Carnival

by Kory M. Shrum

  Why would he do that unless he was secretly hoping to either work or get himself into trouble?

  King glanced at the bouquet of flowers on his coffee table. A rich spray of orange, yellow, and pink blossoms rested in the green glass vase. A card stuck up from its center, perched on its plastic pedestal.

  Thanks for everything. Until next time – Beth

  His eyes slid to the urn sitting beside it. “Oh, come on. It’s not like that.”

  Beth McMiller was the assistant DA. The flowers were a thank you for the critical evidence King had provided in an attempted murder case. It was only footage from a laundromat across the street from the crime scene.

  Immediately King felt foolish to be explaining—to an urn—why he’d received flowers from another woman, but the lack of reply was worse. The feelings that welled up and overtook him were much worse.

  Lucy didn’t give a damn about who was or wasn’t sending him flowers, because Lucy was dead.

  Lucy was dead.

  And though he’d been living with this reality for over a year, it hit him again. A horse kick to the chest and he folded over, putting his head in his hands.

  He began to cry.

  I just miss her, he thought. It’s fine to cry. I just miss her.

  So he let himself cry while the television rambled on about gas prices, political scandals, and an earthquake in Ecuador that had left over a hundred people dead. He cried because he missed Lucy’s face, her voice, and the brief, beautiful summer they’d had together. But he cried harder about what he couldn’t remember, and the years they hadn’t had.

  He wasn’t sure how long he went on like this, letting the sweet, heady scent of the flowers perfume this dark, secret moment. He probably would’ve gone on most of the night like that if he hadn’t heard the word graves.

  He looked up, sniffling. The television screen blurred through his tears.

  He blinked and dabbed at his eyes. He mashed the volume button on the control, turning it up louder.

  “This is the second grave discovered in the area today. Both contained the bodies of young women between the ages of eighteen and thirty.”

  A male reporter with a large mole beside his left eye continued to stare solemnly into the camera lens.

  “The body found here in Ridgeway Park was nearly three miles from the nearest road. The grave was discovered when a resident birder left the trail in search of an oriole. The birder’s dog discovered a disturbed patch of earth. Within moments, the witness realized just what his dog was digging up.”

  The camera angle widened, and for a moment King saw a patch of road and the police cars parked in a long line between two barricades.

  When the camera swept forward one more time, King’s breath hitched. He sat forward, moving toward the edge of his seat.

  On the side of the road, beside the news van, King saw a woman that looked suspiciously like Dani speaking to another reporter. In fact, he was so certain that was who it was, he would’ve put $500 on red.

  I wonder how Dani got all the way to Ohio, he thought bitterly. Way to force my hand, kid.

  And Fish’s hand. Without a doubt, King knew the discovery of not one but two graves would incite Fish to react. He just wasn’t sure what that reaction would be.

  If Fish was the vainglorious type, he might turn himself in, confess to the crimes, and bask in the limelight of a highly publicized trial. If he was more desperate, hungrier, he might instead go on a killing spree. If he felt as though he had little time left to slake that dark desire within him, he would use his final free hours to gorge himself on his favorite prey. Or similarly, he might disappear or lay low in hopes that he could continue to hunt once the danger had passed. Many killers had dormant periods. There was no reason to think that Fish wouldn’t see that as a viable option for himself.

  Whatever happened next, the fact remained that Lou had changed the rules of the game and King had better prepare for it.

  He stood and crossed the living room to his cell phone, which lay connected to its charger. He pulled the cord out of the phone and entered his passcode. He hoped Lou would be quick about answering his page.

  But before he could type in her number, the phone rang in his hand.

  He hesitated, thumb hovering over the green acceptance button flashing on his screen. He didn’t recognize the scrolling number. While it could be a telemarketer, it could also be someone important. He decided to take the gamble and answered the call before it could go to voicemail.

  “King speaking.”

  “Robert King,” a man said.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “It’s Assistant Deputy Dayton Richardson with the Baton Rouge PD. I was told to call you about the inquiry you made earlier this week.”

  King took the phone over to his armchair beside the record player and sank into it. “I’m listening.”

  He let his fingers trail absently over the worn covers of his records while the man spoke. He listened for a long time, only interjecting a clarifying question when necessary. When the call ended, he sat back in the chair.

  The news had moved onto a commercial for auto insurance. King only distantly noted this, his mind turning over all that he’d just learned about Melandra and her husband.

  He stood, punching the first of many numbers into his phone. “So much for a quiet weekend.”

  29

  Lou stood in her apartment, staring out at the setting sun. Her plain white t-shirt and Konstantine’s sweats hung loosely from her body as she sipped her coffee. It didn’t matter if it was seven at night. It was morning somewhere. Maybe not in St. Louis, New Orleans, or Italy, but somewhere, and coffee drinking was really just a signal for her brain to start its day.

  After a very long night in Ohio, she’d fallen into bed around noon and had slept for six straight hours.

  The Mississippi River blazed in her eyes as she sipped the warm coffee, rotating her shoulders to relax them the best she could.

  She was only halfway through her coffee when her watch buzzed. She took another sip. When it buzzed a second time, she wasn’t surprised. She expected King to be livid about the graves. By now, the story would have broken on most of the news channels.

  Except it wasn’t King’s number on the screen. It was Florence.

  Konstantine.

  Her stomach turned. The coffee turned bitter on her tongue, and suddenly the brilliant orange blaze she’d been enjoying just a moment before burned too bright.

  She put her coffee on the counter and picked up the Browning pistol. She walked halfway toward the linen closet before turning back and grabbing the coffee. She cradled it against her chest as she pulled the closet door closed. Two heartbeats and she’d crossed an ocean.

  Rough tile formed under her bare feet. A winter breeze slid along her skin. She was in Konstantine’s apartment. The sight of him in his tight jeans and a black turtleneck hardened something inside her, as if she were preparing for a physical blow.

  He poured himself a glass of wine. He spoke with barely a glance at her. “Can I offer you a glass of prosecco?”

  She lifted her coffee. “I’m all set.”

  He came into the living room, holding his wine glass in his right hand. He regarded her for a long moment, and under the weight of that stare she felt the itch inside her grow. She didn’t want to stay. In fact, she half-turned, stepping toward the shadows from where she’d come, but then Konstantine spoke.

  “I know who your stalker is.”

  She stopped, turning back.

  He settled behind his desk and turned on the lamp. His wet hair shone in the light. It had been pushed back from his forehead, framing a beautiful square face that he’d shaved. But it was his green eyes she kept looking at.

  “Her name is Diana Dennard.”

  He turned his computer toward her so that she could see the photographs on the screen. Two sat enlarged, side by side. The photo on the right was the woman Lou recognized. Thirty-something with round blu
e eyes and blond hair. The photo on the left was her as a child, crooked teeth and a shy smile. An abundance of freckles sprayed across her sun-kissed nose.

  “I believe I know why King recognized her.”

  “Why?”

  “She was in the news,” he said. “Her parents reported her missing in 1995. They were convinced she was kidnapped after school. There were witnesses saying a man in a blue Acura pulled up to the sidewalk and that she got into the car with him. She was gone for nine weeks.”

  Nine weeks is a long time, Lou thought. A lot can happen in nine weeks.

  “When she came home, she said she’d run away. That seems to be the end of it.”

  “So why is she following Fish?” Lou asked, unable to hide her curiosity. She placed her coffee on the desk and perched on its edge.

  “I’ve tracked her movements and can tell she’s been in the area for over a year. Before Ohio, she was in Pennsylvania.”

  None of this told Lou why the woman had an interest in Fish.

  “Is she police or something?”

  “No. Even in the deep organizations, I found no mention of her. She uses aliases for her purchases. I know of at least four that I can track purchases to in the last twelve months. She should be more careful. She could go to prison for a long time, given how many credit card scams she’s run.”

  He was watching her face expectantly. Maybe he was expecting payment for this work.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  He sat back in his chair and brought the prosecco to his lips. “No.”

  A natural lull filled the space between them. Lou found it unbearable. She stood and took her coffee with her.

  “Do you want me to keep digging?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you,” she said, and stepped toward the shadows.

  “Why did you leave?” he asked. “When you saw us together?”

  Lou froze halfway across the room.

  “Vittoria had a camera in my bedroom. She has cameras in all the rooms, actually. I knew this before I visited. I’m not surprised. But I recorded her footage anyway, just to see for myself.”

  Lou eased her shoulders away from her ears and turned back. “It sounds like you don’t trust each other.”

  “That is how it is with my family.” He met her gaze over the rim of his wine glass. In the shadow, his green eyes looked nearly black. “I cannot even trust my own sister.”

  She felt her stomach clench. She knew by the smile on his face that her body had betrayed her.

  He set the glass down and laced his fingers behind his head. “Yes, Vittoria is another of Fernando Martinelli’s bastards. There are many more than you know, not just those you’ve disposed of. But Vittoria is the only other one who is, as you say, still in the family business.”

  Lou suddenly couldn’t decide what to do with her coffee cup. She lifted it, looked at it, considered where she might put it down.

  “Why do you look disappointed that she is my sister?” Konstantine asked.

  Lou shrugged. “It would have been easier.”

  “What would have been easier?”

  “If you were fucking another woman. It would be easier for me.”

  He sat upright in his chair. For a long time he only regarded her with his unflinching gaze. Then he shook his head, as if to rid himself of an unpleasant thought. He said, “I hate disappointing you, but this one you’ll have to live with. I have no intention of having other lovers.”

  “Lovers.” Lou snorted.

  “Girlfriends. Women. Whatever you want to call them.”

  “Even if it meant I’d actually fuck you?”

  His eyebrows rose. “You have to understand that since I was a child, I’ve been this way.”

  She tapped the Browning impatiently against her thigh. “Principled?”

  He looked up through his eyelashes at her. “When I want something, nothing less will do. I would rather work harder for the thing I want than substitute it for something that cannot compare.”

  The shadows around her softened. It would be so easy to give herself over to them, to slip through the dark without so much as a goodbye.

  “Will you speak to her?”

  Lou stilled. “What do I possibly have to say to Vittoria?”

  “Diana Dennard,” he said. “Will you ask her why she’s following Fish?”

  “If I get the chance.”

  He rose from the desk, leaving the prosecco behind. He crossed to her slowly, as one might approach an animal ready to run.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He laughed softly. “I was going to ask you to come closer, but I know better. I’ll come to you.”

  He stopped just short of her, aligning his body with hers so that their hips were only centimeters apart. His lips grazed the side of her face.

  “I missed you,” he whispered. “I was sad to find you’d gone when I returned to the bed.”

  “You didn’t seem sad,” she said, thinking of the way Vittoria had draped herself over him. It hadn’t seemed sisterly, in Lou’s opinion.

  “Vittoria can be boorish and immature, but she isn’t stupid. She won’t make an enemy out of you just to entertain herself. Her survival instincts are far too high. Besides, I believe she is like your Piper.”

  “Piper,” she corrected. He’d pronounced it like pepper. “What do you mean?”

  “Lesbica.” His eyes traced the side of her neck. “She prefers women to men. Perhaps I should be the one who is worried.”

  “You’re assuming I’d hurt someone for you.”

  “You made a good example of Nico.”

  Her eyes fixed on the scar on Konstantine’s cheek, a gift from Nico.

  He leaned forward until she could feel the heat of his body wafting toward her. He smelled like the prosecco and some sort of earthy soap.

  “I missed you,” he said again, and the back of his hand brushed hers. It was part question, part invitation.

  When she didn’t immediately move away, he clasped her hand and pulled her to him.

  He bent his head and kissed her neck. First it was the barest brush. Another question. He moved up her throat to her jaw to her lips. He kissed more deeply when she didn’t refuse him. She enjoyed the taste of wine on his lips.

  “I am sure you’ve just woken up.” He put his chin on her shoulder. “But I’m exhausted.”

  “I’ll let you sleep,” she said, and took a step back.

  “Stay.”

  She wanted to count the vertebrae in his lower back, trace them with her fingertips. But she realized she was still holding her coffee and the Browning pistol.

  “Stay until I fall asleep?” he asked, as if already sensing some concession must be made. “Please?”

  She held up the gun and the coffee. “I’m bringing these.”

  30

  Mel pulled back the purple curtain and stepped into the shop. It was cooler in the store than it had been in the tiny space with its burning candles and heady incense. The woman whose cards Melandra had just read sniffed twice as she stepped around her.

  “Take care now,” Melandra said. It wasn’t meant to be a menacing remark, and yet the woman burst into fresh tears, exiting the shop as one would flee a fire.

  Piper looked up from behind the register and arched a brow. “That bad, huh?”

  “Her husband is cheating on her.”

  Piper pouted her lips. “Ouch.”

  “With her sister.”

  “God, why do you tell them stuff like that?” Piper laid down the pen she’d been using to furiously scrawl at their ongoing to-do list.

  “I didn’t. I only told her that things weren’t going well at home.”

  Melandra hadn’t had the heart to tell the woman a lot of things. That not only was her husband cheating on her with her sister, but that her sister was pregnant with his child. That would be what hurt her most, as it had been clear to Melandra’s inner eye that the woman had longed to have children of her own, and af
ter years of trying and failing had not been able to carry a child to term.

  What would happen to them once the child was born? Melandra could only wonder.

  Mel braced herself for a question she’d been expecting. But it didn’t come. She’d done her best to hide the fact that her cards were gone. She’d scheduled only palm readings for the walk-ins, letting Piper do the card readings. For those who’d insisted on cards, she’d used an old deck that she’d kept on display for customers.

  If Piper had noticed the display cards were gone, she hadn’t said anything.

  You should be used to hiding things and keeping secrets, she chided herself. Aren’t you full of them?

  Piper tapped her pen against the notepad. “All I’ve got left to do is clean the front door glass and call the Hamway distributor again about the masks. They still haven’t come.”

  “I’ll do it,” Melandra said. Her bangles jingled as she reached for the pad and pen, plucking them from Piper’s grip. “You can go. Don’t you have a test tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, but it’s online. As long as I finish it by midnight, I’m good.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and read the time. “I’ve got twenty-six hours to take it. Plenty of time.”

  “Maybe you want to study,” she suggested.

  Get out of here. Melandra’s stomach knotted as she noticed the time. He’s going to walk through that door any minute now.

  “Mel.” Piper’s voice was low and strained. “If you were in trouble, would you tell me?”

  Melandra searched the girl’s face. “No.”

  A surprised laugh squeaked out of her. “At least you’re honest.”

  Melandra forced her own smile, but it felt false on her face. The cheek muscles were too tight. They resisted.

  “I know you think I’m just a kid.”

  “Who said that?”

  “I’m trying to say”—Piper flicked her eyes up to Mel’s—“that I love you, okay? And if you needed something, anything, I’m here for you. And so is King. And Lou. But me especially.”