Snuff (2 page)

THREE

I make protesting noises when they strap me to a gurney on the way to the hospital.  I don’t need a doctor.  All I have is a sore spot on my head.

“It’s protocol,” she says. 
Protocol
means little.  I assume it has something to do with the army, Secret Service, chains of command, etiquette for royals.  “We need to make sure you’re going to be okay.”

I don’t know how many ways I can rephrase
I’m
fine
so I give up and fall back against the gurney.  She looks down at me, lines of concern I don’t deserve rimming her eyes.  The ceiling bulbs backlight her head, a blinding halo ringing gold hair. She shimmers around the edges. For a moment I think she’s an angel, but then I remember.  I’m fine. 

Her hair looks like Abby’s.

“How did he take you?”

I don’t answer.

“You got off work at nine that night.”

She knows my whole life story.  I don’t even know her name.

“Jack said you never made it home. He’s been so worried, practically living at the police station.  He’ll be relieved you’re okay.”

My eyes
burn.  It’s good to know he’s safe.  I need a few days to beef up my composure before I can see him, though.  I don’t want to be around anybody—I’m not even human anymore.  “I think he…hit me from behind.  I don’t remember much.”

“In the Norm’s parking lot?”

“The last thing I saw was my car.  I had the keys in my hand.  I was almost there.”

Static buzzes.  It’s her walkie-talkie.  She snaps it up and unleashes rapid-fire police gibberish mixed with a lot of filthy words I’ve never heard before.  It ends with a sharp
fuck me with a buzz saw, you can bitch as much as you want.  Nobody’s doing anything till I’m finished
. 

She’s irritated when she shoves the walkie back into her belt loop and blows out a sigh. It’s been a long day for both of us, but it’s only three a.m.

“Where’s Abby?”

Sympathy wades through her eyes.  It’s too much for my stomach to handle.  I need to throw up. 

“Abby’s going to the morgue.”

Everyone’s final destination.  I knew the answer.  I don’t know why I asked. 

I sit up when acid invades my throat.  There isn’t a bucket around. 

She knows what’s happening.  A trash can magically appears under my chin, and she holds my hair back.  Salty mucus slides over my lips when it’s over.  I don’t care, but she must. She mops it up.

“I don’t know your name,” I say while she pulls an elastic band from her wrist and plaits my hair into a messy braid. 

She doesn’t throw
around professional titles like
officer
or
detective
.  “Lisette.”

I decide I like her. 

FOUR

“It’s nice to see you,” Molly told John inside her sunny kitchen. “Phone calls just aren’t the same.”

“I needed to get away for a little while.” 
He took a sip of the black tea his mother had made him.  “I haven’t been interested in work lately.  Bank robberies are dull.”

“Your last case must have gotten under your skin.” She covered his hand with her own.  “You shouldn’t get too invested in these things.  I don’t like seeing you get sadder and sadder with each visit.”

“I’m not sad.” John twirled a sugar packet between his fingers.  “Stoicism is something they hammer home in the Academy.”

She gave him a wry smile, the morning sun playing across her face as it rose behind the kitchen windows.  “You’ve never been stoic.  Even when you were a little boy.  How many stray dogs did you drag home?  I swear we’d have lived in a zoo if I hadn’t put my foot down.”

“I don’t do that anymore. The only living thing I’ve got at home is a cactus.”

He looked up from the packet and locked eyes with
her.  He had always thought his mother was attractive in an ageless and frail Audrey Hepburn sort of way.  Waif-thin, never a brown hair out of place, tailored dresses in colors that flattered her rose-tinted cream skin.  It was true he’d inherited a good portion of his looks from his father, but the resemblance to Molly was undeniable.  They had the same coloring, the same mouths that always curved on the cusp of a half-smile, and the same complexion that never seemed to wrinkle despite the years that passed. 

A stab of self-loathing twisted his gut whenever she smiled at him so affectionately.  How big was her heart, to love him when he was the product of the worst thing that happened to her? 

“Seth Lowry’s got a parole hearing coming up.”  John hated to mention the name, but aside from visiting Molly, Seth Lowry was the reason for his visit to Maine.  “I’m probably going to make an appearance.”

She
didn’t say anything for a moment, just fingered the lace collar of her coral shirtdress.  “I don’t think I need to tell you that doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”

“Do you think I want him paroled?”

“I think you hate him so much it’s unhealthy.  I moved on a long time ago.  The minute you were born I stopped hating him.  The sadness left a few years later.”

John’s forehead puckered as he scowled.  “Is it so awful to not want him out of jail?  Would it be terrible to do what I can to keep him in prison?  How can you fault me for that?”  He neglected to tell her about his impromptu visit with Mr. Lowry just
an hour and a half before, knowing it would only incite a frown, a mini lecture, and then an infuriatingly kind smile.

“If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have you.  You’re the best thing that happened to me.”

John’s teeth clenched, but he didn’t look at his mother, just stared at the pale yellow curtains framing the windows by her glass patio doors.  He’d never understand how she had the capacity to love him so much, and he’d had twenty-eight years to wonder—he’d found out about his mother’s rape when he was fourteen. 

“You’re an odd woman.”

“Must be where you get it.” 

He rolled his eyes. 

“I have the best son in the world.  I brag about you all the time at bingo.”

“You don’t play bingo.”

She waved one delicate hand, sunlight streaming through the windows shattering off of her platinum bracelets.  “Book club meetings, then.  Are you seeing anyone?”

“I see a lot of people.”

“You know what I mean.”  She stood to refill his cup, tucking a lock of chocolate hair behind her ear.  “I just think it would be nice for you to have something to go home to besides a cactus.”

“If I get a cat, will you be happy?”

She smacked the back of his head.  “You’re so stubborn.  I don’t know how you came by that.  You can be perfectly pleasant when you put your mind to it.  What happened to my sweet little boy?”

Molly had had her hands full when John was a boy.  When he wasn’t tearing around their little house wreaking havoc, he was puzzling her and his schoolteachers with his incurable boredom and inattention.  Eventually it was recommended she take her son to a doctor, who in turn referred her to a psychologist, who studied John and the answers he gave to her endless questions before concluding he had a characteristic that both baffled and intrigued the mental health field.  There wasn’t a whole lot of information on low latent inhibition, but she could prescribe amphetamines to lessen the symptoms. 

Molly hadn’t felt right about medicating her son with such potent narcotics, figuring he’d learn to get used to LLI, and if not, he could decide when he was able if he wanted the meds, which he hadn’t.

She
never brought it up in conversation, nor did John, but he knew she could feel it, simmering just beneath the surface of his skin.  He knew she could see it when she watched his eyes dart all over the place, storing and cataloging every scrap of information, filing it away to ponder at a later time.

John knocked back the dregs of his black tea and stood to rinse the cup in the sink.  “I’ve got to get going or I’ll miss my flight.”

“I thought you weren’t due back until Monday.  How can you focus on work when you’re jetlagged?”

He bent to kiss her cheek and slung his jacket over his shoulder.  “It’s only a two hour flight to DC.  I’ll call you later.”

FIVE

A doctor shines a flashbulb in my eyes.  I wish it were the penlight from Men in Black so I’d forget everything. 

Lisette doesn’t say anything as he works, checking my pulse, my blood pressure, my glands. The bump on my head is a Minor Injury.  I am Perfectly Healthy. 

It doesn’t stop his flunkies from strapping me down.  They belt my wrists to the bedrails.  I let them do it without complaint.  Why bother?  They haven’t listened to me yet.

When they finally leave, she turns her eyes on me.  They’re blonde, the same color as her hair.  It makes her look like a tigress. 

“Can I see Abby?”

Her jaw clenches, tension running from chin to ear.  “It’s not a good idea, Brooke.  You don’t want to remember her that way.”

The only memories I have of Abby are awful.  I still want to see her.  I never had a chance to say goodbye, thank you, or What Were You Thinking, Abby?  You didn’t owe me anything.

Our heads snap to the door when a rap sounds behind it.  Lisette’s up in a second, muttering four-letter words, and yanks it open with surprising strength considering her slender shoulders and skinny limbs.

She blocks the visitor from my view, but I hear him murmur.  “They need to speak with her.”

“They need to go piss up a stick.  It’s not happening.”

“You need to work on your professionalism, Sergeant.”

“You need to work on your fucking receding hairline.  Nobody’s coming within five feet as long as I’m in charge.”

He grunts.  “This case won’t be ours much longer.  Remember that.”

She slams the door and stomps back to the chair.  I’m about to ask who wants to talk to me
, until I decide I don’t want to know.  Not knowing is easier.  So is removing yourself from most emotions, the way I’ve been since I was fifteen—feeling nothing is preferable.  “Why are they restraining me?”

She looks like she’s deciding whether she should lie.  “The other girls killed themselves.  It’s just a precaution.”

SIX

Stacy’s seizure-inducing hot pink nails were the first things John saw of her as she swung into his office without so much as a knock.  She never announced herself, preferring to breeze in and out whenever she wanted with nothing more than a shouted greeting.

“Nice to see you back.”  She flounced into one of the chairs across from John’s desk, the skirt of her baby pink dress swishing when she crossed her legs.  “Hate to say it, but I missed you, your majesty.”

John locked his fingers together behind his neck.  “I’d think it would have been a nice break for you.  A whole week with nobody calling you at all hours.”

She jiggled both legs, the wedge
s of her strappy gold sandals clacking against her heel.  “The other agents bore me.  White collar cases give me migraines.  How boring is that stuff?  Gawd.”

Stacy’s voice didn’t match the rest of her.  If anything she looked like a politician’s daughter, favoring perfectly coordinated cardigans, mother of pearl necklaces, and tailored slacks.  When she opened her mouth, she sounded like a gum-snapping teenager.  It took John a lot of time to get used to her, but now that he had, he hated working with other analysts.

She twirled a lock of shiny platinum hair around her left ring finger, the two-carat engagement diamond in its cushion-cut setting reflecting over John’s office walls.  “Remind me to give you your mail.  It’s all been forwarded to my desk.  Has Bob come to bother you yet?”

“I got in a few minutes ago.  If I’d known Bob was planning on bothering me I might have taken another day off.”

“For real.  I don’t blame you, man.” Stacy tore through the files on her lap and selected the thickest of the bunch.  “But you might have a new case.  I think it’s what’s got him all pissy.  LAPD found another girl.”

John twirled a pen through his long fingers.  “I saw something about it on the news.”

“We got the notification at seven a.m., three a.m. their time, right after they found her.  LAPD hasn’t made much progress.  Can’t blame them, they’ve got nothing to go on but dead girls and burner cells.  Chief Foster’s asked for help, and Bob wants to send you out there.  Did I mention he hasn’t stopped bitching about the bank robberies you passed on?”

“He holds grudges.”

“He’s been storming around asking where the hell you are since seven.  Then he asked me to make him coffee.  Are you freakin’ kidding me?  I’m not a copy-room flunky.  This outfit maxed out my credit cards.”

“You’re just my flunky.”  He held out his empty mug
which was decaled with a Bureau stamp.  “I could use some coffee.”

Stacy made a face as she shuffled her manila files and tucked them under her arm.  “Watch it, bro.  After I spike your coffee with antifreeze, I’d be in the pen.  They’d make you work with Alana.  She’s missed you.  Been moping since your vacation.  I’m surprised she hasn’t
written
Mrs
.
Alana
Maxwell
in little hearts all over her Post-it pads.”  She blew him a kiss as she sashayed out the door, Marilyn Monroe curls bouncing on the shoulders of her ivory cashmere cardigan.  He watched her go and grimaced into the empty coffee mug.

Eventually his caffeine tank was in desperate need of a refill, so he headed for the
break room, where a frightening sight awaited him.  The Deputy Director and Alana stood inside, stirring mugs.  He didn’t know which was worse and didn’t stop to think it over, turning on his heel to make a quick exit.

He’d gotten two steps away when he heard his name.  It sounded like an expletive.

“Where’ve you been, Maxwell?”

John turned around, mentally wiping guilt from his face.  “I got in thirty minutes ago.  What can I do for you?”

“You can get your ass on a plane to Los Angeles.  Didn’t you get my emails or voicemails?”

John only checked his Bureau email when Stacy sent messages while he was out on assignment.  He didn’t have an excuse for ignoring Bob’s calls. “I’m sorry, I didn’t.  This is about the double abductions?”

“Well it’s not about my acid reflux, now is it?”  Bob threw the jug of creamer on the tiled countertop.  “All the information’s been emailed.  Chief of LAPD’s officially asked for help.”

“This may be too much for me to handle alone.  Will anyone else be joining me?”

Bob took a slurp of coffee.  The foam left a white mustache over his real one.  “Half of them are tied up with the bank robbers you said you were too good to deal with, and the rest are in sensitivity training till three.  We’ll send help later if you need it.  LAPD’s expecting you.”

Technically, John hadn’t said he was too good to deal with bank robberies.  It was more like those cases made him numb with boredom.  He didn’t pause to correct the Deputy Director, and turned on his heel for the exit.