“Body suit? Not a chance. I saw footage of the arrest. It’s all real. Fitting her in a jail cell was probably a trick.” He grinned. “Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
“Wait, so the police caught the person who did it?”
“Yeah,” the man said, a ‘weren’t you listening’ tone present. “That night. Once I gave them a description it wasn’t too difficult for them. All they had to do was go to his home and see his wife. I hear she didn’t even bother to deny anything. Whenever she was on the news, she almost seemed proud of what she had done. The only thing she regretted, according to a statement in the paper, was that she hadn’t been able to catch the whore he was seeing. Guess she had wanted to kill them both.”
Bill didn’t know what to say.
“Whoever the girl was, she’s lucky she didn’t show up before the wife did.”
“Yeah,” Bill muttered. “She is.”
“Makes you wonder though, she must have been planning on calling him or something when she got here because how would she know what room he had. It’s not like he requested room six. Poor thing probably thought she’d been stood up when he never answered the phone.”
“Or maybe she stood him up,” Bill said. The words appeared without any real thought.
“What?”
“Never mind. You said the story has been in the papers? Do you have any copies I can see?”
“Gee, I don’t think I kept any of them,” he said and stood up to look around as if they could be lying in plain view without him having realized it. “It wasn’t exactly something I wanted to keep thinking about on a daily basis.”
“That’s understandable,” Bill said. He thought for a second, mind trying to connect the recent events to what had occurred. “So, has anyone else come by to ask about the room, almost as if they were overly curious about it?”
“Nope, not really. Earlier when the summer first started there were some folks that wanted to look at it. Morbid fellows who enjoyed visiting murder scenes and taking pictures for websites and stuff.” He shook his head. “Half the time they didn’t even want to rent the room, but just have me let them in to see it. At first I thought the publicity might be good, but it wasn’t so I stopped letting people like that go in.”
“And you never saw someone taking the picture of the door?”
“No, and they must have been quick about it because most things don’t go unnoticed around here, not when I can see everything.”
Though he didn’t think it would help, Bill persisted and asked, “Not even a young woman? Maybe she didn’t take any pictures when you were looking, but asked about the room?”
The man shook his head. “Nope, no one like that, and no one recently either if that makes a difference.”
“Hmm, okay.” Bill didn’t know what else to ask, shrugged, and then said, “I suppose that’s all I need to know. Thanks so much for talking to me about it.”
“Yep,” the man said and shook his hand. “Hope it helps with your problem, and I hope I didn’t upset her too much.”
Bill looked back toward the door to the office and said, “I think she’s fine.”
“Hope so.”
Me too, Bill silently said. Me too.
8
The stoplights and then the train on Route 38, or Lincoln Highway as it was known in DeKalb, got the better of Mark. He wanted to get to Tom and Jerry’s; wanted to get there and text Amy and have her text him back. He wanted to be reassured that everything was okay.
And you would know by now if it wasn’t for the god damn train stopping you!
He slammed a fist against the steering wheel in frustration. No relief came from the act. If anything, the slight pain that vibrated through his wrist from the impact aggravated him even more.
You should have taken Route 23.
Having come from I-90 he originally had been on Route 23 for his journey through Sycamore and could have simply stayed on it all the way to Route 38. If he had done that, he would have been ahead of the train, especially if he cut over toward First Street, which would have put him a block away from Tom and Jerry’s. Instead, thinking the lunchtime traffic would be a pain in the ass along Route 23, he had cut over to Peace Road, his plan being to follow it until Pleasant Street and cut across toward Route 38 on Seventh Street. It was a good plan, the only danger being the possibility of a train.
You should have known there would be one.
Anything that could happen to make his trip more stressful would happen. That was how things worked in his life. If he was smart he would start –
BUZZ.
He looked down at his phone, his eyes hoping to see AMY written on the screen. Instead, there was just a number, which meant it wasn’t someone he knew.
Or someone who got a new phone, he silently added.
He looked at the message.
HAVE FUN WITH AMY TODAY. I’LL BE WATCHING. NIKKI
What the fuck!
Nothing else came to mind.
Up ahead the end of the train came into view.
How did she get my – the thought stopped when he realized he had messaged it to her on OK Cupid back when they had agreed to meet, back when he had thought things were really going to happen between them.
Ignore it.
He put the phone down and got ready to move forward as the train cleared the intersection.
A new thought arrived: How does she know where we are getting together?
She doesn’t and is just trying to spook you.
Either that or she and Amy really were friends, Amy having gotten in contact with her in an attempt to make more contacts within the DeKalb area. Such a situation would be unthinkable in anyone else’s life, but not his. Nope. With him things like that always unfolded and eventually screwed him over. It was just the way things worked. He had a target on his back it seemed. Whenever a higher power was pissed it used Mark to relieve the stress of the situation.
The train finished crossing the intersection.
Mark sighed and shifted to drive
After that his luck changed a bit and he managed to make every light but one.
I’M HERE, he typed into a message for Amy. AT TOM AND JERRY’S, he added a few seconds later to clarify what HERE meant.
Naturally, concern over this second message arrived. Had he thought about it before quickly typing it he would have realized it wasn’t necessary. She knew what HERE meant. But his excitement-laced concern had once again gotten the better of him.
No reply.
Now what?
He was sick of being in his car, especially in the heat of today, but wasn’t sure if going inside and sitting in a booth without ordering anything would be okay. Standing out here in the parking lot didn’t seem that appealing either, especially if it took her some time to get here. Too many memories of standing around places waiting for a girl to show up who never did were caught in his mind.
You can always go in and order a soda.
Fear that she would think it rude of him to order before she arrived was pushed aside. All he had to do was tell her the drive had made him incredibly thirsty. She would understand.
Wait!
From the corner of his eye he saw a girl headed his way. The distance made it impossible to tell if it was Amy though.
A few seconds later he realized it wasn’t her. She was headed in the same direction however and eventually walked into Tom and Jerry’s.
Could that have been Nikki?
Could she be positioning herself to watch the two?
The thought was cut off as a text arrived, this one from Amy. BE THERE SOON :)
A huge sigh of relief arrived.
9
“So basically some guy’s wife got pissed that he was going to see your Nikki and killed him,” Kimberly said as they headed west on Route 64.
“It seems so,” Bill said.
Bet that makes you feel good, Kimberly silently prodded, then, “And that’s the only thing that happened in Room
6?”
“Uh-huh.”
Kimberly considered this for a while and said, “Still no closer to knowing who this is and why they’re doing it.”
“Well we know it’s connected to the murder.”
“But if the wife is in jail and he is dead who else is there?” Kimberly asked.
Bill apparently didn’t have an answer.
“Maybe it isn’t connected,” Kimberly suggested. “Maybe whoever is doing this knows about the murder and simply wants us to think it’s significant.”
“You could be right. If everything she is doing is meant to scare you, then pointing you at this would be a good idea even if it has nothing to do with us.”
Kimberly sensed a ‘but’ coming.
Bill didn’t continue.
“You don’t really think that,” she pressed.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose it seems just as plausible as anything else, but my gut says it’s all connected. I think the guy that was killed was one of the men that talked to me online and that his wife somehow found out all about it and went a little crazy.”
A little crazy? Try, a lot crazy.
Rather than voice this she said, “Which once again brings us to asking who is doing this? We know it isn’t the wife because she is in jail, so who else is there?”
“Don’t forget that just because the murder is probably connected to the Nikki thing doesn’t mean the person involved now has to be connected to that murder.”
“But you just said you think it’s all connected,” Kimberly snapped.
“To Nikki,” Bill said, voice calm. “I don’t think the murder was a separate incident that someone just pointed at to scare you, but that doesn’t mean whoever is doing this now has to be connected to that murder.”
Kimberly shook her head.
“I can understand your confusion though; I didn’t make my thoughts all that clear.”
Kimberly didn’t reply to that statement and instead decided to change their focus a bit by asking, “Why now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why now?” Kimberly repeated and then added, “You stopped talking to these guys last spring and now summer is winding down. Why wait this long?”
“That I don’t know.”
Kimberly sighed.
“Maybe she wanted to start sooner but it took this long to figure out the address. We’ve already verified that all this started shortly after I got that email asking for model age statements.”
“Yeah,” Kimberly acknowledged. She felt her frustration starting to get the better of her, all because she knew that if the address had been figured out sooner the girl behind this would have come upon an empty apartment. But no. Fate had decided to make it take just long enough so that she was in the apartment once the address was uncovered, almost as if . . .
She tried cutting her mind off from the possibility that some higher power was screwing with her, but couldn’t dam up the thought process. Thinking this also made things easier, excuse wise. She could see it now: Why didn’t you ever finish your bachelor degree?
Um, because God made it pretty clear that he didn’t want me too, so why fight Him.
She wouldn’t be the first person to use the God excuse on why something hadn’t been achieved, nor would she be the last. Being able to fall behind such an excuse was great because it was something others couldn’t successfully argue against since there would never be any proof one way or the other. Even the person using the excuse couldn’t fully argue against it.
But you aren’t the type that would allow such a thing to stand in your way, she said to herself.
Or am I?
Though she wanted the answer to be yes, there was still doubt within her mind; doubt that said you have no idea what will unfold in the next few days.
10
Mark caught a glance from the lone girl on the far side of the sitting area while carrying the tray of food over to the booth Amy had chosen for them, and decided he had to ask about Nikki. And you have to do it now. If he didn’t, his mind would drive him crazy with anticipation of asking the question and receiving an answer. Better to just get it out of the way.
“Ah, excellent,” Amy said as he set down the tray. “I’m starving.” She grabbed her hot dog.
“Me too,” Mark said. He removed his own hot dog from the tray and then his Coke, which he took several sips from in order to clear his throat. Then, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Oh, sure,” she said, mouth getting ready to take a chunk out of the hot dog.
“Okay, don’t look at her, but you see that girl sitting by herself off to my left?”
Amy’s eyes darted to his left and then back. “Yeah?”
“Do you know her?”
Amy gave him a puzzled look and said, “No . . . why?”
Mark wasn’t sure how to answer this and bought himself time with a bite of his own hot dog. Several sips of Coke followed.
“I got a weird message today from someone on OK Cupid who said they knew you and that we were planning on getting together today. They also said they would be here watching us.”
Amy smiled. “You’re joking right?”
“No.”
The smile faded. “How would anyone know about you and me? I didn’t tell anyone. I haven’t even talked to anyone else on OK Cupid since we got together.”
“Really?”
“Honest to god.” She held up her right hand. “I swear.”
“Okay, I believe you. Must be someone just messing with me then. I don’t know why people do that, but it happens from time to time, especially when I stop talking to some girls.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, every now and then I run into someone who is a tease and they just message me over and over again as if they want to get to know me, but then stand me up over and over again. In the end, you realize they are just messing with you and that the best thing to do is cut them off. Sometimes they keep pestering you though. There was a girl named Nikki who did that to me last year.”
Nothing about the name Nikki seemed to register with her, and while he might not have been an expert at reading people, he was sure he would have been able to tell with this situation.
“We talked about this a bit yesterday, didn’t we?” Amy asked.
“Yeah, I think we did,” he said and added a smile.
She took a bite of her hot dog, chewed it, swallowed it, and said, “Were you a bit worried that I was going to end up being one of those girls?”
Mark didn’t know how to reply to that, but finally just said, “A little. It has happened so many times in recent months, so it’s hard not to wonder about it in the beginning.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “I will also say this, after today you won’t have to worry about me being a fake and leading you on.”
He jumped as her foot touched his groin beneath the table, his right knee slamming into the plastic underside of the table. Embarrassment followed, especially when he saw the look of surprise on Amy’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Amy said, a hand going to her mouth to hide a smile. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, no,” Mark said. “I liked it. You just really caught me off guard.”
“Oh, well, in that case.” The foot was back, the toes pressing into his jeans with a firmness that was just right.
A shiver ran through his system, one that he knew she saw.
“It’s okay, just relax,” she said. Then, “Hmm, I can feel something in there waking up.”
Mark wanted to reply, but nothing would come. He then looked around the sitting area to see if anyone was watching.
“Don’t worry, no one can see,” Amy said. “And if this Nikki person is watching from some undisclosed location let her see what it is she is missing out on.”
“Oh . . . kay.” It was all he could manage.
Amy grinned.
Down below the foot continued to toy with him.
&nbs
p; 11
“Do you mind if I use your computer really quick, or hook up mine to it?” Bill asked as they pulled into the garage.
“What for?” Kimberly asked.
“To look up news stories on the murder and see if anything jumps out.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Okay, great.
She shifted to PARK and asked, “Do you think anything will?”
He shrugged. “Won’t know until we look.”
“Good point.” She opened her door and stepped out.
Bill did the same.
The sound of locks being engaged echoed. The two then left the garage, Kimberly testing the door to see if the lock would hold this time. It did, but given the noticeable gap between the wood of the door and the frame, it was probably easy to pop it free.
Bill pointed this out.
“You think so?” Kimberly asked.
“Let’s see.” He pulled out his house key and, while holding the knob, slid the key into the gap and attempted to push the latch back toward the door. It didn’t take much effort at all. “See.”
Kimberly just stared at the door for several seconds and then shook her head. “So, locking it is pointless.”
“With the wood warped like that, yeah,” Bill said.
“Anything we can do to fix it?”
“Short of buying a new door and building a new frame, I don’t think so.”
“Fuck it,” she said and turned toward the house.
“I’ll be down in a second with my computer,” Bill said.
She waved a hand in acknowledgement and disappeared around the corner.
Bill pulled the door shut and checked the knob to see that it was still locked -- why make it easy for the Nikki imposter -- and headed up his own stairs. Inside all was well, a fact Toby emphasized by heading right to the treat drawer after greeting him.
“Fine,” Bill said and dished out a handful. A few seconds later he had his laptop and the old internet cord he had used when the Roberts lived below, and was heading down the steps.
Kimberly opened the door after a quick knock.
Nikki's Secret Page 20
