Mine First

by A. J. Marchant

  It could go on forever, sometimes it felt like it did. But then they were settling back in the trees, branches bouncing under their clumsy landings. And every time, for a moment, Lori’s mind lingered up in the sky.

  ‘Wow.’ Marina stared up, then rolled onto her side, elbow propping her up, head resting in her palm.

  Lori sat up and leaned back on her palms. ‘Do you have to get back to work soon?’

  Marina paused. ‘No. You?’

  ‘Nope.’ Lori pulled her legs in, sitting cross-legged and pulling at pieces of yellowed and dying grass.

  Marina pointed to the empty sky. ‘How’d you know they’d do that?’

  This was her chance. To make up for walking out of the restaurant. To explain. To tell Marina in a more offhand way a little about herself, her past.

  ‘I spent a lot of time here when I was younger…’ Her heart raced. But maybe if she opened up to Marina, she’d be able to stop thinking about Addy, put her and what happened in the past where it belonged. Here goes nothing, she thought. ‘Shelters kick you out during the day, so I’d come here when I couldn’t face going to school. And then when I was older I was sleeping in a car, in the carpark over there. People don’t think it’s as weird to see a teenager hanging around in the park as it is in a doorway somewhere. It’s how I stayed out of the system. Here’s pretty much where I lived until Em and her parents took me in.’

  Marina was silent. Lori could see she was holding back, too worried about her reaction to ask anything. So she answered the most obvious, the question most asked.

  ‘My parents were around. I’d go home for a few weeks at a time, sometimes only a few days. But it was…’ Lori was running out of steam and courage. ‘It was better for me to stay away.’

  It wasn’t easy to explain, no matter how understanding a person could seem. It wasn’t the strangers at their door at two in the morning, or the police raids, or the drugs, or the lack of food, water and heat that had driven her out of there. It was the hours spent hiding under a bed, or locked inside a closet, the constant tension and how it messed with her head, made her scared for her life. The only good thing she’d gotten from her parents was an idea for the person she didn’t want to be, the life she didn’t want to end up with.

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I have no idea. Could be dead for all I know.’

  ‘Lori, I’m so sorry… It must’ve been hard as a kid, to worry about those kinds of things.’ Marina’s forehead creased, her face stormy. Lori was glad Marina didn’t have the normal reaction—overwhelming, self-serving pity—but this wasn’t how she wanted the day to go when she’d called earlier.

  ‘It’s fine. Anyway. You said less formal, more fun.’ Lori stood up and brushed the grass from her legs. ‘Let’s get outta here.’

  29

  LORI FELT WIRED and wide awake when she got home. She wanted to apologise to Em for bailing and to tell her why, but the door to the spare room was closed and behind it was silent. She knocked softly, opened the door a smidge. The room was empty, and the bed neatly made. Em hadn’t come home yet.

  So, she lay in her own bed, staring at the ceiling. It felt like she’d never get to sleep, but she must have drifted off because she woke to the bright light of early morning and the murmur of conversation down the hallway.

  Barefoot and shivering, Lori padded along to the spare room. She leaned in around the half-open door and couldn’t help but listen in, losing interest pretty quickly though. Em was doing most of the listening, her face giving nothing away.

  Lori’s eyes wandered. She’d never spent much time in there. The house was bigger than she’d ever need, a thought that made her feel guilty rather than grateful every time it occurred.

  The spare room took up the rear left corner of the house and it had big windows wrapping around the two outer walls. They made the room feel so open, drawing in the first light as it peaked over the mountains, looking out across the backyard and through a gap in the trees, over the moss-covered rooftops of the ranger cabins and up to the peaks, ice capped. Soon, snow would fall, proper blankets and banks of white covering the town.

  Em hung up and Lori crawled into the bed, wiggling down in the warmth and wrapping her feet in the flannel sheet, rubbing away the cold ache in her toes.

  It was quiet at this end of the house. No cars rumbling by, not even the normal neighbourhood noises of kids playing or dogs barking or bells on bikes. She tried to remember why she’d chosen the other bedroom, but couldn’t. She was about to ask when she saw Em’s stoney faced expression and a small frown forming a crease between her eyebrows. She stared out the same window but was obviously not wondering the same thoughts as Lori.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  It took a moment for it to register that Lori had spoken, but Em shook off whatever was bothering her, sliding back down and under the covers. She bunched up the pillow under her head and then settled in. ‘Where did you go yesterday? You left me alone at the most boring brunch I’ve ever been forced to attend.’

  ‘I swear it was for a good cause.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call Addy a good cause.’

  ‘What? No, not Addy.’

  ‘You weren’t with her?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘You two were out on the balcony. And then she didn’t show up for training…’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t with me. That’s not anything, not anymore.’

  ‘Does she know that?’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘How’d she take it?’

  It was a weird question. Em had never cared before about the endings of Lori’s relationships, and she definitely wouldn’t care how Addy felt.

  But Em didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Wait, so who were you with?’

  ‘Marina.’

  ‘Marina?’ Em seemed genuinely surprised. ‘What happened? Tell me everything.’

  Lori sat up, buying some time by adjusting the pillows behind her. She’d been replaying it over in her mind, but now she’d lost her words.

  Distracted, she noticed that from the bed the view out the window differed; she could see the edge of the yard, a patchwork of leaves scattered over the muddy ground—Em flicked her arm and brought her back, but Lori could only manage a summing up of events. ‘We met at the park. I told her a bit about my past, no major details or anything but enough. She was strangely fine about the whole thing. Then we just hung out for a while.’

  Em asked question after question, but Lori’s grumbling stomach interrupted. She had eaten nothing since the handful of crustless sandwich triangles she’d grabbed from a tray at the brunch.

  Em laughed. ‘Breakfast? I think we only have cereal. But we could go out?’

  Lori noticed the phone sticking out from under a pillow. ‘Who were you talking to so early?’

  Em picked it up, fidgeting with the cover. ‘Lena asked me to come home.’

  ‘Home. As in home, home?’

  Em gave a tight smile, but it didn’t last long. Lori stared at her, not feeling the expected relief that should have been radiating around the room. ‘You don’t look happy. Why aren’t you happy?’

  ‘I am.’ The frown vanished, but something else passed over Em’s face.

  Fear, Lori guessed. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Em shuffled down a little and pulled the blankets up to her chin. ‘What if she leaves again, for good this time?’

  ‘That won’t happen.’

  ‘But if she does?’

  ‘Then we’ll deal with it.’ Em didn’t look comforted, so Lori continued, ‘We’ll deal with it together.’

  Em said nothing, still looking scared, unsure, uncertain.

  ‘Emmie…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lena asked you to come home. That’s a good thing.’ Lori searched the mound of blankets for Em’s shoulder and shook it until she smiled, breaking into a laugh. Lori got up and flicked the blankets off the end of the bed. ‘Pack your stuff, I’ll walk with you.’
r />   Em protested against the cold, but Lori was already out in the hallway and heading for her room to get dressed.

  30

  LORI PAUSED, A shirt halfway over her head, certain she’d heard an odd noise. A second of silence and she heard it again. Em was calling out. Dressing quickly, Lori paused on the landing and listened. Em called out again, somewhere downstairs.

  The wooden stairs were cold underfoot and a small current of air ran up her arms, curling up and lifting the hairs on the back of her neck. Something didn’t feel right. And it wasn’t just the urgency in Em’s voice as she called out for Lori again, coming from the back of the house.

  ‘Did you leave the back door open?’

  ‘No, why?’ Lori stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking back along the hallway to the laundry.

  Em stepped into view, silhouetted by the windows behind her. ‘Well, it’s wide open.’

  It hadn’t clicked before that the house was colder than it should have been with the heater on. The back door had to have been open for a while, all the warm air escaping, letting in enough cold air to chill the ground floor.

  Em stepped out of sight. A moment later came the squeak of cold hinges and the soft click of the back door closing.

  Something definitely wasn’t right. Lori hugged her arms around her middle, as a comfort and to keep what little warmth she had. She made her way along the hallway, through the television room and out into the entrance. Nothing was out of place. The front door was locked. She wandered into the sitting room, her feet becoming lead weights when she glanced through into the dining room.

  A chair had been pulled back from the table, turned to face her. Glancing behind her, she measured its placement and saw it had an unobstructed view of the front door. For a moment she thought her brain was playing tricks, but no. No one was sitting there.

  There was something on the table, though. Stepping forward, she saw it wasn’t something on the table. It was a hunting knife, standing straight at attention, the tip of the blade stabbed into the tabletop, pinning her university ID to it and cutting her face in half.

  Lori ran her fingertips over fresh scratches and divots in the table, curls of varnished wood sticking to her fingers. There was no pattern, no words, just fury and a burning rage in the violent wounds.

  Unaware of conscious action, she watched her hand reach out for the knife. She could already feel the sting of the cold steel blade.

  ‘Don’t.’

  A hand on her shoulder made her jump, her fingers curling back a moment before touching the knife handle. A quick glance at the hand, then up. ‘Emmie.’

  ‘Don’t touch it.’

  The urge to touch the knife vanished. Lori stared at it, noticed their dark shapes shimmering in the blade. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Fingerprints. We have to call the police. I know a guy, he owes me a favour. My phone is upstairs. Where’s yours?’

  Lori was in shock. Her mind was blank. Em tried to shake her out of it, but all Lori could manage was to point over her shoulder at her bag by the door.

  Behind her, Em rifled through her bag. A grunt told her she’d found it. Sense came rushing back in with the click of the phone unlocking. She realised what would come up on the screen when Em pressed the phone button, only to see a bunch of photos instead.

  She snatched at the phone, but too late. Em was staring at the screen. ‘What’s wrong with your phone?’

  ‘I dropped it. Here, let me.’ Lori got it to the right screen and handed it back, ignoring the flash of disapproval on Em’s face.

  31

  LORI STARED AT the pulled out chair, the knife, the scratches. Who would do something like that, and how long had they sat there? When did they get there and when did they leave? Were they there the whole night? The chair was facing the door, as if they were waiting for something, someone. Were they waiting for her? She hadn’t noticed anything when she’d come home, but thinking back, she’d been distracted in her rush to talk to Em.

  She’d been in such a hurry she’d dumped her bag by the door without getting her phone out first, which she’d never done before. Her bag. Lori looked over at it. Em hadn’t moved it so it was still on the floor where she’d left it.

  Before someone had pinned it to the table with a knife, her ID had been in her bag. Her whole life was in that bag. Wallet. Keys. Phone. Laptop. Notebooks and lists. Her own personal things plus students’ papers and notes. She wondered what else they’d touched, or taken. But she couldn’t bring herself to check, or touch the bag, not even to lift it up and feel its weight.

  All around her, everything she owned felt foreign, like they weren’t hers anymore. It became hard to breathe and all she could think, all she wanted, needed, was to get out of the room, out of the house.

  The back door was now closed, and the heater was on full blast, so the air had warmed slightly. Even so, Lori’s body tensed with small violent shivers. She fought with her feet, moving towards the front door. But Em grabbed her sleeve and stopped her, holding on even as Lori pulled, panicked. Em held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, muffling the tinny hold music as she whispered, ‘We have to stay together, just to be safe.’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘She could still be around.’

  Lori didn’t understand. ‘Who?’

  ‘Addy.’ Em said it like it was a simple matter of fact, so sure and confident that it’d been Addy sitting in that chair, hacking at the table with that knife.

  But Lori couldn’t believe it, and she shook her head. ‘No. Not Addy.’

  ‘Well, who then? Who’d do something this creepy?’ Em was understandably frustrated, verging on angry.

  Lori thought about it and came up with a name. ‘Jeremy.’ She wasn’t completely sure, but it made more sense in her mind.

  Em snorted a laugh. ‘Jeremy? No. He’s harmless.’

  Lori rushed to qualify her suspicion, but it all came out sounding hollow and dumb. ‘He’s always… lurking, sneaking up. And then the office break-in the other day, I think that was him too. An envelope was missing, one he’d dropped off ages ago. He took out the photos, they were still there, I don’t know why, but… Even Addy thinks he’s strange.’

  ‘Of course she does. Everyone is strange to her.’ Em dismissed any further talk on the topic, grimacing in frustration at being on hold for so long. But she saw Lori wouldn’t let it go, so she dove right back in. ‘Stop defending her, Lori. Addy is unbalanced, and deep down you know it.’

  ‘I know Addy’s intense, but she would never do anything like this.’

  Em pulled the phone away from her ear, checking the screen. ‘She has a history, Lori.’

  ‘Of what?’

  A sigh pressurised the space around them.

  ‘Of getting attached. Being possessive, obsessive.’

  Lori wanted to ask how she knew all this, to tell her it didn’t sound or feel like the Addy she knew, but Em held a hand up as the music cut out.

  A voice on the other end of the line announced a garbled name, and then Em was walking a wide circle around the table as she filled her cop friend in on what had happened.

  32

  SUNSHINE CREPT AROUND the side of the house, melting ice that dripped off the gutters in stuttered streams. Lori and Em sat on the porch seat, huddled together under the blanket someone had wrapped around their shoulders; Lori wasn’t sure who or when.

  Inside, a hive of movement and activity filled the rooms of her home. Strangers in white paper-suits and department jackets were working away. Em watched them through the windows and open door, worry on her face. After a while Lori put her head down. The warped knots in the wooden boards stretched under her stare as she pretended not to notice the curious neighbours wandering the street, craning their necks to get a look. A shiver ran up her spine and Em squeezed her hand.

  ‘She wouldn’t hurt me.’ It was more to reassure herself than to persuade Em. Lori felt bad for needing to say it. She couldn’t deny the growing doubt in
her judgement, but she didn’t want to think Addy could be this… calculated? This cruel? Addy wouldn’t want to scare her like this, would she? Lori felt the blanket stretch tight around them as Em turned to her, about to speak, but the sound of approaching footsteps interrupted.

  Detective Thomas Cooper, Em’s cop friend, appeared in the front door and stepped out. The soles of his boots skittered across the wooden porch as he approached. He looked tired, rubbing a knuckle at the purple bags under his eyes.

  He took a deep breath, pen tapping down his notebook as he laid it all out. ‘We’ve searched the place. No evidence of any other damage or of anyone being anywhere other than the dining room. No forced entry, so the back door must have been unlocked or they had a key. And seeing as they entered through the back, probably coming into the yard through the trees behind, it’s unlikely anyone saw them coming or going. The back door handle, chair, table, ID badge and knife were all wiped clean. Not even your own prints. Nothing.’

  Lori nodded, not knowing what to say. Cooper asked if they had questions. Lori shook her head, still taking it in and trying to figure out what it meant. But Em had one. ‘Why leave the knife like that?’

  ‘A threat, most likely.’ Cooper let the implication settle, tucking the notebook into his back pocket. He adjusted his posture and stood a little taller, crossing his arms and clearing his throat. ‘We’ll look for DNA in the knife handle, see if we can track down where it came from. Other than that, we’ve got very little to go on. Unless you have any ideas on who it was?’

  ‘No. I don’t know.’ Lori wasn’t about to get Addy involved without being sure first, but Em wouldn’t let it go so easily. The blanket drooped and cold air filled the space between them as Em slid forward on the seat.

  ‘Addison Brooke. She’s a student at the university, and one of my swimmers. She’s got a reputation…’