“Well, first off, there’s the issue of some missing pages from a diary, but I’ll get to that later. Secondly, I got a call from the chief of police in Port Dimmock regarding an incident with Dani and you. He called it a courtesy call, giving me the heads-up that they’re gunning for you. What were you thinking?”
“She’s my daughter!” Jake shouted. He could only take being talked to like a child for so long. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“The Barkers are pressing charges against Dani for the assault. And they claimed you stormed into their house, uninvited, waving a gun around and yelling. And some woman—Jaina, I’m guessing—is said to have set fire to the house while you threatened a bunch of children. And then you ran off with Dani. Which, given your custody situation, is kidnapping, by the way. Does that just about cover things enough for you?”
Jake growled low in his throat before he spoke. “Don’t you patronize me, Peter. You don’t understand. And I will not explain.”
Peter sighed. “Well…what the hell am I supposed to do? They’re asking where you are. They expect me to help bring you in. Whatever happened, you need to let the police in Dimmock do their job. I’m sure we can work it all out. Kids are kids, right?”
Peter was changing tactics. It irked Jake even more. “Just…just trust me, all right, Peter?”
“You want me to trust you, but you won’t tell me what’s going on? Where are you? How’s Dani?”
“I can’t tell you where we are, but Dani’s fine. I’m asking for you to trust me, just for a bit. I’d ask you not to help the police, but I know you’ll do what you think is right. Just…” Jake sighed. “…do it for Dani.”
“That’s a really shitty position to put me in,” Peter said. “I’ll do what I can. Call me in the morning.”
“Sure,” Jake said, and hung up.
Jake pocketed his phone and stepped back to survey the face painted in blood on his car’s window. He was being taunted by a twelve-year-old girl. And for what? If what Aza had written in her therapy journal was true—that she’d somehow pushed her father to murder—then why would she hold Jake in contempt? From what he could see, that story had ended just how she’d wanted.
“Jake?” Jaina called from a third-floor window. Dani waved from over Jaina’s shoulder.
Seeing Dani shook the stiffness from his muscles and he eked out a smile. He waved back and entered the apartment building.
No sooner did Jake open the door to Jaina’s apartment than did Dani seize him in a fierce hug. Jake gasped, but hugged back and spun her into the middle of the room, kicking the door shut behind him as he did.
He set her down and grabbed the sides of her face. “Dani?”
She wrinkled her face and squirmed out of his grip. “What?” she asked, rubbing at her cheeks.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Do you know what happened?”
Jaina walked into the room and handed Dani and Jake each a glass of water. She stood at Jake’s side.
Dani looked at Jaina. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jaina.”
“Dani…?” Jake asked, hoping to nudge her back to his original question.
Dani slapped Jake on the arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?” she asked.
“I— She’s—”
“You are so pretty,” Dani said, turning back to Jaina. “How do you get your hair like that?”
Jaina laughed, running fingers along the maze of braids atop her head. “Lots of practice, I suppose,” Jaina said.
“Maybe in the morning, you could do my hair?” Dani asked, suddenly looking abashed. “My mom never wants to do it.”
“Uh, sure,” Jaina said.
Jake stepped in and knelt in front of Dani. “Let’s worry about hair and all that later. Dani, do you know what happened tonight?”
Dani yawned loudly and looked back at Jake with hooded eyes. “What time is it? I’m beat.”
“Dani!” Jake shouted, startling both Jaina and Dani enough that they both jumped. “Where’s Tragedy?”
Dani frowned like she was confused. She looked around the room and then motioned for Jake to come closer. When he did, Dani cupped a hand around his ear and whispered, “Everywhere.”
Jake’s blood ran cold.
“Can I go to bed now?” Dani asked. “I feel like a zombie. I’m either going to bed or eating someone’s brain. Your choice.”
Jaina shot Jake a pleading look, but he couldn’t form a response. “Sure, honey,” Jaina said. “You can sleep in the spare room. I have a futon. It’s pretty comfy.”
Jake was still in the same position, knelt on the floor in Jaina’s living room, when Jaina shut the door to the spare bedroom and collapsed onto the couch.
They stared at each other for a few moments until Jake felt he could move again. He crawled to the couch and sat on the floor, propped against it, next to Jaina’s legs. She leaned forward and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Aza did something to her,” Jake whispered, fearing what Dani had said was true—that Aza was everywhere.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Is that family going to press charges? And if they do, what does that mean for us? Did we aid and abet? Or whatever. Shit, I’ve never been arrested.”
“It was a fight between twelve-year-old girls, at worst.” He sighed. “Peter is going to try and keep that part of things quiet, I hope. But, honestly, I don’t give a damn what that family does. It’s not the legal ramifications I’m worried about. Aza did something to Dani. You saw her hands. Half a dozen people witnessed her attack that girl. But I’m telling you, it wasn’t Dani.”
Jaina slid off the couch to sit on the floor next to Jake. She hooked her arm under his and rested her head on his shoulder. “I always said Aza wasn’t human. Shit, I’ve been telling you for years what she can do, but I never thought… This is a nightmare. I’m sorry, Jake. Maybe Dani will snap out of it in the morning. And we don’t really know what happened.”
“Do you really believe that? Did Gerry ever snap out of it?”
Jaina didn’t answer for a long time. When she did, her voice was wispy. “We should take turns watching Dani, yeah?”
“Yeah, but I’ll take first watch. My mind’s going too fast to sleep right now anyway. You get some sleep. I’ll come wake you if I need you.”
Jaina stood and offered a hand. Jake laughed quietly, but took it, and stood.
Jake followed Jaina’s eyes as they went to the room Dani slept in. “I just don’t get it,” she said. “Things like this don’t happen. People can’t control other people just because they want to. It’s not right. It’s—”
“Hey,” Jake said, grabbing her and making her face him directly. “We are going to figure this out, okay?”
“Do you really believe that?” Jaina asked.
“Yes,” Jake said, though he wasn’t sure he meant it or not.
“Okay. I’m going to try and get some sleep. Hopefully, the police don’t break down my door or anything.” She smiled, but Jake knew it was forced.
Jake watched Jaina leave the room. There were things he longed to tell her, but he didn’t have the energy. And he wasn’t entirely certain what those things were. Even before Aza escaped, Jake often wondered if he was taking advantage of Jaina. If he was being selfish. The obvious answer was yes, but he could never quite tell how Jaina felt. She had always seemed to enjoy his company—for the most part—and the wad of cash he handed her every month, but now that part of their relationship was over and he didn’t know where that left them. All he knew was that he was happy not to be alone. At least for the time being.
Jake shook his head and went to the guest room. He couldn’t afford to cloud his mind with that sort of garbage when a psychotic twelve-year-old had him and his family in her cross-hairs. Absently, he pulled out his phone as he entered the room. Almost one in the morning, he thought. Christ. Then he noticed the slew of notifications he hadn’t bothered checking until now. There
were some missed calls and texts from Peter from earlier in the night. And there were also numerous messages from Amelia, Dani’s mother. Christ, he thought again. Just one more complication he hadn’t thought of until now.
Inside the room, Jake carefully shut the door and silently stole over to the futon. In the dim light of streetlamps outside the solitary window, Jake could see Dani sleeping peacefully. She was curled up with a small blanket, snoring softly. It almost looked as if she were smiling as well, perhaps running through pleasant dreams. Jake turned an armchair to face Dani and sat weightily in it. If he were to fall asleep, it would not be pleasant dreams that would greet his tired mind.
Jake watched Dani for a few moments, reassuring himself that she was alive and safe. Satisfied, he turned back to the messages his ex-wife had left him. There were a mix of text messages and voicemails. He groaned and played the first one.
“Jake, what’s going on? Gretchen Barker just called me and said Dani attacked their daughter and that you came smashing into their house with a gun! Where’s Danielle? What did you do? I’ve already told the police. They’re going to find you and when they do, you will never see Danielle ever again!”
The second one played much the same.
“How dare you? You have no right! You shouldn’t even be allowed to see Danielle at all, but I, out of the goodness of my heart, let you because I don’t want her growing up without a father. After all I’ve done for you, Jake, this is how you repay me? This is how you treat the mother of your child? You’re a sick son of a bitch, you know that? Your days as a father are over! I’ll see you in prison for this, Jake!”
Jake left the remainder of the messages unopened and quickly flicked through the text messages from Amelia. They synced up to the voice-mails, but in the more recent ones, she had shifted to begging for Dani’s return.
Jake turned his phone off and removed the battery. He didn’t figure they’d have gotten a warrant to track it yet, but he couldn’t be certain. After disabling his own phone, he got up and went back to the living room, searching for Dani’s. He found it on the coffee table.
There were a similar number of calls and texts from Amelia to Dani’s phone as well. Jake quickly checked for any outgoing calls or texts, but the last time it appeared Dani had used her phone was to call Jake several hours earlier. He breathed a sigh of relief that Dani hadn’t texted her mother or anyone else since the incident at the Barkers’. He pulled the battery from Dani’s phone and pocketed the parts. Luckily, Amelia wasn’t very tech-savvy, or she might have already tracked them just as Jake had. He should have turned their phones off earlier, as soon as they’d left the Barkers’. He could only hope that he hadn’t realized his error too late.
Not knowing what else to do, Jake headed back to the armchair in the guest room. He alternated between watching Dani and scanning the parking lot through the window. Both were calm.
Eventually, Jake fell asleep, tugged down into darkness despite the rising dread that danced within his soul.
Chapter Twelve
Saturday 2:18 a.m.
Aza woke with a soft yawn and carefully pulled the emergency release from inside the trunk of DS Anderson’s car. It clicked audibly, the sound magnified in the emptiness of the night. Aza held her breath, scanning the parking lot from the trunk. When she heard nothing, she slid over the edge and dropped to the pavement, staying as small as possible. She pulled the trunk shut and waited for anyone nearby to react to the soft thunk of the latch.
She stayed flat on the damp pavement, breathing in the cold air and watching her breath on each exhale. She kept her eyes alert and searching, not wishing to be seen. There would be a time and place to step into the spotlight, but not now.
Before the gentle buzzing of the lampposts could lull her back to sleep, Aza moved. Practically crawling, she crept up to the entrance of the apartment complex. The lights were on inside, blazing white to her maladjusted eyes. She forced herself to stare at the light until it no longer hurt and then she slid inside, holding the door open just enough to admit her small frame.
Nearby, Aza could hear the sounds of slow typing and the soft groans of an office chair. The air smelled of cheap cologne and burned coffee. Someone just around the corner, Aza figured. Standing just inside the door, Aza studied the large placard on the wall. Lists of names and apartment numbers. After what had happened at the Barkers’, Aza didn’t think that DS Anderson would have returned home. So, where had he taken her? Must be that woman’s home, Aza thought. Aza knew her name was ‘Jaina’ and recognized her from the loony bin, but that told her little in her present circumstances. Aza had never bothered to learn Jaina’s last name. It hadn’t been necessary until now. The names on the marquee were last names, with only initials to signify first names. And there were nine J’s.
Aza walked to the corner, closer to the cologne and coffee stench. She was near enough to her quarry to hear a lone person breathing. She stayed just out of sight and closed her eyes. The darkness was pleased with what she had accomplished in such a short time after leaving the hospital, but it was not satiated. That didn’t bother Aza because neither was she. The darkness longed for tragedy, and Aza longed to provide it. It was in her being. She was Tragedy.
“None are beyond my reach…”
“Hello?” a man’s voice asked.
Aza sighed and opened her eyes. She rolled her shoulders and shook out her cramped limbs. She often spoke without meaning to.
A man walked around the corner and nearly collided with Aza. He stumbled back and grabbed at his chest. “Christ, you scared me.”
“You should be scared,” Aza said, brushing past the man and walking toward the large desk that sat around the corner, laden with snack wrappers and Styrofoam coffee cups. She could taste the man’s stench in the air.
“What are you doing out here at this hour?” the man asked. “It’s late. Or early. Heh.”
Aza could feel him close behind her, but she didn’t look at him. She’d already seen enough in his beleaguered appearance. Eyes with dark circles beneath them. Sweat stains on a worn T-shirt. An uneven posture. And a foul scent that threatened to gag her.
Aza walked around the desk and looked over its contents. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she had hoped to find it without having to trouble herself with the foul-smelling man at her back. Again she sighed, this time turning to look up at the amorphous blob of a man that had clearly gotten the raw end of a deal once or twice. Like April Barker, life was a bitch.
“Listen,” Aza said. “I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to, so I’ll keep this simple. I need you to do something for me. If you do not, I will kill you.”
The man stared back, blinking beady eyes beneath a sweaty brow. There was more hair protruding from the stretched-out neck of his shirt than from his head. If she did kill him, it would be a mercy.
“Did you just threaten me?” the man asked.
“No,” Aza said. “I am simply giving you a clear expectation of what will occur in the next few moments. So you’re not surprised. It’s a courtesy I don’t have to give. I’m trying to be nice.”
The man snorted and swiped at the air with fingers like overstuffed sausages. “Ha, you’re a real hoot. Your sense of humor is a little dark, but I like it. Do you need me to call your parents or can you get back to your unit by yourself?”
Aza pinched her eyes shut at a sudden headache. The man’s very voice grated on her nerves, sending shock waves of pain to every inch of her body. Why did everyone insist on calling her parents?
“You all right?” the man asked.
Aza snapped her eyes open at the same moment she grabbed the pair of scissors from the man’s desk. She pivoted and stabbed them into the man’s thigh, just above the knee. As he howled and fell, she twisted them back out and lunged for his face. Aza caught him in the chest and pinned him against the side of the desk, his legs buckled beneath him. She held the bloody scissors against his throat and fought de
sperately to keep from killing him right away.
“What the f-fuck?” the man asked.
Aza jerked the scissors away and plunged them into the man’s forearm. Before he could try to push her away, she grabbed onto his ear with her free hand. She leaned close and twisted both the scissors and his ear.
“What the f—”
She pulled the scissors out and jammed them into his upper arm. He howled again, but Aza snapped off his outburst by wrenching on his ear near hard apart to tear it off.
“Maybe now you understand how serious I am,” Aza said. “You won’t get any more chances. I need you to do something for me. Nod if you want to keep living.”
The man whimpered, but nodded as much as he could with Aza’s hand clenching his ear.
Aza let go and stepped back, taking the scissors with her. The man stifled a cry and grabbed at his injured arm. It was bleeding profusely. Aza must have caught an artery.
“I need an ambulance,” the man said softly, watching his blood pool on the threadbare carpet.
Aza gestured for him to get up. “I need you to tell me what apartment Jaina lives in.”
The man grabbed at the desk, trying to stand. His injured leg kept buckling, but eventually he managed to get himself upright, only to collapse in his office chair.
“L-Last name?” the man asked, shaking his head as if he thought it would change his situation.
“How many Jainas can there possibly be? It’s a stupid name. It means nothing.”
With blood running down his wrist, the man pecked at the keyboard with a single finger, leaning close to the screen and squinting. He was sweating even more than before. The carpet underfoot was more blood than not. It squished deliciously as Aza rocked back and forth impatiently. There was just something about feeling someone else’s blood between her toes…
“There’s a—” Abruptly, the man slumped forward onto the desk and fell limp.
Aza groaned and craned her head back in exasperation. “Why does everything have to be so difficult?”
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