As Sick as Our Secrets

by A B Whelan

  “No, we didn’t find any. The perp was very thorough, and the rain didn’t help either. This guy is some smart motherfucker. This case will make the whole station look like fools.”

  “Did you guys check Skyler’s phone records? The GPS locator in her phone?”

  “Why all this sudden interest in details? Usually you stop me from telling you about a crime scene because it grosses you out.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because she’s someone Ashley knew. It hit too close to home. I mean, can you imagine if something this horrible happened to our daughter?”

  Brad points a finger at me, and his eyes are dark. “Don’t you ever say that again, you hear!” His protective stand for our daughter makes him look like the old passionate Brad I fell in love with in high school. He’d rather die than let anything happen to our children.

  “The girl was a hooker who grew up in a white-trash dump. I saw her parents at the station today. Two disgusting welfare trash heaps who couldn’t wait to talk to the media waiting in front of the station. Did you see their interview?”

  “Yes, we all did. It was disgusting. That fake cry the mother did, saying how special Skyler was to her, the sweetest girl ever who made everyone smile. I almost puked. When we went to their place and told her that her daughter might be in danger, she didn’t even turn off the TV to hear what we had to say.”

  “I know. You told me.” Brad’s lips curve into a sexy smile. “Come here, my little detective mama.”

  He pulls me into his arms and relieves me of my towel. I don’t feel comfortable standing in his arms naked. The lights are too bright.

  In our twenties, Brad was wild, borderline crazy. The things he said to me…I should have written them down and turned them into a manuscript for Penthouse Letters.

  I remember watching some feminist march on TV together with Brad. He soon lost interest and put his hand under my skirt. I pulled away, laughing, pretending I was offended. “I’m not a walking vagina! You can’t just put your dick in there whenever you feel like it. I have rights.”

  He didn’t bat an eye as he pulled me back into bed. “I understand. I was going to put it in your butt.”

  “You pig!” I punched him on the shoulder, and he pretended to be offended. “So, where’s my dick’s rights?”

  We laughed so hard. We could turn everything into a joke. We never worried about money. We never planned anything—we kind of just let things happen to us. We lived for the moment.

  But all that changed when his company went bankrupt. His positive attitude disappeared. His big plans of traveling the world were gone, too, along with his spontaneity and will to take care of himself.

  He no longer pulls me into his arms when I walk by him. His passion for me vanished, as if our happy years had never happened, along with his desire to do anything more exciting than sitting on the couch with a beer in his hand.

  I’ve been waiting to get the old Brad back, although I know I shouldn’t blame him for my own unhappiness.

  The old memories warm my body. I feel a slight tingling. Sex starts in our heads now and not in our bodies like it used to, back when we were young and always horny, blinded by our desire for each other.

  I kiss him back. He pulls me onto his lap.

  It’s happening.

  Then a series of rapid bangs on the door resonates across the bathroom. “What are you doing in there for so long? Get out! I need to poop,” our daughter yells through the door.

  “Find another bathroom,” I shout back.

  “I can’t. Open up! Hurry!”

  Brad kisses me one more time, waits until I wrap my towel back around me, and then unlocks the door for our darling daughter.

  I pop open a bottle of beer for Brad and ask him to sit with me on our patio. He grumbles as he comes outside because some stupid show about people auctioning cars is about to start.

  “I know you aren’t involved with the investigation, but I’m sure you’ve heard something around the station,” I say, handing him the bottle.

  He raises his eyebrows and drinks.

  “Can you at least tell me if you guys have a lead?”

  He catches a persistent, brazen fly midair and smashes it onto the concrete. “Well, you know. There are no witnesses, no evidence.” He grabs his beer from the table and leans back. “I talked to Williams, and he said that, so far, they only tracked down the victim’s parents. Unfortunately interviewing them turned out to be fruitless. Uhm…there isn’t much I can tell you I’m afraid.” He shrugs and takes another swig of his beer. Then, as if a thought came to him, he jolts forward, pointing a finger at me. “Oh, wait, I almost forgot. The forensic guys found some tire tracks near the body, or what was left of them,” he says proudly.

  My budding disappointment is nipped at once. “Well, that’s something. It’s a good lead, right?”

  He shrugs, squinting toward the living room. “Not really. Hernandez Cove is a popular place for hikers and runners. Those tire marks could have been left by anyone.”

  My excitement diminishes as fast as it rose. “So it’s not a lead then?”

  “Well, the guys matched the tracks to a Land Rover. A 2014 model, if I remember right.”

  “Then you can find the owner of the car in the DMV database, can’t you?”

  “It’s a long shot. We don’t have the manpower to track down thousands of cars. Besides, the guys can’t go around harassing everyone who drives a Land Rover because of a tire mark that may have nothing to do with the crime. If it were a unique car, it could have been a great lead. But…”

  “So, what else can be done?”

  “I don’t know. Tracking down her pimp, her clients, which means a lot of footwork. Maybe a little overtime for me too.” Brad’s chair leg scrapes over the floor as he picks himself up, pats my back, and disappears through the door. A minute later, I hear the auctioneer’s word-blurring talk as he takes offers on some vintage car.

  I call Ashley and share the additional details with her. We talk on speaker phone because she and Olivia are driving back to Los Angeles. Olivia will be doing a little digging around with her foundation to see if she can find information on Skyler, and Ashley will search old newspapers in the library for previous crimes of the Fifty Shades Killer. But they need the names of the other victims to dig deeper. Ashley wonders if I know anybody at Brad’s work who I could grill for names and more details about the other murders. There is someone I know well enough to approach—Detective Williams showed up at a few BBQs we had last summer, and we really hit it off. He seems like an easily approachable guy.

  We agree to keep in touch until Monday, when we are scheduled to see Ralph Anderson to revive our self-defense skills from five years ago. Ashley is going to ask him to train us to shoot our new 9 mm handguns. The idea of getting an outsider involved in our illegal activities doesn’t sit well with me. I had offered to teach them how to shoot at a local unauthorized gun range instead. It’s too bad I can’t tell Brad about this; he’d be proud of me if he found out that I actually paid attention when he was teaching me to shoot.

  Olivia

  THURSDAY

  The prospect of a confrontation at home with my husband makes me uneasy. Not once in our decade-long marriage have I ever been the one to leave the house while the other remained home. It’s always Richard who goes to work while I stay behind. He goes for a run. I stay. He goes to business dinners. I stay. He is the one with a life and things to do. I’m just an accessory to his online social life.

  Breaking free this morning doesn’t make me feel emancipated, or brave, or even independent. If anything, I’m leaning toward blind fear. Mostly because we’ve never been in this situation before and I don’t know what to expect. I’ve always been a good girl and an obedient wife. We’ve never gone to bed being angry at each other. We’ve never parted with impending doom hanging in the air.

  I close my eyes and replay the morning’s events in my head. I escaped the house like a felon getting caught red-
handed during a burglary. Richard is my husband, and I should feel guilty for acting so foolishly. I should have handled the situation like a mature adult. What must Richard be thinking of me now? That boredom made his wife lose her mind. I’m a mad woman. That’s what he must be thinking. By now, he must have called his mother and told her everything that’s happened, as if I needed another reason for Grace to hate me.

  “I told you that woman isn’t a hundred percent in the head,” she’d say softly, convincingly. “You need to find someone better, Richard. You deserve more than this snowflake weakling.”

  I sit on a hard rock by our main gate, holding the 9 mm gun in my hand. It’s heavier than I imagined. I breathe on the engraving of the metal barrel: Smith & Wesson, Springfield, MA, USA, and polish it with my sleeve. It’s loaded, but the safety is off.

  Back in Temecula, Betty had driven us to a deserted mining site, where she showed Ashley and me how to use our new toys. We weren’t the first ones to discover the secluded site for target practice. A sea of bottles and shipping boxes with millions of small and large holes in them were spread out the length of the excavated mountainside.

  The sound of our flying bullets echoed through the hills and bounced off the concave area, powerful and frightening. Every shot I took had a kick (a recoil in professional terms, per Betty), rattling the bones in my arms. I held the gun so tight that my fingers lost their color. Between the three of us, we went through two boxes of ammunition Betty took from Brad’s gun safe.

  I left Temecula with a full magazine but no extra bullets. This gun is for protection, I tell myself. Nothing more. So I should be fine with ten rounds.

  When I get tired of sitting on the ragged rock in the dark, I climb the fence. I had forgotten to grab my gate opener out of my car amid the morning drama, and I’d rather not ring Richard to let me in. What if he already packed my stuff and my two dust-covered, moth-eaten suitcases are waiting for me on the front porch? What if he threw all my stuff away and changed the locks?

  My body temperature rises with the worry. I can feel it from the tip of my ears to my toes.

  I shake off my uneasiness, because first I need to get over this fence. I can worry about the rest later.

  Thank God that I’m wearing athletic shoes and joggers. It would have been hell to scale this metal fence in high heels. I make it to the other side with only a few scratches and jog up the hill on the grass next to the driveway with the gun in my bag, smashing against my side. I can’t decide if carrying a firearm makes me feel brave or terrified.

  My Land Rover is parked in front of the house, glistening underneath the porch light. I run my fingers over the hood. Richard took it to the car wash. Oh, no. He’s readying himself to put my car up for sale. One day. I’m only gone one day, and he’s already moving on.

  My thoughts sink.

  The front door is open. I enter with my heart hammering against my rib cage.

  The foyer is bright from the chandelier and light fixtures.

  My suspicion deepens.

  An impressive bouquet of pink lilies in a glass vase stands on the round table by the staircase. I read the note folded and tucked into the prongs of a plastic mini trident.

  I love you. I hope you can forgive me. Richard.

  My name is not mentioned on the note, but who else could it be? One sniff of the flowers, and all is good. My heart rate slows. My stomach calms.

  I put my purse inside the bottom drawer of the bureau in the guest room that’s closest to the staircase. I won’t be needing any protection tonight.

  As it would be an obligatory routine Richard had started, I, too, take a shower in the downstairs bathroom.

  Refreshed, I climb the stairs, not completely relieved of my anxiety. I find Richard reading a book in the hallway on my favorite piece of furniture in the house, a turquoise love chair by the mosaic window. His gripping fingers cover most of the title, but I do make out the word “marriage.” My knees weaken and my heart melts. Richard is not upset with me. He wants our marriage to work. He did listen to the words I told him. He knows something is wrong between us and wants to fix it because he is a fixer of broken lives.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks softly, closing his book and setting it down next to him, as if our morning’s episode had never happened.

  “I’m starving.” I smile. I can’t help myself. I don’t want to lose what we have or regret not trying to make our marriage work. I need to learn how to value us now, today, in this moment. I need to be happy. I need to be in charge of my own happiness. But most of all, I need to stop creating monsters in my head.

  There has to be a logical explanation for the graphic journal in his private room and for Skyler’s purse in his car. I will not jump the gun anymore or rush to conclusions. Innocent until proven guilty. Isn’t that what they say in America?

  “I had Margit make your favorite dish,” he says tenderly. “You know, those meatballs you like, in that brownish sauce.”

  “That’s very kind of you. Thank you.”

  “I know we mostly eat American and Hungarian food. I should have been more observant of your needs. You must miss your childhood dishes.” There is still an ice wall between us. We use it to measure each other’s intention, like dogs in the park. Will we fight? Will we play?

  I smile again, and Richard reads my reaction as an olive branch extended toward him, and he wraps me up in his arms.

  “I thought I lost you,” he whispers in my ear. His love for me radiates from his skin, and I’m soaking it up like a stray dog.

  “Please don’t run away like that again. It hurts me when we fight.”

  I pull away to see his eyes. “I’m sorry, Richard. I know I was acting childish, but lately I can’t really find my place in your world. I don’t think I ever truly did.”

  “I understand. I talked to Mother, and she recommended it was best for the both of us if I let you work in the office. We’ll make it happen, I promise.” He cups my face in his hands. “I want you to be happy.”

  An explosion of joy and relief pulses through my head. Ten years I’ve been asking Richard to let me work, ten freaking long years. Maybe I should have run away earlier.

  *****

  Richard watches me sitting in the breakfast nook eating the meatballs Margit prepared for me. It feels good to be a little rebellious and break tradition. Food tastes much better here than in the formal dining room, where we always eat.

  I tell him about why I had to drive south with Ashley, but every time I mention her name an itch starts beneath my skin. I need to text her and let her know that I’ll be digging up files on Skyler faster than we planned.

  “The police have any leads?” Richard asks, refilling my glass with red wine.

  “No, nothing yet. Hopefully we’ll know more soon. Betty plans to snoop around the station where her husband works.”

  “I thought details about an ongoing murder investigation were confidential.”

  “You’d be surprised how much a little female charm can achieve.”

  He leans into me and kisses the top of my hair. Oh God, he smells good.

  “So, how did your friend take it, seeing her patient dead, lying naked in the dirt?”

  The half-chewed meatball stops rolling in my mouth. I push the mash into my side pouch like a chipmunk. “How do you know she was naked?”

  He sets the bottle of 2010 Valdicava Brunello on the table, label facing me, letting me know that he popped open a hundred-dollar bottle of wine from his Italian wine collection, and reclaims his place on the chair. “I didn’t. I assumed she was naked. Why? She wasn’t?”

  I start chewing again. “Yeah, she was.” I take a sip of wine, a tiny slosh of liquid. The flavor explodes on my tongue: cherry, plum, a hint of orange peel. Phenomenal.

  “So, how did she take it?”

  “As you can imagine. She was angry, then devastated, and now she feels determined to catch the killer. I’m planning on helping her.”

  “I don’t li
ke this, Livi. It could be dangerous. Besides, what could the two of you be doing anyway?”

  “It’s actually the three of us. Betty joined our little detective team. We have a few ideas…” I trail off, putting more food in my mouth.

  “And? Care to share?” he asks impatiently, turning his head to the side while his eyes remain set on me, trying to manipulate me into talking. I could be wrong. Damn, I’m paranoid.

  “I don’t want to bore you with my stuff. I’m sure you’ve got your hands full at the foundation with hopeless cases.”

  “What happened to the idea that I can help you, remember? I was supposed to escort Skyler and your friend to the police station.”

  “Yeah, about that. Did you ever find a file on her at the foundation?”

  “I did. It’s on my desk. You can read it tomorrow if you’re still interested, now that you’re one of us.” He smiles and kisses me. I taste bourbon on his lips.

  “So, am I starting tomorrow?”

  “If you want. The tree has been removed. The driveway is open.”

  I peek at my watch. “Look how late it is! We should go to bed. I don’t want to be late for my first day at work.”

  As Richard brushes his teeth, I lean against the bathroom doorframe. “I’ll run downstairs for a glass of water. Need anything?”

  “Just you in my bed.” He winks. I send him an air kiss. We look silly, feigned, and forced.

  Crouching down behind the dresser in the guest room downstairs, I dig up my phone from my purse and text Ashley.

  We need to meet tomorrow for lunch. I may have something. Tell Betty I need the names ASAP.

  Open arms invite me to bed. I oblige. We make love, real love. We kiss and caress. It’s one of the most romantic things a husband can do to his wife. I play along, but despite Richard’s best efforts, I’m unable to completely lose myself in the moment. Gory pictures and disturbing thoughts in my head are pulling me away to a dark place. Richard won’t notice how distracted I am. I’ve mastered pretending a long time ago.