Deanna Madden #1 The Girl in 6E (19 page)
Read Deanna Madden #1 The Girl in 6E Online
Authors: A.R. Torre
Tags: #Fiction, #Erotica, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Thrillers, #Suspense
HE SHOULD BE
there with her right now. Exploring the fantasies that have bombarded his mind for the past few months. He should be with her, not stuck in this house, looking at his ugly wife, listening to her drone on about quilting bees and next week’s canned-food drive. He nods in her direction, bringing the cup to his mouth, letting the warmth of coffee and whiskey sear down his throat.
Tonight, when she is asleep and the house is quiet, he will retrieve his laptop and log onto the Internet. The police didn’t find his laptop or his box of souvenirs. Tomorrow morning, he will carry everything out to the truck, will sneak the items to the trailer and leave them there for safekeeping. In a few days, everything will calm down. He will have more freedom, fewer eyes on his actions, the small local police force will be focused on other leads, different possibilities.
Tonight, in lieu of Annie, he will use Jessica. He will use Jessica for one last night, and then tomorrow he will go to Annie.
IT IS HOUR
five, and Mike is calling me, for apparently no other reason than that he is bored. It takes me a good three minutes to discover this fact, my questions all leading to a status report of “no new news.” I settle in, content to chat because I’m pretty bored off my ass and my mind is starting to play hopscotch with the idea of vehicular homicide.
“So, you got a boyfriend?” He talks while typing, the clatter of keys indicating an impressive wpm rate.
I hesitate, unsure of the correct answer, not sure if Jeremy and my awkward courtship classifies as any type of relationship. I always tell clients I am single. We are all single, all four thousand of us on the site. Beautiful, sexual, single ladies. But there is no need to lie to Mike. I think it’s safe to say we are past that.
He takes my silence as hesitation. “You know I can hack into your phone records, right? Look at who you call at least once a day? Or if any purchases were made on your credit card on February fourteenth?”
“I have clients I talk to at least once a day.”
“Damn. Those jokers must be loaded.”
“Or lonely,” I muse.
“Or lonely. Good point. So, do you?”
“I don’t think so. There’s this guy…but we are a long way from being in a relationship.”
“You guys fucking yet?”
I laugh. “No. Definitely not. We haven’t even been on a date.”
“He a client?”
“No. I met him outside of work. I do have a normal life, you know.” The lie slides off my lips easily, but it should. I say the same lie over and over, hundreds of times a week. If I can’t convince my clients of that, how can I expect them to believe that I find their five-inch cock a gift from God?
“You
ever
date a client?” He is smiling, I can hear it in his voice.
“No. And no, I don’t plan to start with you.”
“Ouch! And here I am, giving you an all-nighter.”
“Oh, so it’s a gift. Thank God, I thought I was paying you some exorbitant fee.” I grin, my eyes noticing a passing billboard, a juicy Big Mac decorating its surface. Umm… My mouth waters. I would kill for a Big Mac and a strawberry milkshake, complemented by a large side of salty, crispy fries. My stomach picks that moment to protest, churning its way through some of my earlier feast. Probably the pork rinds; those were unnaturally chewy.
“Got any crazy cam stories to tell me? I bet you get some freaks on that site.”
“Actually, most of the guys are pretty normal. There is this one guy who freaks me out…” I let my voice trail off, hooking him easily and without effort.
The typing stops. “Really? What’s he into?”
“I shouldn’t say.”
“Come
on
, Jess. Share.”
I lower my voice seductively. “As soon as he takes me private, he makes me change, he only likes seeing me one way.”
“What’s that?”
I sigh. “It’s really sick. I don’t want to tell you. You’ll think he’s too weird.”
His voice was suddenly close to the mike, the words slightly scratchy. “No, I won’t. Really. What’s he into?”
I pause dramatically. “Catholic schoolgirls. He makes me wear the plaid skirt, white tights, and everything.”
There is silence for a minute before he gets it. “That’s bullshit, Jess. Total bullshit. You got me all excited, thinking that you were gonna share something good.”
I drop my voice to a dramatic whisper. “I am the keeper of all secrets. I don’t share your secret fantasies with others and I protect those that confide in me.”
He snorts. “Well, that’s boring.”
I grin. “Boring isn’t always a bad thing. Trust me.”
He is silent for a moment. “Jess, when you get there…what’s your plan?”
It’s the second time he has asked me this, and our brand-new buddy status isn’t enough to bring him into my world. “To save her.”
“That’s all well and good if she is alone, but what if he is there?” The concern in his voice is touching, if misguided.
“Let me worry about that. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m just worried that if…if you’re not fine, how am I going to get paid?”
The laughter bubbles out, the line delivered perfectly, lightening our conversation’s mood by about five shades. “I’ll make sure my estate covers your cheap ass,” I shoot back. “Now let me get back to driving.”
“Fine. Drive safe. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
I hang up with a smile and realize, with a start, that it was the first personal phone conversation I’ve had in three years, Dr. Brian and Dr. Derek conversations excluded.
I cut off all contact with my grandparents when I moved into the apartment. At community college, I called them weekly, then monthly, then bimonthly, before I realized that it was a waste of effort. Their lives had died with my family. My calls were a drop into a bucket of darkness, the words unheard and immediately forgotten.
So many lives were affected that day by my mother’s actions. I can only hope that I never have such a devastating effect on the world.
IT IS DARK,
no lights on in the small room where she sits. Not pitch black, though: the slow fall of night allows her eyes to adjust, to see the basic footholds of her prison. She tugs at the ropes that hold her, the rough thread painful against her delicate skin.
There is a scratch against the door, a scratch that reminds her of every monster that ever hid in her closet, every scary branch that ever knocked at her window. Then the scratch comes again, and she can hear breath, a snort, a blow. The monster has claws. The monster has teeth. The monster is real.
She whimpers, covering her ears with her hands and closing her eyes tight. There she stays, for a long time, until the monster moves away and she feels brave enough to open her eyes.
I killed a cat once. It’s funny how that bothered me more than anything else. I had serious guilt after that incident, scrubbing my hands furiously even though no trace of blood remained. I buried its body, spending almost an hour on the hole, wanting to be sure to dig deep enough that no scavengers would smell and come for its body. I cried when I laid it in the hole, lines of ants already present on its open eyes, their blood thirst greater than my own.
That was during my misdirection phase—when I was trying to channel my need in some direction other than murder. When I tried to placate it in a way that didn’t involve human flesh. After the cat, I stayed away from animals. I hate cats, hated them even more back then. To think that I had all that mental anguish over killing one was ridiculous. I was pissed at myself, my level of self-hatred hitting an all-time high, frustration at my psychological limitations crippling me.
It was such a waste. Not just the cat, but my entire life back then—the year I spent between my grandparents’ house and here. Twelve months of fighting my impulses, a year of building memories and expectations that I would never be able to revisit. You can’t miss what you’ve never known. All that year did was give me a whole lot to miss. The higher you build up that personal expectation level, the further the fall. And that first week of being locked in 6E? I fell a hell of a long way.
The first week was painful, my built-in impulses accustomed to answering the door when someone knocked, going outside to get the mail, hitting the sidewalk when the view outside promised a gorgeous day. At that time, I didn’t have boxed food yet, I had gone to the grocery store the day I moved in, packing every square inch of my car with dry and canned goods. I sat at the window and watched my car in the lot, wondering how long it would last before the tires rotted away or it was towed. It lasted three weeks, and its disappearance came in the form of a crowbar and two thugs. I heard the alarm sound, paused my cam, and watched from the window as my car came to life and drove away. I was jealous of my car in that instance, jealous of its ability to leave its prison, to ride to a new life, even if that new life involved disfigurement and death. I spent most of that first week staring at my door and convincing myself that I wasn’t strong enough. Not strong enough to resist the pull of outside life, not strong enough to control my urges, not strong enough to live off delivered meals and apartment 6E’s stale air.
But I
was
strong enough. I made it through the misery, until misery became normality. I find it ironic that when I finally became okay with the life I created inside 6E—that is when I ended up leaving it. Driving on this road, hours and hundreds of miles now separating me and the sanctuary I created.
My eyes find the clock as a road sign goes by, welcoming me to Alabama: 10:50 p.m. My chest constricts, the familiarity of the situation suddenly hitting me hard. Me, driving late at night, on a road not far from where I am now.
I have been in this situation before.
Four years earlier
10:50 p.m.
After an hour of driving from country roads to suburban streets, I parked two houses down from ours, in front of a neighbor’s house, and cut the engine. Keys in hand, I got out and closed the car door softly. I wore workout shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. Our street was well developed, the lots spread far apart, stately homes separated by paved drives and detached garages. I walked quickly down the sidewalk, past the dark homes of our neighbors, and turned down our driveway, headed for the exterior door of our garage. I glanced up at our house, seeing lights on. I frowned. Mom was a stickler about Trent and Summer going to sleep by nine. Everyone should be upstairs, asleep or getting into bed. I crouched over, jogged softly down the sidewalk that ran by our back door, and turned the knob to the garage, opening the door and then slipping into the dark space.
I hit my shin on something and bit my lip to keep from crying out. The pain was intense, throbbing, and I reached down and rubbed the spot, praying that it wouldn’t blossom into a bruise. I felt around with my hands until I found Mom’s car—always parked in the left spot—and walked down its side until I reached the back door. Opening it activated the dome light, and I saw the turquoise bag on the floorboard, sharing the space with a Dunkin’ Donuts box. I reached out and grabbed the bag, sliding my hand inside and double-checking that the dress was still there. Yep. Good, now I just needed to get the hell out. My heart beating loudly against my chest, I pressed the car door shut, bumping it with my hip until the interior light went out. Then I felt my way to the garage door and opened it, slipping back out into the night air. I was hunched over again, making my way past our home’s back door, when I heard the muffled but distinct sound of a scream.
The scream came from inside our home—a horrible, gut-wrenching sound that started out powerful and terrifying and then died, winding its way down to a gurgle that was muffled completely by the house. I froze midcrouch and turned my head toward the door. The bag dropped at my feet. Something was wrong.
We were a lighthearted family, always playing tricks on one another, always horsing around if there was the slightest opportunity. But that sound, that scream—it changed everything in an instant. It was, as nondescriptive as the word may be, real. Every ounce of hope, peace, and normalcy left my body in that one sound. I straightened to my full height and walked to the back door, breathing hard, and looked through the glass window of the door.
My first thought was that Mom had redecorated. Put up a horrible wallpaper of sorts, some kind of feng shui nonsense that had paint splatters as a pattern. Then I saw Summer, her body slumped over the table, her dark hair—just like mine—stuck in the pool of blood that surrounded her head. Not paint. Blood. Summer’s blood. I moved my head, slow with incomprehension, to the right. Trent. Sitting next to Summer at the table, his hand still resting on his place mat, a white plate with two cookies in front of him. Half of his head was missing—fragments of skin ending in nothing. I grabbed the back doorknob, turned it listlessly, my head in a fog, my subconscious screaming a long, slow scream of death.
The knob, which should have been locked—everything was wrong—turned smoothly in my hand and the door swung open. I walked forward, moving around the door so that I could see the rest of the end of my life.
She straddled him as he sat at the head of the table—his normal place—the place that society always dictates a father should sit. I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see past the curls of her perfect hair, the hair that always framed her face. She was busy, her head shaking, words muttering, her arms jerking and moving incessantly. Busy with whatever she was doing to him. I walked, my fingers reaching out as I passed Summer’s chair, then Trent’s. My hands itched to hold them, touch them, make them live again. I was at the angle where I could see my father’s face, see it dull and lifeless, gray with death, when she screamed.
I then realized it was her scream I had heard from outside. She tilted back her head, her skirt scrunched around her waist, her white button-up shirt drenched in red, and screamed—an agonized sound filled with despair and madness—a release of pure hell that continued until her lungs were empty and her breath was gone. Then her head snapped down, and she resumed her action. My eyes fell to her hands, a knife in each. These were knives I recognized: an Eversharp set that we had given her for Christmas the year before. They stabbed and twisted, repeated jerk actions, into my father’s chest, dotting the expanse of his shirt with open wounds, worthless wounds given the fact that half of his neck was blown off. An unintelligible string of words poured from her mouth in an almost jolly cadence.
“Mom.” I didn’t recognize my voice when it spoke. It wasn’t me; it was that of an old woman, someone who had lost all vitality long ago. It was a dead voice. She froze, one knife in, one halfway out, and turned, her eyes searching until they found mine.
My mother was a beautiful woman—statuesque, with perfect china doll features that combined in absolute harmony on her face. I was not looking at my mother. This thing on my father, this thing—with my mother’s nose, eyes, and hair—had no soul. Its face was splattered with drops of blood, dark in their dried state. Its hair was a cocoon of curls, sticking out in every direction. A mouth hung open, its eyes pierced me with maddening clarity, tears pouring out of their edges, painting black mascara rivers down pale cheeks.
“Deanna? You. You weren’t invited to this party.” She stood, swinging her leg over my father, yanking the knife out of his chest. She frowned at me, a look I recognized as disappointed. “Get me a paper towel.”
I swayed, watching in a cloud of delirium as she turned to the table and reached over Trent’s dead body to grab the silver platter that still held a few cookies. I had just looked back at my father when she whirled around, swinging her arm out and smashing the platter with full force against the side of my head.
The pain dropped me to my knees, a reverberating sound filling my head and not shutting the fuck up, no matter what I did. The platter had hit my ear, and I felt my world blacken and tilt as my equilibrium tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. I grabbed the side of my head and moaned, just as my mother screamed again.
I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take the black spots in my vision, the piercing pain from my ear, the death and blood all around me, and my damned mother screaming—kneeling on the floor beside me, tears pouring from her eyes—the room echoing from her madness.
Then I heard her voice change, incoherent babbles replacing her screams. I turned and saw a knife in her hand, her eyes hungry on me. She growled, low and deep, and opened her mouth to scream, lunging at me with the weapon raised high.
React.
I grabbed the closest knife, the floor practically decorated with every blade from our set, and swung it out, burying it in her chest.
It didn’t slide in easily. I had expected it to ease in, smooth and fluidly, but I caught a bone, or an organ, or something that stopped it short. I yanked and stabbed again, harder, my body filled with the intense desire to end this all, stop her insanity. Her scream stopped short, and she looked at me with confusion. I moved, ignoring my ear, ignoring the spots in my vision that were gaining in size, and turned, facing her fully, consumed with the need to bury my knife where it counted, where she would gush and moan and cry and be in agony—some form of agony that was comparable to the madness I now existed in. I used both hands and jammed it into her stomach, into an area where there were no bones, nothing to stop the blade from sliding, sharp and fast, all the way into her body. She gasped, pain filling her eyes, the madness leaving them for a quick second, and then she was Mom. Sitting there, on the kitchen floor, looking at her daughter, who had just stabbed her.
I sobbed, fully broken, staring into her eyes, too ashamed to meet them but too desperate to look away, needing my mother now more than ever. Our eyes locked, twin brown irises; I reached forward and grabbed her tightly, sobbing into her neck. She slumped against my body, unresponsive to my touch. Then the only screams filling the room were my own.
