by Camy Tang
“It happened a couple days ago too.”
“What?” Venus almost slammed her fist into her hip, but remembered the dirty paper towels just in time. Good thing too, because she had on a Chanel suit.
Trish gave a long, slow sigh. “Yup, they’re gone. That was fast.” She smiled cheerfully.
Venus wanted to scream. This was out of her realm. At work, she was used to grabbing a crisis at the throat and wrestling it to submission. This was somewhere Trish was heading without her, and the thought both frightened and unnerved her. She shrugged it off “Well… Aunty—”
“I’m fine, Venus.” Aunty Yuki inspected her elbow “Jennifer, get those Japanese Salonpas patches—”
“Mom, they stink.” Jenn’s stress over her beautiful kitchen made her more belligerent than Venus had ever seen her before. Not that the camphor patches could smell any worse than the burned Chinese-old-wives’-pregnancy-food permeating the house.
At the sound of the word Salonpas, Lex pinched her lips together but didn’t say anything.
Aunty Yuki gave Jenn a limpid look. “The Salonpas gets rid of the pain.”
“I’ll get it.” Aiden headed down the hallway to get the adhesive patches.
“In the hall closet.” Jenn’s words slurred a bit through her tight jaw.
Distraction time. Venus tried to smile. “Aunty, if you’re okay, then let’s eat.”
Jenn’s eyes flared neon red. “Can’t.”
“Huh?”
“Somebody turned off the oven.” Jenn frowned at her mother, who tactfully looked away “Dinner won’t be for another hour.” She stalked back to the kitchen.
Even with the nasty smell, Venus’s stomach protested its empty state. “It’s already eight o’clock.”
“Suck it up!” Jenn yelled from the kitchen.
It was going to be a long night.
Venus needed a Reese’s peanut butter cup.
No, a Reese’s was bad. Sugar, fat, preservatives, all kinds of chemicals she couldn’t even pronounce.
Oooh, but it would taste so good…
No, she equated Reese’s cups with her fat days. She was no longer fat. She didn’t need a Reese’s.
But she sure wanted one after such a hectic evening with her cousins.
She trudged up the steps to her condo. Home. Too small to invite people over, and that was the way she liked it. Her haven, where she could relax and let go, no one to see her when she was vulnerable—
Her front door was ajar.
Her limbs froze mid-step, but her heart rat-tat-tatted in her chest like a machine gun. Someone. Had. Broken. Into. Her. Home.
Her hand started to shake. She clenched it to her hip, crushing the silk of her pants. What to do? He might still be there. Pepper spray. In her purse. She searched in her bag and finally found the tiny bottle. Her hand trembled so much, she’d be more likely to spritz herself than the intruder.
Were those sounds coming from inside? She reached out a hand, but couldn’t quite bring herself to push the door open further.
Stupid, call the police! She fumbled with the pepper spray so she could extract her cell phone. Dummy, don’t pop yourself in the eye with that stuff! She switched the spray to her other hand while her thumb dialed 9–1–1. Her handbag’s leather straps dug into her elbow.
Thump! That came from her living room! Footsteps. Get away from the door! She stumbled backwards, but remembering the stairs right behind her, she tried to stop herself from tumbling down. Her ankle tilted on her stilettos, and she fell sideways to lean against the wall. The footsteps approached her open door.
“9–1–1, what’s your emergency?”
She raised her hand with the bottle of pepper spray. “Someone’s—”
The door swung open.
“Edgar!” The cell phone dropped with a clatter, but she kept a firm grip on the pepper spray, suddenly tempted to use it.
One of her junior programmers stood in her open doorway.
TWO
What are you doing?” Translation: You better have a good reason for invading my home or I’m going to break both your kneecaps. Venus’s fingers twitched around the pepper spray, but she resisted and lowered her arm.
It was dark except for the light from her living room, but she could see his chipmunk cheeks glowing red. “Oh! Venus.”
She spoke slowly and distinctly. “Why are you in my house, Edgar?”
He recovered quickly, flashing a wide and insincere smile. “I had some sensitive material for you and didn’t want to leave it outside, so I checked for a spare key. I found it under the doormat.”
She bit her tongue before she could exclaim a very un-Christianlike word. “I don’t leave a key under the doormat.”
Edgar smoothly handed her a key. “Well, I found one.”
She snatched it away. A copy, probably made at Home Depot. She’d changed the locks herself when she first moved in, and she didn’t even have a generic copy. She certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave one outside her condo. Edgar was lying through his teeth—but how had he gotten a copy of her house key?
At work, she kept her purse in her locked desk drawer…but the lock was flimsy, and she hadn’t gotten around to getting it replaced. She shuddered at the vision of Edgar poking through her purse when she’d been out of her office. The weasel had stolen her key and made a copy. And she couldn’t prove it.
What was worse, her home alarm system had broken the night before—waking her out of a sound sleep—and she’d arranged for the repairmen to arrive tomorrow, when she would meet them during her lunch hour. She couldn’t even say Edgar had tampered with her alarm, because it hadn’t been activated.
She would change the locks ASAP. “Why are you here?” She hadn’t even realized he knew where she lived.
“I needed to drop off some reports you have to look at before the meeting tomorrow morning.”
“Where are they?” She cast a pointed glance at his empty hands.
“I left them on your desk.”
“It couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning? Why would you come all the way to my condo?”
“Yardley sent me here.”
The CTO? Was he in on this or was that a lie? Venus’s lips pinched as if she’d eaten a Lemonhead. She bent to pick up her cell phone before she could say something she’d regret.
“Hello?” The operator’s reply was staticky—drat, the fall had broken her phone. “No, I’m fine, operator! No, really! It’s a coworker. Thank you!” She closed her phone with a snap, then wondered if she should have reported Edgar’s break-in instead of exonerating him.
She glanced down at the key in her hand. She couldn’t prove he’d made this copy. She couldn’t prove she never left a copy under her doormat.
She glared at him where he stood, relaxed stance, smiling in a way that made her grind her teeth. She stalked closer to him, reveling in the fact that her height and her heels allowed her to look down on him slightly. His smile never wavered, but his irises contracted. She intimidated him, although he was smart and strong enough not to show it.
When she’d been the fat girl, she’d never received this kind of nervous reaction from any man, no matter how much of a rage she was in—mostly because they’d always overlooked her as inconsequential. One of the perks of being tall and thin was the way her anger made men uneasy.
But what could she say? What could she prove?
“Move, Edgar. I need to get into my condo.” To find out what you did, because I doubt you’ d admit it.
He didn’t flinch at her rude tone, although he bared more teeth. He gave way with gallantry that mocked her even as it seemed to defer to her.
She didn’t look back at him as she entered her home. “Goodnight.” She slammed the door shut and bolted it with some violence.
She could smell his sickly cologne and a sweaty man smell. Ugh, disgusting. She started to peel off her shoes… No, wait. The dummy had walked on her sanitary floors with his shoes on. She’d ha
ve to clean them again. She rubbed her arms as she headed to her kitchen, limping from her tortuous heels. The Febreze spray bottle was under the kitchen sink.
Ahh. Drenching the living room made her feel much better. She cast her eye around. What had he done?
The couch didn’t look like he’d sat on it, but then again she doubted he’d wanted to wait for her to return. Her People and Star still lay on the coffee table, neatly stacked on top of InStyle, Vogue, and her gaming magazines.
In a corner of the living room sat her treadmill—she had to remember to get the worn belt replaced eventually—and in the other corner was her desk—actually, a sleek vanity table she used as a desk, since she didn’t have the square footage for a real one. A manila folder sat on a corner—Edgar’s all-important reports. A few bills she’d carefully stacked earlier on the opposite corner were now askew.
A chill slid down her throat to nestle against her heart like a shard of ice.
Her laptop cords had been neatly laid out, ready for her to plug in the computer, but the cords were twisted. Her lamp had been knocked at an angle. A few pens had fallen out of her pen holder onto the floor.
He’d touched her personal things. She wanted to grab everything and throw them in a pan full of bleach and water. She shot a few more sprays of Febreze to get rid of his smell—later, she’d grab the Lysol and wipe everything down.
He’d rifled through her files—the hanging folders in their open crate under the desk were crooked and spread out instead of standing in the neat, straight order she always left them, flush against the back of the crate.
He’d probably sat in her one-thousand-dollar ergonomic chair too, with his nasty sweaty behind. Ewwww. She made a mental note to douse it with Lysol later.
Edgar had been looking for the Spiderweb.
That sliver of ice in her heart suddenly became a drenching of ice water.
The door to her bedroom stood ajar instead of closed. She poked at it with the Febreze bottle to make it swing open.
The impression of his behind still lay in her snowy white down comforter where he’d sat on the bed. Other divots in the comforter showed where he’d also laid things.
Venus squirted the spray bottle as she walked further into the room. Her fingers twitched, ready to tear the comforter off the bed and wash the cover pronto, but first she had to make sure the Spider-web was safe. She snapped on the light, then did a hairpin turn around the open door to reach her closet.
The sliding door was cracked open. She swallowed. She dropped the spray bottle to pull the door open with both hands.
Her clothes had been shoved to the side, revealing her fireproof, anti-theft, digital-lock safe bolted to the floor (and the wall) in the corner of the closet. He couldn’t have gotten in, could he? She dropped to her knees and checked the safe door. Still locked.
But there were fine scratches in the steel. Maybe with a penknife? She wasn’t sure whether to grind her teeth or shout in triumph. She unlocked the safe.
Oh, praise God. Venus snatched up her laptop and hugged it to her chest.
A plop came from the bathroom. She froze.
Edgar might have had an accomplice. She should have checked that the house was clear before opening the safe!
She shoved the laptop back in and locked the door. She twisted around to glance at the bathroom door. Ajar. She darted toward the bed. Her aluminum baseball bat lay under the edge on this side, thankfully. She wobbled to her feet—which hurt like crazy, stupid shoes, but she wasn’t setting foot on the Edgar-contaminated hardwood until she’d done some serious Lysol-ing—and bent to retrieve the bat.
Armed, she approached the bathroom. What if he had a gun? She could honestly say she might choose to die before giving up the combination to the safe. Besides which, the laptop was also password protected with the best encryption program money could buy.
She poked open the door. A rushing water sound. Water? Someone had definitely been in here, but it looked empty now. She peeked in the shower just in case. Not that she really expected some spy in a white wetsuit to be hiding there, but better safe than sorry.
The water was filling the toilet tank. She opened the top and peeked in. Something was wrong with the plunger inside. Rats. She’d have to fix—
Wait a minute. Oh, gross!
Edgar had used the toilet.
The smell of bleach, Bounce, and Lysol relieved her as she snuggled under the comforter, the cover still warm from the dryer. She curled into a fetal position.
She still felt violated. Only her family had ever been inside her condo. She didn’t even like electricians or the cable guy invading her home. Her postage stamp-sized living room prevented her from having anyone over after work, even if she’d been close enough friends with her coworkers to suggest it. She’d gotten this condo on purpose because of the small size. No entertaining. No one here but herself.
This was her shell. Here she could relax, soak in the silence, let her guard down. No one complained about her neatfreakness (Lex), or her nonfat foods (Jenn), or her exercise regimen (Trish). Here she could be as weird as she wanted to be.
But Edgar had been here. That was like someone else trying on her socks and then giving them back to her.
Oh, God. Even in her head, it sounded more like a sob.
She flipped on the light and grabbed her Bible from the bedside table. She needed to read the Old Testament. Order and rules. Everything exactly so. God’s perfection and commandments.
She started in Exodus chapter twenty-five, the plans for the tabernacle. The lists of materials soothed her. “Blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; ram skins dyed red for cloth—”
Rrring!
What? That was the phone. She looked at her alarm clock. It was almost midnight. Caller ID said it was her dad.
Oh, no. She pushed the talk button. “Dad, what’s wrong?” She gasped her words because she’d started to hyperventilate.
“I, um…” He cleared his throat. “I need you to pick me up.”
“Where are you?”
“Just on Lawrence Expressway.”
“On the side of the road?”
“At the corner of Lawrence and Homestead.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing. I got into a small fender bender.”
“So small you can’t drive your own car away?”
He harrumphed a little more. “It’s kind of cold, honey Can you pick me up soon?”
Venus sighed, torn between a gusty sigh or a barely suppressed scream. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Small fender bender?” Venus gaped at the crushed pulp that used to be her father’s car. At least he—and probably the motorcycle cop who had stayed with him—had managed to push it onto the side of Lawrence Expressway, out of the way of the rare car traveling this late at night.
“He came out of nowhere.” Her father frowned and scratched his reddened cheeks, which had been smacked hard by the airbag.
“Dumb young kids with their fancy big trucks, roaring all over the highway…”
“Well, at least you’re okay.” Venus rubbed her stiff shoulders, but it didn’t help the tension filling her chest like a water balloon about to burst. At least the policeman had stayed with her father, although the poor guy looked bored standing a few yards away near his motorcycle.
“Did you already call a tow truck?” There was no sign of the truck Dad had hit, so the other guy must have had his car towed and then taken off himself.
“Yeah.”
She joined her father against a chain link fence on the side of the road. They stood there in silence while an occasional car sped down Lawrence Expressway.
“Good thing there weren’t too many cars out this late at night.”
He grunted.
“Working late?”
“Crunching numbers for your grandma.”
Oh, the bank.
“I saw your mother at the bank today.”
This t
ime, she grunted. “I thought Grandma gave her a position that doesn’t require her to be there.” Especially after the last fiasco involving a few thousand dollars she “borrowed” from a bank client that had to be replaced before he figured out what had happened.
“She’s in human resources now. She was turning in some papers.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t screw that up, like she did everything else.”
“Venus.” His stern voice made her pout, and she didn’t look at him. “She’s your mother. You don’t talk about her that way.”
“She hasn’t been your wife for seventeen years, so I don’t understand why you’d care how I talked about her.”
He sighed, a low, reedy breath. “It’s because I owe a lot to your grandmother.”
“Yeah, well, Grandma kept you on at the bank after the divorce because she likes you more than she does her own daughter.”
“Venus.” His voice had become a growl.
“Sorry.” But she wasn’t. “So did you talk to Mom?”
“She seemed in a good mood.”
“That means she’ll be in a bad one tomorrow.” Her mother, the emotional yo-yo. Charming one moment, angry and insulting the next. Mom had been that way for most of Venus’s childhood.
He sighed but didn’t reprimand her again, even though she knew she deserved it.
“I didn’t think you’d be up so late when I called you.”
“I was cleaning.”
He shifted his weight and looked at her. “Why were you cleaning so late at night?”
She knew it was going to alarm him, but maybe it would make him feel more comfortable to worry about her rather than think about his accident. “I came home tonight and the front door was open. One of my junior programmers was walking out of my condo.”
His eyes suddenly blazed hotter than a sword-maker’s f ire. “W hat was he doing there?”
“He said he found a spare key under the doormat, and the CTO had sent him by to give me some sensitive papers that he didn’t want to leave outside.”
“Why do you think he was there?”
She’d kept her emotions at bay as she scrubbed the toilet, mopped the floors, disinfected all the door handles, drove here to find her father. But now the pain started in her gut, the feeling of being stabbed over and over with a carving knife. “I think he was looking for the Spiderweb.”
