When You See Me

by Lisa Gardner

Another male voice. The sheriff. I would draw him in shades of deep purples, blues, and reds. Big, like the Bad Man, but softer around the edges. Deeper. For good or evil, I’m not sure yet. But I like his voice. It sounds like a warm blanket, and our rooms in the basement are much colder than anyone thinks.

  “Maybe we could wait,” the sheriff starts now. “We did find record of the suicide note on the office computer. Here—”

  “No.” The blond detective again. She is a burst of oranges, yellows, reds. There’s no dark in her. Only searing light that will either blind or save. I both fear her presence and lean toward the flame.

  My mother brushes my shoulder again. She is agitated today.

  Something worse looms ahead. The mayor’s wife is dead, the police are still here, and more will be made to pay. Because I can’t tell the truth about the Bad Man, what really happened to the mayor’s wife, what happens to all of us.

  I’m not Bonita.

  I’m Stupid Girl once again.

  The other female voice speaks up. I don’t understand the two female police. The blonde I met first has a hard, Northern clip. This one has a softer voice, rounder vowels. Of here, but not from here. I would color her in the shades of the forest, with sparks of fireflies. She is of the earth. Quieter, but sparkly in her own way.

  “Mayor Howard,” the other police lady says now, “we understand this is a difficult time. But when you start talking about an illegal organ transplant, I don’t care how many years back, the safety of your staff becomes our primary concern.”

  Total silence. I hastily cut out more biscuits. At the range, Cook is listening so hard she’s forgotten to stir the gravy. I smell it burn before she does. Or maybe she doesn’t care.

  Hélène is gone. She must tend beds, start the daily cleaning regimen. Or she’s made the mistake of returning to her room—in which case, the Bad Man probably already has her, and is playing with his knife, wringing her neck.

  When painting, black is not the absence of color. It is the presence of many colors. Which makes pure evil hard to predict.

  “Does your wife have a personal office in addition to the inn’s?” The blonde again, sounding as if she’s offering the mayor a break.

  “No. Just the one office. For the business.”

  “All right. I’ll go through it myself. We find the proper paperwork for your staff, then all is well.”

  “You need to leave. The night has been long and hard enough. The guests are headed downstairs. I need to pull things together.”

  “With all due respect, sir,” says the other police lady, “that’s not an option.”

  “My wife committed suicide—”

  “Your wife died a suspicious death.”

  “What?” The mayor, sounding bewildered.

  “That’s the current classification.” The Southern cop again. “Suicide is an official ruling. The ME hasn’t made it. Meaning currently, your wife died a suspicious death, and your entire lodging establishment is a crime scene. Be happy Sergeant Warren only wants paperwork.”

  Another pause. Then a sound I don’t completely understand. Suppressed sobbing. Mayor Howard is crying. In all my years, through all that’s happened . . .

  The death of his wife has caused him suffering. Does that make me happy, ease my own pain?

  The sausage gravy is smoking now.

  I don’t care that the mayor is crying. I have heard so many girls cry and what did it ever get them? I’m happy he hurts. So happy, I slam my round cookie cutter through the biscuit dough and shake the prep table.

  Cook eyes me sharply at the unexpected display of emotion, then seems to realize she’s failed in her own cooking duties. Belatedly she snatches the cast-iron skillet off the burner, then curses a blue streak.

  I smile maliciously at her back.

  My mother, my beautiful mamita, brushes my shoulder again. “Chiquita,” I can almost hear her whisper, as if to soothe.

  If I drew me, what colors would I use? Fire like the blond detective? Earth like the second? Or have I become what made me, bright and shiny on the outside with a dark, soulless core?

  I don’t have the answer.

  I worry again about Hélène. Where is she? Why hasn’t she appeared again? She should be as eager as Cook and me to learn what’s happening next. Pulling some sheets doesn’t take that long. And she’s not allowed to start the vacuum cleaner till all the guests are up. Meaning she should be back in the kitchen by now, inventing busywork while eavesdropping on the cops grilling the mayor.

  Unless she did go downstairs.

  Unless the Bad Man did take the opportunity to silence one more weak link.

  Something terrible: That’s what my mami’s presence always means. Danger ahead.

  I can’t take it anymore. I set down the biscuit cutter. And with my hands and apron still dusted with flour, I limp determinedly for the swinging door.

  Behind me, Cook makes a strangled sound. I feel the air move. Maybe she tries to grab me. Maybe, the silvery spirit of my mother blocks her. I don’t look back. No time for looking back.

  I burst into the breakfast room.

  I don’t pay any attention to the mayor, or the burly sheriff, or the FBI lady. I grab the hand of the blond detective.

  I play with fire.

  As I drag her wordlessly from the room, toward the servants’ quarters below.

  * * *

  —

  CHAOS BEHIND US. THE MAYOR hastily pushing back his chair, scrambling to follow. “Wait. Stop!”

  The Southern cop: “This is a crime scene.”

  The purple sheriff: “Mayor Howard, you will sit down. Right now!”

  I don’t pause. I’m slow, my right leg dragging, but I’m also sparking with energy. The blond cop questions nothing. She grips my hand as tightly as I hold hers. I lead her to a small door off the back hallway. The few rooms in this section are administrative—Mrs. Counsel’s office, the filing room, housekeeping supplies. But this door. This unmarked door . . .

  I wrench it open, and as always the first thing that hits me is the whiff of decay. While the house sighs in agitation. Buildings have feelings, too, and what has happened in the levels below has hurt it. I understand these things, though from what I can tell, others don’t.

  I risk a glance at the detective. Her face is impassive. If she catches the odor, feels the house shift nervously, she doesn’t show it. Maybe she’s like the others, deaf to such things.

  Maybe there’s no one like me.

  The stairway light is on. I don’t wait. I can feel a relentless pressure building in my chest. Hélène. Something is wrong. Toward the bottom of the stairs, I trip and nearly go down.

  The detective catches me. “Easy,” she murmurs.

  I’m so strung out I think I might vomit.

  This is it, I realize now. I’ve taken my last stand. Without the killing rage and heroic drama I’d always envisioned. I was going to feel my real name flood through me. I was going to gather my mother’s spirit close. Then I was going to unleash myself like an atom bomb through the black rot of this house, searing away the mayor, his wife, the Bad Man. Reducing them to ash.

  Now I’m down to a frantic race. To find Hélène. To find something, anything, that might communicate all the words I can’t say. If I can make the detective wonder, arouse her suspicions about this place . . . She’s fire, not easily doused. She might leave today, but she’ll question, she’ll gather more information. She’ll know enough not to be put off by the mayor’s fancy ways.

  She’ll leave after this. Then I’ll wait. Because given this stunt, my fate is sealed. Tonight, the Bad Man will return. He’ll step inside my room, lift his knife, and prove what a Stupid Girl I’ve always been.

  Maybe my death will finally give the blond detective what she needs to make the Bad Man pay.

  She
is fire.

  And this whole place needs to burn.

  I start throwing open doors. I don’t even know what’s behind some of them. The Bad Man? Rooms of whips and chains and instruments of torture? Given the sounds I’ve heard over the years, I’ve always wondered.

  The detective is still holding my hand, but I notice now she’s unsnapped her holster. I nod approvingly. She squeezes my fingers.

  The first few rooms are empty. Bare cots, blank walls. These spaces are bigger than mine and hold two to four beds. Hélène’s is farther down the hall. Small like mine. Once she was in a big room with roommates, but when they left, she was sequestered. She doesn’t talk about it. None of the girls ever talk about it. For the past few weeks it’s just been her, me, and Stacey. But then Stacey found the knife and I cleaned up the mess and now it’s just Hélène and me.

  Which is also not good.

  The basement never stays empty for long.

  I come to my little room on the left. I throw open the door, stumble in before the detective can stop me. Is he here? Is he waiting?

  For an instant, I think I see his hulking shape loom ahead. My eyes widen. The Bad Man is here to kill me. But my detective and her fire will get him first.

  Except when I flinch and press back against the wall, the dreaded demon turns out to be only a shadow after all.

  The detective is at my shoulder, breathing heavily. My fear has spread itself to her.

  I try to pull it together. Communicate, communicate—how can I explain?

  Pictures beneath my mattress. I grab the thin mattress, toss it up. I should have a drawing or two. But the floor is bare, the pictures gone. The Bad Man got here first.

  I whimper in sheer frustration. I need to talk, I need to tell. Hélène, Hélène, Hélène.

  Once again, I think I’m going to be sick.

  “Is this your room?” the detective asks.

  I nod, rub my forehead. It hurts so much. The jagged scar feels like a red-hot poker, searing across my skull.

  “Where are your clothes?”

  I shake my head, still massaging my temples.

  “You don’t have any clothes?”

  I point to a small blue pile at the end of my cot, my old, threadbare uniform, which I wear at night.

  “Personal possessions?”

  I hold up two fingers. No.

  “It’s freezing down here.”

  Nod.

  “Bonita, this isn’t right. How they’re treating you . . . this isn’t family taking care of family.”

  I stare at her hard. I try to tell her with my eyes that they’re not my family. My mamita was my family. But the Bad Man shot her, and the bullet hit me—and when I woke up again, here I was. With a cracked skull and a drooping face and no voice.

  Mrs. Counsel, standing over me. “She’s awfully young. Are you sure she won’t grow out of it?”

  The Bad Man, hulking behind her. “The doctor said something about speech aphasia; the bullet damaged the speech/language center of the brain. She’ll never be able to speak, read, or write.”

  “Hmmm. A mute housemaid. I don’t know.”

  “Please, Martha. It’s perfect and you know it.”

  I stare all this at the detective. I try, as hard as one person can, to beam my life story from my head into hers.

  The detective takes my hand again. “Shhh,” she says. “Shhh,” and I realize I’m finally making a sound, from deep in my chest. Keening. I am keening and rocking and crying for the little girl who was gone before she ever had a chance. I’m mourning the life I’ve been trying to return to ever since.

  I need the detective to understand. For someone to see me. For someone to hear me, and all the words that were stolen from my throat.

  “I’ll take you upstairs,” she begins.

  I jerk away. Shake my head furiously. Hélène, we must find Hélène.

  She doesn’t get it. No one gets it. I’m on my own.

  I limp once more for the hallway. I hear noise on the stairs behind us. The others coming to help—or maybe the mayor, having won the battle, coming to interrupt. I can’t worry about him or what he’ll do. Hélène should’ve appeared by now. Something is wrong and I’m the only hope she has.

  Stacey. We never really knew each other. But I watched her die, and in that instant, we were sisters. I have such little family left. So I must do this for her, for Hélène. My sisters in death.

  More doors, flinging them open wildly. I don’t know where the Bad Man is. If he appears, I hope the detective shoots him. If not, I will grab her gun and do it for her. But maybe one of these rooms has Hélène. She’s hiding, she’s frightened. She’s dead.

  It’s all crashing in on me now. My last stand. My final chance. If I can’t make the detective realize what is going on . . .

  Please, please, please . . .

  The pair of heavy wooden doors at the end of the hallway. Guarding the big room, the awful room. Brimstone and blood.

  I shiver. Then I grab the heavy handle and pull with all my strength. But it won’t budge. Locked. Of course. The room where Mrs. Counsel died. The room no one is ever allowed to see.

  I whimper in sheer frustration.

  “Hey now.” The detective, standing beside me again. “It’s okay. I can help. This room, it’s important? You need in?”

  I nod frantically.

  “I’ll get the key. This house is a crime scene. As a detective, I have the right to search.”

  I feel fresh moisture on my cheeks.

  “Are you scared?”

  I nod.

  “Do you want to go back upstairs?”

  I shake my head.

  She reaches out, touches my cheek. Her blue eyes are clear, her features hard. I know she means it when she says, “No one is going to hurt you, Bonita.”

  I can’t help myself. I smile, my crooked, awful smile, all my drooping mouth has ever been able to manage. She doesn’t understand. And I’m still just a Stupid Girl. I take her hand. I press it against my cheek. I let her feel my tears. I let myself experience one moment of human kindness. Probably all I have left.

  I’m going to die tonight. I fear for Hélène. But I mourn for myself and who I might have been.

  Then, I take a deep breath. I straighten my spine. I pull away. I hold up two fingers.

  No. She will not be able to save me. No one can defeat the Bad Man.

  I turn back down the hall, and stumbling over my own dragging leg, continue my search for Hélène.

  CHAPTER 28

  KIMBERLY

  MAYOR HOWARD WAS CLEARLY AGITATED. “You can’t go down there! I am the homeowner. I deny you permission. For God’s sake, my wife is dead. I’m the victim here!”

  He tried to rise from his seat. Sheriff Smithers used his massive hand to force the man back down.

  “Interfere in our investigation again, and I will arrest you,” Kimberly informed the red-faced mayor. She turned to Sheriff Smithers. “You got him?”

  “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Good.”

  Kimberly didn’t know where the silent maid was taking D.D., but the look of determination on the young girl’s face had been enough to tell her it wasn’t good. D.D. could handle it, though. Meaning they had another issue that required immediate tending. Martha Counsel’s office.

  Kimberly wanted first crack at all the woman’s correspondence, business diaries, and official documents. Especially any related to their “niece” and their other workers.

  Here was a fact: Where there was one crime, there were generally dozens more.

  Basically, if Martha Counsel was the kind of woman willing to accept an illegal organ, and her husband was the kind of guy willing to turn a blind eye to such a major scam, what else were they involved with?

  Kimberly was hoping
to find answers in the woman’s office, as apparently Martha Counsel had been the brains of the operation—or at least the head administrator.

  First surprise when she entered the space: Someone had been there first. The left-hand drawer of the cherrywood desk had been yanked open and files spilled across the top and down onto the floor. Further inspection revealed the lock had been forced.

  Kimberly scowled, snapped on gloves, and kneeled down to survey the damage.

  Mayor Howard had been accompanied by Sheriff Smithers at all times, and the sheriff hadn’t mentioned this, meaning it had most likely happened after they were done checking the office’s desktop computer. From that moment on, the mayor had been sequestered in the nook. Which left the cook in the kitchen? It was possible she’d snuck down the hall. Or the maids, Bonita and Hélène. Given Bonita seemed to have a task only D.D. could handle, Kimberly felt it was safe to rule her out.

  Unless, of course, there was someone else in the house.

  Kimberly got that prickly feeling in the back of her neck. Sure, they’d been treating Martha Counsel’s hanging as a suspicious death. But they hadn’t gotten too serious about considering the inn’s guests as a threat.

  Kimberly rose to standing and hurried back to the front room. Keeping her gaze on Mayor Howard, who sat in distressed silence, she pulled aside Sheriff Smithers.

  “Where are we with interviewing the guests?”

  “Four couples. I sent a deputy up to fetch them. They were getting dressed, given the early morning hour, then coming on down.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know.” He glanced at his watch. “Been thirty minutes or so.”

  “No one needs thirty minutes to get dressed. Have your deputy escort them down, right now. Verify everyone’s photo ID, take all vitals. The office has been burglarized. Something more is going on here. Or someone else is in this hotel.”

  Sheriff Smithers thinned his lips, nodded curtly. He activated the radio clipped to his shoulder, murmured some instructions low enough for the mayor to remain oblivious, then resumed his oversight of the dining room.

  Kimberly hightailed it back to the office. Now she noticed a painted door ajar just beyond the office. It produced a draft of cold air. Stairs to the basement, she realized. That’s what Mayor Howard had been talking about. He didn’t want them going “down there.” More power to Bonita and D.D., then. Kimberly hoped the girl was giving D.D. the grand tour—deadly family secret here, evil doings there. That would be perfect.