Deanna Madden #1 The Girl in 6E (16 page)

IT’S BEEN SO
long since I’ve lived a normal life that I don’t know if I could do it again. If all of my dark fantasies—
poof!
—went away, could I function in normal society? I say that I want a normal life, but everything now is just the way I like it. I eat when I want and how I want, assuming that I want to eat nuked chicken pasta primavera the rest of my life. I have my own space, nine hundred square feet without the annoying trappings of another person, their shoes on my floor, their body in my bed. I have friends, of sorts, ones who are willing to pay top dollar for my attentions, ones who hang on my every word and will rearrange their day to spend time with me. Plus, there’s Jeremy. He likes me because I am an oddity, a mystery. And the five-foot-eight body of perfect proportions can’t hurt. But would he even want me if I was a normal girl? The kind who visited the mall on Saturday afternoons, giggled on the phone with friends? The kind he could live with, be with, know enough to find out there is no mystery at all? It doesn’t make sense for him to like me for me. Not when me is a twisted, sick individual. So it must be the mysteriousness that attracts him. If I was able to return to normal life, to go to parties, and movies, and take trips and interact with people…I might gain all that only to lose him in my normality.

I am content, in these four walls, without normality. Lonely? Yes. Miserable? At times. But that is what being content is. Comfortable enough with the situation not to prompt change.

Thinking about a return to society is as dangerous as holding on to that scrapbook. Hope, in general, is dangerous. Hope can be the loose thread that pulls apart your sanity.

The AMBER Alert is issued on Monday at 9:14 a.m. The notification is sent instantly to all broadcasters and state transportation officials. It interrupts all regular television and radio programming. The message is displayed instantly on highway signage in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina. In that single minute, more than eighty thousand text messages are sent out with the alert, and banner ads pop up on Internet sites everywhere.

I cam, unaware, for five hours. At 2:21 p.m. I sit on the floor, lean against my door, and pull up my e-mail as I peel back the top of a Savory Chicken with Wild Rice meal. I am midchew when the sidebar headline catches my eye and I click on the link, opening the alert.

There is a toll-free number listed at the bottom of the e-mail, along with a plea to call if you have any information regarding her whereabouts. I stare at the screen for a long time. Then I reach for my cell and dial the number.

It rings five times before someone answers—a man, his voice clipped and unfriendly.

“I’m calling about Annie Thompson.”

“Yes. Please state your name.”

I hesitate. “Jessica Reilly.”

“And the number you are calling from?”

I give it to him, certain it is showing up on his screen already. My stomach feels sick, tight. This is a bad idea, a threat to my bubble, my carefully cut ties.

“What is your information?” The man’s voice is cold, expressionless.

“You need to look at Ralph Atkins. He is a plumber that lives in Brooklet, Georgia.”

“What is his relationship to Annie?”

“I don’t know that he has a relationship to her.”

“What is the connection between them?”

“I…don’t know.” This conversation is going nowhere, tumbling downhill like an out-of-control skier gathering speed. I hear the weakness in my voice and hate it.

“Why don’t you explain what you
do
know?” I sense the touch of kindness behind the efficient steel.

“I know that I have had multiple conversations with Ralph Atkins, in which he has been obsessive in his desire to have sexual relationships with a young girl named Annie.”

“Did he provide a last name for Annie?”

I grind my teeth. “No.”

“Why didn’t you report this to the authorities?”

“I’ve been trying to get more information—about Annie—who she is, if she even exists.”

“How long have you known Ralph?”

“I don’t know him really. He’s a client. I’m an Internet sex operator. I have cybersex with men for money.”

“And it was in one of these sex sessions that he mentioned Annie?”
I’ve lost him.
I can hear it in the tone of his voice, the disbelief that coats his words.

“Yes.”

“Do you have his address?”

I give it to him, both hope and regret flooding my body. Hope that she will be found and regret that I won’t be able to kill the monster myself.

We end the call, and I sit on the floor and think. Long ago, I lost any respect for the police, for their inability to find the truth, even when it is thrust, front and center, in their faces. My call might lead them to Ralph; it might even lead them to the rescue of Annie. But in anticipation of their failure, I need to take action.

I open the file Mike sent three hours earlier and start to search the depravity of RalphMA35’s computer and mind. It doesn’t take long to find what I am searching for.

I receive confirmation of Ralph’s sickness in his movie and photo files. In his e-mail, I find subscription confirmations, forum postings, and e-mail correspondence in all things pedophile. It is in his web history that I hit the jackpot. Craigslist searches for rentals. Two postings he returned to more than five times. I go back to his e-mail account, looking for correspondence on either listing, and find a two-week-long e-mail trail and what looks like a final conclusion—a six-month lease, written in some bogus-ass name. Deposit was mailed in the form of a cashier’s check, and the lease began on April 1.

Bingo.

Staring at that lease, looking at an address that could possibly hold Annie, I feel woefully unprepared. It is almost laughable when I look back at the last three years. Three years of thinking about death, about me taking the life of another. And now, when the time to act arrives, I don’t have the faintest idea how to properly go about it. My failure with Jeremy, his body easily overtaking mine, my weakness against his strength, is too fresh in my mind. Maybe I can’t do it. Maybe I will fail. But it is there, that word that has been held off for so long, in my mind as clearly as its
Wait
predecessor.
GO.

KNIFE:
CHECK
. I
push all my books off the old, faded suitcase they sit on. After unzipping it, I pull out the sole item it holds: a black stiletto knife. Depressing the button on its front snaps out a long, thin, ridiculously sharp blade. I had bought it in a moment of weakness—or rather, four hours of weakness—in which I had meticulously researched different knives and switchblades, looking for the most effective and efficient killing tool. My fantasies center mostly on death by blade. Knives result in more blood, more suffering by the victim, and a slower death if you stab the right places and avoid main arteries. Not that I was going to restrict myself on this mission. I stuff the knife in my sweatshirt’s pocket.

Gun:
Check
. When I moved out of my grandparents’ house, a pawnshop was one of my first stops. I applied for a permit and now own a Smith & Wesson 317. I carry my desk chair over to the fridge and stand on it, reaching back till I feel the space between the wall and the appliance. My fingers brush the edge of duct tape, gritty and peeling at the edges. I reach farther, gripping the cloth bag that the tape holds to the fridge. Yanking on the cloth, I rip off the duct tape and pull the bag over the edge, then cradle it to my chest and step carefully off the chair. When I first got this gun, I made cleaning it a full-time job. I loved the feel and weight of it in my hand, loved examining the mechanisms that made it deadly. Back then, I visited the gun range two or three times a week, my fantasies having a field day with the targets in my scope. If anyone at the range found it strange that I used lifelike target cutouts, they didn’t say anything to me about it. I haven’t cleaned or touched the gun in over two years. It is a bittersweet reunion.

Car:
No check
. I need a vehicle. I log online, trying to find the closest rental company. Enterprise’s site indicates that they will pick me up, so I call them first. It is almost five o’clock. The rep who answers the phone says that they won’t be able to get me until the morning. I start looking up taxi companies.

A knock sounds on the door—two quick raps.

Jeremy.

He holds flowers, a ridiculous gesture now that he thinks about it. He sweats in front of her door, the wilted daisies looking sad after sitting all day in his hot truck. This is his last stop of the day. He pushed her to the end of his route, hoping that she reconsidered his note and that today will be the day she will let him in.

The door swings open, startling him in its unexpected movement, and she stands there, smaller than he remembers, dressed in black. She reaches forward, grabs his shirt, and pulls him inside.

His fantasies pop their heads up, ready for a reunion of orgasmic proportions, maybe a deep kiss leading to ripping of clothing and a fuckfest right here on the worn-out floor. She leaves him standing in the middle of her apartment, in between the two bedroom areas, the stupid flowers weighing down his arms. His fantasies wilt slightly, his cock taking a detour toward soft. She paces to a desk, leans over the computer, and types furiously into it, tossing words over her shoulder at him. “Do you have a car?”

“A car?”

“Yes. A car.”

“Yeah—but I’m driving the delivery truck right now. I brought you flowers.”

“Toss them. Trash can is in the kitchen.” She finishes typing, then reaches behind the laptop and unplugs it, coiling the cord around her hand in a quick, hurried motion. “Thank you,” she says suddenly, turning to meet his eyes, the words an afterthought. “Trash. Kitchen.”

“Right.” He walks over to the kitchen and pushes the rejected daisies into the trash, squashing TV dinner boxes in the process.
So much for that gesture.
Come to think of it, maybe she isn’t a hearts-and-flowers kind of girl. He turns to watch her, her feet moving quickly as she opens a black backpack and slides her laptop inside, the cord along with it.

“Are you done with your route?”

“Yes. Are you allergic to flowers?”

“Where is your car?”

“It’s a truck. It’s at the distribution center.”

“How far is that from here?”

“Umm…like ten minutes. Are you going somewhere?” It is a ridiculous question to ask her, but she seems to be going through the normal activities of someone who would actually step outside. Leave the apartment. She even has shoes on.

“We.”

“We what?”

She stops, turning to him, an irritated expression on her face. “
We
are going somewhere. I need a car. Take me to yours, and I will pay for you to take a taxi home. I’ll bring your car back to you in the morning.” She turns back to her bag, shoving in a thick black object and a bound stack of cash. His eyes follow the cash, his mind questioning his vision even as it focuses on the cash’s wrapper:
$10,000?

“Uh…no.”

“No?” She turns, her eyes flashing at him—dark and confident. Wherever the crazy, I’ll-stab-you-to-death persona was, it has taken a break and is sipping coffee somewhere else in this girl’s mind. “We’ll talk in your truck. Let’s go.” She grabs a ring of keys, shrugs into the backpack, and heads for the door. With no clear option in sight, Jeremy follows.

She avoids the elevator, hesitating briefly before banging open the stairwell door at the end of the hall and jogging down the steps. She takes the six flights of stairs quickly, time seeming to be a valuable commodity. He follows closely, trying to figure out what is going on and if he should toss his box cutters into the closest trash can. At the bottom she pauses, takes a deep breath, and presses open the exit door, stepping into the light.

Vampire.
His niece’s diagnosis pops into Jeremy’s mind when he sees her reaction to the sun. She sways briefly, her legs glued to the ground, and squints into the sun—seeming to notice and avoid everything in one brief moment. Looking around urgently, her eyes lock on his truck, and she moves toward it, her feet stumbling slightly.