by Annie Ward
“So my first impression of you wasn’t quite correct,” he said with an appreciative grin.
“How so?”
“You’re very sweet. But you can be fierce.”
“I’m sorry about all that.”
“Don’t be. Friendship isn’t all clean and pretty. Neither is family. I find honesty more appealing than naivete.”
I nodded. “Me, too.”
“Look at that,” he said, pointing to the concrete entrance to the next block over. A pack of dogs were curled up sleeping by the buzzers. “Comfy as houses they are. God. Between the dogs and the fires and the bloody simmering hate, I could be back in Africa.”
“I take it you weren’t there on safari.”
He shook his head with a rueful smile. “No, I wish. I would have loved to see a rhino or a cheetah. I did see about three thousand gazelles. They’re beautiful animals,” he said, suddenly looking thoughtful. “You’re a bit like a gazelle.”
“That’s one I’ve never heard before.”
“Graceful. Doe-eyed. Skittish. They bolt the second you get too close.”
“I’m not running.”
He laughed out loud. “No, not now. But that night early on, I scared you off. With my comments about The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy’s little white socks. My God, what you must have thought. I had to lure you back.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“There’s that smile.” He paused, looking pained. “But I wasn’t there on safari.” He rubbed his face, and I only barely caught the fact that he was embarrassed and clearing away a mere glimmer of a tear.
His phone beeped, and he pulled it out. He received a text message and quickly responded, his thumb flying across the buttons. “Bloody Fiona,” he whispered. “She’s going to get herself killed.”
“That’s your girlfriend, I take it?”
“Yes,” he said somberly. “Back in London.”
“If you need to speak with her now, it’s okay. I can go.”
“No, no,” he said, slipping his phone back in his pocket. “Where were we?”
“You weren’t there on safari.”
“No, during that first assignment I was transferred over to Rwanda to look after a woman by the name of Helena Rowley, a British doctor working in Kigali. It was just after the genocide.”
“Just you? Not a team like here?”
“Just me. Dr. Rowley’s ‘official’ job was to help the British government provide things for the locals that would improve their quality of life. She ordered books for the schools, things like that. But really she was there to secretly document what had just happened during the genocide. The massacres. It was the worst assignment I ever had.” He cringed suddenly, his chin jerking to the side.
“What?”
“Hold on.” He massaged the back of his neck while he looked down. He stayed like that for a long time. “Helena stepped in front of a lorry back in London and died the year after we returned. She was a wonderful, kind person who wanted to help. A bit like Joanna but not as strong. She couldn’t get over it. I remember one night after a day trip to a grave site, I walked her to her door, and she turned and said to me, ‘So it’s true, Ian. God is dead.’”
I looked down for a moment and gathered my courage. “If God is dead, then everything is permissible.”
“Something tells me you’ve read some of the same books as Helena. You are such a bloody nerd. I love that about you.”
He said love. He said you.
“So fuck Fiona.” I waited.
He slipped his hand around to the back of my neck and took hold of my ponytail again. “She’s not who I want to fuck right now, and you know it.”
I waited. I could barely breathe. Had I been able to talk I’m afraid I may have begged. He was still holding me, and staring down at my mouth. “You have the prettiest lips I’ve ever seen. You’ve been a huge surprise, you know that? Here’s this extraordinary flower growing up through a crack in my concrete nightmare. What am I supposed to do?” In an agonizing gesture, he touched the center of my bottom lip while looking in my eyes. “Like a petal,” he said softly. “Blowing through all this. You’ll be gone before I know it.”
It was too much. “Ian, please.” I pulled him toward me.
“No,” he said, letting go. “That would be a mistake, believe me. I want to handle this properly.”
I swallowed and looked away.
Neither of us spoke for a while after that. He walked me to the main road, and just as Jo said, there were several taxis on the corner. Ian climbed into the back with me, and we rode the five minutes up to Jo’s house with his arm around my shoulders. I could barely stand it. I was spinning and yet it was all innocent. Then it was over. The taxi stopped.
“Thanks for bringing me home.”
“My pleasure.” He paid the cabdriver and got out as well. His house was a short walk away.
He waited for me to retrieve the spare key and wave from Jo’s well-lit front foyer. As he walked away down the street he called back once to say, “From now on it’s only the funny stories, okay?”
* * *
After closing the door I turned around. There, by the staircase, were Joanna’s big black platform boots, almost identical to mine. She was home. I sat down right there on the white tiles and took off my shoes. I tiptoed into the living room. The light was on at the bottom of the basement stairs. She must have gone down to the plaid couch to sleep to avoid seeing me. Our bedrooms were next to each other, and anyway, she had been sleeping down there more and more often recently.
Quickly, I grabbed a glass of water and ran up to my room. I closed the door, and for the first time ever, I locked it. As I undressed for bed I discovered that my period had arrived early. After running through various ineffective plans to try to deal with it, I decided to brave a trip to Joanna’s bathroom.
I unlocked my door quietly, checked to make sure her bedroom still appeared empty and dashed down the hall. I left her bedroom dark and only turned on the light in the bathroom. Per usual, it was a mess. Joanna had a thing for lacy lingerie, and her colorful bras and panties were drying and dangling from every rod and hook.
I knelt down and opened up the cabinet underneath the sink. I actually rocked back on my heels; I was so startled by the stench. It was both rusty and sweet and for no reason at all it made me think of the lake water and then I was choking. I closed the cabinet on one of Joanna’s big white towels, now almost completely brown with old and crusted blood.
My eyes jerked back and forth from the tub to the floor. The grooves between the white octagonal tiles were delicately lined with brown. Left over after a cleanup. Strangely my first thought was not what happened, but what have you done? The troubling distance between us was crumbling into a chasm, and her silence to me about all these secrets was like static, increasing in volume, turning into a shriek in my head.
I switched off the light and ran back to my bedroom. I was struggling to catch my breath, and like a child, I got into bed, curled up in a ball and hid under the covers. I had forgotten to lock myself in. I threw off the comforter and swung my legs out and that was when the door flew open, hitting the wall with a bang. Jo flipped on the light.
She was not asleep.
Joanna stood there, chin lowered, eyes sullied with black makeup and her torrential hair spilling around her slumped shoulders. “What the hell were you doing in my room?”
IAN
2001
Joanna lived just ten minutes up the road from the house that had been provided to the British close-protection team.
The neighborhood was quiet and the windows dark. The moon emerged from behind a cluster of clouds, and suddenly the modest white houses with their red-tiled roofs looked quaint and comfortable. Safe. Nevertheless Ian didn’t slow his pace to enjoy the night air and the solitude. His eyes roamed ove
r the alleyways between buildings, and he paid particular attention to the wooded areas.
It wasn’t until he could see the driveway leading up to the team’s rental villa that he allowed his thoughts to drift back to earlier in the evening.
Joanna’s behavior toward her best friend had shocked him. He could understand her anger toward him, but to go after Maddie like that? What had she done?
She’d shown a brief interest in spending time with him, that’s what.
He fished out his keys. Neither he nor any of his roommates would make the same mistake as Joanna and leave their door unlocked or open. Inside, music was playing. Ian checked his watch.
Two thirty in the morning. Still early.
He walked into the kitchen where Peter, wearing honest-to-goodness real pajama pants with a drawstring waist, was building what appeared to be a tower of toast. “Hiya, mate,” Ian said.
“Hello! Just you, is it?”
“The others went on to that strip club out on the motorway.”
Peter pursed his lips and said, “Seksi.”
“That’s the one. You should have come out. The party was a good laugh.”
“I promised Ashley I’d have a long chat with her and Polly,” he said, licking some butter off his finger. “I wish I hadn’t, honestly. Ashley’s gone and gotten her ears pierced!”
“Didn’t she have pierced ears already?” Ian asked, taking a bottle of orange juice out of the fridge.
“Not Ashley, mate. Polly! She pierced Polly’s ears. She’s not even five yet.”
Ian nodded sympathetically though it wasn’t a subject that interested or incensed him in the least. “Vodka orange for you?” he asked, opening the glass cabinet.
“Go on,” Peter answered. “Thanks. I’m going to have plenty of cheese on toast here in a minute.”
“Sounds good.” Ian made the drinks and then went to stand beside Peter. There were crumbs everywhere. A stick of butter was melting on the counter. “I don’t think I realized you were such a slob.”
Peter laughed. “Such a chef, you mean! You didn’t realize I was such a chef.” He placed the bread on a tray and then started topping each with slices of yellow cheese.
Ian sat down at the kitchen table and took a long drink. His phone beeped, and he lowered his elbows to his knees and looked at the floor.
Peter glanced over. “That’ll be Fiona, I suppose?”
“Yes, it will.”
“Is she all right, is she?” he asked, bent over the oven with his tray.
No. She’s violent, suicidal, homicidal and a self-destructive sex addict. “To tell you the truth, Pete,” Ian said slowly. “I don’t know if she’s all right. I don’t think she’s ever really been all right.”
“Is that so?” Peter grabbed the drink Ian had made for him and came over to lean against the counter. “Can’t say I’m all that surprised. Jason and I, we both got the impression maybe you fancied Joanna.”
Ian looked up, curious. “Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. If I didn’t have Ashley, I’d fancy Joanna.”
“Well,” said Ian sitting up straight. “That does surprise me. I would have taken you for more of a ‘Baby Spice’ type of bloke.”
Peter made a horrible face. “No! Baby Spice looks just like my sister. Nah, me? I’d go for Posh.”
“Ahh,” Ian said, leaning back and waggling a finger. “So that’s your deal with Joanna. You like the legs.”
“Guilty as charged, sir,” Peter answered, raising his glass. “But it’s not just that. She takes care of all those mothers and babies. And don’t forget, she told me that I was ‘officially her new favorite person’ the night at the fund-raiser.”
“My God, man,” Ian said, rocking backward in his chair and laughing out loud. “She said that like ten seconds after she met you. She was teasing you because you were all giddy about the fucking folk dance show.” After a second he said, “Anyway. I quite like Maddie as it turns out.”
“I don’t really know her,” Peter said, donning two big oven mitts. “She’s got a pretty smile, though.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Ian sniffed the air. “I think the chef is about to burn the toast.”
“Shit. Thanks.” Peter turned his attention back to the oven.
“There’s something about her. You’re right about that smile. It makes me...” Ian trailed off.
As Peter plated the toast, he said, “Sorry, mate, what was that? Her smile makes you...what? Horny?”
“No! Jesus, Peter. No. Her smile makes me happy.” Ian paused dramatically. “Her tits make me horny.”
Peter laughed uproariously, and his cheeks turned even pinker. “All right. Time to eat.” He slid a plate over to Ian and then sat across from him.
“Don’t you think,” Ian said quietly, looking down at his food, “that it would be a waste of time to pursue someone like Maddie or Joanna? I mean to seriously pursue them?”
“Why’s that?”
“I mean, do they really like us? Or is it just fun to, you know, go slumming from time to time?”
Peter slapped the table. “I’ve never been so offended in my life!” Then he smirked. “I don’t know, mate. I can’t help you there. Ashley didn’t have much growing up. We were always on the same page, if you know what I mean.”
“I never had to worry about that with Fiona either. I had plenty of other shit to worry about, believe me, but never that she was too good for me.”
They chewed in satisfied silence for a minute, their massive shoulders hunched, the bread tiny in their hands. Finally Ian said, “They got in a fight over me. Maddie and Joanna.”
Peter grinned, keeping his lips together. His mouth was full. “Was it awesome?” he managed to mumble.
“Kind of,” Ian answered, looking a little ashamed. “I’ll admit it felt sort of nice.”
At that moment the front door slammed open. After a few seconds Simon staggered into the kitchen yelling, “Do I smell cheese on toast?”
Peter winked at Ian and got up to start a second batch.
DAY OF THE KILLING
There was something surreal about this quiet house, Diane thought, silently skirting the bloodstain. Sinister and surreal, with its gruesome little Hansel and Gretel trail of clues. Follow the toys and find the boy, for it was likely a boy. There, a plastic yellow toolbox. And there, a Tupperware bowl filled with Legos. A Nerf gun and a floor puzzle. Matchbox cars and a broken track.
A boy who refused to tidy up. A boy who got in trouble?
Shipps would be angry at her for not waiting. It wasn’t that she disrespected her boss. In fact, Diane liked him quite a lot. But if a child was going to be carried out of this house she wanted to make sure it was by her and not the coroner.
A light flashed through the front window, and she knew it was Detective Shipps arriving in his SUV and she was no longer alone.
“This is Shipps,” he said over her radio. “I’m here.”
Diane inclined her head toward the mic. “I’m inside.”
“What?” He was angry.
She’d known he would be. “I just came in.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Only found a missing bleeder so far.”
“Nick mentioned a kid. You haven’t found a kid?”
Barry Shipps and his wife, Megan, had twelve-year-old twin boys. It didn’t surprise Diane that his first thought was for the child.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s a quiet scene. A lot of blood but that’s it.”
Skirting the middle of the room and the bulk of the evidence, she could see several bloody smudges in the basement stairwell. Handprints. She could also see that the item smashed at the bottom of the main staircase was, as she’d suspected, a phone. Not a cell phone but a bulkier cordless landline. The plastic back had come off, a
nd the batteries had rolled away. The clear plastic from the display was cracked.
Again Diane noticed the tall combat boots by the door. They were enormous. A big man lives here, she thought. Her father had worn boots like those and sometimes left them by the door when he came home. Her father had been a soldier.
The smell, though. It was something summery. Sunshine. Diane recognized it as the smell of her own childhood swimming lessons at the same moment that she saw the Puddle Jumper swim vest and damp trunks in a pile on the other side of the door.
A child had played at the pool today.
Diane suddenly felt a shiver at the back of her neck, like someone whispering in her ear. Something compelled her eyes to travel up, up.
There, hanging on the wall above the staircase, was a large decorative mirror in a carved wooden frame. In the upper third of the mirror, she could see the reflection of the iron spindles that formed the upstairs railing, identical to the ones climbing up the staircase in front of her. They were thin and black and yet, in the reflection, there were two places where the area between the spindles was solid.
Diane raised her pistol. She realized that she was looking at a pair of legs. A person was standing directly above her at the upstairs railing, very still, watching and waiting to see what she would do next.
Outside in the distance, racing through tranquil, hilly fields, an ambulance announced its approach, startling the neighborhood awake. The dogs in the backyard continued thier protest. Diane kept her eyes on the mirror, breathing in the last lingering scent of childhood and coconut sunblock. The coppery smell of blood was slowly taking over.
Diane took a deep breath. She whirled around to face the upstairs railing. “Police! Hands up!” she shouted, her Glock pointing at shadows. A heartbeat, and the vague figure was gone, slipping back into the hallway.
Diane fumbled to pull out her flashlight. A second later she trained it over the area where she’d seen the legs. She knew she was too late. “Don’t run!” she shouted, though no one was there. She was about to start up the stairs herself when there was a loud rap over her shoulder. She jumped.