It can’t be...
The woman staring back at me isn’t Lynn, it’s Akasha. Eyes fixed on mine, she whispers, “Do you love me?”
I slip in the wet tub and fall backwards. Pain flares up my shoulder as my 180-pound frame hits the fiberglass edge. Hard.
Dazed, I squint through the steam and water and realize that I’m alone in the shower.
Was it all in my mind?
I dismiss the thought. I know what I saw. And touched.
Suddenly the showerhead turns toward me and the hot-water knob turns by itself. Instincts take over and I react without thought. I snatch the shower curtain and pull it off its hooks to shield me. It’s not a moment too soon as a jet of boiling water blasts down on me. The heat singes my fingers and the super-heated tangle of plastic is painful to the touch, but at least it’s deflecting most of the suddenly scalding water.
And then the sizzling spray dies down, becoming a mere trickle.
I gasp for air and scramble out of the tub. My naked flesh smacks against the cold floor tiles. My body has turned crab-red, skin inflamed from the hot water’s assault. I leave a wet trail on the hardwood floor as I stumble into the kitchen. My gaze locks on the gallon of mineral water sitting on the kitchen table. Without hesitation I pour the bottle’s soothing contents over my body. I remember my first aid training. Cooling the burn reduces swelling by conducting heat away from the skin.
Dread bubbles up and I let the truth reach the surface of my mind.
I’m being stalked by a dead woman.
15
I do my best to contain my increasing anxiety. Akasha’s advances are growing more insistent and I sense that time is running out. As I get dressed, I receive a call from Lynn.
“I’m so sorry I stood you up,” she says, and I know she’s fighting back tears. “I got off the train and was all ready to head to the diner—” She breaks off. “I was scared of what I would do if I saw you.”
I read between the lines.
Lynn’s plan was to end our relationship. But she couldn’t go through with it. This gives me hope. Hopefully we can fix this and put it all behind us. But first I must resolve my Akasha problem.
I know I’m grasping for straws here, but I decide to reach out to Darryl’s brother Adam. Adam works as a freelance editor at Visual Aid, a post-production house that cuts commercials and movie trailers. I look up his work number and make the call. The receptionist picks up after a couple of rings and with some prodding, she tells me that Adam quit several weeks ago. I look up his home address online.
Adam lives in Greenwich Village – editing must pay well. I arrive around five o’clock just as a cold, gray day becomes an even colder night. As I walk up to the majestic brownstone, I feel like a peasant visiting royalty. A week ago I was thinking I’d have my own sweet pad somewhere in Manhattan, down the road a bit. Now I’m not sure I’ll see tomorrow.
I’m reaching out to ring the buzzer when an elderly lady emerges from the front lobby, about to take her Cocker Spaniel for a walk around the neighborhood. She’s in her own little world and before the door can close, I slip into the hallway.
A few minutes later I’ve located Adam’s apartment. I press my ear against the heavy oak door. Based on the muted shuffling of feet and the low drone of the TV, I can conclude that someone’s home.
I knock on the door.
The television turns off and someone approaches. I go over my pre-rehearsed spiel in my head. Adam and I share something important in common – we’ve both lost our brothers to Akasha. I’m banking on this connection to make Adam talk, assuming he knows anything. The lock snaps back and the door swings opens, revealing Adam.
He wears ragged sweats and heavy bags ring his hollow eyes. It looks like he hasn’t shaved, or even bathed, in days. I catch a glimpse of his apartment behind him and it mirrors his sorry state. Empty boxes of takeout and crushed beer cans litter the dwelling. I’m still debating my next move when I notice the burn marks on his hands. They’re identical to the ones Akasha left on my neck a couple days ago.
I’ve come to the right place.
My presence unnerves Adam and he shoots me a suspicious look. “Who the hell are you?”
I avoid the question and cut to the chase. “We need to talk.”
“Talk about what?”
I had planned to be subtle about this, but instead I just come out and say it. “Akasha.”
His expression goes from annoyed to outright hostile. But I press on. “Akasha Samona vanished six months ago. I know she was dating your brother Darryl...”
“News flash, pal — Darryl was married, and he’s dead now. You don’t look like a cop. So why bug me with this shit?”
He leans closer. “I told the cops everything I know, which isn’t much. Now get the fuck out of my face.”
I remain frozen in place.
“What are you waiting for?! Get the hell out of here before I kick your ass!”
I’m about to comment on the burn marks but decide against it. Instead I grab his arm and push him into the apartment. He’s a big man but too drunk and surprised to put up much of a fight. I’m not sure what has gotten into me. The pressure, anger and loss of the last few days must have made me snap.
I’ve lost my brother.
I might be losing my sanity.
But I’m not going to lose Lynn.
I can’t allow Akasha to go after my girl. Adam is hiding something and I will make him talk. One way or another.
I slam Adam against the wall. He catches his bearings, pissed now. He takes a swing at me but his punch is alcohol-sloppy and misses. I fire back, landing two quick punches that topple him onto the couch. My eyes land on a small fire extinguisher resting on the couch. Looks like someone is taking his safety seriously.
A moan escapes Adam’s mouth and he rubs his jaw, spits blood on the floor. After two punches, my hands feel like they’ve been pounding a brick wall. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been in a fight.
“What the fuck do you want, man?” Adam asks, half confrontational and half afraid.
“Akasha was seeing Darryl when she disappeared. Tell me what happened.”
Adam only glares at me.
My rage detonates and I pull the collar of my jacket back, exposing burn marks identical to his.
“She's been coming after you too, hasn't she? That’s why you quit your job. Why you’re trying to hide in a bottle. What did you and Darryl fucking do to her?”
Still no response.
My anger drains and turns into desperation and fear.
“Talk to me, goddammit.”
Adam lets out a deep sob. “She can't hurt you! She can't hurt anyone anymore.”
My eyes bore into him and I say, “Tell me everything.”
Adam does.
16
The words come haltingly as Adam dredges up a past he prayed would remain forgotten.
“Darryl was getting antsy during Megan’s pregnancy. Their sex life was suffering, and he started looking at other women. I always told him getting married so young was a mistake.”
“He started meeting women on Blaze,” I say.
“It’s my fault. He saw me using the app, meeting new girls all the time. I guess one day he downloaded Blaze and hooked up with someone.”
I process this. Darryl had money, a cool career, a beautiful wife. But it wasn’t enough.
“How often?”
Adam shakes his head.
“I don’t know. It happened a lot. Darryl was out of control. It became an addiction, I think. Don’t need to be a shrink to know he was trying to destroy his marriage. I told him he was playing with fire, but he wouldn’t listen.”
He pauses and downs a shot of Jack Daniels before continuing. “He would take his dates to our parents’ house in Long Island. Mom passed away a little over a year ago and the place has been empty ever since. We were thinking of putting it on the market, but it needs a lot of work...”
Adam’s voice
trails off for a second before he says, “Darryl’s wife was eight months pregnant and he was meeting women online and taking them back to our parents’ house. He turned the home we grew up in into his personal fuckpad.”
His voice trembles with anger. “I knew it wouldn’t end well. One night I got a call. Darryl was freaking out on the other end, begging me to come to the house. He refused to go into detail on the phone, but I knew something terrible had happened. The panic in his voice...it wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before. God, how I wish I’d never answered the phone that night.”
Anger is making way for another emotion: deep remorse. Tears well up in Adam’s eyes. Suddenly I’m not so sure I want to hear the rest of the story. But no turning back now.
“Your brother had murdered Akasha.”
The words slip out because by now I know Akasha must be dead, and I’m tired of Adam dwelling on the details. I want...no, I need to know what happened to the woman who has turned my life into a waking nightmare.
“Darryl didn’t say a word when I pulled up. He just walked into the house. I followed him into the living room and that’s where she was. Sprawled out on the floor, her neck twisted... I just knew she was dead.”
I can vividly picture the scene in my mind. I can almost see Darryl’s panicked, ashen features and the numb shock Adam must’ve experienced when he first laid eyes on the woman on the floor.
“Why did he kill her?” I ask.
“He said it was an accident. He was trying to break it off with Akasha. He told her he had a wife and kid.”
Maybe he should’ve mentioned that before he contacted her online, I think, but keep my mouth shut.
“Akasha threatened to tell his wife everything. That’s when he snapped. He gave her a shove, she lost her balance... Hit her head on an end table.”
“Why didn’t you call the cops, if it was an accident?”
“I told him he should. Darryl said nobody would believe him. He figured they’d take one look at a high-paid lawyer with a baby on the way and a dead nineteen–year-old in his living room... A jury would send him away for good.”
A valid argument. Unless some sophisticated forensic team could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Akasha’s death was accidental, Darryl would face an unsympathetic legal system.
“What then?”
“God forgive me... I decided to help him destroy the evidence.” Adam wipes away the tears that keep welling up. I know he wants to stop talking about this – reliving that night must be torturous – but I need him to finish his story.
“You became an accomplice to murder.”
“I figured she was dead already. We couldn’t bring her back, couldn’t change what happened. What was done was done. I kept thinking about Darryl’s wife, the baby on the way... Lot of fallout, man. Didn’t want to see more lives be destroyed in the process.”
Adam stares a hole in the carpet, shaking his head. “I felt responsible, you know? I introduced Darryl to that stupid app. If it hadn’t been for all my bragging about banging chicks...”
I don’t want to hear apologies and excuses. “What did you do with the body?” I ask, curtly.
“I told Darryl we’d take care of it, and we did. We buried her in the woods a few miles from the house.”
I imagine being dumped into a shallow grave, the world unaware of what happened to me. Just another missing person in a long line of missing people. I know I’d want my story to be told and for the truth to come out.
Will Akasha stop seeking retribution if we find her body? Will she accept that she’s dead and move on to whatever’s next?
I notice a strange look of determination in Adam’s eyes. Then it hits me — he hasn’t finished telling the story. There’s one final part of Akasha’s dark tale that remains untold. Having come this far, he wants to go all the way and get it off his chest.
“Something else happened that night,” I say, to prompt him.
“I was worried that someone might find the body and be able to identify Akasha. After we put her in the ground, I went back to my Jeep and got the emergency gas tank.”
Dread spikes inside me. I’m about to receive the chilling final piece of the puzzle.
“Darryl dumped the gas all over her body. I was going to use my lighter, but I quit smoking a couple months earlier. There were some matches in the glove box, though...”
Adam takes a deep breath. “Darryl was too much of a mess at that point, so it was up to me. This was a cold, windy night. The first couple of times, the match didn’t stay lit. You know what they say — third time’s the charm.”
Once again I can vividly picture the scene. I see the match catching fire as if I’m standing next to Adam. I see it falling into the open grave. Flames ignite on Akasha’s gasoline-soaked body...
“She went up almost instantaneously.” Adam lets out a heaving sob that shakes his whole body. The next words come sudden and sharp. “All of a sudden she was screaming! I can still hear her. Oh my God, I swear we thought she was dead…”
Adam’s hands are trembling now and his face has turned to marble. A shudder ripples through me as the full horror of what happened that night is finally revealed.
17
I’m behind the wheel of my Honda, Adam riding shotgun. Darkness hangs over the forest as I wind my way up the tree-lined road. As we press deeper into this heavily wooded area of Long Island, there is little left to say. The bizarre happenings of the past few days now make sense to me. I finally understand why all these men perished in fires. In death, Akasha controls the element that took her life.
Suddenly Darryl breaks the silence in the car. “I'm so sorry... I never meant to hurt anyone...”
Part of me wants to punch him, but I suppress the urge. Adam can’t stand it anymore and asks, “You think this is going to change anything?”
Good question.
“I don’t know,“ I say. “Maybe once the world knows the truth, the killings will stop. Maybe Akasha will find peace.”
“If I tell you where she’s buried, I’ll go to jail for life.”
“Can you live with yourself, knowing that she’s out there killing anyone who answers her personal ad and is foolish enough to sleep with her? Every one of her victims will be on your conscience.”
Adam shakes his head. He senses that I’m offering him the next best thing to absolution.
“I can see why she went after Darryl, but why the others?” Adam asks. “They didn’t have anything to do with what happened that night.”
It’s a good point, and I’ve already given it some thought. “Akasha always got involved with men who weren’t emotionally available. She was looking for love in all the wrong places. Married men, guys in relationships... They’d use her and discard her. But not anymore. No one will ever love her and leave her again. Let the world beware.”
“So why did Akasha spare you?”
I just shake my head. I refuse to share my theory with Adam. What separates me from all her other victims is that I never slept with Akasha. Men betrayed Akasha after they’d gotten what they wanted. Death is allowing her to take revenge. But maybe there are rules she has to play by... I don’t know, but one thing I’m certain of — had I been seduced, I’d be dead now. Just another name on her ever-growing list of Facebook friends.
In a fatalistic voice, Adam declares that we’re here. I slow down and kill the engine. We get out of the vehicle and breathe the night air. The snow-laden pines seem alive, sickly moonlight casting a spooky glow on everything.
As we creep deeper into the woods, boots crunching over the ice, I let Adam lead the way. The beam of my flashlight flits through the darkness like a lost soul. The shovel dangles from Adam’s hand and rakes the snow.
Terrible secrets seem to lurk in this forest. We’re about to unearth one of them. Tonight history is repeating itself, except in reverse. Last time it was Adam and his brother burying the evidence. This time it’s up to us to uncover the truth.
Adam stops and raises his arm, pointing at a fat tree. “We buried her over there.”
I stare at the vista before us and realize I’ve seen it before. These are the same trees and icy landscape on Akasha’s Facebook cover page. All along, her profile offered clues to her final resting place, but no one was able to put it all together.
I nod and say, “Start digging.”
“Please, don't make me do this.”
My withering gaze silences Adam. He stabs the shovel into the snow-covered mud and begins the dirty task ahead.
Half an hour later, Adam is standing in a shallow grave surrounded by a mound of ice-hardened soil. With an expression of mingled disgust and sadness, Adam steps back from the grave. I move closer.
The moment I spot the skeletal remains at the bottom of the hole, a chill claws its way down my spine. Up until this point it’s all been words alone. Here is the reality of what happened. This is why Akasha’s spirit isn’t at rest.
Blackened bones protrude from the frozen earth like jagged teeth. A charred skull stares back at me.
“Akasha...”
I would swear the stench of burning meat is thickening around me, but it must be my imagination.
Adam regards the remains with deep regret. “I'm so sorry,” he mutters under his breath, seeking forgiveness for his crime.
Perhaps God is listening, but I have the feeling Akasha isn’t. I’m caught off guard as a flash of light illuminates the dark grave. It takes all my self-control not to turn and start running. As my eyes focus I realize what is emitting the strange glow. It’s Akasha’s iPhone.
Logic dictates that the battery must be dead and this is why no one was able to track the phone here. One bony hand clutches the smartphone that now glitters with unnatural life. Despite my revulsion, I snatch the phone and realize it’s logged onto Blaze. Adam and Darryl buried Akasha with her cellphone. Has it become a way for her spirit to leave the prison of her final resting place and roam the world beyond?
As I try to wrap my head around it all, Adam whirls and takes off into the night. For a second I just stand there, too stunned to react, but I shake off my paralysis and tear off after him.
Soul Mate Page 7
