Although my pulse is no longer racing, when I exit the building I run for my car and lock the doors as soon as I’m inside. I sag back against the seat. Squeeze my lids closed. The voice wasn’t from Christina’s movie. It wasn’t from anywhere.
Red Lady, Red Lady.
No. She isn’t real. She wasn’t ever real.
* * *
“Today, Dr. Cole,” Ryan says, placing a cup of coffee on my nightstand, “You are mine. All day.”
“But I …”
“What?”
I don’t want to go anywhere, except perhaps to the hotel where Lauren works, but I can’t say that aloud.
“Babe?” he says.
“No buts,” I say with as much enthusiasm as I can. “It sounds wonderful.”
“Good, because I wasn’t taking no for an answer. So drink your coffee, get a shower, and get dressed. It’s going to be nice today; not too cold, not too hot.”
My smile fades from view as soon as he does. No way I’m getting out of this. How can I pretend everything’s okay? How can I pretend I’m okay? But I empty my mug. Take a shower. Get dressed.
He drives my Jeep to Grump’s Cafe for breakfast, a quirky place with silly signs on the walls and paint streaks on the floor. Not too crowded, either, which is surprising for a Saturday. Afterward, he gets on 50 West, and it takes a while before I figure out where we’re going.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s someplace we’ve talked about visiting for ages, and we spend hours looking at the old airplanes, the space shuttle Discovery. We eat burgers and fries at the McDonald’s on site. Buy refrigerator magnets and freeze-dried ice cream from the gift shop. I’m even able to relax a little. I’m safe here with Ryan, with the crowds of people all around. Surely I’m allowed that, aren’t I?
On the way home, we get caught in traffic. I kick off my shoes, put my seat back. “Before I forget, we were invited to a party next Saturday. You don’t know her, but Gia and I grew up together. I ran into her at the bookstore, and she and her husband recently moved to Annapolis.”
“Sounds good.”
“So,” I say. “What prompted today?”
“I do notice things, you know. You’re having bad dreams, getting up in the middle of the night, you’re distracted all the time, and”—he reaches across the center console for my hand—“this.”
I curl my fingers, attempting to hide my ragged cuticles.
“Even without the rest, I’d know something was wrong. You only do this when you’re upset or stressed.”
His words are gentle, but I can’t help the heat coiling in my gut. He’s just being a good husband, but I pull away nonetheless.
“I have a patient who reminds me of a girl I knew when I was a kid. It’s stirring up old memories, that’s all.”
“And?”
And nothing, I think, even shaking my head a little, but my mouth has other plans, with too many words to hold in. “I knew her when we were little. Her mom was an alcoholic, and she was abusive.” The weight of what I said—that I said anything at all—sits like a stone upon my soul. I trace a circle on the armrest. Cross my legs. Uncross them and pull one foot up on the seat. “Anyway, it’s not …”
“So what happened?” His fingertips piano the steering wheel.
“What do you mean?” I say, the weight now a boulder.
“With her mother?”
“It’s not important,” I say, dropping my foot, pulling up the other.
“Well, did she get help? Your friend’s mom or—”
“Can we talk about something else, please?” I say, my words clipped at the ends.
There’s a pause, and then he says, “Okay, sure.”
“Thank you,” I say, staring straight ahead. The car feels too small. Part of me wants to open my door and disappear into the ocean of brake lights, swim into all that red. Drown in it. The other part wants to scream until my voice is gone. Until I’m gone.
I fist my hands, remembering the gritty feel of dirt beneath my nails.
Blood on my hands. Dirt beneath my nails.
“Maybe you should recommend another doctor.”
“What?” I say.
“For your patient. Maybe she should see another doc.” He shoves his shirt-sleeves up, revealing a scratch on his right forearm, the scab fresh.
“It’s fine.”
“But if it’s bringing up all these old memories, which are obviously unpleasant, it isn’t fine. Would it be the end of the world if you sent her to someone else? What about Christine, the other doctor in your office? She sees kids too, right?”
“It’s Christina, and no, that’s not necessary. I’m an adult; I can handle a few old memories.”
There’s a long silence, then he says, “Can you?”
“Who’s the doctor here?” I say, and my words are razors. “Pretty sure I know what I can and can’t handle.”
His fingers flex on the steering wheel. “Right. Okay. But since you brought it up, I thought you wanted to talk about it, maybe try and get some things off your chest.”
“Well, you thought wrong. I don’t want to talk about it.”
And I don’t. Not to him. Not to anyone.
“Are you sure? Because I’m here, and if I can help you in any—”
“Stop,” I say. “Just stop and leave it. I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
But he steals a glance toward me, and I sense he’s going to try again. Just like him to think a fucking battering ram is the best way to tackle any problem.
“What happened to your arm? The scratch?” I ask.
He looks down. “Oh, I probably banged into the corner of some drywall or something.”
“Has she paid you anything yet?”
“No, not yet,” he says. “Look, this won’t be like the Kanes. Mrs. Harding’s not hurting for money.”
I run my thumbs down an imaginary line in the center of my thighs. “How do you know? The Kanes didn’t seem to be either. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
“Nothing,” he says. “No matter what I say, it won’t matter.”
Anger boils inside me, anger at myself for turning the conversation this way, for picking an argument, for the outstanding check, for being stuck in this fucking car with the fucking traffic. An apology lingers on my tongue, but it’s bitter and sharp and I keep it to myself.
* * *
Ringing yanks me from sleep, and I fumble for my phone. It’s not mine, though, but Ryan’s. A local number, no name. When it stops, there’s a long pause, then a chirp. I flop back on my pillow, wide awake now. Ryan’s going to help his youngest brother install some shelving, but I was planning to sleep in.
I did end up apologizing before we got home yesterday, and he accepted, but both were contrived. The sort of things you say because you should. All I had to do was bridge the gap, one small touch on his shoulder or the center of his back in bed, but I rolled onto my side, staring at the wall until long after he was asleep.
Now, the shower in the master bath shuts off, and a minute later Ryan steps out amid a wave of eucalyptus-scented heat, a towel draping his waist.
“You’re awake,” he says with a mix of surprise and hesitation.
“Your phone woke me up. Somebody called you.”
“I’m sorry.” When he looks at the display, he blinks a little too quickly and says, “Don’t recognize the number. Probably a scammer.”
A legit assumption. I get regular calls from the “IRS” claiming there’s a tax bill and an arrest warrant. “They left a message,” I say around a yawn, rearranging the sheets to cover my shoulder.
I listen to him finish getting ready and walk down the steps, trying to be quiet. When the garage door rumbles down and his engine recedes, I throw off the sheets, pushing sleep-twisted hair from my face.
He recognized the number on his phone. I saw it. I knuckle a cheekbone.
I know my heightened suspicion is due to my own perfidy. Transference in psych speak. Finding fault with him to avoid my own.
Not bothering with a shower, I pull on leggings and an old, stretched-out sweater. Make coffee. Flop on the sofa in the family room, ankles crossed, foot tapping, flipping through television channels but finding nothing to capture my attention. I toss the remote aside and Lady Macbeth my hands. I need to do something other than sit and brood. Or I might have another panic attack, the way I did in the field.
No. That was not a panic attack. I do not have panic attacks. It was a momentary spot of alarm. Anyone in my situation would feel the same way.
I stop moving my hands. The skin is streaked with small red smears from a rubbed-off scab. I close my eyes, but even after several rounds of deep breathing, I feel as though an electric current is thrumming beneath my skin. “To hell with this,” I say.
I risk calling the hotel again. One more time can’t hurt, can it? This time it’s a man who answers, and he sounds bored. I use the same tactic as before, but instead of shutting me down, he puts me on hold. After a few minutes he returns with the helpful message that Lauren isn’t working today or tomorrow but she’ll be there on Tuesday. Did he not even consider the potential danger in giving out that kind of information?
I can’t risk going to her apartment again. Not on a Sunday. Too many people around. Too many chances of being spotted. But I have to do something. I finally remember that we have daffodil bulbs inside the shed. I think it’s the right time of year to plant them, but I don’t really care whether they take root or not. I find them next to a bucket of gardening tools. On my knees, skin protected inside soft gloves, I start on the flower bed to the right of the flagstone patio. I weaponize the tools, stabbing and spearing the dirt, tossing it aside in messy piles, creating a series of holes resembling small graves.
I’m the dirt and Lauren—or whoever—is the metal, piercing and pricking and tearing me apart. What will be left when they’re done? And who? I press the base of my palms to my brows. Banish the thought.
The bulbs go in and I smooth the dirt over top, repeating the entire process on the bed running along the left side of the patio. In the end, it looks like a toddler was playing here. Dirt’s on the stone edging the beds, on the patio, in the grass. I try brushing it with the gloves, but it doesn’t help much.
Back to the shed for the outside broom, but I trip over the bottom lip as I step up. “Shit!” I say, dropping the bucket and flailing for purchase. The gardening tools tumble out with heavy metal clinks, but I keep myself from falling. And in the far corner I spy a metal detector partially hidden behind the weed trimmer and a tarp. But we don’t have a metal detector. We’ve never had one.
I strip off my gloves and rub my temple with a knuckle. Is it possible it’s been here all along and I just haven’t seen it? But I’ve been in this shed dozens of times. It was never here before. Why would we even have one?
I think of the multiple holes in the field. If you were looking for a knife, a metal detector would find it. Or at least indicate where a person should dig. No, that’s utterly foolish. Even if someone used a metal detector there, it wouldn’t be Ryan. I’m creating a link where none exists. Transference, I remind myself, then dart inside for my phone. I know it’s absurd, but there’s no harm in asking him, no matter how illogical it seems. It’ll make me feel better. But I pause before dialing. I can wait a few hours, can’t I? He’ll be home soon enough.
But I want to know now.
He answers on the third ring, his tone guarded. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, but I was in the shed and found a metal detector. When did we get one?”
“Huh?” he says. “You called me to ask—”
“Just tell me,” I say. “Please.”
“O-kay,” he says. “It’s my dad’s. Karen borrowed it for the kids. She gave it to me the other night to give back, but I needed the room in my truck, so I put it in the shed for the time being.”
“The kids needed it.” My voice is flat. Unemotional.
“Yes,” he says.
“And you didn’t use it?”
“Why would I use a metal detector?” There’s a muffled thud, then he says, “Hold on, don’t … hold it—Heather, I gotta go before Sean hurts himself.”
“Okay, goodbye,” I say, but I’m speaking to empty air.
I turn the phone over and over. Now I have my answer. Nothing nefarious or sneaky. A perfect logical explanation. So why do I still feel uneasy?
Maybe because there was a dead squirrel in my mailbox? Because someone else was digging in the field? Because I broke into my colleague and friend’s office? Because someone knows what happened in that basement? Knows what I did? Plenty of options there.
“Enough,” I say.
But my hands won’t stop moving. My thoughts won’t stop connecting dots they have no business connecting. Dots that don’t connect at all. And then I put the phone down and take to the stairs.
I start with the small drawer in Ryan’s nightstand. Nothing but old receipts and a few forgotten gift cards. In his dresser, drawer by drawer, I sweep beneath each folded pile of clothing, patting them down, seeking anything out of place. Underwear, socks, T-shirts. I leave nothing untouched. On his side of the walk-in closet, I do the same, examining jacket pockets and shoes. I return to his dresser and undo his socks, checking each one individually before wrapping them back into each other.
I go through the closet in the guest bedroom and each drawer of the dresser there, checking through the extra blankets and sheets. In Ryan’s office, I rifle through the stack of papers on the desk. Store receipts, his business credit card statement, the balance higher than I would’ve thought, and the most recent bank statement for his account, the balance considerably lower.
I turn on his laptop. Go through his folders, his browser history, skim his email. Nothing, there’s nothing. I catch sight of my reflection in the screen. My teeth are bared, my hair sticking up in every direction, my skin suffused with a rosy glow. Shame pushes even more warmth through me, and I sit in his chair. Let my head droop. Will myself calm. I should be happy I’ve found nothing. So why aren’t I?
A laugh pierces the air, so sharp and startling I lurch forward. It takes a moment to register that the sound is coming from me. It sounds nothing like me, nothing like humor or human. It’s guttural, bestial, and I can’t make it stop. I cover my mouth, grinding my lips against my teeth. Still, it spills out. And out and out.
I jerk to my feet, sending his chair spinning, and shamble to our bedroom. Collapse on the bed and scream into my pillow. I give it all my frustration, my worry, my fear. I give it everything I don’t have a name for. Tears rush out just as fast, and I don’t even try to hold them back.
When they stop falling, I strip the pillowcase, sodden with snot and sorrow, and sit on the edge of the bed, head in my hands. What the hell is happening to me? Searching through Ryan’s things? Sneaking into Alexa’s office?
Who the hell am I becoming?
I sense that the walls are moving closer when I’m not looking. The ceiling dropping, the floor rising. Eventually I’ll be trapped in the very center of a small cube, with nowhere to go and no way out.
With robotic limbs, I return to Ryan’s office and put his chair back in its proper spot. I double-check, making sure it all appears as it did before. I can’t do this again. I can’t fall apart. I finish cleaning up out back. Take a shower. Afterward I feel a little stronger. A little more in control. I settle in with a book in the family room. Wait for Ryan. Keep calm. Everything’s fine.
He doesn’t mention my phone call when he gets home. Neither do I. We order Chinese takeout and watch Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It feels normal and right and safe. I want to bottle this moment and trap it forever.
My phone chimes with an email’s arrival, and I grab it from the coffee table. And there, in my inbox: LAUREN THOMAS. The sender, not a subject line. The latter is blank.
IT’S TIME WE MET. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT BECCA.
That’s all there is, but I hiss in a breath. Did Mikayla mention someone was there? Did Lauren put two and two together? Is that why she’s sent this now?
“Everything okay? Heather?”
“Oh, yes,” I say. “It’s from a patient’s mother.”
“Bad news?”
“No, not exactly. It’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine.”
Another question sits on Ryan’s lips, but he doesn’t ask, simply turns his attention back to the characters on the screen. I can’t pull mine away from the characters on mine.
It’s time we met. I want to talk about Becca.
Much later, in the small hours of the night with Ryan softly snoring beside me, I pick up my phone, type YES, LET’S MEET, and hit send.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THEN
“I had an odd phone call from Rachel’s mom,” my mom said.
We were sitting at the dining room table, her face serious, the way it had looked two years ago when she told me Pops, my dad’s dad, had died.
“O-kay,” I said, picking at a cuticle, a lump growing in my throat. Mom cleared her throat, and I tucked both hands beneath my thighs.
“She overheard Rachel, Gia, and Becca talking about something and called to find out if I knew about it. I didn’t, so I thought I’d talk to you.”
“Why doesn’t she just ask Rachel?”
“She did. Would you like to tell me about the Red Lady?”
I couldn’t read her expression. My fingers spidered free from my legs, curled around the sides of the seat, and held tight, as though the chair might levitate or drop through the floor.
“She’s from a story Becca told.”
“A story?”
“Yeah, nothing major,” I said, but my cheeks went hot. Had Rachel’s mom made her tell about our club, too? She couldn’t do that, could she? It wasn’t anyone’s business except ours.
“It must’ve been some story. Rachel’s been having nightmares and her mom caught her sleepwalking, which she hasn’t done since she was little.”
The Dead Girls Club Page 18
