Shallow River

by H. D. Carlton

  I wish Mako was here.

  I turn the T.V. up louder, some reality show on that I’ve hardly paid attention to. I’m hoping the privileged women complaining about their lives will help drown out the very scary thoughts threatening to send me into a panic attack.

  A SOFT NOISE FILTERS through my dreams, coaxing my brain away from the dream and back into reality. Bright flashes of light flicked across my lids before the nasally voices from the T.V. follow suit. Reruns of that reality show are still playing.

  God, how long has it been?

  My heart starts to pound as a sick feeling starts to settle in. Something woke me up. The air feels different. Like someone is in the room with me.

  Heart in my throat, I slowly crack open my eyes until the room comes into view. Nothing immediately jumps out at me. Nothing amiss except for the feeling of eyes on me.

  Light flickers across the expansive living room, casting dancing shadows across the room. The dining room connects to the living room, which will also lead to the kitchen where one wall is all windows. Ryan had mentioned that that glass was hurricane-proof but it doesn’t mean someone can’t find a creative way in if they truly set their mind to it.

  I lift up on my arm, my eyes staring deeply into the darkness, praying I don’t find someone in the shadows watching me. My instincts are blaring red right now, and I can’t see why just yet. Just when I begin to relax a little, a foot steps out from the dining room. I jump up, the blankets tangling in my legs and nearly tripping me as a body emerges from the shadows.

  I freeze when his face comes into view. Every warning I told myself earlier has come to fruition. I knew he’d come for me. I fucking knew it.

  “Hey, Billy,” I greet, my voice trembling. There’s no point in hiding my fear. Billy knows the taste of it well by now.

  “Did you miss me?” he asks, his voice low and sinister. He’s dressed in a suit, as usual. Impeccable as ever, even when he’s about to conduct a kidnapping. He’s thinner than the last time I saw him, his suit not as fitted as it usually is. His skin is grayer, and there are acne scabs scattered across his face.

  The meth is getting to him. His body is deteriorating.

  Piercing eyes penetrate me from across the room. It was always Billy’s scariest quality. Never mind the massive scar on his weathered face, or the intimidating nature in which Billy carries himself. It was always his eyes. Cold, dark, and dead. Even meth can’t dim the darkness in those eyes.

  “I always do,” I whisper, detangling my legs from the blanket and standing tall. Thank God I dressed myself into sweatpants and a t-shirt. Billy would’ve taken great pleasure in molesting my body with his eyes if I was wearing anything remotely revealing.

  My personal boogieman stuffs his hands deep into his black slacks and stares at me with a detached expression. Shivers race down my spine, despite the warmth in the house. If I ran right now, Billy would chase me. I may know this house better than he does, but he has far more experience as the cat hunting down the mouse. He would catch me eventually.

  “What are you doing here, Billy?” I ask, swallowing nervously. He takes another step forward. My eyes glance to the entrance to the foyer. I can’t back up any further with the couch pressed into my legs.

  “Don’t play stupid, River. You know exactly why I’m here,” he growls lowly.

  My heart drops. Where the fuck is my phone? Probably lodged between the cushions of the couch. Nowhere that’s easily reachable. And definitely not in a spot where I could sneak it into my pocket. Billy’s watching me like a hawk, waiting for me to twitch in a manner that he doesn’t like before he pounces.

  “What did Barbie tell you?”

  “You know I’m hurt,” he cuts in before the words barely finish leaving my mouth. “I raised you, River. Watched you grow into a young woman. Taught you many life lessons. I thought we had a bond.” My heart speeds up when he walks closer. Closer, and closer until a monster is standing directly in front of me.

  His eye twitches, the only sign that Billy is angry. I don’t know if he’s on meth right now or not, but Billy can be really good at hiding when he’s riding high on drugs if he needs to be. Ever the professional. Just like Ryan, he always cared about his reputation and image with people. He would never live it down if he looked like some tweaker from the streets.

  “Billy, I don’t know what Barbie tol—” The loud slap rings in my ear before the burning sensation fully sets in. I close my eyes against as the fire finally catches up, setting the nerves in my face ablaze. I glue my teeth shut, learning my lesson not to speak.

  “Don’t fucking lie to me,” he spits, letting the blank mask slip for a few terrifying seconds, before donning the mask once more. The switch—quickly turning from one person to the next—is unsettling to watch. Calm and collected one second, to raging mad another, and then back to calm as if I hallucinated the anger.

  I don’t speak again, not trusting the right words to come out of my mouth. There are no right words. He’s angry and it doesn’t matter what I say. In his eyes, there’s no excusing the fact that I sold him out to the police. To a detective.

  “Do you realize how much money it’s going to cost to clear my name?” he asks, tilting his body down to eye level. His breath reeks of spearmint gun, the sharp smell invading my senses. Billy always loved to chew gum. He said it would look unprofessional to kill someone with bad breath.

  I shake my head once, tightening my lips into a firm, white line. His hand snaps out, startling me as he grabs a fist full of hair and wrenches my face into his. I jump, a scream loosing from my throat. Dead eyes stare into widened eyes filled with terror.

  “You betrayed me, River. Your own father.”

  A gasp lodges in my throat. My body freezes and my eyes squeeze shut. From pain. Denial. Absolute rage.

  I convinced myself Barbie was lying to me, just to hurt me further. Twist the knife that was already plunged in my heart when Mako found out I was lying to him. I refused to actually consider what she was saying. Refused, refused, refused.

  “You’re lying,” I spit through gritted teeth, my body resuming its fight tenfold. Burning rage consumes me. There’s no way Billy is my fucking father. “My father could be anyone.”

  Billy’s dark laugh reaches my ears and slithers down into my soul, cracking it just a little bit more.

  “I had a paternity test done when you were born,” he admits, shrugging a shoulder as if he isn’t currently tearing my life apart. Tears burn my retinas, those words eliciting a response in me I can’t quite describe. Barbie could never tell me who my father was—at least that’s what she always led me to believe. Any time I asked, she’d scoff at me and ask me how many clients she fucks in a week. I could never give her an answer.

  “I don’t look anything like you,” I argue, a last ditch effort to catch him in a lie.

  He smiles sardonically. “You’re right. But you got your eyes from my mother.” My eyes narrow, still not ready to believe him.

  “You look so much how Barbie did when she was your age. Beautiful. But those eyes, they’re exactly like my mother’s. Always filled with fire and brimstone. And you know what?” He pauses, waiting for my response.

  “What?” I grit out.

  “I hated my mother.”

  Twenty Five

  Mako

  NEVER IN MY LIFE did I think I’d be sitting here consoling my mother as we bury her son—my brother. Not that I could ever technically call him that. He was never much of a brother and more of an abuser. That’s what he was to many people.

  Mom’s head is resting on my shoulders, bawling her sad blue eyes out as we lower Ryan’s casket into the ground on a chilly Saturday morning. An empty casket. Dad’s on the other side of her, barely holding it together as he hugs his wife from the other side, his arm firmly wrapped around her tiny waist. It’s taking everything in me not to lift my arm back and clock him. Doesn’t matter that I hated Ryan, it doesn’t change the fact that he raped a little boy fo
r who knows how many years. Did he ever really stop?

  That’s something I’ll never know.

  I haven’t told Mom the truth about him, yet. I tried, but it was so hard to do while she’s grieving the death of her son. I’m scared to see how she’ll react when she has to grieve her husband, too.

  As many people there are that cared about Ryan, Mom and Dad insisted on a personal funeral. Immediate family only, with the obvious inclusion of his girlfriend.

  She’s not fucking here, though. Not sure if it’s because she didn’t think she could handle being able to keep up the pretense of grieving a man that hurt her in so many ways, or if she didn’t come because she didn’t want to face me. Either way, Mom and Dad are upset she didn’t make it, without a word as to why.

  And me? I’m just fucking pissed.

  Part of me doesn’t feel I have the right to be angry. Ryan did some pretty fucked up shit to her, and if she doesn’t want to show up to his funeral, then she shouldn’t have to. Maybe I’m just angry because it would’ve given me an excuse to see her. Talk to her. Even if it would’ve just been an angry-filled exchange, it would’ve soothed something in my soul to see her again.

  “No mother should ever have to bury their child,” Mom whispers from beside me, dabbing her nose with her tissue daintily.

  “I know, Mom,” I whisper back, feeling a million different shades of guilty when I’m the one that helped put him in the ground—or rather, a bunch of pig’s stomachs. I don’t feel guilty that it happened, I feel guilty that my mother is the one ultimately suffering for it.

  The priest says a few prayers. Mom steps forward, Ryan’s childhood teddy bear clutched in her hand. Supposedly, when he was a baby, he never let that thing go. It was his comfort when he was scared, clutching the teddy bear with tiny hands, convinced that it’d keep him safe. Mom decided to bury it with his casket in the hopes that he’ll find comfort in the bear even in death.

  She throws the bear, crouches down and with a heartbreaking sob and throws the first handful of dirt on the casket. Dad slowly walks up to join her, fisting the dirt like it personally wronged him, his knuckles bleeding into white, before throwing his handful on the casket as well. They asked me to do the small tradition, too, but I declined. I think I have enough bad karma built up, there’s no need to rub it in by pretending I care that much.

  They rejoin my side as the dirt begins to pile on, scoop by scoop.

  “Where do you think she is?” Mom asks softly from beside me, her tears still freshly falling.

  I sigh, not sure how to answer. “From what I know about her, she’s not used to the family thing. I don’t think she’s the type of person that finds solace from other people. She probably just needed to be alone today, Mom.”

  Mom nods, accepting that answer. Always the most kind-hearted person, never judging others. “Everyone grieves differently,” she says. “I hope she knows she can always find a family in us.”

  My heart clenches, for reasons I can’t even name. I can’t tell if it hurts that she’d be included in the family as Ryan’s girlfriend, and not mine. How would Mom even react to that? River and I falling in love with each other? Sometimes it’s hard to say with her. She’s understanding, but she’s also never dealt with a death of a child before. She could react in ways even neither of us would expect.

  Not that it matters much anymore, anyway. River lied to me repeatedly for several months. I get that we weren’t on the best of terms—to no fault of my own—but she couldn’t open her fucking mouth at any point when I was helping her cover up my brother’s murder?

  Fuck, she even tried getting the answer out of Ryan before she killed him, already knowing the answer herself. And she still kept her mouth shut. It hurts. It hurts that she knew how badly I wanted to solve this case, how much it was getting to me, and she didn’t care enough about me to end my misery.

  I’m a damn good detective, I know that. I’m on the verge of getting promoted to Sergeant, for fuck’s sake. Every detective has their one. The one criminal that gave them absolute hell to catch. The Ghost Killer was mine, and no part of me would’ve been ashamed if River revealed her suspicions to me.

  The only thing that pisses me off more than River lying to me is the fact that the Ghost Killer was right under my nose the entire time, attempting to fuck with the investigation anyway he could. After his story started changing, I stopped relying on him. Stopped listening. Long term use of meth fucks with your memory and Billy is no stranger to tasting his own product. It started off as just a few minor details that changed, and then eventually, some key details.

  It makes me wonder what would’ve happened to the investigation if Billy would’ve came to me as a sober man. I loathe to admit that he probably would’ve succeeded in fucking with my case. I wouldn’t have been chasing him this long if he wasn’t a smart man. I guess I can be thankful for meth if it means I have a stone-cold killer starting to make mistakes.

  The fire inside me has been raging since the moment I saw Benedict Davis on River’s phone, staring at the camera with cold, dead eyes and an expression that would better suit your nightmares. And those scars. Those goddamn scars. I’ve been tempted to ask Benedict how he got them when interviewing him, but I always kept my mouth shut. Now, all I want to do is give him new ones. The flames are being stoked, wood thrown into the inferno now that Benedict—or Billy—is missing.

  Now that I know who the Ghost Killer is, he has no fucking chance of escaping me now.

  I PUT MOM TO bed only an hour ago when my phone begins to buzz in my pocket. I ignore it for now, more focused on making sure my distraught mother is okay. Couldn’t give a fuck less how Dad is feeling. But the buzzing is insistent and soon Dad is snapping at me to answer the phone already. I listen if only for the fact to get away from him.

  With a sigh, I answer, “Mako.”

  “Mako? Oh my God, Mako. Thank God.”

  My brow creases, not recognizing the voice over the phone.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Amelia, River’s best friend.”

  My heart stops and everything around me freezes. If River’s friend is calling me, that means something happened. Something bad.

  “Where’s River?” I ask, a bite to my tone.

  “That’s just the fucking thing, I don’t know! I was just at her house yesterday, and while she was stuck on the couch crying, she was otherwise fine. And then I go back over today to drop off some comfort food and the house is trashed! She’s gone, Mako, she’s fucking gone and I know it was Billy. I know he fucking took her!”

  By the end of her rant, she’s hysterical and I’m shaking from… fuck, from so many things. Potent fury is coursing through my veins. That motherfucker took my girl, and now there is no hope that I’ll be bringing back Billy alive. The second I get my hands around that asshole’s neck… I can’t think about it right now, I need to focus on finding River.

  “I’m heading to her house now. Stay there.”

  I hang up the phone and rush out of the house, Dad’s concerned questions chasing me out. I don’t have the brain space to hear them, let alone give a solid answer.

  I’m peeling out of the driveway and speeding towards Ryan’s house, donning my sirens to get there faster. Ryan lives about fifteen minutes away from our parents. I get there in five.

  Throwing the gear in park, I don’t even bother turning the engine off before I’m nearly stumbling out of the car and into Ryan’s house. Amelia is in the living room, pacing a hole in the carpet with steady streams of hot tears trailing down her face. Amelia chirps with relief and then throws herself at me and hugs my midsection, crying into my chest.

  Shock renders me helpless, my arms splayed out with awkwardness for a moment before my brain catches up. I relax my arms and wrap them loosely around her back, listening to her garbled words while anxiously looking around the house, searching for any sign on what happened to River.

  “I need you to tell me anything you know. Did Riv
er mention anything the last time you spoke? Did she seem scared or express any concerns that Billy was coming for her? Anything at all?”

  Amelia steps back and rests her hands on her swollen stomach. Her mascara is smudged on my white t-shirt, but I couldn’t give a shit less.

  “She didn’t say the words, but yes, she was terrified. We had a brief conversation about it. I asked her to come live with me and she nearly bit my head off for suggesting it, knowing that it would put me and my baby in danger. I asked if the cameras were back on and she said yes. That was about the extent of it.”

  Sobs crawl up her throat and wrack her body once more. She drops her head in her hands, covering her face. My own hands rip through my hair, tugging until the sharp pain rivals in the pain in my chest. I can’t fucking breathe.

  River knew Billy was going to come for her.

  And I was too fucking selfish and stewing in my own anger to realize this. I should’ve fucking known. I should’ve known Billy wouldn’t let Barbie and River’s revelation go unpunished. The man is hooked on meth and paranoid that all his men are betraying him on a good day.

  Fuck!

  That’s the whole reason the Ghost Killer even came about. His paranoia. His complete conviction that no one can be trusted.

  I swear to God, if I find River murdered with that fucking word carved in her chest…

  “What are we going to do?” Amelia cries, pulling me away from my violent and very unhelpful thoughts.

  I’ve already started carefully picking around the house. Looking at the only evidence I have. Blood spatter is on the carpet, not enough to be fatal, but enough to stall my heart in my chest. A fleece blanket is tossed on the floor, strands of curly black hair lying on top of it. Could’ve been from natural shedding, but I have a feeling it’s from Billy yanking her around by her hair.

  The more I see, the more the red haze in my vision deepens. More blood on the dining room floor, this time in streaks as if a body was dragged across the blood. He made her bleed somehow, hopefully from a nose bleed rather than anything more brutal like being stabbed or cut. Then he dragged her into the dining room, more than likely by her hair based off a few more strands stuck in the blood. Half a footprint is stamped on the ground, likely from her kicking her feet.