Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (4 page)

“
There’s got to be
something in her apartment indicating what happened,” she murmured.
“Maybe the police overlooked something. It’s not like they haven’t
screwed up before.”

Her feet tingled as dew soaked through
her shoes. With her chin tilted toward the windows overhead, she
crunched through the autumn leaves and circled the complex. Only a
few lights beamed from the windows to indicate the residents
inside.

Just what I was looking
for,
she thought as she spied the fire
escape ladders
.
Vivian looked down at the photo Nikolai provided, red ink
circling Krista’s window. Nikolai was gracious enough to tell her
which room belonged to Krista. Of course, he said she wouldn’t find
anything meaningful inside, which only compelled her to prove him
wrong. Maybe Nikolai suspected from the moment he uttered those
words she would defiantly explore the apartment.

He was a sly character with ulterior
motives, that much was certain. Vivian shrugged and seized the
first rung on the ladder. She hiked higher until she was level with
the fourth floor. Reaching for the window fogged with dust, she
jiggled it. She was unnerved to find it precariously loose. With a
shudder, the window opened to admit her.

Vivian slipped inside and landed
nimbly on her hands. She was instantly struck by how dark the room
was. Only the evening glow penetrated the kitchen. A wind chime
jingled to her right and she instantly pulled away.

Debris littered the floor like a cool,
black frost.

She glanced at the small space beyond
the kitchen that she failed to notice before. The TV lie on the
carpet, and blankets and pillows had been tossed haphazardly across
the couch. Vivian could picture Krista falling asleep to the hum of
late night TV, unaware of the dark entity creeping soundlessly
through her domain…

Stumbling over an amputated chair leg,
she delved deeper into the apartment.

The bathroom looked like something
conjured out of a washed out, yellow cast photo. Plastic sheets
stretched across the bathroom floor, hinting at future renovations.
In fact, the entire apartment was desperately in need of repair.
Not even a splash of paint enlivened the naked walls.

As Vivian returned to the kitchen, a
detail barely visible in the darkness leaped out at her. Gashes
adorned the walls.

“
What the…”

She traced her fingers over the
markings. A thin layer of drywall caked her fingers as she pulled
away. One step at a time, she retreated across the room to fully
take in the scope of the huge letters carved into the
wall.

YOU CANNOT HURT ME.

A blade snaked around Vivian’s throat,
tearing through the top layer of skin. The scream that threatened
to tear free of her lungs withered when the blade pressed
closer.

“
Who the fuck are you?” a
voice shrieked in her ear.

“
Vivian! My name is
Vivian!” The blade remained firmly pressed against her throat, an
impulse away from carving a smile into her windpipe. Vivian’s eyes
darted toward the window, alarmed to find it sealed shut. The
killer must have closed it after she entered the
bathroom.

The space between her throat and the
knife continued to shrink, ratcheting up the pressure until blood
began to drool from the razor edge. She was gurgling now as the air
hissed out of her lungs. If she didn’t act this instant, only
pieces of her would remain.

Vivian’s elbow plunged into her
assailant’s belly. The force of the blow sent the killer tumbling
backward, and the blade nicked her collar. Vivian fell to her knees
on the icy tiles as the air rushed back into her lungs. The door
loomed less than ten feet away, teasing her with escape. If only
she could reach it in time before the blade buried into her back.
She spun around to meet her assailant as it bore down—and she
couldn’t believe her eyes.

“
You—I saw you at the
vigil,” Daniel gasped, clutching a knife in her hand. “What are you
doing here?” Vivian continued to crawl on her hands toward the
exit. Daniel reached out but Vivian fiercely batted her hands away,
choking for breath. She finally slung Vivian’s arm around her
shoulders and eased her into a chair.

“
What are you doing
here?”

Vivian stroked her throat, trying
desperately to erase the deadly caress of the blade.

“
What the hell is wrong
with you?” she finally gasped. Daniel rushed over to the sink,
filling a glass with water. Vivian quickly gulped it
down.

“
Now tell me what you were
doing in Krista’s apartment.” Vivian hammered the glass down on the
table and took in Daniel with her smoldering eyes.

“
I’m part of the
investigation into Krista’s disappearance.”

Daniel’s expression hardened into
something unreadable.

“
The police?” she
sputtered. “But—but you don’t look anything like a police officer!”
Vivian’s deviant appearance certainly didn’t lend itself to an
officer of the law. Her flurry of red hair, tattoo-stained skin,
and scarlet contacts meshed more with the social misfits. “I’m so
sorry! I thought you were the kidnapper! You aren’t going to arrest
me, are you?!”

Vivian shook her head.

“
Well, I’m
unofficially
part of the
investigation. So no, I can’t arrest you. But believe me, I wish I
could.”

“
I’m sorry! Like I said, I
didn’t know!”

“
You’ll understand if ‘I’m
sorry’ doesn’t quite cut it.” She released another haggard cough
from her throat. “I’ve been following leads to the local
disappearances. I’m partnered with a homicide detective.” She
immediately regretted those words. Terror seeped into Daniel’s
face, replacing the blood in her veins.

“
Do the police suspect
Krista is dead? Is that what happens to the women who
disappear?”

“
No, I don’t know if Krista
is dead!” she pleaded. “But if she is…” The silence grew thick
between them.

“
I still don’t understand
why you’re here.”

“
I thought I could find
some clues about Krista’s disappearance, something that could lead
me to her.” Her toes recoiled from the icy water pooling on the
floor.

“
This place is a mess. Did
Krista live like this?”

“
No. I haven’t disturbed
anything since the night she vanished. The police insisted I touch
nothing… I haven’t even entered her room since her boyfriend fled
town. But I heard the window open and had to investigate. I thought
maybe Krista had come back—or the kidnapper.”

“
Nothing says ‘welcome
home’ like a knife in your throat.”

“
Sorry,” she smiled
sheepishly. She stowed away the blade in the kitchen drawer, and
Vivian breathed a little easier. She looked out the window, where
Prague gleamed lustrously like a Pandora’s box of jewels. Even now,
so many women slept soundlessly in their beds, assured they would
never meet the same fate as Krista. After all, ignorance is bliss,
right? Nikolai certainly thought so.

“
What can you tell me about
the night she vanished?”

Daniel’s head drooped.

“
There’s something I heard
that night that’s been consuming me from the inside. I remember
lying awake in my bed, struggling to fall asleep. Sometimes I just
lie there for hours, listening to the traffic.”

“
What did you
hear?”

Daniel closed her eyes, washed away in
the sounds and sights of the night Krista vanished into the
shadows.

“
I don’t know.”

* * *

The traffic purred outside Daniel’s
window as cars ferried teens on their way to cyber clubs and other
gems of the city night life. Sweeping the hair out of her eyes, she
glanced at the numbers glowing in the dark. 2:40 a.m.

Insomnia, the bane of
virgin sleep, always plucked her from the solace she sought in her
blankets. The cookies she washed down with tea probably didn’t help
her case either.
That’s the price I pay for
a midnight snack.
She dreaded the thought
of waking up at 6 a.m. to wait on tables at the café. However, she
badly needed the income. She only worked fifteen hours a week and
rent was bleeding her budget dry. Her meals had been reduced to
small cakes and potato soup.

Daniel twisted to her left and buried
her face in the pillow as the placid hum of cars continued their
melody. Just twenty more minutes and maybe she would slip into
oblivion…

Ice flowed through her veins and she
bolted up in bed. Something slapped against the wall. Her heart
hammered out an avalanche in her chest. Daniel winced as another
bang emitted from Krista’s room on the opposite side of the
wall.

The next crash rattled her
window.

“
Bastard,” she growled,
balling up the sheets in her fists. She could almost feel the blows
raining down on Krista’s small body. Patrik was the likely culprit,
possessed by another drunken stupor. Daniel had twice threatened to
report him to the superintendent if he continued beating Krista,
but her threats bounced imperviously off his dense
skull.

She almost feared Patrik would strike
her when she knocked down his door in fury, but sheer luck saved
her. A tenant came strolling down the hall and a nervous Patrik
slammed the door shut to his room—and the door to Krista’s prison.
This time, Daniel could only listen and wait for the storm to pass.
The sounds of struggle echoed beyond the walls, taunting her
imagination with horrendous images. Was that the flushing of the
drain she heard and water pooling in the tub? Something like chimes
rattled in the obscurity, and the table groaned as someone dragged
it across the linoleum floor.

Daniel tried to burrow under her
blankets like a timid mouse to block out those malicious blows. She
held her breath.

Something scratched against the wall
like nails creeping on a blackboard. She held her breath as the
tormenting sound lingered. She crawled out of bed, dressed only in
a T-shirt, eying the wall as though it might part into another
dimension. Her naked toes slid across the cold floor and she
pressed her fingertips against the wall.

For a moment, the sound stopped.
Daniel nestled the shell of her ear against the wall.

“
Krista,” she whispered.
She pulled away as the wall screeched and something scrabbled like
an animal inside. For a moment, Daniel feared that Krista had been
immured in the walls, scratching and clawing in search of freedom.
Daniel bounced down on her bed and hugged the pillow close to her
chest.

After what seemed like hours, the
grating ceased.

Daniel collapsed onto the mattress.
She couldn’t fall asleep after the sounds she heard emanating from
Krista’s room. Maybe Krista desperately needed medical treatment.
Flying out of bed, Daniel rummaged through a basket and pulled on
some shorts. She twisted open the door and plunged into the vacant
hall.

An incandescent light bobbed in the
hallway, casting greasy shadows.

Room 207 awaited her.

“
Krista?” she whispered.
“Krista, are you okay?” Her fingers curled around the doorknob. It
viciously jammed in refusal. Daniel bit her lip and wrenched it
again, refusing to concede defeat. Finally, she lifted herself up
on her tiptoes and peered through the peephole.

She gazed into a sea of blackness, and
the abyss gazed back into her. She looked down at her pale toes,
where light seeped out from under the door in an ethereal tide.
Daniel lifted her eyes to the peephole again.

A scene of devastation replaced the
darkness. Chairs sprawled across the kitchen, leaving drag marks on
the floor. A vase lay overturned on the table, water cascading from
its neck. Even the walls were mottled with the indentations of
Patrik’s fists. Daniel inhaled sharply. Someone had been looking
back at her from the other side of the peephole, just staring at
her.

The light bulb swayed on a chain above
the kitchen table, spitting sparks and flickering malevolently. It
died with a robust pop, showering the darkness with fiery rain.
Daniel retreated from the door. She numbly retraced her steps like
a sleepwalker tugged along by an invisible thread. She didn’t even
remember returning to her room and curling up in a fetal position
among the blankets. Shivering in a cold sweat, she closed her eyes,
but she still saw the devastation through her eyelids.

* * *

“
Krista didn’t come out the
next morning,” Daniel whispered. “No one responded when I dialed
her room and knocked on the door. I felt I had no choice but to
contact the police.”

Through the shadows, Vivian could see
the words carved into the wall. The sound Daniel heard… The
kidnapper must have carved the words into the plaster, only ten
feet away from Daniel.

“
You cannot hurt me,”
Vivian said. “What do you suppose it means?”

“
I was hoping you could
tell me. Krista would never hurt anyone. It doesn’t make
sense.”