet shows up out of the blue, help me, help me. You go over there and get shot, then Janet’s place burns down. She disappears. Two, Lola meets a creepy chick that turns out to be a stalker. Three, Marco’s stalker pops up after a long absence. Just like that.”
“Yeah.” Del blew out a long breath. “It sucks, but I can’t see how the three things are connected, really. I mean it’s not like Janet’s pulling Ray Stowe’s strings. I don’t really see Janet as a criminal mastermind. Would she lie to get her way? No question. Manipulate and play games? Sure. But she’s not violent. Not ever. She’s a mess, but she’s not some sociopathic criminal. Someone could be pulling her strings, but it doesn’t track, her getting involved in violence. Of course, I could be totally kidding myself. As I am well aware.”
“I don’t have any idea how to break this all down so it makes sense.”
“Me either.”
“Not to mention the extra dozen or so missing women.”
“Or more. We still don’t really know how many are extra aside from the shitty economy.”
“Time to sleep on it. Maybe we’ll get lucky and some clues will come and slap us awake tomorrow.”
Del laughed out loud. “Some detectives we are.”
“Hey, now.” Phan pulled on his jacket and stood up. “Speak for yourself.”
“Hey, I got an email about that goofball from the SRO—Wilson.”
“Yeah, Lucy sent me the same email. Whatever her real name, Wilson doesn’t match up with any outpatient, parolee, sex criminal, vic, newly released psych patient. Nothing. She’s nobody.”
“Can’t you just sign it off? If a complainant—”
“I know the code, Mason. I just think there’s something going on there.”
Del sat back and regarded her partner. He always listened to her when she had a gut feeling, and she owed him the same courtesy.
“Okay. I trust your gut. What do you want me to do?”
“Let’s tag each other out. I’ll take a turn following up on Wilson. You focus on Hahn, see if you can figure out who could be putting this all together and why. We’ll compare notes tomorrow.” Phan grimaced. “Lucky me, back to the SRO I go.”
After several hours of fruitless efforts to find Janet or anything useful on her, Del was beyond tired. She gave it up by sunset. By the time she got home, parking the Ranger on the street again because, as she silently noted, she still hadn’t cleaned out the garage, Del was exhausted. She was always tired lately, it felt like. Her shoulder hurt and she missed the bike. She missed Lola and couldn’t quite believe things were as lousy as they seemed. She paused by the truck, unable to move until the mist lay thick on her shoulders and head and neck, chilling her. She wanted to go straight to her own front door and knew she wouldn’t. She hadn’t even reached Marco’s front steps when the door flew open.
“Anything?” Marco was wearing painting clothes, a bad sign. If he was still working at this time of night, that meant he was freaking out.
Del shook her head. “Got the word out, checked for recent activity, but nothing. Phil keeping the pistol handy?”
“He’s not home yet.” Marco’s eyes roamed the street. “He’ll be at work until ten or eleven at least. I can’t believe he’s not here with me!”
“Come on, come over.” Del tried to summon a smile. “I’ve got beer and pizza. Well,” she laughed weakly, “the number to the pizza place, anyway.”
“I appreciate it, sweetie, but you look about ten paces past tired, and I’m not quite that helpless. Go home and get some sleep, all right?”
Del smiled in acknowledgment and tried to hide her relief as Marco blew her a kiss and eased the door shut.
She could have gone straight to bed, she was so tired, but it was possible that as the evening wore on Marco might change his mind. She washed her hands and splashed water on her face. She wandered around the kitchen, finding nothing to eat and nothing she wanted to drink. She sat on the couch and stretched out her legs. She could take a quick catnap and still be alert if and when Marco came to her. She felt her eyelids close before she’d finished the thought and sighed in relief.
When the doorbell rang, Del knew it was a dream. She watched her dream self yank the door open without looking, assuming it was Marco. But it was Janet. She stood framed in the mist and the dark, shivering and damp and beautiful. Dream Janet was too thin and wearing designer jeans and an oversized cashmere sweater. Expensive-looking thigh-high leather boots completed the ensemble. Who was she playing today, the spoiled heiress, the misunderstood beauty? She looked out of place on Del’s plain, functional porch, like she belonged on the lavishly decorated terrace of some fancy restaurant in some overpriced hotel.
“Come in.” Del cleared her throat but couldn’t think of what to say next.
She half expected Janet to brush past her in a haughty huff, but the tiny fashionista ducked inside like a refugee seeking sanctuary. She was wide-eyed and pale underneath her heavy makeup, and Del had to once again remind herself that Janet was not her lover and best friend but something else.
What was Janet to Del exactly? Right now she seemed like a victim, maybe, or possibly the enemy. Could she be both? Del gestured toward the kitchen, unable to articulate anything, not even a grunt. She trailed after Janet and watched her pull out the teakettle Del bought because Janet liked tea after a night of hard drinking. There were a lot of nights of hard drinking then for both of them. Del fought a smile. Lola’s attempt at hard drinking had barely put a dent in a single bottle of wine, and she’d passed out.
“I guess you’re pretty mad at me.” Janet’s voice was barely audible.
Del got out the tea canister, the one Lola forgot when she left. She was always saying she wanted to cut down on the coffee and drink more tea, but she’d never been able to stick with it. She slept too badly to give up her coffee, didn’t she? Her big vice, coffee.
Del shook her head to clear it. Janet watched her, clearly waiting for a response. What had Janet said? She’d asked for reassurance, something like that.
“I’m more confused than anything. I wasn’t sure if you were dead or kidnapped or on the run or what.”
Janet sighed heavily and watched the kettle, waiting only long enough for it to start gurgling before she yanked it off the burner and snapped off the gas.
Del smiled and saw Janet’s confused look.
“You’re so impatient,” Del explained, still smiling. “I’d forgotten that. It’s funny, the things you forget.” Her smile died and there was a long silence.
Janet dunked her teabag up and down, and it was a moment before Del realized she was crying.
“Hey,” she crooned, rising automatically to go to Janet. She caught herself and sat back down. “Don’t cry, okay? You know it messes me up.”
Janet tossed the teabag into the sink. Another thing Del had forgotten. How many sticky, dried out, used teabags had she fished out of the sink? A hundred? Maybe more?
“Okay.” Janet sat at the table, tucked her hair behind her ears. She cradled her mug in her hands and Del noticed her chewed-up fingernails. The manicure was destroyed. At least that was familiar. This Janet was brittle and distant and too polished to be real, but the real Janet, if there was a real Janet, was still human. She was impatient and a little careless and chewing her fingernails and still loved Del. In some way, whatever that was. Not that it mattered, of course, because Del still loved Lola.
This is a dream, Del reminded herself. But it didn’t feel like a dream. Del realized she wasn’t watching from the sidelines anymore but was in the dream proper. She heard herself adopt an unfamiliar tone. Did it sound as much like begging as she thought?
“Talk to me, please?”
“I never meant for things to get so lousy. All I ever wanted was you.” Janet laughed and it was a joyless sound, more like a sob than a chuckle. She seemed to see that she’d done it wrong and smiled as though apologetically.
“You had me.” Del kept her voice low. “But I wasn’t enough.”
Janet shook her head. “No, you were. That was the whole problem, baby.”
“What the fuck, Janet?” Del pushed back her chair, but that hurt her shoulder, and she gasped. “Shit, I keep forgetting. Ah, God.”
Janet stood and came around the table. She eased into Del’s lap and laid her head on Del’s good shoulder. “I’m sorry you got shot. I’m sorry for everything bad, baby.”
Del knew she should get up and make Janet get off of her, but she needed Janet to talk to her. If it also felt good to have Janet cuddle up with her like nothing bad had ever happened, that was incidental. She was working Janet, she told herself. She swallowed hard.
This is a dream, she reminded herself again. It was getting increasingly hard to remember that.
“Talk to me, baby, please? I don’t know what you’re talking about. How am I supposed to know? I don’t understand.”
“You never gave me a pet name, never called me anything but Janet or baby, and you only called me baby when you were working me. Like you are now.”
Del stiffened, but Janet laughed. “No, it’s fine. I understand. You’re working me, but you still love me too. You told me and I believe you. I think you love her too, that housewife. But I understand that. It makes sense in a way. She and I are so much alike.”
Del snorted before she could stop herself, but Janet didn’t react to that. She started gnawing on a fingernail, then caught herself and started petting her long hair instead.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“It’s complicated.” Janet shrugged, her shoulder d
igging into Del’s breast.
“That hurts.”
Janet snuggled in at a different angle, reaching up to stroke Del’s cheek.
“It was easy to just love you, you know? From that very moment. But it wasn’t you. I know that now. You represented something else. But then I knew you and I loved you for real. That’s the crazy thing! Please don’t be mad at me. I loved you every minute and I always will.”
Del shook her head to push away Janet’s hand.
“Stop playing games,” she croaked.
Janet turned to lean on the table and started crying, and Del fought impatience as hard as she fought the urge to wrap her arms around Janet and comfort her. Was she telling the truth? Was any part of what she said the truth?
Janet rose and turned. She made a face that reminded Del of the hideous religious paintings Nana developed a passion for at the end of her life. All of them featured a saint or sinner rising above a roiling mass of tortured souls, endlessly engulfed in the hellfire of damnation. Janet’s face looked exactly like those of the damned souls, and Del nearly reared back in her chair. She caught herself in time and saw that Janet’s face was masked again.
Janet rolled her eyes. Now she was a recalcitrant teenager. “I tried to tell you, Stretch. Lola and I are the same person. Don’t you get it? That’s why you like her!” She dumped her tea in the sink and snagged a vodka bottle from the freezer. She poured a slug into her mug and offered the bottle to Del.
“No. What does any of this—?”
“Blah, blah, Lola. Blah, blah, blah.” Janet had already chugged down the first vodka, and she refilled the mug.
She put the vodka on the counter. “You think I’m bad but I’m not. I’m a lost girl, that’s all.”
“I don’t get it.” When Janet held the mug to Del’s lips, she drank, telling herself it was to work Janet and knowing it was a lie. “How do I find the person who’s after you? How do I protect you? Did you have anything to do with the woman stalking Lola? With the missing women? With any of it?”