Crooked

I called the number first thing in the morning and was greeted with an automated message saying that it had been disconnected. My morning continued as usual, however sloppily due to my post-martini condition. I’d overslept, and yet I hadn’t slept at all. My head pounded, echoing with the last words I’d heard Wesley speak all those years ago.

“It won’t be long,” he’d said, calling after me as I escaped across the frigid plain that day. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you. You’ll never be rid of me.”

He was right, of course, because I’d had countless nightmares over the last few years in which every single face that I saw was Wesley’s. And now my worst fear had been confirmed, my paranoia had been justified all along, because he was following me. He was watching.

When I got to my desk, I found a bouquet of red roses. I stood staring at them for far too long. There was no note accompanying them, but I knew they were from Wesley. Not because red roses are in any way significant to my relationship with him, but because I don’t know any other person in the world who would put flowers on my desk.

“Morning,” Adam said as he approached. “Nice flowers.”

“Thanks.” I dropped them into the garbage can.

“If I promise not to smoke,” he said, “you want to go for a drive with me? I need to ask someone a few questions about that incident on Hoyt the other night.”

“I don’t know much about it,” I said.

“You can get caught up in the car,” Adam replied, practically throwing a thin, brown folder at me. “Let’s go. I know where we can get a cup of decent coffee on the way. And by decent, I mean bullshit.”

Adam’s car smelled vaguely of cigarettes, but it wasn’t unbearable. I kept my window rolled halfway down and thumbed through the pages of the case file. The coffee was good, but not the best I’d ever had. The best, incidentally, was the coffee I ground by hand and brewed over a fire the morning after I murdered Michael Twins, decorated the walls with his blood, and got a good night’s rest in his cold, empty bed.

“I like your hair like that,” Adam said. I reached up to feel it piled into a rather messy bun, and realized I hadn’t even brushed it that morning.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.

“It was a compliment,” he laughed. “You look relaxed, for once.”

“I’m the farthest thing from relaxed.”

“Everything alright?”

“Yes,” I said, looking back to the file on my lap.

Adam nodded. “Okay.”

The case was a little strange, and I understood Adam’s concern in regards to the cohesiveness of the story. A young woman, Brittany Shaw, had made a claim that her boyfriend attacked her, and tried to kill her, for reasons she was unsure of. Miss Shaw suffered from four different knife wounds. One in her right thigh, the second in her left shoulder, and a third near her right hip, all rather shallow and nonfatal. The fourth wound, however, was much deeper, located in the middle of her stomach. Upon examining her wounds more closely, the medical team believed that Miss Shaw’s wounds were from two different knives; the one in her stomach was made by a serrated blade, and the rest were done with a shorter, sharper blade, like a pocket knife. Her boyfriend, Darren Klein, was currently missing.

The witness we were on our way to speak with was Brittany’s younger sister, Carly. She had, apparently, seen the whole thing happen. In her statement, she said that Brittany was attacked by Darren with a steak knife, which was the only weapon found at the scene of the crime.

I knew what Deputy Bliss was thinking. If there was a second weapon, it was likely that there was a second attacker. And this person was probably harboring Darren at that very moment, keeping him safe from police, getting away with attempted murder, and threatening Carly’s life if she were to tell the truth.

“What do you think?” Adam asked when I closed the folder.

“Without speaking to either the victim or the witness yet, I can’t say for sure,” I began. “But I can see cause for your suspicion, of course. Actually, Deputy Bliss, I would like to hear what you think.”

“Okay,” Adam smirked. He took a deep breath and began, “I’m thinking some sort of gang initiation. One man, older and higher up in ranks, showing a new recruit how to stab someone, or whatever. Kill her and you’re in, you know?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “Possible. Considering the neighborhood where the incident took place, however, I wouldn’t suspect gang activity.”

“True, but you never know these days. Gangs crop up in strange places, kids do wild things to piss their parents off.”

“Hm.” I stared out the window as we rolled along the street, until we came to a small suburban neighborhood. The houses, I knew, without really knowing, would have identical interior layouts, mirror images of each other with slight variances in wall color or carpet.

I wondered, briefly, if I’d ever lived in a place like this. If my parents, whoever they were, had lived in a quaint little neighborhood like this one, where people walked their dogs all day and children played in the streets without fear. Where the lawns were always unnaturally green, cut to perfection every day by devoted husbands in khaki shorts and baseball caps. Where the wives and mothers spent the day gardening and scrubbing each surface of their homes with bleach, while wearing sundresses printed with images of roses or cherries, their hair tied up in a French twist, their faces painted with makeup to appear awake and alive and like they aren’t slowly dying inside. I wondered if my mother had been dying inside, and perhaps that’s why she sent me away. Perhaps that’s why she hated me so much.

We pulled into the driveway of Brittany Shaw’s home and approached her door. Adam pulled his chin up and set his shoulders back, I assumed to make himself seem larger, stronger, more intimidating. I simply stood with my face like stone, as usual, and hoped I appeared respectable in the wake of my disgusting hangover. The doorbell rang throughout the house and a young girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, answered the door.

“Hello,” Adam said to her, flashing a sparkly grin. “Is Brittany home?” I wasn’t sure why he asked, because he knew that she was not.

“Who wants to know?” The girl responded with an unexpected arrogance.

“The Clark County Police Department,” I said, holding my badge in front of her face. I dropped my hand when I saw her eyes drift toward my wrist as the sleeve fell down to reveal the black mark printed there. She bit her lip momentarily before stepping aside and letting us into her home.

“My name is Adam Bliss,” he said, extending a hand toward the teenager. “And this is my partner, Lenore Watkins.”

“Deputy Detective Watkins,” I corrected him, frowning.

“Yeah, that’s not a thing.”

“Yes it is,” I nodded. Then I looked at the girl, her arms crossed over her chest in a defiant attempt at teenage rebellion. “You’re Carly, correct?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged, sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter. Adam pulled up a stool next to her and I remained standing, opposite them. He gave me a wink as I surveyed the current situation; it was clear that I would be playing Bad Cop today.

“You’re probably so tired of talking about it,” Adam said to her, “but we need you to go over what happened with Brittany. One more time.”

“Like I said,” Carly sighed, “Britt and I were just hanging out. Her boyfriend came over, he flipped out and stabbed her, then he left when I called the cops.”

Adam glanced at me. He wanted me to interrogate her further, to ask her more specific questions, possibly try to confuse her, make her nervous. It was, apparently, my job to get the truth.

“Carly,” I said, “Would you offer any more specific details for us? What were you doing? Did your sister invite Darren over, or did he just show up? How long was it that he was here before he stabbed your sister? How many times did he stab her, and with what? Was anyone else here, did he come alone?”

Carly groaned, just that way a teenage girl groans when she’s stuck doing something she’d rather not be doing. “Don’t you already have that stuff written down somewhere?” She rolled her eyes.

My nostrils flared and Adam chortled as if he thought it was hilarious.

“I need you to tell us again,” I said, as sternly as I could.

“I don’t want to,” she replied.

I looked to Adam, who was leaning against his hands, elbows propped on the counter, his eyebrows raised high. He shrugged at me, and, while I did not appreciate the challenge, I took it anyway.

“Carly,” I said again, in a low, calm voice. Her eyes swept over mine and I opened up my mind, allowing her thoughts to seep in; slowly at first, a dripping faucet carrying flecks and fragments from her mind to mine. Light, hollow noises, like echoes, thrummed through me, until the gateway opened up. Images poured through my thoughts like water rushing over rocks, quiet words drifted around me in swirling gusts, and I began to see what I was looking for.

I didn’t care if it was technically cheating, if Adam wanted the truth, I was definitely able to give it to him. “What were you and Brittany doing that night?”

“Just hanging out,” she sighed, “watching a movie.”

I could see them, with Carly’s memory like a recorded archive projected in my mind’s eye. They sat near each other on the couch, draped in blankets. A bowl of popcorn rested between them, half-eaten. I tried to focus on the television screen, but could not, for the life of me, figure out what was happening. My lack of pop culture and entertainment knowledge reared its ugly head.

“What movie?”

“Pineapple Express,” she said. I saw no pineapples anywhere on the screen, just a pair of horribly dressed men smoking marijuana on a couch. Something occurred to me, and I adjusted the direction of my inner gaze. There, on the floor at the base of the couch, was an ash tray, and next to it sat a small pipe made of sparkling yellow glass.

“You were smoking,” I said plainly. “Marijuana.” Her eyes popped, but she said nothing. Briefly, I heard Carly’s voice as it drifted through her own memory; Sorry, we smoked it all. Call Darren and see if he can bring us some more.

I said, “Brittany called her boyfriend to bring it to you.”

Adam stared up at me, his chin resting on his hands, elbows propping him up like a child listening to a bedtime story. He blinked, then turned to Carly and said, “Is that true, sweetheart?” But Carly remained silent, her jaw hanging open slightly.

I continued. “But he didn’t come alone, did he?” Carly looked down to stare at the countertop. I glanced at her hands, sitting in her lap, holding the sleeves of her shirt against her palms with nervous fingers. I sometimes held my sleeves that way when I was afraid someone might see the tiny black mark on my wrist. As I watched her chew on her lip, her legs bouncing up and down anxiously, I felt strangely guilty for violating her privacy and rummaging through her memories.

The images of the two girls, the popcorn and the movie, faded gently into blackness. With the haze of Carly’s mind washed away, my brain began to work on building a scenario of my own. I took Adam’s theory and ran with it the best I could.

“He came with a friend,” I said, “And they wanted to play a game? A game that involved stabbing your sister. But someone went too far, went to deeply into her stomach, and you were afraid she might bleed out.” The girl said nothing. I recalled something that I was told a long, long time ago. “Rest assured, if games you play, then someone has to lose.”

Adam looked curiously at me, then back at Carly. She had tears in her eyes as she shook her head.

“It’s all bells and candy canes,” Adam said, “until Santa shits the bed.”

I frowned at him. “Deputy Bliss, please.” Carly had finally looked up from the counter, peering at Adam from the corner of her eye.

“Sorry.” He shrugged, gently tossing an elbow into Carly’s side. “I may not be as philosophical as my partner, here, but what I lack in smarts, I make up for in rugged handsomeness, am I right?”

Carly lifted one eyebrow. Her legs had stopped shaking and her bottom lip, while red and swollen, was no longer trapped between her teeth.

“Bliss,” I scoffed.

“Watkins?” he said. He turned back to Carly and smiled a sideways grin. “Come on, kiddo. We’re here to help you, alright? Just tell us the truth, and we’ll protect you. I promise.” He laid a fatherly hand on her shoulder.

She swallowed hard and opened her mouth a few times, as if trying to speak. Her hands came up to rest on the counter in front of her and she sighed heavily. Finally, the words found their way. “You’re right. Well, sort of.” She shifted around in her seat. “We were smoking pot, and we did call Brittany’s boyfriend to bring us more. He’s a dealer. Anyway, Darren showed up with some guy I’d never seen before. Brittany didn’t know him either. I don’t even think Darren did.” Her face formed a hard frown. “They just stood there in the doorway at first, and when they came inside, it got really weird. Darren just kept repeating everything this guy said. He stood behind Darren and said stuff to him, and Darren would do everything the guy told him to do. He wasn’t saying anything on his own, just repeating—”

“Repeating?” I asked. Somehow, I knew. Something inside me burst open and I dove back in, searching Carly’s memory for an image. Images flew past my inner vision, and I heard voices and sounds warbling together in my ears. Everything stopped, and I was back in the Shaw’s living room, hovering over the scene as Darren walked through the front door with the stranger just over his shoulder. I had to stifle a gasp when I saw Wesley, all six and a half feet of him, looming over the shoulder of stocky, tattoo-covered Darren. Wesley was in his head, feeding him lines, whispering orders, forcing him to do his bidding.

In a flash, I saw the whole thing play out in front of me. Wesley wanted Darren to kill that poor girl. Darren resisted as much as he could, finding a loophole in Wesley’s commands by stabbing her in safer areas of her body, and never going very deep. He sobbed, apologizing to Brittany, begging Wesley to stop. Brittany remained still and accepted the assault, due to the fact that Wesley had Carly in his arms, threatening to snap her neck if Brittany struggled too much. His grip was tight on Carly’s wrists, and she squirmed in pain, tears falling down her face. Finally, Wesley threw the girl to the ground, approaching Darren. The young man tried to fight, but Wesley knocked his pocket knife to the ground and hit him hard in the face. Darren’s body crumpled to the ground, his eyes rolled back and fluttered closed.

Wesley picked up a knife from a nearby table and handed it to Carly. She shook her head, tried to say no, but Wesley insisted. She was the one who plunged the blade into her sister’s stomach. As Carly cried and screamed her sister’s name, Wesley took Darren and left. Brittany, slowly bleeding out as Carly called the police, came up with a story to keep her sister safe.

I retreated from the girl’s mind, mere seconds after entering, and met her terrified gaze with my own. Something in her eyes told me a secret I wasn’t expecting to learn. After seeing what truly happened, I only had one question. And when I saw the look on Carly’s face in that moment, I knew the answer. She gazed at me as if she knew; she could feel my presence in her mind, hear my reaction to the scene that I’d just watched, and she knew, too. She knew all that I knew. And I knew that Wesley had chosen this girl because she was special, too. Like me. Like him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, coming around the countertop to approach her. Adam looked between the two of us, confused, as I gently grabbed Carly’s hands and pulled her sleeves up. On her wrists were deep red marks, clearly defined prints of fingers where Wesley had gripped so tightly. Broken blood vessels and deep bruises decorated her wrists. Fortunately, there was no black mark. He hadn’t yet tried to claim her.

“What is that?” Adam asked. He came toward us, concerned, and I admired his heartfelt worry for the girl at the sight of her injuries. “Who did this to you, sweetheart?” he asked.

Carly looked up at me, pleading with her eyes for me to keep her secret. I fought with myself internally for a moment, not knowing what to say, what to do. On one hand, I could tell Deputy Bliss the truth about what I’d seen. I could tell him that a tall, ominous stranger had planted commands in Darren’s mind, and forced an innocent young girl to stab her own sister. I could tell Adam that I knew this man, that I knew what he was capable of and that he had only committed this crime, probably, to get a rise out of me.

But if I told him all of that, I would have to tell him about me, and about my… talent. I would have to tell him how I knew Wesley, where he might be, who he might be with, and what kind of person he was. I would have to tell all of my own deepest, darkest secrets, and spill Carly’s as well. Ours was a heavy burden to bear, mine especially. No one could ever know the things I had done.

Carly shook her head, and said, “It’s nothing. I’m okay.”

I nodded at her.

Adam gave me a strange look, his face tight, eyes narrow.

“She’s telling the truth,” I said. He frowned harder at me, but I kept my expression steady and stern. Finally, he resigned from staring at me as if I were crazy.

“Sure,” he put on a fake smile. “Then I guess we should be on our way.”

Surprisingly, Adam didn’t ask me any questions regarding the encounter with Carly. He didn’t ask me in the car, at the station, or at lunch that afternoon which he insisted that I join him for. We talked about anything but the case, including his divorce, which seemed inappropriate to me, but I listened and nodded along anyway.

I spent the evening at the station, trying to figure out where Brittany Shaw’s boyfriend could be. I sat at my desk thumbing through files and searching internet databases for any known family or associates of Darren’s while Jane brewed coffee and carried steaming cups of it to my desk intermittently. The gesture seemed out of character for her, given that she typically scowled at me from across the office, smacking her gum and pretending she didn’t hear me when I asked her for things, as if her head were detached from her body and floating in space.

“Why are you here so late?” I asked her, realizing the time. It was ten o’clock at night on a Friday, and I’d assumed Jane would be the type to go out dancing and drinking until 4 in the morning. I wondered why she wasn’t out prowling the streets, looking for innocent men to devour. Her long, dark hair was tied up in a high, sleek ponytail that, paired with her slim-fitting skirt and high heeled shoes, made her appear taller than she actually was.

“I need the extra cash,” she shrugged. “It’s easy money hanging out here all night, watching you stress yourself out.”

“I see.”

“Besides, who else is going to refill your coffee three times an hour like clockwork, Lenore?” There was something about the way she said my name that made my skin tingle. It was usually Deputy Watkins, or Miss Watkins, or just Watkins, but never had I ever heard her call me Lenore.

“Please, call me Miss Watkins.” I nodded and returned to my work, and Jane drifted away into the shadows beyond my peripheral vision. After finishing what had to be my thirteenth cup of coffee, I decided to finally call it quits. I wasn’t tired, and I probably could have worked through the night if I wanted to, but I was starting to feel strange about the way Jane just hovered in the corner, watching me as if she thought I didn’t’ notice.

I was just walking past the night doorman when I heard Jane’s voice behind me. “Do you want to grab a drink?”

I spun around to see her shrugging a denim jacket on over her sleeveless blouse. “Now?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she smiled, “Why not? It’s Friday. And you look like you could use one. First round is on me?”

I remembered the way I’d felt after drowning myself in martinis. The intoxicated version of me was nearly a different person, able to openly communicate with others and forget, momentarily, about my tainted past. However, I also remembered the dizziness, nausea, and double vision that followed all of that. I couldn’t let my guard down in that way again, in case Wesley was waiting in the wings to leap out and murder me at any given moment.

“It’s rather late, Jane,” I said. “Some other time, maybe.”

She scoffed quietly and shook her head, pulling a pack of gum from her purse. She nodded with her lips pursed in a way that emanated annoyance and my face flushed red with guilt.

“Sure,” Jane said, rolling her eyes. She unwrapped a stick of gum and shoved it into her mouth. “When Hell freezes over.” And with that, she strutted away to her car.

As I watched her walk away, I found myself feeling incredibly disappointed, and even a little sad. Heartbroken, almost. It confused me for a moment; I had nothing to feel disappointed about. Then, I realized that I was picking up on Jane’s emotions without even trying. Usually it took a great effort on my part to make a connection like that with another person, but it had happened so swiftly I hadn’t even noticed. I watched her get into her car, start it, and fuss with the radio before she pulled out of the parking lot. Baffled by how strong her feelings were, I was enveloped in my own guilt as they drifted away, leaving me in my own little bubble of misery.

After a deep breath, I turned around and went back into the station. I had promised myself never to do this again, but I was, after all, somewhat of a notorious liar. My control over the mental abilities I’d been born with was wavering, and I hadn’t self-treated in weeks. Any residual effects of the last time had clearly faded, and if I waited any longer, I would be hearing the thoughts of every Clark County police officer at once by morning. Being unable to push the noise of other people’s minds out of my own had never proven to be very much fun and had, in fact, led to numerous deaths by my hands. I didn’t have a choice. And as I let myself into the evidence locker, I told myself, again, this was the last time I was going to steal from my place of employment.

My heart raced as I took what I needed, shoved it into an unmarked paper bag, returned across the building to the exit, and slid into my car. Back at my apartment, I closed the door and locked its three locks. I poured myself a glass of white wine before seating myself at the coffee table and emptying the contents of the paper bag.

From beneath the couch, I retrieved a small black velvet pouch that housed a blown glass pipe and a lighter. I filled the pipe with the opium I’d stolen from the evidence locker, lit it, and inhaled. Lying back on the carpet, I let myself drift away as the room around me disappeared into the blackness.