by Joy Fielding
“She’s a very beautiful girl.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Like her mother.”
The phone rang. Cindy raced to the kitchen, tripping on the large sisal rug in the front hall, banging her hip against the side of the kitchen door. “Damn it,” she swore, lifting the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Well, damn it yourself,” her mother replied. “What’s the matter, darling? Forgot to put on your makeup?”
Cindy raised a hand to her bare cheek, realized she had indeed forgotten to put on any makeup. Still Neil had said she was beautiful, she thought gratefully, shaking her head as he approached, signaling the caller wasn’t Julia. “I’m fine, Mom. Just a little busy at the moment. Can I call you back?”
“You don’t have to bother. I’m just checking in. Everything all right? Your sister said you sounded pissy, and I’m afraid I have to agree with her.”
Cindy closed her eyes, ran her free hand through her hair. “Everything’s fine, Mom. I’ll call you later. Okay?”
“Fine, darling. Take care.”
“My mother,” Cindy said, hanging up the phone and immediately checking her voice-mail to make sure no one else had called. “My sister told her I sounded pissy when she called earlier.”
“I’m sure she meant pithy,” Neil offered.
Cindy laughed. “Thanks for coming over. I really appreciate it.”
“I just wish there was something more I could do.”
Something clicked in Cindy’s mind. “You can take me to see Sean Banack,” she announced suddenly.
“Who?”
“I’ll explain on the way.” Cindy grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a note for Julia, leaving it in the middle of the kitchen table, in case her daughter should return while she was gone. On the way out the door, she called Julia’s cell phone again and left another message. There’d been something in Sean’s voice when she’d talked to him earlier, Cindy thought, replaying their conversation in her mind, word for word. Something more than cigarettes and alcohol. Something more than fatigue and impatience and hurt feelings.
Anger, she realized.
He’d sounded pissy.
“IS SEAN HERE?”
“He isn’t,” the young man said, standing in the doorway, blocking Cindy’s entrance to the small, second-floor apartment that was situated over an old variety store on the south side of Dupont Street near Christie. The man was tall and black, with an athletic build and a shiny, bald head. A silver loop dangled from his left ear. A set of earphones wrapped around his neck, like a noose. He was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt and black sweatpants, and his left hand clutched a large, plastic bottle of Evian.
“You must be Paul,” Cindy said, pulling the name of Sean’s roommate from the recesses of her subconscious. She extended her hand, gently pushing her way inside the stuffy, nonairconditioned apartment, Neil following right behind.
The young man smiled warily. “And you are?”
“This is Neil Macfarlane, and I’m Cindy Carver. Julia’s mother.”
The expression on the young man’s face altered ever so slightly. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Carver, Mr. Macfarlane. Excuse the mess.” He looked sheepishly toward the cluttered L of the living-dining room behind him.
Cindy’s eyes followed his. Books and papers covered the light hardwood floor and brown corduroy sofa in the middle of the room. A deeply scratched wooden door balancing on four short stacks of red bricks served as a coffee table. Several old copies of the Toronto Star lay stretched across the small dining room table, like a linen tablecloth. HUSBAND PHONED WIFE AFTER BEHEADING HER screamed an inside headline. MAN STALKED VICTIM FOR THREE DAYS BEFORE FATAL ATTACK announced another.
“Sean’s doing research on aberrant behavior,” Paul explained, following her eyes. “For a script he’s writing.”
Cindy nodded, remembering Julia had once boasted that Sean was writing a script especially for her. As far as Cindy knew, Sean had yet to find a producer for any of his efforts. He supported himself by bartending at Fluid, a popular downtown club. “Has Julia been around lately?” she asked, straining to sound casual.
“Haven’t seen her since …” There was an uncomfortable pause. “You should probably talk to Sean.”
“Do you have any idea when he’s coming back?”
“No. I wasn’t here when he went out.”
“Do you mind if we wait?” Cindy immediately plopped herself down on the sofa, moving a well-thumbed copy of a paperback book to the cushion beside her. The book was called Mortal Prey.
Paul hesitated. “The thing is … I have to be somewhere by noon, and I was just gonna hop in the shower.…”
“Oh, you go right ahead,” Cindy instructed. “We’ll be fine.”
“Sean could be a while.”
“If he’s not back by the time you’re ready to leave, we’ll go.”
“All right. I guess it’s all right,” the young man muttered under his breath, perhaps sensing Cindy’s determination, and not wanting to make a scene. “I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.”
As soon as Cindy heard the shower running, she was on her feet.
“What are you doing?” Neil asked. “Where are you going?”
The second question was by far the easier of the two to answer. “To Sean’s room,” she said, trying to decide which of the two rooms at the back of the apartment was his, opening the first door she came to, grateful when she saw a row of high school football trophies bearing Sean’s name lined up in front of the open window.
Posters from popular movies covered the walls: Spider-Man; Invasion of the Body Snatchers; From Hell; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Cindy winced at the image of a horrifying, leather-faced figure brandishing a chainsaw in front of him like a giant phallus, a helpless young woman secured to the wall behind him. She remembered that movie, hated herself now for enjoying it. What was the matter with her that she liked such things?
“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Neil said, his voice a strained whisper as he followed her inside the tiny bedroom.
“Probably not,” Cindy admitted, looking from the unmade bed to the water-stained desk on the opposite wall. An empty picture frame sat to one side of a bright blue iMac in the middle of the desk; a neat stack of blank paper was piled on the other.
“What is it you’re looking for?”
“I don’t know.” Cindy took a step back, her ankle brushing up against the wastepaper basket on the floor. Her attention was immediately captured by the torn and crumpled remains of an eight-by-ten glossy. She bent down and scooped the battered picture of her daughter into her shaking hands. “It’s Julia’s most recent head shot. She just had it taken a few weeks ago.” Cindy tried vainly to iron out the creases of the black-and-white photograph, piece together the smile on her daughter’s face. Obviously Sean had torn it from its frame in a fit of fury. Was it possible he’d attacked her daughter in a similar rage?
“Maybe you should just leave it,” Neil advised, removing the picture from her trembling hands.
“What else is in here?” Cindy asked, ignoring Neil’s warning, turning the wastepaper basket upside down, and watching as scrap pieces of paper, used tissues, pencil shavings, and a browning apple core tumbled toward the floor. “Garbage, garbage, garbage,” she muttered, her fingers loosening their grip on the white plastic container, allowing it to slip from her hand. She began pulling open the desk drawers, poking around inside them. There was nothing of consequence in the first drawer, and she was just about to close the second when her fingers located something at the very back. An envelope, she realized, pulling it out, and opening it, a small gasp escaping her lips.
“What is it?”
Cindy’s mouth opened, but no words emerged, as her fingers flipped through a succession of small color photographs, all of Julia, all in various stages of undress: Julia in a see-through lavender bra and thong set; Julia wearing only the bottom half of a black string bikini
, her hands playfully covering obviously bare breasts; Julia in profile, the curve of one naked breast visible beneath the crook of her elbow, the top of her bare bottom rounding out of the frame; Julia wrapped provocatively in a bedsheet; Julia wearing high heels and a man’s unbuttoned shirt and crooked tie.
“Why would she do this?” Cindy wondered out loud, showing the pictures to Neil before tucking them into the pocket of her khaki cotton pants. What was the matter with Julia? Had she no common sense whatsoever?
Cindy rifled through a few more items, and was about to close the drawer when her eyes fell across a sheet of densely typed paper.
The Dead Girl, she read.
By Sean Banack.
Cindy pulled the piece of paper from the drawer and carried it over to the bed, where she sank down, her lips moving silently across the page as she read.
THE DEAD GIRL
by Sean Banack
CHAPTER ONE
She stares up at him defiantly, despite the fact her hands and feet are bound behind her naked body and she knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is going to kill her. He should have taped her eyes shut as well as her mouth, he thinks; then he wouldn’t have to see the look of contempt he knows so well. But he wants her to see him. He wants her to know what’s coming, to see the knives and other medieval instruments of torture spread out across the floor, and understand what hell he has prepared for her. He lifts the smallest, yet sharpest of the knives into his hands, cradles it delicately between his fingers, fingers she claims are hopelessly inept. Fairy fingers, she calls them to his face. A faggot’s hands.
He draws a fine line down the taut flesh of her inner arm. Her eyes widen as she watches a thin red streak wind its way across the whiteness of her skin. Slowly he lifts a second knife into the air in a graceful arc, then plunges it into her side, careful to keep the blade a safe distance from her vital organs, making sure the thrust isn’t hard enough to kill her, because what would be the fun in that? Over so soon, so quick, before he’s had a chance to really enjoy himself, before she’s had a chance to fully suffer for her sins. And she must suffer. As he has suffered for so long.
What are you doing? Let go of me, she’d yelled when he pulled up beside her, then bundled her into the trunk of his car. She, this spoiled child of privilege, who claimed nosebleeds anywhere north of Highway 401, is about to bleed to death in an abandoned shed just south of the King Sideroad, in the middle of bloody nowhere. Serves you right, bitch, he says, slicing at her legs before throwing her on her back, pushing the largest of the knives between her thighs.
Green eyes widen in alarm as the knife slides higher, cuts deeper. Not laughing now, are you, bitch? Where’s all that defiance now? With his free hand he grabs another knife, slashes at her breasts. Her blood is everywhere: on her, on him, on the floor, on his clothes, in his eyes, beneath his fingernails. His faggot fingernails, he thinks, rejoicing as he plunges the knife deep inside her, then savagely rips the duct tape away from her mouth so that he can hear her final screams.
“Oh, dear God,” Cindy cried, rocking back and forth.
Neil extricated the paper from Cindy’s hands. “What is it?”
“No, please no.”
It was then she heard the noise from somewhere beside them. “What’s going on in here?” Paul asked from the doorway. “Mrs. Carver? What are you doing in here?”
Cindy scrambled to her feet, lunged at the startled young man, naked except for the white towel wrapped around his waist. “Where’s my daughter? What have you done with her?”
Paul took a step back, clutching the towel at his hips. “I don’t know. Honestly, I have no idea where she is.”
“You’re lying.”
“I really think you should leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I speak to Sean.”
“I already told you I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“Is he with Julia?”
“No way. Julia ripped his guts out, man. Look, I’m gonna have to call the police if you don’t clear out of here right now.”
Neil looked up from the pages he was reading and yanked the phone from the small table beside Sean’s bed, thrust it toward Paul. “Call them,” he said.
NINE
A DARK green Jaguar was parked in Cindy’s driveway when she got home.
“Oh no,” Cindy said, panicking as Neil pulled his black Nissan alongside it. “It’s my ex-husband. Why is he here?”
“Maybe he brought Julia home,” Neil offered hopefully.
Cindy bolted from the car and was halfway up the steps when her front door opened. Tom stood in the doorway to her house, one well-toned arm crossed over the other, a look of bemused impatience creasing his tanned face. He was dressed head to toe in beige linen, a color that complemented the recent blond streaks in his still shockingly full head of hair. His feet were bare inside brown tasseled loafers. As smugly handsome at forty-five as he’d been at twenty-five, Cindy thought, disappointed that middle-age hadn’t damaged him in any obvious way, that he hadn’t grown fat or bald, that his wrinkles actually added to his appeal. Elvis was sitting at his feet, as if he were used to having Tom there, Cindy groused silently, when behind him, something moved. A young woman, Cindy realized, relief pulsing through her veins. “Julia!” she cried out.
A shape emerged from the inside shadows, took its place in the doorway, snaked a proprietary hand through Tom Carver’s arm. “Hello, Cindy,” the Cookie said, pushing the dog away with her feet. She was wearing a tight cream-colored jersey over tight cream-colored pants, which at first glance, made her seem nude. A most disconcerting thought, Cindy decided, thinking of the pictures of Julia in her pocket, and watching the Cookie lean her head on Tom’s shoulder, as if to say, “He’s mine now.”
I get the point, Cindy said to herself. You don’t have to work so hard. Aloud she said, “Is Julia inside?”
Tom shook his head.
“We don’t know where Julia is,” the Cookie informed her. Then, noticing Neil standing in the driveway, “Who’s this?”
Cindy spun around as Neil came up behind her. “This is Neil Macfarlane. My accountant,” she added, stumbling over the lie. “Neil, this is my ex-husband, Tom Carver, and the … Fiona, his current wife.” She stressed the word current, as if the condition were temporary.
“I didn’t realize accountants made house calls,” Tom said slyly, extending his hand.
“Special circumstances,” Neil said genially. Then quietly, to Cindy, “Would you like me to leave?”
“No. Please stay. The police might want to ask you some more questions.”
“The police? What’s going on here?” Tom stood back to let them enter.
As if the house is still his, Cindy thought, feeling herself bristle as she sidestepped around her ex-husband’s young wife, Elvis licking at her legs. “Julia didn’t come home last night,” she reminded him, looking around for Heather. “Heather?”
“Heather’s not here,” the Cookie said.
“What do you mean, she’s not here? Who let you in?”
Tom smiled sheepishly. “I have a key,” he said, having the grace to look at least moderately embarrassed. “Look, let’s not make this into a big deal, okay?”
“What do you mean, you have a key?”
“I said, let’s not make this …”
“And I said, what do you mean, you have a key? I changed the locks seven years ago. What do you mean, you have a key?”
“Julia thought I should have one.”
“Julia gave you a key to the house?”
“The key and the alarm code,” the Cookie said, possible payback for Cindy’s earlier use of the word current. “She thought her father and me should have a key in case she ever needed something or …”
“Her father and I,” Cindy corrected impatiently. “And with all due respect, this really isn’t any of your business.”
“It certainly is my business.”
“Okay, okay,” Tom said, a
rms outstretched, as if trying to placate both women. He glanced over at Neil. Women, his eyes said, clearly enjoying the fuss, knowing it was about him.
“I can’t believe you came into my house when I wasn’t here.”
“Here’s your key.” Tom dropped the key into Cindy’s outstretched hand.
“I don’t understand what you’re so worked up about,” the Cookie said. “We’re the ones who should be upset. We were halfway to the cottage when Irena called, and we had to come racing back.”
“I thought you were in a meeting,” Cindy said to her ex-husband, pointedly ignoring his young wife. “Secretary’s still lying for you, I see.”
Tom shrugged.
(Scenes from a marriage: Cindy cleans up the kitchen after getting both children ready for bed. She wraps Tom’s dinner in plastic wrap and puts it in the fridge for him to eat when he gets home, then recorks the bottle of wine. “When’s Daddy coming home?” Julia calls out from the top of the stairs.
“Soon,” Cindy assures her.
“He promised to read me a story,” Julia says an hour later, sitting up in her bed, stubbornly refusing to fall asleep.
“I’ll read to you,” Cindy offers, but Julia turns from her, covering her face with her pillow, as if she senses her father’s absence is somehow her mother’s fault.
Cindy retreats to her own room, thumbs through the latest issue of Vanity Fair, and watches TV until her eyes are so heavy with fatigue she can no longer focus. It’s ten o’clock. She reaches for the phone, her arm stopping in midair, falling to her side. Irena has already told her Tom is stuck in meetings and can’t be disturbed. At eleven o’clock, Cindy turns off the lights and gives in to sleep. At twenty minutes after midnight, she awakens to the sound of a key turning in the front door, and hears her husband’s guilty footsteps on the stairs.
