Dark Eye

by William Bernhardt

  I suppose that shouldn’t have been a big surprise, all things considered. I was on something hard and flat and grainy. Dirty. It was in my skin and under my fingernails. I wondered how long I had been there. A long time, I thought.

  I tried moving and was amazed to find I actually could. My joints were stiff, stiff to the point of near immobility. My skin hurt. But I forced myself. I sat up, and it couldn’t have taken more than half an hour or so.

  I surveyed my surroundings. I was in some kind of gravel pit, white and chalky, no one else around as far as I could see. The crashing sound I’d heard was water, huge tumbling quantities of water, tumbling down not far from where I lay.

  Eventually I had to turn my attention to myself, in all my glory. My skin was red and scorched, except for the bruises, which were many. I was exposed, floppy, veined, dirty, about as unattractive as it was possible for a woman to be. I repulsed myself.

  What the hell had happened? I tried to recall, but the effort made my head pound. I remembered being captured. I remembered lying on his table. I remembered being scared, so scared, like I haven’t ever been before, not even when I found out about David. I remembered hating myself because I was helpless. I should’ve figured a way out. I should’ve pulled some clever last-minute trick that saved the day. Instead, I became a victim. Another pawn in the hands of a psycho who had proved himself a thousand times smarter than I was.

  I had no sense of time and no timepiece. I’d forgotten what little I ever knew about telling time with the sun, so I can’t possibly say how long it was before I noticed the boxes. Seemed like an eternity that I sat there thinking, crying, cursing, not able to move, not wanting to move. But eventually that passed, or at least subsided. And I turned my attention to the shoe boxes he had left at my feet.

  There were two of them, each with a message scribbled across the top in indelible black marker. The first box read: TO HELP YOU REMEMBER.

  Like Alice in Wonderland, I slowly opened the envelope inside, not wanting to know what it contained, but unable not to look.

  The envelope contained pictures, lots of them. Polaroids, amateur stuff, obviously taken by Edgar himself. They all had the same subject. Me.

  They must have been taken while I was under the influence of his drugs. My eyes were open, but there was no one home. I could tell. There was no me in there. Only my body. My naked body.

  I had been posed, over and over again, different for each picture. He had… made me do stuff. He had me playing with myself. Touching myself. Sexual poses, me on all fours, me with my legs spread, me dry-humping the furniture. One nasty pose after another. In some of them, he’d given me props. A broomstick. A Coke bottle. A dildo stuck in my mouth. A dazed, zoned expression on my face, like I liked it. Like I was drunk and I liked it.

  I fell forward on my hands, heaving. He must not have fed me, because nothing came up, much as I tried. I hurled so hard I expected the lining of my stomach to spew out. I felt sick. Betrayed. Abused. Raped.

  I wanted to throw the pictures away, to lose them, to forget they ever existed. And then I saw the sheet of paper in the bottom of the box. It was a mailing list. All the places he had sent copies of the pictures. All the local television stations. National news agencies. Local radio shows. Police headquarters. The FBI. Chief O’Bannon.

  He’d sent the pictures to Chief O’Bannon’s home.

  Darcy.

  I fell forward, scraping my breasts against the gravel, wanting to hurt myself, wanting to die, wanting this to all be over, just please, please let it be over. I pounded the box with all the force my fists could muster, which wasn’t enough to dent cardboard. Look what he’s done to me, David. Look what I let him do to me.

  Of course it was just a matter of time before I opened the second box. It had been labeled, too: TO HELP YOU FORGET.

  Only one thing inside that one. A quart bottle of scotch whiskey.

  I ripped the lid off the bottle and pressed it to my lips. I was hungry, starved, thirsty, desperate to forget. I opened my mouth and let the liquor course down my throat.

  I gagged. The booze spilled everywhere, all over me. I bathed in it. As soon as I’d stopped choking, I tried again. I would use more restraint this time, I told myself. Just take a sip. A little sip, then another. Sip myself into oblivion. I raised the liquid salvation to my lips.

  This is what he wants you to do.

  I stopped. Where had that come from?

  This is what he wants you to do. Why do you think he gave it to you?

  I pulled the bottle away and stared at it, as if I had never seen such a thing in my life. He was manipulating me, just as he had done from the start. As I had allowed him to do. This is why he let me live. This is why he gave me the bottle. Because he knows I won’t be able to resist.

  And he was so right. So bloody goddamn right.

  He was trying to break me, to destroy what little was left so he could scoop up the pieces and reshape me into whatever he wanted me to be.

  I pushed up to my feet, amazed that I could do it, and walked toward the noise. I stood naked before the god of the waters, staring down from the precipice. It had to be a hundred feet down to the basin, maybe more. I didn’t even have to climb over a barrier. Just one simple step. That’s all it would take to end it, to find peace. Hell of a lot simpler than slashing my wrists with a shard of glass. No one would care. Not after they saw those pictures. And everyone would see those pictures.

  The thundering crash of the water crescendoed in my ears.

  That’s what he wants you to do.

  I stared down into the maelstrom. And saw something I had never seen before.

  That’s when I made up my mind.

  First, I got the goddamn pictures and tossed them in. The next bit was harder, a lot harder. But I did it. I turned the bottle upside down and let it pour out into the abyss. It would’ve been simpler to just toss in the bottle, but this was more satisfying. It occurred to me that I might be spiking the Vegas water supply. Well, tough.

  The booze was gone. The photos were gone. The need to destroy myself was gone, at least for the moment. I was naked, and I didn’t know where I was, and I had no idea how to get back to civilization. Or even if I should.

  I fell back onto the gravel as if I were a bag of boneless meat. And stayed there. In time, I fell asleep. Not unconsciousness, not druginduced stupor, but the real thing.

  And I even dreamed. Or something like it.

  23

  Patrick marched into headquarters, his face taut and lined. He threw his coat at the nearest hook on the rack. It missed, fell in a crumpled heap on the floor. He didn’t notice. He slid behind Susan’s desk and started reviewing all the reports on Susan’s disappearance. Just as he had every day this week. Over and over again.

  “You’ve got messages,” Madeline shouted from the lower floor, waving pink slips in the air.

  “Give them to someone else,” he said, his face buried.

  “They want you.”

  “I don’t have time for crackpots and false confessions.”

  “Some of them say-” She paused, lowered her voice. “They’ve seen Susan.”

  “I’ve followed up on twenty-two Susan sightings. Granger has done more than that. Not a damn one has led to anything.”

  “You got a problem?”

  Patrick whipped his head up. Somehow, O’Bannon was right in front of him. “Sorry. I’ve been… immersed.”

  “So I hear. Obsessed, some say.”

  Patrick craned his neck. “Sir, when an officer is down-”

  He waved it away. “You don’t have to tell me, Chaffee. I’ve known Susan all my life. I used to diaper the girl’s bare bottom.” O’Bannon’s eyes briefly closed. He looked tired, aged. “Madeline says you were making a stink about the files.”

  “I was trying to find out everything I could about Susan. Her background, personnel file, police record.”

  “You think the key to finding her is in her past?”

>   “I don’t know. But profilers are supposed to absorb all the data, collect every scrap of evidence, then come up with some brilliant conclusion. And I’ve read everything else.” He paused. “Except one file. It was logged into the computer index. But I couldn’t find it. Madeline thought maybe you had it.”

  “She was right. It’s restricted.”

  “I don’t know why you pulled it, but if there’s any possibility that it could help us find her-”

  “It’s not about Susan.”

  Patrick stopped, thought a moment. “I found it listed in her directory.”

  “A cross-reference. It’s about her husband. He was a cop, too.”

  “David.”

  O’Bannon frowned. It was obvious that this was a subject he preferred to leave alone. “How much do you know about him?”

  “Not much. Except that he’s dead. And his loss seems to have really hit Susan hard.”

  “It did.”

  “Started her alcoholism.”

  He shrugged. “Certainly a contributing factor.”

  “I know he was a detective. Worked with Granger.”

  “Know anything about his death?”

  He shrugged. “Police work is dangerous. I assumed he was killed in the line of duty.”

  O’Bannon drew in his breath, then slowly released it. “The first part is right. The last part is wrong.”

  “He didn’t-?”

  “They’d been married eight years. Susan probably wasn’t the easiest person on earth to live with, but then David had a temper on him, too. They fought, but no one thought much about it. In a lot of ways, they were perfect for each other.”

  “Chief, are you saying-”

  “They had a big fight that day. Right here at headquarters. Everyone watching. He stormed out. And that was the last time we saw him.”

  Patrick’s lips parted. “No.”

  “Yeah.” He handed Patrick a thin file. “Put his weapon in his mouth and blew his brains out.” O’Bannon shook his head. “I guess he won that argument.”

  I was sitting at a dinner table lit with candles. The soft, rosy glow cast a warm aura across the sumptuous spread. I felt all warm and snuggly.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Rachel answered. “We found you, remember? In the desert. The police brought you back here.”

  I turned my mind back, a mental process that produced physical pain. I remembered wandering around the desert, or trying. But my legs still didn’t work well and could only move a few feet at a time. Something had happened to my right leg, or maybe it was the lingering effect of the drugs. I couldn’t seem to remain conscious long enough to focus my thoughts. I was hungry. And thirsty. I had thought myself very noble when I poured the booze into the brink, but I later came to regret it. I needed to drink. I didn’t need a drink. There was a difference. I kept telling myself.

  “I told you I was going to prepare a very special dinner,” Rachel said. “Don’t you remember any of this?”

  “I-I-”

  Another voice from down the table. “Surely you remember the kiss I gave you when you got home.”

  It was Lisa. Lisa!

  “I mean,” she continued, “I don’t normally go in for kissing chicks. But when my homegirl has been lost in the desert for damn near a week, that’s different. I kissed with wild abandon.”

  “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re going to give me a nickname.”

  “Well…”

  “Or if you do, I want it to be Goddess.”

  Lisa laughed. “Goddess it is.” She held up a platter. “I made my artichoke dip.”

  I gasped. Lisa made awesome artichoke dip. Three different cheeses, mayonnaise, and oh yes I think there’s some artichoke in there somewhere. It is to die for. She hadn’t made it in months. I’d almost forgotten how good it was.

  Rachel held out yet another platter. “Don’t forget the buffalo wings.”

  I gazed down in ecstasy. Another favorite. With bleu cheese on the side, not ranch dressing like some lame-o joints served. “Did you make this?”

  Rachel squirmed. “In a sense.”

  “In what sense?”

  “In the sense that I drove to Chili’s and picked it up.”

  I laughed and pushed six of them onto my plate.

  Lisa chirped up again. “Don’t forget the potato skins.”

  “Potato skins? What kind of a meal is this, anyway?”

  “All your favorite junk,” Rachel explained. “You deserve it.”

  It was too good to be true. “What about the Shepherds? Will they be joining us?”

  She shook her head. “They’ve given up the battle. NDHS, too. It’s sad that it took your being kidnapped for them to realize what a wonderful guardian-parent, really-you’ve been to me. They’ve all agreed that you should have custody.” She giggled. “I’m so glad, Susan. It’s what I’ve wanted all along. I’m coming home.”

  “And… and the basketball? And that church group?”

  “Oh, the Shepherds made me do that stuff. All I want is to be home with you.”

  The flickering glow of the table filled me. I felt a warmth inside, a contentment. Something I couldn’t remember having felt for a long time.

  Granger cleared his throat. “Susan, would this be a good time to tell you something I’ve wanted to say for a good long while?”

  “Well, that depends…”

  “I’m sorry. About the way I’ve behaved.”

  “Oh, you haven’t-”

  “Sure I have. I’ve been a regular bastard and I know it. I knew it when I was doing it. But I just-I just-”

  “I know. David.”

  “It’s not that. Not just that.” He sighed. “It’s because you’re such a good cop. And I know it. Hell of a lot better than I am. Smarter. I feel inferior around you.”

  “You shouldn’t. Let it go.”

  At the end of the table, one chair was empty. The place had been set. “Why isn’t someone there?” I asked.

  “Because you haven’t decided,” Rachel said.

  I gazed about the table. “Surely all this food isn’t for me.”

  “Of course not.” Rachel laughed, then pointed.

  David was sitting at the other end, facing me.

  “You’re back,” I whispered.

  “Surely you knew I couldn’t stay away for long.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  He seemed puzzled. “For what?”

  “For helping me. Back in the desert. Helping me survive.”

  “Oh. Well, there’s a problem with that.”

  “Problem.” My heart raced. All of a sudden I couldn’t catch my breath. “What problem?”

  “You see, Susan…” I knew he didn’t want to go on, but he did. He was always braver than I was. “You’re still in the desert.”

  “I-I am?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “But I can see you. And Rachel and Lisa. And all this food.”

  “Because you’re starving.” He laid his hand gently on mine. “You’re dying, sweetheart.”

  I opened my eyes. The sun blistered. I didn’t know where I was, found it painful to move. My naked skin was burned and scratched and bleeding. I had chills and sweated and shook.

  I had never left the desert. I could hear the crashing of water, but it was more distant than it had been before. Why weren’t there any people around? Shouldn’t there be people? How long had I been wandering? Weak, exposed, lost. Broken.

  Had David said I was dying? But I was already dead. Surely I was already dead.

  24

  She isn’t dead she isn’t dead she isn’t dead I don’t believe that she is dead Mom Mommy is dead and they wouldn’t tell me and everyone looked at me so sad and I didn’t know why and Uncle Braden smelled like rosewater but she couldn’t be dead because if she’s dead then it’s my fault and we won’t have babies and I won’t get to be a policeman and most of all I won’t get to see her and I like her I really really reall
y like her she’s nice to me.

  Why couldn’t I have read that message sooner?

  DAM YOU IM ACELERATING YOUR EDUCATION YOURE NEXT SUSAN

  Dad says I shouldn’t use words like that and I should forget I ever heard them and so I did forget and it took me longer for the letters to talk to me and the Bad Man took Susan. It’s my fault because I’m so stupid stupid stupid I’m a retard just like they say at Dad’s office I’m a stupid stupid retard. Your mother can’t be with you anymore, Bambi. This Bad Man is playing with us he likes to give us clues but we don’t know what they mean and he took Susan and we don’t know where and please let her still be alive please please please Mr. Strickland said that Jesus saves and Jesus protects so please take care of Susan and keep her alive.

  DAM YOU IM ACELERATING YOUR EDUCATION YOURE NEXT SUSAN

  Also if he spelled better it wouldn’t have taken so long and he made mistakes translating the words into code, too. He left out the apostrophes and he didn’t put a period at the end of the sentence and Mrs. Calloway in first grade said I should always put a period at the end of the sentence but I don’t think that way and she smelled moldy like she didn’t brush her teeth enough and he put in the wrong kind of dam I would’ve gotten it sooner if he checked his spelling.

  Unless that’s the trick.

  Dad! I need my dad or Patrick or someone I hate it when they make games with words I never get those stupid jokes because words just say what they say and he used the wrong one unless he meant to use the wrong one because he thought it was funny and maybe we can still help Susan maybe it’s not too late for Susan please don’t let it be too late for Susan please please please please please.

  Why does everyone who’s nice to me have to go away?

  “Paaaa-trick!” Before he could look up, a body fell across the desk, almost head-butting him in the process. It was Chief O’Bannon’s son, Darcy.

  Madeline came running up behind him. “I’m sorry, sir. I told him you didn’t want to be disturbed.”