Chapter 49

Joplin was alone in her apartment watching The Hollywood Peeper, and when that former cop Brick talked about what they had discovered about the Nightmare Man it left her too numb to move. She was affected at such a deep primeval level, and even if her life depended on it she wouldn’t have been able to explain why. The same was true yesterday when she had seen the story on the news about the Nightmare Man resurfacing after seventeen years to take a new victim. Those stories had left her feeling far more vulnerable than she would’ve imagined possible, but she took solace knowing that the police had a sketch of the suspected killer and that they believed this man was now in his eighties. At least she had an idea of who to look out for. Now that had been taken away. Still, why would this news leave her nearly stricken with terror? Then she remembered the creep from earlier and understood her subconscious reaction. Almost as if he were in the living room with her, she heard clearly in her mind the words that the creep had whispered to her just before he fled the restaurant.

I’ll be getting my jollies when I see stories about you on TV.

Was it possible he was the Nightmare Man? Joplin thought the creep had been in his early thirties. She remembered the ex-cop saying this new killer would’ve been in prison at the same time as the man they were now convinced was the first Nightmare Man, and he died in 1992. She was too numb with fear to do simple math in her head, but wouldn’t that make the creep way too young to be the killer? But what if the ex-cop was wrong? That police sketch they showed was done in 1984, and it took them all these years to realize they’d been wrong about that!

The Nightmare Man could be anyone.

That thought crystalized in her mind. He could be anyone. She made a decision. She’d call the police and tell them about the creep. What was his name? Dale, at least that’s what he’d told her. She wished she had played along and gotten his phone number. Too late now for that, but they should be able to figure out who he was from the gym’s membership records.

Her cell phone was in her purse, which she had left in the kitchen. She got to her feet, but her legs felt so rubbery she almost fell back onto the couch.

This is insane. Get a grip! There’s no reason to be so freaked out by this!

Thinking of the word freaked made her giggle, and it took her a few seconds to realize why. Dale wasn’t a creep but an outright freak. She also had the thought that a shot of vodka would help steady her, and she could use that! She waited for her legs to feel less rubbery, then headed to the small galley kitchen off the living room.

She kept the vodka in the refrigerator. It tasted so much better chilled. This last bottle she’d bought only a week ago, and she was surprised to see it was already half gone. She normally wasn’t a big drinker, and in the past would go a month or longer without any alcohol, but the last few weeks she’d been anxious and had been having a shot or two almost nightly. At first she attributed it to her breakup with Richard, but lately she realized there was something else working on her and fraying at her nerves. When she saw the stories yesterday about the Nightmare Man killing a woman her age in her very same neighborhood, she had a bizarre realization that her recent anxiety and the Nightmare Man were connected, even though she only had a vague memory of him from when she was nine and stories about him were all over the TV. She wondered if she had had a premonition about him coming back and murdering more women. It was almost as if someone had whispered in her ear that this would be happening. She even had a crazy thought that she had heard those whispers. God, was she going crazy?

She poured herself a generous double shot of vodka and drank it straight, not even mixing in any orange juice. It helped. She felt steadier, and when she held her hand out in front of her face, she detected only a slight tremor. She decided another drink would help even more, and she poured herself another couple of ounces, and this time sipped it. Once her glass was empty, she brought the vodka bottle, glass, and her purse back to the living room. She plopped down on the couch, being extra careful not to spill any of the vodka, especially since she was already feeling its effect. She poured herself one more drink, and she giggled as she dug her phone out of her pocketbook. Instead of calling the police, she called Richard. When she reached voicemail, she hung up and called him again. This time he answered on the fourth ring.

“What do you want?” he demanded coldly.

“Wow,” she said. “You can’t even be nice and say hi, Joplin, how are you?”

“You got it, babe.”

“Really? We were together for two years! After all the times we fucked, you can’t even be a little nice to me?”

“What a charming mouth on you.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t call to fight. But you could be a little nice to me.”

“Do I really need to remind you of all the nice things you said to me?”

Joplin’s hand shook as she poured herself yet more vodka. Richard could be so infuriatingly smug when he wanted to be. She took a deep breath and concentrated to keep her voice under control.

“Do I really need to remind you that I found you in my bed screwing whatsherface?”

“Her name is Debra. And I thought it was our bed?”

Joplin’s mouth gaped open. Did he really just say that?

“You’re joking, right?” she asked.

“Why don’t you ask me where I’m living now?”

“What?”

“Aren’t you at least curious after you kicked me out of our apartment without any notice?”

“You were screwing her right in front of me!”

“Mistakes happen, Joplin. It wasn’t as if we were married, or I didn’t catch you flirting openly with your good buddy Connor.”

She had no idea what he was talking about. She did have a friend at work named Connor, but he was gay. There was never any flirting, only outrageous joking, and Richard knew that, but then again, he was a lawyer, and he was good at talking circles around her.

“You know Connor is gay,” she said.

“That doesn’t matter. Flirting is flirting, regardless.”

He said this in such a mean-spirited way that she understood all he wanted to do was hurt her, and that he must’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. She also knew he had to be shacked up with his so-called platonic friend Debra, and he was just dying to rub that in her face.

“You know Richard, you really are a Dick!”

“Lovely,” he said. “Exactly what I should’ve expected from you.”

She disconnected the call. She couldn’t believe she had actually called to reconcile and invite him over for the night. For almost two years he had completely bamboozled her, making her think he was charming and witty, but eventually he showed her what he really was: a cruel, selfish bastard! He couldn’t even apologize for cheating on her, instead he had to try to turn things around so that she was the one who had wronged him!

At first she was furious, but then she started giggling, and she realized she was inebriated. More than that, she was flat-out blotto.

She stared bleary-eyed at the vodka bottle and saw it was almost empty. She had poured nearly half a bottle down her throat. A full bottle was seven hundred fifty milliliters, and she struggled to work out in her head how many ounces half of that would be. Her thinking was too fuzzy to figure it out, but she knew it had to be more than she’d ever drunk when she was in college.

I’ll be paying for this tomorrow, she thought. She also made a promise that this was it; she wouldn’t be buying another bottle tomorrow. She was done letting any guy make her anxious—whether it was Dick the Prick or the Nightmare Man. She thought suddenly of Rosalyn and smiled. Yeah, she was ready to try something different. Even if she was badly hungover, she’d be heading over to the gym tomorrow morning.

She remembered again about the Nightmare Man and how she was going to call the police so she could tell them about the creep. That would have to wait. She was feeling too wasted to do anything other than crawl into bed.

She fell back onto the couch three times before she got to her feet, and she knew she was staggering like a clichéd drunk in a movie.

Tomorrow morning, she promised herself. I’ll call the police then about creepy, freaky Dale.

She was snoring loudly seconds after collapsing onto the bed.