Grain of Truth

by V. J. Chambers

“You’re doing that Mukherjee case,” said Dick. “You think that’s a great idea?”

  Amos licked his lips. What the hell was this? Who was Dick? Was that air of menace he was picking up somehow related to the case? Maybe Dick was connected to one of their suspects. Maybe he had been sent here to send some kind of message.

  But then the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Dick got out. “Well, this is my floor,” he said, waving as he left. “See you around, Amos.”

  Amos’s throat closed. He hadn’t told Dick his name. He was sure he hadn’t.

  The elevator doors shut and the elevator started moving again.

  Amos loosened his tie. The back of his neck was sweaty.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When Iain got home, he felt wired but exhausted. Too much coffee. He sagged against the elevator wall on his way up to his apartment and contemplated what he wanted to eat for dinner. He didn’t think he had it in him to cook anything, not even to fry up a hamburger. No, he was going to order in, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted.

  He’d hurt his hands digging up the Austins’ backyard. He’d been wearing gloves at the time, but they were crime scene gloves, plastic gloves, not gardening gloves. He had a blister on his palm. He poked at it with one of his fingers.

  Ouch.

  At least they’d eliminated a suspect. Sure, they hadn’t really thought that Tempest was actually responsible for the murders. It had been a convoluted theory, he had to admit now. He’d leaped a bit, which wasn’t like him. The missing money shouldn’t have led him to think of murder, but it was understandable, he supposed. He’d been pouring through the information specifically looking for new suspects, and so he’d found one. The human mind did that. If directed to find something, it found it.

  Anyway, he didn’t need to be thinking about this right now. He needed to be deciding if he wanted pizza or Thai food. Both would leave him leftovers, but the pizza would probably leave more. Plus, he could eat it for breakfast. Still, it seemed less nourishing than the prospect of a nice coconut milk curry with vegetables swimming in it.

  The elevator opened and he stepped out onto his floor. He walked down the hallway, still thinking about dinner options.

  He had a specific app on his phone to order pizza. He could order the Thai online too, but he didn’t have an app for it. He’d have to use his computer. And he didn’t like the online ordering because sometimes they screwed up what he asked for. It was better to call. But he hated calling and having to interact with a person. It was exhausting, dealing with all the stupid questions like, “How are you?” And wondering the proper response to, “Have a nice day.” Was it, “You have a nice day as well”? Or just, “You too”? Did the latter sound too clipped? Would they think he was rude and spit in his food?

  He turned the corner and his apartment was in sight.

  Otis was standing in front of the door.

  No. Otis couldn’t be here. How did Otis even know where he lived?

  Iain narrowed his eyes at the man and stalked down the hallway. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, you don’t like it when I show up at your home?” said Otis. “Cause that’s what you did to me.”

  Iain stopped directly in front of the man. “I didn’t know you lived there.”

  “Bullshit,” said Otis. “You moved in on my woman—”

  “Your woman?” Iain let out a mirthless laugh. “You want Harley, you’re welcome to her.” He shouldered past Otis and put his key in the door to his lock. “I’m not standing in your way.” He tried to get inside the apartment and shut the door again.

  But Otis got his foot in the door. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Go away,” said Iain. “I’m exhausted, and I don’t have time for this.”

  “Yeah, you’re tired, because you were up all night fucking my girlfriend.”

  Iain sighed.

  “Let me in,” said Otis. “You and I are going to have a conversation.”

  “I don’t want to,” said Iain.

  “I don’t care. I’m not leaving.” Otis put his weight against the door, which Iain was still trying to close. The door gave a few inches.

  Iain backed away from the door. “Fine.”

  Otis stumbled inside, losing his balance from the sudden lack of resistance. Otis righted himself. He glared at Iain.

  Iain moved around him and shut the door. He surveyed the other man. “Let’s talk, then.”

  Otis pointed at him. “You’re going to leave Harley alone.”

  Iain laughed again. “Oh, believe me, I do try. She always calls me with some sob story or shows up trying to steal my canned goods. If your girlfriend needs money for food, how come you’re not helping her? Why does she have to come to me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Iain hung his head, chuckling sardonically. “She probably didn’t need money for food. Hell, maybe she shook me down for cash for new clothes. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “I seriously have no fucking clue what you’re saying.”

  Iain raised his gaze. “It doesn’t matter. You’re the one who wanted to talk. What did you want to talk about?”

  “To tell you to stay away from her.”

  “Okay, well, you’ve delivered that message, so maybe you’ll be on your way?”

  Otis squared his shoulders. “No, I don’t think so, but I’m not getting the impression that you really will stay away from her.”

  “I just told you, she calls me, not the other way around.”

  Otis didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. His nostrils flared. “How do you even know her?”

  “Oh, we go way back. To high school,” said Iain. “I’m the guy she calls when she needs something. I’m the guy she called when she had problems with her husband, the one who ended up dead. She tell you about that?”

  Otis’s face twitched. “She said he was a bastard.”

  “He was,” said Iain. “You remind me of him.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “You’re possessive and controlling and an idiot.”

  “Hey.” Otis advanced on Iain. “Don’t you start insulting me. You don’t have any right. You’re the worst kind of scum, sleeping with another man’s girl.”

  Iain was getting pretty sick of this conversation. He was going to have to get rid of Otis. There was an easy way to do that, but it wasn’t an honorable way. There was something primal to this exchange, some sort of caveman man-to-man business, and Iain felt the pressure to adhere to those rules. Not that he wanted to fight over Harley. Still, he was doing it. Some part of him hated her, but some part of him didn’t, some part of him felt she belonged to him just as much as Otis here did. It was interesting, Iain thought, that he was always so aloof and out of it, but that deep down, he was just as primitive and idiotic as any other man. He took a step forward. “The way I figure it, I have the prior claim.”

  “You have the what?”

  “I mean, she’s not really your girl,” said Iain. “The way I figure it, I was there first. Before any of the rest of you.”

  “Any of?” Otis looked thoroughly confused. “What?”

  “The way I figure it, you’re the one who’s sleeping with my girl,” said Iain. “So, I think you need to get out of my apartment. I think you need to forget all about Harley and move the hell on.”

  “No way,” said Otis. “I came here to make sure that you understood that Harley was mine. And I’m not leaving until—”

  Iain lifted his suit jacket, exposing his gun, which sat in a holster just under his ribs. Iain had never pulled the gun in duty, not once. He’d been lucky not to end up in those kinds of situations very often. He solved murders, but he’d never had a suspect threaten him with deadly force. He’d trained, though. He was sure he could use it if he had to. Not that this was the same. This was the dishonorable way of getting rid of Otis. This was the way that broke the primitive rules.

  Otis gave him a l
ook of disgust. “You going to shoot me?”

  “I want you to leave,” said Iain, nodding at the door.

  “You’re a cop. You’re not going to shoot me.”

  Iain took his gun out of its holster. He disengaged the safety and gazed at it in his palm. “Did Harley tell you how Dale died?”

  Otis glanced at the door, then at Iain’s face, and then back at the gun. “She, uh, said she shot him.”

  “Yeah,” said Iain. “Self-defense, right?”

  Otis looked at the gun again. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you should leave,” said Iain, lifting his gun and using the barrel to scratch the back of his head. “And leave Harley alone too. You never know what might happen if you keep bothering her.”

  Otis licked his lips. He glanced at the door again. And then at the gun. And then he pointed at Iain. “This isn’t over, you asshole.” He swept out of the door.

  * * *

  Elke got the keys to her new apartment that night, the one in the same building as Iain. She wasn’t planning on moving in officially until the weekend, when she’d have more time, but she found she couldn’t stomach the idea of going back to that house she’d shared with Felix. Every time she did, it was utterly depressing. So, she went home, packed up several suitcases with her clothes, got the air mattress from the storage closet, and went back to her new place.

  She blew up the air mattress in the empty bedroom and lay around in her pajamas, watching Netflix on her laptop, and she felt freer and happier than she had in months.

  Moving out had been a good idea.

  Even though the air mattress was a bit of a step down from her mattress, she fell asleep pretty much right away, and she dreamed about Thanksgiving when she was a kid, the whole house smelling like apple and pumpkin pie. When she awoke with a start, she’d been just about to take a huge bite of stuffing and gravy.

  But the dream faded like smoke in the wake of a gunshot.

  A noise had awoken her. A toilet flushing. Close.

  At first, she thought that it must be the apartment next door, and that she would just have to get used to these sorts of noises now that she lived right next to other people instead of in her own freestanding house.

  But then she heard the faucet come on, and she was certain that was coming from the master bathroom, the one right off her bedroom.

  It was dark in her room, but there was light coming in the west window from the streetlights outside, and she only had the slat blinds that had come with the apartment closed against the light. In the scant light, she tried to see inside the bathroom.

  It was dark in there. She couldn’t see anything.

  Then the bathroom door opened.

  Her heart began to pound in her chest.

  A shadowy figure stepped out of the bathroom. She couldn’t make out features, but it looked like a man, a tall man, with broad shoulders and short hair. The door to the bathroom was across the room from her, and he seemed to be staring right at her.

  Her heart was beating so loudly that she was sure he could hear it.

  He didn’t move.

  She kept expecting him to do so, to lunge for her. When he did, she would go for her phone, which was lying next to the air mattress on the floor. She would grab her phone, and she would call 911. She could get it now and do that, but she didn’t want to, because she felt like maybe if she just lay here and kept completely still, maybe he would go away. Maybe he wouldn’t notice her. Maybe he would think she was asleep.

  Seconds ticked by.

  He still didn’t move.

  Why didn’t he leave?

  Because he wasn’t going to leave. There was a reason he was in her apartment, and it probably wasn’t a good one. She’d prosecuted cases against men like him before and she knew why men broke into women’s apartments. He was probably going to rape her or kill her or maybe both.

  Or—another horrible thought—maybe he was one of those men she’d prosecuted. Maybe he’d gotten out on parole and he was coming after the lawyer who’d convinced a jury to put him away. He would want revenge against her.

  But either way, it probably amounted to the same thing. Rape wasn’t about sex. It was about power. If he wanted revenge, he’d probably rape her first and then kill her.

  She almost hoped he was a random crazy. There was a chance then that he might kill her first and rape her dead body, and then she wouldn’t have to live through—

  But this was insane. Her phone was right there.

  Her heart was beating even faster. Her breath came in small gusts. She was sweating under her armpits and where her thighs met.

  Slowly, slowly, she inched her hand over the side of the air mattress, feeling for the phone.

  She didn’t feel anything.

  Wasn’t it there?

  Oh, shit. She forgot. She’d plugged it in on the counter in the kitchen. It had a low battery, and she’d picked it up right before bed and marched it out to the counter and plugged it in. She could see it right now, see it on the counter, its screen glowing the time comfortingly.

  She didn’t have her phone.

  And now, the figure at the door to her bathroom moved.

  She let out a tiny strangled noise in the back of her throat. She didn’t mean to do it, but it came out anyway.

  The figure moved across the floor toward the bed.

  She couldn’t move. She was frozen. But her breath started to come in funny little wheezes, and she seemed powerless to stop that.

  He reached the foot of the air mattress and peered down at her, a hulking featureless shadow. Now, she saw that he was wearing something over his face, a black ski mask that obscured his features.

  Her heart leapt. If he was hiding his face, then he might let her live. She wasn’t going to die.

  And suddenly, with that thought, she could move again. She vaulted out of the bed and rushed for the door.

  He moved fast too, lunging for her. His hands brushed her waist, her hips.

  She kicked at him.

  His hands slid away.

  She cried out, something like triumph, and she ran out of the room. She ran up the hallway, pumping her legs, and she burst out of the door to her apartment.

  The light was on in the hallway.

  She gasped.

  Fuck. Her phone. Her phone was still on the counter in her kitchen. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the shadowy figure barreling after her.

  But there was no one there.

  Still, she wasn’t going back in there. She’d find a phone somewhere. She could pound on someone’s door—

  Iain! Iain lived here. She’d find him, and Iain had a gun. He was a police officer, and he would—

  She didn’t know what floor he lived on.

  She couldn’t stay here. The man inside might be coming at any minute, and she needed to move. She ran down the hallway, skidding to a stop in front of the elevators. She hit the button to go down and paused there, waiting, anxious.

  He appeared at the end of the hallway. In the light, she could see that he was clad in all black, from his mask to his boots. He wore a black sweater and black jeans. He was coming down the hallway for her.

  Idiot, take the fucking stairs!

  She ran past the elevator to the door to the stairwell, the emergency exit sign glaring out at her as the door banged closed behind her. She ran down the stairs, clutching the railing and hurling herself down. She went all the way to the bottom floor, where she tumbled out sweating and out of breath and terrified.

  A woman was just coming in the front door. She looked at Elke, wide-eyed.

  “Phone,” said Elke, panting. “I need your phone.”

  The woman handed it over, looking frightened. “Are you okay?”

  Elke didn’t answer. She dialed 911 and held the phone to her ear, all the while keeping her eye on the stairwell, ready for the masked man to burst out at any second.

  But he never did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THR
EE

  “He must have come down the elevator and gotten away while you were coming down the stairs,” said the officer who was now with Elke on the elevator in her apartment building. “We’ll go up and check your apartment, though, make sure he’s not there.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Any idea who this guy was? What he wanted?”

  “No, I really don’t,” she said.

  “Well, he was probably trying to rob you. We’ll look around and see if anything is missing. If so, you can fill out a report.”

  “There’s nothing in the apartment to steal,” she said. “I haven’t even moved in. I have some clothes and an air mattress.”

  “No electronics? A phone? A computer?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, I guess so.”

  “People are desperate,” said the officer. “They may have cleaned up certain streets in this city, built fancy apartments and that kind of thing, but there’s still a lot of drugs going through Haven Hills. People with drug addictions, all they can think about is their next fix.”

  Elke supposed the guy could have been a druggie, looking for something to steal. But she didn’t think so. “He didn’t act that way. I think he deliberately woke me. I think he wanted me to know he was there.”

  “What? You didn’t say this before.”

  They had reached her floor now. The elevator door opened and they both got out.

  “Didn’t I?” said Elke. “I thought I said that the toilet flushing woke me up.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said the officer. “But it’s fine. Tell me now.”

  “He was in my bathroom, the one off the master bathroom. He flushed the toilet and then he ran the water. I woke up, and at first I wasn’t sure if the noises were coming from my own apartment, but then I realized that they were.”

  “And then he stood across from your bed watching you for a while.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it still could be a robbery. If this guy was on something or jonesing really bad, he might not have been thinking clearly. Maybe that’s why he used your bathroom.”

  “It felt different to me. It felt menacing.”

  “Of course it did. You were vulnerable and in bed.”