Transience (5 page)

The place gave Rebecca an overwhelming sensation of dread whenever she approached.
 
She always picked up the pace double time to hurry past it, as if whatever dark evil lurking deep within the trees was going to reach out to grab her if she walked too slow.
 
She didn't know why it scared her, but the butterflies in her stomach swarmed when she got close, similar to how she felt just before the spells came over her.

CHAPTER 8

Laura held the phone away from her ear and shook it, her face contorting with frustration.
 
She exhaled contempt for the person on the other line as she lifted the phone back up again, regaining her composure.

"I'm not going to discuss it anymore." She took a deep drag from her cigarette and pulled back the blinds to look out the front window.
 
She saw Rebecca dragging her wounded bike, slamming it onto the lawn. "No, I didn't get it," she said, distracted. "Bullshit."
 

Laura stabbed out her cigarette in an ashtray on the windowsill. "Yeah, well, what you say and what you do are two totally different things."

Rebecca kicked open the front door and made a beeline for the staircase.
 
Laura followed behind. "I gotta go," she said, pressing the button to end the call.
 
She followed Rebecca to the staircase and watched her disappear around the corner.

"Hey, where've you been? I was worried sick!" Laura heard Rebecca's bedroom door close with a bang.
 
"Becca?" Laura climbed the stairs.
 
She reached for the handle, pausing a moment to calm down, still pissed off from the phone call.
 
She reminded herself how Rebecca need not suffer for her mistakes.
 
For all she knew, the drama and betrayal that sliced their family up the middle was the cause of poor Rebecca's night terrors.

Laura slowly entered the room.
 
Rebecca was seated in the center before a large, white easel.
 
On it, a half finished canvas painting of the maple tree growing outside her window.
 
Adorning every empty space of wall in her room were crooked, hastily tacked up works of art, each one a glorious masterpiece, amazingly detailed.
 
A true prodigy if there ever was one.

Along the floor was an assortment of canvasses, empty bottles of paints, brushes, charcoal pencils.
 
Laura spent a good portion of the wages from her part time supermarket job on Rebecca's expensive art hobby.
 
How could she not?
 
It also kept her quiet. Rebecca never suffered any outbursts while she was occupied with her art.
 
Perhaps the outlet for her expression released those troubling emotions in a more sane and civilized way.
 
Without it, she exploded, especially when immersed in the dull, confining routines of elementary school.

The sun was setting outside, casting a warm orange glow through the room.
 
Rebecca dipped her thin bristled brush into a jar of water.
 
She dabbed it, then dipped it into a jar of green paint, scraping and poking the glass to utilize the last remnants.
 

Laura loved to watch.
 
She offered no explanation for Rebecca's gift.
 
There wasn't anyone in her family she could trace the artistic gene back to.
 
It was a mystery.
 
A miracle.

Laura wasn't particularly religious, she never took Rebecca to church or felt the need to hand down any family traditions as there weren't any in her family growing up. But she was convinced that if there was a God he was speaking through Rebecca's artwork.

Laura gazed around at the growing collection on the walls.
 
Rebecca's art mostly consisted of still lifes, inanimate objects.
 
There was one of herself that she wasn't particularly fond of, mainly because Rebecca had very accurately captured the wrinkles beginning to form around her eyes.
 
The portrait made her look angry.
 
Rebecca painted it one night after Laura scolded her for not eating her dinner.
 
She remembered feeling self conscious upon seeing it a few days later, wondering if she really looked like that.
 
That one could go, she thought.

"You okay, sweetie?" As expected, she got the silent treatment.
 
"That's really beautiful, what you're doing there."

"Bike's broken," Rebecca said.
 
Laura frowned on one side of her mouth.

"That old bike was broken when I rode it.
 
I'll get you a new one, I promise."

Laura spotted green chewing gum had
somehow
gotten tangled in Rebecca's hair.
 
She'd have to cut it out.
 
Little fucking bastards.
 

Laura placed her hands on Rebecca's shoulders gently.
 
"Pretty soon we'll have to open up a gallery for your collection."

Rebecca turned abruptly to her. "Mom, why'd we have to come here?"

"Rebecca—"

"Everyone hates me here."

"No they don't, sweetie." Rebecca turned back around and continued to paint.
 
Laura sat down on Rebecca's bed and sighed, they'd had this conversation already.
 
She'd tried before to explain the complications created when two parents separate, translating it into Rebecca's nine year old language.
 
Laura didn't have a trade or a real profession.
 
In order to make ends meet, they had no other choice but to move back to Lansing, into the old home she'd grown up in.
 
Laura's father had recently passed, leaving the house to her.
 
By default — not decree, she was his only offspring.
 
The house harbored some tough memories for Laura, many she had worked hard to forget.
 
But it was a roof over their heads for now.
 
And the way things were going, probably for a long time.

Rebecca had visited the house once before, when her grandfather was very ill.
 
She remembered it smelled "yucky" and she was afraid to enter the room where her grandfather spent most of his day staring at the ceiling, writhing in pain.
 
But curiosity won out and she eventually ventured inside.
 
He broke the ice with a joke she didn't get, but he laughed, and the odd sound made her laugh too.
 
Laura had stood outside the door with her hand on her mouth, trying to hide her own sobbing.

Rebecca was very confused and asked her mother why she'd never met him before.
 
Some things are just too complicated to explain
was all Laura could come up with.
 
A few weeks later he was dead.
 
They hadn't returned since.

Even though Rebecca was upset about leaving her friends in Livonia, she was actually quite excited to return to the house.
 
She danced around when she realized her new bedroom was much larger than her old one.
 
Her exuberance drowned out a lot of Laura's trepidation about being in "that place" again, and for a while Rebecca gave her the strength she needed to deal with the anguish of the last few months.
 
Maybe they could make it, maybe they could be happy.

But the joy was brief.
 
It wasn't long before the night terrors started.
 
Laura had expected Rebecca to have a strong negative reaction to the divorce and the subsequent domestic upheaval — but this wasn't normal.

Then the school called, asking her to come down to discuss Rebecca's behavior in class.
 
Laura was shocked when she heard some of the stories of what she'd done.
 
The final straw happened during one outburst when Rebecca lashed out at a boy who'd approached her desk to ask to borrow a pencil.
 
Rebecca screamed obscenities and smacked him hard across the cheek.
 
The teacher described Rebecca's eyes at that moment as if she was a demon, possessed.

Laura agreed to let that
incompetent
school psychologist sit with her daughter twice a week.
 
He very quickly threw his hands up in frustration.
 
Those sessions escalated to the hasty recommendation of Dr. Leonard Hellerman, Child Psychiatrist.
 
At Laura's expense, of course.

Not only was Dr. Hellerman also a failure, Laura blamed him for exacerbating the situation.
 
Laura had heard enough these last few months, endured too many bullshit theories on Rebecca's "condition".
 
Rebecca never knew a bad day in her life, as far as Laura was concerned.
 
And Laura was
all too familiar
with what a bad day of childhood was like.
 
She considered herself an authority on the subject, a purple heart veteran of domestic abuse.
 
Sure, Rebecca's father had left them, but statistically speaking, these days that was more the norm than the exception.
 
Nothing accounted for Rebecca's sudden, frightening metamorphosis from normal, well adjusted — even happy child, to the jittery, terrified, profanity spewing insomniac she had become.
 
And while Rebecca mostly couldn't recall details from her nightmares, what she did describe was suffocating in its horribleness.

Laura decided they needed to solve the problem in-house.
 
Rebecca was her daughter; if she couldn't help her, perhaps no one could.

Laura stood up from the bed and moved to Rebecca's side.
 
She caressed Rebecca's red cheek with the back of her fingers.
 
Rebecca let her.

"Warm milk isn't doing the trick, so I brought home some herbal teas from work.
 
Maybe we can try it, hmm?
 
Try and get some sleep tonight?"

"Mom?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Who is she?"

"Who?"

"The girl.
 
The one the doctor was asking about?
 
The one I talk about in my sleep?
 
Carmen?"

Laura's lips went tight, the question caught her off guard.
 
She tugged at a loose thread in Rebecca's sweater. "No one."
 
Rebecca seemed unsatisfied with that answer, but went back to her painting.

"Rebecca, everyone has nightmares.
 
Yours are just worse than most, that's all.
 
But they'll pass.
 
I promise." Laura kissed the top of Rebecca's head, embracing her, growing emotional.

Her eyes landed on a framed photograph Rebecca kept on her dresser.
 
There was Laura, her ex-husband Richard - tattooed and muscular, and Rebecca in the middle.
 
All smiling, happier times.
 
Rebecca had drawn a pink heart around the photograph.
 
Laura allowed her to keep it out on display.
 
She didn't want her own pain to become Rebecca's.
 
He would always be her father.

Laura stared at Rebecca's tiny face in the picture, Rebecca
winking
at the camera, something she did in virtually every photograph.

"I'm sorry, baby.
 
I screwed everything up, didn't I?"

CHAPTER 9

Jack had fallen asleep at his desk.
 
The fluorescent lights blinded, like something sharp jabbing his brain.
 
He winced, slowly lifting his head, a piece of paper stuck to his cheek peeled away.
 

He looked down bleary eyed at his notes, the text started to move like tiny ants.
 
He shook off the cobwebs, trying to pick up where he left off.
 
His last thought had been the realization that he'd read the same sentence over and over.
 
He dragged his palms down his face and leaned back in his chair, any attempt to continue would just be grinding metal.
 
He rubbed his dark, swollen eyes.
 

He felt each tick of the clock, each second wasted.
 
On his desk was a stack of gruesome crime scene photographs, not for the faint of heart.
 
Even Jack could only stare at them a brief moment before his stomach turned.
 
Beside those was a single picture of Angelina.
 
Her bright shining smile inspired and haunted him at the same time.
 
He dreaded the day he would have to move her picture into the other pile.
 
He pushed himself to continue.

Harrington entered the office.
 

"Victor's state appointed council threatened a harassment suit if he's questioned again without being formally charged."

Jack turned to Harrington, holding up a report. "Take a look at these."

Harrington flipped through, "Natalie Gonzalez, Cassandra Ruiz… What about them?"

"Both Hispanic, same age as Angelina, each one held captive several months, murdered, then dumped, no DNA, no trace evidence, nothing."

"Gang related."

"No, that's a stereotype.
 
Someone's out there, targeting these girls.
 
Easy prey, illegal, family afraid to come forward to report them missing.
 
Maybe whoever killed these girls took Angelina too."

"What makes you think Sandoval didn't do it?"

"Keeping someone captive takes privacy.
 
Victor lives in an upstairs apartment with seven other people."

"Now who's stereotyping?" Harrington joked.
 

"There's a chance she could still be alive."

"Held captive?" Harrington said skeptically.

Jack handed him an envelope.