by A. J. Aalto
Then she collected her things, did a quick check for ticks, swiping at her pants tucked into long boots, and strode back in the direction she’d come from, feeling a thousand times lighter.
When she got back to her car, there wasn’t another in sight.
Soon, the snow would fall. She resolved not to return until spring unless she had another unfortunate deposit to make under the forest floor.
Chapter Twenty
Thursday, October 30. 6:05 P.M.
Frankie was halfway home with a bag full of Halloween decorations — a jumbo pumpkin she planned to paint teal to let kids know she was a peanut-free home for trick or treating, some spooky spider webbing, and a plastic tombstone to replace the one the kids broke last October — when her phone started vibrating. She had only given a few people her new phone number so far: Gillian, Paul Langerbeins, the kid’s after-school day care, and her ex-husband, since they were co-parenting the boys. Frankie had a list of clients to contact, and of course the nursing home where Dad was currently being cared for. And the school, she reminded herself, and the doctor’s office, the dentist, the eye doctor for Kirk’s check-up reminders. Frankie missed the boys with a sharp ache — little Matthew with his freckles just like Auntie Gillie, and sturdy Kirk who couldn’t keep his nose out of a book long enough to get interested in anything else. She reminded herself that things were not entirely safe here right now, and that they’d be fine with Henry as long as they didn’t develop a taste for gambling. This would be her first Halloween without them, but Henry had always loved the holiday and he’d make it a blast for the boys. He didn’t have a lot of money, not with his heavy debts, but she knew he’d go the extra mile to make it work. Henry had a magic touch with holidays; the three of them were probably carving their jack o’ lanterns right now.
The vibrations continued against one buttock, but she ignored them as she pulled her Fiat under the car port and swung out, her Halloween goodies and one bag of groceries, which was mostly just chocolates for her.
Her steps paused at the side door and she frowned at the concrete slab.
A single white rose lay there, wilting. It had clearly been there a while. She thought back to that morning, before she left. She’d gone out the front door so she could grab the mail, then gone right to the car. She hadn’t seen the rose, but it may have been there. Now, she stepped over it, putting she shiny new key into her brand new lock, happy to hear her security system double-beep an entrance. She put the bags down to punch in her security code and disarm the alarm, locked the door, flipped on the lights, and bent to get her bags.
There was a damp, slightly moldy draft from the cellar, coming up the steps. To her right was the half-bathroom, ahead were the handful of steps up to her kitchen and living area, but to her left were the steep cellar stairs, hard painted wood with metal friction strips along each edge, and at the bottom of the twenty steps, a cement floor.
With vivid clarity, she remembered being locked in the bathroom. It had been another color, with a different set of curtains; she’d frantically redecorated the next week, her and Bobby, papering the walls as though that could somehow paper over her memories. Mike’s big fists slamming the door. Calling Gillian. Heart hammering. Hands shaking. Throat tightening up around the words. Her sister’s voice outside the bathroom door, first bellowing a demand and then screaming, a high-pitched, primal noise that seemed dragged out of her, a sound Frankie had never heard Gillian make, and hoped never to hear again.
Hearing the fall. She’d heard it through the door: knocking, bumping, and a sick, wet crunch. Being frozen with doubt, unable to face what might have happened. Forcing herself to move forward. Her shaking hand on the doorknob. The silence, that horrible silence, giving no clues about what could be waiting for her when she opened that door.
The phone vibrated once more and startled her out of her memory. Grateful for the distraction, she pulled it out and read it.
Blocked number. Call me and there will be no more anonymous tips.
Frankie felt a moment of dizziness and called her sister immediately, hoping Gillian’s headache hadn’t stolen an entire night of sleep. It didn’t occur to her to deal with it herself, or to call Paul Langerbeins for advice. Gillian was always her first thought.
**
Gillian arrived less than an hour later to find Frankie pacing back and forth before the front windows, watching for her Jeep. She wasn’t out of her boots before Frankie demanded, “Is he out of his fucking mind?”
Gillian read the text when Frankie’s phone was shoved into her hand. “Blocked number. You’re sure this is from him?”
“Who else?”
“You’ve been dealing with Bobby.”
Flustered, Frankie huffed. “How would Bobby get my new number?”
“How would he?” Gillian retorted.
“I don’t know!”
“What is he talking about, anyway? What tips?” Gillian asked, handing the phone back. “Tips to whom? Tips about what?”
Frankie started thumbing in a reply. “I’ll ask—”
“No,” Gillian said sharply. “Put the phone down. Do not respond. Whoever it is, they don’t get rewarded for bad behavior. Remember what Paul said?”
Frankie nodded. “He must have called in a tip to the police.”
“You said he knows nothing,” Gillian said, her voice low and warning.
“He knows a little,” Frankie admitted. “Just from casual conversation. And the diary. Not details. I mean, not many.”
Gillian’s temper flashed, but she controlled it, wrapped it tightly in a ball in her stomach as she was so accustomed to doing when speaking with her baby sister.
“What exactly did you tell him?” she asked calmly, sure that if Frankie could see what was going on in her head right now, she wouldn’t dare answer that question.
“I told him he shouldn’t mess with you. He thought that was pretty funny, and it was just so infuriating. You should have seen his smile. So smug. So I warned him you’d taken down worse than him.”
Gillian chewed on her tongue for a full minute before saying crisply, “You said what?”
“He thought that was hysterical. You know, for your size. Said, ‘Little miss florist, a stone cold killer, eh?’ He busted a gut.”
“You said what?”
“No, it was just… I warned him. Jokingly. I made it sound like it was maybe serious, maybe not.” She hurried to add, “I didn’t want him bugging you. He teased all the time, pestered and pestered. I thought it would get on your nerves. He doesn’t have proof.”
“Then what ‘tip’ is he calling in?”
“It’s not like I came out and said you... y’know.” Frankie continued pacing. “Besides, we were hammered at the time. The whole conversation was just a drunken blather session.”
“He doesn’t drink.”
“Okay,” she sighed. “I was hammered. We were joking around. It was nothing, I promise. He didn’t believe me. He thinks I’m a fucking fruitcake like everyone else does.”
“When did this happen?”
Frankie made like she was thinking hard, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. “I dunno, let me check my journal.” She charged down the hall on a mission, seemingly lightened by the conversation, though Gillian was sinking fast. Frankie returned with a leather journal the color of rust and flipped a few pages, scanning.
While she was looking, the blocked number texted. Gillian leaned over and read it aloud. “Call me or there will be trouble.”
“More threats. Idle threats,” Frankie assured Gillian, though it sounded like she was reassuring herself.
Stupid threats, Gillian thought. If it’s a blocked number, you can’t call it back.
“Fucking lunatic,” Frankie muttered to herself, turning diary pages.
Gillian stared at the side of her sister’s face while she read. “Who brought the booze to your house that night, him or you?”
“He treated,” Frankie said, scanning pages.
Gillian felt her eyes narrow. “But he doesn’t drink.”
“No.”
“So, he got you drunk,” Gillian clarified, “and asked you questions about me.”
“The conversation just kinda went in your direction.”
“Keep looking. I need to know when.”
“Uh, after we got back together that time?” She found the spot in her diary. “After the Victoria Day barbecue fiasco.”
“Where he basically called me a frigid bitch in front of Dad and Bev and all the kids?” Gillian asked.
Frankie nodded. “But you stood up to him.”
Gillian leaned forward. “I told him he had to play nice or he wouldn’t be welcome at family events anymore. He tried to tell me I didn’t make that call. Dad backed me up, told him I was right, and Bev agreed. Everyone took my side against him. So did you. So I won. And then after things settled…”
“Or I thought they’d settled,” Frankie said, her eyes growing wide.
“He got you drunk and asked you questions about me,” Gillian finished. “See the problem?”
“Maybe it’s all a coincidence. We’re reading too much into it. He’s not that smart.”
“I would have thought so too, at one time. But now?” She stared at Frankie’s phone. “I don’t know. It feels off.”
The blocked number texted: I miss you, baby.
Gillian read the text and her poker face must have slipped. “It is him.”
Frankie asked, “What did he say?”
Gillian showed her.
“What the hell? He’s bat-shit fucking crazy,” she barely breathed. “How can he threaten me one minute, and then…” Her confusion tipped toward anger. “For days, he’s been mocking me, giving me orders—”
Gillian interrupted, “Like he has the right to call the shots.”
“Right!” Frankie pounced on this, nostrils flaring. “Calling the shots in my house like he always did. My house, not his. Threatening me, insulting my parenting skills, insulting my body, my mental state, and now he ‘misses’ me? I’m his ‘baby’ again?”
Gillian took the phone back and stared down at the texts as they began to file in rapidly, one after another.
I love you.
I can’t stand sleeping without you.
You know how restless I get.
I’m so hurt by your cruelty.
How can you be so heartless?
This isn’t the Frankie I know.
You’re not this cold.
And finally, This is your sister’s ice infecting you. Frosty, uptight cunt.
Frankie shook her head. “I don’t want to hear another text, not one.”
They didn’t stop, cast in like fish hooks wriggling with bait. We should go to our spot by the lake. Don’t tell your sister. Meet me there. It’s a full moon tonight.
“What’s the moon phase tonight?” Gillian asked.
Frankie didn’t even have to check. “Quarter waning, why?”
“Does the phase of the moon mean something between you?”
Full moon, baby.
“He always said he was more virile during the full moon. Is he trying to use that?” She pointed at the fridge calendar, when Gillian could see scribbled circles. “It’s not even a full moon tonight. Does he think I wouldn’t check? Does he think I’m an idiot?”
“I’m sorry, but yes, of course he does,” Gillian said with a long exhale. “He’s accustomed to getting his way, and getting away with all his lies and exaggerations.”
“He’s lying about the goddamn moon now?” Frankie laughed with disgust. “Like I can’t just look the fuck up in the fucking sky?”
“Lower your voice, Frankie,” she said, and went to take her sister away from the window. “And don't open these blinds.”
“Think he’s out there?”
“I think he’s mentioned the moon to see if you’ll come outside to look up at it.”
“For what?”
“To prove that you’re still thinking about his possible virility?”
Frankie’s upper lip curled. “That’s creepy. Seriously, you’re starting to think like him.”
“We have to,” she said fiercely, using her phone to dial Paul. When he picked up, she asked, “Could you drive by Frankie’s house and look for the black truck we discussed?”
“Do you one better,” he said. “Cousin’s on patrol at the end of his shift. How about I have him loop by in his patrol car and scan the firelanes on his way back to the precinct?”
Gillian let out a long breath and the knot that was slowly twisting in her gut loosened a bit. “Thank you. That would be great.” She hung up and looked at her sister. “Who have you given your new phone number to?”
“Only trusted people!” Frankie didn’t look so sure anymore. “Paul, you. Henry, because of the boys. The day care.”
“Would they give the number out if they thought the caller was Henry? To contact you about the boys? Travis could have pretended to be Henry.”
Frankie wilted. “I don’t know. I want to say no, but… I didn’t warn them not to give out my number.”
“You’ll have to change it again and warn them this time,” Gillian suggested. “He can’t keep reaching you like this. It’s not healthy for your stress levels.”
Frankie looked unsure. “Don’t we need to know what he’s up to, what he’s trying to do?”
“He lies, so you’ll never know for sure,” Gillian assured her. “You’ll only ever know what he says he’s going to do.”
“He left me a white rose,” Frankie said. “Or somebody did. I just left it on the back porch. I don’t even want to look at it.”
“I’ll get rid of it when I leave,” Gillian offered.
“What should we do?”
We. Gillian sighed; already she was feeling another migraine beginning to build behind her right eyebrow. “Now we wait, and like Paul said, we ignore. Can you be trusted not to engage with him?”
“Oh, of course.”
A lie, Gillian knew. She’ll text him back. Something threatening. Any attention he gets at this point will fuel his fire. She put her cell phone down on the coffee table beside her sister’s and coughed as though she had a sore throat. “Can we have the kettle on? Tea?”
Frankie nodded. “You know, all this stress is bad for your immune system. Have you been taking your Echinacea?”
“Yes, dear,” Gillian said with a weak laugh.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Frankie asked. “You know, you probably lost a lot of sleep last night with that headache.”
“Mmmhmm,” Gillian murmured, claiming a comfortable corner of Frankie’s couch. “You need sleep, too, missy.”
“Honey and lemon in your tea?” Frankie bundled her wild, blonde curls into a loose braid.
“Please,” Gillian said. “Decaf green, if you have it.”
Frankie’s phone vibrated once more on the coffee table, rattling against the glass. Gillian waited until Frankie was out of the room and tinkering in the kitchen with the kettle and mugs and spoons before reading it.
I won’t stop until you start seeing sense.
“You know who else gets wicked migraines?” Frankie called, and the kettle started creaking on the electric stovetop. “Bobby. Like, super-bad. They wipe her out for days.”
“Is that right?” Gillian said, and listened to Frankie talk about some other folks she knew at school who also had bad headaches, and the remedies they used.
Gillian slipped her sister’s phone with her own into her purse.
Chapter Twenty-One
Thursday, October 30. 12:00 A.M.
The texts continued to pour in, but they poured into Gillian’s bedroom and wouldn't bother Frankie that night.
I know what she did, one text read. Gillian placed Frankie’s cell phone on her bedside table face up beside her own. She walked away from it, padding barefoot to the kitchen to make one last decaf green tea for the night, this one jasmine-flavored. She took he
r time tidying the kitchen before bed, and taking care of her bedtime routine in the bathroom, removing her contacts and putting her glasses on. She released her dark brown hair from its loose braid and brushed it through, making it silky soft. She took Greg’s old cologne bottle out of the cabinet and gave it a sniff, closed her eyes, let the memory of him make her smile. Tonight, the pain didn’t come. Her head didn’t hurt, her heart didn’t hurt. She felt in control.
She stripped in her walk-in closet, chose her most comfortable nightgown, the one that Greg had teased made her look like an old lady. That Christmas, she had bought him a set of what he called “grandpa pajamas” so they could be old together, and he’d laughed. Joking aside, he’d worn them often that winter. She still had them in her drawer. When she packed to move to the Higgins Point house, she knew she’d bring them along. Maybe she’d have them taken in so she could wear them.
One of the phones on the night table dinged to indicate another text, but she took her time. Their effect was wearing off, she felt. Either that or she was numb. So far, he was all piss and wind. She couldn’t pretend he hadn’t given her a few scares, but now…
I know where the body is.
Gillian stared down at the phone and whispered, “You were saying, Gillian?”
Her logic kicked in immediately. He doesn’t know there’s a body. He doesn’t know any details. He did read some things, she supposed, whatever Frankie was dumb enough to jot down in that old diary. And she had blabbed to him a bit. He thinks he knows. He doesn’t really know. And even if he did know, he would have zero idea where the body is. No one did. Not Frankie. Not crazy Bobby. Certainly not that cop who had been sniffing around.
Gillian pulled back her quilt and flannel sheets, and slid in, nestling first on Greg’s pillow, getting comfortable, then stacking her two pillows and sitting up to read a bit before turning out the light.
Frankie’s phone kept buzzing. After a while, she could no longer resist the temptation to piss him off. She texted from that phone.