High Risk

by Rick R. Reed

  “Like what you see?”

  “What?” Beth strained to turn, and saw him standing behind her. He held a pair of scissors in one hand, an electric razor in the other. “What are you going to do?” She tensed against the clothesline binding her.

  “You’re so pretty, Beth. But I doubt I’m the first to tell you that.”

  She looked into the mirror, surprised at the transformation her sudden terror wrought. Her skin color had turned high, her lips wet, and her green eyes sparkled. She thought it amazing how fright and passion were not that far removed from each other in their physical expression.

  “I bet you get a lot of compliments on your hair. Don’t you, Beth?”

  She wanted to reach up and touch her hair, but could only stare at the red mane in the mirror. It was the only thing she really loved about her appearance, her only assurance of beauty. She had always thought her smile too wide, and herself still the gangly, awkward girl from junior high. But her hair, her crown, of that she had always been sure. Her mother used to tell her she should try to model—she’d be a shoo-in for hair-care products. Men had always wanted to run their fingers through its silk. It was always the place their hands went, without fail, once they were alone, even before her breasts.

  She thought of how she had waited for countless men in countless bedrooms, hair carefully fanned out on the pillow below her—a siren call.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Abbott clicked the scissors once, twice, then sang out, “Snip! Snip!”

  Beth found it hard to swallow. She jerked again. If only she could touch her hair…Just one touch, one final chance to run my fingers through it. Every muscle strained against the bindings, not for freedom, but for the chance to feel her hair once more.

  He came closer. “This is for your own good. That hair is part of the problem for you. One day you’ll understand.” With that, he lifted a lock and snipped it off. Another lock, then another, the scissors clicking rapidly as her hair fluttered to the floor, piling up on the clean white sheet. He cut closer and closer to her scalp.

  Beth closed her eyes. She would not look in the mirror.

  Finally, she felt the scissors snipping close to her head, from which it felt like a weight had been lifted, strange and not at all liberating. She bit her lower lip, vowing to save her tears for later. She would not give him the satisfaction.

  She heard the dull clunk as he set the scissors on the table, then the buzzing of a thousand hornets as he switched on the clippers. It didn’t take long to shave the remaining hair from her head. She sat silently, except for an occasional wince when he veered too close to her scalp and nicked her.

  “All done.” The room went quiet as Abbott clicked off the clippers.

  Beth wanted it to go on just like this, sitting here numb and staring at the inside of her eyelids.

  “Look at your new hairdo, Beth.”

  “I think I just want to go to sleep now.”

  He laughed. “You need to see how you look.”

  “It’s all right,” she whispered, barely able to find her voice. Imagination was torture enough. Couldn’t he see that?

  His voice became stern. “Look, goddamn it!”

  She took a deep, quivering breath, then slowly opened her eyes. She stared at herself in the mirror. It seemed all of her facial features had been blown up and distorted. Her eyes and ears stood out, almost protruding; her lips seemed fuller; her cheekbones more prominent.

  All of her hair was gone except for a little reddish fuzz still clinging to her skull. She imagined how it would feel: stubble.

  “The men will really find you cute now.” He laughed.

  She could say nothing in reply. She glanced at the mass of red curls covering the floor, then the mirror continued to mock her when she looked back.

  Maybe it wasn’t so bad, she tried to tell herself, thinking of Sigourney Weaver and Sinead O’Connor. She tried to tell herself how the subtraction of hair added distinction and depth to her green eyes. There was an austerity to her looks now, something magnetic. She could really use this to her advantage.

  No, she couldn’t.

  Beauty was something she never had. Not her.

  She bit her lip once more as tears welled in her eyes, spilled over.

  It was just what he wanted to see. She could tell as she glanced in the mirror from her face to his and viewed the satisfaction.

  Chapter 14

  Marcia Wakeman seldom had time for the paper these days. Ever since Abbott had been fired at Bennie’s and she had been promoted from barmaid to bartender, she had little time for anything other than mixing drinks and serving them with a smile. The only real difference was that now she couldn’t move around as much and was expected to wash the glasses.

  Some promotion.

  This morning was the first time she’d had in about a week to relax. They had been short-handed at the bar since Abbott was canned. Marcia thought it was high time, too; how someone with such a sour disposition had landed a job working with the public was beyond her. Even more amazing was that he’d been able to hang onto it as long as he had.

  So now, as she settled down on her blue velvet chaise lounge, she tried to ignore the pain in her lower back, tried to believe putting her feet up would give her some relief from their aching. I’m getting too old for this shit. Helen, her calico, watched from the windowsill opposite her. Marcia set down her coffee on an end table and lit a Marlboro Light. Helen continued to stare, as if in disapproval. “Don’t you even think it. A girl needs a few vices.” Helen turned to stare out the window; the traffic on Damen Avenue required her attention once again.

  Marcia hoisted the stack of newspapers she hadn’t had time to read onto her lap, and it didn’t take her long to reach the first page of the Tribune from a few days ago. There it was, in lurid black and white—the grisly stabbing death of a local attorney and his wife’s disappearance. Marcia started to turn the page when her gaze fell upon the wife’s photograph. Damned if she didn’t look familiar…

  A customer? Marcia smirked. The people coming into Bennie’s had long since stopped taking on individual identities. Instead, their faces had merged into one big, demanding blur. Still, this gal was movie-star pretty.

  Where could she have seen her? At Girl Bar? No, she’d remember that. Besides, this woman had been married (although that didn’t stop some of the patrons of Girl Bar from kicking up their heels on occasion). But Marcia knew she hadn’t seen the woman at Girl Bar.

  She set aside the paper and watched as Helen hopped from the windowsill and headed into Marcia’s bedroom, where she would spend the day shedding cat hair into the underwear drawer. Taking a sip of coffee, Marcia continued on through the papers and found another story—this one a plea for information—concerning the disappearance of Beth Walsh. This story, on page two, had a different photograph.

  And that photograph started bringing back some memories. Even though the picture was in black and white, Marcia knew the hair was red, because she had seen it recently. She closed her eyes, and all of a sudden, recalled Beth Walsh standing in front of her, looking scared and embarrassed.

  Marcia shook her head, tossing aside the newspaper. Her coffee had gone cold.

  * * * *

  Kate stood outside Beth’s graystone, shivering. A wind had blown in from the north that morning and had not let up. The clouds hung low, and a wet smell already filled in the air, foretelling a snowstorm. She knew, though, the cold and the promise of bad weather were not the only things making her shiver.

  Her gaze moved to the bright yellow crime scene tape across her daughter’s door; it seemed to scream to passersby that this is where a tragedy had occurred, where she had lost her daughter and a son-in-law she had loved in one horrible, fell swoop. The banner screamed at her: “You are not allowed inside. Even though this family and this tragedy are yours, you are no longer welcome.”

  She could see, for just a moment, Mark’s bloody corpse on the floor before
her. She blotted out the image by marching up the front steps and pausing at the door.

  It didn’t matter, really, that the words “DO NOT CROSS” shouted to her. This was her daughter’s home, a daughter she knew better than anyone. Maybe she could find something inside the police investigators overlooked, something that might help them find her Beth.

  Kate knew she’d likely find nothing, knew Ted would kill her if he knew what she was up to. But she couldn’t just go away without trying. Ignoring the yellow tape, she took out her key.

  The feeble sun, a white orb in a clouded sky, did little to penetrate the apartment’s gloom. Kate stood in the foyer, waiting for her eyes to adjust. little sounds came to her—a drip in a distant faucet, a clock hand relentlessly ticking off the minutes, the creaking of the building as it swayed in response to the wind. It was easy to imagine other things: a whisper, a footfall coming her way.

  Stop it! Just do what you need to do and get out of here.

  She stepped forward. Her eyes had adjusted, and she could see the living room clearly now. She tried to force her gaze away from the blood splatters, the smeared handprint on the wall opposite, but it was useless. She could still see the scene just as it was when she had come upon it.

  Someone moved behind her.

  Kate whirled around, swearing she had seen a man duck out of sight at the very last moment—just a flash of black. She swallowed and headed into the foyer. But there was no man there; there was nothing.

  She rubbed at the gooseflesh on her arms. Maybe I’m not up to this. Maybe I should just leave the investigation to the police as Mr. McGrew had told her on the phone this morning when she had asked for an update.

  Where to begin? Kate headed toward the back of the apartment, toward the master bedroom. Maybe some of Beth’s favorite clothes were gone. If she knew that, maybe that would help identify her, right?

  At the bedroom door, she paused. If everything had been in order, she would have been fine. But the room looked like Beth had just stepped away for a moment. The cream and white comforter was pulled up over the pillows, wrinkled, still waiting for a hand to come along and smooth it. One of Beth’s shoes, a ballet flat, lay on its side in a corner. A stack of legal briefs on Mark’s dresser awaited his attention. One of his ties was draped over the back of a chair. A copy of Kite Runner lay open and face down on the nightstand.

  No one would ever come to reclaim these things. Kate wanted to leave, despair and fear almost overwhelming her. She had lost the drive she had earlier, the will to unlock the mystery of Beth’s whereabouts.

  Slowly, she forced herself to move to Beth’s dresser and open a drawer. Inside she found sweaters in all different colors and textures. Kate ran a hand over them, remembering various times when she had seen her daughter in many of them…or Christmases when she had given some of them as gifts.

  Kate realized she wouldn’t be able to identify whether any of her daughter’s clothing was missing. Beth had many clothes, too many, Kate was certain, she had never seen.

  The other drawers yielded nothing of significance. She almost closed the last one, Beth’s lingerie drawer, when she saw something black sticking up in the back that had a sharp corner. A book, maybe? She dug down and pulled out a small, leather-bound volume. Its front was blank, with no gold script announcing “appointments,” “addresses” or anything like that.

  Kate took it into the kitchen. The book had a metal clasp, and she used a paring knife from the block on the counter to pry it open. She hesitated, unsure if she wanted to look inside.

  Maybe I should turn this over to Mr. McGrew, let him decide if there’s anything worthwhile here.

  Even as she had these thoughts, she flipped through the pages, many of them also blank. She found the first entry on January 21, two years ago. “Tim. Dark hair, green eyes. Short but muscular (Italian?). His place (Sheffield and Addison); two times.”

  Kate’s stomach turned as she sought other explanations from what was so callously noted in front of her. She turned another page and found a listing for February 16: “Todd. Red hair and beard, broad shoulders. Works at Chicago Health Club. The gamut: oral, vaginal, anal.”

  Kate snapped the book shut. Maybe this book doesn’t belong to Beth. But Kate knew her daughter’s handwriting when she saw it and felt like crying. I should burn this. No good can come from this. I don’t want to read anymore.

  Yet she opened the book again and, stomach churning, flipped through the pages, unable to look away. There, in spare delineation, she read details of her daughter’s many affairs. One month, there would be only one encounter. Other months, as many as four or five, usually with different men. Kate moved on, skimming through the past two years, trying to tell herself, unconvincingly, that maybe her daughter harbored secret literary aspirations and that these were notes for a novel.

  It wasn’t that hard, really, to distance herself. If not a novel, maybe these were fantasies…maybe Beth saw an attractive man and jotted down her thoughts, releasing her temptation.

  But even Kate couldn’t kid herself for long. Really, it wasn’t so bizarre that Beth found solace in the arms of strange men. Kate had always wondered how the cold, distant family in which she had raised her daughter might one day affect her. She almost expected some fallout.

  Things had always been too perfect for Beth.

  Kate came to one of the final entries. “Abbott. Black hair and blue eyes. Rough trade. Forget Abbott.” The last two words were underlined so hard, Beth’s pen had gone through the paper.

  Abbott? Who was Abbott? Kate’s hands shook. Before she considered her actions, she picked up the phone and punched in the cell phone number McGrew had given her. “Call me any time,” he had said.

  She prayed the detective would keep what she was about to tell him confidential. But he had to know, had to know about this Abbott person and these others. Who knew which of them had come along to usurp her daughter’s husband’s place?

  She listened to the distant ringing. Please pick up. She didn’t know if she would have the courage to go through with this later, after she’d had time to think about it…and how far-reaching the consequences could be.

  Chapter 15

  McGrew pushed the Mustang to sixty, moving north up Sheridan Road toward the Donners’ in Evanston. He realized he was going too fast for the curves and the snow that had begun to fall, but patience had never been one of his virtues. He slowed a little, knowing that if he didn’t, he could slide either to the right, and end up in Lake Michigan, or to the left, and end up in the cemetery bordering this part of the road near the Chicago/Evanston border.

  But what did Kate Donner have for him? He wanted to know why she had sounded so hesitant when she’d phoned, more as though she’d called out of duty rather than a genuine desire to assist in the case. She had sounded almost as if she’d been reading a prepared statement…

  “Mr. McGrew, I have some information regarding the case…the, um, Walsh case. Should I come into the station or would you like to come up here? I really don’t know how relevant this information might be, but I thought I should let you decide.”

  McGrew had told her it would be better if he came to her, because he knew people were usually more relaxed and willing to open up on their home turf rather than in a busy police station. Kate Donner had also said a curious thing…

  “I don’t want you to come when my husband’s here. I mean, I’m the only one who knows about the information. He wouldn’t be of much help.” She’d paused. “And he’s so busy with his work. I’d hate to bother him. Do you think you could come during the day—when my husband’s at work?” Before McGrew could agree, she’d blurted, “Because otherwise, I really think it would be better if I came to see you.”

  He made a left at Lee Street and headed west to Judson. The Donner house stood only blocks away. What could she have to tell him? The case had been a dead end so far, and full of contradictions.

  He saw Beth Walsh once more in his mind: her red hair
, green eyes, pale skin, and stunning beauty. He didn’t want to believe anything bad about her, even though it went against everything he knew as a detective.

  Would her own mother add to the dirt?

  When he reached the house, McGrew threw the car into park and shut off the radio. He had no idea what music had been playing.

  * * * *

  “Why don’t we go into the kitchen. We can sit at the table and talk.” Kate glanced behind her, making sure he followed. She pointed him toward one of the oak chairs around the breakfast nook. “Just sit down, Mr. McGrew.”

  “Pete. You can call me Pete.”

  She noticed the blueness of his eyes, how warm he looked when he smiled. He could probably get any number of secrets from people with his disarming smile and easy ways. “All right, Pete.” She glanced at the counter, toward Beth’s diary, sitting there and looking completely innocent instead of the bomb it actually was. She quickly looked away and headed toward her Krups coffeemaker. “I just brewed a fresh pot. Kona. Fresh ground. You’ll have a mug, won’t you?”

  “I’d love it.”

  Kate busied herself pouring coffee, her gaze flitting back and forth from the coffee to the diary. She almost filled the detective’s mug to overflowing. She set it down in front of him before returning to get her own.

  Could she really show this stranger her daughter’s innermost secrets? Could it really help him find out what had happened to her? Again, she toyed with the idea of destroying the damned book, but then, what if she also destroyed any chance of finding her daughter. “I almost forgot! Cream or sugar?

  “Black’s fine, Mrs. Donner.”

  “Well, now that we’re on a first name basis, Kate please. I have cake, Mister…er, Pete, freshly made. Can I tempt you?”

  The detective smiled again. Was he laughing at her? The fat lady and her cakes?

  He stopped smiling and patted his stomach. “I’ll pass. Need to watch my weight.” He took in a breath. “Now, what did you have for me?”