Imola

by RICHARD SATTERLIE

  A pull on the glass door of the medicine cabinet, and it rebounded against its hinges. She pulled the small, circular packet from the middle shelf just before the door slammed shut. She threw the plastic case on the floor and stared at it. The wine, the pills, the excuses—they towered over her emotions, wagging a finger of reproach, of warning, giving her the easy way out. She didn’t have to trust anyone with that kind of intimacy, with that kind of future. But why hadn’t she opted for a more permanent solution? In case someone came along and broke through her fears, let biology reign over psychology? Someone like Jason?

  She kicked the pill case to the middle of the floor and stomped. The plastic shattered. Stomped again, and small shards danced on the tile. Another stomp, and another, another, a two-footed dance, and the powdered remains of the birth control pills puffed across the floor.

  Dr. April Leahy ran into the bedroom and launched herself onto the bed. She buried her face into the stack of pillows and sobbed.

  CHAPTER 15

  Agnes swung her legs over the edge of her bed, raised her hands, and tugged at the lapels of her jumpsuit. She was swamped with a feeling of clarity, driven by a nervous energy she hadn’t felt since the weeks after her great-aunt Gert had passed away.

  You know what you have to do. The doctor agrees. Take charge. Deal with the problem.

  She pushed on her door and squeezed through the narrow gap, tiptoeing into the dark, cold corridor. The silence of the medicated nighttime pressed around her, made her realize the power of the pills her ward-mates were forced to take after dinner. Her lips moved in a silent thank-you to Dr. Leahy.

  She rounded the curve of the Day Room and slipped down the men’s hall, hugging the right side wall. It wasjust as cold and dark as the women’s hall. She counted doors. One. Two. Three. She stopped.

  It’s unlocked. Try it.

  Agnes gripped the doorknob and turned it slowly. She held her breath. The knob passed the lock stop—it turned until she felt the latch release. Her breath escaped slowly but drew back in fast, her mouth wide open. She pushed on the knob. The door moved.

  You know what to do. You can do it. This is where you take charge.

  Agnes wiggled around the door and pushed it until it hit the doorframe. She let the knob slowly return to its original position. The latch ticked into the strike plate and caught.

  The room was dark, but her eyes had already adjusted, giving her a gray-tone view of her target. Besides, she knew the layout. The bed was four paces forward, the headboard to her left, against the wall. He always slept facing away from the door. She’d done her research.

  Good girl. Go for it.

  She inched forward until her knee brushed the bedspread. She measured the distance from the wall by reaching out her hand. Her position was perfect.

  Her right hand slipped into the pocket of her jumpsuit and carefully fondled it—the four-inch shard of glass she had picked up from the conference room floor when Stuart had attacked her. Freshly broken glass—one ofthe sharpest edges known. She folded her hand around the fat end. It was wrapped in tape.

  Not now.

  She released the shard and withdrew her hand from the pocket.

  Leaning over the bed, she could smell him. Hear his breathing. Feel his heartbeat against the mattress. Her own heartbeat doubled his. It pounded in her temples, sounded in her ears, and gave her fingers a rhythmic twitch.

  You know what to do. Do it now.

  Agnes lurched, sending a knee into his side, pinning him down. Her right hand covered his mouth while the left gripped his neck, her fingernails digging into the flesh around his Adam’s apple. Her left leg extended for balance.

  The struggle was brief. After an initial reaction, he lay still. His nose exhalations were quick, forceful. And wet.

  That’s not the way.

  Agnes bent her head close to the side of his head, her voice a whisper. “Where’s your stash?”

  That’s not the way. Here’s how.

  She removed her hand from Milo’s neck and reached for his right hand. She pulled it up and placed it on her left breast. She moved the hand to the zipper of the jumpsuit and helped him pull it down, then thrust his hand in so it cupped her bare right breast.

  Milo relaxed.

  She pulled him over on his back and straddled him, leaning forward. Her breath caressed his ear. “Tell me where your stash is, and I’ll give you more.” She exhaled a tickling stream of air. “Much more.”

  Milo shook his left hand free from the covers and pointed at the far wall, toward the sink, below it. “In the wall. The tiles come loose.”

  Agnes helped his hand knead her breast, and pulled it from her jumpsuit. “I’ll be right back. Just stay right here.”

  She rolled off the bed and flipped the light switch on. Milo didn’t move, except for a slowly spreading grin that dimpled his sunken cheeks.

  Under the sink, the tiles were tight, but with a fingernail grip, the first one came free. The rest peeled away easily. The hole in the wall extended from one stud to the next, from the floor to the bottom of the sink. It was packed tight. She rummaged through the booty, amazed at how much was wedged into the space. From the pile on the floor, she pulled aside a white lab coat, three ID badges, and door-lock pass card.

  She stuffed the other items back into the hole, ignoring the original organization, so she had to press hard to make it all stay within the confines of the hollow. She looked back toward the bed.

  Milo hadn’t moved. She slipped off her jumpsuit, rolled it tight, and pushed it into the top of the cache. The tiles lined up perfectly, giving no indication of the hiding place for anyone who didn’t know to look closely.

  Naked in the harsh fluorescent light, she moved across the room and crawled onto the bed on all fours.

  See how easy this is? Watch me and learn. Maybe you’ll even enjoy it.

  She pulled down the covers and straddled Milo once again.

  CHAPTER 16

  The knock on the door was so quiet Jason wasn’t sure he’d really heard it. It could have been one of those creaky sounds sturdy buildings make for no reason other than to alert all inside to the impermanence of all things manmade. But the second series of sounds came with the same cadence, louder this time, and definitely from the front door.

  Who would be knocking at this time of night? April’s confidence in their relationship had grown to the point where she would have knuckled the door with purpose. Donnie would simply pick the lock. The only person he could think of who would give such gentle taps was Agnes, and she was locked away in Imola. He debated if he should wait for a third report or just open the door. He opted for the peephole.

  The fish-eye image triggered his quick withdrawal from the door and an immediate thumping in his chest. It looked like her, but in a sorry caricature sort of way. He leaned forward and peeked again. It was her … Eugenia.

  He unlatched the deadbolt and listened for movement, waiting for the sound of foot strikes hurrying away across the parking lot, re-creating his nightmare. He waited for the laughter. But there were no sounds. He looked in the peephole again and pulled back. It looked like she hadn’t moved a muscle. His hand found the doorknob before he even thought about opening it, and then the hinges squealed. He paid no attention to the warning. In full view, she brought a wash of memories that nearly buckled his knees. But he caught himself.

  Her silent stance brought an immediate comparison. The Eugenia who stood before him was thinner than before. More like skinny. Her blouse hung limply on her shoulders as if from a coat hanger. And her eyes. They were still the pale blue that had mesmerized him before, but they were deep set, sunken into hollows that seemed ringed in soot. The cheekbones that framed her beauty now jutted out as skeletal ridges.

  Still, she didn’t move or make a sound. A slight curl at the corners of her mouth gave a hint of animation, but it caught on the apparent impossibility of a smile.

  He was sure he was reflecting her inactivity, so he stepp
ed back and pushed the door fully open. “Do youwant to come in?” He slid along the door to open a path through the entrance hall.

  Eugenia still didn’t move. She just stared with a vacancy that suggested her focus was somewhere in the distance.

  “Please. Come in. Are you all right?”

  A downward head bob and she looked back up. “I need you, Jason.” She tiptoed past him and into the front room. Jason pushed the door shut and followed her, keeping more than an arm’s length between them.

  “Please. Sit down. Do you need anything? Water? Something to eat?” His cringe punctuated the last query, but she didn’t react. She just lowered herself onto the couch in a slow-motion squat that barely dimpled the cushion.

  Jason moved to the recliner chair directly opposite her, but her eyes didn’t follow his path. They seemed to once again focus off in the distance. He sat down.

  “Why are you here?” Again, he cringed, but he wanted to break her trance, to get her to return to a human countenance.

  Quick blinks and the corners of her mouth twitched again. Her hands moved to her lap, and her fingers interlaced. “I need your help.”

  “Why? What happened?” From the inside he thought his tone came out impatient, but it was also tinged with a little aggravation. He tried to soften it. “What happened to your boyfriend, the writer?” He wanted to ask her why she had cheated, left him right before the wedding, but he already knew. And now she had the gall to ask for his help. The temptation to make her pay for that help surfaced. “Talk to me.”

  “I need help.”

  “You already said that. Tell me what’s going on. Why did you come here?”

  Her voice was barely audible. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  A burning sensation traced his neck. He couldn’t believe she thought those words would make him feel generous. His jaw clinched, and his words filtered through his teeth. “Why should I give a shit about what you want? Or what you need?”

  Her eyes glazed, and her face contorted into a crying expression, but tears didn’t release. It seemed as if there was no fluid in the depths of her tear ducts. “I need help, and I don’t have anyone else. I have nowhere else to go.”

  “You already said all that.” Again, the burn. “Tell me what’s going on, or get the hell out.”

  Her face relaxed, as if all sensation had drained from it. Her gaze went distant again. “Ferrell kicked me out. He blew through his grandmother’s inheritance, and his parents threatened to take away his condo. He blamed it all on me.”

  Ferrell. Back when it all happened, Jason had usedhis connections to check out the little rich boy. He’d been kicked out of Dennison University, just south of San Francisco, three times. The first two, his parents had bailed him out by threatening to withhold their high six-figure donations. Evidently, three was the charm, and they put him up in a new condo in Sausalito. Last Jason heard Ferret, or Ferrell, was writing the next great American novel. “Blamed all what on you?”

  “At first everything was great. We had fun. Lots of parties—”

  “Are you forgetting who you’re talking to? You left me holding a full book of wedding plans for that fun, for those parties.”

  The venom in his voice didn’t seem to trigger any emotion in her.

  “I couldn’t live a lie,” she said.

  “But now you have nowhere else to go, so you’re willing to come back to this lie? Maybe you should leave now before I remind you of that note you left for me.”

  A slight crease appeared on her forehead. “I really am sorry, Jason. I just couldn’t do it.”

  “You did it for a year before you finally walked out.” He scooted forward in the chair and tried to control his temper. “I need a beer to continue this discussion. You want one?”

  “No. What I need isn’t a beer.”

  What did she mean by that? He stood and walkedinto the kitchen. When he came back, she was still frozen in place. A long swig and he suppressed a burp. “How about if you tell me what you need.”

  Finally, her posture shifted: her shoulders slumped, and her chin dipped nearly to her chest. “I think I need to go into rehab.”

  “For what?” He couldn’t suppress it. “Stupidity? Self-centeredness?”

  “Cocaine.” Point-blank, no emotion. “He got me hooked, and when I told him I needed help he accused me of going through all his money, and then he threw me out. He said his parents threatened to cut him off if he didn’t get rid of me. I don’t have anything. No place to go.”

  “And you immediately thought of me? What about your family, or did you screw them over, too?”

  No response, just the blank stare. “I’m tired of it all. I just need help. To get clean. Then … maybe we could start over—”

  “Start what over? I don’t give a shit about your boyfriend. I don’t give a shit about your drug problem. I don’t give a shit about you. Why should I?” He remembered how she had poisoned everything: his interactions with other women, his job. How he couldn’t look at another woman without seeing her. Every woman except one, and she was locked up in Imola. But this woman on the couch didn’t look like the image that haunted him. She was a shell, a rind. She was Eugenia in name only. “I reallydon’t give a shit about you.”

  “You don’t have any feelings left for me at all? You’re all I have.” She inched closer. “I’m not the same anymore.”

  Jason moved took a step back. He still saw little flickers of the old Eugenia.

  “I know I can get back to my old self,” she said. “I just need some help.”

  “Rehab? Just go. Why do you need me for that?”

  “I don’t have any money. It costs, you know.”

  Did he detect a hint of irritation in her voice? “Wait. You came here to try to get money out of me? To pay for your rehab?” The absurdity fought with flashbacks of the old Eugenia. He almost asked how much, when Donnie’s words came back to him—how Donnie felt Eugenia would come between the two brothers. How Donnie needed his monthly checks. But the flickers wouldn’t let up. “I don’t have any money for you.”

  “Jason, I need you. Please. I can’t do this by myself.”

  Who was more pathetic? Eugenia, or that soft spot that was expanding within him? He jumped to his feet. “I can’t help you, Eugenia. And you have to go before I do something I’ll regret.” In more than one way. If she didn’t leave soon, he would either weaken or go far in the other direction. “Please leave.”

  “But I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “You stopped being my concern when you walked out on me. If you need help, you’ll have to find it somewhereelse.” Now guilt was piling up. But he had to do it. It really was down to Eugenia or Donnie right now. And Donnie was family. “Please leave.”

  She stood, wobbled, and caught herself with a hand on the couch arm.

  Drama?

  “I’ll get myself right, Jason. I’ll find a way. And when I do, I’ll show you it can be like before. I’ve learned a lesson. I’ll show you.”

  But no apology. No explanation. Again, he wanted to ask why. What about him had pushed her to someone else’s bed? What had he done besides give her his heart? He resisted the temptation. “I do hope you can get clean. I care about that. But that’s where my caring stops.”

  She stopped partway to the door. “Then care enough to help me. I need the money.”

  Another slap. He passed her and opened the door. “You never gave me the chance to say this to you before. Goodbye, Eugenia.”

  The report of the phone sounded distant, but with each ring came closer, louder. Jason stirred. He didn’t want another assignment this early in the morning. He’d been up most of the night writing up two others. The red numerals of the clock radio glared 7:33. Normalpeople were up by now. Normal people.

  The ringing continued. He had a habit of switching off the answering machine when he was in the apartment to force himself to answer the phone. It would have been a good time to make an exception,
but it was too late now. He caught the receiver midway through the next ring.

  “April? What’s … Whoa. April. Calm down, you’re talking too fast. What’s wrong? Holy shit … No … I’ll be right over.”

  Jason turned the knob and pushed, but the door didn’t give. He banged on it with his fist and waited. There was no sound from inside, no blink of darkness through the peephole. He swung his fist again just as the door flew open, and his fist nearly hit April in the chest.

  She was in a white bathrobe, belt tied tightly around her waist. Her eyes were ringed red, and her hair was a mess.

  He walked past her, stopped, and went back for a hug. A kick of his foot and the door slammed closed. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her to the couch and forced her to sit. He plopped next to her. “Tell me what you know.”

  April’s upper lip quivered, and she had to clear her throat twice to get the words out. “Agnes escaped from Imola last night. She killed Stuart Guerin. Cut histhroat. Cut off his … you know. Just like all of the other murders.” She burst into tears.

  Jason surrounded her with his arms, but his mind launched from zero to way past sixty in three seconds. “How do you know it wasn’t Lilin?”

  April bent her head up from his neck. “Does it matter?” Her voice was a near scream. “The way I feel, I’m not so sure there is a Lilin. Maybe Agnes is an incredible con artist and she’s sucked us both in.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “I don’t know what to believe. But it really doesn’t matter now.”

  “It does matter. Agnes and Lilin will do different things.”

  April buried her head in his neck again and sobbed. “I thought we made a breakthrough. She was getting better. I was sure of it.” A rapid series of sobs took her breath. She inhaled deeply. “Why now?”