The Dead Girls Club (ARC)

by Damien Walters

  “You two just happened to run into each other at the bookstore, you said. You sure about that?” Gus says, spittle in the corner of his lips. “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but when I told her I remembered her sitting outside, she said it wasn’t her, then she admitted it and told me to fuck off. You heard that part.”

  Gia’s eyes meet mine again.

  “So why not tell us why, huh?” He rounds on his heels, jabbing a finger toward me, almost touching me between my breasts. “Why were you here?”

  “Okay, I think that’s enough,” Ryan says, stepping around Gia to grasp Gus by the upper arm. “This is between them, okay?” Gus snorts and tugs his arm, but Ryan doesn’t let go.

  When Gia and I are alone, she blinks away the sheen of tears. She can’t blink away her expression, though. It’s the look of a dog expecting a treat and getting a kick; a child anticipating ice cream but being sent to their room. In that moment, I know she had nothing to do with the necklace, with any of it.

  “Gia, I—”

  “The big yard sale was before we ran into each other. Was that meeting an accident, or did you already know I was here in Annapolis?”

  “I can explain,” I say. “Really, this is just … Gus is blowing it all out of proportion.”

  She runs her thumb along the counter. “I think maybe you should go.”

  I step closer. “But if you let me—”

  “I said go, Heather,” she says, her words painted with anger. “I don’t understand this, but I don’t want you here right now.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry, I’ll go.”

  Ryan’s waiting by the front door. I pretend not to hear the whispers, not to see the looks, as I make my way, but my face is hot. Gus is near the steps, wearing a smug frat-boy smirk. I’d love to walk over and slap him. How dare he. How fucking dare he.

  We drive out of Gia’s neighborhood in silence, and at the first light, Ryan says, “What the hell was that about?”

  “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” I say, tapping my knuckles on the window.

  “But you were sitting outside her house?”

  “It’s not how it sounds.”

  “I hope not, because it sounds irrational. It sounds like something—”

  I slam both palms on the dashboard. “I don’t want to fucking talk about it!”

  “Jesus Christ, Heather. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”

  “Oh, please,” I spit. “I’m not the one sneaking around in my suit going to secret meetings.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My mother saw you on Wednesday at Grinds,” I say, because obviously I haven’t done enough damage today. “You were dressed up. In your suit.”

  He scratches his chin. “Not sure what you want me to say.”

  “How about the truth?” I say.

  “Are you kidding me? You want to talk about the truth right now?”

  “Since when do you wear a suit to work?” I say. “And why didn’t you say anything about seeing Mom? Why did I have to hear it from her? Why are you being secretive about the phone calls you’re getting and so evasive about the missing check? Not to mention going behind my back with Nicole. Seems like every time I turn, there’s something else.” There’s too much anger painting my words, shading the syllables wrong.

  A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Am I hearing this right? What exactly are you accusing me of?”

  “Why were you wearing a suit, Ryan? What are you hiding from me?”

  Irritation shifts the planes of his face. “Fine. Yes, I talked to Nicole. I already told you I shouldn’t have. I already apologized. I haven’t talked to you any more about the Kanes’ check because it hasn’t shown up. And yeah, I saw your mom at the coffee place. Yeah, I was wearing my suit because I went on a goddamn job interview.”

  “A what?” The word holds the ghost of humor.

  “A job interview,” he says.

  “But you own your company.”

  “Yeah, I do,” he says. “But I’ve been thinking of closing up shop, letting someone else handle the business end of things.”

  “But,” I say, “you’ve worked so hard for so long, I don’t understand. Why would you want to work for someone else? You’ve never said anything. Isn’t this something we should talk about or—”

  “Heather, there are a lot of things we haven’t talked about lately. I didn’t say anything about this because you’ve been so stressed and distracted and I didn’t want to add any more,” he says. “But right now, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about anything. I just want to get home.”

  “But I—”

  “Please.” The word slices the air.

  He turns on the radio. I stare out into the night. And the space between us grows larger and larger.

  * * *

  Sunday is a study in polite replies and pauses heavy with all the things we’re not saying. I try to bring up the job interview once, and he says, “Not now, please.” I let it go. Maybe it’s better this way. It gives us both time to think. I still can’t believe he didn’t say anything about his job. He always talks to me about things like that. Always.

  Dropping my car off at the dealer and picking up a loaner takes less time than I expect. Since I sent Ellie an email letting her know I’d be late, I stop at Starbucks, but even after a cup of coffee and a scone, I’m earlier to the office than planned. The main office door is unlocked, but Ellie’s not at her desk and Christina isn’t here yet.

  I stand in the hallway, staring down at my office door, my half-open office door. There’s a shuffle of papers, a sliding drawer. Someone’s in there, going through my files. I stand still, clutching the strap of my bag. Did Alexa call the police? Thank god I deleted the picture of Lauren’s address. But if the police are here …

  Hello hangs on my tongue, but I don’t let it go. No way this is the police. There’d be an officer stationed by the door. If they were investigating me, this isn’t how it would happen. So who the hell is in my office and what do they want? I don’t keep anything personal there.

  Are they looking for the half-heart necklace? It’s safe, locked in the top drawer of my desk. Safe, unless they know how to pick locks or have a key.

  I take baby steps. By the time I draw near, my heart is a painful knot in my chest, my fingers clenched so tight they hurt. Beneath the elastic bandage, my wrist is thumping. From inside my office, there’s another rattle of paper, a sniff, a soft murmur. I can’t take it anymore. I rush forward and peek round the doorframe to see—

  My receptionist sitting on the floor next to my cabinet, crying with a file open on her lap. What the hell? Yes, she has spare keys in case of an emergency, but she typically waits for me to unlock everything.

  “Ellie?”

  She jumps to her feet, swiping away the moisture on her face, holding the file tight at her side, the triangled corners of several pages jutting from the manila folder.

  “Dr. Cole,” she says. “Hi, I didn’t think you’d be here so soon.”

  “It didn’t take as long as I thought. What are you doing in my office?” I say. “Whose file is that?”

  “I’m…” She looks down.

  I close the space between us with wide steps and snatch the file, enjoying her slight recoil. It belongs to a former patient, Kerry Wallace, who committed suicide several years ago.

  “Why were you looking at this?” I say. Ellie’s perfume is cloyingly sweet, and I want her out of my office. But I also want an explanation.

  “I wasn’t. I was putting away another file and dropped that one, so I had to pick it all up and reorganize it. It was easier to just sit down.” Inching her way toward the door, she wipes at her reddened eyes. “Sorry, my allergies are acting up.”

  Is that what I saw? Something doesn’t feel right. “Wait, please,” I say, stopping her in the doorway.

  She turns slowly.

  “What file were you putting away?” I say. She toes the carpet
. She knows I know she’s lying. “Just tell me the truth.”

  Her shoulders slump as she exhales. “There wasn’t a file. I came in to look at Kerry’s, to read the notes. I was hoping I’d be done before you got here. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have, but I just wanted a quick look.”

  I frown, my top lip curling. “I don’t understand. Why would you want to read my notes?”

  “Because Kerry is—was—my cousin,” she says.

  Confusion gives way to a bit of clarity. “Your cousin was my patient?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I wanted to ask you about her, but I was afraid. And I knew you couldn’t legally tell me anything.”

  “Is that why you took the job here?”

  She shakes her head hard enough to pendulum her ponytail. “No, uh-uh. I promise. I swear I didn’t know at first you were her doctor. My aunt never said your name. A few weeks ago I was at her house and I saw an old calendar. Your name was there, and so I…”

  I gesture to the chair and she takes it, gaze down at her folded hands. When I unlock my desk, the half-heart is in the top drawer, chain coiled around it, as I left it. “So you decided to sneak in here this morning and read her file,” I say.

  Her chin jerks up. She swallows. “I … yes.” The tip of her shoes makes another small circle on the floor. “I tried to look a couple other times, too,” she says, emotion thickening her words. “I thought you knew—I left dirt on the rug because I knocked my plant over like you did that one time and stepped in the mess—but then you didn’t say anything, so I … I know it was wrong, but Kerry’s parents, my aunt and uncle, it tore them apart. I thought if I could find something, anything, maybe it would help. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, not really. I just—”

  “Take a deep breath,” I say. “Now take another. Good.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just wanted to do something.” She holds out her arms, lets them fall back down.

  “Sometimes there isn’t anything anyone can do,” I say, as kindly as I can.

  “The kids at her school were cruel, and nothing ever happened to them. Nothing.” Ellie’s words dissolve into tears.

  The kids were cruel. I remember the hurt in Kerry’s eyes when we spoke of them. A hurt she couldn’t escape. I remember hating the kids who’d wounded her so. I also remember reminding myself they were children, too. I offer Ellie a tissue and close my office door. Twenty minutes later, I have her smiling through her pain. Stories about her cousin in happier days. Stories that can’t erase what happened but remind her Kerry’s life hadn’t always been terrible. By this point, Ellie’s gone through half a box of tissue, and she surprises me with a hug. I stand with stick-figure arms, then embrace her back.

  “Thank you so much, Dr. Cole, and I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  When she leaves, I sit cradling my wrist. Maybe I should still be mad at her for sneaking in, but I’m more relieved that I helped her. A sudden wash of sorrow fogs my vision. How long has it been since I felt this way?

  * * *

  When I come back from lunch, sitting in the middle of my desk is a small package the size of a trade paperback, wrapped in brown paper. Generic brown paper. Black ink. Now-familiar handwriting. Inside the box, beneath a mound of crumpled tissue paper, is a book. A simple thing of construction paper folded in half and stapled unevenly along the edge. On the front cover in red magic marker: THE WITCH BY REBECCA LILIAN THOMAS AND HEATHER MARIA COLE.

  The edges are ragged; a corner of the back cover is missing. The interior pages are in better shape but wear the passage of time with rips, creases, water stains. I don’t remember this particular book or story, but it’s unmistakably ours. We must’ve been only seven or eight when we made it. Her drawings, my writing, but she was the storyteller; I was the scribe.

  The writing is legible, barely.

  Once upon a time there was a witch. Her real name was Sarah. Everyone was mean to her. They ignored her. One day she got sick and died. No one came to her funeral. Then everyone got sick and started to die, too. When there was only one person left, someone came into the room. It was the witch! She was alive the whole time! She killed everyone because she was so mad!

  I half laugh, half sigh. The drawing on the last page shows a witch in a typical pointed hat, standing in a graveyard, her long hair coiled on the ground beside her. The precursor to Becca’s later stories, the drawing in my desk, and all the others I recall. The genesis of the Red Lady, here in old ink. A story. Just that and nothing more.

  I gather up the torn brown paper, and there’s a blank space where a postmark should be. I turn the rest of the paper over and over. No postmark at all.

  I practically run down the hallway and skid to a stop in reception. “Ellie, the package on my desk, was it delivered?”

  “A woman dropped it off for you a little while ago. She said she was a friend.”

  “Did she leave her name?” I say, my entire body rigid.

  Ellie bites her lip. “No, sorry, I should’ve asked, but then the phone rang and I—”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Is—”

  I thump a fist on the edge of her desk. “What did she look like!”

  She blinks fast. “She was sort of short and thin and had blonde hair to about here.” She taps the middle of her upper arm. “She was wearing—”

  “When did she drop it off?”

  “Um, about ten minutes or so, I think.” She glances at the wall clock. “Yes, ten minutes, because I looked at the clock right before she came in.”

  The air feels as thick as an August day.

  “Dr. Cole, is something wrong? Should I—”

  But I’m halfway out the door. I jab the elevator button, hiss air through my teeth, and decide on the stairs, my heels clattering all the way. Short with blonde hair? It sounds like—

  This isn’t possible. It isn’t.

  Under a sky the color of an old wool blanket, I scan the sea of cars in the lot. A man in a gray suit; a red-haired woman in a floral dress; an older couple walking together, a dark-blue folder under the man’s arm. My feet kick pebbles as I hit the nearest row, peeking in cars. I see pale hair in a driver’s seat and stumble to a halt by a green Honda. The door opens. A woman emerges, all highlighted waves and red lipstick.

  Ignoring her frown, I start moving again, blood rushing in my ears. A car pulls out of the lot, spewing a wide fan of gravel, and I squint, trying to discern the driver’s shape, but the sedan moves too quickly into the flow of traffic. I walk the bumper lines, glancing from left to right.

  Then I feel someone watching. Not a passing glance but a stare, a magnet drawing my gaze across the four lanes of traffic on Route 100. And there, standing near a café, a petite woman with pale hair. In spite of the weather, she’s wearing a pair of dark sunglasses.

  I break into a run, adrenaline thrumming in my veins. The blonde doesn’t move. I reach the end of the lot. Now only a bit of grass, a sidewalk, and four lanes of moving traffic separate us. I step off the curb, but pull back as a car nears. This time of day, traffic chokes the air with exhaust and the rhythmic hum of tires on asphalt. The woman remains where she is. Becca remains where she is. Because it’s her.

  But I killed her.

  A childish giggle escapes my throat. My stomach churns with disbelief, shock, elation, and I breathe her name. How is this even possible? I blink, but she’s flesh and blood, not a mirage. I wave, the small gesture laden with hope and trepidation. She doesn’t wave in return, but she wouldn’t stand there if she didn’t see me. Didn’t know me.

  Finally, she nods. Tears pricking my eyes, I do the same. The world falls silent. No rushing cars, no distant rumble of airplanes, nothing at all save two women who were the best of friends when they were girls. It feels like a million years ago. It feels like yesterday.

  I point toward the light less than fifty yards away, hoping she’ll understand, hoping she’ll w
ait until I can cross. A hundred questions crowd my mind, each pushing to the front of the line.

  She touches the side of her glasses, and I go all-over cold. I see an eyebrow, the top of an eyelid. My lips part, the word stop on my tongue, but I swallow instead, scared and confused at my reaction. At the hot sweat dampening my body. At every last hair now standing on end. I barely understand it, but I don’t want to look in her eyes.

  They’ll find you in the morning with a mouth full of dirt.

  An old pickup truck the color of hammered steel pulls out of the lot on her left and trundles by, obscuring Becca from view, and when it passes, she’s gone.

  The spell shatters like an elbow to the gut. No. She can’t be gone. Not now. Not yet. I run toward the light, the distance stretching in cinematic slow motion, every click of my heel on the sidewalk echoing in my head. All the while, I steal glances at the café and its parking lot, even when I’m too far to see anything but the side of the building. There’s still no sign of Becca, but I know I saw her. I know she was there.

  Inside, I’m a tangle of fear, worry, excitement, and a dozen other emotions swirling too fast to name, all fighting for dominance and threatening to pull me under. I push them away and focus on moving.

  “Come on, come on,” I say as I wait for the light to change, shaking out my fingers. As soon as the walk symbol illuminates, I’m moving again, the fabric of my pants whisking between my thighs, my gaze darting back and forth from road to café, café to road. My shoe pinches the baby toe of my left foot and I’m gasping for air, but I slow only when I draw close enough to touch the brick. Through the plate-glass windows, I see the employees in their matching green polos and a few customers. Catch a flash of pale hair in the far corner, but as I crane my neck, the patron turns her head to reveal wrinkles and sagging jowls.

  She isn’t in the parking lot either. I start scanning the windows of the cars. How could she disappear? It didn’t take me that long to cross the street, but even as the thought resolves, I know it was time enough to get in a car and drive away. And if she left via the exit in the back, I wouldn’t have been able to see her go. I wring my hands. Why wouldn’t she stay?