by Willow Rose
Until around one in the morning, when someone entered the room and sat down next to me. I didn’t turn to look at first, not until she placed her bid and I saw her ring.
I sighed and finished my drink. Seconds later, a new one was planted in front of me. “How’d you find me?”
“Being in law enforcement has it perks. You know that,” Bellini answered.
“You tracked my phone? I knew I should have shut it off.”
“Well, maybe you wanted me to find you.”
“Very funny,” I said.
“So, Black Jack, huh? What have we got?” Bellini asked.
“A ten and a five and a guy who feels lost.”
“Well, do you feel lucky today?” Bellini asked.
“Not really.”
“I do.” She looked to the dealer. “Hit him again.”
A card landed in front of me.
“A five. See, I told you. You are lucky,” Bellini said. “He stands.”
I exhaled and leaned back. “Listen. It’s nice of you to come down here and all, but I’m not in the mood for all this.”
Bellini nodded. “Okay then, let me be frank with you. You listen to me, Ryder. You have a good thing there at that hospital. A very good thing indeed. Don’t throw it away.”
“They’re better off without me; believe me.”
“Don’t be one of those guys, Jack. Pity will get you nowhere. You have to choose in life, my mother always said. You can be pitiful or powerful; you can’t be both. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s really unsexy, Jack.”
I looked at Bellini. The corner of her mouth ticked upward in a fleeting movement you couldn’t really call a smile. There was a flicker of an eyebrow that might have been approval.
“What?” she asked.
“You think I’m sexy, don’t you?”
“Oh, get over yourself, will you?” she said, appraising me coolly. She exhaled and threw a peanut my way. I looked into my half empty drink. I didn’t even like bourbon that much. I lifted my head. Bellini got off the stool and threw me a glare.
“So, what’s it gonna be, Ryder?”
85
May 2016
The hospital room was so empty and so dark, Shannon could hardly take it. She hated lying there all alone in her bed, not being able to even go to the bathroom on her own, not knowing where her beloved Jack was or what he was up to.
How could you do this to me, Jack? How could you leave me like this? After all we’ve been through?
All night, since he left, she had been crying, soaking her pillow, but now she had no more tears left in her. She stared at the black window, at the city, and cursed Savannah.
Why did we even have to come here?
She knew it wasn’t the city’s fault that everything had turned out this badly, but she couldn’t stop thinking that if they had only stayed in Cocoa Beach and decided to get married on a surfboard like Jack wanted, then things would have been so much different.
If only…there is always an if only…
She looked at the phone again, but still no message from him. It was almost two o’clock in the morning now. Where could he be? If it had been her, she would have gone to a bar and gotten drunk, but that wasn’t really Jack’s thing. He liked a beer or two, but he didn’t like to get drunk.
The night was long and Shannon knew there was no way she was going to get any sleep. Yet she tried again and again to close her eyes and forget everything, maybe just dream away for just a few hours, but it was no use.
Shannon heard a noise and opened her eyes when she realized the door was being opened.
It was Jack.
She held her breath. He was sneaking in, holding the bridal bouquet in his hand, Pastor Daniel and Detective Bellini following in his trail. They probably thought she was asleep.
“Jack?” Shannon said, tears in her eyes again. “You came back!”
Jack grabbed her hand in his and they looked into each other’s eyes. Pastor Daniel turned on a lamp on her small table. That was when she realized he was dressed up.
“What’s going on, Jack?”
“We’re getting married,” he said. “Just the two of us, right here right now. Detective Bellini will be our witness. No wedding dress, no music, no flower girls, no cake, well maybe we’ll find cake somewhere afterwards, but right now it’s just the two of us and our love and devotion for each other, and this bridal bouquet, of course. I found it in the chapel. Do you want to marry me, Shannon? Right here and now?”
Shannon sobbed. “Yes. Yes, Jack.”
He turned and looked at Pastor Daniel, who lifted his Bible. “All right. I believe it was your turn, Shannon. Repeat after me. I, Shannon King…”
“I, Shannon King…”
It was a struggle for Shannon to say the words without crying, but she managed to get through them and, seconds later, Pastor Daniel finally said the words they had longed to hear:
“By virtue of the authority vested in me under the laws of the State of Georgia, it is with the greatest pleasure that I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Daniel looked at Jack.
“You may kiss the bride.”
86
June 2016
Emily was standing by the window when we entered her room. She was dressed, her arms crossed over her chest, her back turned to us.
I walked up to her, Tyler sleeping in the sling on my chest. Shannon was walking carefully behind me. It had been three weeks now and she had just gotten rid of the wheelchair a few days ago. Luckily, nothing had been destroyed when the corkscrew went into her stomach. She had been very lucky. Her hand was in a bandage and they still didn’t know if she would be able to play the guitar again. Shannon was certain she would.
“Hi there, beautiful. You ready to go?”
Emily didn’t turn to look at us. She hadn’t spoken much since the incident, and it worried me a lot, even though the doctor told us it was normal behavior.
I, for one, couldn’t wait to get back to Cocoa Beach. Shannon, Tyler, Emily, and I had stayed in Savannah, while Sarah and my parents had taken the three A’s back to Cocoa Beach to finish up the school year. Due to her condition, Emily had been allowed to stay away till the next school year. Luckily, she was a very good student and had great grades, so the school believed she would be fine with missing a couple of weeks.
“Or do you want to stay a little longer?” I joked.
Emily turned, but didn’t look at me. She grabbed a plastic bag with her things in it. The hospital had to feed her through a tube for all three weeks she was in here, since she still refused to eat. Now she had finally gained enough weight to leave. She was out of immediate danger, but the struggle was far from over.
“Do you want us to take the flowers with us?” Shannon asked. “Some of them are still very pretty.”
Emily looked at them. “I don’t understand why people sent me flowers,” she said with a scoff. “You’d think I was dead or something.”
“Well, you almost did die,” I said. Her eyes met mine. “You do realize that, don’t you?”
Emily looked down and away from me, then turned and approached the door.
“You have to understand how serious this is,” I continued.
I felt so frustrated. I had no idea how to make her better, how to fix her, when she refused to even see how bad her condition was. The doctor told me that when she was this skinny, her brain didn’t work like it used to; without the proper fuel, it kind of went in circles, he told me, only focusing on one thing, to lose more weight even though she knew deep down that it could be fatal. She didn’t care. All she could think about was how she believed that losing even just one more pound would make her happier.
It was devastating.
So far, all we could do for her was to get her fed, get her to gain weight, so she would stop controlling herself and so her brain would start to work properly, along with the rest of her organs.
“Are we going home or what?” she asked, her hand on the doo
r handle.
I sighed. “Well, sweetie. We are, but you’re not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she let go of the handle.
Shannon and I exchanged a glance. “Well, the doctor helped us find a nice place for you. It’s in Orlando, so I’ll be able to visit as often as they’ll let me. We’re taking you there right away. It’s a recovering place for young girls with eating disorders like you. They have psychologists to help you and doctors who will monitor your weight gain.”
Emily shrieked. “You can’t do that to me. Dad! I’m not going to some place where crazy girls are whining about food.”
“Well, you have to,” I said.
“But…I don’t want to, Dad. I don’t want to get fat!”
Shannon put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “They’re not going to make you…”
“Let go of me. You’re not my mother!”
Shannon backed up. My heart throbbed. I tried to stay calm. I knew Emily wasn’t herself; she was sick and needed us to be in charge.
“This is the way it’s going to be,” I said and grabbed Emily by the arm. “You’re getting well; do you hear me? Whatever it takes. We love you and want to see you live a normal teenage life. This is the way it’s going to be; there’s nothing you can say or do to make us change our minds. You’ll stay at the place all summer and, if you show improvement, if you start to eat and gain weight, then you’ll be back with us by the end of summer, but if not, you’ll have to stay. That’s it, and there is no discussing it. Now, let’s get to the car.”
Emily pulled her arm out of my grip with a loud groan. “I hate you!” She turned and walked out of the room. Shannon and I followed. She put her hand in mine and squeezed it. We knew this was going to be rough, but it was the only way. Emily had survived, but she wasn’t out of danger yet. It was going to take months of recovering, maybe even years, the doctor had told us.
But if anyone could do it, it was us.
No one spoke in the car on the way back to the house, where Detective Bellini was waiting on the porch. I got out. Next to her stood Betsy Sue. Shannon came out of the car as well and walked up to us.
“You ready?” Shannon asked, addressed to Betsy Sue.
The girl looked up at Detective Bellini, who nodded. “She’s all yours now.”
I reached out my hand and Betsy Sue grabbed it. In her other hand, she was holding a deck of cards.
“I guess player wins this one, huh?” I asked.
Betsy Sue stared at me, then shook her head. “No. House always wins.”
I laughed. “We’ll see about that.”
“Take care, Ryder,” Bellini said. “Look me up if you ever come back to Savannah.”
“Yeah, that might be a while,” I said with a grin.
I thanked Bellini and gave her a hug, then walked down the stairs with Betsy Sue and Shannon. We got in the car, Betsy Sue in the back with Emily, and Tyler between them. Tyler was awake now and hugging Bobby, whose ear Shannon had sewn back on.
I rolled down the window and waved at Bellini, who waved back, and as I put the car in drive, Betsy Sue suddenly yelled from the back seat.
“Wait!”
I stopped and looked at her in the rearview mirror. “What?”
“We forgot Billy!”
I looked at Shannon. “Billy?”
“We can’t leave Billy,” she said. “He’ll be lonely. Can he come with us, please?”
My eyes met Shannon’s, who shrugged with a wry smile. “An extra kid and a ghost?”
“Please?”
“The more the merrier, right?” I said with a shrug, “Why not? Bring him onboard.”
Epilogue
BUST: Having a total over twenty-one, resulting in an automatic loss
June 2016
Susan Murray stared at her child. For six years, Chandelle had been gone, since the night she disappeared from the hospital when they took her in because she was sick. Six whole years where she had wondered every day what happened to her baby, looked at every child she saw on the street, wondering if that was her girl and what she would look like now.
Now she was looking at her. Finally, she was actually looking at her.
A deranged woman had stolen her from the hospital six years ago, they told her, because she had lost her own child. She had given her a new name and raised her inside of her house, never letting her out. Chandelle’s skin was so fair and her eyes so sensitive, she could hardly stand to be outside.
All of that didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that she was back. Finally, their family was complete again.
“You want another one, Chandelle?” Susan asked, referring to the ice cream the girl was eating.
Chandelle didn’t react. She didn’t respond to the name yet, only to that awful name, Miss Muffit, that the crazed lady had given her.
They had talked about the woman being so mad she actually believed Chandelle had a certain gene that made her want to kill, and that the woman believed she needed to protect the world against her.
Never had Susan heard anything so strange. The newspapers had written about it too and how the famous singer Shannon King had been involved. Susan knew she was related to Shannon King and was forever grateful to her for bringing her daughter back to them. She never had the chance to thank her in person and now she had heard that she had left town and gone back to Cocoa Beach with her husband and children. They had even taken the other girl from the house with them, they said. There was something about an older daughter who belonged to her husband, she believed, who had gotten sick as well, but now she was better. An eating disorder, according to the newspapers that also wrote that she was going to be checked into an eating disorder treatment facility, but Susan didn’t know if it was true. You never knew what to believe. The girl had looked very skinny in photos, though, but again, they always wrote stuff like that. The media were ruthless. Susan had gone through it herself when they had lost Chandelle that night at the hospital. The speculations had been many and awful. Telling the public that the police believed she had somehow hurt her own child and made it look like she disappeared. How could they think that?
Chandelle didn’t answer. She jumped down from the chair without a word and ran upstairs. Susan felt a pinch in her heart. She wanted so badly to talk to her, to get to know her, but she didn’t seem very interested in them. Not her or her husband Bob. It had been three weeks now since she got back, and she still hardly spoke to either of them.
“It’s going to take a lot of time,” their doctor had told them. “You have to be very patient.”
Still, Susan thought she was a very odd kid. Always talking to herself in her room, and when Susan asked her who she was talking to, she would name some ghost that she believed lived in their house. The doctor told them to let her be, that it was okay to have imaginary friends. It would end eventually. Susan shouldn’t worry so much.
But she did. She couldn’t help herself. She worried how much damage had been done to their daughter. She worried that she would never bond with her or even get to know her. And, most of all, she worried that she was slightly afraid of her.
Later that night, Susan and Bob were in bed and Susan told her husband about her concerns.
“I’m not sure I like her very much,” she said. “Am I a terrible mother for saying that?”
Bob looked at her. “I don’t know. We have to give her time. But, I have to admit, it feels weird that another person has raised your child. She looks like us physically, but it’s hard for me to think of her as my child.”
Susan nodded. She knew what he meant. But, after all, it had been only three weeks. She had been gone for six years. They just had to be a lot more patient.
Susan turned off the light and they went to sleep. At night, she dreamt of Chandelle, like so many times before, but when she woke up panting and sweating—also like so many nights before, the nightmare wasn’t over.
At the end of the bed, she spotted Chandelle, a gun in her hand,
pointed directly at her.
“Chandelle?”
As the gun went off and the bullet pierced through her body, all Susan Murray could think about was how the newspapers were going to blame it all on her again. Or maybe this time on guns and make it political.
Because no one would ever think a little girl could be that evil.
THE END
Girl Next Door
Jack Ryder #5
Hell is empty
All the devils are here.
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest
We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere.
- Ted Bundy
Prologue
February 1974
“It was a perfect day. The air was crisp, the wind chilly as it blew from the north where they had a snowstorm. It didn't mean it got cold in Cocoa Beach; it just meant the air felt fresher and lighter than usual. It also meant I got to wear my jeans to school and the new hoodie that my mother had bought for me at the mall a couple of weeks ago. Everything up till this point was perfect. I couldn't wait to get home and tell my mother the great news. It never occurred to me that this would be the darkest day of my life.
I remember how I clutched the envelope between my hands, feeling giddy with joy, thinking about the future.
Full scholarship. A full ride.
The words still clung in my head, as they had since they had fallen from my student counselor's mouth earlier in the day. I had barely been able to breathe inside his office as he showed me the letter containing the key to my future.
My hard work had finally paid off.
