The Bad Sister

by Kevin O'Brien

  At a determined clip, she headed toward the old campus. On the horizon, over the lake, she could see dark clouds and a storm rolling in.

  Ellie slowed down as she approached the university library, the unofficial dividing line between the campus’s old and new sections. The impressive, three-story structure had some Frank Lloyd Wright influence with its tall, stained glass windows and the way the building jutted over the creek that snaked through most of the old campus. It was a beautiful structure, the jewel of the campus, built in the 1960s, when Blessed Heart of Mary College had expanded.

  Behind Ellie was a one-lane bridge that crossed over the creek to some of the older dorm buildings and St. Agnes Village. The bridge was about four car-lengths long and twenty feet above the stream. Off the overpass, on the library side, was a concrete stairway with a pipe railing. The stairs curved down under the bridge to a walkway that overlooked the creek for about three blocks in the opposite direction of the library. It led to another set of stairs that came up behind the playfield.

  Ellie paused halfway between the start of the bridge and the library’s front entrance. From there, she had a view of a spot farther down the creek—as it deepened into a wooded ravine.

  The body of the first murdered girl had been found there in 1970. She’d been strangled. She’d last been seen leaving this beautiful library late the evening before.

  Ellie felt the wind kick up. She watched the leaves scatter through the gully. She remembered last year, in mid-September, on the anniversary of the first murder, someone had left a funeral wreath by that spot in the ravine. It was clearly visible from where Ellie now stood—as well as from the bridge and the stairway. Ellie didn’t know if someone was being solemn or morbid or what. But after only a couple of hours, the wreath was whisked away at the behest of Father O’Hurley—or so Ellie had heard.

  Whoever had started that fire in the laundry bungalow knew about the Immaculate Conception murders fifty years ago. Ellie wondered if her extreme distrust of Nick Jensen had muddled her thinking. A doll had been torched in a laundry basket—obviously someone’s warped commemoration of the anniversary of that gruesome baby-murder. It had nothing to do with her or Hannah O’Rourke.

  Though she could tell it would start raining soon, Ellie sat down on a bench in front of the library. She wondered if she was wrong about Nick Jensen. Maybe she’d let that collection of hate email from over the summer make her paranoid. All the guy had done was sign up for her journalism class. Based almost entirely on intuition, Ellie had convinced herself that Nick Jensen was vile and horrible. It was based on prejudice, too. On the surface, he seemed nice, and he was very attractive. So—immediately, he couldn’t be trusted. He was capable of awful things. Had Mark really damaged her that badly?

  Ellie told herself she wasn’t completely nuts. After all, what was Nick doing earlier, skulking around the entrance to the men’s locker room? Those were burn scars on his arm, she was almost certain. And why wasn’t his emergency contact person picking up the phone?

  She dug her smartphone out of her bag and found the number she’d called several times since yesterday. She hoped Nick’s sister, Sarah Jensen, could tell her a few things about him. That had been standard operating procedure for Ellie when she’d been a reporter. When investigating someone, she always did her research first—reading up on them and then talking to the subject’s friends, family, and even their enemies. The last person she talked to was the person she was investigating.

  She tried Sarah Jensen again—if such a person even existed. Frowning, she listened to it ring and ring.

  “Hello?” a man said.

  Ellie was caught off guard. “Uh, yes, hello,” she said. “Is Sarah Jensen there, please?”

  “You’ve got the wrong number,” he muttered hurriedly.

  “Um, this is supposed to be an emergency contact number for Nicholas Jensen. Do you, by any chance, know him?”

  “No. I told you, you’ve got the wrong number.” The man hung up.

  * * *

  Donald Sewell, fifty-nine, of Niles, Illinois, was the man who had hung up on her—at least that was the name that popped up when Ellie googled the phone number Nick had provided for “Sarah Jensen.”

  She sat at her desk computer in her tiny, fourth-floor office. It had started raining by the time she’d reached Lombard Hall. The sky had turned so dark that she’d switched on the overhead light in her office. The upper floors were now deserted and quiet. Most of the teachers had already rushed home for the weekend. All Ellie heard was rain pattering against the window and an occasional rumble of thunder. Every once in a while the lights flickered.

  She tried to look up Sarah Jensen, Chicago Suburbs, and Sarah Jensen, Illinois on Google and the online white pages. None of the resulting Sarah Jensens had phone numbers that even came close to the emergency contact number Nick had put on his registration form. Obviously, he’d made up the phone number.

  Had he made up his own name, too? Was his address really on Sunset Ridge Road in Highland Park? Was this his 847-area code number?

  Ellie typed the phone number in the Google search box and entered it. She stared at the first result at the top of the screen:

  Healing Hands—Therapeutic Massage by Nick

  http://www.hhmassageservices.com

  Individual Massage and Bodywork;

  Injury—Maintenance—Wellness;

  In-Calls/Out-Calls—Nick Jensen, LMT (847-555-4195)

  812 Sunset Ridge Road #17, Highland Park, IL 60035

  Ellie clicked on the link, and Jensen’s site came up. A medium-size photo was there, a serious-looking shot of him, standing by a massage table. He wore a tank top and calf-length shorts that showed off his trim, taut body. She recognized him, but his face was mostly in the shadows. And he was posed so that his scarred arm wasn’t in the photo.

  It was strange, but Ellie felt sort of disappointed she hadn’t found his mug shot or his name on some American Family Preservationists roster. He looked like a legitimate masseur. She’d been looking under Nicholas Jensen, and Ellie now realized she would have found him a lot sooner had she tried Nick Jensen. With the abbreviated first name, he was listed under several sites. She checked his customer reviews on Yelp. The earliest one was from six months ago, back in April:

  5 Stars—Great Massage

  I called Nick, and he was able to see me the same day. The massage was in-studio: Clean, comfortable setting, terrific music and a heated table. He was a super-nice guy and very professional. We discussed my back issues upfront. He worked out the kinks. He didn’t talk much during except to check in with me now and then. The time went by way too fast! My stress was gone, the aches and knots were gone. I left there in a state of bliss. I’ll definitely be back.

  – Ed G. (90 minutes/$120)

  Ellie checked the other reviews. Everybody seemed to love him. One man and two women mentioned he was “very handsome,” making her wonder if he was that kind of masseur. Then again, maybe out of habit, she was still looking for something disreputable about him.

  She started to read the last review, from Brad C, another satisfied customer, who appreciated Nick’s “magic work” on his shoulder, injured during a football game.

  The lights flickered again, followed by a crack of thunder. Ellie stopped and looked up at the overhead light. She already felt a tad nervous being completely alone here on the fourth floor. The last thing she wanted was to have all the lights go out.

  She had an umbrella on the hook behind her office door. Ellie figured she’d wait for the storm to die down a little, and then she’d head home.

  Meanwhile, she kept digging for more information about Nick Jensen. She checked some of the other sites, hoping to discover where he practiced before April of this year. She couldn’t find anything. She still didn’t trust him, not after catching him eavesdropping on her conversation with Hannah. And why had he lied about his emergency contact person?

  She was reading some more reviews for him
on another massage site when she heard a door slam in the hallway. It was so loud, Ellie flinched. She sat there for a moment, listening. She didn’t hear any footsteps, just the rain. With trepidation, she finally got to her feet and crept to her office doorway. Poking her head out, she glanced up and down the long, vacant hallway.

  “Hello?” she called nervously. “Is anyone there?”

  No answer. Her heart was racing.

  All the lights flickered again. There was another rumble of thunder, more distant this time.

  Ducking back into her office, Ellie glanced toward the rain-beaded window. She didn’t care if it was pouring out, she didn’t feel safe here. She could finish this up at home. She sat back down for a minute so that she could log off her computer.

  Suddenly, the overhead light went off, and the room was dark.

  Ellie glanced up and saw someone in the doorway. The hallway light in back of him kept his face in the shadows. He may as well have been wearing a dark mask.

  She let out a gasp.

  He switched the light back on. “I didn’t know anyone was in here,” he said.

  It was the custodian, Lance. He still had one hand on the light switch. With his other hand, he took out his music earbuds.

  Wide-eyed, Ellie stared at him. “God, you scared me,” she said, catching her breath. “What—what are you doing here?”

  He frowned. “My job, that’s what I’m doing here. I thought this office was empty.”

  Ellie managed a smile. “Well, it will be in a minute. Carry on.”

  She didn’t know Lance very well, but she had the distinct feeling he didn’t like her or anyone else for that matter. Getting to her feet, Ellie quickly gathered her things, including her umbrella. Her back was to him for a moment.

  “Well, have a nice weekend,” she said to be polite. But when she turned around, he wasn’t in the doorway anymore.

  Ellie moved to the doorway and glanced out at the corridor. He wasn’t in the hallway, but she noticed a light coming from an office two doors down. A shadow moved across the floor in front of the open doorway.

  She switched off the light to her office. Ellie’s hands were shaking as she closed her door and locked it. Then she hurried for the stairwell and started down the steps. The lights flickered again as she passed the door to the second floor. She practically bolted down the last flight.

  Ellie didn’t start to feel safe until she reached the first-floor corridor, where some students were lingering after the last class of the day.

  Stepping outside, she finally got her breath. She stood there for a moment, feeling the rain on her face. Then she opened her umbrella and headed toward the teachers’ parking lot.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Lombard Hall. Her eyes moved up to the fourth floor. She noticed all the office windows were dark—all except one.

  She saw his silhouette framed in the window. He was perfectly still.

  And she knew he was looking down at her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Friday, 8:55 P.M.

  Eden recognized the man who had just sat down at the end of the counter in the Sunnyside Up Café. It was Nicholas Something, the older guy from her journalism class.

  Sitting midway between them, a trucker hunched over his fried chicken dinner. Eden couldn’t tell if her classmate had seen her yet. Sipping her lemonade, she made no effort to catch his eye.

  She’d been alone at the bungalow earlier, just her and the ghosts in the garden next door. Hannah was at some sorority recruitment dinner—Eden’s idea of hell. And Princess Rachel was out on the town with her boy-buddy, Alden.

  Life in bungalow twenty was still a bit fractured and weird after Rachel’s big reveal on Wednesday. But it was all pretty familiar to Eden, who had gone through this two years ago.

  She knew what it was like to reach out to people who were family and have them treat you like some stranger with a secret agenda. Of course, in her case with the O’Rourkes, that was exactly what she was: a stranger with a secret agenda. Still, Eden had tried to let Rachel know that she understood how she felt.

  “Thank you, that’s really nice of you,” Rachel had said, giving her a pinched smile. “But I really don’t think it’s the same situation at all.”

  Eden figured what the hell. She didn’t have to be Rachel’s pal and confidant any more than she’d needed to be buddies with Hannah when she’d first moved in with the O’Rourkes. As long as Rachel kept paying for her scholarship, Eden wouldn’t complain.

  One bizarre result of Wednesday’s news was that Hannah had suddenly become closer to her. Last night, Hannah had even said that she didn’t want her to move out. “I’d really like it if you stayed,” she’d told Eden. “Just, please, see if you can be a little less of a slob.”

  Eden wasn’t sure how long this strange sisterly bonding would last. Hannah was so fascinated with Rachel that it probably wouldn’t be long before the two of them were chummy-chummy again—maybe even closer than before, since they were sisters now. Then, Eden figured, soon enough, Hannah would go back to treating her like somebody’s pet reptile.

  But in the meantime, Hannah was still pretty torn up about Rachel’s bombshell announcement. She wanted to tell her parents. But Eden didn’t see what good that would do right now—especially since Rachel and her folks wanted to keep it secret for a while.

  Eden had spent most of her life knowing about “Dylan’s other bastard.” She’d managed to keep it to herself for the last two years while living with Hannah’s family. They’d already been shaken up enough—especially Hannah’s poor mother, Sheila. And Hannah’s two younger brothers didn’t need to know about another surprise half-sister. As for Dylan, he was now a beaten, broken man. Why tell anyone right now? They were all in Seattle. It wasn’t like they were going to meet Rachel any time soon.

  The afternoon thunderstorm hadn’t lasted long. But Eden had gotten her sneakers muddy taking the shortcut through the woods. Sketchy as Lance seemed, he’d been right about the shortcut. It was the fastest way to town and back, and only mildly creepy at night now that Eden knew the way.

  Roseann, Eden’s waitress from the other night, was working this evening. She set a plate of oatmeal pancakes and a sticky-looking glass decanter of maple syrup on the counter in front of Eden. Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” played over the sound system. The trucker left his money on the counter and headed out the door.

  “Breakfast for dinner is always an excellent choice,” Nicholas What’s-His-Name commented from the other end of the counter.

  Eden hesitated before smothering the pancakes in syrup. She glanced at him. “You won’t get an argument from me.”

  “We’re in the same journalism class,” he said. “I thought you looked familiar.”

  Nodding, Eden cut into her stack of pancakes.

  “My name’s Nick.”

  Eden nodded again. “I know. And you’re . . .” she lowered her voice to imitate him, “‘self-employed.’”

  He laughed. “Do I really sound like that?”

  “Very mysterious,” she said. She took her first bite, and the pancakes were delicious.

  “Do you mind if I sit next to you?”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  He brought his sweater, the menu, and his glass of water to the spot beside her and sat down. Roseann was there in front of him on the other side of the counter with her pad ready. “Can I have the breakfast special?” he asked her. “The eggs scrambled, bacon, and wheat toast. Oh, and a Coke, too, please.”

  “You got it, hon,” Roseann said, scribbling on her pad as she moved toward the kitchen.

  He draped his sweater on the back of his barstool and turned to Eden. “So—you’ve noticed me in class . . .”

  “You’re kind of hard to miss. You’re the only one in the room over twenty—except for the teacher.” She ate another forkful of pancakes.

  “What do you think of Ellie Goodwin?” he asked.

  “I like her. She’s smart.”


  “I like her, too,” he said. “But I don’t think she cares much for me. I’m trying to figure out why.”

  “Maybe it’s because she can’t get a handle on you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s just what I said. You’re the mystery man. You stick out. And when she asked, you wouldn’t tell her anything about what you do for a living except”—Eden lowered her voice again—“‘I’m self-employed.’ Even I thought that was weird. And I really don’t give a shit what you do.”

  “I’m a massage therapist.”

  “Legitimate?”

  “No, I’m a male prostitute. What do you think?” He chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve got a state license, a certificate, and the whole deal. Of course, I’m legitimate. That’s the first question you ask? And you wonder why I don’t want to announce to the class what I do.”

  Sighing, Eden cut herself another forkful of her pancakes. “Sorry, my bad. So—are you from around here or what?”

  “Yep, I’ve lived in the Chicago area all my life.”

  “What’s a massage therapist doing taking a journalism class?”

  “Like I told the teacher, I just want to become a better writer. It has nothing to do with my job.” He sipped his water. “How about you? Why are you interested in journalism?”

  Eden had a mouthful of food, so she didn’t answer for a moment.

  “What I mean is,” he said, “I remember reading about you and your sister a couple of years ago. I figured, after all of your experiences with reporters, you’d both be pretty fed up with journalists in general. So it was kind of a surprise to see you two in a journalism class.”

  Eden stopped eating and studied him. She wondered what his angle was. He was right about one thing. She’d been around enough reporters to distinguish the sneaky ones with a secret agenda and the ones out to trash her. She wasn’t sure if he was a reporter or not—or what he was exactly—but she was almost certain this Nick guy was a sneaky one.