by Fiona Quinn
“Not to worry, Baby Girl, they put plastic everywhere and clean up after themselves. Hey, I also got a guy coming out for your basement. They’re gonna wash everything down, paint, put in some retractable walls around your laundry area, that sort of thing. The guy’s supposed to show up tomorrow to get your ideas and sign the contract.”
“Those are all good things.”
“Good enough, but they sure as hell aren’t a stripper. And it’s a stripper I need.”
“I hear you, brother.” Justin walked over with a grin on his face. “Are you trying to convince Lexi to take up more duties at your house? In my experience, the direct approach doesn’t really work. Flowers and candlelight, a mixed cocktail, maybe.”
“Ha-ha, Justin. We’re talking about wallpaper.” I gave him a playful shove. “Okay.” I looked over at Manny’s house. “I need to head in and make some more progress.”
“Yeah, me too. Things have kinda stalled over at your place. You’ve been real patient with the whole situation. I’m trying for a bunch of stuff—landscaping, some gym equipment. It’s been a poker dry season for me. If I could just get my hands on a damned stripper.”
Justin chuckled under his breath.
The itsy-bitsy spider went up the waterspout. I listed to the side. Shit!
“Hey. Hey. Are you okay?” Justin asked, grabbing my arm.
I squinted up at him. The “knowing” clouded my vision as words illuminated and oscillated before my eyes.
Manny drew his woolly caterpillar brows together. “You’re white as a ghost.”
“I’m fine. I forgot to eat this morning, though. I think I’ll go back in and grab something before I work over at your house.” I offered him a wan smile.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out!
Holy hell. Spyder! My lungs refused to expand. I tingled from head to foot. “I’ll see you guys later.” The warble in my voice belied the nonchalance I tried to project. I pulled free from Justin’s steadying grip and moved toward my house.
Up came the sun. And dried up all the rain.
As soon as I was behind my closed door and the alarm was reengaged, I whipped my phone out of my pocket and pushed the button for my contacts.
And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again.
“Iniquus. How may I help you?” came the smoothly professional voice of the operator.
I pressed “End” and slumped to the floor. With my back against the wall, I took a deep breath to quiet my knee-jerk-reflexive actions. I should think methodically. Leaping to conclusions would mean making mistakes. It would be better to stop and puzzle this through.
First of all, if Iniquus had any information about Spyder—if he were hurt or sick—they would have contacted me. Spyder listed me as next of kin in his file. True, I hadn’t updated my new address information with their personnel department, but they still had the correct cell phone number. It would be easy enough to find me. They were operatives after all, and I wasn’t hiding.
Did this “knowing” have to do with my Spyder? Miriam said he was fine. That was a while ago. Anything could have happened. I held up my phone and punched in the numbers to call her. No. Miriam said she had headed out to Georgia to investigate a site. She wasn’t even in town.
Should I just call Iniquus? Who would I even talk to? Human resources? They wouldn’t necessarily be updated on Spyder’s status. Command? What would I even say?
I could ask for Striker, introduce myself. I ran the conversation through my mind. “Hello, Striker? My name is Lexi, and I have a children’s rhyme running through my head, making me anxious about Spyder McGraw’s safety. Spyder? Well, no he’s not blood kin, but he’s like a second dad to me. Could you help me find out if he’s okay?” God, I sounded stupid. Beyond stupid. Insane.
Striker didn’t show up at the paintball war at the Millers’—neither did his team. I didn’t recognize any of the Iniquus players this time. I wondered if Striker headed downrange on the same case with Spyder.
I drifted into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. Sitting at my little table, I tried to shove all of my worst-case-scenario thoughts out of the way. So, the list of possibilities: The “knowing” could be about Spyder McGraw. It could mean he was hurt, but would recover. What if “crawled up the waterspout” meant that he was on the way home? There was no joy in the thought because that would mean something would wipe him out.
Those possibilities felt like dead-ends, anyway. My body still ached: my joints too big, my blood too slow, my bones hollowed. No relief came from those ideas. So I put a great big fat X over those thoughts.
A different track … Maybe “spider” was coincidental and just the first thought that flew into my mind?
For me “knowings”—that weren’t literal like the “ring of rosies” crap up in New York—were based on strong associations. How about this? I was the spider. What if I made my way up the spout? My spout could be me setting up a new life, my house, my husband, my schooling, working hard every day, taking steps toward my plan, then BOOM! I got wiped out—Stalker attacked me. The force didn’t destroy me or my path; I just had to wait for the sun to come out, and then I could make my way forward again.
Hmm. Mildly better. My bones had more solidity. Other ideas?
Surely, the spider served as a metaphor. So what other associations did spiders have for me? That was easy enough. As a little girl, a black widow spider bit me while I played in the woods. I must have been three, maybe four years old, and I remembered being in the hospital for days. I nearly died.
My blood flowed smoothly again. My joints no longer felt bulbous. The itsy-bitsy spider was coming to kill me. A near fatality then an intercession?
I already knew someone had targeted me—so what new information could I be picking up here? Down came the rain. Something would stop the spider from reaching his goal. And washed the spider out. Some force came into play. Something the spider wasn’t expecting or prepared for. Car accident? Atom bomb? Zombie insurrection? … The itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the spout again. Well, whatever it was the Universe set into motion to ward off this nutcase wouldn’t last forever. He’d be back.
So what do I take away from this? Well, I hated the idea of Spyder, my mentor, and “itsy-bitsy” sharing the same noun. They should share nothing. One represented love and light and the other the dark, dank, sewage-iness of humanity.
Where was Spyder? When would he come home?
Argh. The take away … The take away … I guessed it meant don’t let my guard down. A respite wouldn’t mean the story was over. I sat back and thought about it. I let the words, “Don’t let your guard down,” play through my mind. Serenity blanketed me. It was the feeling I got when I had figured things out correctly—sort of the “message received, 10-4 good buddy,” of my ESP world.
It would have been better if the stalker as Humpty Dumpty played through my brain today … all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again. Yup. That would have been nice. I liked the thought of Stalker lying crushed and broken on the ground, never able to function again.
I laid my head on the table. No clues. No clues. Not a single thing to work with—just a looming threat. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. The constancy of fear. I was Sisyphus. And pushing this hard for so long exhausted me. Weakened me.
I wearily pushed to standing and went to make myself another cup of tea.
Needing a break from all the stress, I went across the street to have some girl time with my neighbor Alice. Her pregnant tummy had grown to enormous proportions, making her miserable. In the August humidity, Alice’s feet and ankles swelled painfully. She was stir-crazy and irritable. She even had trouble reaching around to her guitar, and had to give up practicing until after the twins’ birth.
Today, Alice’s cousin Celia came for a visit. Celia lived in a mansion downtown on Embassy Row. She drove up in her little red Porsche, wearing Gucci. But Celia didn’t suffer from a
sense of superiority or affectations. She was just seriously nice.
The three of us were working on new songs for me to play up at StarLight. Turns out, Alice and the owner were friends, and Alice sang up there from time to time herself.
I enjoyed playing at the restaurant; I met lots of people. At first, Angel thought he’d be jealous. The idea of drunken men hitting on me worried him. It had worried me, too. Who needed that crap? I’ve played there for some months now and can truthfully say StarLight was a cool place to hang out with friends or on a date—not a pick-up joint.
I imagined it must be hard for the guys over in Afghanistan. I knew the Middle Eastern culture wouldn’t allow affairs. The wives on the home front didn’t have to worry about that so much; maybe we worried a little bit about the female soldiers … Here I lived without adult supervision. Angel must be concerned on some level. We’d talked about it—well, we’d e-mailed back and forth. I told him how busy I kept myself and what I did with my days. I hoped that helped him. I wanted all of his focus on his job—not on me. He needed to come home safely.
I tuned in to the conversation. Clothes. Celia’s favorite subject.
“I have to go get some new things,” I said. “My boss at StarLight isn’t happy with my jeans and blouse look.”
“I always wore jeans,” Alice said. “What does he want you to wear?”
“No clue. He said, ‘more upscale’ whatever that means.”
“He does have a point, though, Lexi. Even you’d admit your wardrobe is pretty limited,” Celia said. Celia’s closet was as big as my whole house. But even if she had a normal perspective, she was right, I did need to buy some clothes. After the fire, I started from scratch. I had been holding off buying a whole wardrobe. I wanted my house done before I filled it with stuff.
Celia eyed me, “Lexi, I think we’re the same size. Are you a 2–4?”
I nodded.
“I pulled a ton of clothes out of my closet to get ready for this season’s new styles. What do you like to wear?”
“I need to be able to move in all my clothes. I did a lot of martial arts training. Master Wang thinks too many women wear clothes that restrict them.” And the hell I was going to put myself at greater risk being bound up by a pencil skirt. When Stalker showed up, I planned to kick the shit out of him. I smiled ruefully. “I always try to get some Lycra in my pants and jeans. I tend to choose full skirts, so I can defend myself and hide my gun.”
“You carry a gun?” Celia and Alice asked together.
I smiled. “Sometimes.” More like, always!
“Why don’t I call the maid to bring the bags over, and we can look through?” Celia asked.
Sure enough, within the hour a chauffeured Bentley showed up and parked behind Manny’s piece-of-shit Chrysler. A maid in a black-and-white uniform appeared with bag, after bag, after bag of clothing. I spent all afternoon sorting through and choosing what worked for me. Celia and I had similar coloring, and style aesthetic, a little Katharine Hepburn and a little Audrey Hepburn—definitely vintage chic in flavor. Celia’s clothes were fabulous.
“Celia, I can’t believe you’ve pulled all of this out of your closet. This still has tags on it—it’s never been worn.” I held up a luxurious, pale-blue cashmere turtleneck.
“It’s important to my husband’s job that I have the right look. He doesn’t like me to be seen in the same thing twice.”
I scowled. “That sounds like a lot of work.”
“It is. Now that I know we’re similar in size, I can send my stuff here.”
“Why don’t you wear her clothes, Alice?” I twirled around in a little silvery-blue Prada cocktail number.
“I’m too short, and my butt’s too big. Besides, I’m preppy. I like khakis and button-downs, not kitten heels and Chanel suits.”
I opened a bag full of negligees and lingerie—all the pieces had their tags still on.
“What’s all this?” Alice hooted with laughter.
Celia sighed with exasperation. “Gifts from the hubby. I never wear this kind of stuff. I’m chic on the outside and schoolgirl white cotton underneath. You’d think the man would get it; we’ve been married for six years. He’s still bringing home bags from lingerie stores, hoping I’ll put this crap on and dance for him.” That got all three of us giggling.
“Here,” Celia said as she picked up the bag and handed it to me. “Go try them on in the bathroom. There’s a full range. Take whatever you like.” I went into the bathroom and went through the bras and panties, corsets, garter belts, teddies, and night outfits. I thought Angel would enjoy my dancing around in these when he got home. I wouldn’t call myself a white cotton chick; I was more the silk and lace kind of girl.
When I opened the door, Alice looked over at me. “What? No fashion show complete with catwalk dancing?”
“Not today. These are the ones I decided not to take.” I held up a set of crotchless panties and matching bra with the nipple area cut out, and embellished with sequins. We busted up laughing.
Walking home with my last bag of Celia clothes, I felt like a yin-yang symbol, light and dark swirling together. On the one side, I was happy and bubbly from girl time. It was all so fluffy—and normal. But on the other side, there was Dave, making his way toward me.
I could tell by Dave’s bleak expression he’d gotten my message. Stalker was at it again. I had had a nice little break, hadn’t heard a thing for weeks. I thought maybe Stalker had been arrested for some reason. Or ODed in a ditch. Well, I wished that on him, anyway. But no, he raised his ugly head again.
Dave followed me into my living room and read the poem as I paced the floor slamming my fist into my palm. My bags of new clothes made a hill by the staircase.
“So, what’s the plan? Do you need to go on vacation?” Dave asked.
“The creeper would just wait until I got back. Or follow me.” I shook my head. “I don’t think I can hide from this. I want to just go ahead with the confrontation and end it.” My voice was hard and menacing. I wanted to attack like an animal. Feral. Rabid. Nothing fluid and beautiful like my Kung Fu practice—I wanted it to be about teeth and claws. Hair, skin, and blood. Primal—that was where I was. Ferocious with survival instinct.
Dave got a crazy look in his eye. “Tell me you’re kidding!” he yelled. Pushing to his feet, he stabbed a rigid finger into my shoulder. “Are you going out looking for this guy? Are you putting yourself in danger trying to get this guy to act?”
“No.” I saw that my loose words were jacking Dave’s blood pressure, so I outwardly switched directions. My voice softened. I ran a soothing hand down his arm. “I’m being safe and practical. I’ve put in a lot of time at the range, and I got to beat up the new recruits.” I quirked a smile for Dave’s benefit.
Dave shifted gears, too. Pushing his hands into his pockets, he smirked. “Ha! I heard. I love it when you do that.”
“Yeah, I fought one, a guy named Parker? He took a rather bad tumble. Do you know if he’ll be okay?”
“His body’s fine. The ego bruising, on the other hand, will take a while to heal up.”
Dave stopped talking and reached for the plastic bag to read the poem again. He shook his head. “I sure wish I could make this stop for you, Baby Girl.”
I gave him a half smile, stepping forward to wrap my arms around his neck and lay my head on his chest. He held me in a tight bear hug.
“Hey, guess what? I heard from Angel.” That brought a true smile to my lips. “He called.”
“He did? Awesome. What he say?”
“They’re heading back up into the mountains. He sounded happy about it, though. The assignment he’s working on is a good challenge, and his team is making progress. He’s so upbeat about everything … even the heat.” I released Dave and curled up at the end of the couch. “He’s used to it, being from Puerto Rico. The guy from North Dakota isn’t faring so well.” I patted my chest. “I’m missing him something awful. Hearing from him only helps a little.�
�
“I bet.” Dave leaned a shoulder into the wall.
“Yeah well, he’s on a mission with no contact.” I focused out the window where a gull hung in the air, lost, hovering for a moment then flying off. “They should be back in a month, if all goes well. If they run into problems, it could be as much as three months before I get word.” I turned my focus back to Dave. “This’ll be the longest time we’ve had to go with no communication.”
“Then can he come home?”
“No. End of February at the earliest—that’s the one-year mark. They’re extending some of the special ops out to eighteen months.” I sighed and crossed my fingers for good juju.
“Will the army stay in touch with the wives?”
I shook my head. “He said, ‘no news is good news.’ So, that’s my mantra for a while.”
Hearing from Angel was like manna from Heaven—food for my soul. Angel loved his job; I signed on as a soldier’s wife. I made my choice then, so I’d better live up to my expectations of myself. I didn’t want to burden Angel when he called or got through online. I’d just suck it up until he came home.
Thirteen
The next morning, Beetle and Bella’s ferocious barking pulled me from under the covers. I slung on my robe, grabbed my gun, and bolted down the stairs. I disengaged the alarm system and swung the door open to find Sarah in front of my porch screaming. Dave and Justin ran toward my house, both in sock feet. Justin got to Sarah first. She collapsed against him, pointing to my front steps. He pulled her away and walked her home, saying something soothing. Other neighbors stood in their open doorways, looking over to see what was causing the commotion.
Dave waved them back inside. “No problem. Everything’s okay. Go on to bed.” Since the clock read five in the morning, everyone complied. There, on the porch and spread down the stairway, lay the intestines of a large animal. Blood dripped and pooled. Grief wrapped my heart. I was numb, in shock. What happened? How did this get here? Beside the pile, I spotted the cream envelope. Of course. This death was for my benefit. Holy fucking hell!
