by S. E. Green
The camera pans wide to all the residents huddled outside the condominium building, staring in shock at the activity. Some are crying. A lot of people have been affected by the nurse’s death. From their viewpoint, she was a good and decent person. A good and decent person who had kinky proclivities and got off on strangulation.
Honestly, I could get into a bit of kink as well. There’s nothing wrong with safe exploration of desires. Of course, that line gets crossed when someone dies.
All that aside, this was all brought on by Adam’s deception. He needs to know he’s not untouchable. Even though there is no real evidence to link him to Mrs. Strangler’s death. He did wipe the security footage and burned the body, but my point will still be made.
He should never cross me.
LESSON LEARNED, this is the text I get from Adam as I’m flipping the news to a different channel.
Good, I’m glad he thinks so. But once a liar, always a liar, and I’m not trusting him until I do a bit more digging on what he does when he’s not with me.
Plus, I still need to find out if Mr. Strangler owns any other properties because on the videos there was another room. He may have disposed of that trunk, but there’s another one somewhere. I know it. There is a place where he and his wife got it on with those girls. I just need to find it.
52
THE NEXT MORNING I ring the Butler’s doorbell, and the D.A. swings open the door. I give her my best smile.
Distracted with her phone pressed to her ear, she waves me in with a mumbled, “Adam’s gone, but you can wait in his room if you want.”
I step right on in. “Thanks.” Of course, I already knew Adam was gone, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.
I would be very mad at Victor if he gave someone permission to wait in my room for me, and I’m sure Adam’s not going to like it either. But his feelings on the topic are not my problem.
I take the wide curving staircase two steps at a time. If I was a whistler, I’d be whistling right now. He’s at the dentist, and I estimate he’ll be home in thirty minutes or so. Plenty of time.
After closing his door, I go straight to his computer and type in his password. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about people who are up to no good, they keep pictures. Way too many pictures. Or videos. Some hard copies, others electronic. Adam is just cocky enough to keep his right on his computer.
He thinks he’s untouchable.
I plug in a flash drive and while it goes through the motion of copying the entire hard drive, I begin snooping. I open his picture folder and begin browsing. Family stuff, vacations, lots of the new puppy, Sally. I open one harmlessly labeled FRIENDS and begin clicking through. I come across one of Catalina, my copycat, and I pause.
She’s standing with a baseball bat propped on her shoulder, dressed in track pants and a dark tee with PEE-WEE POLICE monogrammed on it. She’s got her other arm looped over Adam’s shoulders, dressed, too, in track pants and a black tee with the same logo. To any onlooker, they’re just two friends hanging out and playing ball for a team called PEE-WEE POLICE. I suppose that makes sense. Adam’s mom is the D.A. and Catalina’s dad is a cop.
Yes, I suppose that makes sense, only I know Catalina used that bat to bludgeon innocent people, or a bat just like it. My copycat, right there, pals with my new friend, Adam. You can tell a lot about a person by the friends he keeps.
It hits me hard as I look at the digital image of the two of them. The deceit. I didn’t mentor Adam. I didn’t guide him or help him. He’s known the entire time who I am. He’s been using me, been lying to me, and I’ve played into his every move.
My mind barrels down a dark hole lined with nasty paranoia. It backtracks through the time I’ve had with Adam. To that moment I first met him outside of Ted’s house. Adam spoke first, he initiated contact. He knew exactly who I was. He’s been leading me the whole time. He staged Ted’s stabbing, knowing I would find him. He showed up in Penn’s court, tantalizing me with Mr. Pedophile. Adam led me to Stabber Brother. He led me to the sex tapes. All the “heart-to-hearts” we had, linking on a deeper level. The flash drive containing The Strangler information he held just out of reach. Hell, he even adopted an effing dog to connect with me.
And I followed his every move. I stepped where he wanted. I’ve been his puppet. He’s been playing me this whole time. But to what end? To get back at me for Catalina? To get me to relax to the point of making some damaging admission? Or is there something else bigger that I’m just not seeing? I can’t be sure, but I am sure he’s double-crossed the wrong person.
Or perhaps I really am spiraling into the land of paranoia. Perhaps he has no clue that I knew Catalina. Perhaps my relationship with Adam is exactly as it seems—a bit of a warped friendship that is going through its shares of ups and downs. I lunge at that thought, wanting to believe it over the rest. But I don’t know. I shake my head, trying to force the disconnect in my brain to link.
What I do know is that I’m officially done. I’ve been operating under this misguided perception that I owed him. I accidentally killed his beloved brother and I owed him, but I’m done. I’ve more than paid my debt. If it were anyone else, I would’ve been done with him a while ago.
I hear him coming up the stairs, and I quickly extract the flash drive and close down. Swiveling in his chair, I kick my legs up on his desk, and I’m browsing my phone when he walks in.
“Hey,” he says, his gaze moving from me to his desk.
I smile, faking civility. “Hey.”
“Um…” He takes a few steps in. “I don’t really like people in my room unless I’m here.”
I let my feet thud to the carpet. “Oh, sure.” I stand up. “I get it.” Another smile, and I begin to entertain options of how to deal with him.
Number one, I could make him disappear. The problem is, being the son of the D.A., Adam is high profile, or rather his mom is. She already had one son killed, it would look odd for two. Plus, if Adam turns up missing, I’m the first person his mom would question. I’m his new “best friend”.
Number two, I could simply end our friendship. Somehow, though, I know it won’t be that simple. I’ve taught him too much. His ego is out of control. I’m responsible if he kills or harms someone again.
Number three, I get these tables turned. Let him become my puppet, which means I need leverage. I thought the box of dust and bones would achieve that, but it seems to have made him even more of a challenge.
No, what we need is an eyewitness. Or rather a video witness. Adam said he wiped the security feed clean. If I’ve learned anything from being friends with Reggie, nothing is ever wiped clean.
Plus, with Adam’s ego fully inflated, I suspect he kept the deleted feed. He would want to revisit it and see himself in action. I only need to find the deleted feed, and I just happen to have the contents of his computer on a flash drive in my pocket.
“Lane?”
I straighten up, realizing I’d zoned out. “Yeah, sorry.”
“I said, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, nothing, I guess. Just dropped by to say hi. I mean, isn’t that what friends do?”
In response, Adam keeps watching me. “I said I learned my lesson.”
I move away from his desk and over to sit in the leather recliner situated under his bay window. “I need peace of mind you covered your tracks.”
Adam moves away from the doorway, seeming more relaxed now with my intrusion. He heads over to his desk and sits in the swivel chair I just vacated. “Don’t worry, I was careful.”
“With the video feed, sure, but what about the actual people who saw you? You know the cops will question them.”
“No thanks to you.”
I ignore the jab. “You know it would’ve cycled around to that anyway.”
“I know. I know.” Adam waves a hand airily. “So what do we do, frame Mr. Garner?”
Though I’m curious to hear his plan to frame, I instead say, “We?” And then I chuckle. “Y
ou lost that privilege when you went behind my back.”
Adam’s face falls. “Are you saying you don’t want to be friends anymore?”
Okay, maybe option two will work. “Yes, that is what I’m saying.”
“Are you sure, because I can be a good friend to have.”
His cocky remark doesn’t surprise me.
“I’m sure.”
The response that comes next does surprise me. I expected more cockiness or even anger or spite, not…tears. I’d like to think I can tell the difference between real and fake, and his sure come across real. I’ve hurt his feelings.
“If that’s what you want,” he mumbles.
I push myself up out of the recliner feeling, oddly enough, remorse. I’m not sure why. He lied to me. He double-crossed me. I should feel good about this, about walking away. I expected more of a debate from him, more of a fight. Frankly, I expected not to care.
Still, I say, “Yes, that’s what I want,” and I walk straight from his room.
53
ALL THE WAY home I think about Adam’s framing comment. With his mom being the D.A., he’s got the inside scoop on a lot of things. After what happened to his brother, Adam’s mom is vulnerable, and Adam knows it. I don’t doubt he’ll use her if need be.
I like Adam’s mom. I’ll need to keep an eye on the situation.
When I pull up outside of our house, Daisy and Hammond are arguing.
“Why did you lie to me?” Hammond demands.
Daisy looks away. “Because telling you wasn’t going to change anything.”
“I thought you were different. I thought you said the ‘old you’ was over.”
Daisy brings her blue gaze back to his. “She is over. I swear.”
Hammond heaves a thoughtful sigh. “You know what? I don’t believe you.”
Daisy throws her hands up. “Fine, then walk away. I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t trust me.”
“Okay.” He runs a rough hand through his brown hair. “I’m walking away.”
From my Jeep, I watch as he climbs in his dad’s Maxima and drives off. Daisy walks right toward me, opens the passenger side, and gets in. With a sigh, she slouches back into the seat like she’s just lost all of her bones.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Do you remember West?”
I think about that. “No, not really.”
“Old boyfriend. You walked in on me giving him head?”
“Oh, yeah, that.”
“Anyway, his older sister was murdered and someone cremated her. I went over to console him and now Hammond’s pissed.”
Murder and cremated. Talk about a small world. “You referring to that nurse? I saw it on the news.”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Does the family have any ideas of who did it?”
“West thinks it was the husband. Apparently, they were into some kinky sex shit that no one knew about. West thinks that things got out of hand and the husband burned her body and is now acting like he’s innocent.”
“You say no one knew about the kinky sex shit? How did they find out?”
“Some anonymous person sent photos of them doing weird stuff to each other. I don’t know, whips and chains and whatever else. I mean, if that’s what you want to do, go for it, right?”
“Right.” And by “anonymous” person, that means Adam.
It looks like he’s already started the framing. He knew exactly what his next moves were going to be. Oh, he’s good. He must have gone back into the Garner’s condominium, either the same day or soon after, to make copies of those drives.
Closing her eyes, Daisy presses her fingers into her forehead. “The old me would’ve brushed this whole thing off and found a million reasons why Hammond sucks. But instead of that, I’m sitting here right now thinking about how happy I am when I’m with him.”
Even though you admitted to role-playing? I want to say but keep that to myself.
54
LATER THAT NIGHT, Adam calls me, and I’m not surprised to see his name on the I.D. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to just end our friendship. He says, “You know, I’ve been thinking, it was kind of a dick move sending my mom those videos of Scott and Ted.”
“You know why I did it,” I remind him. She needed to stop probing into Scott’s death. I couldn’t help it that those videos then cycled around to being connected to The Strangler.
“You shouldn’t play games like that.”
Yeah, he’s one to talk.
“But in the interest of friendship,” he says, “or, lack thereof, I think I should probably tell you that I’ve been keeping notes on everything about you.”
“Really,” I say.
“Just so you know you’re not the only one with leverage should…things go south.”
Adam has no idea what door he just opened with that threat. I don’t bother responding and instead, hang up. From my pocket, I pull out the flash drive loaded with the contents of his computer. I plug it into my laptop.
Aside from the picture of him and Catalina, time to see what all is really here. Adam is a computer nerd, and the one mistake computer people make is that they keep an e-version of everything.
Adam has stepped over way too many lines with me, and he’ll keep right on doing so until I have solid evidence he can’t beat. Something that will make him back down altogether. That’s the only way he’ll fall back into place.
I know what it’s like to want to rebalance an unbalanced world, but sometimes once you open that door and walk through, it’s way too easy to stroll through it again. That’s what has happened to Adam, and I need to find a way to shut that door again.
It takes me several hours to go through all his files, videos, and photos. With being Catalina’s friend, I’m surprised not to find Masked Savior information and I begin to doubt if he knew who she really was. If he knew she was my copycat.
I also find nothing on me and am surprised there, too. I was expecting to come across buried photos dating back to the days when Catalina followed me, but again nothing.
It’s like he truly became this other person since meeting me, and I do not take that as a compliment at all.
I begin to doubt if he has been playing me this whole time. I don’t know. I truly don’t know.
What I do find is the security feed from the hospital, the real feed, with pictures of him and Mrs. Garner. Them talking, them walking down a hall, them disappearing into an elevator. They emerge out of the garage and vanish off camera before re-emerging. I watch as they laugh, almost like they know each other, then he hands her a water bottle. She uncaps it, takes a swig, and seconds later, slowly slumps to the floor. The next time I see them, Adam is loading her into the trunk of his car.
Laughing, almost like they knew each other…
I file that thought away and screenshot several clips before printing them out. Whatever she drank obviously knocked her out. But did it kill her? That I’m not sure of.
Still, I put the photos in an envelope, seal it up, and neatly print his name on the outside. It’s after midnight when I drive them over to his house and leave them in his mailbox.
I follow it with a text: CHECK YOUR MAIL
55
THE NEXT MORNING my phone rings and I see Adam’s name come across the screen.
“You think you’re funny?” He demands.
“No, I don’t.”
“How did you get those clips?”
“I have my ways, and you need to know that.”
“You bitch, you were on my computer when you were in my room. I trusted you!”
“And I you.”
He scoffs. “You think you’re so clean in all of this?”
“Yes, actually I do because I don’t keep important things that could be found.” I don’t keep things that tie me to my deeds. I don’t make the mistake of keeping “trophies”.
“You’re messing with the wrong person,” he says in
a tone, deep and threatening.
“Ditto.”
Adam huffs out an unamused laugh. “Wow, I see it now. You can’t be reasoned with. A relationship with you is pointless.”
If he means I can’t be controlled, then bully to him for finally figuring that out.
“You do what you want when you want. Is that it?” He asks.
Pretty much. “It’s all about choices, good and bad, and you’ve made too many bad ones.”
“So, what, you’re the judge and jury?”
I shrug. “If you wish.”
“I thought we were friends.”
My search for someone to connect with has officially ended. I’ve beyond learned my lesson. This part of me, it’s a solo operation. If Adam doesn’t get that now, then he’s going to force me to take alternative action.
“Consider us officially over,” he says.
I nod. “Agreed.”
I only have myself to blame for this thing with Adam. Maybe I’m trying too hard at this normal life thing and having friends. Maybe I need to revert back to what I know best. Me.
Adam reminds me of a wounded animal, and everyone knows what you do with a wounded animal. You put them out of their misery.
56
THAT NIGHT I trot up the steps toward our front door and halfway up, I pause. Something’s not right. I backtrack down the steps and glance up at our three-floor home. I look to the bottom where the basement lies, the first floor with the main area, and the top floor where our bedrooms are located.
Where are all the lights? There’s always lights on. And why are all the curtains drawn? Victor never closes the curtains.
I glance up the block and down at all the other homes in our neighborhood to find their lights on. I turn and survey the cul-de-sac and the vehicles parked in their spots. Nothing seems out of place. There are a few extra vehicles, but that’s normal.
I take a few steps to the left and look down our side yard. I look up at all of our windows, dark from this angle, too, with blinds and curtains drawn.
