The Roses of May

by Dot Hutchison

“Will do, agents. Please try to get some sleep.” She hangs up, and Eddison clicks off the speaker.

  “She’s right. Go home, both of you.”

  “Vic—”

  “We are all exhausted,” the senior agent reminds them, getting to his feet. “Go home. Sleep. Come to my place in the morning. Ma will love the chance to feed you, and we can check in with Finney.”

  Eddison hesitates, looking at the stacks of papers and folders on the table. He can hear Vic and Ramirez murmuring to each other, and then the door closes. A large hand grips his shoulder. “Vic . . .”

  “Brandon.”

  He looks up. Vic only uses his first name when he wants to be very sure he’s got Eddison’s attention.

  “It’s Priya’s birthday tomorrow,” Vic says quietly. “You know it’s a rough day for her. She’s going to need you at your best.”

  “What if my best isn’t enough?”

  Rather than answer, Vic squeezes his shoulder and lets go.

  MAY

  Mum leaves to drive to Denver and her office a little before five, too antsy to stay still. Before she leaves, she hugs me so hard it’ll probably bruise. “Be sure,” she says again, “be smart, be safe.” All in all, not the worst benediction you can give your daughter before she heads off to murder someone.

  I stay sprawled in bed, not quite awake, but definitely not asleep, either. Sleep didn’t happen last night; my brain wouldn’t shut off enough to let me rest.

  Thoughts of Chavi, chasing me through the sheet maze, swinging me around in a dance, laughing, bled out on the grey stone floor.

  Thoughts of Dad, broken and numb and shamed at the hospital, hanging from the banister when I got home from school.

  All those other girls, too, their names almost as familiar to me as my own now.

  Darla Jean, Zoraida, Leigh, Sasha.

  Mandy, Libba, Emily, Carrie.

  Laini, Kiersten, Rachel, Chavi.

  Natalie, Meaghan, Aimée, Julie.

  I could live to be a hundred and ten, and I think I’d forget my name before losing theirs.

  If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the weight of Chavi behind me, all those late nights scribbling in our journals side by side, falling asleep to curl around each other. Lazy mornings cuddling under the blankets, until Mum jumped on us. Literally jumped, and started tickling and laughing until we were all breathless. I can remember how it felt when my sister’s hand moved over my hair, tucking it back away from my face or separating out the sections to help Mum re-dye the streaks. I can remember her breath warm against my ear, the way her fingers would draw designs against my hip before she was even awake, the way she never accidentally ate my hair but was constantly spitting out her own.

  Eventually I get up and shower, drying my freshly touched-up hair with far more care than I usually give it. A large white rose, the biggest I could find in the tiny floral section at the grocery, goes over my ear. Wearing the full crown from my birthday felt a little too obvious. I don’t usually look in the full mirror when I get ready, preferring to use my compact so I only have to look at whatever I’m working on, but this morning, I put on my makeup with all of me visible. I’m Chavi but softer, not as bright or as bold, my sister’s bone structure and features through different-colored glass. I pull on the tiered white sundress, the royal blue sweater and leggings that I put out last night. A freak weather system that moved in yesterday means there’s snow on the way, on the first of May. Still, with the coat I should be warm enough.

  Downstairs, I can hear Sterling and Archer talking, the changing of the guard. When I come down, camera bag slung over one shoulder, Sterling is gone. Archer looks at me, his eyes a little wild. Second thoughts? But he gives me a shaky smile and opens the door, so I guess we’re good. I can’t imagine Sterling would have left if she had had any idea of our plans for the day.

  I can still back out. Just tell him or any of the others about Darla Jean’s brother, let them find and arrest him.

  But I think of spending the next however long waiting for a court to tell me I have justice, when justice can’t bring anyone back. Be sure, Mum said.

  I’m sure.

  We stop at Starbucks to get drinks for the road, and then we’re on our way.

  It’s a long, quiet ride to Rosemont, both of us sipping at our drinks until they’re gone. Music plays softly from the radio, hard to hear over the whirr and buzz of the heat. Halfway there, it starts to snow, fat, wet flakes that shush against the windshield and melt as soon as they touch the warm glass. Occasionally, Archer’s GPS gives us a change in direction.

  My hands won’t stop shaking. I bury them in my gloves, even though they’re starting to sweat. Right now, I think, it might be nice to be a religious person. It would be nice to have something or someone to pray to, with the relative certainty of being listened to. Then again, if I were a properly religious person, I probably wouldn’t be doing this, so. You know.

  The snowfall gets heavier as we go. When we drive through the tiny town of Rosemont, a cluster of orange-coated men and women are out with shovels and salt buckets. A trio of plows sits on a side lot by the fire station, ready to make sure folks can actually get out of their homes. Not many people live here in town; according to the articles I read about the chapel, Rosemont exists mostly so the area residents have someplace to market, mail, and educate their children.

  Archer frowns at the open curiosity that meets us down the main road. “Is a stranger so shocking?”

  “It’s a small town.”

  Shiloh Chapel is a few miles outside of town. As small as Rosemont is, it manages to have four proper churches, but the chapel is left over from a wealthy mining family that used to own most of the land hereabouts. It’s popular still for weddings, regardless of denomination. Archer parks the car a ways back, and for a moment I’m so enchanted by the view I almost forget why I’m here.

  It’s like standing inside a snow globe. White covers the sloped roof, more than a dusting but not quite thick enough to hide the reddish-pink terra cotta tiles. The walls are white as well, plaster or stucco or whatever it is that leaves thick swirls of texture like an oil painting. The small rosettes on either side of the ox-blood door are shades of blue, and there’s something a little bit perfect about that.

  There won’t be enough sun to catch the other windows at their full glory, but there’s magic in this too.

  Checking over my camera, I sling the bag over my shoulder and climb out of the car, the camera itself cradled in my hands. My hip catches the door to swing it shut. I lean against the front of the car, where warmth seeps through my coat despite the damp of melting snow, and just take in the view for a bit.

  Framing the picture comes later; you can’t see context through the view-screen.

  Archer is still in the car when I lift the camera and start taking pictures, the tiny chapel almost blending in with the snow except for its darts of color. I pace in a wide circle around the structure, finding the interesting angles. The east and west walls are, like the Methodist chapel back in Huntington, only as much wall as is needed to support the windows and roof. Even without beams of sunlight, without the way to track the shafts of color against the new snow, the glass is glorious. The western wall shows Jesus walking on the water through the storm, the disciples huddled in a rough boat in one corner.

  Josephine was Episcopalian; we went with her to church sometimes out of curiosity, and afterward, Chavi would take the Bible stories and sketch them into windows like this. I haven’t really thought of those stories in years.

  The north wall is entirely solid except for a trio of rosettes in warm shades of yellow, amber, and brown. It’s cleverly done, if you believe in a Trinity, each rose predominantly one color but containing all three, bleeding into each other around the inner edges. Maybe it’s clever even if you don’t believe.

  I make another circle, stepping in for close-ups this time. A trail of green ovals shows where I’ve been, though fresh snow dusts the grass soon
enough.

  The east wall is its own sunrise, and I wish I could see it with all its warmth, the colors afire with light. There are colors I would never think to put into a sunrise, bright blues and soft greens blurring out from the indigo and lavender, but it works in a way Chavi could probably understand, if not explain.

  When I come back around to the front, Archer is still in the car. “Coming in?” I ask through the closed window.

  He shakes his head. “Far too cold for me. Take your time, though.”

  Right.

  There are no chairs in the chapel, no kneelers, just space, empty even of the hum of electricity. I take my pictures, entranced more than I would have guessed by the simplicity of the northern rosettes, the colors warm and soothing like candlelight. There’s a stillness to the air, the moment before a breath. It isn’t simply silent, it’s muffled.

  Solitude, I suppose, when it’s nature rather than choice.

  Then I pack away the camera, setting the bag safely in a corner, and peel off my gloves, scarf, and coat. It isn’t anywhere near warm enough, but I know what I look like in this dress, because I know what Chavi looked like in it. It was always one of her favorites, and even though she was an inch or so taller than I am now, an inch or so smaller in the bust, it fits well, sweet and innocent, the ruffled white tiers just a little bit flirty. There isn’t a way for me to look like the too-skinny twelve-year-old I was, but I can look like a pale reflection of Chavi.

  The rose is heavy against my ear, the weight fighting the pins holding it in place. It seems heavier than it should be, and I can’t tell if it’s just me, maybe, my body insisting on feeling the weight my mind wants to give it.

  With my phone in my hand, I drop the coat in the center of the floor and sit down on top of it. Even with the heavy wool and my fleece-lined leggings, I can feel the cold seep through. Chavi used to sit like this, just captivated by whatever she was trying to draw.

  I hear the rumble of the car turning back on and driving away. Of course no one’s going to come if Archer’s right there. So he’ll hide a ways back, watch. Wait. I pull up a contact on my phone and hit “call” and “speaker,” listening to the dull rings fill the small chapel.

  “You’re up early for a Saturday, Birthday Girl.”

  Something tight and terrible in my chest eases at the sound of Eddison’s voice. I can hear chaos behind him, what would seem to be Vic getting roundly scolded by his ma. “It’s snowing,” I tell him, and he laughs.

  “Goddamn Colorado. But you usually wait for me to call you on your birthday. Are you okay?”

  Because as much as he’s my friend, he’s also an agent, or maybe more an agent at times, and he’ll always look for patterns and the ways we break them. It’s comforting, a little. Dependable. “I’m Chavi’s age.”

  “Shit, Priya.”

  “Next year, I’ll be eighteen, and logically, I knew it would happen, but I don’t think I’m prepared to be older than my big sister.”

  I’m not fully prepared for a lot of things, but I’m pitching headlong into them anyway.

  “Has your mother pinched you yet for being maudlin on your birthday?”

  It startles a huff of laughter out of me. “She’s stuck at work till later. Besides, I always get half an hour to be maudlin. It’s a rule.”

  Because Dad killed himself on my birthday, and for all Mum refuses to mourn him, she never faults me for occasionally wanting to. She keeps a lot tucked away but has never asked me to live my own life that way.

  “Did I ever tell you my mother chaperoned what should have been Faith’s senior prom?” he asks. It’s an offering of sorts, something private and painful, because he very rarely talks about his sister.

  “Must have been hard.”

  “She was a wreck for weeks. But after that, she was a little better. It helped her accept that even if we got Faith back, we were never going to get those years and those events.”

  “So what I’m hearing is that I should have a blow-out party for my eighteenth and drink myself insensible to recover from it?”

  “Don’t you dare.” He gives a soft grunt, and then I hear Mercedes’s voice very close to the phone.

  “Happy birthday, Priya!” she chirps.

  “Thanks, Mercedes.”

  “Where are you?” she asks. “It’s echoing.”

  “Shiloh Chapel,” I answer. “It’s in Rosemont, which is a pain, but it’s got these amazing windows.”

  “If your mother’s at work, are you there alone?” Eddison demands sharply.

  “No, Archer drove me down.”

  “Can you put him on?” His voice is suddenly far too pleasant, which cannot spell out good things for Archer.

  “He’s outside. He said it looked too cold.”

  “Ramirez—”

  “On it,” she says. “I’ll call you later, Priya.”

  “Okay.”

  “What the hell is he thinking?” Eddison snaps.

  “That I asked nicely for my birthday?”

  “A church, Priya. Of all places.”

  “I thought it would be safe as long as I wasn’t alone.”

  “If he’s outside, you are alone, and that isn’t acceptable. Ramirez is calling him.”

  “Who are you talking to, Priya?”

  And that is definitely not Archer.

  I look up at the doorway. Even knowing what I’m going to find, my heart thumps in my chest. Sudden fear sits heavy, solid in my gut. “Joshua? What are you doing here?”

  “Priya!” Eddison sounds pissed, or panicked. Both. “Who’s there?”

  “Joshua,” I say numbly. “From the café. The one who poured a drink on Landon that one time.”

  “He shouldn’t have been bothering you,” Joshua says, his voice as warm and friendly as ever. He’s in yet another fisherman sweater, sage green and lovely with his eyes, the sad eyes I almost remembered from Boston. At his feet . . .

  Please don’t let this be the biggest mistake of my life.

  At his feet rests an enormous wicker basket, almost overflowing with white roses.

  “You killed Landon?”

  “He shouldn’t have been bothering you,” he repeats gently.

  “Where’s Agent Archer? What did you do to him?”

  He laughs, and terror skitters up my spine. “I didn’t have to do anything. I passed him in town, after he left you here.”

  In town? I knew he’d drive away from the chapel, that the idea of using me as bait would be too tempting, but I thought he’d come back along a side road, or through the woods. Why in the hell would he go all the way to town?

  A very large part of my plan relied on Archer being close enough to rescue me.

  I am so fucked.

  “Why do you have roses?” I ask, my voice shaking from more than cold. Through the phone, I can hear Eddison’s muffled swearing, like he’s holding his hand over the mic. The only thing I can hear clearly is his yell for Vic.

  “Oh, Priya.” Joshua kneels, still several feet away, and smiles. “They’re gifts, of course. My father taught me that you always bring a girl flowers. It’s only polite. You’re different from the others; you deserve more.”

  Carefully, slowly, so he doesn’t panic and lunge at me, I push to my feet, phone clutched in my hand. “What are you doing here, Joshua?”

  “I’m here to protect you.” He sounds so sincere. How fucked in the head does he have to be to believe that? “You’re such a good girl, Priya. I knew it back in Boston. And Chavi was such a wonderful sister to you. You were so loved, and so good.”

  “Then why did you kill her?” Tears burn in my eyes, form a knot in my throat. “Why did you take her away from me?”

  “You don’t know what this world does to good girls.” He stands, and my fingers spasm around the phone. A phone isn’t a weapon, though. He reaches out one hand, fingers tracing the air inches away from my bindi, the stud in my nose. “Chavi was a good girl, too, but she wouldn’t have stayed that way. She was
going away to college; the world would have corrupted her, and she would have done the same to you. I had to protect you both.

  “And I did. You stayed good. I was worried after Chavi died, that you might act out, but you didn’t. Aimée was exactly what you needed.”

  “I needed a friend,” I retort, “and you killed her!”

  “She was so sad after you moved away. I didn’t want her to be sad.”

  His fingers brush my cheek, and I flinch. “Don’t touch me!”

  “I promise it won’t hurt,” he says soothingly. “You won’t even feel it. And then . . .”

  I step away, scuttling backward, and smack into the wall. Oh God, this really is a tiny room, so much smaller than I realized before the serial killer stepped in. The serial killer who is much taller and stronger than I am.

  Oh, fuck.

  Still smiling, Joshua pries the phone from my clutching fingers. A hunting knife gleams in his other hand. “And then, Priya, you will always be good. I’ll always be able to protect you.” He ends the call and tosses the phone against the far wall.

  “Please don’t do this,” I whisper.

  His smile just grows. “I have to; it’s for your own good. Now you have to hold still, or it’ll hurt.” He adjusts his grip on the knife, still held down by his side.

  Taking as deep a breath as I can manage, I lunge into him, one hand at his wrist and the other in his hair, driving my knee into his crotch. As he tries to pull away, I kick and punch and scratch, trying to keep that knife away from my throat.

  And I scream, even louder than I did for Chavi.

  I scream, praying Archer’s close.

  I scream, and I may never stop screaming.

  Eddison’s heart stops when the line goes dead. Despite his training, despite the adrenaline screaming through him, all he can do is stare at the phone.

  “Archer’s almost back to the chapel,” Ramirez reports, her work cell clamped between ear and shoulder. Her thumb flies over the screen of her personal cell. “He went to town for backup; goddamn asshole was using her as bait.” She ignores the squawk of protest on the other end of the line. “I’ve got Sterling; Finney’s calling the sheriff’s office. Rosemont doesn’t have a police force, so they’re sending a couple of cars from the county seat. Archer has a pair of army vets from Rosemont. Stop talking and drive, you asshole!” she adds into the phone.