“What did he hear exactly?”
“Can I call you Clare?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Clare, can I trust you? Can I trust you to help me get some answers?”
Clare didn’t hesitate. “Of course.” She thought of the razor blade. The one she would find on the bathroom floor later and hide in the medicine chest near the things she never used. “I’ll help you however I can.”
In the long pause that followed, Clare imagined Eliza curled on the sofa, her son sleeping in a crib nearby, a photo of James on her lap. “Snip told me the guards switched duty that afternoon. There was a new guy in charge of West Block. Never been there before. Hasn’t been there since. Some puffed up Sergeant with a Semper Fi tattoo. That can’t be a coincidence, right?”
december 22, 1996
Clare slid into the booth at the back of the diner and pretended to study the Sunday brunch menu. She kept one eye on the door, waiting for Briggs. She certainly wasn’t hungry, her stomach filled to the brim with butterflies. The poisonous kind. In fact, she couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last. Toast yesterday morning? Maybe. It tasted like cardboard, so thick and bland in her mouth, she’d chased it down with a shot of whiskey. Because that’s what you do when you decide not to take a razor blade to your wrists.
She’d taken extra care getting ready this morning. Dressed like she’d come from church in a pale-blue shift dress that matched her eyes. She let her hair down and kept the makeup simple, understated. The good little Catholic girl. Briggs would gobble that right up. When he sauntered in, she flagged him down with an eager wave.
“Hey, good-looking,” she teased.
His smile seemed stiff, a little nervous. “This is for you,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
Clare looked at the thing on the table. An army-green metal box wrapped with a clumsy red bow of yarn she could tell Briggs tied himself. She’d never seen anything like it before. “What is it?”
He chuckled as he squeezed his hulking frame into the booth next to her. Clare would’ve preferred he sit across from her, where she could keep her eyes on his. “I messed up. I forgot to ask for a box.” His whisper close to her ear, conspiratorial. “So I used this old thing. It’s an ammo can. Indestructible like me.” He pushed it toward her, still laughing. “Open it.”
“I didn’t know we were doing presents,” Clare said, almost feeling sorry for him. She hadn’t even considered it.
“It’s okay. I already got what I wanted.” Clare wondered if he meant her or the sex or both, but it wasn’t the sort of question you could ask. She fiddled with the bow, hoping whatever was inside was returnable. Cracking the lid of the canister, she saw something red and silky. She reached in past the lingerie to the bottom and withdrew a wooden nameplate for her desk engraved Dr. Clare Keely.
“One for work. One for play,” Briggs explained, blushing more than she would’ve expected. She kissed his cheek, sucking in a gulp of Aqua Velva.
“Thank you, J. D. It’s incredibly thoughtful of you.”
Beaming, he opened a menu. “So shall we eat?”
****
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Briggs said, between heaping bites of a maple-syrup-drowned short stack. “The other day … when we … uh … you know … ”
She nodded, grateful he hadn’t tried to articulate the exact nature of the you know that went down in the control booth.
“Did you happen to see a set of keys laying around? Or could they have fallen in your purse maybe by accident?”
Don’t oversell it, Clare. “No. Why?” The most believable denial is a straightforward one.
“Some keys turned up missing. And Bonner’s got his panties in a wad.”
“Which keys?”
“Kitchen and pantry. Probably one of those dump trucks who can’t get enough mystery meat in the chow hall.”
“Dump truck?” she asked.
He put his arm around her and squeezed her too tight. “I keep forgetting how green you are, Clarie. Dump truck is prison speak for a slob. Fat. Lazy. Good for nothing.” Clare plastered a smile, stuck on that nickname. No one had called her Clarie since Rodney. She sipped her orange juice, buying time to compose herself.
“Speaking of work, did you ever hear anything more about Dumas?”
Briggs groaned from deep in his belly. “Geez. Not that again.”
“It’s just that I heard you were assigned to West Block that afternoon. You hadn’t mentioned it.”
“What—are you checking up on me?” He loosened his suffocating embrace, and she wriggled free, but his words clamped down just as hard.
“No, of course not, I just—”
“Because I don’t appreciate that. You hear a lot of things going around the yard. Doesn’t mean they’re true. Does it?”
Clare knew a loaded gun when she saw one. And she wasn’t about to touch it. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Really. I’m just so worried about this board investigation. It’s my job, J. D.” She pointed to the nameplate he’d positioned opposite her on the table. “My job’s on the line.”
His face softened like she’d hoped it would, and he leaned in toward her. “I’ll talk to Bonner. Maybe he can get this whole thing cleared up for you.” She felt his hand slide up her leg, and she fought the urge to grimace. “I can’t wait to see you in that little red number.”
Instead, she went with it. Upped the ante. “Don’t you mean you can’t wait to see me out of it?”
“Touché.”
december 23, 1996
The day after Clare laid Rodney Taylor’s baby in the ground—it helped to think of it as his, not hers, certainly not theirs—she went to school. She clung to routine, to putting one foot in front of the other for as long as she could, until the distance between herself and that unspeakable day was long and wide. Now was no different. She did her usual run in the biting cold, forced down a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and drove five miles out of the way for coffee. Best to avoid Lizzie if she could.
She planned to spend the rest of the morning in a deliberate countdown to 9:30 a.m., Cullen’s session time. Door locked, lights off, because the last thing she needed was another surprise visit from Ramirez. And she didn’t have the stomach to handle Fitzpatrick today. But, as usual, he didn’t get the memo.
“Morning, Clare.” Fitzpatrick leaned against the wall by her office. He’d been waiting for her. “I need to talk to you.” Her heart took off fast as a fox, the dogs behind her, trailing her scent. Part dullard, part bloodhound, Fitzpatrick seemed to have half a nose for trouble. “I was hoping I’d catch you before my nine o’clock meeting.”
“You caught me.”
“Indeed.” He twittered like a schoolboy. “I signed you up for a staff presentation in the new year. I hope you don’t mind.”
She relaxed a little. “The topic?”
“Whatever you’d like. Your dissertation, perhaps? I seem to remember it had forensic relevance.”
He knows. He knows. He knows! “Neonaticide.” The word rolled off her tongue, detached, as if it wasn’t an essential part of her, as connected as the very umbilical cord she severed. As if she hadn’t handpicked the topic, desperate to fix herself somehow, to unearth the why that had always eluded her. Her own. “Baby killing,” she clarified. “Usually shortly after birth.”
Fitzpatrick’s eyes widened a little, but he hid it well. “Intense, but important work. I imagine those poor girls are often misunderstood.”
Poor girl. Clare saw herself bloodied and alone in the bathroom and nodded. “The typical perpetrator is relatively isolated. Or at least that’s how she perceives her situation. Often, she won’t admit she’s pregnant. Not even to herself. Sometimes, she may believe she’ll miscarry or the baby will be born dead. Magical thinking, you know? Usually, she’s surprised when it comes. Shocked, even. And then she panics. She acts
impulsively. Can you imagine?”
After a long pause, Fitzpatrick replied. “Remarkable. That level of denial.”
You have no idea. “Remarkable,” Clare repeated.
****
Clare sat still as a spider. Breathing in. Breathing out. With each inhale, her paranoia loosened its grip on her neck. With each exhale, she was a little more sure Fitzpatrick had no idea what she’d done. How could he? At 9:20, she answered a soft knock with a tentative, “Who is it?”
“It’s me. Clive. Are you … ” She opened the door just wide enough to see his face, then yanked him inside, turning the lock and checking it twice. “ … okay?”
Clare had planned on easing into it, breaking the news gently. But now that he’d arrived, now that Fitzpatrick had her on edge, the words tumbled out without her permission. “Ramirez is blackmailing me. I—I did something … for him. I shouldn’t have. It was so stupid. Now he wants me to set you up.” It felt so good to release it—like coming up for air after holding your breath underwater—that she almost laughed.
“What did you do?” He didn’t say it, but his tone suggested it. Clare shrank away from him, wondering why all men saw her that way. Even Cullen. Even Neal.
“Not that. If that’s what you’re thinking.”
He took her by the arms and turned her to face him. “God, no. I would never think that.” A smoky fire burned in the blue-gray of his wide eyes, and she felt foolish for doubting him.
“I took some keys from the control room. Briggs said they unlock the kitchen.”
“Briggs knows?”
She shook her head. “He knows the keys are missing. Not that I took them.”
Cullen stayed quiet for a while, but his body talked to her. A whole conversation. He dragged the chair into the corner—as far from the door as it could get—sat down, and pulled her onto his lap. With both hands, he smoothed her hair from her face, holding it in a loose ponytail as he put his mouth on hers. The way he kissed her, it was as if their lives depended on it. Hers anyway. After he’d pulled away, breathless, she wished they were back in the laundry closet last Thursday when she didn’t have to stop herself from wanting him.
“Tell me everything Ramirez told you.”
“I’m supposed to meet you somewhere … the laundry closet. For a rendezvous. Only I wouldn’t be there. It would be him or his goons instead. The EME. To kill you.”
“Did he say when?”
“He’ll let me know.” Clare shuddered at the idea of it. Alone again with Ramirez and his twisted smirk and devil eyes.
Riled, Cullen paced the length of the office like a caged beast. His jaw tensed just before he smacked his fist on the table, sending her brand-new nameplate tumbling. “I can’t believe I let you get mixed up in this.” With a long drawn breath, he retrieved the nameplate, taking a closer look. “Is this new?”
She ignored the question. Briggs meant nothing, and she’d only put the damn thing on her desk in case he popped in to look for it. But Cullen wouldn’t see it that way. “You? I’m the one responsible.”
“Fine,” he agreed. “We’ll split the blame. Eighty, twenty.”
“Me, eighty. You—” A shadow at the door, obscured behind the wreath and beveled glass, froze her in place.
“Everything okay in there?”
“It’s fine, Dr. Fitzpatrick. We’re just finishing up our session.”
“Alright. Just checking. Looks like your 10:30’s out here waiting.”
Cullen touched her hand, gave it a quick squeeze. “Just be yourself,” he said. “Act normal.”
She didn’t want him to leave. Without him, she felt exposed. A turtle without a shell. “I’m not sure I know how to be normal.”
“Welcome to the club,” he said with a wink that could melt ice.
****
Tony Perez acted normal too. An entire session went by, and he hadn’t so much as looked at her cockeyed. Still, it lingered there in the room. The feeling both of them were pretending at something, playing roles worthy of an Academy Award. For the rest of the afternoon and the whole drive home, she analyzed that hour for signs of a crack in his façade and came up empty-handed. He told her about his childhood in Compton. Single mother. Father in prison. Siblings to feed. He joined the Compton Varrio Tokers at fourteen in search of a family. He seemed nice enough for a murderer.
Clare navigated the turn into her apartment complex, feeling relieved to see her cramped parking space, her green door, her cheesy welcome mat. Sometimes your body knows before the rest of you. And Clare’s body was a finely tuned antenna, humming at any sign of danger. She felt the prickles on her neck, tingling fingers up her spine. Then, she saw it. A small, feathered lump. A canary. Not the kind of bird that just happens to drop dead on your doorstep. She knelt down to inspect it, smoothing its bright yellow feathers with her finger. The bird’s neck twisted, the angle severe, the head nearly broken off.
She found the note underneath the broken body.
Dear Dr. Keely,
Keep your mouth shut. Do what you’re told. December 28. 7 p.m. Remember, we can find you anywhere, and this is what happens to canaries.
Sincerely,
Your friends
Clare read the note again. December 28, the arrival date of el paquete—the package Torres and Bonner discussed. It couldn’t be coincidence.
“What the hell is that?”
Clare jerked back like she’d been shot. She tried to figure out which was worse. The menacing note folded in her hand or Neal, open-mouthed in front of her, eyeing the dead bird as if she’d killed it herself. “A canary.”
“I’m not asking what kind of bird it is. I’m asking what it’s doing at your front door.”
Clare shrugged unapologetically. Like that was a reasonable response. “What are you doing at my front door?”
“Seriously?”
“Well, how do I know you didn’t put it here?” It was cruel, but desperate times …
Neal just shook his head. She could see now why it never would’ve worked between them. Darkness can only be understood by darkness, and Neal didn’t have a dark bone in his body. “Yep, you got me. And there’s a bunny boiling on the stove inside. Go on in. Check it out.” He didn’t intend it to be funny, but she smiled anyway. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on here? What’s going on with you? Lizzie called me last week. She’s sick about you, Clare.”
“And you?” Lizzie told him, she thought, utter terror coursing like a drug in her veins. She told him what I said about Cullen. “Are you sick about me?”
“No.” His roots firmly anchored to the ground, Neal didn’t look away from her. “I feel sorry for you. Whatever you’re doing, whoever you’re doing it with, you’re in way over your head.”
“So you don’t care?” Her heart cracked down the middle. She wanted him to care. She wanted him not to.
“Did you have sex with him?”
“Who?” she asked, clinging to innocence as long as she could.
“You know who.”
“Is that how you decide if you care?”
“That’s how I decide if there’s any of my Clare left for me to care about.”
She couldn’t say it out loud, but Neal read her silence. He spun around without another word, and Clare watched him walk away. In her mind, she raged at him. Screamed so loud, her throat was raw. In her mind, she yelled, Your Clare never existed anyway.
chapter
twenty-six
two
I stayed close to Levi as he prowled toward the back entrance of Green River Trucking, my eyes focused on the freckle on the back of his neck—at the intersection of chestnut hair and tan skin. It seemed the safest place to look. The room had begun to warm in the midmorning sunlight, cooking the smell of death and fear until it felt hard to breathe. One glance in the wrong di
rection, and I’d be hunched over again, empty-stomach heaving.
Levi peered through the small window at the back, then turned the handle and nudged the door ajar. Like a springtime field in Bellwether, the weeds grew knee-high here and thick. So thick, Levi gave the door an extra shove to force it open. So thick, I felt the grass pull against my jeans. Like it wanted me to stay put. Around the perimeter the same tall fence boxed us in. Chain link and razor wire.
“Geez, it looks like a prison,” I muttered, gazing up at those menacing teeth meant for intruders like me. Even from down below, they threatened. They promised a cut to the bone.
We started with the first of three unmarked metal buildings, the first two smaller than the last. Levi tried the handle—unlocked—before he cracked the door and let the sunlight in. It reminded me of the time Ginny and I broke into the old Miller house on Halloween afternoon, the one everybody said was haunted by the ghost of Mrs. Miller. Bad things can’t live in the daytime, Ginny had said, her voice steady, and I believed her. But these demons didn’t scatter in the soft, pale light. And I braced myself against the wall, dizzy.
A few cots, strewn with blankets, dotted one corner. Whoever slept there had just awakened. A brimming pot of black coffee waited on the warmer plate. Two cups, still empty. A loaf of bread, unopened. A hulking, muted beast of a television broadcasted a soccer game, business as usual. In the center of the room, a fan undulated, blowing its cool breeze as gentle as a whisper. To me. To Levi. To the man with half a head lying still on the floor behind the row of cots, the fabric of his loose-fitting T-shirt billowing in the manufactured wind.
“Holy shit.” Fumbling with his gun, Levi pulled the door shut behind us. In that airless tomb, the only sounds came from the fan and our own lungs desperate to keep up with the sucker punch of our surroundings. I didn’t look at the man again. Instead, my eyes watched the soccer game, the ball passed between feet, skillfully up the field toward the goal.
“What did that?” I asked finally. Hearing the panic in my voice made me more afraid. What. Not who. I knew better, but I half-expected something inhuman to creep out from its cave, its mouth wet with blood and skull bits. Something wild and ferocious and inevitable. That would make sense.
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 27
