Daddy Darkest

by Ellery Kane

  “Are you sure? Could you just double-check?”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but there are no messages for you.”

  “And no one else checked in? You’re positive?”

  “Positive.”

  I’d walked the length of the lobby too many times to count. Watched the rotating picture screen behind the front desk show the same picturesque views of the Golden Gate over and over again until it seemed I’d been there myself. I avoided the bathroom for obvious reasons, but sat for twenty minutes staring at the oversized clock hanging at the entrance. I catalogued its movements. 9:10 p.m. 9:11 p.m. 9:12 p.m. When the minute hand reached the VI, I went back to the desk, now certain Ginny had checked in before me. She was up in the room, showered, bundled in a comfy robe, and watching a pay-per-view movie. Probably one with Channing. Or Ryan Gosling. Maybe even Jake Gyllenhaal, if she was in the mood for something serious.

  “Are you okay?” The hotel clerk could’ve been in a movie herself. A thriller, judging by her wild eyes and breathy voice. “Do you need help?”

  I didn’t know the answer, but I knew what I had to do. There was no other option. And my phone was staring at me, judging me, chastising me, even from the bottom of my purse. Call her already. It was nearly midnight in Texas. My mom should be fast asleep—except I knew she wasn’t sleeping. She’d be up waiting for my call. And once I told her, everything that happened tonight would be real. It always was. I felt sick with the first ring. The answer came before the second.

  “Samantha.” That was it. She wasn’t screaming. It was worse than I expected.

  “Mom, I know you’re angry. But please don’t hate me.”

  And there it was, the dreaded sigh. “I don’t hate you, honey. More than anything I’m just so disappointed. It’s not like you to disobey me, much less gallivant off to San Francisco.”

  “But you said I could go.”

  “That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “You know what.”

  “You seriously expect me to believe you canceled a cruise with Ginny’s mom—a cruise!—and changed your mind about my trip at the last minute all because one of the stupid cows was about to have a calf? C’mon, Mom.”

  “I’m allowed to change my mind, Samantha. As much as you hate to admit it, those cattle are part of our livelihood. And I didn’t think it was safe for the two of you to go alone. You know how reckless Ginny can be.” My mom still blamed Ginny for pilfering the bottle of Grey Goose from the locked cabinet last summer, and I never set her straight. Besides, it had been Ginny’s bright idea to sneak into the city pool with those two senior boys—and that’s how we got caught. “I’m sure Ginny’s parents are enjoying themselves just fine.”

  “Mom?” Now seemed as bad a time as any to tell her. “I can’t find Ginny.”

  “You what?”

  “We got off the plane, and she went to the restroom. It sounds insane, but she never came out. I told the police, and they didn’t—”

  “Where are you?” She was rummaging. I could see her in my mind. She was in a full-on panic, combing through the kitchen junk drawer for a pen. “Specifically.”

  “At the hotel. The Westin St. Francis at Union Square. Room 403.”

  “Listen to me. Stay put. Do not leave the hotel until I get there. I’ll be on the first flight tomorrow. Do you understand me?” Her tone allowed only one answer.

  “Yes.” In the silence—the line dead now—I trembled. My mother’s near hysteria bit at my bones. I had to coach myself to walk, not run, to the elevator. Up. The only direction this trip could go.

  5

  RED!

  I fished my pajamas—a Duke basketball T-shirt and a pair of sweats—from my bag and sat down on the bed, Ginny’s suitcase at my feet. Opening it felt like an admission. Ginny is not coming back. So I left it there.

  I showered, barely glancing at myself in the mirror, and climbed beneath the softest sheets I’d ever felt. That, of all things, finally did me in. I let my tears dead-end into the pillowcase until it was wet against my nose. I was too tired to flip it. With the heaviness of sleep pressing down on me, I remembered something important. Ginny’s phone. The message. Clare, come find me. Tomorrow. I’d tell my mom then.

  It was one of those scorching summer days that goes on forever, as far as the hayfield behind Bellwether High. And that’s where I was, knee-deep in kleingrass. Beads of sweat took a long, lazy roll down my back as I walked. Why am I here? Where am I going? To find Ginny. She would be hiding here like before. Our freshman summer. “Who bleeds all over the first boy they kiss?” she’d asked me when I found her, eyes brimming with excitement. She flipped up the edge of her T-shirt to show me the evidence, the bright-red stain along the hem where she wiped her lips, nicked by his braces.

  My jealousy, I kept to myself. “Life isn’t a race,” my mom reminded me. But sometimes it felt like one, and Ginny always got there first. And now, she was back here laughing at me. I could hear her. I plodded toward the sound, ignoring the grass stinging my bare legs. She lay sleeping in the sun, wearing her favorite powder-blue dress. “It’s vintage,” she’d told me when she bought it. “Like Rachel McAdams in The Notebook.”

  A soft breeze blew waves in the thin fabric. Her skin paler than I remembered, her eyelids a muted shade of lilac. I moved closer, intent on waking her, telling her how angry I was. But the buzzing stopped me. The desperate flutter of translucent wings. A fly—black as ash—crawled from Ginny’s mouth, pausing on her lower lip before scurrying down her chin. Then another. And another. And another. So many I could barely make out her face. I screamed, but no sound came. I ran, but my legs anchored themselves to the earth like gravestones. Captive in the swarm, I fell to my knees. And that’s when I saw it. The slit in Ginny’s neck. Razor thin. Bone deep. And red, red, red. Red!

  I woke with a howl rising in my throat, and the blinking red eye of the telephone. I had a message.

  There was a whir, a hiss, like wind slicing through trees. No one spoke at first. And I almost hung up thinking it was a mistake. Then, a voice. Too young and unsteady to be Ginny—that’s what I thought—but it was. The more I listened, I heard the bare bones of her, the familiar lilt, the way she spoke my name. A wave of relief overwhelmed me, and my eyes were watering again.

  “Sam, it’s Ginny. I need you to come get me at Pier 39. I’ll explain when I see you. I’m really sorry.”

  I played the message again and again. So many times I recited her words along with her. And I recognized that whir, that hiss. It was Ginny’s rattled breathing. Was she running? On the map in the guidebook, I traced an arrow shot to Pier 39 via Stockton Street. If I left now, I’d be there in thirty minutes, less if I jogged. I pulled on my sneakers and stashed my phone, wallet, and room key inside the deep pocket of my sweatpants, right next to the broken promise I’d made to my mother. Surely, she would understand. Getting Ginny back was a reasonable exception.

  The only faces left in the lobby belonged to the clocks. The hanging one and the Great Magneta—the iconic grandfather clock where everybody used to meet, apparently. I discovered that fact myself in the display case at the Westin’s entrance. Ginny was never keen on history.

  In Bellwether, 2 a.m. is black as coal. The kind of black that allows the stars their shine. Summers, Ginny and I would lie down on the hood of her jeep and try to see how many we could count. One night we’d made it to 951 before the coyote howls drove us inside. My first kiss—Tobey, junior running back—had happened there too, but boys don’t have patience for stargazing. They don’t know yet that waiting makes the good things even better.

  In San Francisco, 2 a.m. was lonely and dark. The kind of lonely that makes people do desperate things. The kind of dark that lets them get away with it. The only comfort was the building-sized Burberry model, making smoldering eyes at me. In Ginny’s honor, I took a moment to appreciate the lines of demarcation across his shirtless abdomen.

  I made a right on Post and
set a brisk pace, holding my phone in my hand in case I got lost. A mass of a man—I think it was a man—huddled in the corner in front of Tiffany’s, just a mangy shock of hair under a stained blanket. One arm protruded, the nails long and thick as calluses. A left turn on Stockton, and I was jogging now. Ahead of me, a woman stumbled, holding a half-empty bottle in her hand. She braced herself against a storefront as I crossed the street, already feeling breathless and cold.

  “Hey there, girlie!” A voice from the shadows scratched at me as I passed. “Where ya goin’ in such a hurry? Want to have a little fun?” I didn’t look. Couldn’t look. Just kept running. My own footsteps were heavy, my breath ragged in my ears. By the time I reached the Stockton Street Tunnel, I was convinced there was someone behind me. Someone fast and wild tracking the scent of my fear like a wolf. That faceless voice had taken form. This small-town girl, his idea of a little fun. Stunned by the headlights of an oncoming car—blind as a Bellwether deer—I still ran. If this was a game, it was a fast break, a steal, and I plowed down the court with a steely-eyed defender at my heels.

  I forced myself to turn around when I found Washington Square Park—a little patch of grass and a row of trees. There was no one. No one I could see. But it was all I couldn’t see that unnerved me. I consulted my phone. I was close, about a half mile from the Pier. And I had a text from a number I didn’t recognize.

  Sam, please hurry. I’ll be waiting by the sea lions.

  I dialed it back. First ring, I expected Ginny to answer. The second came and went. By the third, I knew it was pointless. What’s up? You’ve reached Marco’s voicemail. You know what to do. Marco? He sounded like a frat boy. A frat boy with an accent like Enrique Iglesias. Maybe Levi was right. Ginny flirted her way into the city. I hit redial.

  Most changes happen at a glacial pace. Puberty, for instance. A virtual Ice Age passed between gawkiness and adulthood—measured in pimples and awkward formal dances. But really, it only takes a snap of a finger, a wrong turn, a knife blade to the throat, to take who you are and turn you into somebody completely different. This, for instance.

  “Gimme your phone, bitch.” The mouth—angry for no reason—opened wide and spewed at me. The world closed in and that mouth was all I could see, spittle collecting in the corners of chapped brown lips. A tongue like a cow’s, thick and rough. Corn-kernel teeth. “Now.”

  I offered my phone to the mouth, but I knew it wanted more. “Money,” it said. “You got any money?” I reached into my pocket, uncertain. Did I bring my wallet? Everything before the mouth seemed fuzzy, a dream upon waking.

  “C’mon, baby, I know you do.” It talked sweet and low now, which was worse than the other. The lips smacked softly. “Or maybe you got something else to offer.”

  I gave everything I owned—a handful of neatly folded bills. Unsatisfied, the mouth came closer. Closer still. Until I felt its hot breath on my cheek and sucked in its sourness. I stepped back, but the mouth knew how to hold me in place—“Don’t move, you little slut. Don’t tease me.” And it knew how to keep me quiet—“Scream, and I’ll slit you open.” The mouth recited its vile threats like poetry. Then, the lips parted, setting free a moan, and left a trail of acid down my neck. “Be good to me, and I’ll be good to you,” the mouth whispered.

  No. I silent-screamed the word before I said it. “No!” I heard my voice as an outsider, an observer, a neutral party. It sounded contrived, nearly hysterical. Like a bad actress in a horror flick.

  The mouth was still, but not surprised. It expected a fight. Wanted it even. “No?” Slowly the corners turned up, pleased with itself. “I don’t remember asking.” The mouth pushed itself against mine hard and insistent. It tasted of bitter rot, too putrid to stomach. I smashed my fist into the mouth, my wallet curled in my palm like a brick.

  “Fuck.” The mouth angered again, and I liked that better. The lips turned the color of OPI’s Girls Just Want to Play, the one Ginny insisted we both wear to prom because she liked the name. “You want to do this the hard way, huh?” A hand with clawed fingers swiped the blood from the mouth, smearing it across the chin. A knife! There was a knife in that hand. The mouth grinned at my realization. “Look what you did. I’m gonna have to hurt you now.”

  “Do that, and you’ll have a bullet in your head.” A voice—calm and vaguely familiar—came from behind me, and with it, the spell broke. I hurled myself away from the mouth, the hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, the face—the entire man to whom it belonged. He looked scrawnier than his voice let on. Gaunt even. Made of bones and dirt. But his eyes, now that I could see them, had an unexpected power. Darting from Levi to me and back again, they possessed the boldness of a cornered animal.

  “And who the fuck are you?” The man danced toward Levi with his fists raised, slaying invisible air dragons as he approached.

  “A man who’s brought a gun to a knife fight, evidently.”

  “Levi?” The gun tucked close to his chest answered me back. It glinted in the glow of the lone streetlight. I backed up, smacking myself against a tree trunk.

  “What are you doing out here alone?” he shouted.

  “What am I doing? What are you doing? You followed me.”

  “You let yourself be followed.” Levi trained the black-eyed barrel on the man, then waved it down the length of his body as he squirmed. “Clearly.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re in way over your head, Samantha Bronwyn.” Did I tell him my last name? Definitely not. But Ginny shared hers, of course. Along with her Facebook page, Twitter handle, and every other thing you shouldn’t share with strangers. Unless that stranger looks like a Calvin Klein model, she’d whispered when I cautioned her with Levi out of earshot in the airplane bathroom.

  While I contemplated my options—Potential Murderer #1 or Potential Murderer #2—the man scurried toward the shadows like a rat. “Where do you think you’re going?” Levi demanded. With two broad steps, he grabbed the man’s shoulder and spun him around. “Give her the money back.”

  “And my phone.”

  “And her phone.” Levi repeated. His fingers tightened on the man’s arm, reddening with the effort. I waited for the snap, the break of his bird-like bones. The knife dropped from his hand, and Levi kicked it into the gutter.

  “Alright, alright, alright. It’s in my pocket, dude. I wasn’t gonna do nothin’ to her. I was just messin’ around.” Levi pulled one pocket inside out. Then, the other, and my things tumbled to the sidewalk, along with a small baggie and a hypodermic needle that explained a lot.

  “Now get out of here.”

  “Uh, okay.” The man side-eyed Levi’s death grip. “But I can’t move . . . I—oof.” Leveled by Levi’s punch, the man went down hard. And stayed down. One of his jaundiced teeth skittered from his mouth and mixed with the gravel until I couldn’t tell it from all the other pebbles. I flinched, then flinched again when Levi turned his attention to me, his raised eyebrows issuing a challenge.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted. “I mean—thank you, but I’m fine . . . now.” I gathered my phone and my wad of money so fast, I scraped my knuckles against the sidewalk. Flesh seemed a small price to pay for a hasty exit. “I have to go.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere.” I hoped he couldn’t hear me gulp. Levi slipped his gun into his waistband and centered his knee in the back of the fallen man, stretching one of his limp, skeleton arms awkwardly behind his back. He’d obviously done this before. Then he looked up at me. “You’re coming with me.”

  “Like hell I am.”

  He sighed, exasperated. “Are you country girls all this stubborn?”

  “It’s a Texas thing,” I said, wondering if I could outrun him. Doubtful. Not with those legs. He had at least six inches on my 5’6” frame. “Didn’t anybody ever warn you about Texas girls?”

  He didn’t laugh, his eyes calculated and focused. “Do me a favor. Open my backpack. Hand me one of those zip ti
es.” I hadn’t noticed his bag until now. He’d dropped it in the darkness, a few feet away.

  “Guess you were right about those unsavory characters.” Still nothing—not even a smile or a nod of acknowledgment. “Is he dead?” I asked. Levi prodded the man’s ribs with his knuckles, inducing a low groan.

  “Zip tie, please.” Reluctant, I shuffled toward the bag and spread it open wide.

  “What else do you have in here? Duct tape? Bleach? A shovel?”

  “Funny. You should be thanking me, you know. If I hadn’t shown up, Skinny here would be practicing his knife skills on you.”

  “I already said thank you.” I plucked a plastic zip tie from the top of the bag. Underneath, I felt something soft. Maybe a T-shirt. “You gonna use these on me too?”

  “Nah. I’m not into that kind of thing.”

  “But you’re into following a complete stranger? Bringing a gun on an airplane? How did you even . . . ?”

  “Zip tie.” I shoved the tie into Levi’s extended palm, and he started to secure Skinny. With his hands busy, I grabbed the gun from the holster on his waistband and pointed it at him. That was too easy. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was the same size as the one in Pandora’s box. Finally, my mother’s just in case came in handy.

  He studied me with surprised amusement. “Seriously?”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me who you are and why you followed me.”

  “Fine.” I hadn’t expected him to agree. Not that easily. The urgent stiffness in my shoulders loosened. “Just put the gun—” Levi lunged toward me, strong hands on my forearm, and wrestled the gun from my grasp, but not before I landed two strong kicks to his shin that he barely noticed. “—down.”