by Mia Thompson
She unwrapped the bow and tore through the card—her first and last name delicately written in cursive handwriting.
Of course, she thought.
John. It was his I-feel-guilty-gift to heal the wounds of the oh-so-painful breakup.
She opened the lid to the box and looked inside.
No, definitely NOT John!
Cold sweat spread over her entire body as the stomach-turning content in the box stared back at her. This couldn’t be happening.
The female finger lay on top of a bed of cotton soaked with blood. The fingernail polish was black and the ring decorating the finger belonged to Sapphire. It was her Batman ring.
She knew she had to close the box quickly before anyone could see it, but she was unable to move. Her body and her mind were no longer connected.
A high-pitched scream filled the room and everything stopped. No silverware scratched porcelain. No orders of à la carte dishes were being made. The bussers and waiters busy pitter-patter across the floor had ground to a halt.
For a second, Sapphire thought she was the one who had let the scream inside her head out. It wasn’t.
It was Chrissy. She had snuck up behind Sapphire as she was opening the gift, probably curious to see who on earth would choose to send Sapphire something and Chrissy nothing.
Close the box, Sapphire; close the goddamned box, she ordered herself and managed to get the lid back on. But it was too late.
“Oh my God! It’s a finger! Somebody call the police!” Chrissy waved her arms and ran back and forth in the dining hall like a maniac as the box was taken away by a gentleman sitting nearby.
“No…wait. It’s a phony. A joke…” Sapphire tried to explain, but nobody was listening to her. The finger-in-a-box was passed around from horrified person to horrified person, each and every one letting out a nauseous sound at first peek.
* * * * *
He watched her through his binoculars and smiled. When she had opened his package, the look on her face was priceless. His smile got even larger, spreading from ear to ear as he thought of what he’d do to her now that the game had started.
Soon she would hang. He would clean her of her sins and free humanity from her evil doings. He would punish her, the way she deserved to be punished.
He wished he could stand there and watch her all day long, but as soon as people inside started to reach for their cell phones presumably to call the authorities, he knew it was time to leave.
Longing for the day he’d torch the life out of her eyes, he stepped down from the rock on the hill, put away his binoculars, and joined in behind a man in sweats, blending in on the jogging trail perfectly.
Chapter 7
After she was told the police had arrived, somebody brought Sapphire a blanket, whatever good that would possibly do.
Most people who received a box containing a severed finger would not draw the conclusion that Sapphire did. But most people weren’t Sapphire. Most people didn’t dedicate their lives to studying serial killers. She knew exactly what it meant.
She knew the finger was female judging by both texture and size. Considering the black nail polish, the finger belonged to a young woman. She put the woman in her twenties.
The ring was never worn, never seen, never brought out except for when she went hunting. Somebody knew who Sapphire was, what she was. Somebody knew what she did and had cut off some poor girl’s finger to send her a message.
Shit! Sapphire couldn’t breathe. Some woman was either dead or being kept alive with a missing finger, maybe the first in a series of “gifts” that were about to be sent as time went on. All because of Sapphire.
The nausea hadn’t gone away and wouldn’t go away until Sapphire caught the guy with her own hands, and this time she wouldn’t just follow her normal routine; she would find him, kick the crap out of him, and find the girl before it was too late.
She was worried about the police, but not to the point where it could screw things up. After all, they were the Beverly Hills police.
Then the cops walked in and her mood dropped, if possible, even more.
Aston looked at her, and she could tell he was debating whether to acknowledge the fact that they knew each other or pretend he didn’t recognize her.
“Ms. Um…Dubois, we’re here to…” he started, apparently going with the second option.
“Aston.” Sapphire stated as a greeting and blew his cover. She clapped her hands together. “Oh, you must not have recognized me. It’s okay; I get it all the time. I look completely different with my clothes on.”
The other cop looked from Sapphire to Aston, who stood frozen in place.
“Barry, take the finger to evidence.”
Barry ran off with the finger, trying to fight off the curious and upset Beverly Hills folk.
Aston and Sapphire moved into the empty cigar lounge next to the dining hall.
Sapphire wasn’t sure if she should feel more or less nervous that Aston would be the cop interrogating her.
“Is there anyone you know who might have done this?” he asked, turning on a recorder.
“Well,” Sapphire started, “I made some pretty bad enemies out on the tennis court, and you know how those trust fund babies can be, dangerous and loaded with weapons. Cutting off people’s body parts left and right.”
Aston stared at her blankly.
“Of course I don’t know anyone who might have done this,” Sapphire spat out. “Look around; these are the people in my circle.”
“No. Of course. But things aren’t always as they seem. Can you think of any connection you might have to the finger. I mean the person attached to the finger? I mean…previously attached.”
“No.”
Aston took some notes and Sapphire gazed at him. Uncomfortable, he took off his suit jacket and the muscular tone of his arms showed though his shirt. Though he let his shoulders slouch, he almost reminded Sapphire of the cartoons she watched as a child, where the superheroes’ bodies were shaped like inverted triangles. He wasn’t a body builder, just very well built.
“Does the ring have any significance to you?”
Sapphire slouched in her seat and played with her cell phone to give him the impression that she was simultaneously bored and relaxed.
“No. It’s like, what? Superman or something?”
Again, Aston took notes without saying so much as a word. Not so much different from that morning when Sapphire had to drag every sentence out of him.
“Tell me about your daily routine? What does your life look like?”
“Isn’t that stuff you should want to know before you sleep with someone, rather than after?”
Aston stopped the recorder and looked at her with serious, and, unfortunately, sexy eyes.
“I think we’d just better stick to the facts of the crime here today.”
Sapphire half nodded, half shrugged, then crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair. After Aston deleted the section from the digital recorder, Sapphire explained to him how she liked to tan, how she loved shopping and having dinner with her friends, and enjoyed watching Brad Pitt movies. Even the bad ones.
“Okay. So it’s rare that you spend time outside of Beverly Hills?”
Sapphire scoffed. “Eh, yes. Not if I can help it,” she lied and lied well, totally forgetting about their past conversation.
“I thought you said you agreed that Beverly Hills was a hell hole?”
“And I thought you said we should just stick to the facts of today,” she said. “But fine, I lied and I thought what you said was weird. Why would anyone, in their right mind, want to leave Beverly Hills’ borders on purpose?”
An hour passed and Sapphire answered question after question with answers leading nowhere. When Aston finally turned off the recorder and flipped his notebook shut, Sapphire stood, happy that it was over.
Aston lit up a cigarette and Sapphire grabbed her purse.
“You can’t smoke here. Cigars only.”
&n
bsp; “Beverly fucking Hills,” Aston muttered, stubbing out his cigarette. “We can provide you with twenty-four-seven surveillance for you and your family’s protection, if you’d like?”
“Thanks, but no.”
Aston looked confused. “It was a rhetorical question. Of course you need to be watched over.”
“So you’re saying I’m obligated to be under surveillance? It’s a law?”
“No. But, look…I understand that you live in this perfect little world where nothing bad ever happens, and I’m sorry to be the messenger here. This person cut off someone’s finger, put it in a box, and sent it to you. I wouldn’t take it too lightly.”
I can take care of myself just fine, you idiot, Sapphire thought, pretending to get upset. “I’m just really scared right now.” She shook her voice on purpose, as if she was about to cry. “I just don’t think I could handle being surrounded by men reminding me of what I’ve seen.”
“Fine,” he said, annoyed and without any compassion. “But don’t do anything rash, like go on vacation or leave the country. Here’s my number.” He handed her his card.
Sapphire wanted to laugh. Now he wanted to give her his phone number?
“We’ll be in touch,” Aston said and stood up, starting to leave, then stopped in his steps. “Figuratively speaking.”
“Jackass,” Sapphire mumbled as she swung her purse to her shoulder and headed for the door.
* * * * *
When Aston pulled out from the country club, something bothered him immensely. Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t just the fact that he had forgotten Barry in the parking lot—it was something else. The girl.
There had been something odd about her. Granted, he thought, it could just be the fact that he used her high and dry the night before and she was still feeling emotional about it. But Aston felt there was something else too. There were no physical signs or traits that showed she was lying, but that was the feeling he had. She wasn’t completely telling him the truth.
What a spoiled rich chick would have to do with someone cutting a person’s finger off was beyond his understanding, but he knew it was more than just hate, obsession, or even lust. The finger was sent to her as a personal gift, a personal message.
“Batman,” he mumbled to himself as he avoided looking at Barry in the review mirror, running after the car and waving his hands like an idiot.
She had known nothing about it, or so she claimed.
He knew what he was going to do would be frowned upon by the Beverly Hills PD. But what the hell, Aston thought. It wasn’t as if he gave a flying rat’s ass about his new job and second of all, he had just gotten a real case. He wasn’t about to let it go that easy.
* * * * *
Sapphire stood in the attic staring at the collage of articles on murder victims from the last couple of months. She had to find the killer, and fast. The person whose finger had been severed might still be alive. There had to be something, some news that would lead her to him. Her new obsession.
Her stupid ringtone rang for the twelfth time in four hours; Sapphire sighed and for the twelfth time said: “Reject.” To Chrissy’s call.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Sapphire spat out as she flipped through the L.A. Times looking for a sign of something or someone new, but there was nothing.
Body parts. Body parts. Body parts. Over and over again Sapphire had gone through the connections.
Her pink iPhone, that Chrissy had forced on her, vibrated as her friend left another voicemail probably wanting to go somewhere public with Sapphire so that she could get the attention as the supporting friend.
“Voicemail-speaker,” Sapphire ordered her phone. It was more to let her mind rest than actually wanting to hear what Chrissy had to say.
“Oh, my Gooooood, Saph…like seriously; I’m like totally mad at you right now and like…I think, yeah, you’re shocked and stuff, but it’s soooo not cool to reject my calls like that.” A moment of silence, then her tone switched. “So any whoooo, I was gonna go get a pedicure and I think it’d be good for you to come along, because you always neglect your feet—”
“Delete.” Like she had time to worry about her feet.
Body parts. Feet. Feet. Damn you, Chrissy. Feet. Shoes. Shoes!
Sapphire sprang toward the wall frantically running her hands across it to find what she was searching for. That was it.
Thousand Oaks, California, about two months ago. There were three articles in her possession that hadn’t made sense until now. She found the first, ripping it off the wall.
* * * * *
Aston let the watered-down coffee run down his throat and cursed Starbucks for the millionth time.
His car was parked and masked by a tree: the perfect spot for watching the mansion. When the chief had asked him to take south side patrol, Aston had said yes with a dazzling smile. So dazzling that the chief got suspicious.
“Why so excited about the south side all of a sudden?”
“I like the south side. I’d patrol there all day long, every day if I could.”
The homes of the richest of the rich were on the south side, meaning they couldn’t just have any average police Joe patrol the area; they preferred sending someone higher up.
“I’ll get right on it,” Aston said and headed for the door, with no intention of getting right on anything except north side district fourteen.
Now, there he was watching the mansion of a woman he had slept with and kicked out of his apartment with no further notice than a minute or two.
He aimed his binoculars at her window, feeling like a perv watching Sapphire undressing, lights on, close to the window. For a second he thought about looking away, but figured it made no difference since he had already seen her naked.
She pulled off her top to reveal a tight stomach with a hint of a six-pack. How had he not noticed that before? Granted, he was pretty drunk then and could barely tell her ass from her tit.
As an awkward feeling grew in his gut, he pulled away the binoculars, wondering why a high class society girl that age would be in such good shape. Then he realized she probably had a personal trainer, nutritionist, and everything else that came along with the lifestyle. Pilates and yoga had given her a slender and muscular body while Aston had gotten his form from lifting heavy shit and running after crackheads and unexpectedly fast hookers in high heels.
He brought the binoculars back up to his eyes and saw Sapphire sit down by the window, looking out, her face empty and her eyes sorrowful. Then the light in the window below went out and Sapphire stood up. Aston expected her to put on some girly PJs and was confused as she pulled on a black spaghetti strap top and black tight pants. She used the ledge of the window to draw on a solid pair of black boots.
“What the hell?” he mumbled to himself.
His binoculars followed her as she opened the window to throw a backpack down to the ground. Then she started climbing down a vine. She did it smoothly, as if she had done it every day of her life. He lowered his binoculars and watched with bare eyes as she took off on foot down the street a few feet, then jumped into a white Range Rover. When she was far enough away, he started the engine and crept after her.
Ten miles beyond the L.A. border, her car merged off the freeway. He let his foot off the gas, slowing down behind her as she took a sharp right turn into an old worn down gas station. Aston pulled off to the side of the road and watched her expensive Range Rover disappear behind the tattered building, knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d miss her when she came back out.
Chapter 8
Sapphire parked in her usual spot behind the questionable port-a-potty a yard from the gas station and jumped out. She approached the beaten-up Volkswagen held together by duct tape and sheer will, and smiled.
“There’s my baby,” she mumbled, giving the rusty old door three kicks and a knee to open it. She never bothered locking it. Never needed to. Sapphire had been looking for the perfect car to let her blend into places that were
a far cry from the streets of Beverly Hills. And there, while following a lead into the Chula Vista junkyard, it sat in line about to be crushed into a cube by the big gaping mouth. Keys still in the ignition.
The lead fell flat, but Sapphire stuck around until after hours and managed to get to the Volkswagen. She spent twenty minutes trying to open the doors, beginning to understand why someone would have left it there in the first place. Finally she took a broken-off rearview mirror from a totaled car next to her and smashed the window, climbed in, and drove off in her very own first car. Well, her very own first car not paid for by mommy dearest.
Was it stealing? Probably. Was it at the bottom of the list of all the illegal things Sapphire had done in the past few years? Definitely.
She left the gas station and merged back onto the freeway as unwelcome thoughts of suffering women missing their fingers entered her mind. She turned up the radio and focused on one thing only. Her destination.
* * * * *
Aston had a choice to make. He could stay where he was and keep waiting for the Range Rover to appear, or he could drive up to the gas station with the risk of exposing himself to see what the fuck was going on. It had been an hour since she turned into the gas station. For one hour, Aston had stared at the gaping exit, waiting. Two cars had left the gas station, but not the Range Rover. His greatest weakness as an officer had always been patience—or lack there of—and that wasn’t about to change today.
Aston pulled into the gas station’s empty parking lot. Where had she gone? Aston lit a cigarette and circled the area, avoiding looking in the rearview mirror. The last thing he wanted to see at that moment was his own confused face. After his cigarette, Aston stepped into the Quickie Mart to question the clerk and refill his emergency vodka stash in the glove compartment.
“The young woman who came in here about an hour ago…where’d she go?” Aston flashed his badge at the clerk, a thirty-something blond California kid with spiked hair and hazy eyes.
