by The Behrg
With the tiniest of steps, he shuffled forward, his back groaning with every movement. Lucy was up, hopping on one foot while leaning against the wall as she made her way down the hall. Joje was just getting to his feet but wouldn’t be long behind her.
An earsplitting alarm shrieked just overhead, the sudden noise causing Blake to almost drop his son. “George! I need your help!” he called, words lost in the pitch of the alarm. “Joje!”
He either heard or sensed Blake’s cry for help. In that momentary glance back, Lucy left the safety of the wall, limping toward the banister and staircase.
“Help me!” Blake shouted again as Adam sagged lower to the floor.
Joje wobbled. He took a step toward Blake, turning to look behind him, then froze. Blake saw the tension in his body as his muscles prepared to launch. He shot back toward Lucy in a full sprint. The look on her face as she saw him tearing toward her was a look Blake would never forget. It was also her last.
She took the first step down, still staring back, that look of terror distorting her normal beauty. Blake wasn’t sure if in her speed she miscalculated the spacing of the stairs or if perhaps Joje gave her just enough of a shove to send her off balance, but he watched her pitch forward at an unrecoverable angle and then disappear below his line of sight.
Her disappearance did nothing to mute the sounds of her quick descent.
Like a strand of fireworks all tied together, the chain of repetitive thunks as Lucy’s body bounced from mahogany rail to ebony stair seemed like it would never end. The staircase must have elongated, adding steps between steps, the shrill shriek of the Whistling Pete stopping almost as abruptly as it began. But that scream was no firework. Each collision caused Blake to shudder and crawl a little further back into his mind. Bones crunching, limbs breaking, Blake saw it all without being close enough to witness. Hearing was seeing.
A final plomp as Lucy’s body came to a state of rest followed by an even louder silence. Joje stood at the top of the staircase looking down.
“Help,” Blake croaked, unable to drag his son forward another step. He could feel Adam slipping. He tried to reposition himself but ended up on one knee instead. Smoke clung to the ceiling above, descending in wisps like dangling spiders. Blake’s vision was narrowing, turning black on all sides, becoming a slowly shrinking tunnel.
Adam was being pulled from Blake’s grasp, slipping, slipping. Blake’s eyes shot open and he stood, careening into a wall. The heat pressing at his back prompted a forward movement. After a few gangly steps, he felt solidity return to his body, enough to continue moving at least.
Joje was still at the top of the staircase, though now Adam was flung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, his head and arms hanging limply down Joje’s back.
“It really is a beautiful home,” Joje said.
“Wait, I’m coming!”
“Beautiful home, beautiful life. Thank you for letting me be a part of it.”
“No, wait!” Blake stepped forward, tipping to the right. Bracing himself on the wall, he continued. Joje had already begun walking down the stairs. Blake made it across the hall, clinging to the banister.
At the top of the stairs, he took a moment to survey what had become of his house. The smoke swept into the foyer and high ceilinged antechamber like a waterfall in reverse, fire spreading to the outer walls of the hall. At the bottom of the staircase, Lucy’s body lay, her head twisted at an angle Blake had only seen achieved on Barbie dolls in the clutches of tormenting brothers. The artwork and decor on the walls all had gouges and tears through them, lines that could be traced with a missing sword. The remnants of the chandelier lay in a heap like the carcass of some wild and forgotten beast.
Blake took the steps down, careful not to pitch forward and follow Lucy’s lead. Just one more name to add to the list of deaths I’m responsible for, he thought.
Halfway down he had to stop, the cough leaping from his throat doubling him over. Blake heard the front door wrench open and watched as Joje stepped through, exiting with his son.
“Wait!” He clambered down the remaining steps, pausing only a moment before stepping over Lucy’s body. There was no rise or fall from her unmoving chest.
“Joje! Wait!”
Blake stepped outside, tromping down the path from their door leading to the driveway, slapping away palm fronds.
“George!”
He rounded the corner, the trickle of water from the fountain in the corner anything but soothing. The Mercedes was already backing out of the driveway.
“Wait!” Blake yelled, running to catch the vehicle that was transitioning from reverse to drive. “I’ll do what you say! I’ll do whatever you say!”
As he hit the sidewalk, he saw the window on the passenger side roll down. Adam looked out at Blake, his eyes foggy, unclear. Joje leaned across him, one arm wrapped around Adam’s head in a brotherly gesture.
“Remember, Bwakey, it’s not the journey, it’s the destination.”
The car accelerated, speeding up the curved road toward the gated entrance at the end of their street. Sirens were circling nearby, squawking like angry seagulls. Blake stood alone in the middle of the road, surrounded by darkness and the plush shadowed landscaping of empty homes. A flare of pain shot upward and into his head, a viper snaking its way through his nostrils and into his brain. And then biting. He screamed his son’s name until his voice produced only threads of whispered air.
And then he screamed some more.
Chapter Twelve
Day Seven
1
The hard metal chair had gone from uncomfortable to unbearable. There were only so many positions you could rotate through when forced to sit for eight hours straight.
The hard plastic table in front of Blake had three words etched into it, a feat that should have been impossible, considering anyone in this chair would only have their fingernails to work with. But like the weathering of rocks over time, the thousands of occupants seated in that unendurably hard and rust-stained seat had each etched their part, tracing those lines until plastic spec by plastic spec they were as engrained as if they had been chiseled.
Blake ran his fingertip along each letter.
“DIE PIG DIE”
There was no mirror on the wall, with people hovering behind, sipping coffee, and telling jokes about each other’s ex-wives. This room was bare. Four brick walls, one door—locked—the table, the chair, and a small camera mounted above the door and pointed directly at the seat Blake was in. When the detectives had been in the room, they stood, a simple gesture that not only made Blake feel powerless, but let him know they weren’t here to be his friend. No good cop, bad cop routine. This was pissed-off cop and his even more outraged partner. They had left two hours ago, by Blake’s count. With no clock in the room, it was hard to tell.
Today marked the seventh day of Joje’s pwoject. If God created Earth in seven days, Joje had learned to destroy it in six.
Joje.
Blake shuddered. He didn’t even have a last name—if George was his name in the first place. All he had was a ghost, an apparition that had torn his family apart from the inside out.
Yes, officers, I know there’s a body of a half-naked girl at the bottom of my stairs, my neighbor’s decomposing corpse in the trunk of my car, and the doctor you were so kind to refer buried in my backyard, but a psychotic killer with a lisp, who conveniently disappeared right as you arrived, is the one who really did it!
Maybe if Blake had told them the killer only had one arm, they might have taken him more seriously.
Blake was reminded of Tom Jones’s slogan as if he were whispering from his grave: “Because the only crime is letting them put you away.”
“DIE PIG DIE”
But he hadn’t come to them without some evidence. His son was missing, and Jenna, she had supplied Drew. According to the little he had gleaned from his interrogation cleverly disguised as a conversation, he understood a separate investigation
was ongoing as to the murder committed by his wife. He had a feeling the police were looking for his son about as hard as they were trying to expedite his acquittal.
At least they had found the decency to take the handcuffs off. His fingers absently traced the words on the table for what must have been the hundredth time. Only this time he imagined the words slightly altered:
“DIE JOJE DIE”
The fire department had converged on the scene much later than the police, not having the benefit of an anonymous tip from a woman in a hospital. By the time the hoses were shut off, the right side of the house had collapsed, master bedroom and loft meeting family room and kitchen. The front of the house was tarred in black, that oily-looking substance leaking down the walls and garage.
Blake had glanced toward the house only once, when the upper section fell into the lower, the thunderous crashing causing all eyes to gravitate toward it. Other than that he had kept his eyes fixed on the stars, seated on the curb, his arms cuffed behind his back. It had reminded him why they had chosen that house. A little piece of paradise.
A loud clack caused Blake to almost fall from his seat. The bolt slid free in the heavy door. He looked up, hopeful, anxious, then remembered what side of the table he was on.
The door swung open with a shriek that a little WD-40 could have mended. Deputy McClellan entered with a smug look on his long face. A woman officer closed the door behind him, brown hair in a ponytail, stout, and even less sympathetic looking than McClellan. Blake hadn’t met her before.
“Where’s Randall?”
“He went home,” McClellan said flatly.
“He was bringing me breakfast,” Blake said. He couldn’t believe how pathetic he sounded, even to himself.
“Yeah, well, there’s a funny story to that, ’cause when we got to McDonald’s to order, they weren’t serving breakfast anymore. And since we hadn’t asked what you wanted for lunch, I figured we’d come back and ask.”
Blake brought his hands to his head. “I’m trying to cooperate.”
“Kirkpatty, you mind getting the camera for me?” McClellan said.
The stout woman came around the side of the desk. “Put your hands on the table facing down, thumbs touching.”
Blake wondered what made this woman smile. He did as he was told, and she slid a pair of handcuffs back in place at his wrists, wrangling them tighter than they had been previously. “Please stand. Do not move your hands from the table,” the female cop said.
“Don’t make Kirkpatty repeat herself,” McClellan said. “Word to the wise.”
Blake stood, his knees knocking against the table as the woman McClellan called Kirkpatty snatched the chair and carried it back toward the door. She climbed on top, pulling out a wire from the back of the camera and letting it dangle down. If Blake’s legs hadn’t been tingling in pain from the sudden rush of blood, he would have laughed.
“Is this where you threaten me? Rough me up? Because you couldn’t come close to what I’ve been through this week.”
McClellan stared back, eyes unflinching.
Blake’s composure began to break. “Do you have any news of my son? Or wife?”
“They’re still holding her downtown,” McClellan said. “Considering the extent of her injuries and recent surgery, I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere for some time. But don’t you worry, ’cause when she does, it’ll be in a cell across from yours. The only difference I see between you and her is that she’s admitted to the murder she committed.”
“That was self-defense and you know it.”.
McClellan’s hands shot up as if Blake were holding a gun on him. “I ain’t no lawyer. My paycheck can attest to that.”
“And Adam?” Blake asked.
McClellan just shook his head. “Come on, we need to book you. I’m assuming you’ll want that call now?”
“Can I talk to my wife?”
“I think we can have that arranged,” McClellan said.
Kirkpatty led Blake down a narrow hall, winding around a desk with no legs stacked vertically against a wall.
“Hold here,” McClellan said as the corridor intersected with another outlet. A desk—this one with legs—was unoccupied, tape dispensers and staplers strategically placed to keep the stacks of manila folders from tumbling down. “Where’s Boyd?”
“He was right here,” Kirkpatty said.
“We’ll wait till he gets back,” McClellan said. “Can’t have either of us alone with him.” As if Blake posed some serious threat.
McClellan leaned against the edge of the desk, his backside pushing against the folders, which slid back, toppling to the floor in a cascade. “Aw, damnit!”
Kirkpatty went around to help on the other side of the desk.
“No, I’ve got it. Just, go find Boyd so we can book this asshole,” McClellan said.
As soon as she was gone, McClellan came back around the desk, grabbing Blake by the arm. “This way,” he said.
“What?”
“Shut up.”
McClellan brought him back into the hall they had come from, leading him farther down, then to the left. His grip on Blake’s arm was anything but friendly. McClellan glanced around before opening a door and pushing Blake through.
“Take the second door on your right, follow the stairs out.” He remained at the door.
“I don’t understand.”
“You want a chance to save your son?”
Blake glanced around the room he had entered. A few computer terminals sectioned off by cheap cubicles, whiteboard against the back wall so full of scribbles it looked like a prop for a scientist’s lab. He turned back to McClellan just as the door clicked shut.
His hands were still cuffed, he realized. Was McClellan setting him up?
You want a chance to save your son?
Shoving all rationale aside, Blake ran toward the second door. He pulled at the handle—locked. It was a setup. He looked to see if McClellan was about to burst back in, gun in hand. They’d probably give him an award for killing the wanted suspect attempting to flee, no questions asked.
The handle in Blake’s hand gave, the door pushing inward. He laughed silently, remembering The Far Side school for the gifted comic. Seems he had joined their numbers.
The room opened into a stairwell. A thousand voices screamed in the back of his head, telling him to turn around—this was the police he was dealing with, not some juvenile delinquent. As the mental debate continued, he heard the bone-crunching impact of a body falling down the stairs, flung into walls, railing, steps, and landing. He winced with every thud. That there was no body falling made no difference.
He descended, clinging to the metal rail, mindful not to join Lucy in the downward tumble through his mind. At the bottom landing was a door with a push bar, its circuitry leading above to an alarm box. It read “Emergency Exit Only—Alarm Will Sound.”
“Die, pig, die!” Blake shouted, slamming against the bar, the door jerking open with a stutter. The alarm immediately sounded.
A short slab of sidewalk quickly gave way to grass. Blake was grateful for the softer landing as his legs gave out. He hit, rolling like a child down a hill, only without the laughter. His teeth were chattering though he wasn’t cold.
Stumbling to his feet, he continued, no regard for where he was going. Any moment a bullet would slam into his back, severing his escape. And maybe his spine.
A dog barked nearby, and Blake forced himself not to waste the precious seconds determining from where. The building ended in a neat corner, all hope slipping from Blake’s grasp—of course the property would be gated. A security station was at the gate’s exit, or entrance, thirty yards from him, a line of empty police cars parked between.
“Blake! Blake!”
It took a moment to register his name being shouted. They were coming for him.
“Malibu Blake!”
He followed the direction of the voice. Joje sat in a brown coupe, waving him over. What the hell?
Blake took two steps toward the sedan, eyes clearing as he moved. It wasn’t Joje; it was the Asian cop, Officer Randall.
“Hurry!”
Blake moved quicker, glancing back at the exit he had come from. A man and woman were coming out and pointing toward him. He stepped off the curb and into the parking lot, opening the passenger door and jumping inside. Before he had closed it, the car began to reverse.
“Get down like you’re giving me head,” Randall said. “Lower if you can.”
Blake didn’t understand what was going on, but he did as he was told, dropping flat against the seat, his head resting next to the driver.
“You got some friends in high places,” Randall said. “Or low ones. Keep down.”
They were at the guard gate. Blake watched as Randall gave a half wave out the window, barely slowing, then the station was fading farther and farther behind them. Eventually Blake sat up.
They rode in silence until Blake was able to find his voice. “Why . . . why are you helping me?”
“Who said we’re helping?”
They were coming down Overland off of Santa Monica, the angel atop the big Mormon temple playing them a silent tune.
“What does he have on you?” Blake asked. Randall continued looking straight ahead. “Come on, you wouldn’t be risking all this for my innocence. Rory Shepherd—what does he have on you?”
Randall shook his head. “Look, McClellan and I, I mean, we’re good cops, you know, we don’t tithe our busts, we try to do our civic duty, I guess, but who doesn’t have some dirt on them? I don’t know this Shepherd guy you mentioned or what kind of shit you’re involved in, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to. But this guy, he knew everything about us, and I mean everything. From the hell storm raging around you? My guess is you’re his bitch too.”
They drove in silence, Randall turning onto the 10 freeway heading east. To Blake’s lack of surprise, there was plenty of traffic.
“He didn’t give you a choice, did he?” Blake asked.
“He give you one?”
