Fear Nothing (39 page)

Upon entering, I forced myself to breathe slowly and evenly. Nothing here I hadn’t done a million times before. Sign in. Check my bag. Greet officers Chris and Bob by name. Walk through security. The machine buzzing as usual due to my medical bracelet.

Officer Maria was so accustomed to the drill by now, she didn’t even bother with the wand.

A quick pat down, and we were done. Could she have inspected me more thoroughly? Should she have? Then again, I was a familiar face, well-known to all of them after six years of monthly visits. They knew me, they trusted me and they let me carry on.

Officer Maria led me down the corridor to the private visiting room where Shana and I usually met, versus the interrogation room that had been favored recently. I exhaled a quick sigh of relief at this second lucky break.

My sister was waiting for me, hands bound before her, per protocol. Officer Maria took up position outside, where she could see us through the glass window, though she couldn’t hear us. These so-called privacy rooms were generally assigned to inmates meeting with their lawyers. Outsiders could not hear what was said inside, to protect an inmate’s legal rights, but corrections officers could still keep tabs on the inmate, which would pose my first challenge.

All in due time.

For now, I entered the room. I walked to the empty chair. I took a seat.

My sister looked like she’d had the same night I had. Sleepless. Troubled. Agitated. For once, we almost matched.

Perfect.

She frowned as she took me in. “New look for you? I don’t recommend it.”

I ignored her, glancing at my watch. Five minutes, give or take.

Her frowned deepened. “What, I’m boring you already?”

“Tell me about Donnie.”

Her expression blanked. Just like that. Went perfectly smooth. She thinned her lips, said nothing.

“Was he one of your fuck buddies, too?”

She arched a brow at my language. “Barely knew the kid.” A grudging admission, but an admission nonetheless.

“He was the messenger. Charlie Sgarzi used him to set up time and location to meet.”

She turned away.

“Is that why you never answered Charlie’s letters? Because he’s more than a reporter, right? He’s more like a former flame.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“You slept with him,” I continued briskly. “Samuel Hayes as well.”

No answer.

“I met with your former foster mother, Mrs. Davies. You ruined her life, you know. She and her husband took equal blame in the eyes of the neighbors for Donnie’s death. She was a good foster mother, Shana. Until you came along.”

Finally a response. An obstinate look I knew too well.

“And Trevor’s life as well,” I said quietly.

She jerked back slightly, the name seeming to catch her off guard.

“Five-year-old boy,” I continued, my voice merciless, for that matched my mood. “Lucky enough to get it right the first time and land in a good home. You remember him, right? You spent time with him, read him stories, painted pictures. He liked you. He was the only person in that house who had any faith in you.”

Shana’s jaw, setting.

“And the state yanked him. Overnight, Mr. and Mrs. Davies went from two of their best foster parents, to people non grata in the system. Trevor was bounced, probably to one of those homes where he was beat up every night, or worse.”

It wasn’t my imagination; her face had paled.

“You remember Trevor, don’t you, Shana? He became the object of your internal projection. The child you felt compelled to try and save as a proxy for saving yourself. Like the inmate Christi, and once upon a time, me.”

“Adeline.” Her voice was slightly pleading. “Let it go.”

“But you can’t remember Donnie, can you? That night. What happened with Donnie Johnson. You can’t remember any of it.”

“Go away.” She straightened abruptly, pushing back her chair. When in doubt, lead with rage. “I don’t know why you even came here. Aren’t we over with, all done? You don’t love me and I’m not capable of feeling love. Run along, Adeline. Run away from me.”

“You are a fucking idiot.”

Her own words, thrown back at her, drew her up short.

“What the hell—”

“Sit. There’s not much time left. I have one last question: Do you know who the Rose Killer is?”

My sister stared at me. Something about my intensity had finally gotten through. Slowly, she shook her head.

“But the killer will find you, right? Or really, the Rose Killer will find me. And when that happens, you’ll kill him or her. Like you did with that corrections officer, Frankie.”

My sister, still staring at me: “Okay.”

“Afterward, I’ll give you what you want, Shana. What you’ve always wanted.”

“How do you know what that is?”

“Because I’m your sister. Who would know better than me?”

My sister staring at me. Myself staring back. I’d been honest with D.D. before. The trick to dealing with my sister was to never fool yourself. The relationship would always be dependent upon what was in it for her. I would like to think she would help me out of love. But far more likely, she would keep her promise to get the one thing I could give her, at last, at very long last.

Slowly she nodded again. “Pinky swear,” she said, and her voice sounded rough, not at all like herself.

“Pinky swear,” I promised back. Then I smiled because the childish promise, with its hint of sisterly cahoots and summer days and girlish innocence, nearly broke my heart.

“Any second now,” I said steadily, “there’s going to be an outside disturbance. When that happens, Officer Maria is going to be distracted. I need you to ambush me. Take me down and out. Then jam a chair under that doorknob and kill the lights.”

My sister, still staring at me.

“They’ll get in, though, right?” I continued. “Guards train for this kind of thing.”

“They’ll take out the window. It’s bulletproof glass, but you can still hammer out the frame.”

“How long?”

“They’ll alert a tactical team, grab gear, get in place. Five to seven minutes.”

“Then we need to be quick.”

“Adeline—”

But she didn’t get to answer, because at that moment, the sound of shouting came from the corridor, followed almost immediately by a shrill siren. Officer Maria turned her head down the hall. And my sister leapt across the table and drove against me with her shoulder. One second, I was sitting in a chair. The next, both the chair and I fell back. I heard the crack against the wall, registered the pressure of my sister’s interlaced fingers pressing hard against my windpipe.

But of course, I didn’t feel a thing.

More shouting. Much closer. Officer Maria yelling, though it was hard to hear her above the din of the prison’s alarm. Then the room went dark as Shana hit the light switch. She slammed a chair beneath the doorknob then flipped the table up in front of the window, further obstructing the view. Five seconds, ten? My sister moved even faster than I’d expected.

I was already sprawled on the floor behind the flipped-up table, hastily grabbing my right shoe.

“Quick,” I gasped, still breathless from my fall. “Hold out your wrists.”

“Adeline.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up. This is the locker number. Second they release you, walk out to the lobby, go to this locker. This is the combo. Repeat it back.”

She repeated it back as I finally got my fingertips clenched around the barely protruding razor and ripped it out from between the top and the base of my shoe. The razor that had set off the metal detectors earlier, only Officer Maria had assumed the disturbance had been caused by the usual suspect, my medic alert bracelet.

Now I studied Shana’s wrists, which were restrained with thick plastic zip ties. A small box-cutting razor was hardly optimal, but it was the best I could do.

I started sawing, tucked against my sister, her shoulder to my shoulder, her hands on my lap. In all these years, it was the closest we’d ever been to each other. So close I could hear the sound of her shallow breath, smell her sweat-encrusted skin. When we were little, had we ever huddled together like this, maybe keeping each other safe after one of Daddy’s outbursts? Or just two lost little girls, trying to survive.

I detected a new scent. Fresh, coppery. Blood.

I didn’t feel any pain, of course, but I understood the implications of the wet sensation growing between my fingertips, making it harder and harder to grip the razor. I’d cut myself. Maybe even lost a fingertip, removed an entire knuckle. It wasn’t like I would know.

I just had to get the zip ties off. The next act would be Shana’s.

“Stop this!” she commanded now, voice low. “It’s not going to work. I’m never walking out of here. This just puts you behind bars.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I assured her, feeling the ties starting to give. “I’m the victim here.”

“What the fu—”

“Listen! Inside the locker is my purse, which includes the keys to my car. White Acura SUV. Fifth row of the parking lot. Eventually, you’ll want to swap it out for another set of wheels—one the police won’t be on the lookout for—but the Acura will get you started. Inside the car, you’ll find a bag with several changes of clothes, a thousand in cash, the keys to my office and a disposable cell. Don’t call me. First chance I get, I’ll call you.”

More noises in the hallway. Pounding footsteps intermingled with the pulsing siren. I was counting on the outside disturbance slowing mobilization. With so many officers running in one direction, how many would understand there was a second threat that demanded equal attention?

The zip ties gave. I sagged, already feeling wrung out from the exertion.

“Strip,” I ordered. “Quick, quick, quick.”

I went to work on my pants, then pulled off my long-sleeved top. Bra and underwear, too; I was leaving nothing to chance. I threw it all at Shana. The fabric was probably bloodstained by my mutilated fingertips, and I was happy I’d gone with dark colors, which would help minimize the stains. Soon enough, a little blood would hardly matter.

Shana was moving. Whether giving way from shock or bewilderment, she drew on my dark-brown slacks, even as I made my first attempt with prison orange.

“Don’t go to my apartment or my office,” I instructed now. “Those are the first places they’ll look. Find someplace to hole up, sit tight. There’s a bag of fresh clothes, as well as some tools and scissors. Change outfits, cut your hair, dye it, do what you need to do. When the dust settles, I’ll bring you home.”

“All this to catch a killer?” Shana grunted.

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because I need you.”

“Why?”

I stopped moving. In the dark, smelling blood, my sister’s nervousness, I felt a deep calm set over me. This was it. The conclusion of the dance. The place we’d always been heading toward.

My sister and I together again, as shouting men once more pounded against the door.

“Dressed?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I handed her my medic alert bracelet, slipped from my wrist onto hers.

Next my hair tie. “Pull it back, tight as you can.”

Then, while she struggled on the floor with her hair, I attended to the final detail of Shana’s disguise, finding her face with my bloody fingertips. Gently, tentatively, I drew wet lines across her nose, down her cheeks. Eradicating my sister. Creating a new, blood-covered Adeline in her place.

It occurred to me this was the first time I’d touched my sister, truly touched her, in forty years. We’d talked. We’d sat across tables from each other. But the planes of her face, the bump in the bridge of her nose . . . She felt both alien and familiar. The nature of family.

The first crack as the window began to give way. Not much time left.

“You are Adeline,” I informed her. “You are a successful, well-educated woman who was just violently attacked by your older sister. Hence, the blood on your face, your uneven steps. When Superintendent McKinnon questions you, keep your answers short, while modulating your voice the best you can. Just remember it all happened so fast. You don’t know what set your sister off, you didn’t expect the attack. No, you’re not that injured. You simply want to go home and rest. Flash the MedicAlert bracelet a lot. It’s a detail they associate with me and will lend your disguise that much more credibility, whether they’re aware of it or not.”

“But you don’t look like me,” Shana burst out desperately, nose nearly touching mine. “Maybe with these clothes, the hair, the bloody face, I can almost pass for you. But they’re never gonna believe you’re me.”

“You’re right. One last step.” I held up the razor. Placed its edge against my right cheek. “Your history of self-mutilation is about to become your salvation. Untouched, I can’t pass as you. But once my face has been shredded to ribbons . . .”

I started to slide the razor. No pain, not even a sensation of cold, as by now, the razor was prewarmed by my own blood.

“Wait!” Shana grabbed my hand.

Guards, voices louder now, as the glass window surrendered to the constant assault and displayed the first array of spiderwebs.

“I’ll do it. You don’t have enough experience. You’ll cut too deep, leave behind a scar. It wouldn’t be right.”

She stopped talking, taking a deep breath. Then her fingers plucked the razor from mine.

Shana, leaning closer, trying to see in the dark. I could feel her eyes, fixed on mine. One second. Two. She placed the razor against my right cheek. Three seconds. Four.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Remember, I won’t feel a thing.”

My sister drew the first line down my face. I could feel her breath wash over me, a sigh, both mournful and ecstatic. I wonder if she had looked like this all those years ago, marking my arm with scissors in the foster home. Or if she was being true to her word now, trying hard not to cut too deep and disfigure me permanently.

“’Kay?” she asked after the first cut, her voice thick.

“More.”

“Jesus, Adeline.”

“More. Make them believe, Shana. For both our sakes, they must believe.”

Another cut. Across my nose, I could feel the razor like a pen tip, someone drawing across my face. Then the sensation of wet raining down my cheeks.