by Jen Jensen
Her concern was wrapped in authentic kindness, which caused Jamis to cry more. Carmen put her arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward the couch. Jamis followed wordlessly. Carmen settled her on the couch and turned away. She left the room and returned a few minutes later with a box of tissues and T-Rex, who followed behind her and erupted with joy when he saw Jamis. He rushed to her and planted his front feet in her lap, licking her face as he wagged his tail. He climbed to the side of her on the couch. Jamis laughed through her tears and rubbed his chest. Carmen handed her the tissues.
“What’s going on?” Jamis looked at her, saw time on her face and hands. She saw her loss in her warmth and patience. Carmen’s house was sparsely decorated and immaculately clean. There was just a couch and a television, mounted on the wall. She looked up to the built-in bookshelves and saw Emma’s photo in the middle of the center shelf. There was nothing else on them. On the shelf to the right of the door, a picture of Johnna and Sam faced the couch. Jamis cried harder.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. But I have to tell you something.” Carmen waited. Jamis looked down at her hands and put her right one on T-Rex’s chest. He wagged his tail. She said, before she lost her courage, “Emma.”
Carmen’s posture changed. Her back grew rigid. She scooted back and away from Jamis. Jamis grasped her forearm. “Wait. Please. Just listen,” Jamis said.
Carmen was alarmed, jaw clenched, but she didn’t move so Jamis continued. “For months before I came here, I started having these dreams of a field. It was so beautiful. The sun was always just right. I was always alarmed to be there, but once I learned to just let myself be, I felt better there than I ever have in my life.” She wiped tears from her cheeks.
“Then I saw this woman. In a yellow dress. She was far away, and I couldn’t see her. I so wanted to talk to her, and I tried all the time, but the closer I got, the farther away she got. I couldn’t reach her.” She let go of Carmen’s forearm and wiped her nose in a tissue. “I couldn’t reach her.” She put her hands on her thighs. “I didn’t think much of it. Just thought it was some trauma or something working itself out. I had a lot of those growing up.”
She crumpled up the tissues and put them on her leg. “Then Vince and Darcy sent me that video. All this started. It’s only been a week, but it feels like my entire life has been rewritten. Everything is different. Nothing will be the same now.” She looked up at Carmen, pleading. “Friday night I talked to the woman in my dream. She told me she knew I’d be coming here. She told me to be careful, that someone was coming, to tell you. I didn’t know who she was until Wednesday night. At Paul and Sara’s house. I saw Emma’s picture.”
Carmen jerked up and off the couch, stumbled backward, and caught herself on the doorframe leading down the hallway. Jamis sensed her rage and tried to move toward her.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? What are you playing at?” Carmen stepped back as though Jamis was diseased.
“I swear to God I’m not. I know how this looks, Carmen. How crazy it sounds. She asked me to tell you.”
“It doesn’t work that way. You are fucking crazy,” she yelled at her, taking huge strides to the door, yanking it open. “Get the fuck out of my house and don’t ever contact me again.”
Jamis didn’t move. “Please don’t do this. I’m telling you the truth. I know how much this must hurt. I know how much you loved her.”
Carmen strode toward Jamis, and for a moment, Jamis was afraid. Carmen backed her to the door. “You have no idea of anything. I spent my whole life loving her, wanting her, and when I finally got her back, she died. She left me. She always left me.” Now there were tears in Carmen’s eyes, under the anger. “No one grieved with me, Jamis. No one asked me if I was okay. Her ex-husband got all that sympathy. Not me. I was here in my house and thought about all the ways I could die. How I could cut my veins and just bleed out. How I could put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. How I could swallow pills and never wake up.” The veins in her neck bulged. “One day, I was ready to do it. Probably three weeks after she left me again. I heard a knock on the door, just moments before I was ready to pull the trigger. I got up and looked. I don’t know why. It could have been a Jehovah’s Witness, for all I know. A fucking Mormon.”
Jamis held on to the door to withstand Carmen’s onslaught. “It was little Johnna. Just thirteen years old. She still had a cast on her arm. She had a tin of cookies and she held them out to me and asked if she could come in.” Carmen took another step toward Jamis, inches from her face. “You stay away from her. Don’t you dare tell her any of this. I’m only even alive because she showed up with cookies and kept coming back. You stay away from me. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I would give anything to have her back. To talk to her one more time. To see her and feel her close. Anything. For you to stand here and tell me you did and lie to me about something this important and this real? You can fuck off and die. Get the hell out of my house.” She pushed Jamis from the doorway with a single, forceful shove.
Jamis stumbled backward, caught herself on the railing, as the door slammed. “Well, hell,” she said, and gulped back tears. Carmen’s reaction was surprising and terrifying. She anticipated disbelief, but she’d not expected that level of anger. It was violent in its force and it filled the room with its potency. Jamis felt nauseous from it.
She started the car and left. She imagined that Carmen would call Johnna, so she picked up her phone and turned off the sound. She tossed it in the front seat and hit her fists against the steering wheel, driving aimlessly. She stopped at a small sushi house with an open sign in the window, choosing a seat at the long counter. She ordered four rolls, starving. Her body shook from the encounter with Carmen. She tucked her legs around the long legs of the stool and ducked her head. Her thoughts returned to her own mother.
On a Saturday morning not long before her death, she’d awakened Jamis early. They went for a long walk and stopped in for breakfast at a storefront cafe in downtown La Jolla. The sea breeze blew softly against them. Her mother laughed when Jamis bit into her croissant and the crumbs covered her chest and arms. Her eyes gleamed and her smile was wide, and she hugged Jamis to her while she brushed the crumbs from her shirt. They spent the day on the couch, watching movies together.
Jamis sobbed at this memory, of her mother’s face vivid in her mind, and then fought to gain control. What was wrong with her? She made her way to the bathroom as the world spun. She splashed cold water in her face, saw her own eyes in the mirror, bloodshot from tears. Her nose was red, skin looked clammy and pale. She wiped her face with a cold paper towel. Mildred and Carmen shook her up, but she needed to pull it together.
She was learning to surrender to discomfort, embrace it, allow it to unfold. She didn’t need to react and try to fix it with something or chase it away. Jamis was going to sit at the counter, eat her sushi rolls, drink a Diet Coke, stop by Stephanie’s house for the cameras, and then go to the hotel, get some sleep, wake, pack her bags, and leave town. Just as Carmen asked her to do. She’d respect that.
She’d send Johnna a letter, tell her everything, let her decide if they had a path forward. She couldn’t imagine telling her in person and getting a negative reaction. She’d not done anything wrong. If anything, she was the victim in this whole affair, swept this way and that by forces she couldn’t possibly understand. A puppet! Mildred upset her so because she made her aware of it.
For the moment, her self-talk helped and Jamis felt moderately reassured, though still terrified of not seeing Johnna again. But she had to do what was necessary. This was done. Her last chase complete. She was going home. Dr. Frank would be pleased.
Her food waited for her at the counter. She ate greedily, left cash, and hustled to the house. Night had fallen, and with it, the air chilled to below freezing. The house was cold when she arrived, probably from the gaping hole in the hallway. She turned on the light in the front room and peeked upstairs. She’d called the proper
ty management company to let them know about the accident, and they said they’d send a contractor to begin repairs. The wall was patched with a piece of plywood and sealed with plastic.
Just as Jamis touched the camera to dismantle it, something clanged in the kitchen and then dropped. A muffled voice told Jamis she wasn’t alone. She took the stairs three at a time, grabbed the front door handle, and then something struck her head. She felt a sharp stab of pain and her vision tightened into a single point of light. Someone hit her, but even as she wrestled with this knowledge and tried to consider her next steps, an arm, holding a lamp, came down at her again. Instinctively, she put up her hands to try to stop it but couldn’t counter the force. The lamp hit above her right eyebrow.
She fell back against the front door, sliding down it. The pain of the blow ricocheted through her skull and the wood scraped her back where her shirt pulled up. She sensed everything around her—the breathing of the man who hit her, the hum of the central air, the red blinking eye of the camera at the top of the stairs.
She tried to speak, but nothing would come out of her mouth. She couldn’t move her legs and arms. The pain behind her eyes was unbearable and her back was bleeding. Then someone bent down to look at her and the world went dark.
* * *
Jamis floated above the field in her dream. The sky was brilliant blue. A soft breeze blew. She smelled gardenia and soared toward the sun, then dipped back down and landed softly on her feet in the field. “Emma?” she called, but no one came. Strong hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her backward. The field faded and she was sucked into a long tunnel of darkness. The hands on her shoulders locked around her chest and pulled her. She pulled at the arms, gray and clammy around her, and struggled, but couldn’t free herself. She landed with a strong thud on a carpeted floor. She was in Stephanie’s house, but it looked older and dirtier. She touched the carpet, brown and white, faded and worn. There was a black couch with colored flowers. There was wood paneling on the walls. Jamis rolled to her side and screamed.
A man held Stephanie by her throat with both hands. Stephanie fought him, scratching his arms. He let go of her throat and punched her in the face. She screamed and kicked at him. He pulled back from her and punched her in the stomach. Jamis screamed and rushed at him but fell through him. She stumbled and came at him again, but couldn’t grab hold. He yanked Stephanie’s pants down. Jamis screamed and ran to him again, flailing her arms back and forth, praying she could somehow make contact with him. It was over as quickly as it began. He zipped his pants and kicked Stephanie in the head. She lay stunned on the ground. Jamis turned with him to see his face.
It was Bobby Reynolds. “You son of a bitch.” She swung wildly at him, once again passing through him. She turned to Stephanie and fell to the ground next to her. Her hands passed through her. “Stephanie? Stephanie, oh my God.” She felt helpless, kneeling by Stephanie’s head. Bobby Reynolds paced through the house. Stephanie lay with her eyes half open, fading in and out of consciousness. Stephanie’s head faced toward the corner of the room. It was the spot she stared at while Bobby Reynolds raped her. Jamis tasted acid in her throat. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve anything that’s happened in this life.”
Stephanie’s gaze abruptly fixed on Jamis. Jamis jumped back startled, but Stephanie grabbed her arms and screamed. The sound shook the windows and rattled the cupboard doors in the kitchen. Jamis jerked, fell backward, and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Stephanie was gone, and something was stuck in her mouth. She tried to move her arms, but they were bound behind her back. Her legs were also tied. She flailed back and forth on the floor, struggling to sit up. She managed to roll to her side. Her eyes adjusted to the dark. There were voices in the kitchen. Jamis was in Stephanie’s corner of the room. Her body began to shake.
She closed her eyes and focused on the voices. Did Bobby Reynolds kill Stephanie? Or did he just help his brother do it? Jamis wiggled again and knocked into the coffee table. A silhouette emerged from the kitchen. She fought frantically against her bindings. It was Bobby. She kicked out with her bound legs, trying to connect with him. He dropped to his knees and grabbed her by the front of her shirt, and slammed her against the ground with so much force the air left her lungs. The gag caught her breath.
“That’s better, fuckin’ dyke.” He spit the words at her, his eyes hard and dark. Jamis looked over his shoulder. There was another man behind him by the stairs. “I should have some fun with you before I cut your throat.”
“No,” the man said. “You’re lucky you didn’t get caught last time.” There was a long pause. Jamis recognized the voice but couldn’t place it. “We need to figure out how to get rid of her quickly. We need to know what evidence she’s found and deal with that. The last thing I need is you leaving DNA in her. Find someone else for that. We need to cut our losses here.”
Bobby looked over his shoulder and back at Jamis. “You don’t tell me what to do here. You never did.”
“That’s enough,” the other man said, voice firm.
“I saved your ass all those years ago. She was going to tell your wife how much you liked fucking her while she was pregnant with my brother’s baby. You’d have been ruined if it weren’t for me. I’ll do whatever I want with my dyke ghost hunter.” The man behind him stepped forward. Bobby turned to face him. “You’re going to listen to me this time. None of this would matter if you hadn’t packed all her shit up and put it in the attic.”
“I cleaned up. How was I to know this would happen?”
“I told you to get rid of all of her stuff. Take it to the fucking landfill. Instead, you pack it all up and put it upstairs? Did you want someone to find it?” Bobby yelled at him. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking. Not only did you kill Stephanie that day, you also killed Emma, her son, and that truck driver, you stupid, reckless son of a bitch.” The man swung his fist at Bobby and connected with his jaw. Bobby recovered and hit back. They both stumbled in place, bent over, hands on their jaws.
“You told me to get out of town. You told me to hurry. How was it my fault that fucking trucker jackknifed? He hit black ice. It might not have been because of me,” Bobby shouted, one hand on his knee, one on his chin.
“It was you. Admit it.” The other man rushed him, and they fell into a standing wrestle, fighting for control. “Admit it.”
“Fine. I watched them all die in my rearview mirror. But I left, did my part. You packed up Stephanie’s stuff and sealed it in an attic.” Bobby threw another punch, connecting with the man’s stomach.
Jamis squirreled farther into the corner. She bit at the rag in her mouth, pulled with her teeth, back and forth, until it loosened and fell free. She took a deep breath. The moonlight fell through the cracks in the drapes on the front window. It met the light from the streetlights and fell on the second stranger. “Dan Abbey? Oh my God, Dan Abbey? You killed her?” Bobby turned quickly. Dan lurched forward and pushed him out of the way.
His eyes were clouded and unreadable. “I’m so sorry,” he said, and hit her with a stun gun.
Chapter Twenty-four
Friday, March 13, 1992
Emma stretched, opened her eyes to the sun slipping through the cracks of the blinds, and arched her back. She slipped from bed to the bathroom and stole back under the covers when she was done. While spring began to hint at its return, the night still belonged to winter. Frost settled on the window where icicles dripped water during the day. She scooted over and put an arm around Carmen’s middle and shook her lightly. “You awake?”
“Since someone shook me, yes,” she said and turned on her side away from Emma.
“Hey,” Emma said, scooting closer. “Turn around. I brushed my teeth.”
“That’s good because your morning breath is atrocious.” Emma grabbed her side and pulled her back. Carmen laughed, turned, and pulled her close. “I love you unconditionally, but I can’t lie.” Emma stretched out on the le
ngth of her. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
Emma reluctantly let her go, rolling back into the middle of the bed. “What are you doing today? Do you have to go into the store?”
Carmen came back in the bedroom, toothpaste in her mouth, foam building in the corners. “I should,” she mumbled with the toothbrush between her teeth.
“You’re cute,” Emma said. Carmen smiled. “Let’s play hooky today. I don’t work.”
“You’re a bad influence,” Carmen said, disappearing around the corner.
Emma looked at the ceiling. A long crack spread from the right corner to the middle. The house needed a lot of work, but they’d get to it, room by room. She’d taken a job as an assistant at the library in early September, and while it wasn’t much, it gave her enough for her independence and insurance benefits. Shortly after she told Stephen she wanted a divorce, he threatened to take the house, assets, and kids. She willingly let go of the house and assets, but she planned to fight him until the end of time for the kids. She might lose, but she would go down swinging. She wanted nothing but her children.
Carmen reappeared and scooted back into bed next to her. “Hand me the phone,” Emma said. Carmen lifted the large cordless phone from the base on the end table and put it in her outstretched hand. “This thing weighs ten pounds.”
“It does not,” Carmen said.
“Can’t we just have an old-fashioned rotary phone? With a big dial?” Emma asked as she punched in her home number.
“It’s the dawn of a new millennium. Embrace change.” Emma made a puffing noise with her lips and hit dial.
The speaker of the cordless phone broadcast the sound. “It’s so loud too,” she said. Johnna’s voice was audible. “Hi, baby,” Emma said. “You up for school?”