The Follower

by Koethi Zan

  ‘Jesus, Reed.’ Joy shook her head. ‘Freak.’

  Reed ignored Joy and moved over closer to Cora. He got down on one knee on the matted shag rug and took her hand in his, stroking it slowly and deftly down the middle with one finger. Her skin tingled.

  ‘We need to do something, Laura,’ Reed continued quietly. His smile was gone and now he stared intently into her eyes, further casting his spell. ‘Something fun. I’m so fucking bored. Are you bored, Laura?’

  Cora shook her head. She didn’t like the strange look on his face, didn’t understand where he was going with this.

  ‘Nope. I’m happy at the moment. Let’s just chill out. Smoke some more.’ Leaning her head back, she somehow managed to drag her eyes away from his. She closed them, trying to look relaxed and unconcerned. She wanted to play it cool.

  Reed dropped her hand and sat down on the floor, legs crossed, perhaps giving up on her but she avoided the temptation to open her eyes to check.

  ‘What about the caves?’ Joy said, handing Reed the joint.

  Johnny stood up, turned down the volume on the stereo.

  ‘The cops have blocked off the good ones. After those two kids died down there last spring,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘Oh, yeah, we could never get in there,’ Reed said facetiously. ‘What with all that big bad police tape across the entrances.’

  Cora glanced at her watch. Nine ten.

  She stood up in a panic.

  ‘Listen, sounds fun and all, but actually I gotta go.’

  ‘Why? You claustrophobic?’ Joy said, then blew out a long stream of smoke. ‘Afraid of a little carbon-monoxide poisoning? Or afraid Reed will make us all do a charismatic dance of sexual shame?’ She laughed, one hand twisting her hair around her fingers, glancing up at Reed.

  ‘Relax, Laura, it’ll be fun.’ She leaned over and squeezed Cora’s arm. ‘You’ll see. A sort of welcome party for you.’

  ‘I’m not worried about the caves. I’m afraid of my father. I told him I’d be back by nine.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Joy said, bolting upright. ‘You’d better get your ass outta here then. From what I hear around town, I do not want that motherfucker coming here to find you.’ She said it jokingly, but Cora could tell she was sincere.

  Reed stood up.

  ‘Okay, tomorrow then,’ he said decisively, still staring at Cora, his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

  ‘Tomorrow what?’ asked Cora as she slung on her jacket and leaned down for her book bag. Her hand was already on the door. She hated to leave. Hated to stop staring into his blue eyes.

  ‘The caves. Tomorrow after school. We’ll go to the caves. See what happens down in the dark.’ He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him lasciviously, but whipped his head back just before his lips reached hers. He laughed.

  ‘Just fucking with you.’

  She knew that. He was so strange. No matter how weird he was, she secretly wished he was interested in her that way, but he didn’t seem to have those kinds of feelings for anyone. It only made her want him more, this delicious temptation that was out of her reach.

  No one offered Cora a ride home. She was disappointed and yet relieved, almost happy to hitch her way back to the RV camp just outside of town. She had, after all, worked particularly hard to keep it a secret from this new crowd. It would be difficult for her to get back home in winter when people didn’t like to stop, but still she was grateful her father had finally put together enough money for a trailer with its very own propane heater. Before that they’d had to move south for the winter. Now they might be able to stay here. Here, where she had friends. Where she wasn’t such a freak anymore. Here, where there was Reed Lassiter.

  CHAPTER 12

  Adam’s alarm was blasting out radio static, but he couldn’t open his eyes. What had hit him? His head pounded and his face felt hot and sticky. He smashed the snooze button with his left hand and flung his right over to the other side of the bed where it landed on warm flesh.

  Now he remembered exactly what had hit him. He bolted upright in bed. There was Deirdre, the assistant librarian, sprawled out over two thirds of the mattress, unaffected by the sound spewing out of the clock. Her white skin glowed in the half-light of the room, pure and smooth against the orange-and-gold plaid comforter.

  He covered her, stood up, and slid on his pants.

  They’d gotten carried away last night and he’d brought her back to his place for the first time. That’s what happened when he drank and he knew better. He’d always been able to leave her apartment when he was ready, but he couldn’t just throw her out of here. Not after two months of seeing each other almost every day.

  She was beautiful there though, wasn’t she? He sighed. In another life, things might have been different. He might have let this fling get serious.

  He went into the bathroom and ran the water at a trickle. If she woke up, she’d expect things from him. He knew her well enough by now. She’d want to spend the day together – it was Sunday after all. She’d want to read the paper in bed, have brunch, and discuss geo-politics or the latest in light literary fiction.

  That’s why he avoided this type of thing. No one else ever understood the urgency of his task. Everyone else moved forward with their mundane lives at a tedious pace, watching television, taking classes, carpooling, filling out paperwork, searching for décor ideas. All as if there weren’t people in danger, people who needed saving. Every second he wasted on his own dreary personal life was a second someone could be suffering.

  People were out there, waiting for him.

  She shifted in her sleep. Adam stood still for a moment, holding his breath.

  ‘Adam,’ she mumbled. His heart sank. Now he’d be stuck. She sat up groggily, with a suggestive smirk on her face. ‘Well, hello there.’

  ‘Oh, hi. Good morning.’

  ‘You sleep okay? You were having some kind of nightmare last night. Remember it?’

  Oh, he remembered. They started the same way every time. He watched from the womb, seeing everything in wide angle, cat’s eye, through flesh and pulsating blood vessels. His tiny baby hands reached out to save her but they were blocked by his mother’s abdominal wall, a red transparent barrier of veins.

  ‘Hm. No idea. That’s weird.’

  She shrugged and leaned over the side of the bed, grabbed her shirt from yesterday off the floor and slipped it over her shoulders. She stood up, stretched her arms, and yawned, then surveyed the room in awe.

  ‘What’s all this?’ He followed her gaze, seeing the room as if for the first time through her eyes.

  She stared at the bulletin board he’d installed over the dresser, which was covered in cut-out newspaper articles, blown-up photos of a bloodied eye, a stitched torso, a hand splayed open in a sea of garbage, copies of map sections with his notes in tiny letters on the side, bright blue string connecting them all in an intricate web only he could understand.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have brought her here.

  ‘Whoa, this is totally psycho.’ She shivered and crossed her arms, glancing at the stacked boxes of files. She spun around and studied the pictures above the bed. He cringed inwardly. He couldn’t explain those to her. They were copies of family photos of his sister, at two, at four, at seven, on her bike, in the snow, blowing out birthday candles.

  She was obviously perplexed.

  ‘This is normal protocol,’ he said, shrugging. ‘How else do you think cases get solved?’

  ‘Why is it here? Don’t you have an office somewhere? Like at the police station?’

  ‘My office is in St. Paul.’ The fingers of his left hand twitched ever so slightly.

  ‘Why wouldn’t the local police give you space?’

  He wiped his face, hoping to hide his discomfort.

  ‘Because no one cares about a cold case, especially one that’s twenty-one years old. I’m on my own.’

  She looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘How’d you draw the
short straw?’

  A thousand voices were jumbled in his head, attempting to give order to the myriad complexities involved in the situation.

  ‘Long story.’ He felt a sweat break out on his back.

  Before he could stop her, she dropped to her knees and started rifling through one of the boxes, finally lifting up a plastic bag of bloodied fabric samples.

  ‘Don’t touch that,’ he said, pulling it out of her hands.

  ‘Shouldn’t that be locked up? Chain of custody and all? I’ve seen crime shows, you know.’ She sat back on her heels, brow furrowed. ‘Adam, what’s going on here? Why are there evidence bags in your motel room?’

  He didn’t answer, couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Adam? You’d better tell me or I’ll assume something is seriously wrong and start screaming.’ Her wide eyes darted to the door. He saw what she was planning. He couldn’t let her leave, couldn’t let her tell people. Either he’d have to come clean and hope she could keep a secret, or do something dire, though he didn’t know what. He’d have to take a chance.

  ‘Okay, okay, let me explain. Sit down.’

  She found her pants on the floor, pulled them on, and sat down, twisting at her shirt nervously.

  ‘I had a little trouble on the force a few years ago, so they gave me this cold case. A triple homicide. They thought of it as a sort of paid leave of absence frankly. No one can solve these kinds of cases. Witnesses are gone, evidence is locked away, missing or mislabeled, relatives want to move on. That sort of thing. It still matters though. It matters a lot.’

  She nodded hesitantly.

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, nothing big. A little drinking on the job.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I can handle that.’ She let out her breath. ‘So then what? They give you the case. And then they send you out on the road with the evidence? That doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘Not exactly. No. You see, I made a … mistake on this case the first time around. I thought I knew who did it. A janitor at the school. Eugene Woodlawn. I tracked him for months and I was sure. I couldn’t prove it though.’

  She looked at him expectantly, so he went on.

  ‘They found a ton of narcotics in that apartment – cocaine, ecstasy – you name it. We all assumed these murders were connected to drugs. So when I heard a rumor that the janitor had been dealing to kids at school, I put two and two together. And then when I examined the evidence one last time, I found a note in the lining of the jacket of one of the victims. It was from the other murdered boy arranging to meet up at an apartment the day of the killings. I checked the record and no one had logged it. It gave me an idea.’

  She winced.

  ‘And was it a good idea, Adam?’

  He blushed.

  ‘No, it was a bad one. I … Everything I did, I did in good faith, Deirdre. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Neither of them moved a muscle.

  He was surprised how much he wanted to tell her what he’d never told anyone before. Not his lawyer, not his chief, not his mother. He’d tried to forget it had happened, but he needed to get it off his chest and something about her drew him in, made him feel safe. He needed this, though even thinking about saying the words made him feel like vomiting.

  ‘I helped things along.’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘Helped?’

  ‘I was sure he’d done it. Positive. But I couldn’t prove it. I had to connect Eugene to the scene of the crime.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So I planted the note.’

  He saw the shock on her face, but it was too late to stop now.

  ‘It gets worse.’ He swallowed.

  ‘I led a raid into his apartment. Full-on SWAT team. I’ll never forget it. The guy was sitting there, on this tattered green couch, eating microwaved chicken nuggets in front of the television. We burst in, and then there were gunshots. Three of them. So I fired back.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The gunshots were from the television.’

  She winced.

  ‘And Eugene?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Then a few weeks later, exonerated.’

  ‘Oh, Adam.’

  ‘Yeah, iron-clad alibi.’

  She shook her head slowly.

  ‘It was a mistake. You thought there’d be a trial. That he’d only go to jail, right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Exactly. But they put me on medical leave. Indefinitely. They were more worried about a riot than my mental health, I can tell you that.’

  ‘But you didn’t stop investigating.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you took the evidence. Stole it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Adam. This is bad.’ She buried her face in her hands.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What do you think you can accomplish here? The evidence is tainted even if you do solve it.’

  Her luminous eyes studied his face. She was losing faith, he could tell.

  ‘I’ll put it back. Trust me, no one will notice. I’ll re-interview witnesses. I’ll do everything by the book once I know who did it. It will be fine. The ends justify the means sometimes.’

  ‘And if you solve it, you think they’ll reinstate you?’

  ‘Of course they will. No one thinks this case can be solved. It’s a write-off. If I can do it – well, it’s my only chance.’ He looked at her, unable to read her expression.

  ‘So, are you going to turn me in?’

  They stared at each other for a long time. He could see the doubts flickering across her face, but in the end, she let out a sigh.

  ‘Maybe I’m a fool, but I’m not going to turn you in, Adam. I believe you’re a good person, I really do. And the victims deserve justice.’ She paused. ‘I just don’t know how I can fit in to all of this.’ She waved an arm toward the bulletin board.

  ‘And there’s still one thing I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  She pointed to the wall over the bed.

  ‘Who’s the little girl?’

  CHAPTER 13

  Julie had been wrong to get her hopes up. The Evil One had come back even more terrible than before. She didn’t know what he’d been up to while he was away but there was a row of badly done stitches over his ribs encrusted with blood. That couldn’t be healthy.

  Julie hoped it was some girl who fought back hard, did him some damage. If only she’d managed to kill him – but no woman could fight that brute and win. Perhaps someone’s boyfriend or father caught him in the act, ripped him off her, had a weapon.

  She was glad he was hurt, even if he’d taken it out on her this morning. Even if she had a busted lip and a bruised eye, and had to put her cheek against the floor, unable to move for what must have been two hours, it was worth it to savor his fresh wounds. She decided to imagine that whoever did that to him, did it for her. An act of revenge without even knowing it.

  She was sure his old lady would take care of him though. It was like she was under a fucking spell. It couldn’t be his looks, not with his greasy hair hanging down over those watery, red-rimmed eyes, the right one twitching when he got excited. He looked like the losers Julie used to see begging for drug money on St. Mark’s Place.

  And whatever came out of his mouth was crazy, blithering mumbo jumbo. His fucking prophesies, his ‘whithers’ and ‘thous’. A giant load of crap. A desperation move – this religious tripe – because he sure wasn’t winning anyone over with his sense of humor and charm. A real world-class loser. Both of them, really. Birds of a feather.

  She had to face it though, the evidence did not bode well for her. She’d noticed the dark brown stains between the linoleum tiles. And the forethought that had gone into the room. The toilet and sink, the four locks on the outside of the door. It was pretty obvious they’d done this before and most likely intended to do it again.

/>   After she was gone.

  If she weren’t smart, really fucking smart, she would die in this room. And that would be only after he had done more unspeakable things to her. She didn’t cry as often now, which was a shame because that was the one activity that brought her relief. Once the tears had dried up, she was left with nothing but her spinning regrets. She hadn’t been brought up to deal with this kind of situation. She hadn’t been raised for disaster. She had to learn it all the hard way.

  It kept hitting her that – after everything, after building her life so carefully, after working so hard toward all her goals, the years of late nights studying to make all As, the dance rehearsals, the long nights talking with Mark – this would be how it all ends. In this stupid, senseless nightmare. Something she’d barely considered, something she’d thought was statistically impossible. A horror story made-for-TV. Only now she was the star.

  She was so caught up in self-pity that she didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs until it was almost too late. Both sets. They were together this time, which was a first. Julie didn’t like any change to the routine. It could mean anything. It could mean they were finally coming to kill her.

  She wiped her eyes quickly with the backs of her hands and rushed to get into position, expecting the worst. When they entered though, they were obviously distracted, barely glancing at her. What a pair they were. Harmless-looking life rejects. The lowest of the low. He with his baggy clothes and darting eyes, she with her head hung down, like a ship sinking slowly to the bottom of the sea. No one would have guessed the evil they were capable of.

  The woman locked the three of them in, the beasts with the prey, and Julie felt another wave of panic coming on. They continued to ignore her. It made no sense, but neither did anything else in that house.

  ‘Don’t move. Don’t even look at us,’ he said suddenly, jabbing his fat finger in her face.

  She nodded though she fully intended to disregard his instructions. Such small acts of defiance bolstered her up, kept her going.

  The Evil One carried a bright orange plastic toolbox and the woman followed a few dutiful steps behind, staring straight ahead. He crouched down by the sink and pulled away the cheap plywood box that housed its pipes, running his hand along them slowly as if looking for a leak.