7 Die For Me

by Karen Rose

  “It’s not even midnight. You usually work all night, Lewis.”

  That was normally true, but he wasn’t about to let Harrington have the point. He had nothing but contempt for the man and his rainbow-and-Ziggy view of the world. He wanted to strangle the sonofabitch, just like he’d strangled Claire Reynolds. He still did, every time he heard Harrington’s whiny voice.

  Harrington had tried to block his art every step of the way, starting with his animation of Claire Dies, a year ago. Too dark, too violent. Too real. But Van Zandt understood business and what sells. The strangulation of “Clothilde” stayed in Behind Enemy Lines even though Harrington bitched and moaned about it. But Harrington wouldn’t bitch and moan much longer.

  Van Zandt was systematically shoving Harrington out the door and the idiot didn’t even have a clue. “Goddamn it, Harrington, I was dreaming.” Of Gregory Sanders. His next victim. “Just tell me what’s so important so I can get back to it.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Hello. You there, man? I swear to God, if you woke me up for nothing—”

  “I’m here,” Harrington said. “Jager wants you to speed delivery on the fight scenes.”

  So Van Zandt had finally told Harrington he was out. It was about time.

  “He wants them by Tuesday,” Harrington added. “Nine A.M.

  ”

  The sweet pleasure vanished like mist. “Tuesday? What the fuck’s he smoking?”

  “Jager’s very serious.” And so was Harrington. It sounded like every word was being dragged from his mouth. “He says you’re a month late.”

  “You can’t rush genius.”

  There was another pause, and he thought he could hear Harrington’s teeth grind. It was always such fun to yank the man’s chain. “He wants a fight scene and a cut scene from Inquisitor to show at Pinnacle.” Another, harder pause. “We have a booth.”

  “Pinnacle?” A booth at Pinnacle meant prestige among gamers. Respect. Pragmatically it meant national distribution, which meant his audience had just become millions. Abruptly his eyes narrowed. This changed things. Pinnacle wouldn’t wait. It was a real deadline. “If you’re shittin’ me, Harrington—”

  “It’s true.” Harrington sounded almost upset. “Jager got the invitation tonight. He wanted me to tell you to get those scenes completed by Tuesday.”

  He’d make it happen, even though he’d barely started on the fight scenes. He’d been busy creating the dungeon scenes. “You’ve told me. Now let me go back to sleep.”

  “Will you have the fight scenes for Jager?” Harrington pressed.

  “That’s between me and Van Zandt. But you can tell him I’ll be in on Tuesday,” he added in as condescending a voice as he could muster, then hung up. Harrington deserved to be booted out on his ass. He was stagnant and way past passé.

  Putting Harrington from his mind, he swung his leg over the side of the bed. Spreading lubricant over his residual, he grabbed his leg and pulled it in place with the unconscious motion brought on by years of practice. Meeting VZ would throw a hitch in his schedule. He’d have to move Greg Sanders from Tuesday morning to late afternoon, but he’d still have his next scream by Tuesday at midnight. He sat down at his computer and composed an e-mail to Gregory Sanders, changing the time and signing it “Kind regards, E. Munch.”

  He knew he couldn’t test Van Zandt’s patience when it came to fight scenes for Pinnacle. Van Zandt recognized his genius, but even VZ would sacrifice art for an animated clip completed in time for Pinnacle. He needed something to show VZ on Tuesday, even if it was half-done. VZ would be satisfied, because even half-done creations by “Frasier Lewis” were worlds better than anything Harrington could do.

  He considered the video he’d taken of Warren Keyes wielding a sword and that of Bill Melville brandishing the flail. For all his claimed expertise in martial arts, Bill had never really achieved the rhythm of the flail, and in the end he’d had to demonstrate it himself. He’d found that bringing the flail into contact with Bill’s human head felt a good deal different from the pigs’ heads he’d practiced on. The pigs had been long dead, but Bill . . . He pulled the video from the neatly shelved collection with a smile. The top of Bill’s head had sheared right off. It would make for a great “entertainment venture.”

  He’d grab something to eat, turn off his phone and Internet connection to eliminate all distractions, then he’d get to work on a fight sequence that would make VZ happy and would make Harrington look like the two-bit hack he was.

  Monday, January 15, 12:35 A.M.

  Bone tired, starving, and still utterly confused by Sophie’s reaction in the parking lot, Vito walked through his front door and into a war zone. For a moment he simply stood and watched as a barrage of wadded paper balls sailed across his living room. A rather expensive vase was perched precariously close to the edge of an end table, knocked askew by the sofa relocation. He needed no other clues to know he’d been invaded.

  Then one of the paper balls hit him squarely in the temple and he blinked, stunned. He picked up the offending wad, frowning when he found one of his fishing sinkers inside. The boys had obviously improved their munitions recently. “Guys.” The balls continued to be hurled across the room. “Connor! Dante! Cease and desist. Now.”

  “Oh, man.” The words came from the kitchen, quickly followed by his eleven-year-old nephew Connor, who looked both annoyed and mildly alarmed. “You came home.”

  “I do that most every night,” Vito returned dryly, then winced as a blur of blue flannel hurled itself at his legs. “Careful.” He leaned over and pried five-year-old Pierce’s arms from around his knees, lifting him with a puzzled squint. “What’s on your face, Pierce?”

  “Chocolate frosting,” Pierce said proudly and Vito laughed, a good deal of his weariness dissipated. He swung Pierce to his hip and hugged him hard.

  Connor shook his head. “I tried to tell him not to eat it, but you know how kids are.”

  Vito nodded. “Yeah, I know how kids are. You have frosting on your chin, Connor.”

  Connor’s cheeks darkened. “We made a cake.”

  “Did you save any for me?”

  Pierce made a face. “Not much.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, because I’m so hungry I could eat a cow.” Vito eyed Pierce. “Or maybe a little boy. You look like you’d be pretty tasty.”

  Pierce giggled, familiar with the game. “I’m all gristle, but Dante’s got lots of meat.”

  Dante popped up from behind the sofa, flexing his biceps. “It’s muscle. Not meat.”

  “I think he’s all ham,” Vito whispered loudly, making Pierce giggle again. “Dante, the battle’s over for the night. You guys have to go to bed.”

  “Why?” he whined. “We were just having fun.” At nine he was a big boy, nearly bigger than Connor. He rolled over the back of the sofa, and Vito cringed as the movement sent the vase teetering. Dante rolled off the sofa and caught the vase like it was a football. “Ciccotelli makes the touchdown,” he crowed. “And the crowd goes wild.”

  “The crowd is going to bed,” Vito said. “And don’t even think about the extra point.”

  Dante slid the vase to the middle of the table with a grin, indicating he’d been contemplating exactly that. “Lighten up, Uncle Vito,” he chided. “You’re way too tight.”

  Pierce sniffed him. “And you smell really bad. Like the dog when he rolls in something dead. Mom always makes us give him a bath outside when that happens.”

  Images of the bodies flashed in his mind and he pushed them away. “I’ll give myself a bath. But inside. It’s cold out there. What are you guys doing here anyway?”

  “Dad took Mom to the hospital,” Connor said, suddenly serious. “Tino brought us over here. We brought our sleeping bags.”

  “But . . .” Vito caught Connor’s warning glance at his two brothers and bit back the question. He’d have to get the details later. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

  “No
, ’cause it’s Martin Luther King Day,” Pierce informed him. “Uncle Tino said we can stay up all night.”

  “Um, no you can’t.” Vito ruffled the boy’s dark hair. “I have to get up early tomorrow and I gotta sleep. So you gotta sleep.”

  “Besides,” Connor said. “Tino didn’t say all night. He said till midnight.”

  “Which is already past,” Vito said. “Go brush your teeth and roll out your sleeping bags on the living room floor. Tomorrow clean up all these cannonballs and put my fishing sinkers back in my tackle box. Okay?”

  Dante grinned. “Okay, but we got some good heft with those sinkers.”

  Vito rubbed his temple which still throbbed. “Yeah, I know. Where’s Tino?”

  “Downstairs trying to get Gus to sleep,” Connor said, hustling Pierce back to brush his teeth. “He set up the crib in his living room. And Dominic is downstairs, too, studying for a math test. Dom says he’ll sleep on Tino’s couch, to take care of Gus.”

  Dominic was Dino’s eldest and very responsible. Certainly more responsible than Vito had been at the same age. “I’m going to take a shower and when I come out, I want to see three lumps in sleeping bags, and I want to hear snores, okay?”

  “We’ll be quiet.” Dante hung his head, a martyr now. “We promise.”

  Vito knew they’d try, but he’d played host to his brother’s kids enough times to know their good intentions didn’t last too long. He sniffed his shoulder and grimaced. He did smell awful. He had to take a shower or the stench would keep him awake all night.

  And even though he’d no longer be sleeping on the urge to ask Sophie Johannsen to dinner, he did have to sleep. He had to be back at the four-by-four matrix of graves in less than seven hours.

  Monday, January 15, 12:45 A.M.

  Sophie let herself into her uncle Harry’s house and quietly closed the door. The television in the living room was on, the volume low, as she’d known it would be.

  “Hot chocolate’s on the stove, Soph.”

  Smiling as she sat on the arm of the recliner, she leaned down and kissed Harry’s balding head. “How do you always know to do that? I didn’t tell you I was coming.”

  She hadn’t planned to. She’d planned to shower, eat, and fall into bed. But Anna’s house was too quiet and the ghosts, both old and new, were too close for comfort.

  “I could say I’m psychic,” Harry said, not taking his eyes from the flickering TV. “But the truth is I can hear your bike as soon as you turn onto Mulberry.”

  Sophie winced. “I bet Miss Sparks complains.”

  “Sure she does. But I think she’d die if she stopped complaining, so consider it your good deed for the day.”

  Sophie laughed softly. “I like the way you think, Uncle Harry.”

  He huffed a chuckle, then looked up with a frown. “Are you wearing perfume?”

  “It’s Gran’s. Too much, huh?” she asked and he nodded.

  “Plus you smell like you’re eighty years old. Why are you wearing Anna’s perfume?”

  “Let’s just say I came in contact with something really bad. It was in my hair, even after I washed it. Four times, even. I was desperate.” She shrugged. “Sorry. But trust me, it’s better than the alternative.”

  He grabbed the mass of hair twisted on the back of her head and squeezed. “Sophie, your hair is still soaking wet. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  She grinned at him. “I might smell like Gran, but you sound like her.”

  He looked disgruntled. Then he laughed. “You’re right. I do. So why did you come all the way over here with your hair all wet, Sophie? Having trouble sleeping?”

  “Yeah. I was hoping you’d be awake.”

  “Me and Bette Davis. Now, Voyager. Hell of a good flick. They just don’t make ’em—”

  “Like this anymore,” she finished his sentence fondly, having heard it hundreds of times during her life. Sophie had learned at an early age that her uncle was a chronic insomniac who dozed in his easy chair in front of the television while old movies played. It had been an enormous comfort, knowing that if she ever needed him, he’d be right here in this chair every night, ready to listen and advise. Or sometimes just to be there.

  And he had been there for her. Always. “The first time I came down and saw you sitting here you were watching Bette Davis. It was Jezebel that time. Hell of a good flick,” she teased, but his face had changed, sobering.

  “I remember,” he said quietly. “You were four years old and you’d had a bad dream. You looked so cute shuffling down the stairs in your footie pajamas.”

  She remembered the dream vividly, remembered the terror of waking up in an unfamiliar bed. The beds had always been unfamiliar up to that point in her life. Harry, Gran, and Katherine changed all that. She owed them a great deal.

  “I loved those footie pajamas.” They’d been handed down from her cousin Paula, then again from her cousin Nina. The feet had been mended and the flannel washed a hundred times, but to Sophie they were the most luxurious thing she’d ever owned. “They were so soft, and I’d never been so warm.”

  Harry’s eyes flickered and his jaw tightened and Sophie knew he was remembering the threadbare cotton pj’s she’d been wearing when she’d been so unceremoniously dumped on his doorstep. It had been a night as cold as this one and Harry had been so angry. Years later, she understood his anger had been fully directed at her mother.

  “I didn’t even realize you were crying at first. Not until I saw your face.”

  She remembered the night she’d first come down the stairs, terrified and trembling from the dream, but more terrified of making noise. “I was afraid to wake anyone up.” She’d learned never to disturb her mother during the night. “I was afraid you’d get mad and send me away.” She rubbed her thumb over Harry’s forehead to smooth away his frown. “But you didn’t. You just picked me up and sat me on your lap and we watched Jezebel.” And just like that, Sophie had found a safe place for the first time in her life.

  “Why the walk down memory lane, Sophie? What happened today?”

  Where to start? “I spent the day helping Katherine. I can’t tell you the details, but it was in a ‘professional capacity.’” She quirked her fingers, punctuating the air.

  “You saw a dead body.” His tone hardened. “Well, that explains the perfume. That was damn irresponsible of Katherine. No wonder you couldn’t sleep.”

  “I’m a big girl now, Uncle Harry. I can handle a body. Besides, Katherine didn’t think I’d actually see one. She felt bad about that.” Turning to meet his eyes, Sophie drew a deep breath. “She felt a lot worse when I saw her zipping the body into the bag.”

  Harry’s shoulders sagged and pain filled his eyes. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry.”

  She forced a smile. “I’m okay. I just couldn’t stay in that house tonight.”

  “So you’ll stay here, in your old room. I’m off tomorrow. I’ll make waffles.”

  He sounded like a kid himself and this time her smile was real. “Tempting, Uncle Harry, but I have to leave early tomorrow. I’ve got to go back to Gran’s and let the dogs out, and then I have to work at the museum all day. But how about dinner?”

  “You shouldn’t be having dinner with an old man like me. You should have a date, Sophie. You’ve been home six months. Haven’t you found anyone you like?”

  Vito Ciccotelli’s handsome face popped into her mind and she scowled. She had liked him, dammit. Worse, she’d respected him. Worse still, she’d wanted him, even after she’d known she couldn’t have him. Now the thought of him left nearly as bad a taste in her mouth as the dead bodies in the field.

  “No. Everyone I’ve met is either married, dating, or a rat.” Her eyes narrowed. “And sometimes they even act like they’re decent and get you to share your beef jerky.”

  He looked alarmed. “Please tell me beef jerky is not a new euphemism for sex.”

  Confused, she glared at him, then she laughed so hard she nearly fell off the arm of
the chair. Quickly she covered her mouth so as not to wake Aunt Freya. “No, Uncle Harry. To my knowledge, beef jerky is still beef jerky.”

  “You’re the linguist. You should know.”

  She stood up. “So what about dinner? I’ll take you to Lou’s.”

  “Lou’s?” His mouth bent down as he considered it. “For cheesesteaks?”

  “No, for wheat germ.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course for cheesesteaks.”

  His eyes gleamed. “With Cheez Whiz?”

  She kissed the top of his head. “Always. I’ll meet you at seven. Don’t be late.”

  She was halfway up the stairs to her old room when she heard his chair creak. “Sophie.” She turned to find him staring up at her, a sad look on his face. “Not all men are rats. You’ll find someone and he’ll be honorable. You deserve the best.”

  Sophie’s throat closed and resolutely she swallowed. “I’m too late, Uncle Harry. Aunt Freya got the best. The rest of us just have to settle. See you tomorrow night.”

  Monday, January 15, 12:55 A.M.

  Tino was sitting at the kitchen table when Vito got out of the shower. His brother pointed to a plate piled with linguini and Grandma Chick’s red sauce. “I nuked it.”

  Vito slumped in a chair with a sigh. “Thanks. I didn’t have a chance to eat.”

  Tino’s eyes narrowed in concern. “You went to the cemetery?”

  Besides Nick, Tino was the only other person who knew what today was and how Andrea had died. Nick knew because he’d been there when it happened. Tino knew because Vito had too much to drink a year ago today and spilled his guts. But his secret was as safe with Tino as it was with Nick.

  “Yeah, but not the one you mean.” Today’s field was a far cry from the neatly maintained cemetery where two years ago he’d buried Andrea next to her baby brother.

  Tino’s brows went up. “What, you found graves today?”

  Vito looked around the corner at the boys asleep on the living room floor. “Sshh.”

  Tino grimaced. “Sorry. Bad case?”

  “Yeah.” He devoured two helpings without speaking, then piled a third on his plate.