Hunting Delilah

by Anne Baines

  Ted cruised along the street, passing Delilah’s address. The house was set back a little from the road and a porch light illuminated a grey and red wrap-around-style ranch. Two overgrown trees flanked the front steps. There was no car in the driveway.

  After flipping around, Ted parked across the street. It was after midnight and he saw no one else moving around. Both of the neighbor’s lights were mostly out, nothing shifting behind curtains. He pulled his duffle bag from the front seat and slid out, locking the car manually to prevent the lights flashing.

  Delilah’s front yard was mostly bark dust and those hideous, bulbous bushes that were the main staple of what Ted had always called “lazyscaping”. Normally, this would have bothered Ted. But not tonight. This yard and the house’s appearance in general were promising. No man in her life, at least no man taking care of this place. His heart rate elevated in anticipation as he fingered the keys he’d taken from the hotel room. Maybe she was already here, asleep inside, waiting for him to come kiss her awake.

  He forced himself to think rationally, taking a deep, calming breath. There was no way she could have beat him here. He was sure she was injured, and he knew she’d likely left that hotel room not long before he’d arrived. The last flight of the night had already left, and besides, with the little present he’d given to the cops, Delilah probably wouldn’t be flying anywhere out of Florida anytime soon. She’d have to drive here, and that would put her a couple hours behind him.

  Ted tried a key in the lock. It almost fit, but not quite. He tried a second one and the key slid home. He wasn’t worried about an alarm system. The pathetic little dead man had said Delilah was a criminal, and Ted knew all about being a criminal. It meant secrets, and staying away from the law.

  He opened the door and stale, warm air blew out over him. She hadn’t left her air conditioning on. Thrifty, forward thinking. He approved.

  The front door opened into a small foyer which led into the living room. Ted flicked on the light near the door, stepped inside, and locked the door. A painting, a garish bit of art nouveau, greeted his eye on the far wall above a gas fireplace. A curl of hot excitement unfurled in his belly. He was here, inside Delilah’s home, at last. Her things, things she touched, things she’d wanted. Laid out for him, his to touch, his to explore. Ted dropped the duffle bag and pulled the heavy crowbar from it. First he had to check and make sure he was alone.

  Then, well, then he could get to know his Delilah so much better.

  Ted checked each room. There were two bedrooms and one small full bath as well as a galley kitchen and a little utility room that had a door out to a listing back porch. He was alone in the house, which was good. But as he slid like a hunting shadow through the hallway and into each room, flicking on and off lights as he went, Ted felt a growing sense of disappointment.

  This house could have been a cheap model showroom for all the personalization it had. A blue hard plastic cup overturned in the dish rack was the only sign anyone had really lived at all in this place. The house told him as clear as if a catalogue had been left out that Atlanta boasted at least one Ikea in the vicinity. The living room had two black chairs positioned facing the wall where a TV might have been if there’d been one at all. A modern cubic coffee table sat in front of the chairs and a large white paper lamp jutted up between them, plugged into the wall where the switch would turn it on.

  Books lined a white shelf set back against a white wall. Paperbacks, Ted saw, romances mostly, the kind that you’d find in bulk at a library sale. A few outdated magazines lay on the coffee table, lending to the home’s façade. Everything in the living room was white or black, except a huge rug that covered the laminated click-together flooring. The rug stuck out, bright blue geometric shapes against the faux maple.

  Ted glanced into the bathroom and found more generic things. A bottle of combination shampoo and conditioner. It didn’t smell like Delilah, not the woman of his memory at any rate. He moved on, back to the bedroom. Surely something personal, something of her would be there.

  A grey rug with floral designs in it covered the floor in front of a queen bed. There were no personal pictures, no little knickknacks or small items. No jewelry left out or perfume, nothing to show a woman might live here. The bed was unmade, the blue and white floral comforter bunched to one side as though its owner had merely risen in the dark for a glass of water.

  When Ted touched the sheets, he half-expected them to be warm. They weren’t. There was nothing warm about this house, nothing special or secretive. Nothing personal.

  It wasn’t fair. He was free now, divorced from his old life, away from the careful patterns that had kept his own secrets all these years. He was hunting in the lair of his prey for the first time. Ted hardly counted the girl and her mother from earlier. They had been a snack, like eating a piece of bread while waiting for the real meal, the rare and tender steak, to arrive. A light repast to quell the hunger and sharpen his edges for the real deal.

  He wanted Delilah but now he could feel her slipping away again. This place wasn’t the home he’d hoped it would be. It was even more of a fake place than his own. A parody of a home, set up as a stop along the way. Nothing permanent, nothing personal, nothing of any real value. Ted couldn’t hold onto her this way. Doubts gnawed at him, twisting his stomach into writhing serpents and bringing on a mild heartburn attack.

  The clothing in the closet was clean and smelled of fabric sheets and a clove bouquet that rested on the shelf above the hangers. Even her underwear was boring, plain black or grey cotton panties and bras. She wore a 32B, but he’d already guessed at her cup size from his too brief contact with her. Nothing racy, nothing lacy. It was all clean, boring and sterile. He yanked a sundress that she could have bought at Nordstrom’s, or any mall store, off a hanger and growled as the disappointment grew into a cancer on his heart, clutching and insistent.

  He walked back into the kitchen and opened the fridge. A jar of mustard, a two-liter of diet Coke, and a jar of green olives were the only contents. Again, nothing of home. No real perishable food. Ted started opening the cupboards, slamming them shut again as he found only generic crockery, a few cans of tuna, and ready-made soup. The freezer had a bag of peas, a half gallon box of vanilla ice-cream that was icing over from disuse, and two plain ice trays.

  There was nothing here. He wanted something tangible, a window into her dark little soul, a connection to her. Not this boring, generic place that could belong to anyone. Ted took deep, calming breaths and forced himself to stop slamming the cupboards shut. He winced at the acidic taste of bile in his throat and pulled out a blue cup and the Coke.

  The cold, sweet bubbles eased his throat. He walked out of the narrow kitchen and stood in the living room, looking about. He needed to think, not rage.

  The bright rug with its geometric designs drew his eye back to the floor. Delilah was a criminal, a thief. Her ID and keys were hidden in the hotel room. Ted smiled slowly. Of course. He had to stop thinking of her as a normal woman. She wasn’t normal, not his Delilah. She was special, a predator like him. She wouldn’t put her dirty little secrets just anywhere, not like most women. Delilah wouldn’t leave them lying about. She was like a little mouse, hiding in the corners and behind the walls.

  Subtle, secret Delilah. But Ted was better than that. He’d found her little hideaway, hadn’t he? He could find her out again.

  “You won’t escape like this, girl,” he said aloud. He finished his drink and walked back to the kitchen, leaving the cup on the counter.

  It occurred to him that she might not return to this place at all. She might have other places, other little holes to bolt into and hide away in. Ted refused the panic that rose in him. He would find her out, wherever she ran. His little mouse would get caught in a trap eventually.

  And the secret to that was somewhere within these walls, Ted felt it in his bones. The disappointment eased its grip on him. He could not fail, not here, not with something so simple as huntin
g down a woman and showing her exactly what her place in this world was meant to be.

  Devious Delilah. But she was his, and she’d left the key to herself for him to find. It was here.

  Ted dragged the coffee table off the rug, spilling the magazines onto the blue expanse. He caught one woolen corner and, like a layer of skin, peeled the rug away.

  Twenty-four

  The laminate flooring below looked normal at first glance, but Ted got down on his knees and felt along the edges where the pieces snapped together. There, his fingers touched where one of the boards had a larger groove. He dug around the edge and lifted. The board came up easily, its edges smoothed so that it lay next to its neighbors without snapping into place.

  The subfloor beneath had been cut away, leaving a narrow chamber in the insulation beneath. Nestled there were two plastic bags wrapped with duct tape, and a manila envelope. Ted pulled the bundles out and sat back on his heels.

  The plastic bags contained cash, Ted guessed around ten thousand dollars worth though the bills were mostly twenties and hard to estimate in the bundles. He set those aside and opened the envelope, dumping its contents out onto the floor.

  A few creased pieces of paper, another, smaller envelope, and a handful of pictures fluttered out and scattered across the floorboards. He focused on the pictures first, gathering them up.

  A smiling brunette woman, pretty in a cheerleader gone-to-seed sort of way, held a black baby wrapped in a pink blanket with little green frogs printed on it. On the back of the photo “Esther, 9 months” was written in neat black lettering. In another picture a little black girl stood smiling shyly at the camera, clutching a white kitten against her blue dress. This one was labeled “Esther and Snowman.” The same little girl, but older, stood with a backpack in the next picture, looking nervous. The label said “Esther, kindergarten.” The next picture was a typical family portrait, this time with the brunette, a slender black man, and the little girl all smiling fake plastic smiles. Ted could almost hear them saying “Cheese!” for the camera. The back was labeled simply “Jake, Nancy, Esther” in the same handwriting as the others.

  The last picture had Delilah in it. She was pale and unsmiling, staring up from a hospital bed with a tiny swaddled baby on her lap. She was barely holding the child, one hand lightly touching the pink-capped head, the other more draped over than clutched at the blanketed baby. Delilah’s eyes were huge and dark. She looked terrified and young.

  Vulnerable. Helpless. Perfect.

  Ted held that picture, rubbing his fingers along the edges, bringing it up close to his face. Delilah. His Delilah, and she had a child, a daughter. Anger burned into Ted, turning his stomach to ropes as he thought about a man touching her, that skinny black guy putting his hands on exotic, lovely Delilah. Breeding on her. He wanted to rip the guy apart, even if it was clear that this “Jake” wasn’t in her life, at least her life here in Atlanta.

  But that baby would tie them together. He knew all about children, the way they wormed their way into their parent’s hearts and could take over every part of a person’s life. Children made people weak and stupid. And nobody deserved the responsibility of raising other people anyway. His own parents hadn’t done so great.

  But maybe he could use this discovery to trap Delilah. As the thoughts began to build in his mind, ideas percolating, Ted turned to the other envelope, reluctantly setting down the pictures.

  Inside were more pieces of, Ted assumed, stolen or fake ID. There was a passport under the name he already had, Lily Chung. Lily Chung had a birth certificate, neatly folded. There was a Texas driver’s license as well, Delilah’s picture auburn-haired with modish reading glasses propped on her thin nose. Another ID was a New York driver’s license under the name Donna Rowe. That name had a couple of credit cards and a library card.

  The New York address might be worth checking on, if she didn’t show up here. Ted shook his head at the extent of her deceptions. His Delilah was certainly a woman of many guises. But he could strip all the bullshit away; lay her bare and naked before him.

  He would destroy her, layer by layer, in his final act as Theodore Whitechapel. Destroy her as she’d destroyed his façade, his carefully constructed double life.

  Not that he particularly minded. He had that morning, but Ted was changing, growing. She’d freed him from shackles he hadn’t realized were there, binding him to a definition of normal he’d clearly outlived. He was overdue for an update, and Delilah had been the catalyst. He was sure he’d remember to thank her, before she finally died struggling beneath his hands.

  Ted set down the IDsand took a deep breath. So many choices. His mind whirled with possibilities. Would she come here? How long would it take her to return? He could wait, he guessed that he could live in this house for days without anyone thinking too much of it. Delilah was likely a reclusive sort anyway, given her proclivities.

  Hungry for all he could learn about her, Ted picked up the pieces of folded paper.

  The first he smoothed flat was a medical sheet of some sort. Test results. He skimmed it as he realized it dealt with Esther Leventon, the little girl. Negli’s something or other, some sort of blood thing. So, she was a sick little girl. With that sheet was a quick scrawl in shaky cursive informing Delilah that Esther was sick and he thought she might want to know. Signed, Jake. That black guy in the picture. Ted took a deep breath, shoving away the acid rage. He needed to stay calm.

  The other piece of paper was a note from Jake, telling Delilah that he’d sent a picture of Esther, but that she should stop calling the house because it upset Nancy. The note told her to call the bar and gave a number if Delilah needed to reach him for some reason. It also thanked her for some money, but made it clear he was only accepting it because he wanted the best care for his daughter.

  Ted noticed that Jake worded it “my daughter” and not “our daughter”. Interesting family tensions there. So, his Delilah wasn’t quite an optimal candidate for worst mother ever. At least it seemed she cared enough to send money. He wondered how strong her attachments were. If the child were threatened, for example, would Delilah care? Would she race to help her child?

  Ted rose and pulled out his phone. He turned it back on and went into the kitchen, searching for a pen. He found one in a drawer with rubber bands and a couple coupons for soda pop. Then he dialed the number that Jake had given for this bar.

  A woman picked up on the third ring. “No Man’s Land,” she chirped. Ted heard music and the hum of conversation in the background.

  “Yes, hi,” he said, “I have a friend coming to town and wanted to recommend your bar, but I can’t find the address, can you give it to me?”

  “Sure,” she said, “ready?”

  Ted was and he wrote down the address. Portland, Oregon. That was a long way from Atlanta, Georgia. He hung up and tapped the pen against the counter, running his tongue over his lips. Stay, or go? He could track down this Jake, this little girl Esther. But it came down to Delilah. He wanted her, wanted her to hurt, to suffer, to see her life crumbling around her and to know it was because of him, all his doing. Her world would fall apart and he would be its destroyer.

  Ted turned his phone back off and decided to tear through the house, see if she had any other secret stashes.

  An hour or so later and he’d found two, one in the crawlspace above a hallway, and one beneath the bedroom rug. The crawlspace held more cash, another five thousand or so. The bedroom stash was more pictures. They were all of a younger Jake, with a few of him and a hardly recognizable teenaged Delilah. Jake, his shirt off displaying his gleaming dark skin and muscles, smiling from the top of a cliff with the grey expanse of ocean beyond. Jake leaning on a beat-up Mustang, holding a wrench in one hand and laughing at the camera. Jake, with stripes shaved into his short curly hair, sticking his tongue out as he held a clearly squirming Delilah, her hair long and black and shining.

  Ted couldn’t contain his acid rage by carefully breathing this time. It
ran through Ted’s body like an angry swarm of wasps, murderous intent burning in his blood. The rage spoke, the rage wanted, the rage decided.

  Delilah, his Delilah, still cared about this man. Why else would she keep so many pictures of him near to her bed? She’d had his child and clearly stayed in touch. The pictures in his hands told a story of young love. Each picture she appeared in showed a girl smitten, her eyes focused on this slender, stupid boy, her body language all but screaming that she was in love and wanted him.

  Ted tore every single picture to shreds except the one with Delilah and the baby. That one he kept after tearing the child out of the picture.

  He turned on his phone for the last time and booked himself a seat on the morning flight to Portland. If Delilah hadn’t shown up by the time he needed to go to the airport, well, he’d leave her a present and a warning. She’d follow him, or she’d run. But either way she would know his power, know that he could take everything away from her.

  His heart rate slowly returning to normal, Ted stood in the trashed living room and stretched. He was tired, but he could sleep on the plane in the morning. Right now he had work to do. It was time to make his first mark on Delilah’s life.

  Twenty-five

  Delilah drove in a haze of pain and exhaustion, singing under her breath to keep herself alert. She played her little games with the few other cars on the freeway, but it felt as though she were driving in another world. The green and blue lights from the stereos in the cars that passed her made it look as though they were all driving underwater, each person drowning slowly, locked away and pulled along by the invisible tide.

  She stopped finally at a gas station. It was closed, the sign on the door saying it would open at six a.m.. An hour or so away. Delilah decided to wait. She took another pain pill and one of the little antibiotic pills. They stuck in her dry throat, tasting of bitter chalk.