Snuff (19 page)

FIFTY-SEVEN

“I was under the impression there was only one guy doing this,” Jack says, stabbing at a scrambled egg with his back turned.  “And suddenly there’s two?”  He dumps the eggs from the frying pan and slaps the spatula into the sink. 

Pulp bobs at the surface of my glass of orange juice.  I can’t drink it.  It looks like bits of
flaky flesh. 

Singed, wiry tendons stretching over raw, greenish skin. I won’t be able to handle the smell any longer.  It’s like old, rotting meat, tossed in the garbage can three days before trash pickup.  Pungent with the scent of decay.

“I don’t know.  Maybe.” 

I hadn’t remembered or pieced together what I’d heard until last night, when Jack’s voice was thick with sleep.  He sounds like that when he tells me he loves me every time we’re in bed—sort of muffled, because he always says it with his lips on my throat. 
Those voices had sounded the same.  Hoarse, moaned whispers.  “I didn’t remember I’d heard someone else until last night.” 

Our decrepit Mr. Coffee wheezes
, and Jack turns to slosh some French roast into a mug.  “Are you sure?”

I massage my eyes until I see red. 
“I’m not sure of anything, really.”  Maybe I’d imagined it.  There’d been lots of other things on my mind, what with having just killed someone.

“It sounded like
sex?”  He curses when he burns his hand on the stove, juggling his mug and the frying pan’s handle.  “Real sex, not taped sex?  Like how we sound?  Like those noises—”

My stomach somersaults.  “God, Jack.”  I push the glass away.  “Can you shut up?”

He shakes his head.  “You can act on camera and in front of a pack of producers, but if someone mentions anything to do with sex, you blush.”

I’m afraid this will have to be short, but take heart.  I’ll be home soon.

I understand your quandary, but who better to remedy it than you? 

These things have a way of working themselves out once you separate emotion from fact.

I’ll be waiting to hear how you handle it.  Breathless.

Monday at 9:17
a.m.

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FIFTY-EIGHT

Lisette’s driving was alarming.

Because of LLI, driving was initially a frightening prospect.  Other sixteen-year-olds complained about being chauffeured by their parents, but John had been happy to let Molly bus him from destination to destination until he hit seventeen, and she finally put her foot down.

His first time behind the wheel had been an overwhelming and nerve-wracking nightmare.  Countless dangers and obstacles littered the road.  What if that wom
an drinking a latte in the left-hand land accidentally dropped it and swerved into his?  And that man in the pickup looked enough like a rolling catastrophe, but on top of that, he had a ladder in the bed.  Suppose a sudden gust of wind blew by and knocked it right out into the road?  They’d die a fiery death on the highway and cause a multi-car pileup that would subsequently kill others.  No wonder hundreds of thousands of people died in car wrecks each year. 

“For God’s sa
ke, that’s not going to happen,” Molly had said from the passenger’s seat, and probably with an eye roll, but John had been too frightened to lift his eyes from the road to check. 

Eventually he’d realized those variables and hin
drances weren’t likely to occur, and he’d relaxed a little, made his peace with the road.  It wasn’t long before he’d stopped being scared out of his wits.  But that was strictly when he controlled the wheel.  Sitting in the passenger’s seat at the mercy of Lisette’s whims and weaving brought that terror back with the force of hurricane.

He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see his impending death.

“Are you there yet?” Lisette snapped into her walkie. 

“Nearly,” was Holme
s’s static reply.

John kept his lids shut.  He didn’t want to imagine what might happen if he found she’d taken her hands from ten and two. 

“Hit up Laguna PD and let them know we’re coming.”

If they even made it there alive
. “Make sure someone’s sitting on Aunt Melinda’s house.”

He was forced to wrench his eyes open when she made a sharp right off the freeway. “I did.  But she’s not going to be holed up there.  If she’s got any sort of smarts
, she’ll know we have old Stan in custody.  I doubt she’d risk going there if she thinks there’s even a slight chance we know about it.”  

She slammed her palm into the horn and cut off a Beemer. 

The thrill of horror climbing his spine was hard to shake, but he tried anyway, grabbing the bar by the window.  “Why don’t you use the siren?”

“I feel like an asshole when I use it.”  She flicked the blinker and swerved ahead of an SUV, leaning over the wheel with muttered curses.

“And cutting people off and flipping them the bird isn’t being an asshole?”

“Backseat drivers are even bigger assholes, you know.”  She stabbed a button on the dashboard when beeping droned.  “What?”

A gruff voice filled the cabin.  “Nobody home at 12 Vista.  No car in the drive, no answer when we knocked.  You want us to hear a lady calling for help and force entry?”

John gave a quick ‘no’ at the same time she said “fuck no, are you stupid?  Warrant’s on the way.  Sit tight.”

And in the meantime, John thought, tightening his grip on the bar, he’d sit tight, too. 

FIFTY-NINE

“It doesn’t look like anybody lives here,” Lisette said
, once they’d gotten inside 12 Vista’s French doors.  The rest of the tactical assault team surged ahead, splitting into separate rivers of black SWAT clothes and Kevlar.  “It looks like a model home.  A really filthy one.”

John made a noise of agreement and swept a finger through spidery layers of dust on a spiral banister twisting around the staircase.  “She doesn’t live here.

She popped the clasps on her bulletproof vest.  It parted to reveal a black wife beater with LAPD burned on the front with cracking neon-yellow lettering.  “Bianca’s parents willed this to her.  It’s rent-free and beachfront property.  Doesn’t get much better than this.  Aunt Melinda lived in a dump.”

He cracked his knuckles, staring up the domed ceiling hovering over the foyer.  A chandelier with dusty bulbs hung beneath a backdrop of ivory and gold crown molding.  He tried the closest light switch.
  “Utilities aren’t paid up.”  The walls were bare and yellowed, with lighter square patches every few feet.  “She’s taken down art or pictures.  This place must feel like a lifetime ago.  It’s impersonal.  No family photographs.  No life.  Nothing to suggest she considers this home.” 

John could almost feel the place decomposing.

This house makes her sad.  She isn’t likely to hole up somewhere that screams heartache and death.

“It’s more of a home than Aunt Melinda’s.  And she’s only twenty-seven,” Lisette argued, but it didn’t sound as though she believed her own reasoning.  “It wasn’t
that
long ago.”

“The time that’s passed doesn’t matter.  She was a completely different person when she lived here. When you’re as broken as she is, being reminded of happy things only makes you feel worse.” He headed up the staircase.  “It’s like she scrubbed the house of everything that might remind her of her family.”

Lisette trailed him, Timberlands heavy on the granite steps as shouts of ‘Clear!’ from the tactical team emanated from first-floor rooms.  “Then why not sell the place?  No sense in holding onto a house you never plan to live in or rent out.  This joint would sell for several million.  I put in a request for some basic background information on Bianca, but it might take a few days to get it.  Who knows how many real estate holdings she’s got.  If she’s not here or at Aunt Melinda’s, we got nothing for a Plan B.”

He took the nearest right instead of continuing up the second flight of stairs.  “We know her name.  It’s more than we had twelve hours ago.”

He stopped in the threshold of the closest bedroom and nudged the cracked door open with his foot.  Lisette stopped short behind him, steel-toed boots stomping on the heels of his shoes. 

She steadied herself on the small of his back and peered around him. “Good God.  What is this?  Fucking Chucky’s workshop?”

It was like stepping into a completely different realm, a place where pain contaminated the air, crept through the puffy pink bedspread, climbed rose walls and slithered behind the filthy faces of long-forgotten porcelain dolls stuffed into built-in shelves.

They were all missing their eyes.  Not from the passage of time, but because someone had gouged them from the sockets.  A knife, John assumed, cataloging the frenzied white nicks carved into cherub-plump cheeks of each face. 

Their peach-painted lips smiled, but those vacuous black holes looked like they could swallow a soul.

A shrine to her dead sister? 

More like a museum of memories past.

“She ripped the eyes out like she did to Brianna.  She must have reminded Bianca of herself.”

“Looks like she’s a special kind of fucked up.”  Lisette squatted beside a cobwebbed cardboard box and peered inside.  She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her back pocket.  Two puffs of sterile-smelling powder burst into the stale air as she snapped them on. 

John pried open one of the closet doors.  A busted vanity leaned against the far wall.  Shards of a broken mirror scattered over the granite floor, tipped in red.

Physical pain to dull emotional pain
, the voice said. 
Cutting yourself to feel better.  What a stupid notion.

He opened the second door and pushed racks of plastic-sheathed clothing aside.  The photographs he suspected Bianca had removed from the living room sat there, collecting dust and grime in gilded frames.  The Cartwright family’s smiles were glazed with age—most of them.  Bianca’s face had been clawed from each image.  

Every few seconds something
thudded
. John looked over his shoulder to find Lisette pawing through the box, tossing books with gnarled spines and notebooks on the floor. 

“We should take this with
shit with us.”  She pried open a jewelry box.  A ballerina twirled slowly as weak music chimed, the dust smothering her pale pink tutu flaking off in misty spirals.  She popped open the bottom drawer of the box.  “Anything in the closet?”

“Family portraits.  Nothing that would help find her.  Bianca’s a cutter.
  She hasn’t been here in a long time.  The dust is undisturbed.”

She turned the jewelry box around.  Razors black with blood
nestled into the pink satin lining.  “No shit, she’s a cutter.”

How many times has she tried to commit suicide?  She doesn’t have the guts—the cou
rage—to really commit? 

“Oh, shit.”  She stood,
the jewelry box rattling like a demon lived among the bloodied razors.  “I forgot to tell you.  Brooke called late last night.  She says she had a dream that reminded her of something.  Apparently she heard something after she killed Abby.  Said it sounded like people having sex, but she only heard for a few seconds.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not Heckles.  He likes his women nice and dead.”  She walked to door and stuck her head out.  “I need a lab geek up here!”

John brushed past her and headed for the staircase. 
“I’ll have my tech analyst get background.  It’ll be quicker than waiting for your people.”

SIXTY

Jack smiles like I’m a precocious child when I give him my grocery store list until he actually reads it. “Bananas and wine?  Jesus.  Is this a joke?”

Sort of.  I shrug.  “I hear you can drink wine sparingly when you’re pregnant.”

“I’m not getting you wine.” He lifts me by the waist
, and plunks me down on a barstool.  “I’ll get grape juice, and you can pour it in a wine glass.” He scratches more on the list with the pen I left on the island.  “You forgot milk, granny smith apples, and peanut butter.” His eyebrows pull together.  “What about that cinnamon swirly bread?  You like that stuff.”

“It has too many calories.”

He rolls his eyes and writes
cinnamon bread
.
Carrots
and
ranch dip
are added as afterthoughts.  “I’ll call you when I’m there.”  He tucks his wallet into his back pocket.  “I might see something you didn’t think of.” 

Jack turns to leave, but I tug him back by the hem of his shirt and wrap my arms around his waist.  When I bury my face in his stomach, he peels me off, both hands on my shoulders, and just looks at me. 

He doesn’t need words.  He can say entire paragraphs with his glances.   

He tilts my chin up and presses his lips to mine. “I’ll be back soon, baby,” he says when we break apart.  “Remember to take your vitamins.”

I sit there on the barstool for a long time after listening for his footsteps on the stairs and his car engine turning over, until Stripes slinks from the bedroom and hops onto the island demanding breakfast.  I ignore him as long as I’m able, pecking mindlessly at the keys on the laptop that always sits on the island, but he’s pretty persistent.

Someone
knocks on the front door as I’m busting open a can of Fancy Feast in the sink.  Since I haven’t been expecting anyone, I walk to the living room window overlooking the parking lot.  The blinds splay when I shove my fingers between them.

It’s Elena’s Altima wedged between the neighbor’s rusting SUV and the wall, behind Aaron and Brett, Defenders of the Parking Lot.  They see me peek down and wave, so I wave back before heading to the door.  Stripes is hot on my heels.  He likes visitors more than other cats seem to—he doesn’t have a standoffish bone in his body.  

I pull the door open.  Stripes tries to shoot out, but I kick him back.  It’s not that I’m afraid he’ll run away, it’s that he’ll mosey around on other people’s patios, and cats aren’t exactly welcome in this complex. 

“Sorry,” I say, half-turning to shove my furry illegal stowaway back into the living room.  “Can’t let Stripes out or I’ll have to hunt him down and explain to the manager why he’s here.”

“Stripes? That’s original.”

I look up through the hair falling in my face as the woman pushes a pair of oversized sunglasses on the top of her auburn head. 

“Oh.”  I straighten, still clenching the doorknob, and give her what feels like a confused smile. “I thought you were someone else.”

Her lips squish into a nameless expression.  It’s not a smile,
but it isn’t a frown, either. “Who did you think I was?”

I’m about to answer, but who does she think she is, coming to
my
door, asking questions?  If anyone gets to ask them, it’s me.  “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Do you want to?”

She’s worse than door-to-door preachers.

“I think you should go.”  I try to shut the door in her face
, but her foot is in the way. So is a knife.  A long, thin one.  Shiny silver—the same color as the clasps on the Dolce purse swaying from her wrist—like it’s never been used. 

You’d think a blade would be scary.  I’ve read crime reports
saying people are more likely to scream for help if they see a gun, but not a knife.  I’m not so much
scared
as I am completely taken aback. 

She must have been watching for a long time if she’s gone out of her way to copy my friend’s look
s and car.  Aaron and Brett know Elena’s allowed up.

But I still have no idea who she
is.

“I know this isn’t enough inspiration,” she says, wagging the knife.  “Which is why I ought to let you know
my friend’s already got Jack.”

Like hell. “Who
are
you?” I’ve never seen her in my life, and I’d remember a face like hers. It’s rounded, making her look younger than she probably is.  Too pale for a California native.  The only color she has is a light rose flush on the apples of her plump cheeks.   

She rolls her blue eyes, and it almost looks friendly when her face splits into a smile. She ignores my question. “I know, you probably don’t believe that
, either.  I wouldn’t.  We’re cynical, living in LA.  I get it.  Let’s just say he’s not going to live to buy you bananas and grape juice and cinnamon bread, unless you come with me.”

My stomach squirms.  She
had to have gotten close enough to read the grocery list.  Jack never leaves them behind or drops them like I do.  

But Jack’s six-two and a
hundred and seventy-five pounds; not exactly someone who can be kidnapped with minimal effort. “Who the hell
are
you?”

“We’ll have time for pleasantries later.” The hand not holding the knife goes palm-up.  “In the meantime, let’s just call this a leap of faith.”

I don’t move, but my eyes dart to the window.  How long would it take to reach it and scream? 

She shakes her head. 
“Bad idea.  If I don’t text my friend every ten minutes, he’ll slit your boyfriend’s throat.  But wait—isn’t he your fiancé now?”

No, not technically.  But I want him to be, just as soon as I feel marginally better.

Stripes the Traitor winds around the ankles of her skinny jeans, and she stoops to pick him up. “We need to get going,” she says, looking up at me through a thick fringe of lashes.  “Sooner we do, sooner I can tell my friend to let Jack go.”

I’m rooted to the carpet, watching in frozen silence as she strokes Stripes’s head with a fingertip.  “Put my fucking cat down.”

He hits the carpet on all fours and darts away. 

“You’re really protective of things, aren’t you?”  She keeps the knife trained with her right hand and links her left through the crook of my elbow.  “Grab that cardigan.”

“Those cops aren’t going to let me go anywhere.” At least I hope not.

She adjusts the cardigan so it covers the knife.  “
That’s why we’re going down the fire escape.”

“I’m not
moving until you tell me who the hell you are.”

“Good point.”  She
drags me toward the bedroom.  “I’m nobody important.  A fellow traveler.  Boring in the extreme, but I overcompensate with night-vision and flash photography. ”