The Tease (The Darling Killer Trilogy)

by Pill, Nikki M.

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s still out there. Let’s get this over with.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I folded the empty sweetener packet in half, then half again. A nervous, fluttery feeling hovered in my chest.

  I’ve always hated breakups, even when I knew the time was right.

  I hated ambiguity in relationships even more.

  Kevin came into view in the coffee shop window. He waved, half-smiled. I was certain he’d gotten the message: meeting in a public place, taking separate transportation. I felt a funny constriction, a fist around my heart.

  I wasn’t angry anymore.

  He swept into the room, managing somehow to look dashing against the brown and neutral tones in the diner. Tiny raindrops glistened on his shoulders before soaking into the fabric of his dark coat.

  “Hi,” he said, leaning down to give me a hug.

  “Hi,” I replied.

  He kissed my lips lightly. It felt… good. And I felt awful.

  He sat down across from me and took my hand. The waitress came by with her coffee pot, and he accepted a mug. I was so aware of his long white fingers enveloping mine. I felt a stir of regret tinged with desire and the confused sort of exhaustion that comes with a hangover.

  “I’m sorry to coordinate this via email,” I said. “My voicemail keeps filling up.”

  “No problem,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

  I shrugged. “It’s been rough,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you sooner.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “I don’t know what normal is at a time like this.”

  “I don’t either,” I said. It had only been three days since Grant attacked me. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his arms pinning mine. When I thought I could drift off to sleep, the memory of his kiss came back, his tongue like a cold leech in my mouth.

  “What can I do?”

  Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked. “Dammit,” I whispered.

  He waited quietly, his thumb running gently over my hand.

  “Kevin, I really like you,” I began.

  He winced. “Ouch,” he whispered.

  “I’m kind of a mess,” I said. “I feel like I don’t have anything to give you right now.”

  “I’d be kind of a bastard if I argued,” he said, half-smiling. He was hurt, that was clear, but I didn’t see any anger in his face.

  “I… want to explain,” I said.

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “It’s all over the news.”

  “Some is,” I said. “What have you seen?”

  “I saw that Tish was murdered, and that you and Grant were questioned,” he said. He had already offered his condolences on the phone. “I saw they arrested one of your patients, and let him go. I saw that Grant’s in a coma, and they’ll probably charge him with murder if he wakes up.”

  “That’s a start,” I said. I decided to start with the easier stuff, even though I flinched, thinking of Jeff’s too-kind face when he delivered the bad news. “I’m suspended from my work,” I said. “We’re too exposed in the media. Me being a burlesque dancer, a client’s confidentiality being compromised – it looks bad.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how much you love your work.”

  “I do,” I said. “So… there’s an investigation about whether or not there was any misconduct. I’ll probably have to face the American Counseling Association’s ethics committee.”

  “Yikes,” he said.

  “I know.” I shuddered. “I asked my boss to contact them.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Being investigated is scary,” I admitted. “It is. But Jeff is a good guy, and I didn’t want any shadow of wrongdoing on the practice. If I’m going to work there or anywhere, I need to be cleared of any misconduct. Though I don’t know if I can get my clinical license now, because having a high moral character is important for that. My conscience is clear, but I’m not a conventional person, so I’m not sure what they’re going to say.”

  He nodded. “I can see that. But doesn’t it bother you?”

  I frowned. “I can’t talk to Max,” I said. “Legally. I can’t. And I feel like I let him down.” There was no use in avoiding his name; it was all over the news. Detective Brack’s face flashed through my mind, the fluorescent lights making her face even more feral, as she explained the terms of the restraining order.

  I never thought I’d be a person named on a restraining order.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, as the leaden feeling constricted me again. That was the worst: that Max came to me for help, and I ruined his life when he hadn’t done anything. Maybe it was just karma that mine was in shreds too.

  “And then…” I sighed. “I saw you with Tish.”

  He looked puzzled. “With Tish…”

  “I saw you kiss her. The other day, on Irving Park.”

  “Oh,” he sighed. “You saw her kiss me.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  He looked at the table, and then back at me. “I’ve known Tish for a while,” he said. “She can be…. kind of territorial.”

  I thought of our argument about Lynne. “Yeah.”

  “She was never interested in me before you and I started dating,” he said. “She even made that comment about how you were single, to introduce us.”

  I nodded.

  “I think she felt threatened by you,” he said. “You’re smart, pretty, talented… You’re even the one they mentioned more in the reviews. If she had kissed me a year or two ago, it would’ve been different. I was attracted to her. Most guys would be – she’s – I mean, she was, pretty and fun and all that. But I’ve seen her do this before. She liked it when a guy liked her, even if she didn’t want him – but the second he noticed one of her friends, she had to get his attention back. She wasn’t someone I felt I could trust in a relationship.”

  “So you two didn’t…”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I was leaving a store, and I heard her say ‘Kevin!’ and she ran up and kissed me. It was kind of odd. I… detached her as nicely as I could and said I was flattered, but I was seeing you.”

  I didn’t see any lies in his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  He sighed again. “The next day, I saw that she’d been murdered. I was too concerned about you to put so much energy into explaining a… a weird interaction that I didn’t feel anything about. Obviously, if she hadn’t been murdered, I would’ve wanted to talk about it, because it could be kind of awkward being around her later. I just… I don’t know. I felt like I was speaking ill of the dead or something. Tish wasn’t perfect. She had a lot of good traits, and I generally liked her, and she wanted to get me involved in some of her personal drama, but I decided not to.”

  “Ah,” I said. “That makes a lot of sense.”

  “So I didn’t see any purpose in dwelling on it.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “And I’m not – angry. I haven’t been. I was upset at the time, but I still felt like… like we hadn’t talked about whether we were exclusive or anything.”

  “Kind of a moot point now,” he said.

  What had he said earlier? Ouch. “Kind of,” I agreed, and braced myself for the worst of it. “There is some stuff you should hear from me, and not the court room.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “I was… hurt and angry. Not that it’s an excuse.” I filled him in about that surreal and awful night: finding the body, seeing Max in the police station, Grant taking care of me, and the horrible morning. I did see the sting of pain in Kevin’s eyes when I told him about kissing Grant, and a little anger. I didn’t blame him.

  I finished the story by telling him about Detectives Brack and Santiago coming to get Grant, how they questioned me for hours. I left out the part about Grant’s coma, because that was in the news, and about Grant’s family suing me for assault, because it made me too angr
y to say. I left out the resigned look on my father’s face when he came to the police station to get me, because I felt guilty and terrified every time I thought how old he looked; worry and exhaustion sapped his usual verve and gap-toothed grin, thickened his Brooklyn accent, and deepened the lines in his face. I left out the way his shoulders tightened when Detective Brack said, You’re free to go. Do you think you can keep your clothes on for a few weeks now?

  I left out how kind he was to me, because hot tears spilled over my face every time I thought about it. How he let me be silent until we got home, and then gave me a hug when we were in the kitchen, and I almost threw up at being touched even though it was my own dad. How he then said, “Sweetie, I can’t imagine what you’ve just been through. You don’t have to talk me about what happened yet. I’m just glad you’re alive and safe. You did what you had to do. Remember, I’ve always told you that violence is the unnecessary use of force. You did what you needed to do to protect yourself, and I am so proud of you for that. Do you want something to eat?”

  I liked being with Caprice, because she didn’t understand. She just wanted food and belly rubs. That I could handle.

  “So now I’m staying with my dad,” I said, “and I usually leave my phone off, because reporters keep badgering me for a story I don’t want to tell.” They couldn’t print my name as long as I didn’t give consent, or wasn’t officially on a witness stand, but they could certainly call and ask me for interviews.

  Kevin’s lips thinned and went bloodless again, as they had when I told him about Josh. “I can’t say it doesn’t bother me that you kissed him,” he said. “I can understand using it as a ruse to get away – and I’m glad you got out of it, however you had to. I’m glad he didn’t…,” He ran both fingers through his hair. “I feel like shit,” he said finally. “I feel like shit for being mad you kissed another guy, because I know seeing Tish kiss me must have hurt you, and I can’t imagine how horrible it was to find her body or be attacked or anything like that.”

  I squeezed his hand. “It’s fine,” I said. “You don’t need to feel guilty about being angry. I’m sorry I did it. Like I said, me being hurt and confused is no excuse.”

  “Thank you for being honest with me,” he said.

  “You deserve honesty,” I said, and blinked tears back. “You deserve more. I would love to date you. I would love to know you better, and see where it goes, but… after… what… happened, I feel kind of sick at the thought of being intimate with anyone. And after everything with Tish and Lisa and my job… I’m depleted. I don’t have anything to put into a relationship. I don’t want to just… you’d be such a great distraction. It would be so great to just hang out in the excitement of a new relationship while I avoid dealing with how fucked up and out of control I feel, but then the stuff will come up later, and we’d be having this talk a year from now, and I don’t want to do that to you.”

  “I finally meet a girl who actually cares about my feelings,” he said, “and the timing just doesn’t work.”

  “So you understand,” I said, “that it’s the timing. It’s not you. You’re just about perfect.”

  He winced. “Yeah. That helps and hurts at the same time.”

  “It does,” I said. I still couldn’t make myself let go of his hand. “I don’t want to say never, but I wouldn’t ask you to wait for me. That’s not fair. I mean, there are all these great love stories where people throw caution to the wind, and get together against all odds, and… this is real life. Relationships don’t survive when they’re this much to work through this early. I’m just exhausted. Aren’t you?”

  He chuckled ruefully. “Yeah. I am.”

  “So,” I said. “If you don’t hear from me for a while… I just can’t drag you into all this. It’s because you matter to me.”

  “You matter to me too.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

  “So what are you going to do now?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said. Adjustment disorder with anxious mood. Bereavement. Problems with the legal system. “Keep a low profile. Sort through this mess. Figure out if I can ever be a therapist or dancer again.”

  He ran a fingertip over my knuckles. “Do you need to be a therapist to help people?” he asked.

  “Huh,” I said, as my thoughts all piled up on each other. “I… think so. It’s what I know how to do.”

  “You talked about how much you loved working with abuse survivors and domestic violence,” he said. “I wonder if your story might get a lot of publicity, and you could channel it into something really helpful. People get famous from reality TV for being superficial or having weird jobs. There’s got to be some money for people who do the right thing in an unconventional way.”

  The constricted feeling didn’t lift, but I did see a tiny glimmer of light. “Maybe,” I said. “I hope so. How about you? What are you going to do now?”

  He shrugged. “Carve. Hang out with friends. Get impossibly drunk a few times.”

  We waited in silence for another moment or two. I gave his hand one last squeeze. I had to leave before I did something stupid like kissing him. “I don’t like long goodbyes,” I said. “So… I’m going.”

  I tossed a few dollars onto the table. He gave me a hug, and I left. Is this heartbreak? I wondered. It wasn’t the same crushed feeling I had when I finally left Josh. It was a strange combination of relief, regret, and exhaustion.

  • • •

  I drove to the studio to meet the girls. We had agreed to put together a photo display for Tish’s memorial service. Burlesque was an important part of her life – of our lives – and we wanted people to see her at her best: vivacious, smiling, aglow from the stage lights.

  I had handled the phone call to her parents. Her mother’s voice was sad, and she was eager to ask me all about her daughter’s last years. When I asked about bringing photos of her performance life to the funeral, she hesitated, and then agreed. “We didn’t understand,” she said, “but I’m so sorry now that I let that take her away from us. I thought there’d be time to fix it later.”

  Sometimes it really is too late.

  The girls swarmed me in a hug when I arrived: Monica, Pip, Sasha, Ronnie, Trixie, Frenchie, and Lynne.

  “I can’t imagine,” Lynne said, squeezing me close. “If you ever need anything, you let me know.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t know you knew Tish.”

  She blinked. “You’re my teacher,” she said. “I’m here to be here for you.”

  I crumpled inside a little. She might be irritating, but she did mean well. I hugged her again.

  It was a relief to just be with the girls. They’d brought a few bottles of wine and some chocolates, and we swapped our favorite Tish stories. It felt good to remember them. But the pauses between the stories got longer and longer, until Pip finally said, “I can’t believe it was Grant.”

  The girls chorused agreement. “It’s so horrible,” Frenchie said. “Velvet, I’m so sorry I didn’t stay. I never should’ve let you go with him.”

  “You had no way of knowing,” I said. “I study human behavior, and I didn’t know.”

  “I totally didn’t call it either,” Monica said. “Sometimes you just don’t know that kind of crazy is coming out until it does.”

  Sasha shuddered. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Me, too,” I said. I pasted more rhinestones around a picture of Tish. “You should all still be careful,” I said finally.

  “But they caught him,” Trixie said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know that they did,” I said. “He told me he killed Lisa, but not Tish. Now he’s in a coma so they can’t interrogate him.”

  “Do you believe him?” Sasha asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. But… I was rehearsing at his place on an afternoon that someone left a necklace on my door. I didn’t tell him I was going to the store. How could he know he
was going to beat me home?”

  I wasn’t supposed to share details about the crime scenes, but I’d sworn the girls to secrecy and divulged what I thought they needed to know to stay safe.

  “Maybe that’s not why he went there,” Pip said, and shuddered.

  “Then why didn’t he just kill me when I was at his place?” I asked.

  “Because maybe someone knew you were going to be there,” Trixie said.

  “And because he’s completely fucking crazy,” Sasha added.

  “And the real kicker,” I said, “is all the blood at the scene. I’m so glad you all didn’t see her. I don’t think Grant could have – done all that – and gotten himself cleaned up in half an hour.”

  “Are you sure it was half an hour?” Monica asked.

  I nodded. “My phone kept ringing,” I said, “and I remember thinking that I had about half an hour to do yoga in the dressing room before you all usually arrive.”

  “What do the police say about that?” Pip asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Not to me.”

  “So we don’t know for sure how long it took,” Trixie said.

  My voice quavered. “I think maybe I should leave the show,” I said.

  “Oh, you can’t do that!” Lynne said.

  “He could still be out there,” I said. “If he’s targeting people around me, none of you are safe.”

  The girls looked at each other. “But Grant did it,” Ronnie said.

  I looked up and met their eyes. “What if he didn’t?” I asked.

  “What if we take, like, a mourning period?” Ronnie asked. “We can’t just go back to the way things were without Tish and Grant and Lisa. So maybe we take a month off and see what the police find out.”

  “And if it was Grant,” Sasha said, “then we know we’re okay.”

  I looked at their pleading faces. They need this, I realized. We’re performers. We all need our art.

  “We don’t have a troupe leader,” I said, “or an emcee.”

  The girls all stared at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “I guess… we all assumed you’d be the troupe leader,” Pip said. The other girls all nodded.