The Tease (The Darling Killer Trilogy) (17 page)

I picked my words carefully.
Trying to figure out if my client is guilty or not? Trying to figure out if something, anything will help? Or just a colossal display of hubris?
“It’s coping,” I said. “I’m just trying to understand.”

Her greenish eyes searched my face, her mouth a grim crack. “You’re in over your head,” she said.

“I’m not in anything,” I flashed.

She shook her head. “Fine,” she said. “Keep your crayons. But you’re not getting yourself killed on
my
watch. Is there somewhere else you can stay for a few days?”

“But—”
My cat my computer my clothes my studio my murder board—

“He knows where you live.”

“Miss Zendel,” Detective Santiago said. “He’s been here twice, okay?
Twice
. For your safety, you really should stay somewhere else for a while.”

“The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior,” I said dully.

Detective Brack nodded.

It won’t cost me anything to give
in, I thought.
It’s better to be effective than to be right.
I thought about my dad, and then thought about how worry exhausted him. How he curled into a grey apostrophe in the chair next to my mother’s hospital bed. How slowly he ate after she died, as if he had to will each forkful of food to his lips. How his usually sparkling blue eyes dulled to flat, vacant puddles. I couldn’t burden him with this.

“I’ll call a friend,” I said. I pulled out my phone to call Monica. It showed a missed call from Kevin.
God
. It was like an echo from another lifetime. How many kinds of ruined could I be?

I sighed and dialed.

“Hey, Sweetie!” Monica’s voice rang over the phone. “How are you?”

“OK,” I answered mechanically. “How are you?”

“I’m great! What’s up?”

“Um… can I stay with you tonight? I’ll bring snacks.” I looked ruefully at my bag of crushed chips, still discarded in the hallway.

“Of course,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

My voice wavered. “Everything,” I said. “Can I bring Caprice?”

M
onica lived in Andersonville, on a street where houses and apartments huddled together as if sharing secrets. Caprice complained about her accommodations on the entire drive. For ten heart-wrenching minutes, I left her in the car while running into a Jewel to buy a disposable litter pan. Don’t ask me why that’s what freaked me out most. It just was.

I found street parking, hauled my suitcase and cat carrier out of the car and to the door, and rang the bell. She buzzed me up. I felt Caprice jump inside the carrier. I lugged the poor cat up the flight of stairs and down the hall, struggling with the rolling bag and grocery bags.

“Hi, Sweetie!” Monica said, opening the door of her condo. “Let me help you with that.” She took the suitcase from me and rolled it in so I could hold Caprice’s carrier from the bottom.

“Hi,” I said, walking in and sighing with relief. I set Caprice’s carrier down, and Monica enveloped me in a hug. Then she stepped back and said, “What do you need?”

I loved her for being so real. For being so still and centered in the chaos. She was wearing a long, black skirt and a brown, knit top with a rich sequined design at the left shoulder. A brown sequined headband pulled her wild, brown curls away from her forehead, and they rampaged in a halo at the back of her head.

“I need to change,” I said. “And to finally open this chocolate.”

“Gotcha,” she said. “I’ve got your chaise set up here. I mean it’s the same old sofa, but I think it counts as a chaise if you lounge on it.”

I laughed.

I stumbled into her bedroom, washed off my makeup, and changed into a silky, red nightgown. It made me feel marginally better. I fished the grocery bag out of the suitcase where I’d arranged its contents carefully at the top, as well as a bag of cat treats for Caprice. I zipped it closed and rolled it back into her living room.

We set up the litter pan in her bathroom and coaxed Caprice out of the carrier with a few treats. She complained a little, allowed Monica to pet her, and dashed away to hide.

“Have you had dinner yet?” Monica asked.

I glanced at the clock and saw it was after eight. No wonder I was so crabby.

“Not yet,” I said. “I brought an entree.” I held out the wine bottle.

“So it’s been
that
kind of day,” she said. She brought it into the kitchen to open it. I heard the sounds of a second bottle being opened, then the sounds of pouring. I opened the box of chocolates and the bag of chips, then arranged them on the coffee table. She came back bearing two glasses of wine – the red for me, and a white for her. I assumed it was Muscato D’Asti. She kept a rack of the stuff. It tasted like soda pop to me, too sweet to bear. She loved it.

We sat down, and she said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

I thought again of Detective Brack and her clipboard, her piercing eyes, the story rolling off my tongue over and over. “I do,” I said, “in a minute. I’m sick of the inside of my own head. Can you tell me about your day?”

“Of course,” she said.

As she spoke, I took a swig of wine. It was full and slightly acidic, washing over my mouth with hints of blackberry and chocolate and desire. I ate a chip, letting the salty tang fill the corners of my mouth, and then another sip of the wine. Then a bite of chocolate, which sent velvety tendrils of pleasure throughout my body.

“It was a good week,” she said. “No one died. This terrific foster family adopted a really gorked baby, one who was born with meth withdrawal, so that was good. And then another baby who was born with his lungs on the outside survived the surgery, and he made it through the day, so that was good too. Oh, and then Judy, she’s the chaplain – I love her, but she just doesn’t have much in the social skills department – I was by the fish tank, and you know, there’s not a lot for kids in the PICU to look at, so that’s kind of the water cooler for the NICU and PICU kids. And she says really loudly, ‘Monica, you do
pole dancing
, right? That’s what you do on the weekends?’”

I laughed and took another chip. I was still wound up like an E-string, but Monica’s easy chatter was beginning to work its magic.

“So I’m guiding her away down the hall, because Indoor Voice isn’t really her strong suit, and I explained that I bellydance, which is different, and that confused her. So I explained that I keep my clothes on and I don’t use a pole. And she looked confused, and said ‘How do they take their clothes off when they’re on the pole?’ Ooooh, I see a Caprice!”

Caprice hesitantly came into the room. Monica coaxed her over and got down on the floor, petting her and making nonsensical sounds of adoration. Caprice stretched and rolled over. “Oh, kitty belly!” Monica said. “I just want to bury my face in it! Kitty! Kitty!”

A wave of sadness crashed over me. A few days ago, I would’ve been on the floor with Monica, playing with the cat and making nonsense noises. Instead, I was pouring chips and chocolate into a yawning emptiness in my gut, images of Katie and Lisa and Kevin and Tish in an awful jumble over and over.

I took another sip of the wine. Hell. I drained the glass, went to the kitchen, and returned with the entire bottle. I poured another serving into the glass and stared into the maroon depths of it. “I’m sorry to invite myself over like this,” I began.

“It’s no problem, Sweetie,” she said. She got up and sat down next to me.

“The police think – maybe – my life’s in danger.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

I poured my heart out about the show, Grant, Kevin, Tish, and even Max, though I was careful to omit Max’s name, as well as anything that could identify him. I finished, and she waited in silence for a few moments.

“That’s why I work with babies,” she said. “They might up and die, but they don’t drop stuff on me like wanting to have sex with corpses.”

I laughed. Though my body still hummed like a livewire, a sense of chocolaty well-being started to muffle the tension.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t want to stay here too long. He already knows where I live, I don’t want him to know where
you
live also.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, if I’m gonna die I’d rather do it with a hot burlesque chick in the apartment with me, but I’d rather stick around for a while.”

“Me, too,” I said. “I just… I don’t know, I’m completely freaked out, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you want me to answer that as a friend or fellow therapist?” she asked.

“Both.”

“Good,” she said. She frowned, took a deep breath, and said, “Murder board?”

I blinked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s
totally
not like you,” she said. “You’re a yoga-doing pacifist.”

“I don’t know that pacifist is the right word,” I said.

“But you know what I mean. You don’t even own pepper spray. Wait. Why
don’t
you own pepper spray?”

“I probably should,” I said.

“Fuck yes, you should,” she said. “I hate to say it, honey, but the detective is right. This isn’t safe for you.”

“But I’m not trying to catch the killer,” I argued.

“Really?”

Her piercing gaze unsettled me. “Well. Maybe a little.”

“You can’t catch him a
little
,” she said.

“He kills women,” I said. “He kills women, and he might be my client. And he’s killing women who matter to me. Monica, I can’t let him take dance away from me. I can’t let a man dictate my life again.”

“That’s a noble idea,” she said, “but he’s not some bully. He’s a
serial killer
. So it’s good not to let Kevin walk all over you, but maybe you should let the Darling Killer walk wherever he’s going to walk until the police figure out who he is. They’re trained for it.”

“I know,” I said wretchedly. “But I can’t just sit around and not think about it.”

“No one’s asking you to stop thinking,” she said. “I think we just want you to not do anything stupid.”

“I’ll buy some damn pepper spray,” I said, and refilled my wine glass.

“You can stay here as long as you want,” she said, her tone gentle again.

“Thanks,” I said. My phone buzzed inside my purse. I dug it out, saw Kevin’s name, and hit the silent button. “It’s Kevin again,” I told her. I stuffed the phone back in my purse and kicked it under her coffee table.

“He’s not worth your time,” she said. “I can tell you, if he’s making out with
Tish
, he’s not worth it.”

“I really thought he was,” I said, and took another sip of wine. “I wish you could’ve seen his place. He doesn’t have some secret lab where he makes the ‘real art.’ He makes these incredible miniatures so people can play Dungeons & Dragons. They’re beautiful without pretense. It was so great to be around someone that artistic and that secure in himself.”

“There’s a difference between being secure and being a two-timing prick.”

I sighed. “I don’t know what I saw,” I said. “I don’t want to judge.”

“How about me?” she asked. “Can I judge?”

“I guess,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe I misunderstood.”

“Anna,” she said. “You also didn’t think Josh was abusive.”

The shot told. I didn’t say anything.

“You know he’d be hitting you by now, right?”

I shrugged. “Those things tend to escalate. I think he would’ve stuck with the psychological torture, but I’m glad I don’t know for sure.”

“Me, too,” she said softly.

The one time she and I ever argued was when I told her about some things Josh said that bothered me, and she had said, “Well. That’s a
little
better than hitting you,” and then, after a pause, said “Does it make me a bad therapist that I’m thinking
At least if he hits her, she’ll finally leave
?”

I’ve never forgotten that she loves me enough to ask the hard questions.

“I should give Kevin a chance to explain,” I said. “Just… not now.”

“Not now,” she agreed. Caprice yawned and nuzzled Monica’s hand. Monica petted her absently and said, “Is there any way that the necro guy might know where you live?”

I puzzled over it. “If he’s really patient and followed me home. I don’t know. The only other person who’s been over to my place is Lynne, and I don’t think she’s the Single White Female type.”

“And it could be someone totally unrelated,” she said. “That’s what scares me, is that the interaction was a big deal to him, but not memorable to you, like at the dry cleaner or something.”

I shuddered. “I don’t know which is worse.”

I
went to work early the next day. I’d woken hours before my alarm with an upset stomach, a purring cat snuggled next to me, and nothing better to do. I always found it surreal to get ready for work in other places. You’d think that years of pulling spangles and eyelashes out of suitcases would prepare me to get ready anywhere – and I was, for that purpose. Putting on my subtle makeup; conservative, black skirt; and soft, navy top was entirely different.

I still couldn’t bring myself to wear jewelry.

I fed Caprice, packed my go bag for rehearsal that evening, and left at six. I left her half a pot of fresh coffee and a thank-you note stating I’d be back late that evening.

The sun was just expanding wanly across the sky when I walked into my office. I spent about an hour looking through my notes in Max’s file, anxiety about whether he’d find me and kill me competing with anxiety about Caprice knocking over fragile things or chewing on Monica’s hair bands.

I almost jumped out of my skin when Jeff knocked on my door. I’d been staring at the file for an hour.

“Sorry to startle you,” he said. “How are you doing?”

I stared at him. It took me a minute to realize it was fine that he knew Katie was murdered. It all seemed so complicated. “Exhausted,” I finally said. “Sad. And a little freaked out.” Which was true, if you replace “a little” with “completely.”

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

I smiled. “Not right now,” I said. “Thank you.”

He hesitated. “You can probably reschedule tomorrow,” he said.