Never Forget

by Harper Shaw

  “This is why I didn’t fucking tell you,” she said to herself as she marched out of her parents’ development. “This is why you don’t get to know anything about me.”

  A half mile on, she found a payphone and called herself a cab. In short order, she got dropped off at a motel parking lot, where she went to talk to the front clerk.

  “How long will you be staying?” the kid asked, deadpan. Obviously he was completely bored with his job and his life.

  “I’m not sure,” Rebecca answered honestly. “A few days at the least, a month at the most.”

  “Fine,” the kid said, writing something down in a black ledger. “Room 204 is yours until you don’t want it anymore. Like we have people banging down the door, wanting a place to stay around here.”

  Rebecca held out her hand and took the key from the bored-looking kid. He didn’t even look up from the magazine he was reading, and Rebecca glimpsed a naked woman on one page.

  Lovely, the kid was reading a Playboy at work. Filled with disgust, and wanting nothing more than to go to sleep, Rebecca turned and strode out the door, heading toward Room 204.

  She went outside and around toward the side of the motel. As she turned to go up the stairs, she saw the Shroud staring at her from across the parking lot.

  Fear replaced the disgust, and Rebecca hurried up the stairs to her room.

  Of course, the Shroud knew she was here. Why wouldn’t he?

  Rebecca didn’t have the energy for another encounter. So, she turned her back on the mysterious figure and tried to get into room 204. Her hands shook so hard and were so sweaty she dropped the key.

  Bending over to pick it up, she figured she was done for. She didn’t have a gun, so there was no point taking off to chase the big fucker across the street.

  That meant she was completely at the mercy of a killer.

  “Come on, come on,” she muttered as she tried to get the key to fit inside the door. Finally, she could open the door, and she tumbled inside, slamming it closed behind her.

  She wanted her gun back. She wanted all this to be over.

  Locking the door behind her, she made sure to engage the door chain as well.

  Trying to keep as stealthy as possible, she gently moved the blinds of her room window and tried to see outside. The Shroud was still there. He hadn’t moved and had simply stared at her while she had fumbled her way into a room.

  He knew where she was. She’d told him her exact room number. That was so stupid, it was like Rebecca had remembered none of her training.

  “You should have just run off, called another cab or something,” she said to herself. She was having trouble getting her breathing under control and was at risk for a full-fledged panic attack.

  She stared at the Shroud across the street, and the shadowed face stared back. Watching her room. Unmoving.

  That terrified Rebecca even more.

  “You’re making something out of nothing,” she said to herself, watching the Shroud stare at her room. “It’s not him. There’s no way he would know where you are right now. Unless he’s following you.”

  That seemed to ring true, and Rebecca tore her eyes away from the Shroud, determined to make it through the day. This guy wasn’t going to kill her today. She wouldn’t let him, even without a gun.

  Taking a chair from her room, she tucked it underneath the door handle.

  She just wanted to sleep. She needed to sleep. This Shroud, this man in galoshes, who had her looking over her shoulder at every turn, was making her exhausted. Well, that, and the zero sleep she got last night.

  Desperate for sleep, shadowy figure or not, she knew she would figure it out when she got up. She didn’t need long, maybe a couple hours, but she needed to close her eyes.

  She needed a bit of an escape.

  There would be no sleeping on the bed. Rebecca was sure of it. Anyone could hit her with a bullet from outside the window. Or a spear gun.

  So, to buy herself some time, she stuffed pillows into her bed to make it look like she was tucked in. She grabbed a blanket from the closet and went to the bathroom.

  Getting herself as comfortable as possible in the bathtub, and ignoring the yellow stains in the tub, she snuggled down for a few hours. The exhaustion took over the fear, and her breathing turned rhythmic as she slowly fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rebecca didn’t sleep for long, and when she woke, she had to splash her face with water before she left the bathroom.

  But it was enough to drive the sleep out of her eyes and was exactly what she needed. She walked over to the window and peaked out of the blinds. No Shroud. No one was in the parking lot. No one was watching her.

  She wasn’t even sure if she’d actually seen the Shroud or not. She’d been so tired, maybe she was delirious. Plus, the anger with her parents didn’t help, that was for sure. She wasn’t going to sit in her motel room, cowering in fear from something that may not exist. So, she grabbed Dennis’s card out of her wallet and dialed the number into the motel phone.

  Dennis picked up after the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Dennis, it’s Rebecca.”

  “Oh hey, Rebecca,” Dennis answered, clearly distracted by something going on behind him. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, you know…” Rebecca didn’t really know what to say. She just really didn’t have anyone to talk to right now. “I’ve moved to a motel,” Rebecca said, “because my parents weren’t impressed I was coming home late.”

  Dennis forced a laugh.

  “Do they think you’re still in high school or something?”

  “I’m not sure,” Rebecca said dryly. It was time to get to the point. “You have any information for me? I’m not just going to sit in this room all day.”

  “I have a photoshoot,” Dennis blurted. “But I just got off the phone with one of the private investigators I hired. Jennifer’s yacht is parked outside her vacation home.”

  That was a surprise. She figured Jennifer would be out of town for good.

  “I’ll go check it out, see if I can’t talk to her or something.”

  “Are you sure you want to go alone?” Dennis asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “I could come with you in a few hours.”

  Rebecca laughed.

  “I can take Jennifer if I need to. Even without a gun. Plus, I doubt I will need to. Jennifer is a bitch, but she’s not a murderer.”

  “Suit yourself. You’re the cop. I think she’s more dangerous than she looks.”

  “I’ll go figure it out,” Rebecca said. She already felt better, having a task that wasn’t just cowering in fear. It almost felt like being on the job again, the one thing she missed desperately.

  “Be safe. I’ll be waiting for you to call me after. “

  “Have a good photo shoot. Maybe I’ll see you after?”

  “I’d like that,” Dennis answered. Then he hung up the phone.

  Rebecca grabbed her coat and headed to the front desk. The bored kid from the night before had been replaced by a bored old man who gave Rebecca a lascivious look as she wandered up. She asked him for info on a rental car place.

  He gave the info, and added, “Want me to drive ya?” raising his eyebrows expectantly.

  Rebecca didn’t bother to answer. Fortunately, it was only a mile-and-a-half from the motel. She quickly rented the cheapest thing they had and marveled that they dared to charge her even as much as they did, given the condition of the car they gave her. Then she took off toward the rich area of town.

  It wasn’t actually in town, but a few miles outside. Rebecca knew she should have had a coffee before she left, but she’d thought it was going to be closer than it actually was. After twenty minutes behind the wheel of a rental car, she was desperately craving caffeine.

  “Maybe Jennifer will give you a coffee or something,” she said out loud, trying not to fall asleep behind the wheel of the car. Then she laughed at her own joke. Jennifer would never give her
a coffee, that was for sure. Jennifer hated her, and Rebecca returned the sentiment.

  In fact, Rebecca had always hated Jennifer. She was a part of their group growing up, so Rebecca had never really admitted it until now, but they have never gotten along. Rebecca liked to hang out with Monica until Monica was killed.

  Then she’d gotten out of Hilton Head as fast as possible and wanted nothing to do with Jennifer. With Monica dead, the entire group fell apart. She was the only thing really keeping them together. It’s not like Rebecca was going to track Jennifer down to rekindle a relationship, that was for sure.

  Rebecca turned into Jennifer’s rental property. Dennis’s private investigator had said he found Jennifer’s yacht parked on the pier beside her rental property.

  She was going to be pissed when Rebecca showed up on her doorstep—a reaction Rebecca was very much looking forward to. She hadn’t had much to be excited about, lately, so she was really excited to piss Jennifer off.

  Simple Pleasures. Her time in Alcoholics Anonymous had taught her to enjoy them.

  And Rebecca was going to enjoy this.

  Smoke billowed up on the horizon, and Rebecca furrowed her brow as she wove her way through the rich cabins at the waterfront properties.

  As she turned onto the proper street, she saw Jennifer’s rental property up in flames.

  “Shit”, she said, slamming her car into park. “Call the fire department!” she yelled at a bystander. The woman stood on her balcony staring at the engulfed house, slack jawed.

  “I already did,” the woman shouted back over the roar.

  Rebecca didn’t wait for any other information. Her cop training took over, and she rushed to the front door of the house. Putting her coat over her hand to block the heat coming from the doorknob, she pulled the door open. Smoke billowed out of the open door, and the heat threatened to blind her. She went inside, covering her head and trying to guard her eyes.

  She had to find Jennifer. She had to find her.

  The smoke filled the house; making it almost impossible to see. Rebecca crouched, trying to get her body to the lower level where there wasn’t so much smoke. There was really no use because it was damn near impossible to see.

  “Jennifer,” Rebecca tried to yell, but it came out as coughs and wheezes. She thought she heard sirens in the distance, but she couldn’t be sure. It could just be her pulse rushing in her ears as the fear of the immediate danger threatened to engulf her.

  “Jennifer,” she wheezed, trying her best to look around and resorting to crawling on her hands and knees to stay below the smoke. She knew there wasn’t much time. A house could be fully engulfed and burned down within seven minutes.

  Rebecca crawled to the right, hoping maybe she could find Jennifer.

  A body on fire lay on the couch. Tall, blonde.

  Jennifer.

  The fire was getting too hot, and it was too hard to breathe. Rebecca wouldn’t be able to get to her. As she watched the body burn on the couch, she knew she wouldn’t be able to save her.

  Jennifer was dead.

  Rebecca turned and crawled out of the room. She almost got turned around, and it was so hard to see she couldn’t find the open door. Taking one crawling step at a time, she worked her way back to the front door. She moved her coat over her head, trying to block it from the raging heat of the fire.

  Jennifer was dead.

  So that meant she wasn’t The Shroud. Rebecca worked her way out of the house and emerged from the smoke, gasping air. Her lungs burned, her eyes watered, and she stumbled to the side.

  Firefighters grabbed her on either side and dragged her out of the way of the fire.

  “Jennifer,” she gasped. “Jennifer…”

  “We’ve got you,” the firefighters said, supporting her weight with brawny arms underneath her shoulders. The firefighters were getting water on the house, desperately trying to cool it down in order to get somebody inside.

  “We’ve got a live one!” a firefighter supporting her called.

  Rebecca gasped, the air burning her throat.

  “You have to save Jennifer.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the living room,” Rebecca croaked. “She’s in the living room. To the right.”

  The firefighters left her a safe distance away from the fire, sitting on the bumper of the ambulance. The firefighters started talking, obviously trying to make a plan. A paramedic handed her an oxygen mask.

  “Put that on,” he said. Rebecca could only listen. There was no arguing with a paramedic, not today.

  Pressing the oxygen mask to her face, she took deep breaths in, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs. She hoped it would help with the pain and the rawness of her throat.

  Her eyes welled up, and she told herself it was because of the smoke, not because of anything she felt for Jennifer. Jennifer was a bitch, but she didn’t deserve to die, not like that.

  Rebecca found herself hoping the smoke had killed her before the flames had gotten to her. But she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she had seen Jennifer on fire on her couch.

  She was dead. The Shroud had gotten to another one of them. Rebecca was sure of it.

  She knew this was no accident. The timing was too perfect.

  The Shroud had gotten to Jennifer. Meaning there were no more suspects. And another one of them was dead.

  The cobwebs cleared from her head as she inhaled the oxygen. She watched the firefighters try to enter the building. They opened the window, and a fireball burst out.

  With a roaring crash, the house fell apart, collapsing in on itself and entombing Jennifer in debris for good.

  She was dead.

  And Rebecca couldn’t help but feel the fear returning.

  The Shroud was picking them off, one by one. And they couldn’t do anything about it.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Rebecca watched the fire burn. Firetrucks and EMTs had arrived about twenty minutes ago and were fighting the blaze. Some paramedic had put a mylar blanket around her shoulders. She’d told them someone was inside the burning house. Then she sat in the back of the ambulance, feeling the heat of the inferno and watching the flames tickle the midday sky.

  Despite the burn of the fire on her skin, inside she was numb. Things were spiraling more and more out of control and she didn’t know what to do.

  Why would Jennifer have been targeted? Her murder made no sense. Not when all Rebecca’s suspicions had pointed to Jennifer as the cause of all this chaos. Now she had to re-evaluate everything. If Jennifer was not in league with the Shroud, who was?

  The Shroud. Arson didn’t really seem like the Shroud’s MO to Rebecca. Stalking and spear-gunning, yes, but pyro didn’t really seem to be the Shroud’s thing. Unless that was the point? Some attempt to throw her off track?

  A new siren cut through the background noise of the scene. She didn’t have to look to know who it was going to be. Faruq. She stared at the ground until his two boots came into view. What would his angle be?

  “You all right?” he asked.

  The sympathy card was unexpected. Rebecca also didn’t buy it. “I didn’t do it,” she said, eyes still on the ground.

  “Not what I asked.”

  “Jennifer’s dead.”

  “We’ll identify the body once we have the fire out and the structure secured.”

  “It’s her.”

  “What were you doing here? What were you doing going into a burning building?”

  She looked up at him, finally. His face was a mix of compassion and confusion—and anger that he was feeling both in regard to her. There was so much more going on than he knew. She once more wanted to tell him but didn’t feel right about it until she’d been in touch with Dennis.

  She glanced at the handcuffs hanging from Faruq’s belt. “Are you arresting me?”

  “I’m taking you back to the precinct. C’mon.”

  Rebecca shed the mylar blanket and got in the back of Faruq’s cruiser. There
was no point in resisting. Besides, where would she go? Home wasn’t an option. The motel was surely a target for the Shroud. At least in the precinct she was relatively safe.

  When they got to the station, they headed past the front desk, through the swinging door, and deeper into the building. Rebecca stopped at the booking desk, ready to be processed again.

  “No,” Faruq said, grabbing her arm, “I’m not charging you.”

  “Is this some sort of good-cop tactic?”

  “Hardly. If I charge you, you post bail again. I’m holding you here until the fire marshal can inspect the house and figure out what caused the fire.”

  “And ID the body?’

  “Yeah. And that.”

  Rebecca shrugged. “You’re the chief, Chief. Do I still get my phone call?”

  Faruq led her to his office and sat her down in the chair across from the desk. He took the phone from his end of the desk and placed it before her. She started to dial, but then glanced at him. “Little privacy?”

  “I hope you’re calling your lawyer. You need to get smart, Rebecca.”

  “You think I’m trying to be stupid?”

  “I don’t know what you’re doing. I know something’s going on that you’re not telling me. I know none of this behavior is like the girl I used to know.”

  “I’m not that girl, Faruq. It’s been a long time since I was her.”

  “You’re also not the cop whose record I’ve been reading about.” Rebecca glanced up at him. He crouched down to be eye level with her. “Oh yeah,” he continued, “I reached out to the El Paso PD and got a copy of your record. On paper you’re an exemplary officer. What the hell are you doing here trying to screw it all up?”

  “Maybe that’s what I am. A screw-up. We’re not all what we appear to be on paper. I mean, come on, you of all people should know that.” Rebecca cocked a coy eyebrow at him.

  He clenched his jaw, showing he got the implication. “Make your damn call.” He rose and rushed from the room.