The Final Girl

by Kenneth Preston

  Darlene smiled slightly at her optimistic appraisal of the situation. Harry would be proud.

  She walked toward the waiting area, debating whether or not to stay, when she saw the lone woman sitting in one of the plastic chairs, leaning forward with her face in her hands. Her natural brown, gray-speckled hair fell in ringlets around her shoulders.

  Jill's mother. Had to be.

  Darlene approached tentatively. "Ma'am?"

  The woman started and looked up. Her eyes were puffy, and her cheeks were red. If she had been wearing makeup, it would have been running down her face. But based on her overall appearance, Darlene doubted that the woman had ever worn a drop of makeup in her life.

  "I'm sorry," Darlene said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

  The woman sniffled and wiped at her eyes. She gave Darlene a slight smile. "That's okay."

  "Are you Jill Turner's mother?"

  "Yes?"

  "Hi. I'm Detective Moore with the Suffolk County Police Department." She extended her hand.

  The woman reached up and took it. "Amanda...Turner."

  Darlene took a seat next to Amanda. "I just spoke to one of the nurses. Your daughter's gonna be okay."

  Amanda smiled and sniffled simultaneously. "The doctor just told me. Thank God." She paused a moment before adding, "I don't know what I would have done..." She shook her head as if warding off the thought.

  "Well, you don't have to think about that."

  Amanda nodded softly. "Do you know who did this?"

  Darlene shook her head. "We're working on it." She wasn't about to share the detail about the boy in the ski mask.

  "How many? How many kids?"

  Darlene let out a long sigh. "Four."

  Amanda gaped at her momentarily and looked away. "Oh my God." She stared vacantly into the distance. "I feel so selfish."

  "Selfish? You were worried about your daughter. There's nothing selfish about that."

  "Four kids. Their families. I don't… I can't even imagine..."

  Darlene placed a hand over Amanda's. "You don't have to."

  "Who were they?"

  Darlene hesitated, surprised by the question. "The victims? You don't know?"

  Amanda shrugged. "I didn't know anything about Jill's friends, any of them. I mean, she didn't really have any friends, not until recently, anyway."

  "And you'd never met them."

  Amanda gazed absently into the distance and shook her head.

  Darlene didn't know how to proceed. She had a few questions on the tip of her tongue, but she was reluctant to ask them. As a detective, she had never been in a situation quite like this, and she didn't know how soon was too soon. But she felt that Amanda had unlocked a door for her. Darlene didn't want to kick it in; she just wanted to nudge it open ever so softly.

  "So your daughter didn't have any friends...until recently?" She really had no idea where she was going with this question. Probably nowhere. But it seemed pretty harmless, like a couple of middle-aged women shooting the breeze.

  "No, Jill was always a loner. She was an only child, so it was just the two of us. She was quiet, kept to herself, stayed in her room most of the time. But she got good grades and didn't do drugs, so there was that." She managed a faint smile.

  Ask about Jill's father? No, that would definitely be way too soon. But… "So...just the two of you?"

  "Yeah, Jill's father isn't in the picture, and I don't date much." She chuckled softly. "Not at all, actually. I haven't been on a date in years. It's Jill and me 'til the bitter end." She winced. "What a horrible choice of words."

  The surgical waiting room door opened and out stepped the operating surgeon, decked out in scrubs, surgical cap, and a surgical face mask pulled down below his chin. He wore a pleasant smile when he said, "Mrs. Turner, your daughter is being moved to a recovery room. Just give us a few minutes to get her settled in, and we'll let you see her."

  Amanda smiled. "Thank you."

  The surgeon turned and left the waiting area.

  "She's gonna be all right," Amanda said. "Physically, anyway."

  Darlene offered her a reassuring smile, knowing full well, as Amanda apparently did, that there were going to be invisible injuries that would run deep and take a long time to heal, if they ever did. Darlene couldn't imagine what Jill had gone through, didn't want to. But she could imagine what Amanda was going through.

  No, that wasn't right. Amanda had her daughter. Jill was damaged, perhaps irreversibly. There was just no coming all the way back from something as horrific as what she'd experienced. But Amanda had her. She could wrap her arms around her, console her.

  Protect her.

  Darlene practically leaped to her feet, feeling the wave of two agonizing years crashing down on top of her. She had to get away before she completely lost it in front of this emotionally fragile woman.

  "I have to use the bathroom," she blurted out.

  She stormed off, chewing on her lower lip in a desperate struggle to keep the tears at bay just long enough to make it to the women's room. When she made it, she held the tears back just long enough to make it to the nearest stall, where she grabbed the wall over the toilet and let the tears flow. As always, it was cathartic, reminding her, for the moment, that the pain was still there and that it was real. But she knew that this reminder was fleeting and that as soon as she pressed out that last tear, the doubt and the guilt would creep right back in and torment her until the next cry.

  She released the last sob, for the time being, admonished herself for not crying hard enough or long enough, and wiped her hands across the bottoms of her eyes.

  When she exited the stall, she came face to reflected face with a young woman standing in front of the row of sinks and accompanying mirrors.

  "Are you okay?" the young woman asked.

  Darlene took the sink next to her. "I'm okay." She forced an appreciative smile. "Thank you." She pumped some soap into her hands and lathered.

  She was content to let the exchange end there, but she had the sense that the young woman was not. She didn't look at the woman's reflection, but she could sense the woman looking at hers. She doubted that the woman had looked away since first catching her reflection. And Darlene hoped…

  "Say," the woman began. She turned her head to look directly at Darlene, and Darlene lost all hope. "Have we met?"

  Darlene looked at the woman and pretended to study her as if trying to figure out if there was any recognition on her part. "I don't think so." She wanted to bolt from the bathroom, but she couldn't get her legs to move.

  The woman gasped, mouth and eyes wide. "You're Darlene Moore!"

  Damn it! Two years later, and she was still Darlene Moore. Everywhere she went, she was Darlene Moore, mother of slain teen Brittany Moore. She should have changed her name. She should have moved. Problem was, there wasn't anywhere in the country she could have moved to without being recognized. Anonymity would require a new face to go with a new name. So she just had to go ahead and do what she always did in these situations: acknowledge the truth and play it sad.

  "I am," she conceded. She looked down into the sink, rinsing off the soap and dropping all pretense at cordiality. It really wasn't all that difficult. She was annoyed, as she usually was in these situations.

  "I'm...sorry," the woman said, sounding embarrassed. Good. She had every reason to be embarrassed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to..." Darlene flinched ever so slightly when the woman took a tentative step toward her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry for your loss." The embarrassed young woman was already racing toward the bathroom door.

  Left alone, Darlene dried her hands and studied herself in the mirror. The tears had dried. She looked almost normal, presentable. But she was reminded that her hair was still a bit of a mess. She had never gotten around to brushing it. In light of the circumstances, it was pretty easy to forget such a trivial thing. But appearances did matter.

  She grabbed a brush from her bag and began absent
ly running it through her shoulder-length reddish-brown hair, more brown than red, as her latest over-the-counter red hair dye was fading and a few of the grays she kept trying to cover were beginning to sneak their way back, reminding her that she was, after all, a forty-seven-year-old woman, and reminding her that she was vain for trying to cover the grays, to begin with. She didn't know why she bothered. She was forty-seven. Accept it. No, don't accept it. Love it. Then she was reminded of why she really tried to hide the grays.

  They'd begun to creep into her hair about two years ago.

  ―

  Two years ago. Darlene and her ex-husband Dave were called to the county coroner’s office to identify Brittany’s body.

  Her face was ashen. Her eyes were closed. The back of her head was resting on the metal slab. Her hands were resting on her chest, one over the other. She was perfectly positioned, like she was already in her casket. But for the bruises around her neck, she seemed perfectly at peace.

  She had the cause of death, but she didn’t know how or why, and at the moment, she didn’t care. Her baby was gone. That was all that mattered.

  She collapsed on her daughter’s body and bawled.

  Three days after the body was found, the toxicology report came back: Small traces of heroin had been found in Brittany’s system. Apparently, she had just begun using it. Her daughter had experimented with heroin. But who had given it to her? What kind of people had Brittany been spending time with? She had been distant, Darlene remembered. So far away that a detective with the Suffolk County Police Department couldn’t see that her own daughter had changed, had fallen in with the wrong crowd, had experimented with heroin. But detective or not, in order to see something, you have to be looking.

  And the guilt that had been festering inside of her for the past few days grew exponentially. She wondered what her ex-husband Dave must have thought of her and immediately and repeatedly admonished herself. If Dave thought any less of her as a mother or a human being, he kept it to himself. Even when she openly criticized herself, Dave tried to reassure her, telling her it wasn’t her fault, telling her that she couldn’t have known. But she scoffed. They were empty words. She was a detective and a mother. How the hell could she not have known who her fifteen-year-old daughter had been hanging around with?

  Naturally, the news media started asking the same question. And she went from being fodder for baseless theories to simply being a terrible mother. Darlene couldn’t and wouldn’t argue the point.

  Six days after the discovery of Brittany’s body, the police made an arrest. He was a drug dealer, specializing in whatever you needed, including heroin, the same heroin found in Brittany’s system. Several of the suspect’s acquaintances had called the anonymous police hotline to say that the suspect had bragged about the murder. Brittany had not been sexually-assaulted, but DNA in the bruises matched the DNA in skin cells taken from the suspect’s fingers. It didn’t take long for the police to get a full confession. Damion Randolph pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

  With the case resolved, the media trickled away. Most of them, anyway. A few media outlets requested interviews with the woman they would surely try to paint as a negligent mother. They wouldn’t have to do very much painting. She’d taken care of that for them. Some of them even offered outrageous sums of money for an exclusive interview. But she wasn’t interested in the money, and there would be no interview. She had nothing to give these people that they didn’t already have, and she didn’t have any tears left to shed for the cameras. She was dead inside, and she would spend the next two years trying to bring herself back to life.

  ―

  When Darlene returned to the present, she stopped brushing her hair and silently admonished herself. She was making this thing―the horror that Jill Turner had experienced, that the four victims had experienced, that their families were experiencing and going to experience―about her.

  Harry had been right. Well, he hadn't actually said anything. Not directly, anyway. But he'd implied it, and he'd been right to imply it because here she was, connecting her past to Jill Turner's present. She had yet to meet the girl, and she was already too close to this case.

  Chapter Seven

  Amanda Turner was beginning to realize that she didn't know as much about her daughter as she'd thought she had. These friends of hers. Who the hell were they? The girl had never had a friend in her life. Other than her mother, of course. Amanda had been the best and only friend to a girl who had never had the social skills to make friends her own age. But suddenly, in the midst of this tragedy and near-tragedy, Amanda discovers that the girl had at least four of them. This newfound knowledge was as perplexing as the crime. She didn't know what to make of it, other than the possibility that there was a hell of a lot more to the girl than met the eye.

  She contemplated this possibility as she watched her daughter, her chest rising and falling with each glorious breath. There was a newfound mystery in the girl. She'd been keeping secrets from her mother. Amanda almost felt betrayed by this. But that didn't stop her from reveling in the knowledge that her daughter was going to live when all the others had died. She may have lost these secret friends of hers, but she still had her best friend.

  "A girl's best friend is her mother," she muttered, paraphrasing a line from Psycho, a favorite of her husband's and one of many he'd introduced to their daughter.

  But who were these friends of hers, and what part had they played in this tragedy? Blaming the victim? Maybe. But there was one thing she knew for sure: Her daughter had been safe before she'd met these friends of hers. Now, they were dead, and her daughter had almost died. Jill didn't need friends like that. She just needed her mother.

  "Mom?"

  Amanda rose from her chair and walked to the bed. She was focused on her daughter's open, searching eyes and her weak, timid voice as she called for her mother a second time.

  "Mom?"

  Amanda took her daughter's hand. "I'm here, honey." She beamed down into Jill's eyes. She was confused, didn't know where she was, and Amanda wanted to reassure her with the widest smile she could muster. Her mother was there for her. She would keep her safe. Her best friend would never let her down again.

  Chapter Eight

  Darlene stood just inside the hospital entrance and gazed out past the squad cars and the uniformed officers and into the parking lot beyond. She was hoping that a few minutes away from Amanda Turner, mother of the seventeen-year-old lone survivor, would calm her nerves, but her nerves were anything but calm. If anything, she was more freaked out than she was a few minutes ago.

  The phone trembled in her hand. She'd pulled up Harry's contact information, but she was afraid to make the call. He was going to ask her how she was doing, which would be all fine and good if he didn't sound like he was paying his condolences. And she would have to resist the urge to lash out at him. And there would be a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding or failing in that regard. She hated those odds. She had to keep her cool. Lashing out at him would be like admitting that she wasn't emotionally capable of handling this case. So when he inevitably asked the question in a tone that made her skin crawl, she would have to hold her tongue. And she would have to lie through her teeth. She would have to tell him that everything was just peachy. She would have to keep the part about running to the bathroom and bawling in the stall to herself. Because if she didn't, Harry just might subtly suggest that she step away from the case. And when she told him to go fuck himself, maybe not in so many words, he might just go to their lieutenant and tell him that she was emotionally compromised and unfit for the case. And their lieutenant might pull her from the case. And she couldn't have that. Hell no. She needed this case.

  She owed it to Jill.

  She shook her head at the thought. She owed it to Jill? She didn't even know the girl. She hadn't even met her. But she reminded her of Brittany. She hadn't even met Jill Turner, and she reminded Darlene of the daughter she'
d never had the chance to see grow to be Jill's age.

  Weird, right? And maybe just a tad psychologically unhealthy. Maybe something she should consider sharing with her therapist.

  She was suddenly aware that she was being watched and looked to her left just in time to see a uniformed officer avert his eyes. She wondered how long she'd been standing there staring off into space.

  The screen on her phone had gone dark. She punched in her PIN and tapped the call button before she had a chance to chicken out.

  "Hey," Harry answered after a couple of rings.

  "Hey."

  "How's the girl?"

  "She just came out of surgery. She's gonna be fine, physically anyway."

  "So you haven't spoken to her yet, obviously."

  "Obviously. But I did speak to her mother. And I learned a few interesting things about this Jill Turner."

  "Such as?"

  "Jill Turner was a loner. According to her mother, she didn't have a friend in the world. Her mother had no idea she was out with these kids or who they were."

  Harry didn't respond.

  "Harry, you there?"

  "Yeah, I was just wondering why you were referring to Jill Turner in the past tense."

  "What? I wasn't referring to her in the past tense. I said she was a loner, as in she's no longer a loner because she was hanging out with a bunch of kids at a campsite. What are you getting at?"

  "Nothing. Sorry."

  She sighed, intentionally loud enough for Harry to hear. She didn't want to argue with him, but she wanted him to know that she was annoyed. Seriously, it had gotten to the point that he was analyzing her every word, interpreting her use of the past tense as some kind of a sign that she was struggling. He was acting like her therapist. She didn't need him to be her therapist. She needed him to be her partner.