Dead Dreams (10 page)

I heaved up the lip of the casement and wiggled it open. Good thing the windows here didn’t have screens. Sarah and I had discussed installing them, what with the population of insects migrating into our apartment each time we cracked the windows open even an inch.

I didn’t know what to expect when my feet landed with a soft thud on her carpeted floor. Could I get prosecuted for entering a crime scene, even if it were in my own apartment? Had I incriminated myself, since I hadn’t notified 911 when I first suspected foul play? I hadn’t even thought of wearing gloves. What if I found Sarah dead, or something as sinister, and the cops found my prints all over the sill? It sure wouldn’t look good for me. I rushed to the bathroom attached to Sarah’s room.

Get a towel, and wipe off where my prints might be, I told myself, even though I still heard the thudding. It seemed more like a tap-tap sound, louder now, sharper, and more consistent. Then I saw it: the cause of the
tap-tapping
.

Water was dripping from the sink faucet and hitting the porcelain sink bowl. Rest and fear must have heightened my senses, and I’d heard the drip of the water in the bathroom when I was in the quiet of my kitchen. Fool!

“Sarah?” I called, just in case she was sleeping in the room. But unless she was in the walk-in closet or under the bed, I could tell the room was empty of human presence, save mine. Sarah had installed the drawers neatly back in the dresser, and the yellow polka-dotted bedspread lay smooth over her twin four-poster bed.

An idea popped into my mind.

The top drawer slid open, to my surprise. Unlocked! There was a keyhole, but she must have not thought to lock it, since her bedroom door was already guarding her privacy. I knew it was wrong to attempt what I had in mind, but something within me urged me on. Although it was not something I was proud of doing, it was a necessary evil, I convinced myself. After all, Sarah was keeping secrets from me that could help us solve the burglary mystery.

The room was dim, with the sliver of light from the florescent street lamp and the faint nightlight, but still, I dared not turn on the stand-up lamp next to her bed. I rummaged in the dark. My hand slipped inside one of her silky panties—my makeshift glove to prevent incriminating fingerprints. Nothing but silky and lacy underwear in the top drawer. They must all be of the La Perla brand, knowing Sarah. Three hundred dollars for a pair of flimsy thongs—literally shreds of silk, I kid you not.

I was about to search the next drawer when the alarm buzzed and announced that someone had entered the apartment. Was it Sarah? A faint beeping told me someone had successfully disarmed the code. She’d catch me in the act. No time to slip out the window. I quickly closed the casement as I’d found it, ran to the small walk-in closet, and crouched behind her long dresses on hangers. Her clothes smelled faintly of an expensive, musky perfume I was unfamiliar with.

Someone unlocked the bedroom door, and the soft padding of stockinged feet on carpet approached me. I confirmed from the gait it was Sarah.

Something rustled—possibly paper bags being tossed. The twin bed creaked. She must have sat on it. The familiar high-pitch ping of her iPhone 5, I presumed, as Sarah punched in a series of numbers. She hadn’t programmed in the contact as I’d seen her do on some occasions before.

“Hi!” she said. A moment of silence, and she let out a low laugh, almost husky-like. “I could be persuaded.” Another set of sultry giggles. I felt bad for listening in on her private life. I hoped she wasn’t going to mention anything graphic. “Okay, okay. Business time—yep. It’s planned. ... Don’t worry. He’s gone. Taken care of.”

Who was she referring to? Todd? Her Uncle Stuart?

“I don’t know. Tonight, probably… It’s like Chateaux Margaux. You can’t rush it... Soon, baby. Soon.”

She sighed, that lost-in-love kind of sigh. Who was the boyfriend she’d kept secret? Red truck man? Why the secrecy? She’d always been forthright about her love interests, or so I’d thought: several boyfriends in high school, and even one in West Virginia who’d cried buckets when she’d left for California. What business was she referring to? Her trust fund? It couldn’t possibly be the coal business her family was in. She detested its implications too much and hardly spoke of it.

It sounded like she rummaged in her purse, or her Louis Vuitton backpack, and then her feet padded across the carpet. Then water in the shower splashed into the stall. She must have been preparing for a shower.

Once she stepped into the shower, I could sneak out and lock her bedroom door by pressing the button on the doorknob. She’d never know I’d been here.

But, who had she been talking to?

If I could get a hold of her phone, I could memorize the number and do a reverse lookup on the Internet. I’ve had my issue with some of these online people-lookup services as my mother became a victim of identity theft a few months back. It was so easy to find a person’s credit card number, and a quick Google on the victim’s name will bring up the phone number and billing address, enough for identity thieves to put two and two together. But I figured I had a valid cause to use the service.

Sarah hummed a tune. “Fluer-de-lis.” I remembered practicing it on the piano years ago as a kid. The shower stall door clicked shut. I peeped out from the closet. Sarah hadn’t shut the bathroom door. Figured. Thank goodness, the stall door was the frosty glass-type; she couldn’t see me even if she peered out from it.

I tiptoed out of the closet and glanced at the bedspread, now nicely taut. Where had she tossed her iPhone? An array of glossy paper bags of varying colors and sizes lay next to her pillows. Someone had been busy shopping her heart out. Her purse, a companion to her LV backpack, lay on the dresser. I unzipped the flap on the LV. No iPhone in there. If I could just get my hands on that phone. But, I’d already pushed luck too far. Sarah zipped through everything, and she could be done with her shower in seconds. I rushed to the door and slipped out to the living room hallway. I hadn’t noticed if her door was locked but depressed the button on the doorknob anyway before I pulled it closed behind me.

“Brianna? Is that you?” Sarah called from her bathroom.
That was close.
Had she seen me?

I tripped over to my bedroom, and quickly but quietly shut my bedroom door. If she opened my door she’d find me asleep, and she might think she was just imagining noises. My bedroom was terribly chilly. The window was ajar since I had to jump into bed quickly. I slipped between the covers and closed my eyes. Just in the nick, too.

“Brie?” She ambled in without bothering to knock, as was her habit. Her bare footsteps shuffled toward me and stopped at the bottom of my bed.

“Hi,” I said, slowly “waking” up and squinted at her.

She was wrapped in her white plush towel and was drying her hair with an equally lavish one . Egyptian cotton, she’d told me when I’d commented about how soft her towels felt. “You up? How come you’re home so early?”

“I’m sick.” That much was true.

She sat on the edge of my bed. “I’m not surprised. With your window wide open? You’re trying to set up an insectarium in our home?”

“Ha-ha. It was stuffy when I got back.”

She fidgeted and sat closer to me. “You smell of Hanae Mori.”

“Hannah who?”

“My perfume. They gave you a free sachet at Nordstrom?”

Would Nordstrom hand out free perfume samples to someone dressed like me? Hair in a perpetual pony-tail, wisps flying around, and yoga pants that are not even Lulu-Lemon’s. I wanted to say this, but instead I asked, “Where’ve you been?”

“Now,
that
is a long story, and it actually involves you.” She winked at me.

“You went shopping and bought me new clothes?” Why did I say that? Maybe it was because some of her snide remarks about my poor taste in fashion. Saggy pants just didn’t make the cut for trendsetter Sarah, Most of us don’t have twenty thousand, tax-free, to play with each month.

She squinted and wagged a finger. “Close, but not quite. You must have powerful intuitive powers.”

I’d been told that, especially with the dream thing. Some of my dreams actually came true. That was why my nightmares of the last two days worried me. Was someone trying to kill us? Both of us? Naturally, intuition wasn’t why I’d known about the shopping.

“Wait.” With that, Sarah skipped out my room.

I quickly jumped out of bed and waved the air around me in an attempt to disperse the perfume smell that had clung to my pores when I’d hidden in her closet.

What should I tell Sarah? That Jackson wanted her out of the apartment? That I agreed? She was going to feel hurt, rejected. Always, she’d complained friends were only using her, only after her money. They always betrayed her, she’d said, once they were done with her. But, I was just a roommate. Not her “Best Friends Forever” or anything. With her money, she could stay alone, although I knew she was afraid to.

She sashayed back into my room, her hands filled with four or five of the glossy paper bags she’d earlier dumped on her bed. She dipped her hand into one of these and tossed out first an LV backpack identical to hers, which incidentally looked just as spanking new as this one. From another glossy shopping bag, she fished out a black leather jacket that had that heavenly new calf-leather smell and, still, from the blue sack, a shoebox. She dumped these all onto my bed. I sat down and stared at the offerings. Amidst all our burglar problems, she was thinking of a Brie makeover. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

“It’s not my birthday,” I blurted. How else could I explain this overly generous gesture?

“Don’t be silly. These are not
birthday
presents. They’re too cheapskate for that. Wait.” She waved both hands vigorously as if they felt hot. Clearly, she was excited about something. “You’re gonna love this one.” She pulled out a transparent box. It was filled with something dark red, in a clear container with a black net over it. Hair?

“What do you think?” She pulled out the wig and propped it on one hand. It was about shoulder length, with ringlets on the sides.

“Tell me you didn’t scalp someone,” I said.

“Fun-neee. But, it
is
real hair. The best wigs are made with human hair, you know.”

“You don’t fancy my hairstyle?” I asked as I twirled my light-brown tresses around my finger—a gesture I’d seen her do to her own coiffure cut. Some had called me mousey on account of my hair color, and definitely when I’d gone to the salon, the hairdressers always bickered at the amount of hair on my head, but I didn’t think my hairdo was that bad. I do try to work the knots out every morning before I ponytailed it.

“Your hair is gorgeous. But, it’s too light for
you
to be
me
.”

Come to think of it, the auburn wig was the exact shade and cut as hers: bobbed, with a straight bank across the front and ringlets on the sides. Did she want a twin? I opened my mouth to protest. I didn’t like the plan, even
before
I heard it.

“Sarah, I have many issues, but a split personality isn’t one of them.
Why
would I want to be you? I need to be able to at least boil H2O.” Needless to say, I was the one who made her coffee whenever we were home together.

“Shh!” She glared at me and glanced at the window. “I need your help.”