Strangers She Knows

by Christina Dodd

  Clouds from the storm streamed past, darkened the moon.

  The moon came out. The rain came down, drops of silver.

  More clouds. More rain. More moon.

  Somehow, she had to somehow free herself, nourish herself, find Mara and kill her.

  Her mind tried to sort through the possibilities. How could she kill Mara? Only with Mara’s death could she save Rae.

  At the thought of Rae, more tears rained down Kellen’s cheeks. She tried to shake them away, but she wasn’t in charge of her emotions, they had charge of her. She sobbed aloud, broken with the thought of her daughter and her husband, lost in the fathomless ocean…

  No. No, they weren’t lost. She had faith in Max. He could handle every challenge.

  Abruptly the tears dried, and she could think again.

  She was pinned to the table. Again, with her atrophied hand, she grasped the protruding end of the needle. Her fingers were shaking. The metal was slick with blood. Mara had driven the point deep into the wood. Kellen couldn’t draw it out, yet every time she tried, every time the needle wiggled, the agony that couldn’t get worse—got worse.

  She stopped, panting with effort and pain.

  What had Mara said? That she had pulled the needle through her palm, like a stitch through a cloth.

  If Mara could do it, so could Kellen.

  Bracing herself, Kellen lifted her hand.

  She screamed and passed out…

  She lifted her head from the dresser.

  Mara. The drug. Her hand. Max. Rae. They all mixed in her confused brain.

  Mara had placed water on the edge of the dresser.

  Water. Drugged water. But she desperately needed water. If she could reach it, that would give her the strength. She reached and strained. She touched the glass with her fingertips—and knocked it off the dresser.

  She cried. Again.

  She was a failure. She was a nobody. Less than a nobody. She was a woman who let a madwoman claim Rae as her own.

  Consciousness vanished.

  Consciousness returned.

  With every fade and every return, she was aware the drug’s effect was finally, finally weakening. Which didn’t help, because what good was cognizance when she hadn’t the fortitude to pull her hand free? Yet she tried. And tried.

  How long had she been here? The clock said one. 1:00 a.m.? Only that?

  Yes, for night still pressed against the window and the storm whistled in derision. How many more hours of suffering before Mara released her?

  She couldn’t wait for Mara. She had to save herself.

  As she braced herself for another attempt, a shuffling noise and a faint light focused her attention at a crack in the wall.

  Kellen blinked, trying to clear the hallucination. But the crack grew wider, became a door. In the door, an angel appeared, dressed in loose white robes with white hair swept back from her soft, wrinkled face.

  Had Kellen died?

  Her attention fixed on the light the angel carried. A flashlight, not a candle or an eternal flame.

  What kind of heavenly battery ran an angel’s flashlight?

  Kellen felt a soft snuffling at her free hand, a paw on her leg. She looked down, and there she was: Luna, alive and well and whining anxiously, nudging at Kellen, wanting to comfort her. An angel dog.

  Luna’s nose was not spiritual, but wet and cold. Her tongue was slobbery. Her nails scratched at the wood floor; they needed to be trimmed.

  Again Kellen cried, tears of joy, and over and over she whispered, “Luna, you’re alive. Luna, my darling dog.” She rubbed Luna’s head, and took comfort from the hard warmth and warm, soft ears.

  The angel leaned over them both, and in a voice marked by a delicate tremor, she murmured, “You poor dear,” and in an angrier tone, “That woman is a monster.” She placed the flashlight on the dresser, went to the door and locked it. “We don’t want any unexpected visitors, do we?”

  “Please. Water.” Kellen’s voice held the same tremor. “Fresh water she never touched.”

  “Trust me, dear. I brought everything.” This was an old angel; slowly she went into the heavenly light and slowly she returned with an old-fashioned thermos. She unscrewed the lid, poured water with a shaking hand into the cup, and held it to Kellen’s lips.

  Kellen steadied her, and the two of them gave Kellen a sip. The first taste was clean and wet, and Kellen couldn’t wait. She took the cup and drank it all the way down.

  Luna sat and thumped her tail in approval.

  “Good for you, dear,” the angel said. “More?”

  “Please.” Kellen drank. This was what she’d needed. Her mind really was clearing now, yet she was aware of a vast exhaustion, sorrow, anger. “Now. Can you remove the needle?”

  “I can try.” Old Angel reached out a hand, crooked and spotted, and tugged.

  The needle twisted.

  Kellen sobbed.

  Luna whined.

  Old Angel pulled away in distress. “I’m sorry! I haven’t any strength, and I never imagined this. This I didn’t come prepared for. I wish I had my scissors. I think we could cut the needle.”

  “Yes! Scissors.” Hope blossomed in Kellen. “In the bathroom!”

  “Perfect.” Old Angel made her slow, unsteady way toward the bathroom door.

  Luna left Kellen’s side and accompanied her, and once when the angel staggered, Luna was there to steady her.

  They returned together, and the angel wore an angelic smile. “I have the scissors, but even better—look what I found under the sink!” She showed Kellen a pair of pliers.

  “Thank God. Thank you. Hurry.”

  Old Angel manipulated the pliers as she did everything—slowly. “Your darling husband does scatter his tools around, doesn’t he? There’s a Phillips head screwdriver in there, too. But I don’t think we have a use for that, do we?”

  “I tell him—every tool in its place. But he doesn’t listen.”

  “Of course not, dear.” Old Angel wrapped the pliers around the head of the needle. “Can you help?”

  Kellen wrapped her free hand around the angel’s and counted, “One. Two. Three.”

  They yanked.

  The needle stuck, then released so suddenly Old Angel staggered back.

  Kellen groaned in pain and relief.

  Luna barked.

  They all stilled, fearing Mara’s knock at the door.

  Old Angel sighed. “I don’t think she heard us.”

  “She’s afraid of dogs,” Kellen told her.

  “Is she?” Old Angel sounded satisfied, and not quite so angelic now.

  Kellen lifted her hand from the dresser. Blood smeared the surface from the hole in her palm. Dark purple bruising radiated out toward her swollen fingers. “First aid. In the bathroom.”

  “I was afraid you’d be hurt, so I brought my own first aid kit.” Old Angel made her slow way back to the door. “It’s very extensive. It has to be, you know, out here.”

  Out here. Did she mean on the island? Or where she lived, between heaven and earth?

  “Come, Luna, help me,” Old Angel said.

  Luna left Kellen’s side and returned dragging a small suitcase with her teeth.

  Old Angel followed, holding a basket. She gave Luna a chin scratch and a word of praise, picked up the suitcase and placed it on the dresser. The basket she lowered in small increments onto the floor. She rummaged inside, brought out a second thermos and opened it. “Soup,” she told Kellen, and handed her a spoon. “Drink it while it’s hot.”

  Kellen recognized the soup; Olympia’s chicken and wild rice. It smelled divine and the taste…thyme, garlic, carrots, celery, all fresh from Jamie’s garden, and a free-range chicken Jamie had raised. Maybe Jamie wished extra nourishment into her husbandry so Kellen could take
revenge on her murderer.

  When Kellen looked up, the soup was gone, the accompanying bread was gone, and Old Angel had the contents of her first aid kit organized and waiting.

  “This will hurt,” Old Angel warned.

  She was right, of course. Kellen writhed as Old Angel cleaned and bandaged the wound in her hand, but when she was done, for the first time tonight, Kellen felt hope that she might survive.

  “I have antibiotics.” Old Angel rummaged among her bottles. “Are you allergic to anything?”

  Kellen shook her head.

  “Penicillin then. I remember when it came out.” Old Angel trembled as she shook out two white pills. “A miracle drug.”

  Kellen took them with more water, then placed her right hand on the dresser and braced herself, prepared to rise.

  Old Angel read her mind. “I’m sure you need to use the facilities. I’m not very steady on my own, but between Luna and me, we can get you there.”

  They guided Kellen across the bedroom and into the bathroom, and stepped out to allow her privacy.

  The toilet. The hair brush. The mirror and—Kellen shrieked.

  Old Angel opened the door at once. “Have you fallen?”

  “Look at me!” Kellen shuddered. “I have to shower.”

  She knew how bad she must smell and look when Old Angel said only, “We need to protect your hand.”

  They used the plastic trash bags from under the sink, taped around Kellen’s wrist, and in a half hour Kellen was clean, dressed in her clothes for the following day, and falling into bed. Old Angel tucked her in and smoothed her damp hair off her forehead. “You’re intelligent. You’re strong. You can defeat her. Sleep, and while you sleep, the way will be made clear.”

  An angel’s promise of guidance.

  Kellen slept.

  44

  Kellen woke to the blast of a shotgun, and at the sound, went instantly from prone and asleep to on her feet and battle ready. She stared toward her door, smoking and shattered, and at Mara standing holding a sawed-off single barrel weapon.

  Mara’s eyes were molten, her mouth was twisted, her color high. She was seething about something. Which something it was, Kellen didn’t know. Mara seethed a lot.

  Kellen’s eyes were so wide they hurt. “Hi.”

  “How did you do it? How did you free yourself?” Mara shoved the door all the way open with her foot and stalked into the room, pointing the shotgun at Kellen’s belly. “Where did you put my rifle? Where did you put my Taser? Where did you put my pistol?”

  “Um…” The sun shone in the window as if the storm had never been. Kellen shaded her eyes with her bandaged hand, then slowly removed it and squinted into the light. “Actually, it was Max’s pistol.”

  Mara steadied the barrel at her.

  Careful. This morning, Mara’s mental screw had twisted itself almost loose. “I don’t know anything about where it is, or about your rifle and Taser.”

  “Liar!”

  “An angel helped me get free.” That last part was not true… Was it?

  Kellen looked toward the place in the wall where the angel had appeared. It looked like the rest of the walls, paneled and painted. But in the spinning merry-go-round of her memory, she remembered a light. She remembered Luna and an old woman dressed in white. That had been real… Or perhaps not. She also remembered a talking Cheshire Cat in the kitchen light and one grinning in the faucet. And Mara with a cat’s head.

  “Maybe the angel took the weapons,” she said.

  “You are so full of shit.” Mara was breathing hard. “You did this!”

  “Ridiculous!” Kellen said heatedly. “If I had done this, you wouldn’t be holding a shotgun.”

  “You didn’t know I had it! It’s sawed off, so it fit in the bag I stowed at the top of the closet.”

  Kellen remembered Old Angel, how very human she had seemed, how tiny and frail she had been. If she had taken the rifle, the pistol and the Taser—and how else had they disappeared?—but hadn’t been able to reach the bag to check it out…

  Kellen lifted her bandaged hand and showed Mara the blood that had seeped through the gauze. “Fine. I freed myself the same way you did—I pulled my hand off the top of the needle. After all, if you did it, it can’t be that hard.”

  Mara bounded forward and pressed the end of the weapon to Kellen’s belly.

  Kellen recognized the opportunity.

  Mara was close.

  Kellen was fast, a trained soldier with warrior skills, and a match for Mara in motive and determination. She could shove the shotgun aside, slam her fist into Mara’s face, fight with her, maybe win. Maybe.

  But kill her? With her bare hands? Even if both her hands were well and whole, Kellen knew herself. Killing someone while looking into their eyes, while seeing desperation and life and soul slipping away…that was the task of a heartless killer. A serial killer.

  Yet a memory prodded at Kellen, a memory from last night. Mara’s voice, saying, “It’s not you who is my soul mate. It’s your daughter. I promise I won’t ever let her be alone.”

  Rae. Even if Max had brought her through the storm, she was doomed. If Mara lived, she would take Rae, hurt her, warp her, make her into a twisted and damaged version of herself. Mara’s soul mate. If Rae fought back, if Mara didn’t succeed, Rae would die.

  No. Mara needed to meet her final, bloody end. For Rae, Mara had be to stopped, and it had to stop here.

  Kellen stood very still, looked into Mara’s eyes, and through her tumult of emotions and fears, tried to project a Zen-like tranquility. “About today—aren’t we going to play ‘Kill Kellen the Fun Way’?”

  Mara still breathed as if she’d been running.

  “If you shoot me, the game is over.”

  “When I shoot you.”

  “When you shoot me,” Kellen conceded, “the game is over.”

  “The game ends today anyway.”

  “I imagine it does.” Kellen glanced out the window. “You stabbed me.”

  “In the hand,” Mara said scornfully. “A tiny wound.”

  “You shot at me. Killed my bike. Knocked me flat.” Kellen placed her palm on the spot over her ribs where the bicycle spoke had pierced her. “I lost a lot of blood.”

  “Poor you.”

  “I spent the day on the run.”

  “Like I didn’t?” Mara spoke through clenched teeth.

  “You’re the one who made the rules!”

  “I intended to drive the golf cart!”

  “If you’d told me, I would have left the battery in it.” Kellen tried to play it straight, to keep mockery out of her voice.

  Mara’s hands tightened on the shotgun, so apparently she wasn’t successful.

  “What? Your father was a professor of English composition and you don’t appreciate sarcasm?” Kellen frowned. How did she know Mara’s father was a professor of English composition?

  Last night, in a nightmare, Mara had told her.

  Poor Mara. A childhood of misery followed by an adult life of creating misery. Kellen had to warn her. “You’re a human being who has made her choices, dreadful, miserable choices. You’re responsible for your life, and for what happens next.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Kellen had to, in all conscience, make the offer. “It means you should quit now, and pay the price for the crimes and the murders.”

  “To hell with you!” But Mara wasn’t steady, almost as if she comprehended the warning, even agreed with it.

  “All right. We’ll do it your way.” In a reasonable tone, Kellen said, “You slept well last night, longer and better and in more comfort than I did. I’m the one with all the handicaps. Even if you didn’t hold the shotgun, you’d win.”

  “Damned straight.” Mara nodded. Her grip loosened. Kellen had talked he
r down.

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten.”

  “In the morning? Tsk. You let me sleep in.”

  A bloody red climbed up Mara’s neck, her cheeks, her forehead. “I didn’t let you do anything.” She waved a hand at Kellen’s door. “Didn’t you hear me pounding?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing.” Kellen told the truth.

  Mara did not, could not, like that Kellen had slept through her assault.

  “Hold on. I’ve got to hit the john and have some breakfast. Then we’ll get started.”

  Incredulous, Mara said, “You think I’m going to let you—”

  Kellen had spent six years in the Army in the toughest environment surrounded by soldiers, men and women, who daily faced fear, death, and bodily functions. She looked at Mara straight on. “You want to fight about whether I get to pee? Because you’re likely to get wet.”

  “Ew.” Mara took a step back.

  Mara had lived in prison, in that rough environment where women lived, worked and fought without privacy or kindness. But she had a streak of delicacy about her, probably the result of her elite childhood.

  Kellen put her hand to her back and limped toward the bathroom, groaning as various aches and pains hit her. Sadly, she wasn’t exaggerating.

  But Old Angel had told her to sleep and the solution to her struggle with Mara would present itself—and it had. It was a very final solution…if it worked. I know one sure way to finish Mara, and I have to do it today.

  She used the toilet, washed her face and hands, drank water straight from the tap—there was no filter, and no glass, either—and wandered out, elaborately casual. “What a difference a day makes. Can you believe this weather?”

  Mara scrutinized her, the damp hair around her face, her offhand air, and kept her shotgun pointed right at Kellen. “You make me want to change my mind.”

  “Then let’s hurry and start the game.” Kellen headed out the door. She listened for footsteps that followed. She listened for the blast of the shotgun. Foolish, for if Mara shot, she wouldn’t hear anything ever again. But nonetheless, the hair rose on the back of her neck.

  She heard footsteps behind her, and Mara said spitefully, “You carry on and on about Rae, about how you love her and that’s the reason you want to kill me. You never mention the real reason you want to win.”