The Fifth Circle (23 page)

I switched off the computer and curled up next to Alex. My hand grazed her breast and she whimpered in her sleep—I cursed and punched the pillow. Her father’s presence intruded on her sleep and mine. How could I fall asleep with her right next to me? My body was hard with desire, but I couldn’t ease the tension because
Alex was too fucked in the head to have a normal sexual relationship with me.

Four o’clock came, and I was no closer to falling asleep than I was before. The strain of unrelieved sexual tension was a constant, throbbing ache between my legs. Alex sighed and rolled over on her side. I could smell her and it made me want her even more.

How would things play out tomorrow when she woke up and had to face the reality of what she’d done? Would she regret it? When she inevitably ran into her father, would he convince her to come home? Or threaten and manipulate her? We should move away—put some distance between her and her father. Maybe California. Then I remembered—I’d never be able to save up enough money for a move across the country. I owed the lawyer a shitload of money, and the rest would be used for the baby.

Maybe her parents would move away. A fantasy formed in my mind, so real I almost convinced myself it was true. I could see the mountains of boxes, the moving truck, her father gesturing at the movers, trying to tell them how to load the truck. Asshole. I could hear her mother’s tearful goodbye
.

Or, better yet, maybe her father would die. A permanent solution. Dead. He deserved it. When he died, I hope
d it hurt. A fall from a building…no, too fast. He wouldn’t suffer enough. A painful disease—cancer turning his insides to rot. An extended illness with unrelieved pain that brought him to his knees. Or, murder. A home invasion where he couldn’t get to his gun in time and was forced to watch as armed bandits ransacked his house and destroyed his possessions. Then the intruders would turn on him. A gunshot to the head. Or better—gunshots to the knees, the shoulder, the groin—non fatal areas. Then, when he was crying in fear, lying in his own excrement, begging for his life, the intruder would put the bullet in his head.

Alex would be free. We all would.

I slid from the bed, silent, stealthy. Slipped on my shoes. Reached into Alex’s purse and took out her keys. She stirred, but didn’t wake. I opened the bedroom door and eased it shut behind me. Trekked down the hallway. Grabbed a kitchen knife—the sharpest one.

Out the front door. Down the steps. Across the grass. The smell o
f nighttime, the sounds of crickets. Quiet. The keys jingled as I lifted them to unlock the Elmwood’s front door.
Shhh
.

The door swung open when I twisted the knob.
Dropped the keys on the welcome rug. Knife in my hand. A click as the door shut behind me. The soft brush of my shoes against the hardwood floor. A muffled shuffle. A whisper of rubber on wood.

Everything
was in slow motion. The world was still. A soft snore came from the living room. Crunch. A beer can underfoot. A snort as the man woke up. I stood still and he eased back into slumber.

I watched. Hatred skipped along the edges of my consciousness, but couldn’t penetrate the haze of detached unawareness.

I took a step forward. Another. Then another. Raised the knife. Brought it down. Soft and fleshy. Skin on skin. Something warm and wet. Comforting.

The world woke up. A scream. Thrashing. Sputtering. I lifted the knife and brought it down again. Something crashed into me, fingernails tearing and ripping, the sound of crashing glass, the metallic smell of blood.

I lifted the knife and brought it down again. An obstruction. Metal on bone.

Again. Faster now. The knife was moving of its own accord. I wasn’t in control—maybe I never was. The knife was alive, vengeful, reaching out for a blood offering.

I laughed. He screamed, a gurgling cry of horror.

A rushing in my ears, then the world was quiet again. He was still, but the knife wouldn’t stop. It just kept going. Slashing, killing.

“Stryder,” I whispered. “Are you here?”

Silence. But, I could feel him near me. Feel his pride. I did it. I was him and he was me and I couldn’t wait to tell Alex.

I dropped the knife, tripped over an overturned coffee table, righted myself, staggered to the door. My fingers were wet and slipped on the doorknob. Slickery. My mom used to use that silly, made-up word when I was a kid. I laughed as the slickery doorknob turned and the door swung open at last.

The keys jingled again when I accidentally kicked them, but I didn’t pick them up. Alex didn’t need her keys anymore. She lived with me now. Forever.

Home sweet home. Another slickery doorknob. Everything was slickery, it seemed. Or, sticky. My shoes made a slapping sound, like I’d stepped in pancake syrup and tracked it through the house. Fwap. Fwap.

In the bathroom, I turned on the light. There was blood all over me but I couldn’t remember hurting myself. I took off my shirt. I
t was ruined. I threw it in the tub. My sweat pants were wrecked. Maybe my mom could use bleach to get the stains out—I wasn’t sure. I’d have to ask. I kicked my shoes into the corner, stripped off my pants, and stood before the mirror. I needed a haircut.

At last, I was tired. So tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. Too tired to take a shower. Switching on the sink, I grabbed a bar of soap and washed my hands up to my elbows. With a slightly dampened towel, I rubbed some of the red stuff out of my hair. It must have been blood. Did I hurt myself?

Alex was still sleeping when I crawled in bed next to her. My eyes flickered shut as sirens shrieked outside, coming closer. Closer. I was gone.

Chapter 23
- Alex

But who are ye, in whom there trickles down

Along your cheeks such grief as I behold?

(Canto XXIII, lines 97 & 98)

At first, I thought it was my dad pounding on the door. Reaching for my cell phone, I glanced at the time. 4:42. Seriously? My dad was never up that early.

“Wake up.” I shook Sean, but he didn’t move. He’d probably been up half the night playing his stupid game.

Sounds of movement drifted down the hall. A thin light underneath the door pierced the pitch darkness in our bedroom. I sat up. I had to pee. Opening the door and heading down the hallway, I realized the voices at the door weren’t familiar. Maybe my dad wasn’t here after all, but who would be knocking on the door at a time when the rest of the world was asleep?

“Alex? Sean?” Mrs. Droste called.

“I’ll be right there.” Nature called. I ducked into the bathroom and shut the door.

My
shriek of terror rebounded off the porcelain sink and tub, echoing back and fueling my fear. I screamed again, then gagging and retching, threw open the bathroom door and staggered into the hallway.

It was a scene from a horror movie. Blood was smeared everywhere
—the sink, the toilet, the linoleum, the mirror. Red rivulets meandered from a sodden mass at one end of the tub and trickled toward the drain. Acid burned my throat and vomit rose up into my mouth. I gagged again.

Sean’s mother caught me before I hit the floor. Two uniformed police officers pushed past us
into the doorway of the bathroom. One mumbled something about a request for backup. More sirens shrieked in the distance and I was led to the living room. An angry, cursing Sean was dragged down the hallway while an officer told him he had the right to remain silent.

A bunch of people came in and out of the house before I was loaded into the back of a cop car
and taken to the police station. I can’t even remember how I found out my dad had been murdered. Somewhere amidst the chaos and the people and the questions and the weeping of Sean’s mother, I found out my dad had been stabbed to death.

“Neighbors heard a disturbance and called…”

“The door was left open…”

“No sign of forced entry…”

“Time of death approximately 4:20 AM…”

The police suspect
ed me or Sean or both of us. I knew it wasn’t me. Time blurred and blended as investigators questioned me about every single step I’d taken since the police visited Sean’s house earlier in the evening.

“Let’s go over this one more time. You say
you fell asleep around nine. You didn’t wake up at any point in time?” This was from a gray-haired man in a rumpled suit.

“Did Mr. Droste—Sean—mention anything about retaliating against your father?” The stocky black man in the red polo shirt at least offered me a drink of water before he began his questioning. He was calm, respectful. If the good-cop/bad-cop theory was true, this guy was the good cop.

The blond woman with the severe haircut was the bad cop. “What did you and your father argue about the night before?”

“Nothing…just, you know. Father-daughter stuff.”

“Well, you’ll need to be more specific. This is a criminal investigation, young lady. If you two argued over who ate the last ice-cream bar or who you screwed the weekend before, I need to know about it.”

I told her. I could barely meet her eye, but I told her. Not everything, but enough. She stared at me before saying, “
We’ll talk to your mother and sister to see if they can back up your claims.”

For a long while, I sat alone.
Unaware of what would happen to me—and hardly caring—I cried a little. I even put my head down on the table in front of me and slept for a while. When the door opened, it was the gray-haired detective.

“You’re free to go. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”

In other words, both my childhood house and the place I called home for less than a day were crime scenes. I briefly wondered about the condition of my family home, but decided I really didn’t want to know. If the condition of the bathroom in Sean’s house was anything to go by, my house must have been unimaginable.

“Your mother and sister are here. I’ll need to find out where you all are staying.
Please don’t leave the immediate area,” he instructed.

“Am I a suspect?” I asked.

“You’re currently under investigation.”

He led me into a waiting room. My mom started sobbing the second she saw me. Her face was splotchy, red, and swollen. I wondered how she’d made it home from Cape so quickly.

Claire pulled me into a hug and rubbed my back. She seemed solemn, shocked, but not particularly upset. “I talked to the investigator,” she whispered. “I told her about dad. Even if they charge you as an accessory, they’ll probably take it easy on you.”

The three of us trooped through the lobby, dodging curious stares
from assorted citizens. Just before we burst through the double doors into the bright sunlight, my aunt Carrie accosted us.

“I blame you,” she shouted, jabbing her finger in my face.

“Carrie, I know you’re upset…” My mom put one hand on my aunt’s shoulder, but Carrie brushed it off and continued her rant.

“If you hadn’t allowed that…that psycho into your life, this never would have happened.”

I glanced away from my aunt’s angry face and saw a police officer striding toward us.

“Ma’am, is there a problem?” the middle-aged, thick
-waisted woman asked.

“Yeah. There is. This girl is responsible for my brother’s death and she
is getting off scot free.”

“I’m sure the officers are doing everything they can to investigate the charges. You need to go home and let the detectives work the case.”

“Well, if they were working the case, this little bitch would be in custody,” my aunt spat.

“If you’d like to come back into one of the interview rooms, I’ll have one of the detectives meet with you,” the officer said.

“No. My brother is dead. Sue me if I don’t feel like talkin’ to no detective right now,” she said. Then turning to me, she began crying. “This is your fault. If it wasn’t for you, he’d still be alive.”

Claire lunged at her, stopping herself just before she reached Aunt Carrie. “I’m glad he’s dead. This is your fault too. I told you what was happening and you called me a liar. If you’d done what was right, dad would be in prison where he belonged and none of this would be
happening.”

Another officer came over to
break up the argument. After a series of threats and warnings, Aunt Carrie was persuaded to remain inside until me, Claire, and Mom left. Outside, the sun felt hot and I wondered what time it was.

“We can’t go home,” my mom wept. “We’ll have to stay with Uncle Alan or…”

“Can’t we just get a motel room?” Claire asked. “Seriously, Uncle Alan’s house smells like ferrets and death.”

“Maybe for a night or two, but…”

“Thanks. We’ll follow you.” Claire led me to her car while Mom crossed the parking lot to her minivan.

We were silent on the way over to the Motel 6. All I could think of was Sean’s mom and how she must feel. I wondered if she was mad at me, or if she even thought about me at all. I wondered if she had a place to stay for the next two days.
Above all, I wondered if she’d ever seen this coming. If eighteen years ago, she could have ever imagined that her pink, precious infant would grow up to be who he was.