by B. E. Larkin
“Where were you?” So, I guess the insomnia's genetic. I could make out his form, moving toward me. “Just working. I'm really tired.” It didn't even sound convincing to me. Did I really think he'd believe I was just some sleep deprived teenager sneaking in late? Before I could reach my room, my father stepped in front of me, caught me by the shoulders and searched my face. His eyes gleamed, darker than the shadows around us. I didn't want to tell him anything but I knew he'd find bits of whatever I wasn't saying somewhere in my eyes.
It was a bitter irony that my father, who rarely spoke, rarely had to. He always found the information he needed in a glance. Still, I wasn't going to willingly fill in the details. His hands tightened until his grip hurt.
“I don't want you to go out at night anymore.” He wanted to say more but he didn't. Why tell me anything? That seemed to be the family motto. He let go of me and walked away without waiting for any argument. There would have been no point in arguing anyway.
I had no intention of obeying him.
Chapter Seven – Micheal
Dorian's eyes shone in the moonlight. He reached for me and I pushed him back until he was pinned against the tree. He had nowhere to go and his smile said that was exactly how he wanted it. He gave up trying to pull me to him and stared into my eyes, mocking me as I stripped the jacket from his arms. So I left it there, half on, half off, trapping his arms.
That grin deepened. “You like being in charge, don't you?” he murmured. “Too bad.” His muscles flexed and the jacket tore clean. His hands clamped over my waist as he reversed our positions. The bark pierced my back as his hipbones bit into mine. “That hurts,” I struggled to change positions without losing contact with him. “I think you enjoy a little pain” he said. He wasn't wrong about that. I felt his lips on my neck and closed my eyes, forgot the prickle of the bark as he teeth nibbled my skin and his hands slid....BZZZZ.
My eyes flew open. Damn, damn, damn. It was morning. At least I figured it had to be since light stabbed my unwilling eyelids and my phone buzzed somewhere nearby. I fumbled over the edge of my bed and found it. Jimmy. Of course. Because if I hadn't wanted to tell my father about the riverfront, I doubly didn't want to discuss it with Officer Upright & Uptight. Especially with the warmth of one pleasantly violent NC-17 dream lingering at the edge of my mind. I pushed the phone under the pillow and tried to fall back through the fog into those dreams. BEEP. Text. So much for fantasy. I glared at the message. “Don't Make Me Come Over.” Seriously, why did he have to capitalize every word?
But focusing on his complete lack of 21 century skills still didn't erase the fact that he knew where I was. The thought of him parked in a squad car outside woke me all the way up. Officer Jacqua face to face with my father before coffee? Not the way I wanted to start a day.
I dressed and was moving down the hall before I bothered to text him. “Dutch Bros on 99. 15 minutes.” It was my turn to snap my fingers and make him jump. And if he didn't show up, at least I wouldn't have to start the day with that crap coffee he drank.
I was halfway out the door when I spotted the truck parked at the end of our dead end road and stopped. Big, black, chrome pipes, maximum lift, tinted windows. Inside there would be a shotgun rack with two Saiga twelves and a Mossberg. There would be boxes of shells under the seats. Just like in the one he used to drive. Yes!
“Looking fine, Calla.” Micheal unfolded himself from the corner of the porch and grinned as he scooped me up and swung me around as if I were still five years old. Given the leaning posts and the scattered furniture and a still open screen door, it took some skillful steering to swing me around and around without impaling me on anything, but my uncle had always managed to accomplish the impossible, and for a minute I felt foolishly free and five again. He set me down at arm's length and grinned that slow charming grin that made fools and drunks and the otherwise unwary trust him.
Where my father is quiet and dark, my uncle is blonde and loud. T'Jean is compact and catlike. Micheal is tall and habitually moves like a bull looking for trouble. When I was small, I sat in front of the Christmas tree Micheal had dragged in, and stared at the pair of them, trying to figure out how these two men could possibly be related. Micheal caught my look and roared with laughter. He clapped my unsmiling father on the back. “Think we should tell her one of us favors the milkman?” While I didn't understand that for years, it didn't matter because Micheal scooped me up back then and spun me round until I could no longer stand and then let me go to stagger in happy, dizzy circles while he laughed and even my father smiled.
I remember that because it seemed we were a normal family. Before I figured out that my life would be spent running from something I did not understand. Before I realized I was never supposed to know who I was. Before I understood how easily I had accepted this unspoken truth.
My cell buzzed, effectively shutting down memory lane. “I'm Here.” Of course he was. Why couldn't he have been all the way across town or on a traffic stop, busy ruining someone else's day?
I hugged Micheal. “You going to stick around a while? It's the police officer I told you about, I have to go.” Police officer, not “cop,” because Micheal had been one of that brotherhood at some point. That much I knew about him. And that he, like my father, would die for me without a word of protest. Why this would ever be necessary, I had no clue. He patted my head. “I'll be here.” He let himself inside, I heard his footsteps thunder down the hall. T'Jean would know he was coming if he wasn't already aware of Micheal's presence. For men who disliked each other so intensely, they shared some unspoken and unbreakable bond that could not be explained even by brotherhood.
Chapter Eight – EYES
Jimmy perched easily on one of the two tables outside, a large black brew between his hands. For a minute, I felt guilty about forcing him to drink good coffee, but he'd not only woken me but kept me from staying home with Micheal. Let him suffer.
“How's your uncle?” He blew on his coffee and studied me over the edge of his cup while I ordered a quad shot and ran through the possibilities in my mind. Either the police had the place under surveillance, which annoyed me, or Micheal had been around here longer than I knew and that really pissed me off. So I did the mature thing and waited for my caffeine fix and ignored his question.
When I settled across the table from him, he didn't ask again. I dumped his files back in front of him. “No Natalie yet, but I found Dorian for you.” I figured that locating even one of his cases within a single day was pretty damn good, but Jimmy didn't look like it mattered at all. After everything I went through last night, I felt I deserved at least a little credit. So I gulped my espresso, scalded my mouth and bumped up my aggravation to the next level. “Hey, you're the one that said he was missing. Feel free not to bother me anymore.” He nodded and watched another car pull up to the window. “Sorry. It's just that Dorian's over 18 and it turns out, no one's looking for him anymore.”
“His family doesn't care?” Even I knew the answer to that question.
Jimmy abandoned his cup. “Stole his stepfather's car and some cash couple years back. But the guy just moved out ten months ago, didn't leave us a forwarding, so I figure he's given up on recovering his property. Realized it wasn't worth the trouble.” I hadn't seen any cars nearby, but I didn't believe this guy took off because he gave up on a car. I suspected he acquired some common sense somewhere and realized it was smarter to be as far from Dorian as he could get. Of course maybe he didn't leave on his own. If Dorian arranged a family reunion, step-daddy might be providing nutrients to the local fish population for all I knew. I gulped again, scalded the remaining nerve endings to clear my mind and changed the subject.
“Know anything about a gang called The Blood Lords? One of the girls with him last night had that insignia on her jacket.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Never heard of them. Can't be very big yet.”
“Maybe not, but trust me. If they're dealing whatever they're taking? You want to find o
ut everything you can. These are scarey kids.” I didn't bother to mention that only the leader was really dangerous, because anyone with half a brain knows it only takes one wolf to turn a pack of dogs wild.
“I'll check into it.” He still wasn't interested and I wanted to slap him...or anybody at all. “Hey if I'm boring you....” He flinched and I felt like I'd just stepped on a puppy, so I begrudgingly dragged the nicer me back out. “Listen to me, Jimmy. It doesn't matter how big they are. Just promise you won't go there alone.”
He finally looked at me. “I'm a police officer, Calla, I can take care of myself.” He saw the complete lack of belief in my eyes and misread it as worry. “It's sweet of you to worry. Thank you.” So why did he look so sad? Why had he dragged me out here at that ghastly hour? I've never trusted the ocean since I went there as a child and felt the ground slipping away under my feet. Something similar was happening now, only there was no tiger father or big strong uncle to sweep me up and protect me from the pull of the unknown.
“Your father been going out much lately?” That threw me. T'Jean almost never leaves the house except when we move. Everything else he does by phone or online or leaves for me to take care of. “Why ask me? If you've been spying on me, you already know he never goes out.”
Without a word he slid a photo across the table. “Ever seen her?” Even dead, there was something familiar about her, that kind of vague memory you have of someone you've passed on the street or glanced at in a checkout line. Hard to tell with her eyes closed. “I might have seen her somewhere but I don't know her. Why? Is she missing too?” She didn't look like the others, probably six, eight years older, nothing weird about her, other than being dead. “Sure you don't know her?” “Of course I do, I'm just lying to mess with you, Officer....no, sorry, Jimmy, I don't.”
He stared down at a second picture he had pinned, face down, under his hand. Flipped it over. “Recognize that?”
These eyes were open, dark lustrous shapes that gazed back at me, mocking me from the dead woman's skin. How many times have I heard that ink physically can not hold that sheen, that skin does not reflect light so clearly, that the faces he creates are a physical impossibility? All the reasons in fact that the women come to him. Because no one has ever duplicated T'Jean's work.
I yanked a curtain of righteous indignation across the flash of fear. “Seriously? Do you know how many women have tattoos now?” Knowing Jimmy, he probably didn't.
He tossed the rest of his coffee into the gravel, lobbed the cup at the trash can and missed. And he didn't go pick it up. The alarm in my mind screamed. I should have left, right then and there. But I couldn't leave him like that without knowing what was tormenting him. If there was anything I could do to fix it, I would. Officer James H. Jacqua, for all his old fashioned and uptight habits, was the closest thing to a friend I'd eveer had. So I stayed.
He sat there hunched over, sad and struggling with some decision. Whatever it was, he didn't want to tell me. Fine, my sympathy only stretches so far. I retrieved his cup, tossed it for him.”Guess I'll go hang out with Micheal. Maybe he'll tell me all the secrets that everybody but me seems to know.”
He reached out and grabbed my arm, the first time he'd ever touched me. “You know I'm your friend, right?” He looked at me, begging. That girl pinned against Dorian flashed through my mind and the sick feeling returned. What was happening around me? “You can talk to me, Needles. I swear I'll listen.” The man was pleading. I heard the echo of T'Jean, “What do you want me to say?” and felt the sand sliding out from under me. I pulled away. That's my natural response, I'm always ready to run.
“Wait.” He tossed a folder on the table, the photos inside sliding out like poorly dealt cards. An even dozen. Six pairs. Six dead women. Six tattoos. Under each, the captions listed the victim's names, the dates, far worse, the cities of her death. The dates and cities matched exactly the last six places we had lived. I felt the scream rising inside, clawing, choking, terrifying. But it wasn't mine, only the echo of the dead womens last sounds as they died in uncomprehending agony. “Needles?”
All that good coffee rushed back. I made it to the trash before it came up and splattered down over Jimmy's empty cup. He reached around me to wipe my face with a handful of napkins and I elbowed him away. “I'm sorry, Needles.” There was genuine pain in his voice, but it was nothing compared to what ripped at my guts.
I sidestepped him and snatched up the photos. “You can't take....” I drowned out the warning with the Valkyrie's engine and took off. “You can't...” This one time, Officer James H. Jacqua was so right. I couldn't. Couldn't anything. Not think, not speak, not comprehend. I couldn't.
Chapter Nine – BLOOD LIES
By the time I stopped riding to nowhere and thinking myself in vicious circles, I'd burned through two tanks of gas, wasted the day and reached no conclusion. I only returned home because there was nowhere else to go. Not for the first time, I wished I had a friend I could tell everything. The problem with my life was that I couldn't ever tell everything, because I didn't know it myself. And this was not something to talk about even if there had been someone there.
I cut off the motor in front of the house and sat there, feeling my mind spiral. T'Jean or Micheal? Micheal or T'Jean? Micheal obviously hated T'Jean for something, maybe he'd killed those women to set him up. Could he really do such a thing? Could anyone? Or was it both of them? A terrible sick partnership. Did it matter? Either way, what little normal life I'd ever had just ended. And Jimmy, the cop who claimed to be my friend, had ripped it away as cleanly as he'd taken what was left of my family. Had he been working up to this the whole time? Had I ever been anything more to him than an unwitting tool in his quest to destroy my world? I hated him, hated myself for being so stupid and gullible, hated the two men waiting inside. And I held tight to that hate as I got off the bike, because it was all that kept me standing upright.
I didn't bother to close the door, T' Jean would know I was there. I couldn't call it home anymore. Had I ever had a home or had they taken that from me too?
They were in the living room, facing each other across the coffee table, their animosity silent between them as they waited for me. For once I wished for light, to be able see their faces clearly without the veils of shadows with which our unlit world softened its horrors. But they sat hidden as always, Micheal coiled and angry and, what yesterday I would have believed was worried, while T'Jean remained motionless in his customary – psychopathic? - calm. I couldn't stand to look at them, I couldn't bear to look away.
All my family, all my past, lying in wait to betray me. Maybe even to kill me. The thought startled me. I should never have come back. But then, why should I even believe Jimmy? Perhaps it was all some elaborate ruse. My mind twisted like a pit of scalded snakes until it seemed that any answer would be better than this contorted reasoning. So that was the ultimate reason. I was here for an answer, any answer, no matter what it cost me.
They both had questions, I saw it in their eyes, watched the words come to Micheal's lips and die there unspoken. The quality of their tenseness changed as they understood that I was here but all was not well. Did they know what I knew? They waited. I waited, searching each familiar face for the lie I had overlooked my entire life. But they were still. In that quality alone, these men were alike. Micheal sat, all his heat and force suddenly caught and held immobile. By guilt? Fear? And my father, was he was truly my father? The thought that even T'Jean was part of the lie cut the ground from under my feet and sent my mind into free fall. Was nothing in my life real? Was my familiar feeling of disconnect a reality? Who was I? Had I come from this man or been taken from yet another stranger? I felt sick, angry, broken, but mostly, afraid. Why had I come here? Wouldn't it have been better to live with uncomfortable uncertainty than the irrevocable truth?
“Calla?” Micheal broke the silence in a voice even and cold as steel but I knew he was afraid. “Something you need to say, child?” My father's voice, t
he same quiet one that once asked what I wanted him to say. Now I knew what I needed him to say and it was too late. Say it's all a lie. Tell me this is a terrible trick, a snare, a trap I do not understand. Only say it isn't true.
Instead I threw the photos on the table in front of them and let his ink utter the unspeakable.
Micheal's breath sucked in like he'd swallowed a razor blade. T'Jean's stillness became absolute. In the dying light, six pairs of dead eyes challenged them, accused them, begged them for mercy. But there had been no mercy for them. Now it was my turn to suffer. The questions screamed inside. Why? Why did you let me believe that all those moves were somehow my fault? That this life of loneliness and silence was because of some unspeakable flaw in me? Do you know how lonely I've been? Do you care? Am I even your blood or merely the left behind prop of one of your victims? Did you kill my mother?
None of these questions passed my lips because the answers would surely have torn what remained of me from my bones.
They looked at each other and the unspoken passed between them and was understood. In their silence I realized how little I knew about the only men I'd ever trusted. And it was too late to be afraid of what I didn't know.
“That cop give you these?” All of Micheal's easy going charm was gone. Drunks and fools and every being with a will to live would have fled the ferocity in that look.
“I took them to...” I couldn't say the rest. Took them to protect you? To warn you? To punish you? I waited for his explanation, some combination of words that I hadn't thought of yet that would untie the Gordian knot and prove this was all only a hideous tangle of coincidences.
“Explains why he's been lurking around,” Micheal said thoughtfully. T'Jean said nothing, leaving me to consider again how I'd been used as a pawn in Officer Upright's underhanded game.
