Her Silent Shadow: A Gripping Psychological Suspense Collection

by Edwin Dasso

  "On the Mercedes?"

  "Yep. I managed to pry off the little VIN number plates on the dashboard, too. I was going to swap seats, but my nice leathers are too fucked up. I'll just have to live with cloth seats for a while. The next step is to figure out how to change out the ignition switches. Get my key to work."

  "So if we’re rescued, you can drive right out."

  "Damn right."

  I lower my voice. "Sandra's sleeping. We have to wake her in a little while to loosen the belt again, but first, what's her deal?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well—" I consider my words carefully. "You work with her. You must know her at least a little. Why is she afraid of us?"

  "She's not afraid of us."

  "She was hiding in her car. She knew we were down here, that we could help her. But she didn't call out. She was hiding from us."

  Jax's big brow furrows, as if there's something he can't quite get a handle on. Something just beyond his reach. He whispers to keep from raising his voice, but it's a harsh, angry whisper. "Maybe it's because she hates men."

  "Hates men?"

  "I didn't think it was a big deal, but when I asked her out she told me to fuck off."

  "Were you married at the time?"

  "Yeah."

  "And she knew?"

  "I suppose. That doesn't give her the right to call me a pig."

  With her eyes still closed, Sandra says, "He hit me."

  "I told you I was sorry,” he says.

  "We were alone in the elevator, and you hit me."

  "I only meant to push you. I was angry."

  She opens her eyes and sits up. "Yeah, well, you fucking hit me."

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Christ, how many times do I have to say it?"

  "Well, we're all in the same boat, now,” I say. “And we're going to have to work together if we're going to survive."

  "Survive?” she says. “You mean stay alive until, what? We starve to death? Suffocate?"

  "No. Until a rescue team digs us out."

  She laughs derisively. The laugh turns into a sob.

  I pick up the gym towel. "Come on. Let's loosen that belt again."

  6

  Violet

  I didn’t open the envelope from Violet at work. I waited until the trip home to be sure I’d have some privacy. I stopped at a Starbucks, bought a coffee, and sat in my car. In the envelope was a sheet of pastel yellow stationary penned in a flowery script.

  Blue eyes. Not pale blue. Steel blue.

  Gray blue. Piercing blue.

  A blue that penetrates my defenses.

  A blue that touches my soul.

  The first thing I see in the morning,

  and the last thing I see at night. Blue eyes.

  She hadn’t addressed it to me or signed it. No names. Smart. I was flattered, of course. I folded the stationary, slipped it back into the envelope, and put it in my pocket. I should have thrown it away. I should have torn it up. But I have a box of papers at home with a couple of love letters from my ex. I hid it in there, figuring if Dana found it I could say my ex wrote it. Hiding something from my wife shouldn’t have been that easy.

  7

  Hades

  I've been lounging around listening to music for almost two hours. When the Mustang's battery started to run down, I cannibalized a few of the neighboring cars. Now I have a half-dozen batteries, and I can just swap them out when I need more power. Sandra went back to her Prius. She said she wanted to be alone for a while. Her wound has clotted, so thankfully, she doesn't need my belt. I don't know what Jax is doing. Truth is, I don't give a shit what either of them are doing. I gave them each a third of my pudding cups and a bottle of water. Then I went scavenging again and found a nice stash of blues CDs in a pickup truck, so I've been spending time with Lightnin' Hopkins, Little Walter, and Muddy Waters.

  I also gathered all the half-full thermoses and drink cups I could find. When my phone died I lost track of time. I have a vague idea of how long we've been trapped, but I don't have any idea whether it's currently day or night. The odds of being rescued seem remote. I've given up on the SOS honking campaign.

  There was a flashlight in the truck with the blues CDs. After this next song I’ll get off my ass and have another look at the places along the walls where rubble is stacked to the ceiling. If I can find a place that looks like a rubble-filled stairway, I'm going to start digging out. I'd rather die from a cave in than starve to death. At least I will have been doing something, taking some action. Seeing me lying around listening to music and feeling sorry for myself would have upset my parents. My philosophic father would have been peppering me with quotes from Zeno or Marcus Aurelius. "Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear." Yeah, well, I'd like to see Marcus Aurelius dig his way out from under a twelve-story building.

  In addition to my tire iron I've got a long, steel pipe I found in the bed of the pickup truck. It's sturdier than the lengths of rebar scattered around the garage. They bend if you put your weight on them. I take my tools and a bottle of water and start my reconnaissance, working my way over to the closest wall from my Mustang. There’s a jumble of concrete piled up to a straight horizontal ridge about two feet below the ceiling here. If it's a stairway filled with rubble, maybe I can clear it.

  I put the long pipe and flashlight down in a safe place and carefully climb the stack to the top. There's just enough light from the few remaining fluorescents. The first couple pieces of concrete come out easily, and I heave them down to shatter on the floor below. The noise is startlingly loud. I imagine Jax and Sandra are wondering what I'm up to. Work goes smoothly for a while. I feel up under the straight ridge, and it is, indeed, the lintel to a doorway. I only need to clear enough to slide through, see what's on the other side. I use the tire iron to pry out football and fist-size chunks, but I soon run across a slab too big to move. I climb back down and retrieve the long pipe. Wedging it into a hole on the side of the slab, and using the concrete doorframe as a fulcrum, I lean my weight against the pipe. The slab moves about two inches before an edge catches on the doorframe. I push with my hand to back the slab off a bit and put the end of the pipe under the front edge of the slab. This time I push down on the pipe, and the slab raises just enough to pass the doorjamb and slide forward. I repeat this move until the slab is clear and I can lever it out to tumble down the pile. I scrape away a few more chunks, and lying on my back, wiggle, head first, into the hole. A few pebbles rain down on my forehead, and I close my eyes to keep the dust out. When I open them again I slide the flashlight in past my head. I can't tell if I'm looking at a stairway entrance or another room in the garage.

  More pebbles pelt my forehead. I pull back just as a slew of loose concrete cascades down, filling the space. A dust cloud shoots out, catching me full in the face. I stumble blindly down the pile, sneezing and coughing, using the long pole for support. I wipe the dust out of my eyes, bend over and clench my fists. “Fucking hell!” There are twelve floors worth of concrete waiting to slide down and fill that doorway. Fuck it. Fuck Marcus Aurelius. This is bullshit. I'm going back to the Mustang.

  I’m feeling sorry for myself. Self-pity, in general, disgusts me, and my own self-pity is insufferable. It leads to self-loathing, which leads back to self-pity. I spend the next hour or so listening to CDs and blowing dust out of my nose. I dedicate the Sunday comics section of the Los Angeles Times to this task. Reading the comic strips cheers me up a little. I open a pudding cup and settle back to snack while listening to music. My car battery is starting to wear down, though. BB King's "Night Life" sounds more like a slow yodel than a blues tune. I turn off the CD player, get out of the car, and walk around to the front where I've stacked the spare batteries. I pop the hood, and while I'm disconnecting the battery terminals, I see a movement under the car. I step back a few feet. If it’s a rat, I don't want it biting my ankle or climbing up my leg. I bend down to look under the car, and there’s the biggest cockroa
ch I've ever seen. It's also the most assured. It doesn't scurry like other insects. It walks deliberately toward me, and when I lift my foot to squash it, it just stops and looks at me. I change my mind. Instead of squashing it, I get down on my hands and knees to catch it. It takes off, running back under the car. It turns to the right, so I move around to the driver's side and slap my hand over it just as it comes out from behind the tire. I manage to pick it up by cupping my hands together. Its wiggling tickles my palm. I've got a plastic bag in the Mustang, and I put the roach in the bag and fold the top over. This frees up my hands so I can unravel a long thread from the ripped hem of my shirt. I fashion a slipknot in the thread and manage to get the loop around one of the roach's back legs. I place the roach on the dashboard and tie the other end of the thread to the rear view mirror above the roach's head. The roach tries the limits of his tether, and then stops to look at me.

  "Your name is Gregor," I tell it. "Get used to it."

  I go back out to the front of the car and finish hooking up the new battery. When I get back I cue up Muddy's version of "Rollin' and Tumblin'" and settle back. My mind is numb. My eyelids feel heavy. I don’t want to think anymore. I finish off the pudding, except for a few dabs at the bottom of the cup, which I give to Gregor. A friend of mine once told me, "Eat alone, die alone." As long as I'm going to die, I might as well share my meager rations with my new best friend. The cockroach feels around the rim of the cup then crawls inside to dine. I think about Dana. I really miss her. It worries me that she doesn't have anyone here in LA to take care of her.

  Gregor finishes his pudding and saunters back out of the cup.

  “That’s it, buddy. We’re on rations.”

  An engine starts up back by the Hummer. I guess Jax has figured out how to hot-wire a car. Then there’s the squeal of tires and a crash.

  8

  Violet

  I’ve been avoiding Violet at work since our last lunch together. I had driven us to the restaurant, and on the way back to the office I turned at La Brea, pulled onto a yucca-lined residential street, and parked. We faced one another, not saying a word. Then I leaned across and kissed her. It was our first kiss—a furious kiss, passionate. And it lasted a long time. For days after, I experienced a confusing mix of emotions—exhilaration, guilt, and fear. I frightened myself.

  The article I read about work spouses said having a crush on someone outside of your marriage was perfectly normal. It said a survey had determined that seventy percent of married women have work crushes. The figure for men was even higher. It also said that acting on a crush was foolish and risky and could destroy your marriage.

  9

  Hades

  There's almost a half bottle of cranberry vodka left. I take it and a couple of pudding cups and go looking for Jax. The lights from a few car headlights send long shadows up the walls and across the chunks of concrete and pieces of rebar that litter the floor. As I move through the wreckage, I peer into the cars that haven't been cracked open yet. There’s a bottle of water and a flashlight in one of them. I smash a window with my tire iron to get them. The noise of the breaking glass is especially loud.

  Jax is lounging in the back seat of a minivan with a mashed front end. It looks like he drove it into a pillar. Obviously, the pillar won. As I slide into the driver’s seat, he holds his hand out for the vodka, but I give him a pudding cup instead.

  “Get a little nutrition, first,” I say.

  He gives me a look but peels off the foil anyway.

  “What am I supposed to eat this with?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. There weren’t any spoons in the car with the pudding. I peel the foil away from my cup, lick the pudding off the back of the foil, and fold it in half and in half again. It’s just sturdy enough to act as a little spoon. I scoop out some of the pudding and hold it up. “Try this.”

  I watch Jax fold his foil in quarters and try to scoop pudding from his cup. His fingers are too big to manipulate the foil, and he spills the pudding. After two more unsuccessful attempts he hurls the pudding cup out the open door to splat against the side of a yellow Jeep. Jax holds out his hand again and says, “Give me the fucking vodka.”

  I hand it over, and we sit in silence for a bit. Each lost in his own world. Has Dana noticed that I'm missing? Does she care that I'm missing?

  Jax hands me the vodka and says, “Well, I guess my office is kaput. I hope my executive assistant wasn’t killed in the collapse.”

  “You have a secretary?”

  “Oh yeah. I had the firm’s highest GCI three years running.”

  “What’s GCI?”

  “Gross Commissionable Income. I’m the best fucking closer this company ever saw. I’m the fucking king of south county real estate. I’ve won awards, trophies.” He closes his eyes. I think he’s through talking when he says, “I guess they’re buried, now. Just like us.” He’s quiet for a minute, then says, “I'm hungry as hell."

  "I've got some more pudding cups stashed in my new domicile. I'll go get a couple if you can fashion a spoon for yourself." I open the minivan's glove compartment. "There's some cardboard in here you could use."

  "Nah. Pudding isn't going to do it. What I need is a nice pastitsio."

  "What's that?"

  "Noodle casserole with meat and cheese. Very filling. I make it according to my mother's recipe, with lamb instead of ground beef."

  "Sounds good. You like to cook?"

  "Yeah well, I have to. Everything my wife cooks tastes like crap. Another reason I liked wife number two better. She was a good cook." He makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a laugh and a snort. "We cooked together when the kids were little. We'd each prepare a dish. Back then we had a house with a small kitchen, so we'd have to jockey for counter space while we cooked. It was fun. Reminded me of when I was a kid learning to cook from my mother."

  "I'm not a very good cook, but I can bake. My grandmother taught me. Her house always smelled like baking bread. My wife and I used to bake together, too. I guess I associate the smell of baking with home.” I see Dana in the kitchen. I imagine sifted flour spreading out across the board in a little cloud, then kneading and rolling out the dough, every step a small meditation. “Baking helps me relax."

  "You know what else does that? Fucking."

  “Yeah. Sex is a great way to relax.”

  “Let me tell you about the first time I got laid.”

  “Really? You want to talk about sex while we’re trapped underground? Pick a different topic.”

  “Nah. We’ll be dead in a week if not sooner. Anyway, my dad took me to a hooker to get my dick sucked when I turned eighteen, but I didn’t get laid ‘till my first year in college. I was on the wrestling team, and this girl, Helen, would come to the matches. She had red hair and big tits. I think her brother was on the team. I always won, and I guess that turned her on because she asked me out. I was living in a house off-campus with some other guys, and on our very first date I took her back to my room. Since it was my first time, I was a little nervous, but she was experienced. She talked through the whole thing, telling me what to do. She must have fucked a lot of guys before because when I put my dick inside her it was like opening a window and fucking the world.” He thumps his chest with one hand and adds, “And you know I haven’t got a small dick. We fucked after every tournament for the rest of the season. Sometimes she’d come over during the week, and we’d do it. I lost track of her after that semester. I think she dropped out, married some guy, and moved to Ohio.” He’s quiet for a moment, remembering. “All right. What about you?”

  I don’t want to tell him about my first time. I had been so excited I came right away. It was humiliating. And everything with this guy is a competition. He’s probably one of those guys who measure the length of his dick. Telling him about my first time would definitely be a losing strategy. Instead, I decide to tell him about the first time I had sex with Dana.

  Jax kicks the back of my seat. “Well?”

/>   “Okay. I didn’t go to college. After high school I got a job apprenticing for a design studio. My girlfriend went away to the University of Illinois, a hundred and fifty miles south of Chicago. Every Friday I’d drive down after work and spend the weekend. She had some deal worked out with her roommate so we could have the room to ourselves. Despite humans having had sex for the last two hundred thousand years, we acted like we had just discovered it. We were explorers, learning about each other’s bodies. She’d always burn sandalwood incense. She also had a little black kitten, which was just as much against the rules as having a man in the dorm, but the R.A. on her floor was easily bought off with a couple of joints.”

  Jax kicks the back of my seat again. “Yeah, yeah, you were a couple of little hippies. What did she look like?”

  “She had long brown hair and wore glasses, but she always took them off when we were kissing. Anyway, the time I remember most vividly we had spent the day driving around the back roads in the surrounding farm country, just talking and listening to music. We brought a pizza back to the room, but we were both too horny to eat. We stripped and climbed into her bunk.” I close my eyes and remember. "I moved on top of her and buried my face in her hair. She smelled like cigarettes and almond soap. After a few minutes I could feel her starting to come. I raised myself up on my forearms so I could see her face. Her eyelids were half closed, and her mouth was half open. Her breathing was quick and throaty. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to freeze that image of her, to burn it into my retinas so I’d always have it."

  I realize I don’t want to share this experience. It's one of my most cherished memories. To this day, the scent of almond soap takes me right back there. Turning it into locker room talk has tainted it, maybe ruined it. I slide out of my seat and stand next to the mini-van. “I’m sorry, man. I’m really tired. Must be the vodka. I’m going back to my Mustang to lie down.”