by CJ Lyons
Tommaso didn’t need to know the last, but it massaged my ego to tell him. For all of about half a millisecond. Then I remembered Tymara’s voice, broken with terror, from last night.
“Later, then,” he said, pressing his card into my palm. “Call me. When you’re free today. I am at your disposal.”
I slid the card into my pocket without looking at it. “I’ll do that.”
As I walked the three blocks from Good Samaritan to the Kingston Tower, I wondered about Tommaso. Was he the greatest suck-up in the world, or was it simply natural Italian charm? As a neurofellow, he’d be applying for real jobs soon, probably wanted to make a good impression on Louise—not to mention needing me to be his lab rat for his research.
The Tower came into view, its seven stories with two long wings stretching out from its main entrance on the corner shadowing even the massive Gothic cathedral that stood on the opposite end of the block. During most of my time working Good Sam’s ER and Advocacy Center, the Tower had been the main source of much of the blood and tears I’d seen.
It had been built by Daniel Kingston in the seventies. A high-rise, low-income housing unit designed to enhance the community rather than segregate, it featured revolutionary rooftop gardens and a greenhouse, an expansive playground nestled next to St. Timothy’s cathedral, and modern amenities. At least, that’s what the plans had promised.
The reality had fallen short of Daniel’s design. Nothing had ever been planted in the rooftop greenhouse except marijuana. The playground was quickly overrun by drug dealers. And the Tower became gang territory, with its residents, mainly women and children, enduring a siege behind locked doors that did little to protect them. The reign of terror had climaxed last month when Leo Kingston used his father’s Tower as his stalking ground.
As I reached the block, I ignored the stout, soot-stained walls of St. Tim’s to stare past the cathedral to the roof of the Tower. It was there that I’d killed Leo. He’d been poised to kill me, Ryder, and Esme, so I had no regrets.
But that didn’t stop the nightmares. I guess the extra meds hadn’t quite kicked in yet because Leo’s final screams, heard only by me, echoed so strongly through my mind I had to stop and close my eyes, terrified I’d open them to see his face. A car honking brought me back to life. I licked my lips, trying to erase the taste of bile and stench of ashes. I shook myself free of the memory, and continued past the playground between the church and the Tower.
Empty of children, a lone man rocked on one of the swings. Despite his designer suit and overcoat, Devon Price looked at home there on the playground where he’d grown up—as if he owned the space. Which, I guess he did now that he controlled the Kingston family fortune.
“Good morning,” Devon called. He gave me a wave then leaned back, pushing in a circle, twisting the chains, as he turned his face to the pale morning sky. I remembered the game, and couldn’t help but smile as he raised his feet and spun like a top set free. His face filled with a joyful grin, unleashing the child in the man. That was Devon: a unique mix of sinner and saint, killer and protector, aged before his time, yet still able to experience innocent joy.
The chains finished unraveling, and he sat up straight. “Come on, try it.”
The concrete path through the playground had been shoveled, leaving a mound of snow between where I stood and the cleared area around the swing set. I glanced at my shoes—plain black leather flats, more suitable for court than my usual hiking boots. Devon leapt from the swing, stretching to take my arm, and guided me in a less-than-graceful jump to clear the snow.
We sat on the swings, basking in the faint rays of winter sun and the crisp blue sky. It was December twenty-second, one of the shortest days of the year, yet the sky radiated hope that it could hold back the coming dark.
“Isn’t it early for you to be out?” I asked as we swayed, chains squeaking above us. Devon wasn’t exactly a morning person.
“Promised you I’d look after Tymara. Least I could do is escort her to court. Nothing like what happened to her is ever going to happen again, not while I own the Tower.”
I glanced at him. He meant what he said, despite the fact we both knew it was a promise he was powerless to keep. “Thanks.”
“What did Louise say?” he asked as he glided back and forth.
Instead of answering, I swung in a semicircle, facing away from him. Devon knew all my secrets and more about my disease and symptoms than anyone. Even Louise. It helped, having one person who understood, but it also left me feeling strangely vulnerable.
After a long moment, he touched my arm. “How long?”
I shrugged, the swing spinning me back toward him. “You know how you told me about your plans for the Tower?”
His face lit up as he twisted away from St. Tim’s oppressive Gothic stone to face the yellow brick of the Tower behind us. He tilted his gaze up to the roof where the sun glinted from the glass of the greenhouse. “We’ll be planting the community garden come spring, and work’s already begun on the seventh floor. A full-sized gymnasium, art and music studios, a small theater, job training center, and if I can get the city and state approvals, a day care. This time next year, we should be up and running.”
His voice dropped suddenly. He lowered his face to stare at me, his expression filled with regret. “That soon? I’m so sorry. You deserve better.”
We sat in silence, the chill breeze rocking us until he stood, took my hand, helped me off the swing, and once again over the mound of snow at the edge of the sidewalk. We turned toward the Tower. “I’m going to ask the lead researchers at Kingston Enterprises to put everything into fatal insomnia. After all, what good is it inheriting a multinational, multibillion-dollar corporation, if you can’t help a friend?”
I shook my head. “It’s a one-in-a-hundred-million diagnosis, Devon. Never going to make you any money. Besides, research takes time.” Time I no longer had.
He took my hand again, gave it a squeeze. “You know me better than that. I don’t give a shit about money. If I did, I would have given up on this place long ago.”
I knew what he really cared about, even if he’d never admit it. He wanted to create a legacy worthy of his daughter. “How is Esme?”
He hung his head. “Not so good. Flynn says she’s still having night terrors. She hates it there—turns out a class of ten-year-old girls is more vicious than the Russian mob. If Flynn had her way, she’d take them all out.”
“I’m sure Flynn is trying her best, but, Devon, don’t forget she was trained by your father.” Daniel Kingston had thought it amusing to take a street kid like Flynn and turn her into a killing machine. I wasn’t sure if Flynn ever actually killed anyone, but Daniel had brainwashed her into thinking she was some kind of invincible, lethal, stealth weapon, untethered by morals, answering only to his command. Thankfully, she was absolutely devoted to Esme.
“Speaking of friends, I could use your help on something else.”
That piqued my interest. It wasn’t like Devon to be so circumspect with a request. “Not anything illegal?”
He chuckled. “God, no. Medical. I think. Can you meet me tonight?”
“You know I’m not practicing—” I raised my hands, let them fall again.
“Don’t need your hands, just your opinion. My best chef is worried about his grandson, doesn’t believe what the doctors are telling them. Thought you’d be a good translator since you speak medicalese. I’ll pick you up after court.”
We reached the front steps to the Tower. A pair of teenage boys—former Royales, I could tell by the gang’s crown-shaped brand on the backs of their hands—slouched against the front wall of the building. They straightened as soon as they saw Devon.
“Shouldn’t you two be in school?” Devon asked.
“Christmas break. No school,” one answered, while the other nervously adjusted the drawstring on his hoodie, sawing it back and forth.
“You’re not corner boys anymore. You got time on your hands, fill
it with honest work.” Devon glanced over his shoulder back the way we came. “Going to snow again. Grab some of the others, make sure all the paths and sidewalks are clear from here to St. Tim’s and then around the rest of the block. People are going to want to get to the store, get their holiday groceries—you help the old ones. Do that, and I’ll have Little Mike open the arcade for you.”
“Yes, sir.” And they took off, a blur of red and black nylon.
Devon opened the door and held it for me. “Should I be worried that the next generation would rather be paid with empty hours of video games than cash?”
“Quite a change from the reception I got last time I was here.” Then, I’d been greeted by Royales pointing guns at me.
“What are the social workers always saying? They aren’t bad kids, they just need direction? Turns out, there’s some truth in that.”
We crossed through the lobby to the elevators. The gang graffiti was gone, the walls freshly painted. The elevators were working as well. The doors dinged open, and a woman with a baby in a stroller emerged, smiling and nodding at Devon. In a few weeks’ time, Devon had managed to turn the Tower from a place in which its residents felt like prisoners, trapped inside their own homes, to a place where a woman felt safe enough to ride an elevator without fearing for her life.
“You know,” he said as he pressed the button for Tymara’s floor and the doors closed, “wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if Eugene got off today.”
How like Devon to address even a rapist like Eugene Littleton by his first name. Ryder was the only man I’d ever heard Devon use a last name with. As if Ryder was the only man Devon felt any respect for.
Devon’s lack of respect extended to the justice system as well. He trusted himself to take care of matters more than he trusted the law. And here, in the Tower, he was the law. Didn’t matter to him that Tymara’s rape had occurred long before Devon returned home. He couldn’t risk anyone thinking they could get away with attacking someone under his protection. “If Eugene went free, I’d make certain he and his partners paid the price for their actions.”
“I can’t do that, and you know it.”
“All it would take is a few slips of the tongue, a few forgotten facts, and he’d walk.” His smile had a hint of the devil in it. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t kill him. I—I need him alive and talking, telling me all about his friends.”
“And once you had them, then you’d kill them all.”
He shrugged one shoulder, tried a different tactic. “Do you know what the people of the Tower call the men Eugene was working with? The Brotherhood. It’s like they’re demons or devils, hiding in the shadows. Folks here are frightened that Tymara was only their first victim. They worry they might be the next.”
“I haven’t heard of any more rapes like hers.” Using a proxy like Eugene Littleton was an unusual method of sexual assault, especially for an attack with such overwhelming violence. They could have easily grabbed any woman off the street without involving Littleton, but instead carefully orchestrated Tymara’s rape as if following an elaborate script. In fact, that was Littleton’s main defense: “They made me do it.” If you believed him, he was a hapless pawn taken advantage of by the real criminals. Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from protecting them with his silence while he was in jail awaiting trial.
“I think she was their first—or the first anyone paid any attention to,” Devon said. “Unless we stop them, she won’t be the last.”
The elevator stopped, and we emerged into a small lobby with a miniature Christmas tree sparking colors against the bare white wall. Devon really had done a great job of rejuvenating the place in just three short weeks. Two long corridors stretched in opposite directions, and the smells of bacon and waffles wafting through the air mingled with the sounds of children excited by their first day of Christmas break and the competing rhythms of hip-hop and gospel music. I even spotted a few garlands of tinsel and evergreen wreaths hung from doors.
I hesitated. Tymara was terrified to testify, which was why I’d promised to escort her to the courthouse. After her attack, I wasn’t sure how comfortable she’d be with a man’s presence.
Devon understood. “I’ll wait here.”
I continued down the hall to Tymara’s door. To my surprise, it was slightly ajar. She was expecting me. Still, I knocked. The door swung open.
Every light was on to ensure that whoever opened the door wouldn’t miss a single horrific detail. It was the smell that hit me first, even as my brain tried to negotiate what my vision ruthlessly recorded.
Tymara. Her naked body displayed in the space in front of the doorway, skin flayed open like a bearskin rug, her organs spilling out. Her eyes were wide open, her palms nailed to the floor, her legs spread wide.
I must have made a noise. Whatever it was, I didn’t hear it. All I could hear were Devon’s footsteps as he pounded down the hall, racing in time with my heart beating in my ears. Gagging, I turned away and came face-to-face with one last atrocity.
Her severed tongue nailed to the wall beside the door.
Devon hauled me back, out into the hallway. His arms squeezed the breath from me when he saw what was left of Tymara. My mind filled with blurred sounds, as if in a tunnel: Devon’s curses, voices of neighbors, Devon shouting at them to get back inside, call 911, and my heart roaring, howling that this could not be happening.
I’m not sure how much time passed before he released me. I slumped against the wall, sweat pouring from me, swallowing hard to keep from vomiting.
“I’ll kill the sons of bitches,” Devon muttered as he turned his back on the sight of Tymara’s body. His voice was hoarse, tight. Which made it all the more deadly. “They’re going to wish they’d never been born.”
“It’s my fault,” I whispered, gagging on my tears. “She didn’t want to testify. I talked her into it. Told her it was the right thing to do, that it would keep her safe.”
I slapped my palm against the wall, the sting burning through my shock, the violent motion pushing me upright.
“Did you see?” I asked him, although I knew the answer. “Did you see what those animals did to her?”
Devon had a good poker face, but he wasn’t using it now, not with me. The honesty of his rage burned in his eyes. “I saw.”
“They won’t get away with it,” I said, spacing my words, taking care with each one. “I’m not going to let them.”
“Leave them to me.” He leaned in close, so close his face blocked the rest of the world from my view. “Get Eugene Littleton off. I’ll get him to talk. No one comes into my Tower and does this to my people.”
Vigilante justice. Street justice. Surely Tymara deserved more. Hadn’t I promised her more?
“No. We do this my way. She came to the Advocacy Center for justice, and I’ll get it for her.” It wasn’t Devon I was making my vow to, not any unseen deity either. It was Tymara. “I promise.”
He opened his mouth, ready to argue, but the elevator doors chimed. He glanced down the hall, saw the shine of uniforms and badges, and frowned. Time wasted with the police was time better served hunting Tymara’s killers.
“You got this?”
I nodded, and he vanished down the hall.
Leaving me to wrestle with my conscience and what my good intentions had brought Tymara.
Chapter Six
It didn’t take long for the police to finish with me once the detectives arrived. The first officers had escorted me away from the crime scene to the empty manager’s office on the first floor. The room was small, windowless, overcrowded with men, and stifling.
Shivering with shock, I sat on a cheap office chair, unable to resist a compulsion to pick at a wad of foam that had escaped through a split in the vinyl arm. Anything to avoid thinking of Tymara.
It didn’t work.
At least eight uniformed and suited policemen asked me questions.
Did you touch anything?
Nothing but the doorkno
b.
Did you go inside the apartment?
No.
Is there anyone she was fearful of? Did she mention anything unusual?
And so it went. My answers emerged by rote, mechanical. My teeth chattered. Until, finally, it was my turn to ask a question: What time did she die?
I didn’t get an answer. Not that I needed one. The math was painfully obvious.
After I was dismissed, I pushed through the throng of curious onlookers, mainly kids off from school who crowded the Tower’s front stoop, squinting at the Medical Examiner’s van.
Once I was released from the confines of the Tower, my chills turned into a fever sweat.
Not sure where to go next, I stumbled back to the swings where Devon and I had sat earlier.
This time, I walked through the snow bank, inviting the wet chill that came with it. I shed my coat and held it in my lap. I felt queasy, sick. I’d seen my fair share of violence, but nothing like what I’d just witnessed.
No. That was wrong. I had seen something like this before.
Last month, when Leo Kingston was close to death, I’d entered his mind via the bizarre symptom-gift-curse of my fatal insomnia. Despite what Louise said, there was no way in hell—and I mean that literally—I could ever create any delusion or hallucination as warped as what Leo had done to the women he’d tortured and killed.
The memory overwhelmed what little control I had left. My body went slack, sending the swing spinning, only my arms wrapped around the chains preventing me from falling.
A dissonant chorus of women screaming filled my entire body, every cell shrinking from the noise; blood painting my vision.
One of my fugues.
As blood raged around me, my body frozen, I was unable to halt the awful visions that played out in exquisite, horrifying detail. Not delusions or hallucinations. Memories. Not mine. Leo Kingston’s.
My eyes stared, unblinking, at the snow, and drool slid from my mouth as my fugue forced me to relive Leo’s memories. I tried to fight them, shove them behind a locked door in my brain, better yet, bury them sixty feet deep, but they were too overwhelming. And vivid, so very vivid.
