“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Theia responded in a lofty tone.
“Yes, you do,” Jack insisted. “This is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I want the other Theia back, and I want her back now.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I’d like to go home now.”
He frowned at her, trying to figure out what the hell had possessed her. “You look like the same person, but I swear to God there’s someone else inside you. You’re not one of those multiple personality people, are you?”
She just stared at him, looking bored and annoyed. She drank her coffee while she picked up and packed her things. When she pulled the cat carriers into the room, Jack exploded. “Are you going to fucking tell me what the hell is going on? Do you always go psycho after sex?”
“Oh, you don’t know psycho,” she muttered. “Look, I just want to go home. They caught Donald, so I’m safe to go home. Do you mind?”
“Yes, I very much mind,” he strode across the room, grabbed her shoulders and kissed her.
She steeled herself and did not respond, which was not easy, as her body wanted to wrap around him and jump back into bed. He pulled away, looking baffled and angry.
“What happened between us burning up the sheets last night and you turning into the Queen Bitch this morning?” he demanded.
“Last night was a mistake. I’m terribly sorry. I shouldn’t have let things go that far,” she said, keeping all emotion out of her voice. She scooped up the cats and stuffed them into their carriers. “Can we go now?”
“Sure,” Jack said, slamming his coffee cup on the table. He should have known better than to fall for a woman he had just met. What an idiot he had been, thinking of growing old with her. That’s what happens when you give your heart to someone, they kick you in the teeth. “The sooner I get back to my normal life the better.”
They drove to her apartment in silence. Jack looked furious. He parked outside her building, popped the trunk and grabbed some things to carry.
“I can manage,” she said.
“Yes, but it will be quicker if I help and the sooner I have this behind me, the better. Move,” he said between clenched teeth.
She fumbled in her purse for her keys, her vision blurred by tears. Why wouldn’t her heart listen to her head? She wasn’t allowed to have love. If she had learned anything, she had learned that. Jack gently tilted her face up to confirm what he thought he had seen.
“That scene back at my place was all an act, wasn’t it? Why did you dump me when you clearly don’t want to?” he asked.
Theia shook her head. “There’s no way you can understand. You’d just want to fix things, and some things can’t be fixed.” She pushed the door open and took a few steps blindly into the room then heard Jack behind her exclaim, “Holy shit!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sofa cushions were slashed and the stuffing was strewn all over the room. Decorations and wall hangings were smashed. The kitchen drawers had been dumped out and glasses thrown on the floor in a shattered pile.
Her clothes had been pulled out of the dresser and sliced into shreds, her mattress slashed. Every breakable item had been broken, stomped on or thrown against a wall. Dents and stains covered the walls. The floor was strewn with broken vases, tattered clothes and stomped artwork.
Theia shuffled, as if hypnotized, into her bathroom. “Why do you kill the one you love?” was written in lipstick on the mirror over the double sink.
Jack grabbed her when she swayed, and held her against him. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, “in case they come back.”
They went back to the car, still holding the things they had carried inside. Theia numbly handed him her items and he put them in the car.
Jack drove a few blocks away, looked around, then parked and called 911. The police told them to meet them at the apartment. As soon as he hung up, Jack’s phone rang.
“Is Theia with you?” Detective McCarthy demanded.
“Yes.”
“I was just informed of your 911 call. Where the hell has she been? I’ve been calling her non-stop.”
“She’s been with me. I haven’t heard her phone ring. Theia, where’s your phone?” Jack asked.
“Huh?” she said, lightheaded.
“Theia, snap out of it and tell me where your phone is,” Jack ordered.
“Um, it’s in my purse, why?” She pulled her phone out. The display was blank. “I guess I forgot to plug in the charger last night. What’s the big deal?”
“The detective’s been trying to reach you. Here,” he handed her the phone and Detective McCarthy barked at her.
“No,” she said into the phone in disbelief. “This can’t be happening. Yes, we’re on our way back to the apartment. Okay. We’ll see you there.”
She disconnected and handed the phone back to Jack. “He said don’t even park at the apartment until the cops arrive. He’ll meet us there.” She took a deep breath. “You’re not going to believe this one—he said the guy they arrested wasn’t Donald.”
“What? How the hell did they screw that up?” “Apparently the guy they nabbed was just some idiot who had swiped Donald’s wallet. But that’s not the only bad news.”
“This gets worse?” Jack asked.
“Yeah,” Theia confirmed. “Donald’s brother busted out of prison.”
“God damn it! Sonofabitch! Those fucking idiots. How the hell could they be so fucking stupid?”
“I think you used one of those twice.”
Jack pounded the steering wheel. “How the hell did he break out of prison?”
“His wife was finally divorcing him,” Theia explained. “She’d moved to some little farm town way out in the boonies. He insisted on coming to court for the final hearing. When he went to the bathroom, he just climbed out the window. Small town courthouses don’t have much by way of security.”
“Well this is just great. What’re we supposed to do, put you in Fort Knox so you’ll be safe?”
“I don’t know,” her voice trembled.
“Theia, I need to know what’s going on inside your head. Why’d you put on that bullshit act this morning?”
“There’s no simple answer to that, but can we get through this thing with the police first before I try to explain? I’m sorry, I really am.”
“I guess that’ll have to do for now. You’ve been through a rough time lately. I suppose you’re entitled to go a little crazy,” Jack conceded.
He called Lu to let her know the news, and told her to call Colleen. “We’re all in danger again,” Jack told her. “Actually, we always were, we just didn’t know it.”
They slowly circled the neighborhood until they saw two police cars parked outside her apartment. They each grabbed a cat carrier and walked up to the open door.
“Police scene, stay out,” an officer said brusquely, after glancing in their general direction.
“I live here,” Theia said.
“Oh, that’s different. Why are you bringing cats into this mess?”
“I can’t leave them in the car, they’ll fry in this heat,” Theia answered. “I’ll keep them in the carriers, since there’s broken glass all over the place.”
“Good idea. They’re sending someone over to take your statement.” He continued to inspect the carnage in the apartment. “Don’t touch anything.”
“We’ve already been through the entire apartment. We’re the ones who called 911,” she said, annoyed.
He glared at them as if they had done something extremely stupid, then shrugged his shoulders and went back to ignoring them. Theia and Jack stood there awkwardly for a few minutes until Detective McCarthy arrived to take their statements.
“Okay, please tell me,” Jack asked, “how the hell they arrested the wrong guy.”
“He had Donald Catalino’s wallet.”
“What, is he the guy’s twin?”
“No.”
“So they didn’t look at the driver’s license photo? This guy has a bunch of outstanding warrants, and no one even thinks to make sure they have the right guy?”
“Give me a break. No one looks like their driver’s license photo,” McCarthy protested. “Besides, I wasn’t the arresting officer. Go bust someone else’s balls. I have work to do. I need to know what time you arrived, what you saw, the rooms you went to and in which order, and whether you touched anything.”
Theia and Jack gave their statements to McCarthy while walking through the apartment. Their final stop was the bathroom mirror.
“’Why do you kill the one you love?’ What the hell does that mean?” the detective asked. “Who do you love, and who did you kill?”
Theia stared silently at the words, looking disturbed. She shuddered and looked away.
“Theia, these words have some other significance, don’t they?” Jack asked.
“I can’t figure out how Donald knew about these words,” she gestured.
“Theia, I need to know the whole story,” McCarthy said.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she began. “Five years ago, I was stalked and shot by my ex-husband. One of the times he broke into and trashed my condo, he wrote these exact words across my bathroom mirror in lipstick. In fact, this whole thing is exactly the way he used to trash my place when he would break in. This is like stepping back in time.”
“Why have you withheld such important information from the police? Why haven’t you mentioned your ex-husband before this?”
“Because he’s dead,” Theia explained. “The police shot and killed him at the scene. Obviously, this can’t be him. So how did Donald find out? I didn’t tell Rose about the break-ins. And hardly anyone even among my friends or family knows about the words he wrote on my mirror. For that matter, why would Donald be looking into my past? And how could he have found out about these words? This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Are you all done in there?” asked another police officer. “Evidence is here and they want to take photos.”
“Sure, we can finish this outside,” answered Detective McCarthy. They stepped outside the apartment, and walked down the sidewalk. “Tell me about your ex-husband,” said the detective.
“There’s nothing much to tell. I got married way too young. I working in a hospital during college and he was the emergency room doctor. We met, dated and married. I found out he had some serious mental health issues. He couldn’t get help or he’d lose his medical license, so he had to self medicate. Things got so bad that I had to leave him in order to stay alive. He was obsessed and couldn’t let go, so he followed me around.”
“Did that happen here in St. Louis?”
“No, in Atlanta. I moved home to St. Louis afterward.”
“What was his diagnosis?”
“He was schizophrenic.”
The detective gave a long, slow whistle.
“What’s going on, detective? A dead man can’t do these things,” Theia said.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “From what I saw inside your apartment, we are dealing with someone who’s seriously disturbed. Donald Catalino fits that bill, and so does his brother, who’s now on the loose, but I have no explanation for the words written on your mirror. Do you know why your ex-husband chose those words to write? If they’re from a book or a movie, maybe that’s where Donald or his brother got them.”
“That would be one hell of a coincidence,” Jack said.
“You got something better?” retorted the detective.
“Would you two stop beating your chests and focus on this case? I have no idea where my ex got those words. Are we finished?” Theia turned to McCarthy.
He looked at his notes, glanced back toward the apartment and said, “Yes, for now. Charge up your damn phone so I can reach you when I need to. If you’d been in your apartment when this happened, you’d probably be dead now. Stay alert, and for God’s sake don’t be alone at any time.”
“You have my phone number as well,” said Jack. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“I’m not a child, for you to ‘keep an eye on,’” she snapped at Jack, insulted by his suggestion that she could not take care of herself. She knew how to stay alive. She had plenty of practice. “Detective, I’ll make sure I’m not alone and I’ll charge my phone immediately. I appreciate everything you’re doing. May I go now please?” she asked, suddenly tired.
“Sure.”
Jack took both carriers to the car. They rode in silence for a few minutes, then he called Lu and arranged for them all to meet at his place. Theia stared out the windshield silently, oblivious to the traffic and buildings they passed. Jack wisely said nothing.
“Someone trashed your apartment?” Colleen asked as she barged into Jack’s place.
“Yeah, my mattress and clothes are slashed, dishes broken. I’ll have to replace everything.”
“How come you’re not hurt?” Colleen asked.
“I wasn’t there,” Theia glanced at Jack and blushed. Lu looked sharply at Jack, who gave her a “don’t ask” look.
“Thankfully I have tenant’s insurance,” Theia said, to change the subject. “I’ll go in the other room and call my agent.” She took her phone into the kitchen, glad for the excuse to leave the tension-filled room.
“You slept with my friend?” Lu demanded of Jack.
“I’m not gonna go there,” Jack said. “We have other things to deal with, like finding out where Donald is holding Rose, what his brother Nathan is doing, and who trashed her apartment.”