Blood Sisters

by Jim O'Shea

  Aisha touched her lightly on the top of her hand.

  “I wish I could’ve been here for you over the past few days, honey, but you really need to open up to me now.”

  Libby stared at the hot chocolate.

  “Pretend I’m the boss of you for the moment, and I can make you do stuff.” Aisha stared at Libby until she looked up. “Talk to me.”

  Libby hesitated. Be careful what you ask for, girlfriend.

  Aisha picked up a cookie and threw it at her.

  An unexpected surge of pent up anger and frustration rushed over Libby. “What if I told you I’m not really sure what happened at the bank? What if I told you I’m not one hundred percent sure it wasn’t me who went in both times?”

  Aisha tried to object but Libby cut her off.

  “Or…how about this? What if it is a ghost?”

  Aisha’s eyes widened.

  Libby stood, propped both hands on the table, and leaned forward. “If it’s not crazy enough to be thinking my deceased sister might be haunting me, I’m worried it could be worse than that. What if I’m a total nut case? And if I am psycho? Am I the dummy or the ventriloquist or both?” Libby ran both hands through her hair. “But the craziest scenario of all, and the one I really want to believe, is that Melissa is still alive.” She let out a heavy sigh and stared at Aisha’s blank face.

  “Libby, you can’t—”

  “I didn’t tell you about this.” Libby got up, reached into a cabinet drawer next to the sink, and pulled out a shard of glass wrapped in a paper towel. She unwrapped it and held it up between Aisha and the kitchen’s overhead light. “What do you see?”

  Aisha squinted at the glass. “Looks like lip prints.”

  Libby nodded. “It’s a broken wine glass from my house. Anything look familiar?”

  Aisha studied the glass shard until a look of recognition appeared on her face. “That was yours and Melissa’s favorite shade. Saucy plum.”

  “This was the rim of my wine glass from last night.” Libby pointed at Aisha with the glass shard. “I poured a glass and set it on the table so I could lock down the house. When I came back I...”

  Aisha’s expression flipped from curiosity to confusion.

  “That’s all that’s left of the glass after I threw it in the sink.”

  Aisha started to speak but then stopped. She took the shard from Libby’s hand, stood, and held it up closer to the light.

  “There was also wine missing from the glass and I have no memory of drinking it, Azzi. And even if I did, I wasn’t wearing lipstick.” Libby sat down and stared at her hands clasped in her lap. “Then, of course, there’s Darby Potts.”

  Aisha set the shard down on the table and sat next to her. “Darby who?”

  “The Tooele officer stabbed in front of my house.”

  “The hospital incident you didn’t want to tell me about?”

  Libby sucked in a deep breath before relating the events at Tooele Memorial Hospital’s intensive care unit. When she’d finished, Aisha was staring at her with her mouth gaping open.

  “That…that could have been a lot of things. The drugs may have—”

  “Let’s also not forget a serial killer is using my house to work on his jigsaw puzzle every now and then and, to top it all off, I might have a thing for a detective who’s either trying to save me or lock me up, but I’m not sure which.” Libby wiped a stream of tears from her cheeks with the backs of both hands. Everything sounded even worse out loud than when she had rehearsed it in her head. “How’s that for opening up?”

  Aisha propped both elbows on spread knees, causing her face to disappear behind a curtain of black hair. When she looked up, her pupils were almost invisible, and tiny tears sat locked and quivering between her lashes. Her lips began to move but she hesitated before speaking plainly. “You’re not insane, honey. I know it. I know you. Maybe Melissa really is alive?”

  Libby shook her head. It sounded even crazier when somebody else said it.

  “Which means she didn’t die in the explosion and is living secretly in Tooele.” When Libby didn’t respond, she added, “And for some reason has decided to mess with you.”

  “Brilliant.”

  Aisha frowned and took a sip from the mug.

  “Sorry, Azzi. I’ve been getting on my own nerves lately.” Libby stood, grabbed Aisha by the arm, and pulled. “I want to show you something.”

  She led Aisha up the stairs to her parents’ bedroom, opened the door, and stepped aside.

  Aisha hesitated, and her normally confident façade showed signs of uncertainty. She flipped on the light and stepped inside, but kept her back to the wall while Libby remained motionless.

  “Your mom passed away in this room. That kind of stuff always freaks me out.”

  Libby shook her head as she slipped past Aisha and stood over the stack of her mother’s paintings that had been left on the bed. She flipped over a half a dozen or so as Aisha approached cautiously.

  “Remember these?” Libby asked.

  “Of course.” Aisha ran delicate mahogany fingers over the surface of the top painting. “They haven’t changed much—dark, scary guy outside the window.” Her face fell. “That window,” she added with a nod over her right shoulder.

  “How about this one?”

  When Libby turned over the next painting, Aisha leaned backward.

  “And this one.”

  She pushed Libby aside, studied the two paintings, then flipped over the last one and gasped. The dark figure had moved progressively closer to the window in each version, and now stood just outside with both hands on the glass. “I was freaked out before,” Aisha said softly, “but now I’m really freaked out.”

  Libby moved to the corner of the bedroom and pulled back the tarp she’d thrown over the last painting, which still sat on an easel.

  Aisha started forward to get a better look when she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. The menacing figure in the painting had not just moved inside the room, but was now next to the bed—exactly where Aisha had been standing.

  The room fell silent and Libby ushered her trembling friend from the bedroom back to the kitchen without either woman saying a word. She reheated Aisha’s drink, added a touch more Irish cream, and set it in front of her. “Take a sip.”

  “I should wait until my hands stop shaking.”

  Libby pushed her chair closer to Aisha’s. “Did you notice anything different about the figure in the last painting?”

  Aisha offered a stupefied glare. “You mean other than the fact that he was standing right where I was, or that his hands were covered in blood?”

  Libby pursed her lips and sighed. “Something else.”

  “Just because the figure is black doesn’t mean I can see it better than you, Libby.”

  Libby pulled the mug from Aisha’s hands and frowned.

  Aisha shook her head and then looked away and stared at the floor between her feet.

  “It was harder to tell when the figure was outside the window, but did you notice the subtle curves along its sides and the swoop of the shoulders?”

  When Aisha looked up, a frown was imprinted on her face.

  “I think she was painting a woman the whole time,” Libby said softly.

  Aisha pushed the mug aside and took a swig of Irish cream straight from the bottle. “I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, we need to know what is written on that fabric.”

  “Hunter’s looking into it.”

  “We can’t wait for him,” Aisha said. “We have the perfect resource to translate it.”

  “Apeha?”

  “If we leave now we can be back by morning.”

  “I don’t know…”

  A sound from upstairs, followed by another, interrupted Libby’s thoughts. Her logic-infused left brain once again envisioned a myriad of ways such noises could be created in an old house, but her right brain along with the rest of her disagreed. “Let’s go.”

  30


  When Hunter located Libby in the museum, she was sitting alone on a bench with her back to him and staring at a wall-sized painting. According to the plaque, it was a reproduction of Laurent Pécheux’s, The Assassination of Julius Caesar. He had passed by her several times before realizing it was Libby. Her hair was now jet black and cut shorter, and her posture was that of a much older woman.

  Hunter slipped inside the small display room, stood on the left wall just inside the doorway and, as was his habit, assessed his surroundings. There was only one other person in the room, a tall and attractive African-American woman he recognized from the hospital. She stood along the opposite wall pretending to admire a sculpture, periodically looking over her shoulder at Libby. The expression on her face would best be described as anxious.

  Hunter circled behind the bench and approached the woman, pretending to take pictures of the artwork. He was about to snap a discreet photo of her when his phone rang so loud it sounded like a fire alarm. He pressed END, sending the call to voicemail, but it was too late.

  The caller ID displayed the number of the Tooele officer assigned to Libby’s house, no doubt wondering if Hunter had located her yet. She could wait. They could all wait. When he glanced up, the woman whose picture he was trying to take stood staring at him with her lips pursed and pointing at a sign that read, NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED.

  Hunter shrugged, strode across the marble floor, and sat next to Libby. She stared straight ahead without flinching or saying a word—so he mimicked her. As a result, his entire field of vision consisted of multiple white-robed men with knives attacking a sitting man. He was so close he could almost see the brush strokes. Beneath the painting was a gold plaque engraved with the phrase ‘Et tu, Brute?’

  “This was Aisha’s idea.” Libby fluffed her hair without taking her focus off the painting.

  Hunter wished it had been his.

  “People say you can get a better perspective sometimes when you look at a painting from a greater distance.” He gritted his teeth when he recalled pixilated images from the apartment’s parking lot video. “But it’s not too bad from right here. What does the quote say?”

  Libby turned toward him. Her hair was different, but it was the same face that had been haunting both his waking and sleeping moments for almost two months now.

  “Julius Caesar is the man being attacked,” she said softly. “He was asking his most loyal friend a question.”

  Hunter looked at the man’s pained face and cringed.

  “He was asking, ‘You too, Brutus?’” Libby said. “Historians believe he knew the assassination attempt was coming, but was shocked that his friend, Marcus Brutus, was part of the attack.”

  “Betrayal is an ugly thing,” he said. Hunter noticed her turn toward him out of the corner of his eye, so he did the same. The pain on her face was hard to look at.

  “Do you think it’s good to know?” she asked. “I mean, before the betrayal actually happens?”

  Hunter bent over and stared quietly at the mosaic floor tiles between his feet, while Libby’s words echoed inside both the room and his head. Her eyes seemed darker when he looked back, a darkness no doubt reflected in his own. Suspicion and fear had a way of thriving in situations like these.

  “You know. I think somebody will make a movie about all this someday. Who do you think will play me?”

  Hunter tried to force a smile but the muscles around his mouth failed miserably. “She’d have to be very pretty.”

  Although Libby remained motionless, a single tear escaped the corner of her eye. “Are you arresting me, Detective?”

  He shook his head. “I just want you to be safe. I would like you to trust me.”

  “I shared my secrets with you.” When Libby turned toward him, her eyes were red and swollen. “I did trust you.”

  Hunter suddenly found himself in an emotional maze with no entrance or exits. His mind shifted purposely to people elsewhere in the world—mindlessly watching TV, surfing the net, or sitting in a drive-through lane waiting on a hamburger or taco. He longed to be one of them—anybody but the person he was right now.

  Libby stood and approached the painting. “What’s going on in Idaho?”

  Hunter rose and stood next to her. “A couple was reported missing almost two months ago, and I’m looking into it.”

  Libby moved to her left, putting several feet between them. “People disappear all the time. You’re a homicide detective in Utah working on finding a serial murderer, so I’ll ask you once again. Why are you going to Idaho?”

  Hunter closed the gap half way and lowered his voice. “It’s most likely nothing. The local police made a note in the case file about an unfinished jigsaw puzzle found on the kitchen table in the couple’s home.”

  Libby flinched noticeably.

  “I learned late yesterday afternoon they were both Choctaw.”

  She let out a soft groan.

  “Apparently the wife has red hair, which is unusual for Native Americans. It may not be worth the drive to check it out, but I’m looking for anything right now that might knock something loose in the case. I feel as if I’m very close to something that I can’t see, even though I’m looking right at it.”

  Libby’s expression darkened.

  Hunter silently cursed himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”

  She turned abruptly toward the exit.

  He followed her at a respectful distance, and her friend brushed past him to join Libby as she turned down a flight of stairs.

  Hunter caught up with them in the museum’s basement snack bar, sitting at a table in the corner. He purchased three mugs of coffee and set them and his notebook on the table, but it wasn’t until Libby pulled one toward her that he took a seat.

  “This is Aisha,” she said without looking at him.

  “I’ve heard all about you.”

  “Same here,” Aisha said as she stood. “I saw you at the hospital.” She walked toward the cafeteria line.

  Hunter sat silently across the table from Libby until she set her mug down and turned toward him. “We went to see Sister Apeha last night to see if she could translate the writing on the fabric. But—”

  Aisha banged the table top with a can of decaffeinated soda and plopped down next to Libby. “No offense, Detective. I drank coffee all night long and I’m ready for some sleep.”

  Hunter nodded and then turned back to Libby. “Was she able to translate the writing?”

  Aisha scooted her chair in closer. “She died before we got there.”

  Hunter recoiled. More death. “Natural causes, I hope?”

  “She died in her sleep, apparently,” Libby said. “Her assistant said she thought it was a heart attack. She was ninety-one years old.”

  “I’m sorry. But I’m still hoping to get a translation from a friend of a friend at the university. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  “We’d appreciate it,” Aisha said.

  “You’re a preacher’s daughter, Libby,” Hunter said. “Do you mind if I bounce something off of you?”

  Libby exchanged a quick glance with Aisha before shrugging.

  “Please keep this to yourself, but pages torn from a King James Bible were found on the bodies of both Becker victims. One page was from the Book of Numbers and the other Deuteronomy. Is there anything about those two books that stick out to you, perhaps from a thematic standpoint?”

  Libby remained silent.

  “Do they address common subject matter or perhaps have some similarities that might be a clue?”

  “I’m not sure I’m the right person to ask.” She fiddled with the cup.

  Hunter closed his notebook. “I thought it was worth a shot.”

  Aisha bent over and whispered into Libby’s ear.

  “I know you have important work to get to,” Libby said. She took a last sip of coffee as she stood. “We also have things to do.”

  Hunter said his goodbyes and watched the two women climb the st
aircase and disappear from view. When he was satisfied they would not be returning, he went to the cashier and asked for a to-go bag. He used a napkin to drop Libby’s coffee mug into the bag. He groaned as the accompanying wave of guilt washed over him. He was just doing his job. Hunter shoved the bag into his coat pocket and hurried toward the exit, unaware his real nightmare was about to begin.

  31

  Hunter was in his car updating his notes when he detected sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. His hand reflexively reached for the gun in his holster, but quickly relaxed.

  Libby was running toward him across the museum’s parking lot, bundled inside a thick parka and her head covered with a wool stocking cap.

  He lowered the window as she approached. “Forget something?”

  She cleared her throat. “Glad I caught you.” Her voice was ragged in the cold air. She pulled a sealed, letter-sized envelope from the coat’s pocket and shoved it in through the window. “Forgot to give you this.”

  Hunter immediately identified the shape between the thin paper as another jigsaw puzzle piece. “Where did this one come from?”

  Libby leaned in the car’s window and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You’re the detective. You figure it out.” Her breath was hot on the side of his face, and her strange words lingered in the frigid air. “Gotta go. Aisha’s waiting for me.” As quickly as she had arrived, she was gone.

  Hunter shoved the envelope in his coat pocket while scanning the museum parking lot as Libby jogged back toward the entrance, and noticed the surveillance van had moved to his side of the museum from the back parking lot. His relationship with Libby was already an issue within the department, and he was internally debating the repercussions of having fellow officers witness the kiss when his phone chirped. The number associated with the incoming call was one he recognized, belonging to an officer in the Idaho State Police. Hunter pressed the Call button. “Lieutenant Brasier?”

  “I’m at the Tarman home, Detective Hunter.” Lieutenant Randy Brasier sounded tired. “The forensics team has arrived.”

  “I appreciate your personal attention to this, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m in no mood for a wild goose chase,” Brasier said. “Especially one originating in Utah.”