Murder

by Ella James

  When I get my bearings, I start shrieking. I don’t even mean to. It’s what my body does instinctively. Make noise. Make music.

  I pull myself out of the tub and dry my hand and then the phone. Still naked, bubble-soaked and laughing, I flop down on my bed and dial Jamie.

  She answers, “Hey, you.”

  With no prior notice, my mouth opens and a squeal peals out.

  BARRETT

  “Well…let’s see. Where is it? Hmm.”

  The woman’s cheeks flush slightly as she rifles through her massive, purple purse. She makes a clucking sound to fill the silence, even though it isn’t—silent. A cool breeze drifts through the forest, tousling the pine needles, clicking fallen leaves together in a gentle autumn song that she can’t hear because her heart is likely pounding in her ears.

  I fold my arms. “No rush.” My tone is easy but my stance says otherwise. Intentional. It’s automatic. And dickish, I realize as I watch her struggle with her monster purse. Controlling people begins with putting them off balance, that first step on the road to making them beholden to you. I don’t need to do that, though, do I? Not now that I’ve gotten what I wanted.

  I unfold my arms and pull my phone out of my pants pocket. I tilt my head down and look at the screen, holding my right eye open for a long second while the phone’s OS reads and registers my retina. The screen flares from black to blue a millisecond later.

  I’m hoping to pass for just a normal guy and take the pressure off my jittery realtor, but as I hold the phone in front of me, I realize I’m not sure what it is that normal guys are doing when I see them fucking with their phones. I need to get a normal phone. Onto which I can download something normal. Angry Birds? Breck played that sometimes.

  The memory bumps the shard of pain embedded in my chest up somewhere between my sternum and my throat.

  I use my imposter iPhone to take some pictures of Ms. Pryce’s gray, high-heeled boots. The phone is still and silent. Unlike an actual iPhone, it can hold millions of images. It gives no indication that it’s taking them. If left alone for enough hours, the phone will activate its own camera and begin sending images to headquarters. Of course, there’s no emergency right now. But taking pictures of my realtor while she assumes I’m playing games alleviates my strange anxiety.

  Anxiety is what it is, I’ve realized: the weird feeling in my stomach and the elevated pulse. For the last couple of months, I thought it must be normal. Something I’d just failed to notice while I risked my life in war zones. Now I’m not so sure.

  “Ugh.” She exhales, puffing out her cheeks. “I need to organize this crazy thing.”

  “Take your time. I’m checking work email,” I lie.

  I spent the early morning turning up the charm for one Ms. Mallorie Pryce, a 29-year-old divorcee with C-cup tits, a little too much lipstick, and the kind of bright white smile you only see in first-world countries. She wears her blonde hair in a pretty bun. As she fumbles with her megapurse, a strand escapes and hangs down by her face. With a half-curled hand, she pushes it away. Her tension feels corporeal between us, despite the beauty of the wooded clearing where we stand under a gray sky.

  Finally, she exhales loudly and pulls a key ring from her bag.

  “Here we go.” She gives me a smile that panders with its stiff width and apologetic eyes. “There you are, Mr. Drake.” She holds the key ring out, its trio of keys dangling. I slide my phone into my pocket and take it, wrapping it in my fist.

  “Thank you, Mallorie. I appreciate this.”

  “Hey, no problem.” She holds out her arms, over-emphasizing her agreeability. Because, even as I’m trying to act “normal,” I’m making her uncomfortable. Not enough so that she consciously notices. (In fact, she thinks she likes me; I know because I listened to the phone call she made from her car this morning as she left the showing). Rather, just enough so she’s more pliant than she’d be with someone else. Just enough to make her want to bend the rules for me.

  “When I asked Mr. Haywood, he didn’t have a problem with it,” she continues. “His bank expedited the transfer of the cash so it’s all in his account now, safe and sound.” She winks. “He didn’t plan to go into the house again, so why couldn’t you go ahead and get the key?”

  Her tone is soft and understanding, as if she’s advocating for me. When I don’t return her friendly smile quite fast enough, hers falters, her plump lips pinching nervously. She smiles again to cover her anxiety.

  “The closing should be sometime in the next four to six weeks. Until then, he doesn’t want to deal with rent. He’s happy knowing the sale went through, with no harm to the bear place next door. You know that was an issue,” she says with one eyebrow arched.

  I nod.

  “Don’t worry about her, though.” She lowers her voice, as if the woman next door can hear her across the 340 yards between our properties. “The bears are in a very secure enclosure, like I told you earlier. With your background, I’m sure you could handle yourself either way.” She winks again and gives a fake laugh.

  I smile, hoping to project a tranquil, slightly grateful expression that will prompt her to get going.

  “You know, Gwenna White…she keeps to herself.” She glances over her shoulder, at the trees. “She got hurt sometime back. No one really knows the details, but she has a limp, and…some, well, facial…differences. When she smiles…”

  I feel the smile slip off my own face.

  “Very pretty woman, though. And very nice.” Again, the soothing tone. Slightly patronizing, really, not that I give two fucks.

  I nod. “Thank you again, Mallorie.”

  Embarrassment stains her cheeks. That she made small talk with me, and I—what? Didn’t seem interested enough? All this time learning to blend in, and now I’m living here among the civvies, realizing I don’t.

  “Any time,” she says. “I’ll keep you posted as we move toward closing. I know where you live.” She shakes her finger.

  I offer a tight smile. It was intended to look genuine and kind, but as the circumstances go, the half-grimace seems to be the best that I can do.

  Three minutes later, Ms. Pryce’s pale blue Buick SUV is rolling down the long driveway, toward Blue Moon Road, an offshoot of a long, scenic road that leads from northeast Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to the stretch of I-40 between Hartford and Newport.

  Alone again at last, I turn to face the house and look up at the porch. It’s at the top of sixteen thick, stone stairs, and like the rest of the second and third floors, rests atop a tall stone foundation that serves as the external walls of the lowermost level.

  The movement of the porch swing catches my eye and snatches a knot of tension in my chest. I’ll need to bolt it down. Perhaps even remove it.

  It’s the little things, I think. I can’t control it all, but what I can…

  I look around me, at the verdant pine forest, and I allow myself a moment of satisfaction. This was unplanned, but it works out perfectly. Not just for the larger plan, but because I’ve always loved the cover of a forest. Sure as fuck beats somewhere dry and barren.

  I turn back to my new-ish bike, a Harley Wide Glide I parked beside the garage, on the right side of the house. Stashed in the vegetation near the house’s stone base is my pack. I throw it over my shoulder, then walk up the stairs and unlock the front door with the only key that’s sized to fit a deadbolt.

  The slick, mahogany door opens to the house’s high-end kitchen. It’s got granite, stainless, all the shit people are always crowing about on TV shows like House Hunters. The floors are all hardwood, and there’s no wall or other dividing line between the kitchen and the cavernous living area.

  The living room is done in dark woods and stone, with a two-story ceiling, an enormous, L-shaped couch in a soft, shearling-type material, a weathered leather recliner, a coffee table that looks to have been made of tree limbs, and two thick, cedar rocking chairs.

  Across from the couch, on the wall to my right, is an enormou
s stone fireplace with a mantel that sports what has to be a five-foot-long flatscreen. The back wall of the living area—which also happens to be the rearmost wall of the house—is part slider door. I know from my tour this morning that the door opens to a stilted, second-story deck that overlooks the forest.

  To the right of the slider door, nestled into a corner, is a large gun cabinet. My gaze clings to it for a moment. Then I stride through the kitchen, into the den, and hang a left, heading down a staircase that leads to a wine cellar and home gym.

  I walk through both dark spaces and into the small bathroom between—clearing the floor. (Some habits never die). Then I go back up to the main floor, carry my pack over to the gun cabinet, and, using a small pick I’ve got in my pocket, unlock the cabinet door. The keys on the key ring appear to be a garage key and two house keys—one a deadbolt, the other not. No one’s mentioned anything about Haywood coming back for the contents of this gun cabinet, so for now I’m going to call it mine. I stash my weathered M-14, my M4 Commando, and my HK MP5 there, but leave my TAC-338 in its hard case.

  With my bag over my shoulder and the McMillian case in my right hand, I make a quick pass with my left hand over the butt of the .45 at my hip, then start to climb up to the top floor.

  The third floor houses two bedrooms and two bathrooms, plus a library. It’s probably 2,000 square feet up there, with maybe 1,000 of those dedicated to the palatial master suite. I feel a jab of want as I remember the rustic-opulent space, with its pale stone fireplace, soft, faux bearskin rug, luxurious-looking king-sized bed, and two big, bay windows facing south.

  When I’m halfway up the staircase, I turn and grip the bannister. I’m still getting winded pretty easily, but it’s better than it was a few months back. I shut my eyes and fill my lungs and try to focus on being present. Right here, right now.

  Fuck, I’m tired.

  I climb slowly up the remaining eleven stairs and clear the floor. When I’ve satisfied my irrational impulse, I return to the master. From the doorway, the fireplace is on the left, a stone behemoth in the middle of a wall of built-in mahogany shelves. The king-size bed is on the right, between the bay windows. I lay my gun case and my bag on the bed’s silky, sage-green spread and unzip the bag. Nestled between shirts and pants, socks and boxer-briefs, are a bunch of cans of Red Bull. I pull the cans out and line them on the night stand to the bed’s left.

  Then I check my watch.

  It’s 2:12 p.m.

  I pop open a can and take a few warm swallows, then set it back down. My stomach growls. My gun case looks strange there on the elegant bedspread. I want to see the .338, so I take it out. I run the fingers of my right hand over its cool grip. I peer through the Leupold MK4 scope, then stand with the gun in hand.

  One small step toward the left bay window, and I turn back toward the bed and lay the heavy gun atop the mattress. I take the scope off and take it with me to the window.

  Through the thick woods, I can see the green tin roof of the little cabin next door. I peer through the scope and watch some leaves flutter down onto it. How long until Gwenna White emerges for her afternoon workout?

  I stand there waiting—two hours and six minutes. With the quiet precision of my trade, I track her up the hill behind her house, moving from the left window to the one on the right of my new bed. When her small form becomes a long shadow, I walk downstairs.

  I stand around the kitchen for a moment, feeling lost. Then I fire up the Keurig and make myself a mug of hot chocolate.

  THREE

  GWENNA

  The rest of Wednesday passes in a thick haze of relief. Everything seems better now. My cappuccino—stale-tasting the last time I brewed one—tastes delicious this time. The sheets on my bed—just regular, silky sheets—feel outright luscious. My closet—an honest-to-God danger zone—appears before me as a giant stack of lovely things. I’m fortunate to have them. I’ve got a soft robe, a cozy couch, a beautiful clearing near the top of the hill where I can work out.

  Working out is more fun, too, I notice Wednesday evening when I finish, because no longer am I practicing my Taekwondo with the intent of getting a last-ditch job as an instructor. I may still get re-licensed for the fun of it. Because, until I got “discovered” as a model, Taekwondo was one of the biggest parts of my life, and it would be nice to be able to instruct again. Maybe even pro bono. But I don’t have to if I don’t want to.

  I spend Wednesday night packaging the plush black bears I sell on the sanctuary’s web site at an $8-per-bear profit, then watching Doctor Who (David Tennant) while lounging on the couch, yammering with my mom and Jamie. My brother Rett calls too, letting me know how glad he is that everything worked out with the sanctuary.

  When I think I’m finished with my talk-a-thon, my mom calls back to ask me a mundane question, and I can hear the tears in her voice. She doesn’t like me to ask outright, nor does she actually want to talk about how she misses Dad, so I just chat with her like normal, tidying up my office as we chat, then, when her lengthy debate—mostly with herself—about what piece to sculpt next starts to melt my brains, I sit at my desk and start reviewing footage from the cams.

  Tomorrow is an enclosure day for me, so I need to spend some time figuring out where my bears are tonight, and how they seem to be doing. I track them via their anklets and then, because my mom is still going strong—she’s leaning toward a woman mostly covered by a large shawl; “perhaps really a mourning veil,” she says excitedly—I check the footage from Cams 1 and 2 around the time I was out practicing.

  To my horror, I see something. Something blurry. Something moving. Something man-sized. And then, just when I start to second-guess myself, I see a hand. A real, flesh-colored hand—I’m sure it is!

  I stop the footage and hit rewind, and I can finally see. It is a person. Holy shit! It’s someone wearing camouflage. I would never have realized had I not seen that left hand. He must have taken off his camo gloves.

  Oh holy shit, who is this person?

  The trajectory in which he’s moving in the footage points him toward me. He’s moving toward me at the time I would have been headed back to the house.

  Shiiiiitttt.

  “Hey Mom, can I call you back?”

  “Of course. Don’t worry with it tonight. I feel much better. Thanks for listening, love.”

  “No prob. It sounds amazing, Mom. I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  I hang up with her and dial Jamie. “It is a man! It’s a man, it’s a man!”

  “Whoa there, Squirrel. Your new neighbor?”

  “No, the camo ripple ghost thing on the cams. It’s totally a man. He took his—I guess camo glove off, I could clearly see a hand. Who the hell is it?! He’s a murderer! Talk to Niccolo, Jamie! Tell his Mafioso ass to come save me!” I flop back in my desk chair, out of breath and laughing at my own dramatics.

  “How much Absinthe did you have this morning?” Jamie asks.

  “STFU, whoreface. I mean it, there’s a man on the cams and he was out there when I was out there. Tell me that’s not creepy as hell.”

  I keep Jamie on the phone for thirty minutes, running my wild theories by her, forcing her to promise she will call me first thing in the morning, telling her if I’m kidnapped, I’ll grab the bag of pistachios from my night stand and drop them in the forest like Hansel and Gretel. In other words, trying to make her laugh.

  Say what you will about my dislike of Niccolo—she fell for him in the days after my accident; at one point the police tried to link the accident to his younger brother; BFF-related jealousy; yada yada whatever—but I do have one legimate complaint: he’s a boring mofo. She spends too much time with his dreary ass, if you ask me. Right now he’s producing a movie in L.A. Since Jamie lives in Nashville, they’re only seeing each other two or three times a month, leaving more time for me and actual fun.

  I review the camera footage one more time, watching up until the moment the hand, and the blur of the man’s body, d
isappear, sometime after he has turned around, away from me and back toward the hill behind my house.

  I take the safety off the .38 I keep in my nightstand drawer, say my prayers, and fall asleep mostly untroubled, having managed to partition off my ax-murderer anxiety and any residual upset about the zoning situation—me talking and snarile-ing at the commission meeting in my pathetic attempt to arouse pity.

  In dreamland, I find myself on that road, holding a gardenia petal in one hand and a cell phone in the other. I keep hearing the squeak of boots against the fresh powder. Snowflakes fall on my nose and forehead, melting on my skin. When I move, my long hair sways around my hips. When I wake up Thursday morning, I remember that: my hair was long. Down to my ass. Not in real life, but in the dream.

  I Google it and read that long hair in dreamland is a sign of strength.

  Even so, I grab the .38 and tuck it into the pocket of my sheepskin coat before I slip into the woods.

  When I tell people I run a bear sanctuary, I almost always get one of two responses.

  “You? Like—just you? Aren’t you scared of being EATEN?” Or, “OMG, what’s it like playing with those precious bears?”

  The boring truth is, there is almost zero chance of being “eaten,” not just because black bears are almost never aggressive unless provoked, but also because there are lots of common sense precautions.

  I don’t take food into or around the enclosure. I don’t even eat in the moments before I go in, nor do I leave my garbage cans outside. I pull up the tracking app on my phone before I unlock the enclosure’s gate, so I know exactly where each of my five bear babies is. Also, I carry bear spray. Not because I think I’ll need it, but because it’s smart. Just like carrying a small gun is smart, because of poachers and criminals of the human-hunting variety.

  As for playing with the bears? No way. Caring for captive bears is all about limiting contact. While occasionally I’ll get bears like Aimee and Papa, “lifers,” I call them, a lot of my charges are only being rehabbed. They’ll be released back into the wild, and if they’re going to be successful when they are, I have to try to minimize their reliance on human intervention.