Mean girl_A dark, disturbing psychological thriller

by Natasha A. Salnikova

  The girl stared straight at him and Will screamed. Her eyes didn’t move in her pale face, her body didn’t move and when, twenty minutes later, the police arrived, she still stared at him. With accusation.

  Will’s body was shaking hard while he dialed the number; he thought he was going to have a heart attack. He would forget about this quickly though. When he got home, his wife bombarded him with questions of what he had been doing for so many hours. He would forget about that too. But, for a long, long time, he would wake up in the middle of the night, remembering the sight of a strange girl and her bloody dress.

  ***

  George entered the room and looked at the antique camera on the table. He hadn’t used it once after buying it two years ago from a friend. It was a piece of decoration. It was dead. Everything was dead. It suited this room without windows, with its dark green walls. It suited it just like his table that was made of heavy redwood, or his leather chair with its worn elbow rests, or a metal table lamp, or a round chandelier made of simple glass, even though it didn’t work. It was George’s favorite room. He could seclude himself from the world here, hide from chaos and stress. He belonged to himself here, behind this locked door. Even his mother didn’t have the key.

  George sat down in the chair and looked around as he had been doing every day. A ritual he started while in high school. It was going to continue in spite of everything.

  Sara watched him from all directions. From hundreds of black-and-white or color pictures. She smiled, drank tea in her kitchen, fed a stray dog, and waved to George from her porch. She looked best with her hair loose, spread over her shoulders, her blue eyes sparkling, her lips—like a floating seagull. She was a goddess who came down from heaven to protect him, her slave, from attacks of malevolent people. To protect him, a feeble teenager with acne and a bunch of inhibitions. Kids started to bully him on his first day in the new school and he was afraid to leave the house, because he knew they would be waiting for him, to kick his butt. She stood up by him and talked to him. She told him that he was the most interesting interlocutor that she had met in her life. He bought his first camera because of her. He wanted to capture every moment of her existence. Her every move, every breath, every smile, every spark of her long hair. She was his first kiss and his hope. Then she turned away from him.

  George shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it. She wasn’t going to hurt him anymore and, in his memory, she would stay the same as when he met her for the first time. Goddess with golden hair.

  George regarded the photograph by the camera. It was his favorite. Sara sat at the lakeshore and looked at the water. Her eyes were distant, a gentle smile warmed her face, her hair almost touched the still water. He imagined that she was thinking about him in this picture. He wanted her to think only about him. He knew that was going to happen. He knew it wasn’t over. They were going to reunite and she would belong only to him. His destiny would give him this present because destiny couldn’t just honor him with a love like this and then take it away without explanation. Nothing happened without a reason.

  George picked up the photo from the table. He was going to keep this one with him forever. This photo and her wonderful hair. He would smell and touch her hair every day and think about her, about her being with him.

  George stood. He had to visit his mother in the hospital. The woman was old and blacked out as soon as she saw blood on his shirt. She thought she had figured out everything. She was just a silly woman with primitive thoughts. What could she understand? She couldn’t understand her son’s complicated soul, but she was his mother and he owed his existence to her. He had to pay his dues. He always remembered about obligations. His and everyone else’s.

  Eleven years later

  CHAPTER 1

  Blake hated cooking. Dixon’s mother probably understood that when she came for dinner last night. Blake really tried to impress her. She made salmon with lemon and capers, following a recipe from Pinterest. She over-cooked it a bit, true, but it didn’t matter. It still tasted fine. Especially if one took into consideration that she cooked that damn salmon dish for the first time in her life. And what about the rice? It was perfect! What did Mrs. Mills say? “Dear,” she said, “everything is delicious. Would you mind if I cook something from my family recipe book next time?”

  Dixon wanted to meet at a restaurant. Why did she insist on dinner at home?

  Blake started to turn the omelet and it fell apart in the skillet, turning the perfect cake into uneven lumps.

  “Here.” Blake turned to Dixon. “See?”

  “What?” He smiled.

  “I can’t do it!”

  “Forget about it! Mom didn’t mean anything bad.”

  “Yes, sure. She thinks I’m good-for-nothing and will starve my kids.”

  Dixon rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “She doesn’t think that and she doesn’t care what kind of cook you are. I certainly don’t. I actually like your food. The omelet is burning!”

  Dixon rushed to the stove.

  “Sit down!” Blake pinned him to his chair with her eyes. “I can manage.”

  Blake waited for Dixon to return to his seat with his arms raised, and only then did she turn to the stove to transfer food from the skillet to the plates. The omelet, however, turned out to be not only burned, but also disobedient. It slid from the skillet and onto the floor instead of a plate where it was supposed to go.

  “Damn!” Blake roared. “Damn it!”

  The omelet may have been damned, but it looked pretty good to Laxy, Blake’s West Highland white terrier. The dog appeared from nowhere and tried to snatch an unexpected treat.

  “It’s hot!” Blake pushed the dog away, collected the omelet, and carried it to the bowl.

  “What do you think, Laxy? Do you like my food?” Blake asked while she watched her dog attacking the omelet.

  “Enough,” Dixon said. “It’s not funny anymore.”

  Blake threw the skillet into the sink and sat down in front of Dixon, observing Laxy finishing the food in her bowl and then licking the floor by the stove.

  “What are we going to eat now?” Blake grabbed an English muffin from the pack and took a bite.

  “It’s whole wheat. You told me it’s good for you.” Dixon picked up a muffin too. “I can toast it up and smear it with some nice butter. Want some?”

  Blake propped her chin with her fist.

  “What would I do without you?” she said. “Laxy, leave the floor alone. You’ll make a hole there.”

  The dog looked at her owner and wagged her tail.

  “I like your mother,” Blake said, as she watched Dixon arranging muffins in the toaster oven and then getting butter and cheese from the fridge. As always, he was dressed in sweatpants and an old T-shirt, his hair disheveled. It was time for him to get a haircut.

  “You don’t have to prove yourself. I know you,” Dixon said. “By the way, you two are a lot alike.”

  Blake wanted to deny the statement because she didn’t resemble critical and snobby Mrs. Mills, but then she thought better of it. Dixon adored his mother and any comparison to her should flatter Blake and make her feel optimistic. She’d heard that men looked for their mothers in their future wives. Subconsciously. Blake didn’t think she was anything like Dixon’s mother, but she could tolerate the absurd association if that would make Dixon legalize their relationship. If he would finally propose. How long would they live together and call each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”? Blake’s mother talked about it all the time. She even threw hints at Dixon. He just joked and told her that making it official wouldn’t change their love. He told her they had nowhere to hurry. Blake’s mother wasn’t satisfied by answers like those and Blake had to listen to her lectures about wasted years. Blake was twenty-eight, far away from her biological clock’s ticking down, but she felt that it was about time. She was ready for commitment. She answered her mother in the same way that Dixon did, because she couldn�
�t do anything else. She wouldn’t be the one to propose, that was for sure.

  Dixon placed a plate with a warm, buttered muffin in front of Blake and went to get coffee.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Blake said and thought that Dixon was right. Legal wouldn’t change what they had. The most important thing was to share breakfast with someone, and come home knowing your loved one was there waiting for you.

  CHAPTER 2

  Shane Aberson observed the crowd with curiosity. Nine in the morning and an empty playground in the suburbs. Where did all these people come from? They clustered behind the yellow tape whispering, taking pictures with their phone cameras. Why? To post them on Facebook? Look what I saw today, losers! A dead chick! Who finished her off? What a lucky motherfucker I am.

  Maybe it wasn’t like that. Aberson couldn’t hear what they were talking about. He also didn’t understand the interest people showed toward death, especially if death came from a murder. If it was for him to decide, he wouldn’t glance at bodies. He became a cop to catch criminals, not study dead people. He knew one wasn’t possible without the other, he knew that. At least he had never been out of subjects when he talked to his wife. She enjoyed this type of conversation. It was romantic to her, a guessing game.

  A young deputy ran to Shane, interrupting his thoughts.

  “They finished,” he said. “Usual. Asphyxiated, hair cut short.”

  “Hairdresser,” Aberson muttered as he walked toward the dead girl. He knew who had done it before arriving here. The same signature. He didn’t need experts to see the obvious. Even gawkers outside the perimeter noticed it and discussed it loudly.

  “That psycho always cuts their hair!” one said. “What a freak! Why does he need hair? What does he do with it? I can’t believe he’s still out there.”

  “Maybe he’s making wigs, like in that movie? The monster there skinned his vics and made dresses out of it. Maybe it’s a woman killer? Maybe she’s bald!”

  “What in the world are you talking about? First—the victims here, obviously are killed by a man. Second—what movie are you talking about? I want to watch it. I love movies about serial killers.”

  Shane Aberson didn’t like to watch anything about serial killers, or just regular, plain killers, or thieves, or fire starters. It didn’t matter. He liked comedies with happy endings. He could watch them and forget about everything. He could even do that two years ago.

  Shane approached a forensic pathologist and viewed the victim again. The girl lay behind a bench with chipped paint, beside an overflowing trash container, surrounded by empty bottles and cigarette butts. Bruised arms, the collar of the shirt torn away, mascara and lipstick smeared over her white skin. She looked young, about twenty-two, and beautiful. Why? Why was she dead? Aberson tried not to think of it, but every time, his thoughts went back to his sister. She was twenty-three, blonde, with blue eyes. She could be next.

  “We’ll give you the time of death after the examination,” Lane Vaughn, the forensic expert, said. She had been with Shane since he accepted the case. “Estimated time, for now, is between eleven p.m. and one o’clock a.m.”

  “As always,” Aberson said. “Damn.”

  “Damn,” Lane agreed.

  She agreed, but for Shane it sounded like she was blaming him for this murder and he had to sign under his own imbecility.

  “Bring the camera here!” he heard a familiar, low voice. He didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to answer her questions. Why wouldn’t she just leave him alone? Would she disappear if he ignored her? It was a dubious expectation and Aberson turned to the interfering news reporter. He even produced something like a smile on his face.

  “As always—you are the first one,” he said. “How did you find out this time?”

  “You should know that,” Evangeline said as she adjusted a bag on her shoulder and accepted a microphone from her assistant. “My personal sources.”

  “Sure. How could I forget?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”

  Shane didn’t answer. He just watched the tall brunette in tight jeans and a white blouse testing the microphone and choosing a spot for her news broadcast. She glanced at him while doing it. He had to work with her and she knew that. His chief ordered him to cooperate with the press and be frank in obvious situations. Fortunately, it concerned only this case. It was too famous, too painful. Aberson had become something close to a household name because of it. People on the streets recognized him sometimes and some young women even asked for his autograph. It was such foolishness, such ugliness. He couldn’t solve the case, couldn’t prevent another murder, and they asked for his autograph. Everything had turned into a show.

  “What do we do with the cadaver?” a young deputy asked.

  “Talk to the forensics expert.”

  “It has been less than five months since we last heard from the serial killer called ‘Hairdresser’,” Evangeline started happily as she turned to the camera, “and now he has shown up again. Just a few hours ago his latest victim was discovered. We arrived in Fort Lauderdale as soon as we heard about the crime and found Detective Shane Aberson, who’s leading the investigation, at the scene.”

  Shane cleared his throat. He didn’t like to talk, didn’t like to look into the dark eye of a camera, and he didn’t like Evangeline Parks, but he hoped that the viewers of the news wouldn’t notice his discomfort.

  The Hairdresser on Amazon

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  Books from Natasha A. Salnikova

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