The Woman Hidden

by Lucas Mattias

  “The truth, Jason. What happened to Michelle?”

  “She didn’t know how to take it. She didn’t want to accept I was the man she needed. She couldn’t take it that I had the control.”

  “Jason, I just want the truth. Three years ago.”

  “Fucking whores. That’s what you all are.”

  If Jason’s idea was to piss her off, he was almost getting it completely. Clarice wanted to keep her calm and pose, she wanted to keep herself stiff and unshaken, but it was impossible to do any of that that way. She wanted to spit on him, punch him and remove from him what he so much prized for his manhood with a bread knife and then deliver it to him on a platter too, watching him as he ate his testicles while having a gun to his head. She would pay to see what would be left of him when he didn’t have his source of virility anymore.

  “Tell what happened, Jason.”

  “An accident. An accident, a fucking accident...” He said, almost in a singsong voice. “Michelle died in an accident, her car rolled down the cliff, it was an accident, it was late, she was driving while disturbed after a fight, she wanted to die, it was…”

  “The truth Jason, not the story…”

  “It was an accident, I tried to stop it…”

  “… that you taught yourself to tell people.”

  “An accident, it was an accident, you’re wrong, you’re an illusion. Michelle, shut up, you know not-- you…”

  Clarice, on the impulse and driven by the heat of the moment, stood up and raised her gun, placing it against Jason’s forehead, his face skin embracing the gun mouth.

  “Tell me. What. Happened.” She tried to keep it cool, even after her sudden anger. She didn’t want to lose it, she just had to show him who was in charge, show him she was still on top of him, that she could take that far the same way she had developed the whole plan.

  “It was an accident, an accident…” He kept on repeating, a smile shining on his face while he pushed his head against her gun. “The road was unprotected, I tried to save her, I tried to save them, I tried… It was an accident.”

  Clarice brought her face down to his level, keeping the gun against his forehead.

  “‘Today, for the first time, I felt the weight of a hand’.”

  “Shut yourself… shut up… shut up. It’s all an illusion. You are just a bitch created by my mind. It was an accident. Shut the fuck up you too… An accident… I promised I’d never, I’d never tell… an accident… I…”

  “‘I felt how strong fingers can be when around your neck, I felt the pain remaining after the destruction…’.”

  “An accident, it was an accident.”

  “‘I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to die. No, I don’t want to die. I don’t deserve death’.”

  “Shut up, it was an accident, it was only an accident, I know that…”

  “‘Living hurts me. Breathing exhausts me. I don’t want to live anymore’.”

  “I killed her!” He yelled as a hurt and chained dog. “Is that what you want? To tell you I fucking killed her?” Jason’s voice had increased five or six levels, reverberating one the wood of the house and on Clarice’s face. It was like thunder, a powerful sound, angry, destructive. “I killed her. I fucking killed her. I, Jason Flyce, killed my wife, you fucking whore!”

  “And how did you kill her, Jason? Tell me? Wasn’t it an accident?”

  “You want to know about the part I put her to sleep with a stone or the one where I use the same stone to hold the gas down while the car rolled down the cliff?”

  “I don’t want to ever, Jason, learn how someone could be so cruel.”

  Clarice moved the gun away from Jason’s head, wiping her face before he could notice something else, before he realized those tears meant much more than what they transpired.

  “It was not that hard, you know. Not when you know the sheriff’s supporting you.” He grinned, his eyes closed and his head relaxed. “The only mistake was letting her live. Against all odds, she lived. She lived, Clarice. And then she died.”

  “You disgust me.”

  “You disgust me. You used to instigate me, to leave me on my tiptoes. Now… you’re just another one of them.”

  “And did you want to kill me too, Jason?”

  He shrugged, though his arms were still tied up.

  “I cannot take risks. I fought too hard those past years to keep myself free and the only thing threatening that now is you.”

  Clarice turned away and gave him her back, the hair covering the eyes, the hidden feelings below the shadows of the house. Jason moved a few times, but she didn’t offer it any attention. He was tied and all she needed was a simple confirmation. She was still looking away from him when she removed the phone from her pocket and pressed a button, Jason’s voice echoing through the house.

  “I cannot take risks. I fought too hard those past years…”

  Clarice stopped the recording. She had the confession. She had both of them. Perhaps her mission had already come to an end.

  She turned to Jason again, while shoving the phone back into her jacket’s pocket, ready to give him the news, to reveal her tears to be fake, to tell him he had fallen into her game exactly how she had planned him to.

  And she just saw a black bur moving against her, tossing her body against the sofa until reaching its other side and roll with her on the floor, while things flew and spread around the house… her gun included.

  Jason was free, dazed, angry. The caged monster was facing its hunter, about to change the night. Clarice was not ready for that.

  IV

  In not such a long time ago, most of those things wouldn’t even make sense. She used to see those type of paper and pictures in movies and TV series, but never right there, live, so real. In her hands, piles of evidences, reports and testimonies, pictures and pieces of a puzzle tried to compose a painting, an image with a sense and a history, a history she well knew and recognized.

  Georgia ignored the papers and stretched her body across the bed, looking for the objects left on the glass table. The cold wind entered the room unannounced, reminding her that she was wearing only an abandoned shirt of Anthon and her underwear. She ignored it and observed the small coffee table with its metallic feet, where some pieces of evidence lay, cold.

  A sealed plastic bag with red prints in its body held inside a carbon arrow. The arrow. She felt a shiver cross her body and moved restless, getting away from that thought. Beside the arrow, the picture of the found corpse. Georgia felt the shiver once more, whereas the relief of acknowledgement hit her too. Some papers reported a description of the woman who was found, held down by the gun Anthon had also left there, maybe in a moment of obliviousness.

  …redhead… late thirties to middle forties… arrow stuck in the shoulder… bruises through the body… hypothermia… mumbling disconnected words…

  She dropped the papers as her phone ran, on the nightstand. Georgia dragged her body across the bed again, reaching for the phone. On screen, a short and straight text: turn TV on. Below, in another notification, the confirmation regarding plane tickets. Neat.

  Georgia grabbed the remote control, near the phone, and turned the TV on. The channel that came first, though, played some sort of cooking competition, something she used to have time for in the past, but that now didn’t offer her any kind of interest. She pressed the button with an upward arrow, zapping through the following channels until a newscast came on. What called her attention was not the anchorman who, too serious, seemed to report a fatal piece of news. The captioning drew her attention with its sensationalist words.

  Twisted resolution forces sheriff to redeem himself to community.

  The reporter was in Derby. Georgia smiled as she walked out the bed, Anthon’s extra-large shirt swinging around her lean body.

  “Sheriff Robert Aubry, 56, requested this morning a press conference, in an attempt to apologize for a misjudged case resolution which took place three years ago in the city...”<
br />
  While the news ran in the background, Georgia collected the evidences from the table, all she needed. The arrow, the papers, the descriptions. She grabbed the dead body’s picture, too, trying to hold it all still between her fingers.

  “…a local doctor, Michelle Flyce, created a huge commotion at the time, where it all pointed to a serious accident caused by the lack of signalization in one of the main roads that connected Derby to the nearby villages on the mountains.”

  Georgia knew that story as well as she knew her own. She slid across the room, her steps barely sounding against the floor, heading to the double doors which opened to the bathroom. Again she jumped by seeing herself. The skin looked paler than usual and the dark hair, rolled on the top of her head in an improvised bun, spread around her face in black strands, weird and dark.

  She put all the items inside the deep marble sink, crumpling some papers. She lifted the plastic bag that kept the arrow and broke the seal, removing the projectile from it, with the care of someone who deals with a deadly virus. She spun the arrow between her fingers, observing the sharp head made of solid metal, stained by blood and other remains, as if the arrow touched some deep and old memory of hers. She dropped the arrow inside the sink too, along with the other evidences. It would all end there.

  She needed a bath first, some relaxing time before seeing it all come to an end and, finally, be able to leave it all behind right there, too.

  Georgia removed Anthon’s shirt, staring at her own reflected body on the mirror. She was thinner, but overall it all seemed intact, perfect. She smiled at that, as if it was all a façade hiding something terrible underneath. And it did.

  She headed to the bathtub, opening the tap and checking the water’s temperature. At first, the first wave came frozen, warming up little by little, while she washed her hands and arms in the stream. Small drops gathered around her wrists, as if water couldn’t spread over there and she had to rub it a little until the layers of makeup could disappear, revealing the fresh scars, still kind of purple and red, so well hidden. Her lips twisted, not by pain, but by remembrance.

  Georgia filled her cupped hands and threw it against her chest, humidifying the skin of her shoulders and the dark bra in the way, also removing the layers of makeup that had lived in there.

  When she came up again and saw herself in the mirror, she saw herself again and she liked what she saw, recognizing all those details she had somehow missed. In her left shoulder, another recent scar, fresh, newly-recovered. It was thinner than the ones on her wrists, however, for having received better care, although it still hurt sometimes, more than her failed memories.

  The end was near and, soon enough, she would also be able to get rid of that mask too.

  The dark hair were set free, silkily falling onto her shoulders, just so that Georgia could grab them again and pulled them up once more, this time into a tight bun, just like a ballerina.

  The sheriff’s voice on the news echoed in the bedroom behind her, while he apologized for the lack of a deeper investigation and the recent results. She smiled again, while she poured alcohol over all the evidences on the sink. It was all finding a resolution, all coming to an end.

  She just needed the flame. And the flame wasn’t there. The lighter was somewhere in the room and Georgia cursed that new delay to her plan conclusion. It was fine, she only needed to go back to the room and search for that small device, return to the bathroom and burn it all so that she could then sink into her bath and wait for Anthon’s return, that another setback. Something that, soon enough, wouldn’t give her any more headaches. She just had to cultivate patience, something that in the past months she found to exist plenty in her mind.

  Georgia left the evidences on the sink and reopened the double doors that took her back to the bedroom, the TV volume suddenly increasing while the reporter kept on talking about the incident in Derby, the tragical trial of a crime with a surprising twist of events, he said.

  She just wanted the lighter and finally end that day, that was already night, when she realized she was no longer by herself.

  As an enraged statue standing in front of the hotel room door, there was Monica. She recognized those European features, the brown hair whose treatments should be worth many people’s life savings, the designer clothes and her French high heels. She also recognized that glare of shock, fury, fear and confusion. She didn’t know how Monica had entered the room, but knowing the woman and the power she exuded with all of her money, it wasn’t totally crazy.

  Standing by the door, Monica had no reactions. Neither did Georgia. There was a large room between them and even all that distance was meaningless when the woman seemed to be on the verge of a mental meltdown.

  “I can’t…” Monica mumbled, watching the mess of papers and boxes around her. Seeing Georgia there, almost naked and emotionless didn’t help it at all. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Monica…”

  “What are… What are you doing?” Monica took a few steps in, her 4-inch Louboutins echoing against the floor. “What is this? What is the meaning…?”

  “Monica, we don’t have to…”

  “It’s your fault.” The woman said, her voice already turning loudly aggressive. She was about to shout, howl. “It’s… your fault.”

  Monica grabbed some papers from the floor, dropping her huge handbag on the bed. She tried to read, while Georgia didn’t exactly know what to do. She needed to apologize, she needed to run, she needed to get dressed. She needed a thousand things and Monica didn’t seem willing to give any of that to her.

  “Evidences? Anthon? What the fuck is going on here?” She exhaled in anger, her voice now extremely high for a hotel room.

  “Monica… you’re not good to…”

  “Ha!” She mocked, shoving her hand inside her bag while the papers flew from her hands to the floor. “I’m not crazy, honey, I’m not…”

  Georgia watched when her fingers dialed three numbers. Maybe she would call the police and that, surely enough, was a luxury Georgia could not afford.

  “Put the phone down.”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “Monica, I’m warning…”

  “Shut up!” The woman yelled, already taking the phone to her ear.

  Monica barely had time to confirm the call completion. Georgia bumped into her, throwing Monica against the room door and trying to take the phone away from her. Monica, taken by surprise, had no time to react and saw Georgia take her phone with a fast movement, already putting off the call. Georgia though about calming her down again, maybe even offer her a sip from her whiskey, but when she turned, free from the police’s shadow on her back, she saw Monica coming towards her with hands up and feral eyes, ready for a battle.

  And they both feel on the carpet, in an explosion of movements and attacks. Georgia tried to protect herself, trying to stop Monica from reaching for the phone again, phone that was now idle, abandoned on the floor and near the glass center table.

  “You’re not dragging me…” Monica yelled as soon as she got away from Georgia’s grip and managed to put herself on top of the woman, sitting over her stomach. “…to this sick sadistic game of yours.”

  Still over Georgia, not anymore wearing her heels or her well-fixed hair, Monica hit her with some slaps, causing Georgia’s pale face to change its color from the original white porcelain look to a slightly increasing tone of red, and Georgia kept on trying to get away from those sudden and repetitive blows.

  There was no escaping. Monica, despite having about Georgia’s height, seemed to weight a lot more and, with her legs pressed on Georgia’s flanks, the chances of escaping and attacking back were reduced to almost impossible. Georgia felt the slaps, one after the other and saw when Monica, stopping a few seconds to breathe again, quickly glanced at her phone and clenched a fist, ready for a punch.

  “Tell me who you are!” Monica shouted repeatedly, holding Georgia’s hair and hitting her head against the carpet time ov
er time.

  She searched for alternatives, options, any melee weapon of chance that could be laying around. While Monica pressed her chest and head against the carpet, with an open hand against Georgia’s face, she looked everywhere around in the room. Papers and more papers, cardboard boxes that didn’t offer much attack power, more papers. Anthon’s gun was far and, even it it was near, she wouldn’t use that against Monica.

  And she saw the shoe. The extremely high Louboutin of Monica, a beautiful piece that seemed made of black marble and red silk, an ornament that should cost lives in money, but that would offer her a perfect weapon with such long heel of astoundingly thin width.

  Stretching her arms in the best possible way she could, trying to ignore the blows and punches from Monica against her skull, Georgia strained her hand and fingers, grasping the shoe by its tip and, with a sudden and agile move, she wavered the shoe against Monica’s face, the heel hitting her right temple and opening a cut in it right after the shock.

  The impact wasn’t that powerful, but the pain from the pressure hit was acute enough to make Monica tumble down, her hands holding the bleeding head. Red drops dripped onto the white carpet and the papers spread on the floor, to which Monica, on her knees, staggered through the room after some support, yelling, trying to mask her pain.

  Georgia was free from Monica’s weight onto her and she dragged herself backwards, leaning against her elbows, trying to prevent a new attack. She just had to put herself on her feet to regain control, the domain of the scenario. In a stupidity moment, Georgia turned too fast, her hair flipping while she tried to find the gun. She wouldn’t shoot, but she could use it to silence Monica. When she put herself onto her knees and tried to move to the table, Monica’s fingers met her dark hair, pulling them out of the sudden.

  Pain crossed Georgia’s scalp and she felt as if the woman was about to remove all her hair with a single pull. Georgia’s hair whiplashed, the movement causing pain all across her spine, and she was tossed against the wall opposite to the bed, again feeling the impact of the concrete against her. The head burned, the back hurt, the air had been expelled from her body. Monica’s hand, clenched in a fist, came against her stomach. Georgia couldn’t understand the reasons for that fight, but she didn’t want to enter the mind of that suffering, humiliated woman, now cheated in different ways.