Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (30 page)

Propped against the wall
was a vintage mirror dimpled with sunspots. What did Agate see when
she gazed into the reflecting glass? A mother abandoned by her son?
A young woman caged in a dying shell? She almost didn’t sense the
pair of glass eyes watching her from the corner. Vivian lowered her
gaze to a doll confined
to a wooden
cradle.

The sight chilled Vivian to the core.
Dolls were so much easier to raise than flesh and blood children,
after all. Its face was jeweled with aquamarine eyes, and tresses
of raven hair fell to its Victorian dress. Her stubby fingers were
raised to the ceiling in mock longing for a caregiver.

Vivian wanted to throw a blanket over
the caricature of human life, but it would hardly remove the
abomination from existence. Instead, she wisped out of the master
bedroom.

A single door lingered at the end of
the hall. It seemed to recede into the core of the house like a
closet not to be disturbed.

Vivian was never one for respecting
family secrets. The door creaked open under the weight of her
fingertips.

The room was mostly bare except for
peach-colored walls like the inside of a mother’s womb. A flimsy
sheet was stretched over a bed frame like an ill-conceived tarp.
The feeble attempt at comfort wasn’t even worthy of the lowliest
tenant.

The only furniture consisted of a
potty and a wooden chair.

Vivian couldn’t believe it. She had
tracked Agate down only to find a barren room. She was expecting
some clue to Viktor’s whereabouts, perhaps a journal or a note
scribbled in a hurry. No such article had been left behind. In all
likelihood, he didn’t want his mother to track him down.

“
Viktor,” she whispered.
The slightest mention of his name didn’t stir any secrets within.
She traced her fingers along the wall, almost expecting to see
words carved into the plaster.

You cannot hurt me anymore.

After a moment, she humbled herself on
her knees and peered under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies and
cobwebs.

There was no titillating revelation
awaiting her in his childhood home. Viktor’s origins would forever
be shrouded in mystery. Vivian punched the rotting floor, trying
not to scream in fury. Her knuckles split as another punch rained
down, rabid in her desire to punish everything and everyone for her
failure.

She had failed to find
answers.

Tears burned at the corners of her
eyes as she lifted her knuckles mottled in blood.

Viktor’s mother had played some
crucial role in the killings, but her explanation of his childhood
didn’t shed any light. As far as she knew, he was still practicing
medicine in his “silly” profession.

“
You abused him, didn’t
you?” Vivian whispered, scowling at her blood that shimmered
freshly on the floor.

She squeaked in surprise as one of the
floorboards sank under her knee.

In one swift motion, her head bashed
against the wood. The surge of dizziness was immediate. It spilled
into her brain like a tidal wave, pulling her body and mind in
different directions at once. When she opened her eyes, she felt as
though she was hovering space.

Her arm dangled pendulously through a
hole in the floor—and her fingers brushed against something
unnaturally soft.

She recoiled with a disgusted cry. She
wiped her fingers against her jeans, imagining a steaming mass of
flesh under the floor. When she peered down the hole, she sucked in
a painful breath. Something had indeed been concealed
underneath.

Something small swaddled in a blanket.
Was it a deceased, parasitic twin entombed under the floorboards? A
holocaust of forest critters that succumbed to winter and disease?
She pinched her nose as she peeled away the blanket.

She feasted her eyes on a leather
book. What was that strange sensation that suddenly crept across
her face? A smile? She lifted a hand to her quivering lips. Yes,
she was smiling as warm relief pooled through her.

She couldn’t put this off for another
second. Long-awaited answers were finally within her reach, and she
wouldn’t be denied.

Vivian cracked open the diary and the
smell of old parchment wafted up to her. Many of the entries were
faded or the pages had been ruefully torn out.

She flipped to the first legible
entry.

August 11, 1968

I’m so lonely by myself in
my tiny room. I would do anything to have a friend to play with.
Since Daddy left, the only person I see is Mommy. But when she
looks at me, she frightens me.

Everything has changed
since we started living alone. We don’t eat as much. Mommy is
always angry and she doesn’t hug me anymore. She says I look too
much like my father and she doesn’t like that. She says I better
not turn out like him.

I don’t know what she
means “like him.” Was Daddy a bad man?

September 8,
1968

I brought a friend home
today. I found him in the forest. He was all alone just like me. I
named him Jasper.

Mommy was furious when she
found him under my bed. I cried when she took Jasper away and said
I would never see him again. She tells me I shouldn’t bring vermin
into our house. Then she says I’m just like Jasper. A rodent in
human form. I didn’t eat supper that night and I couldn’t leave my
room.

I had a terrible nightmare
last night about Jasper. I dreamt he was sick and no one was there
to help him. I could tell just from looking in his eyes he was in
pain. He was going to die all alone. I woke up to the sound of
Mother screaming my name. My bed sheets and my underpants were wet.
Mommy forced me to bathe in boiling hot water to wash away my
filth. I’ve never felt pain like this before. After a while, the
pain stops and you don’t feel anything. My skin is red and tender
from the hot bath. Mommy told me to lie down and go to sleep, but I
can’t. Everything hurts.

Viktor continued to detail the unusual
punishments his mother forced him to endure when she saw fit. Each
one delved into more explicit detail than the last, bludgeoning
Vivian’s conscience.

October 27,
1971

Pain was always my friend.
I’m wise enough recognize that now. It is something I’ve become
well-acquainted with over the years. I hardly feel the pain anymore
when my mother strikes me. In fact, when she beats me, I don’t even
scream or cry. I simply stare at her. And when she looks into my
eyes, I think I sense fear. I believe I understand now why she
beats me. She can’t punish my father for abandoning her, but she
can punish me. I’m a part of him.

I’m learning to enjoy the
pain. No, I don’t enjoy it
—
I’m simply adapting to the pain. It
is a distraction from the trauma inside.

I found an old back brace
in the cellar that I frequently make use of. It looks frightening
and ugly with metal rods that mold to the throat and the back of
the head. I feel caged inside it, almost safe and secure from my
mother’s fury. I also found my father’s military gas mask among the
items he left behind. It makes it very hard to breathe.

Somehow, when I wear these
objects, I feel like a different person. I feel removed, as though
Viktor isn’t here anymore. I take on a different identity—someone
who isn’t beaten, starved, and imprisoned on a daily basis. When I
wear these items and look in the mirror… I shudder at what I
see.

Vivian shut the frayed journal. The
emotions contained in those words rammed through her
heart.

Just as she set down the
book, she noticed a framed photograph on the window sill. It was a
portrait of a younger Agate, with blonde before the first
sliver
of gray infiltrated those golden
curls.

She looked so much like Krista. And
Natalie.

* * *

Camilla had expected better from an
ex-cop like Martin. He didn’t bother to lock the windows to his
derelict house, granting access to any would-be intruders. Of
course, Camilla had no intention of pillaging and plundering. What
petty things would she steal from a man like Martin in the first
place?

She had set foot inside his house only
a few times when she interviewed him—and it was everything she had
come to expect from a long-time bachelor who scorned responsibility
and high maintenance; just the necessities and a few indulgences.
The linoleum fridge was always stocked with plenty of beer, the
kitchen reeked of disaster, and home décor didn’t even factor into
his priorities.

“
Martin?”

She forayed up the stairs, searching
for the man who seemed hell-bent on avoiding her. She would almost
like to see him try to outrun her. Camilla threw open his closet to
find it overflowing with soiled shirts, slacks, jackets, and police
uniforms. If he had indeed left, he didn’t bother packing a measly
wardrobe change. She jumped as an alarm clock wailed in the
darkness.

“
Martin? Damn it, where are
you?” She almost smacked the alarm clock from its perch when she
noticed the voicemail machine blinking. Martin had twelve unheard
messages.

She pressed play and was stunned to
hear her voice coming over the machine in a robotic
buzz.

“
God, do I really sound
that annoying on the phone?” she murmured. She skipped past the
next few messages she left.

“
Last message sent on
September 14 at 10:51 P.M.
” She leaned
closer.

“
Martin, I know you’re
there.”
Nikolai
,
she thought with a stab of panic. “I’m waiting in the house right
now. I hope you’re on your way. You can’t afford to miss this
opportunity. You wanted to know the truth behind the abductions,
didn’t you?”

Camilla couldn’t believe her ears.
What truth could he possibly know? Didn’t she and Vivian know
everything?

Speaking of that rambunctious girl,
she wondered what had become of her. Camilla had kept a watchful
eye out for Vivian at Vesely Manor, but she was nowhere to be
found. She could only pray Vivian was somewhere safe and
warm.

“
Remember what we agreed
to, Martin. No more interviews, nothing. I’ve already taken care of
that bitch from the newspaper.”

I knew it.

Camilla always got the distinct
impression that he preferred criminals over journalists. Every time
she called him, he would only tease her with nibbles of
information, barely enough to scavenge a story. Plus, his quotes
sucked, interrupted by far too many “um’s,” “ah’s,” and “off the
record’s.”

She would stake her salary on Nikolai
phoning in the bomb threat to the TV station. Is that how he got
under Martin’s skin?

“
You would do well to show
up soon before matters escalate,” Nikolai growled. “I can only do
so much to help you understand.”

Camilla pulled out her recorder and
began to record the message from beginning to end.

* * *

Nikolai leaned against the sterilized
autopsy table, waiting for Jezebel to sign in for her shift. He
drummed his fingers on the surgical steel, his patience wearing
thin.

He didn’t encounter Martin in the
killer’s house last night. Nikolai waited almost an hour before
dialing his number, only to be sent to his nasally voicemail. Did
Martin flee Prague? It wouldn’t be the first time he tended toward
cowardice.

He supposed it was just as well. If
Martin chose to disappear from existence for a while, he wouldn’t
stand in his way—so long as he remained out of sight and out of
mind. He didn’t want Martin to so much as even pick up a newspaper
or tune in to the local news. He could benefit from sticking his
head in the sand and shutting up every now and then.

Nikolai perked up as a disheveled
Jezebel strolled into the morgue. The telltale signs of exhaustion
rimmed her eyes with luscious red.

“
I have the results from
the clinical trials,” she announced. A folder stuffed with charts
and graphs landed on the table.

“
Clinicals?” Nikolai said.
“What do you mean?”

“
I took the liberty of
performing clinical trials with the drug you found in Viktor’s
basement. I had to study the effects on a living host. As you can
imagine, the results weren’t pretty. Take a look at
this.”

“
You should have told me
you were evaluating—”

Nikolai bit his tongue. He had picked
up nuggets of medical knowledge from Jezebel over the course of his
career, but he hadn’t the faintest notion what he was looking at
now.

“
Are these…
skulls?”

“
You’re looking at the
brain scans of the test specimens. There are cancerous tumors
growing in their brains, specifically grade 4 astrocytomas. They’re
the most aggressive and malignant type of brain tumor.”

Nikolai couldn’t tear his eyes away
from the malformed lobes of yellow tissue.

“
They formed tumors of this
size already? How is this possible? Could this happen to a
human?”