Carnival

by Kory M. Shrum

  She lifted a fork but seemed unable to take a bite yet. It hung loosely in her grip.

  “After two weeks, I had a breakdown, because apparently not sleeping makes you crazy. They tried putting me on sleeping pills but I started sleepwalking, so I quit that. I used all my vacation time and moved back home for a while, until I could find a new place to live. I couldn’t be in the apartment anymore.”

  “Of course not.” Piper couldn’t even live in the same house as her stoned mother and dope-dealing boyfriend. She understood the way the walls of a place could close in on someone, hang like an atmosphere, pressing against her chest until she couldn’t breathe.

  “I couldn’t tell my parents what happened because they would’ve made me quit the paper. But the longer I tried to ignore the trauma, the worse I got. It was almost a month after I left the hospital that I went into therapy and was diagnosed with PTSD.”

  Of course you were, Piper thought. How the hell could you not have PTSD?

  “My therapist advised that I slowly try to reconnect with the people involved, to get a better sense of my triggers. We started by going back to the places where it happened together and walking through these mental exercises. It was…awful. It took me five months before I got up the courage to reach out to King and let him know I was still interested in working cases for him if he needed the help. It was seven months before I managed to say a word to Lou.”

  Piper cut into her chicken. She had questions—of course she did. But Dani wasn’t even looking at her. She had a million-yard stare, replaying the story in her head, and Piper knew better than to interrupt the momentum now. Her questions could wait.

  “Every time I heard their voices, I knew the pain was about to come.”

  “King and Lou?” Piper asked around a mouthful of chicken.

  Dani put her fork down. “You have to understand that your voices were the ones I heard that night. In the garage. After Dmitri…after he did the worst of it. Then I blacked out and you were there. I was scared and in pain and it was your voice in my head.”

  My voice triggers your PTSD. Ouch.

  “I think my brain got confused. It began to associate all of you—King, Lou, Mel, everyone involved that night—with danger. Even a text message from you or King would trigger a panic attack.”

  “So it’s somehow worse with me than with King, Lou, or Mel?”

  Dani’s face crumpled. “I know. I know and I’m so sorry. I think it’s because I cared about you the most and because I was already feeling so shitty about trying to use you to get the story. Whatever it was about you, I couldn’t see you. Seeing you, talking to you, any contact at all would’ve reminded me that it was real. It wasn’t a dream I could just put behind me. And I was more than a little embarrassed that you’d seen me that way. I mean, I’d pissed myself—”

  “You were tortured,” Piper whispered. “Of course you pissed yourself.”

  Dani held up her hand. “Don’t. I don’t want to go into details, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I just wanted to apologize for my shitty communication skills,” Dani said, meeting her gaze for the first time since she’d begun to cry. “And I need you to know that I didn’t stay away because I didn’t like you.”

  Piper sat back against her chair. “That’s what it felt like. You got the story you wanted and then you disappeared.”

  “I know,” Dani said. “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  Piper looked at the steaming chicken on her plate and tried to muster her appetite.

  “Why did you reach out to King first?”

  “My therapist told me that sometimes working can help with PTSD. She thought focusing on the job I love would be one way to get back in the game. She asked me, ‘Are you going to let one asshole destroy your dream of being the best damn investigative reporter you can be?’ And I was like, ‘No. No, I’m not.’ Because I love it. It’s all I want to do. So I finally returned King’s texts and started helping him on cases.”

  Piper thought, But you had no reason to reach out to me.

  She arched her brows. “And Lou can give you the ‘big break’ case of your career, sooner or later.”

  “I like you, Piper,” Dani said softly. “Every time I walk through Jackson Square I’m hoping that I’ll spot you there at your table. I’m also terrified that you’ll be there.”

  Piper’s heart seemed to swell in size, pushing against the base of her throat.

  “I’ve given up on the idea that we could be something more,” Dani went on. “Good relationships are built on trust, and you have no reason to trust me after what I did. And I’m still so messed up, I couldn’t offer you a decent relationship anyway.” She searched Piper’s face. “But I’d be so grateful if we could just learn how to be friends.”

  Piper stared into the wine glass as if she could use it to divine her future.

  Dani fidgeted in her seat, drawing her arms across her chest. “Say something. Please.”

  “Only friends?” Piper smiled, twirling the glass on the table. “I never pegged you for a quitter, Daniella Allendale.”

  And for the first time that night, Dani truly laughed.

  10

  Waterlogged and dripping, Lou pulled herself from the cold lake. She stood on the embankment, trying to catch her breath. The night sang to her. Nightjars trilled. A fox yipped in the distance. Something splashed in the lake. A fish? She wasn’t sure. She saw only the ripples spreading across the moonlit surface.

  Her skin and hair itched. She remembered the affectionate way Jabbers had dragged her thick white tongue over bloody knuckles and up the side of her neck. She could smell the monster’s breath in her hair. She was filthy and longed for a hot shower.

  But before she could do that, she wanted to check on Fish. The situation with Jeffrey could turn at any time. No point in showering prematurely in case she needed to take care of him tonight.

  Lou hated washing her hair too much.

  She stood in the dark, shaking the water off her leather jacket. She flapped her harness, checking to make sure the guns were fine.

  Her chilled hands pushed away the strands sticking to her face and lips. She wrung out her hair and sighed, inwardly willing her compass to life.

  Fish, she thought. Where is he tonight?

  She wondered if she would find him on the prowl. Maybe he’d be loitering around the grocery store again, but to no avail. The girl wasn’t working tonight. Lou knew this because she’d slipped into the manager’s office and checked the posted schedule. Now that she had the woman’s name, it was easier to do such things.

  And Lou trusted her compass. How many times had it whirled to life inside her, screaming the alarms, Lucy! King! Piper!, when it was time to act. This didn’t mean that Jeffrey wasn’t up to no good. After all, Lou noted the feeling of unease settling within her. Like a coil of snakes, it slithered in her guts, somewhere deep and unseen.

  Locking in on Jeffrey’s location, she said goodbye to her nighttime paradise and shifted through the shadows once more.

  The cacophony of a thriving nature was replaced by silence.

  Lou felt the cold cement under her hands and realized she was against a concrete wall. There in front of her, spotlighted as if on stage, was Jeffrey, his back to her.

  Too close, she thought. I’m too close.

  But this was the last pocket of shadow in Jeffrey’s garage. Against one wall was a long worktable, laden with tools and the small lamp responsible for spotlighting Jeffrey’s shoulders.

  He wore his pajamas. A bizarrely mundane matching set, both the top and bottoms composed of soft blue and white stripes.

  Your wife buy you those? Lou found herself marveling at the strange regularities of suburbia. Here was a killer. Here he was working in his two-car garage, on a quiet Midwestern street, in his soft pajamas.

  She almost laughed at the sight of Fish bent over the table in concentration.

  At least Lou never tried to hide what she was.
<
br />   Then she saw the blood.

  It dripped from his right forearm onto the concrete floor. Lou shifted, trying to get a better look, and her shoes squeaked on the concrete.

  Jeffrey whirled. His eyes frantically searched the dark. But he could not find her in the shadows. With his back angled in the light, Lou had a better sense of the situation. In his left hand was a straight-edge razor. Around his right arm, above the bend of the elbow, was a leather strap tied tight. On the forearm itself were six vertical lines. The first three were crusted black with dried blood. The three above it, as if he’d moved up the arm toward the fold, were bright crimson and oozed along the curve of his forearm, dripping onto the table.

  The utility lamp illuminating his pale arm added a theatrical quality to the scene. His lower jaw jutted forward and his chest heaved with his labored breath. The whites of his eyes shimmered as he stood there, listening. Waiting.

  Is this what you do to quell your hunger? Lou remained still in her pocket of shadow. Does it bring you back from the edge?

  She knew the pain couldn’t fulfill him.

  Lou herself had tried that trick in barroom brawls and petty fights. She’d invited any man willing to take a swing to have a go at her. But even the best of split lips or scuffed cheeks hadn’t scratched that itch within her.

  Nothing short of the actual kill would do.

  An unexpected swell of pity washed over her. She had never in all her years of hunting felt pity for a target before.

  Was it his wounded expression?

  Was it the way he cowered to his desires, clearly owned by them?

  He ripped the strip of leather off his arm and threw it back into the case on his wooden workbench. He wiped the blade and spilled blood with a navy blue mechanic’s rag before tossing both into the box as well.

  His back was to her as he rummaged for something. When he produced a thin roll of gauze and began to wrap his wounds tight, she realized this must be a longstanding ritual for him, these nighttime cuttings.

  And what do you tell the wife and kid, Jeff? Kids ask questions. How do you explain the gauze? Is his daddy clumsy in the garage?

  He slammed the lid down on his box. He reached overhead and drew the utility light close. The combination lock on a safe sat illuminated in the light. Lou watched him twirl the dial left and right, enjoying the tick, tick, tick of the spinning dial.

  He placed the toolbox inside the safe and pushed the door closed. He tugged the handle and spun the dial.

  Can’t be too careful, can we?

  Fish didn’t seem to think so as he threw one more nervous look over his shoulder, then crossed the garage, past the parked cars, and into the house.

  For several minutes Lou stayed where she was. She was no fool. Fish could throw on the lights, trapping her in the garage. He might’ve only pretended to go up to his bed, waiting to lure her from her hiding place.

  But when she heard water running through the pipes above, she suspected Fish was washing up for bed.

  Lou crossed the garage silently, stooping down beneath the wooden workbench just as Fish had done minutes before. She brought the utility light down with her and illuminated the lock. The combination had been easy to see and memorize.

  Inside the safe, she found not only the plastic bin containing his “toys” but a stack of photographs beneath it.

  Lou flipped through the photographs one after another.

  They began innocently enough. A woman tied to a chair. A woman naked, blindfolded. These could be mistaken for light BDSM photographs, just a bit of couple’s play.

  But then the blood came and the anguished expressions on the women’s faces—at least eleven, by Lou’s count—told Lou these were not consensual sex games.

  Anger sparked along her spine.

  It seemed that it wasn’t enough for Fish to stalk, hurt, and murder the women he wanted. He clearly enjoyed documenting the experience as well. More than one photograph immortalized his dick buried to the hilt, but he’d photographed the rest of his process as well, from the time he took them, through their torture, until their deaths. Most of the photographs were of the deaths.

  Do you have a favorite moment, Fish? Let me guess. I bet the police could guess too. Maybe I should show them these photographs. Would you like that?

  King’s strident, angry voice overrode her pulsating anger. Don’t take anything! Even if it’s proof, you can’t take it. It would be inadmissible in a court of law if it’s obtained without a warrant. Put it back.

  All the pity she’d felt for Fish while watching him self-harm was gone.

  She wanted to have a nice, long, and uninterrupted session of her own. See how much of this she could reenact.

  Boots shifted gravel on the other side of Fish’s closed garage door.

  Lou froze. She waited, holding her breath, until she heard it again—rocks shifting under someone’s weight.

  Lou did her best to wipe down the photographs and put them back under the toolbox. Then she shut the safe and gave the lock a spin.

  She regarded the two tracks of boot prints on the garage floor left by her soggy steps.

  They’ll dry before morning, she told herself, hoping she was right.

  The gravel shifted again, and this time so did Lou. The cement wall at her back gave and opened onto the cold night. Lou was across the street now, not far from the parked car she’d used as sanctuary earlier that week.

  She bent beneath the hedgerow framing an adjacent property and searched the Fish family’s driveway.

  There, where the rock retainer wall gave way to the open drive, someone stood. Lou moved to the left, trying to get a better view despite the hedge’s jutting branches. A gap appeared and Lou leaned in.

  It was hard to tell if the person was a man or a woman. The form was slight, which initially suggested female to Lou’s eye. But then she thought of the dock full of Hong Kong heroin dealers she’d dispatched seven months ago. They had been as short—or shorter—and their bodies even leaner.

  This observer was taking photographs of the Fish residence with a large-lens camera. He—or she—wore black gloves, black jeans, and black boots, and a hoodie was pulled up over the head.

  Then as suddenly as they came, they started down the walkway again, casting glances at the house as they passed.

  Who are you? Lou wondered, watching the person go. Who are you?

  She heard their staccato steps cut up the sidewalk, around the corner, and then they were gone.

  * * *

  Lou was more than ready for a shower. The grit in her hair only intensified the itching and her feet had grown so cold in her boots that she could barely feel them. Cold, wet socks were the bane of her existence. She pressed open the closet door, expecting to find her warm and welcoming St. Louis apartment awaiting her. Only it wasn’t her apartment on the other side of the door.

  Konstantine’s bed was neatly made, with his sweats thrown over the covers. The shutters on the arched window were closed, but moonlight filtered through the cracks, giving the bedroom a ghostly glow.

  This is getting ridiculous, she thought. She chided her inward compass. Do you even know where I live anymore?

  She was about to step into the closet again, redirecting herself home, when a sound caught her attention.

  Water splashed against tile and the low, melodic tone of a sultry tenor reached her.

  She stepped from the closet and to the bathroom’s open door. Steam hung in the air like low clouds, but it wasn’t thick enough to obscure the view of the naked man in the shower.

  Konstantine’s back was to her. It was stained red from the assault of the shower. His right arm was covered in tattoos from shoulder to elbow. The black ink was beaded with hot droplets.

  I wanted a shower. A shower is what I’ll get.

  She checked the GPS watch synced with her new location. It was after four in the morning. She wasn’t sure if Konstantine was starting his day or ending it.

  It didn’t ma
tter. Lou unlaced her boots and worked her wet, clinging clothes off her body. When she opened the shower door, a hand shot out. She ducked, snatching the wrist.

  “Does this mean I can’t join you?” she asked, rolling her eyes up to meet his.

  His gaze raked over her naked body. Goosebumps rose on his skin.

  The tension in his body vanished. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

  Obviously, she thought. “If you don’t want me to join you—”

  He reached out for her, seizing her with both hands, and pulled her into the hot stream.

  “Late night or early morning?” she asked.

  “I’m just getting home. But preparations for Venice are complete, and we leave in two days.”

  “I don’t think you want me to touch you yet,” she said, adding distance between them even as he moved in.

  “I can always wash again.” He leaned into her, tucking his lips under her jawline and caressing the skin where the neck and jaw met. Lou tipped her head back to allow it.

  He pulled back and frowned at the pink water swirling down the drain. “Are you bleeding?”

  “It isn’t blood,” she said. She didn’t have any of Walker’s gore on her. “I call it Blood Lake for a reason. The waters are red.”

  He gathered a handful of her wet hair and brought it to his nose. “You smell like sulfur.”

  “That’s La Loon too,” she said, letting her hands rest at last on his hip bones. She squeezed him, loving their hard edges.

  “Perhaps it is hell then,” Konstantine said, giving her a devilish smile to match. Lou had noticed, in the passing months, that this smile always came to his lips the moment she put her hands on him. “Doesn’t hell smell like sulfur?”

  Lou tilted her head back again, letting the hot water assault her scalp. “You’re the good Catholic boy. You tell me.”

  “May I?” he asked. She opened her eyes to see him closing the lid on the shampoo bottle.

  She redirected the shower head so that the water hit her upper back instead of her hair. When Konstantine’s fingers touched her scalp, delicious warmth ran through her. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was the hot water or the massage. He paused to pick something out of her strands. Seaweed? Algae? She had no idea.