While She Was Sleeping

by Diane Pershing

  “Who’s to say I didn’t kill him,” she went on, “under the influence of drugs or not, except me? Who’s to say they won’t decide Eddie and I were working together? Or even that I killed Richard? Who’s to say they won’t book me and lock me up on suspicion of murder?”

  “I say it, dammit.”

  She held out her hands. “Are you that all-powerful, Nick? If you tell them I’m innocent, because you feel it in your bones, does that mean they salute and say. ‘Yes sir’?” As the corners of her mouth turned down, she bit her bottom lip in an obvious effort at self-control. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  It was obvious that she was tremendously upset, and he tried to hold on to his temper, but he, too, was near the edge. “Carly, you gave your word. I don’t think you have a choice.”

  “No. You don’t have a choice, but I do.”

  She jumped up off the bed. Nick’s gaze followed her path to the bathroom, where she closed the door. Shaking his head, he got up and knocked on the door. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting dressed.” In a matter of seconds, the door opened and Carly rushed past him, wearing the slightly damp clothes she’d washed out the night before. “I’m sorry—I have to get out of here.”

  Grabbing one of her wrists, he pulled her to a stop. “No you don’t.”

  “I have to, Nick.” Her eyes were wild with fear. “Unless you’d like to knock me out, drag me down to the station by my hair. Or maybe you’d rather put me in handcuffs?” She brought her other hand up so it was even with the wrist he was holding. “Go on.”

  Letting her hand drop, he stared at her in disbelief. “Carly—this is impossible. You’re being impossible.”

  “I know it. But I am not going to jail.” It registered, in some dim part of Carly’s mind, how she must sound. But she was fighting for her life. “I am not spending one minute behind bars! Don’t you understand?”

  Nick grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “No, I don’t. Tell me.”

  Tell me.

  Tell him what? She’d had only brief flashes of memory over the years, like small mental snapshots. Little girls in starched dresses standing behind bars. Dirty knees, dirty cheeks from crying. Mock family photographs in a mockery of an album. But she’d never let it rise fully to the surface, because it was too terrifying to identify the children in the pictures.

  It rose to the surface now, in one stunning moment of clarity. Her body stiffened with a child’s terror of the dark. She shut her eyes tight, to try to block it out, but it was useless.

  “My...my father—it was one of his favorite ways to punish us.” The effort to talk made her chest heave; she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  “What did he do?” Nick’s voice was low and harsh.

  Carly’s eyes snapped open and she stared at him. His face was stiff with fury. At her? Why? What had she done? She turned her back on him, tried to curl in a ball inside herself, the way she had back then.

  But he gripped her shoulders from behind. “Tell me what the bastard did.”

  Tell him, instructed a voice from somewhere inside her. And Carly did as the voice said to do, the words tumbling out one after the other. “From the time we were little, he used to taunt us with all kinds of stories about what they’d done to people in holding cells—kicking, punching, beating them where it wouldn’t show. And...even uglier things. He would take Nina and me to one of those empty cells, lock us in, turn off all the lights and leave us there alone for hours. Twice he left us there all night...in separate cells. One time it was after a party at the church, it was someone’s birthday, I think, and Nina and I had matching pink dresses. We didn’t do something fast enough for him. I don’t even remember what anymore. Do you know what it’s like to be six years old and locked up all night in the dark?”

  Behind her, Nick muttered an epithet, but she barely heard him. She was back there, back to being small and helpless and so terrified that she’d used to pray, first to be rescued, and then, to die. “There were all these strange noises, someone crying nearby, shuffling sounds—mice or rats. Smells—liquor, garbage, urine. It was a lesson, he used to say, to show us what would happen if we didn’t listen to him, if we broke the rules, if we were bad.”

  She felt his hands tighten their grip, felt the rage pour through him, but this time she understood it was rage at her father. Somehow, even as she relived her childhood through the mists of memory, she recognized that Nick’s anger was not directed at her.

  Turning, she buried her face against his chest “It worked. On me, anyway. Nina just got more and more rebellious, more and more angry. But I wasn’t strong like her. I sat in the corner, whimpering. Nina told me to shut up. I was hopeless, she said, I was a wimp. It taught me a lesson—do any kind of dance necessary, play by the rules, show up, be responsible, but never, never get into trouble.”

  Lifting her head wearily, she met his stormy gaze with a sad smile. “I’ve pushed this out of my mind for years, but I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I’ve been so careful, I’ve practically ceased living. But it’s left its mark, Nick. I can’t be in small places, I can’t breathe if I’m locked up.” Her hands balled into fists against his chest. “I’ve tried to overcome it, Nick. I’ve worked on the fears, I told you, but this—” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. Bowing her head, she murmured, “I can’t go there, Nick. Sorry, I can’t.”

  Nick felt rage pour through him, red and black and strong. Carly’s father—what a bullying, sadistic son of a bitch. Nick wanted to hurt someone; he also wanted to cry for Carly. He wanted to put his fist through a wall.

  “Dammit!” he raged. “All along you’ve been set against going in. and now I know why. Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

  With a startled look, she backed away from him as though he’d breathed fire in her face. “What?”

  “Do you realize what kind of position you’ve put. me in? I’ve probably set myself up for disciplinary action, I’ve gotten Dom involved, all because you said you’d go in. You also said you’d told me everything, that there was nothing else I needed to know. You trusted me, you said.” He was yelling now; he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “And I believed you, idiot that I am. What else have you been keeping from me, huh? Tell me. What other secrets have you been hiding?”

  The hurt flashed across her face as though he’d slapped her. “Nothing.”

  It came out weakly and he saw her try to swallow. On her face, the determination not to be cowed by him fought for dominance over the residue of childhood memories. “I guess...I didn’t tell you because I didn’t even know it myself. But that’s it. That’s the very last intimate secret you’ll ever need to know about me.” Her face crumbled with despair. “I can’t, Nick. I can’t go in. I’m sorry.”

  She dashed by him, out of the bedroom, headed for the front door. The sudden whirlwind movement startled him for a moment, then he took off in pursuit.

  Carly flipped the lock and made it out the door. “Carly, wait!” she heard Nick call, but ignored him. Stairs, she decided, not the elevator. She hadn’t put her shoes on yet, so once again, she was barefoot, running away from Nick. Also, again, without money. But there was no time to dwell on the irony of the situation. She had to get away.

  She tore down six fights of stairs, running, running, the cold concrete hard on her arches. In the lobby, she glanced quickly at the front door, decided against it and headed for the rear of the building, where the cars were parked. Nick had to be right behind her, she knew, even though she didn’t hear him.

  Just as she burst through the rear door, fingers dug into her left arm and pulled her to an abrupt stop. She turned to see who had done it, and found herself staring into the cold, pale eyes of Eddie Monk.

  His dead-white skin was pitted with old acne scars. An incongruous pug nose turned up in an otherwise downward-turning countenance. Before she had a chance to cry out, he’d reached in his pants pocket and pulled out a gun. She stared at it—i
t looked like, might even be, the one she’d held in her hand, the one that had killed Demeter.

  No, she thought, this can’t be happening.

  Eddie slammed her against a wall and stuck a piece of tape across her mouth. Pointing the gun at her, he grabbed her arm again with his free hand and dragged her along the alleyway. He was small, but he was strong. She looked around for anyone to help her—where was Nick?—but the only other alley occupant was a dirty calico cat that scurried across their path and disappeared over a short brick wall. Eddie hustled Carly along till they reached the huge garbage bin at the edge of the alley. Partially hidden behind it was a long, rust-colored car with several dents in the fender. Without saying a word, he pulled open the back door and shoved her in. Then he twisted her arms behind her back and clicked handcuffs on. Locking the back door, he slammed it shut.

  She had a momentary urge to laugh out loud. Nick’s handcuffs would have been preferable, she thought wildly, to these. Under the tape she screamed, the screams rasping in her throat. The car suddenly lurched forward and Carly’s mind spun away into raw panic.

  Nick held on to the sides of his front door and gritted his teeth in pain. He hadn’t gotten two feet in his dash after Carly, when his damned knee had given out. Furious at his traitorous body and at himself, he leaned his head against the door till the pain subsided enough for him to put some weight on his leg. When he could walk again, he limped into the bedroom, grabbed his loaded gun and holster, and headed out the front door.

  He got to the street just in time to see a rust-colored twenty-year-old Cadillac burning rubber down the street, heading east. It was too far away to see the license number and too far away to shoot at. But the make, the year and the color were right.

  Eddie Monk had been waiting. Carly had been abducted by Eddie Monk. He was terrified for her. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. Nick patted his pocket; be had his car keys, he would follow. He hobbled over to his parking space as fast as he could.

  When he got to his car, he stopped short and stared. All four tires were flat.

  Eddie Monk had planned ahead.

  Carly managed to work herself into a sitting position in the back seat. Between her pounding heart, her tense shoulders, the handcuffs digging into her wrists and the taped mouth that inhibited breathing, this new position wasn’t any more comfortable, but at least now she felt less vulnerable. She meant to keep track of where they drove, but this city was totally unfamiliar to her. Names blended into other names. There was a stretch on a freeway, then they were climbing, climbing, twists and curves, along a deserted dirt road, bordered by bushes and high trees. Eddie drove recklessly, like a man who had nothing to lose.

  Carly had everything to lose and she knew it. She made every effort to keep a tight rein on her fears. He’d abducted her, but hadn’t killed her—why, she wasn’t sure. He wanted her alive, for the moment anyway. She held on to that thought for dear life.

  Monk didn’t speak, not once, but she met his glance in the rearview mirror a few times. His eyes were a pale, almost colorless hazel. They seemed devoid of something basic to life. They flicked on her once in a while, but she couldn’t read his expression.

  Finally they reached some sort of plateau in the mountains. Ahead of her was a large three-story, white stucco home, situated at the edge of what seemed to be a sheer drop. A chain-link fence encircled the dry grass and weeds that grew on all sides. The right side of the house, near the cliff edge, drooped as if unsupported. Chunks of red roof tile lay scattered around. On the chain-link fence signs were posted every few feet, warning Danger, Keep Out.

  Eddie stopped the car at the fence. “Come on,” he said, hauling her out of the back seat. His voice was that same hoarse whisper she’d heard at the airport—and in her dreams. He dragged her to a narrow opening in the fence, shoved her through, then followed. When they got to the rear of the house, he unlocked a small door near a wooden stairway and indicated she should go in. But it was dark inside there, and she hesitated. He shoved her, hard. She stumbled forward, falling down a step and hitting a hard concrete floor.

  Amazingly enough she wasn’t hurt, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her. It was a struggle to catch her breath because, as she realized with horror once again, the tape over her mouth gave her only one opening to breathe from instead of two.

  Eddie Monk shoved her with his foot. “Get up and shut up,” he ordered.

  Carly managed to get to her knees. It was nearly pitch-black in there. The only source of light was from a high, narrow, dirt-smeared window. Her eyes adjusted and she glanced around. She was in a square, cavelike room, probably a storage cellar. Eddie pulled her by the arm, then shoved her onto the floor in a corner. There she sat, her arms pinned behind her, her knees bent to her chest, her mouth taped shut. Fear sliced through her; what did he intend to do with her now?

  He took matches and lit all kinds of candles until shadows danced in the room. There was a minimum of furniture, only two wooden chairs and a few small tables, but the walls were filled—paintings, photographs, framed letters, pieces of clothing. A dried flower pinned to the wall, a scrap of ribbon. Candles were placed under a particularly large portrait.

  Of Nina, Carly realized. All the pictures were of Nina. Or, as Eddie probably knew her, Amanda.

  Carly was in a shrine to her late sister.

  “Yeah, he was obsessed with her,” the snitch told them.

  Nick and Dom sat in the back of a small coffee shop in Boyle Heights. Dom had driven up to Nick’s place minutes after Monk had taken off with Carly. They’d called in the sighting of Eddie’s car, but so far he was still out there.

  The snitch, a skinny, awkward man with red hair and bloodshot eyes, had known Eddie since they’d been kids. As he talked, his eyes darted nervously from right to left and back again. “This Amanda, he met her in Vegas, got her her first job on the line—nude dancer. Followed her to L.A., got her work in a couple of flicks. When she met Demeter, married him, Eddie went nuts. Got himself into Demeter’s organization, to stay close to her. Even when he was sent back East, he still carried the torch for her. He really loved her. Went a little nuts there, if you ask me. But Eddie’s always been that way.”

  Nick felt his gut tighten. Carly was hostage to someone who was not only a killer, but was also unbalanced. “We’re looking for Monk now. Seen him?” When the snitch shook his head, Nick said, “He’s not at his place—where would he be?”

  “Beats me.”

  Leaning in, Nick grabbed him by the shirt lapels. “Think about it. Where would he go? Maybe some special place he used to talk about.”

  “I don’t know, honest.”

  Nick’s grip tightened. “Easy,” he heard Dom say.

  The snitch held up his hands. Nick let him go.

  “He used to talk about a cave,” the red-haired man said. “His Amanda cave, okay? But he never told me where it was. Said she used to meet him there, but you know what? I think he was lying. I don’t think he ever even made it with her. It was all in his head.”

  Carly shivered. Monk hadn’t said a word for a long time. What an eerie feeling to see Nina—a lot different from Carly’s last memory of her, but Nina nevertheless—staring at her from every angle. Swallowing a sudden wave of nausea, she glanced up at Eddie. His back was to her as he gazed at one particularly glamorous studio portrait. Nina’s thick blond hair framed her face, falling over one eyebrow. That same insolent smile she’d had as a child showed up now as insinuating and inviting. Her off-the-shoulder dress was cut so low, her breasts seemed on the verge of popping out of their restraints.

  Eddie Monk’s posture changed as he gazed at Nina. His thin shoulders relaxed, his jerky movements stilled. Then he turned around, studied Carly and frowned. “You really don’t look anything like her, do you? I was hoping—” Instead of completing the sentence, his whole body seemed to sag with disappointrnent. “Oh, well.”

  He’d been in love with her sister, Car
ly realized. Obviously, she thought, gazing around the room once more, to the point of obsession. Again, she struggled to speak and muffled sounds came out.

  “You want the tape off, huh?” Reaching into his waistband, he drew out his gun. He glanced at it, then at her. “You want to talk? Maybe scream a little? Nah, I don’t think so. Not that it would do you any good. I could take that gag off and you could scream your head off, but it wouldn’t make no difference. No one would hear.” He was bragging, like a clever little boy who was sure no one could ever have a mind as quick as his.

  After another glance at his gun, he returned it to his waistband. “I don’t want you to talk, I want to pretend for just a while longer.”

  He grabbed her elbows and pulled her up to a standing position. Then he placed her next to yet another framed photograph of Nina’s face. Holding a candle, first to the picture, then to Carly’s face—so close the flame licked her skin and she cringed—he tilted his head and assessed her. With a sudden movement, he plucked her glasses off and threw them across the room.

  “Better.” Then he fluffed out her hair and unbuttoned several buttons of her sweater, so the top lace of her bra peaked out. She tensed, half expecting him to grab her. But he looked over at the picture again and his eyes got a faraway look.

  “Amanda,” he said dreamily. Suddenly, he turned and faced Carly, a look of pure venom on his face. “You’re not Amanda.”

  She flinched, waiting for a blow, but then Eddie’s forehead wrinkled as he went off on another tangent. “Oh, yeah, that’s right, you knew her as Nina. Stupid name. Her hair was so beautiful, so long.” With another lightning-quick temperament change, he came back to the present, peering at Carly with a look of speculation in his eyes. “I changed my mind. You do look a lot like her, except she was prettier. We did a good job on you though. When old Pete took a look at you—” he smiled slyly “—he didn’t know what hit him.”