by Harper Shaw
“Was that it?”
“Yes,” she sighed.
“Oh, what’s wrong? Your head?”
“Sure, Mom.”
“I have some valium in my purse.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Rebecca wasn’t about to make hangovers common again. She had a lot of things to fix, but she knew she’d figure it out somehow—so long as she didn’t get killed or put in jail during the process. For now, though, life—
“Do you want some music, sweetie?”
Life sucked balls.
Chapter Seventeen
Sleep was just starting to come to Rebecca when the phone rang.
She tried to ignore it once again. She tried to push herself deeper into the pillows of her childhood bed, but the phone kept ringing.
Why couldn’t her parents have disconnected it when she moved out? Why did they leave intact that line she had begged and begged for, making promises about cleaning up and walking the dog that she never really lived up to? The line on which she had spent countless hours talking with Jennifer and Bruce and Dennis… and Chad… and Monica. Especially Monica. Sharing secrets about boys, and movie stars, and the awkwardness and joy and discovery of being a young woman with their whole futures ahead of them…
She got a chill. In the part of her brain that was still trying to sleep, she imagined it was Monica calling her once more, from beyond the grave.
As much to shut up that creepy thought as to silence the ringing, she yanked the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”
“Becca? Becca! Oh, thank God you answered!” It was Jennifer, sounding panicked.
Rebecca was already leaning down to hang up as she said, “Now’s not a great time.”
“I think someone’s trying to kill me!”
Rebecca was instantly awake. “What? What’re you talking about?”
“Please, Becca, you’re the first person I thought to call!” Her voice was a whispered shriek. It sounded so strange coming from the always composed Jennifer. “I’m at the beach house! How quick can you get here?”
“Who says I’m getting there?” Rebecca asked.
“Someone’s outside! Outside the house watching me! Like, stalking me or whatever.”
“Call the cops.”
“Aren’t you a cop?”
Rebecca ignored the dig. “I mean the local cops.”
“I don’t trust Faruq! I think he… I think he might be dangerous.”
Rebecca had to agree with Jennifer on that score.
“Becca…? Becca…? I lost sight of him. You don’t think –”
There was a click. The line went dead.
“Jennifer? Jennifer.”
Shit.
Rebecca bolted out of the bed and grabbed her gun, stuffing it in the back of her jeans’ waistband. She hoofed it down the stairs and raced for her mother’s car. She went as quickly as she could for the beach house, but she tried to follow the speed limits as much as she could. She was still a suspect in a murder case and a defendant in a civil suit. Getting caught speeding with her gun on her just hours after having a spat with the local police chief wouldn’t be a great look.
But she pushed her mom’s old clunker of a sedan as fast as she could.
The sun was just setting, bathing the beautiful little development where Jennifer’s rented beach house sat in a lovely orange glow. Rebecca noted that it looked like a tourism ad even as she squealed to a stop in front of the house.
Her gun was in her hand before she was even out of the car, and she beelined it for the front door, trying to tell herself this was probably nothing. Then she saw the door slightly ajar. Inside the house was a quiet she recognized. It was a quiet that she’d come to know as a rookie cop, when she was the first one to arrive at a very specific type of crime scene.
It was a dead kind of quiet.
She burst into the house, shouldering the door aside and raising her gun. “Jennifer!” she shouted. Nothing. She moved through the first floor of the house quickly and methodically, whipping around every corner with her gun leveled. Her path brought her through the kitchen and toward the living room.
Jennifer’s feet were the first thing she saw, poking out from behind the couch. The next thing she saw as she came around was the blood. Tons of it. All over Jennifer, all over her loosely draped, short, satin robe. All over the wood floor. Across Jennifer’s neck was what appeared to be a deep, dark gash. Her sightless eyes stared up at Rebecca.
Too late. Too late again.
She knew she should run. Get the fuck out of here! Rebecca screamed at herself. But she couldn’t just leave Jennifer lying there like that. She needed to…
There was a snickering. A kind of muffled snorting. Coming from the ground. Coming from Jennifer.
The bitch was laughing. Her body was no longer rigid with death but convulsing with mirth. “Oh, man!” she called out between guffaws. “Bruce, you were so right! Keeping my eyes open was perfect! Becca, you should’ve seen your face!”
More laughter broke out behind Rebecca. She whirled around, instinctively raising her gun. Bruce and Dennis emerged from a bathroom. Bruce saw the gun and ducked. “Whoa!” he shouted.
Dennis just calmly raised his hands, his eyes lit with delight. “Hey, Becca, c’mon.”
Rebecca slowly lowered her weapon and then quickly tucked it back in her waistband. There was no need for it, obviously. Also, she had a feeling if she had it out any longer, she might actually shoot one of them.
“What is this?” she demanded.
“Oh, relax,” Bruce said. He had a towel and was moving to start wiping the blood from Jennifer’s neck—and cleavage. Jennifer quickly took the towel from him. Bruce turned back to Rebecca nonchalantly. “It was just a bit of fun.”
“Oh yeah? For who?” Rebecca asked.
Bruce looked at Jennifer and Dennis and then all three raised their hands.
Dennis came up close behind Rebecca. “You were always a little easy to, um, manipulate,” he said. Rebecca shoved him away with her shoulder.
Jennifer stood, wiping away the “blood,” which Rebecca now realized was some kind of makeup concoction. She should have known. When they were kids, Bruce had always insisted on going as Bloody Something for Halloween. He’d learned how to make stage blood from some Dungeons and Dragons cosplay book or something. He’d gotten pretty good at it by their senior year. His skills had clearly not depreciated.
Rebecca sat on the back of the couch and crossed her arms, hoping to appear cool and collected. “So, is that all this was? Just wanted to have a laugh at my expense?”
Bruce raised his eyebrows mischievously. “And mess with your head a bit.”
“Oh?”
“To remind you this isn’t just about you,” Jennifer added. “We know you’ve been off on your own for a while. But you’re back in with the Beach Heads, now, sweetie. So, don’t start thinking like a lone wolf. Not when it comes to certain situations, y’know?”
Rebecca finally couldn’t hold back. “Are you guys completely stupid? Chad is dead. And you think this kind of crap is funny? You want to laugh about the fact that I was worried about you being hurt? Go ahead. The real question is, why aren’t you worried about yourselves?”
“We have no idea why Chad was killed,” Dennis said, “or that whoever did it is targeting us.”
“He had a pretty nasty coke habit,” Bruce offered. “More likely than not, that’s what got him. Some dealer he had a beef with. Or maybe some Guatemalan drug lord needed him out of the way.”
Jennifer stared at him blankly. “Seriously? Guatemalan drug lord?”
“I’m just saying, it was mostly likely a drug thing. That’s all. So, there’s no reason for us to be worried.”
Yet Rebecca couldn’t help noticing just the faintest hint of a question in his eyes. Maybe she could crack Bruce, if she got him alone, in the right situation. Maybe she could turn him into an ally, somehow use his obsession for Jennifer as leverage…
“Anyway,
” Jennifer went on, “I also wanted to give you a warning, face to face. I’ve got photos, Becks. Some really lovely, long lens shots of Junior Detective Morgan whooping it up with the boys at the restaurant last night. Surrounded by oh-so-many pint glasses and shot glasses. And I was able to get a hold of the El Paso Police Department’s fax number, too…”
Rebecca sat quietly, gritting her teeth and waiting for the threat. Jennifer leaned in close. She smelled like old candy, probably from whatever they’d used to make the blood. It made Rebecca’s stomach turn. So, did what Jennifer said next.
“So if you don’t stop being a little bitch and acting like you’re going to ruin things for all of us, I might just have to dial up that little Texas fax number. Unless you can promise me—and Bruce and Dennis—that you’re going to behave yourself.”
Rebecca didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. What choice did she have? They’d set her up quite well.
As she left the beach house and drove home, she tried to remember if the Beach Heads had always been this manipulative. And if so, why she’d never bothered to get better friends.
Chapter Eighteen
“Don’t do it, Sophia,” Rebecca said emphatically, her voice coated with a thick layer of cynicism and boredom. She was slumped on the couch in her parents’ living room, a plate of pizza pockets on her thigh, her arm wrapped around a bowl of popcorn, and a cold, metal can of Coke in her grasp.
The past few days had been eventful to say the least, and she welcomed the subdued calm middle-of-the-day soap operas and junk food brought her. She’d been really mad yesterday. While she had calmed down, she knew she was definitely done—and she meant done—with Jennifer and the rest of her old crew.
In the beginning, she had thought they were just vain, and she could deal with that, but the craziness and threats were all too much to deal with. Well, really she was able to deal with it, but Rebecca was far from willing and refused to bear them any longer. It only got her into trouble, after all. Didn’t it?
Yep, she was better off wearing a hole in the sofa than her nerves. She knew she’d probably thought it a thousand times before, but she really was determined to get back home and away from this place. She’d never planned on having to come back. Being her parents’ only child, it wasn’t a big deal for them to fly out to see her twice a year for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
If it weren’t for Monica’s parents’ suit, she never would have come. And she’d managed to get herself into enough trouble here she may have inadvertently extended her stay by some weeks. If Faruq got his head in the game, it probably wouldn’t end up being any longer than a couple, but, like Jennifer, he was also seemingly unwilling to act or think rationally.
Like, what did she think she was going to do with those pictures? Sure, they could get Rebecca fired, but beyond that, any spectacle like that would probably equip Rebecca with the sort of nothing to lose attitude needed to get involved in Chad’s murder case and drag everything down with her.
This wasn’t to say she didn’t fear getting fired thanks to Jennifer, but she was starting to have a hard time seeing the bargaining power Jennifer and the others were so sure they had. Plus, all the trouble Rebecca had already caused was damn sure enough to get El Paso PD faxed at least half of the photos. She’d made herself the suspect in a murder and put her foot in her mouth with Faruq.
Sighing, she decided to stop wasting her brain power and precious commercial time on the others. As the television buzzed with yet another ad, she was starting to feel an itch come over her. It started as a dull throb on the back of her head at the base of her neck and shivered down her spine before spreading through her. Rebecca shuddered and rolled her shoulders back.
What could fix this, really, was simple, though she knew she shouldn’t. It seemed, to Rebecca, at least, that her sorrows were begging to be drowned in her father’s merlot or cabernet sauvignon. She huffed quietly.
“Looks like Sophia isn’t the only one in need of a little convincing.” Still, Rebecca stood and slowly brought herself into her parents’ dining room where they kept the wine shelf, her feet padding against the floor gently as if she feared being caught. “It’s all so beautiful,” she said, dragging her fingers across the dustless glass bottles.
Watching herself in the reflection, Rebecca blinked. She smiled. Frowned. Then a mischievous grin set on her face.
“You don’t need to do this,” she said to herself in the glass. “Really, you don’t.”
But you do, her mind told her. But you do, and you did the other day, and you will again.
Cupping her hand around the merlot, Rebecca put the bottle to her lips and gave it a tender kiss before heading into the kitchen. The bottle was already opened, her parents having indulged in it last night. She’d been licking her lips all dinner just to deny herself. But deny herself Rebecca would no longer.
“One sip won’t do anything,” she told herself. After pulling out the loose cork, she snatched a deep, wide glass from the cabinet and filled it nearly to the brim with the rich, red liquid. A drop strayed to the rim of the glass and slowly dripped down its side. Rebecca caught it with her index finger, but rather than suck the wine, she wiped it off on her shirt.
Settling her chin in her hands, she gazed at her cup, inches away from her nose. Why she hadn’t started yet she didn’t know. Was it the paranoia that Jennifer had found a way to plant a camera in the kitchen of her parents’ house? Or was she just waiting for her thirst to come on some more? In reality, it was likely her conscience tugging her away from it.
Ding dong!
A curse slipped out of Rebecca’s mouth as she jumped away from her glass, startled by the doorbell. Quickly, she took the base of her glass, emptied the merlot into the sink, and rinsed the cup out, returning it and the wine bottle to their respective places before wiping her damp hands off on her sweatpants and going to the door.
Gazing out of the peephole, she didn’t see anyone. Rebecca opened the door.
Dennis was there.
She shut it again.
“Rebecca, wait!” he shouted through the wood.
“Get away, you sick little dick!” she replied, twisting the lock secure again.
“I’m not going to do a weird prank or anything, and it’s me. Bruce and Jennifer are off doing their own thing. I want to talk.”
“What about?”
“Can I come inside?”
“No.”
“Please? Look, I promise I won’t do anything. I just really need to talk to you.”
You’ve sworn off psychos, Rebecca, she thought. For some reason, she opened the door anyway and moved aside to let Dennis into the foyer.
“Thanks,” Dennis said, shuffling into her haven.
“We’re not sitting down or going to dinner or anything, so you can just tell me what you want to talk about right here and right now,” she told him straight off. She still wasn’t putting up with his crap.
“The first thing I wanted to do was apologize for tricking you. I know it wasn’t cool and all, but I only did it because Jennifer put me up to it, and I didn’t want to not go along.”
“Why?”
“Because Monica’s dead and Chad’s dead, and Jennifer has a connection to both. I think she might be up to something… She could’ve killed Chad or have him killed or—I don’t know. I just know it’s no better to get on her bad side now than it was ten years ago. We need to protect ourselves.”
“What, are you suggesting I play along, too?”
“Well, no, I don’t think that’d work for you. She’d know you were just faking, but I think I still have a chance. I’m trying to earn her trust.”
“Hm… That’s actually kind of smart, Dennis. Who’d have thought you came up with an idea like that?”
“Ouch. Anyway, I came here to apologize and offer to look out for you. Whenever your name comes up or something, I’ll let you know. I don’t think she’s planning anymore stupid pranks either, so you’re probably safe from
those.”
“Listen, I know Jennifer just as well as you do. Now that I’m in her war path, there’s no getting out of it. She’ll probably find some way to torture me even if I do keep my head down and not bother with the cases anymore. She’s terrible like that.”
“That’s why you need me looking out for you. I’m trying to earn her trust, and I think it’s working, honestly. She has no reason to suspect me, and I’ve been going along with things,” Dennis told her.
It was a lot of information to swallow in five minutes. And even after this revelation, Rebecca still didn’t feel totally confident in her ability to trust Dennis. What if Jennifer had put him up to this whole thing in the first place? For all Rebecca knew, Bruce and Jennifer were parked on the corner waiting to see what she told Dennis.
“What do you say, Becca?”
Even with the risk, she knew she didn’t exactly have a lot of options or allies. No matter how earnest, or not, Dennis seemed, he was all she had at the moment. So, for that reason, she was inclined to take his offer.
“Fine,” Rebecca said to him. “Fine, we can do this. You swear you’re not working with Jennifer for real?”
“Of course not.”
“Uh-huh…”
Rebecca prayed this wouldn’t go as wrong in real life as it already had in her head.
Chapter Nineteen
Early the next morning, Rebecca found herself folded low behind the steering wheel of her mother’s car. On her lap sat her old Leica camera. Out her windshield was the duplex where Bruce lived.
After she and Dennis had sealed their little “pact,” or whatever it was, Dennis suggested she keep tabs on Bruce. “You can probably tell he’s still holding a torch for Jennifer, poor dude. He might lead us to some clue about what she’s up to. Maybe you can do a stake-out on him.”
“Stake-out?” Rebecca smirked.
“C’mon, I watch 21 Jump Street.”
Dennis’s eagerness to help her was both comforting and paranoia-inducing. She didn’t trust him. But she needed allies. So, for now, she was willing to go along with it.
