by Mark Lukens
She was proud of these works that she had created for Vince’s show, but she was somewhat relieved that it was almost over. Fine arts were such a contrast to her work as a commercial artist and designer, where there were always tight deadlines and she often submitted work whether it was perfect or not. She still gave herself deadlines for her paintings, but they were more flexible. She wasn’t going to put that kind of pressure on herself—it was the reason she had left the commercial side of it to begin with.
She drove right home after the supermarket and put the groceries away. She opened a bottle of water and headed for her studio to get a little work done before she needed to pick Megan up from school. As soon as she entered her studio, she froze, the bottle of water nearly slipping out of her hand. All she could do was stare at her paintings. They were destroyed; all of them had words and numbers painted on them with bright red paint.
Red like blood, she thought.
She moved closer to the painting on the easel in the middle of the room, staring at the string of words that chilled her to the bone. The number twenty-four had been scrawled in brush all over the other paintings, but this painting had been reserved for this message: I know what you did to that girl.
Cathy was paralyzed with fear for a moment as other emotions coursed through her: confusion, anger, sadness. But the fear was taking over her shock now, guiding her with its trembling hand.
Someone was in the house. Someone had defaced her paintings, and he could still be here.
But she had disarmed the alarm when she’d come in from the garage.
Hadn’t she?
Could the intruder have gotten inside without setting the alarm off? Could the intruder know the code to their alarm system?
As she stood rooted to the spot, her mind spinning a hundred miles an hour, she listened for noises in the house, her senses suddenly hyperaware, her skin tingly with nervous energy, her mouth dry with fear.
She hurried over to the desk. She set the bottle of water down and grabbed the cordless phone. She turned the phone on, making sure there was a dial tone. It still worked. She was about to dial 911, but she stopped herself. Something was bothering her about this.
At least she felt better with the phone in her hand. She would’ve felt even better if she had some kind of weapon, but there wasn’t much to choose from in her studio/office. They didn’t have any guns in the house; both she and Phil were against the idea of guns, especially with Megan here. But now, at this moment, she wished she had a small handgun. The phone felt inadequate if she saw an intruder. Even if she could dial 911 in time, it wouldn’t stop that person from attacking her before the police arrived; it wouldn’t stop him from killing her. But if she had a gun, she could at least protect herself or scare the intruder off.
She tried to push those thoughts from her mind as she stepped into the hall. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the drawer, not the biggest one or the smallest one, but one that felt comfortable in her hand. Now, with the phone in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other, she felt a little better. She went to the garage door and checked the alarm system—it was still armed. She punched in the four digit code to disarm the alarm system. She opened the door and peeked out at the garage. Everything looked okay out there. She closed the door and locked the deadbolt, and then reactivated the alarm.
She left the kitchen and searched the rest of the house. A sense of déjà vu washed over her; this felt just like yesterday when she had searched the house after hearing a noise in the kitchen. She started her search in her bedroom at the other side of the house. She checked the walk-in closet, the bathroom, and even under the bed.
In the living room, she checked the front door. It was still locked. She went into the family room and checked the sliding glass door that led out to the pool area. The sliding glass door was still locked, the security bar still in place. She went down the hall and walked past the door to her studio, to the last small bedroom that they used for extra storage and for their treadmill. She entered the room, but there was nowhere for anyone to hide in here; the closet was stuffed with too many boxes.
Next, she checked Megan’s room. Megan would be upset if she knew her privacy was being invaded, but this was an emergency. Megan’s bedroom was messy, clothes on the bed and clean clothes still in a laundry basket that she hadn’t bothered to put away yet. Her closet was also packed too full to allow anyone to hide inside, and there was too much stuffed under the bed. The window was locked.
Cathy felt a little better after searching the entire house. Now that her fear had subsided some, she began to think about her vandalized paintings. She wanted to cry—all that work she had done on those paintings, and now they were ruined. She’d already begun wondering if she could somehow fix the damage, if she could scrape off the red paint and touch up those areas. Would she have time before the art show? If not, then she would have to make that gut-wrenching call to Vince and let him know what had happened: someone had broken into their home and ruined her paintings—they had destroyed nothing else, took nothing else, their sole purpose to deface her paintings.
It didn’t sound right.
She went back to her studio and stared at the words on the painting.
I know what you did to that girl.
Those were the same words typed on the notecard that she’d found in Phil’s briefcase. And the number twenty-four, that was the same number she’d seen scribbled over and over again on the pages of his calendar book.
Had Carlos done this? Had the man who’d been harassing Phil broken into their home to leave the same message on her paintings that he’d left on a notecard for her husband?
I know what you did to that girl. What girl? Dolores? What was done to her? Did someone hurt her? Kill her? And what did the number twenty-four have to do with it? Was the girl twenty-four years old? Was there a more sinister meaning for the number?
She knew she should call the police and report this. But what was she supposed to report? That someone broke into their home and ruined her paintings? She thought of the detective that Phil had talked to the other night, but she didn’t have his business card.
So she called Phil and told him to come home. She told him that he needed to see something. He had asked her what was wrong and if Carlos was there.
What a strange question for him to ask.
She told him that Carlos wasn’t there, but she didn’t want to tell him about the paintings over the phone.
Why?
Because the truth was that she wanted to see his reaction when he saw the paintings. A terrible theory was developing in her mind; one she didn’t want to believe might be real.
TWENTY-TWO
Phil
Phil raced home, speeding down their street of empty lots at this barren end of their neighborhood, their home standing by itself in the distance. He didn’t bother with the garage door. He parked in the driveway and rushed to the front door, the key to the door already in his hand.
He’d wondered all the way home why Cathy hadn’t told him what was wrong. He’d asked her if Carlos was there, but she’d said no. Of course Carlos could be there, and he could be making her say that. But she hadn’t sounded frightened. She’d sounded shaken up a little, maybe somewhat confused, but not terrified like a man was standing behind her with a knife at her throat.
Actually, she had sounded a little angry, but it seemed like she’d been trying to suppress it.
Maybe Carlos had been in their home and left some kind of message for them, maybe even a message specifically for Cathy. Maybe Carlos had left a voicemail on Cathy’s phone, or sent her an email. Or maybe he’d written a note on a card for her . . . like the card he’d left behind in his office. Maybe Carlos had told Cathy everything about his past, including the awful thing that had happened to Dolores. Maybe it was time for him to come clean to Cathy. God knew he didn’t want to, but if she knew, then he wanted to explain his side of it.
Cathy stood in the archway that led i
nto the kitchen. He rushed towards her, standing in front of her, studying her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. She looked a little frightened, but more numb than scared.
“What happened?” he asked her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s in my studio.” She watched him as she said the words, like she was gauging his reaction.
“What’s in your studio?” His imagination was already running wild.
But Cathy didn’t answer him. She just turned and walked towards the hall that led to the bedrooms on that side of the house.
Phil followed her down the hall, his mind buzzing with questions. “Has someone been inside the house?”
Cathy still didn’t answer him; she just kept walking down the hall in front of him.
“Cathy, answer me,” he snapped at her, a sudden anger raging inside of him. Why was she acting like this? Playing games with him. He felt like grabbing her, stopping her, making her obey him.
Where had that anger come from? He felt instantly ashamed and out-of-control. He needed to get a hold of himself; he was letting all of this stress get to him.
Maybe what was in her studio wasn’t as bad as he was imagining. Cathy hadn’t called the police; she’d even told him not to call the police, so it couldn’t be that bad.
Cathy entered the small bedroom that she used as her studio, and Phil followed her inside.
He froze when he saw the painting on the easel in the middle of the room. He could feel Cathy’s eyes on him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the defaced painting.
It was Carlos; he knew it now. Carlos had been inside their home. He had done this. He had left the same message—the same warning—on his wife’s painting that he’d left on the notecard in his office. Oh God, this had gone too far now. Carlos was far more dangerous than he thought.
“The paint’s dry,” Cathy said.
Phil almost jumped at the sound of her voice. It felt like some substantial amount of time had passed while he’d been staring at the painting. He looked at her. “What do you mean?” he asked, not sure what the paint being dry had to do with anything.
“For the paint to be dry, those words had to have been written sometime between late last night and this morning,” she told him
Phil walked closer to the painting, staring at those words. “How did he get in?” he asked. He looked at Cathy. “Did you go somewhere today?”
“I dropped Megan off at school this morning,” she told him.
He waited; it seemed like she had more to say.
“Then I went to see Emma.”
“Right after you dropped Megan off?”
Cathy hesitated for just a moment like she didn’t want to answer his questions, like she wasn’t going to be the suspect here. “Yes. We had some coffee. Then I went to the supermarket and came back home.”
“When did you get back home?”
“About forty-five minutes ago. I put the food away, and then I was going to do some . . .” she stopped like her throat was closing up. “Some touchups,” she finished in a soft voice.
Oh God, Phil just remembered that Cathy had the art show coming up soon. “Oh Cathy,” he said. “Your show. I’m so sorry.”
Tears slipped from her eyes, but she didn’t break down all the way.
“Did you call the police?” he asked.
“And tell them what?” she asked, sniffling and wiping at her eyes, suddenly stoic again, on the verge of anger.
“Tell them that someone broke into our home,” Phil said.
“Broke in where? The alarm was still set when I got home. I checked all the doors and windows. Nothing was broken.”
Phil didn’t know what to say.
“And nothing was taken,” Cathy added. It seemed like she was building to some sort of conclusion.
“I’m going to call Detective Grady,” Phil said, reaching for his cell phone in the pouch on his belt. He left the studio. He didn’t want to stare at that painting any longer, he didn’t want to see those words written in the blood-red paint.
Cathy followed him down the hallway as he scrolled through his phone for Detective Grady’s phone number. “Why would this guy break in just to destroy my paintings?” she asked. “The paintings that I needed for Vince’s show.”
“I don’t know,” Phil told her. “The guy’s crazy. Who knows why he does anything? He needs help.”
They were in the kitchen now, and Cathy stood there watching him as he dialed Detective Grady’s phone number. He raised his phone up to his ear, listening.
“Detective Grady,” the detective said after the second ring.
“Hi. It’s Phil. I need you to come to our house. I think Carlos was in our home.”
TWENTY-THREE
Cathy
Detective Grady showed up thirty minutes later. Cathy followed the detective and her husband down the hallway to her studio.
After he was inside the room, the detective stared at the painting on the easel for several minutes, saying nothing. He walked over to the other paintings against the wall, the ones with the number twenty-four on them. He snapped a few photos with his phone.
“Who found these?” Detective Grady finally asked.
“I did,” Cathy answered.
“When?”
“A little over an hour ago.”
He looked at her, and then at Phil, like he was wondering what had taken them so long to call him. He looked at Cathy again. “Was someone in the house when you got home?”
Cathy explained how she met her friend for coffee and then went to the supermarket. She told him how she had searched the house after finding her paintings defaced.
“The alarm was still set?” Detective Grady asked. “You’re absolutely sure of that?”
“Yes,” Cathy answered.
“And all the doors and windows were locked? No forced entry of any kind?”
“No.”
Detective Grady sighed. He didn’t seem satisfied. He looked a little jittery, like he was suddenly restless. “I want to take a quick look around the house,” he said, obviously not trusting something like that to a civilian.
“Sure,” Cathy said.
Cathy and Phil followed the detective as he did a quick search of the windows, moving blinds and curtains aside. He stared out the sliding glass doors that led to the pool for a moment. After he was done, he still didn’t seem satisfied, like a few things were bothering him.
“Those words on the painting don’t mean anything to either one of you?” he asked.
Cathy didn’t look at Detective Grady as he asked the question; she watched her husband—watching him lie.
“No,” Phil said without hesitation—and damn if he wasn’t convincing. He didn’t look Cathy’s way at all.
Why was Phil lying to the detective? He had those same words written on a notecard in his briefcase, which she suddenly realized he hadn’t brought inside with him. There was some kind of secret he was keeping, something he was hiding from both the detective and from her. She thought for a moment about calling him on his lie, telling the detective about the notecard and the number twenty-fours scribbled in his calendar book. But she didn’t. She wanted to wait a moment; she wanted to give her husband the benefit of the doubt for a little longer. He had never lied to her as far as she knew, and now he was lying. She wanted to talk about it with him first before talking to the police.
And tonight they were going to talk. Yes, tonight Phil was going to tell her why that notecard was in his briefcase.
Some chilling thoughts had run through Cathy’s mind while she’d been waiting for Phil to come home. She wondered if Phil had typed that notecard to himself? What if he had scrawled that sentence and those numbers on her paintings sometime this morning without remembering it? It could be a possibility. Someone had vandalized her paintings without setting off their alarm, without breaking into their house. She wondered if something traumatic from Phil’s past could have been awakened in his mind from his recent nigh
tmares. Or maybe a past trauma had been triggered when they’d been followed home last Saturday night. She knew that traumas could trigger all kinds of mental conditions, some of them temporary, some permanent. Some people got nightmares, some people walked in their sleep. Some people could go into fugue states—periods of time where they didn’t remember doing things.
Could Phil be doing all of this and not remembering some of it?
Of course there was always the possibility that Carlos had been in their home, that he had been stalking them for some time. There was always the possibility that Carlos was crazy, that he was inventing these fantasies about Phil hurting some girl, believing them to be real.
But then there was Phil’s nightmares, and the things he said in his sleep. It could just be a coincidence, but it seemed too much of one to her. She couldn’t help believing that some of these pieces fit together. She couldn’t help believing that Phil was still keeping secrets from her.
She wanted to talk to Phil about these things before she accused him of anything in front of Detective Grady. She wanted to give him a chance to explain himself. And that was going to happen tonight. She was only going to give him this one night.
“This guy’s getting bolder,” Detective Grady said. “He’s going to come back and do something else. Maybe even tonight.” He looked at Cathy, then at Phil. “I’m going to clear it with my captain so that I can stake out your place tonight. I’ll hide my car around the side of the garage.”
“You really think he’s going to show back up tonight?” Phil asked.
