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Undisclosed Location
Friday, October 25th, 2:15 PM Local Time
The sniper’s back was stiff, and her hips cracked when she put her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. The mattress in this hovel of a motel was hard as shit. It made her think of earlier days when sacrifices were not only demanded, but expected and par for the course. “Hardships build character,” her mother would sometimes say, but life had been one large hardship. One huge mistake, really. Some days she didn’t feel she had the right to exist. But maybe there was a reason for everything, and she was tasked to see that atonement was made for the wrongs committed. It was necessary to justify her actions to keep from teetering over the edge of sanity into the pit of insanity. She did the same when deployed. Told herself the ends justified the means, but it didn’t make the memories or the images less potent. It didn’t ease the burden she carried within herself, the heavy weight knowing that her actions had caused death. One thing she noticed everywhere she went was that people the world over were striving, striving, striving. Searching as if they’d lost something to be found, even if they’d never possessed it in the first place. But she had lost something. Correction: something had been taken away, and every day of her life had been about claiming back that which should have remained hers.
She massaged her temple, the whiskey from last night drilling into her skull. Light was filtering in around the ratty curtains, and she squinted at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was just after two.
Her eyes drifted to the floor, to the bags that held her guns, and a wave of nausea had her gripping her stomach. She’d killed again. The next day was always worse than the moment, than the immediate aftermath. At that point, she was numb and unfeeling. With the dawn of a new day, overwhelming remorse often set in with the subtlety of a jackhammer. But she had to believe she had a reason for doing what she did. She, too, sought to find that which she’d lost—even if it meant taking the lives of evil men to reset the scales of justice.
She grabbed her water glass from the nightstand and took a sip as flashbacks to an earlier time took hold. Mother sitting in the window on a summer’s day, her eyes vacant as she looked out onto the street where the sniper played hopscotch with some neighbor kids. The sniper would wave and smile, but her mother never reacted. It was like Mother wasn’t looking at her, but rather through her. As if Mother was tangled in the webs of her past, apprehended by living nightmares that haunted her while she was awake.
She tried talking to her mother in these moments, but she wasn’t sure if her words were sinking in. All Mother would do was nod, and the room felt empty, hollow, solemn, like the walls begged for reverent silence.
She balled her hands into fists but released them, relaxing her hands in her lap. She took another sip of water and set the glass back on the table. Today was a new day, and it was time to get started, though finding motivation to go on was hard. Here she was safe, tucked away and secluded from the world, isolated.
Someone knocked heavily on the door, and her instinct was to retreat. Maybe if she stayed quiet, her visitor would go away.
Then she clued in; it was after two in the afternoon. She should have checked out hours ago.
She started gathering her things. “I’m leaving,” she called out.
“It’s the police,” were the words that returned.
Fear lassoed her, and her chest remained expanded with her last breath. How did they find me? She’d been careful, taken necessary precautions.
“Please come to the door. We have questions for you.”
Questions?
“One minute.” She stuffed her bags into the dresser drawers and went to the door. She stood there, taking a few deep breaths. Everything will be fine, she chanted in her mind, and cracked the door. The midday sun blinded her, and the brightness drilled her headache farther into her skull. She pinched her eyes, looking at her callers through slits. There were two of them—a man and woman—both in uniform and staring back at her.
Neither of them said a word, and she felt every millisecond pass. She leaned against the doorframe, doing her best to appear relaxed and casual. “You said you had questions for me?”
“We understand you rented this room last night?” The male officer voiced it like a question and held on to a notepad, his pen pointing toward her.
“That’s right.” God, my head hurts! “What’s this about?”
“We just need to know if you heard anything unusual,” the female said, a note of impatience inflected in her tone.
“Ah, no.” The sniper tried to widen her eyes, but the sunlight was blinding and offensive. “Why would I have—”
“There was a double homicide in the room next to yours.”
Only then did she become aware of the flashing squad cars in the lot. Doors on a vehicle marked “Coroner” slammed shut, and a metal gurney clinked and rattled as it was pushed toward the room next door.
There was something skittering on the edge of her mind, but just outside of her grasp. And why the hell hadn’t she taken in her surroundings immediately upon opening the door? The damn whiskey had made her stupid—that’s why.
“Did you hear me?” The mark of irritation wrinkled the female officer’s brow, and she wondered if the woman was always this on edge. “There was a double homicide in the room next to yours,” she repeated.
There was something there on the edge of her mind, but it felt just out of grasp. She could bring snapshots to mind of driving to the Reids’ house again, early this morning, still drunk, and determined to return to the motel for sleep.
“Did you hear me, ma’am?” the female officer prompted.
“Yes, a double homi—” Then the memories flooded in.
The tissue-paper thin walls.
The grunting.
The banging headboard.
The wedding band.
The hooker.
Her legs buckled slightly as the memories assaulted her. A man and a woman. Shot point-blank. She’d technically killed three people in the past twenty-four hours. She hoped the cops hadn’t noticed her composure slip and laid her other hand over her chest to feign shock. “A double homicide?” She got out the full question this time.
“We appreciate this may come as a shock,” the female cop said. “But if you could tell us if you heard or saw anything suspicious, it would be a great help.”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t…” The whiskey churned topsy-turvy in her otherwise empty stomach. The blanket of nausea spread over her cheeks, and her mouth salivated. “I’m sorry… I…I drank a lot last night and pretty much passed right out.”
Both cops regarded her with trademark suspicion. Lips in a thin line, heads cocked, eyes full of judgment.
“We’ll still need your name and a number where we can reach you,” the lady cop said with an air of superiority.
“Ah, well…I…” Her eyes went to two people who were talking and standing next to a forensics vehicle.
“Name and number?” the male officer prompted, holding his pen braced over a page.
She brought her focus back on the cops and gave them a name. “That’s all I’ve got for you. Down on my luck right now. Cell phone company shut off my service, and I just got kicked out of my apartment.”
“Yeah, sure, okay, I get that. Here—” the male officer handed her a card “—if you think of anything, call me.”
She took that as her dismissal and started her retreat inside her room. On the way, she heard the lady cop mumble to her partner, “Why the fuck do people lie straight to our faces?”
Her comment sparked a raging wildfire, and the sniper balled her fists at her sides. If she’d told the lady cop the truth, she probably couldn’t handle it.
I killed them and felt nothing!
Likely the woman would stare at her in a daze, only breaking the spell by shouting at her to put her hands up and turn around. She’d be cuffed and off to prison. What a stupid question. Why do people lie? To cover their asses!
She clenched her stomach; she could barely handle it herself. And to think of the rotting corpses in the next room…she could have just messed everything up. But one thing was clear: she had to get the hell out of there, and it was probably time to ditch her car.