22

Zala Lechnen stood in the doorway leading into the living room, her hands folded across her chest, her fingers gently drumming on her forearms. She was still wearing Lee’s shirt, but had covered her slender legs with the body-hugging pair of jeans she had been wearing during the day.

Lee jumped when he heard her voice. Quickly turning toward her, he greeted her with a wide-eyed stare. “Zala,” he said softly, his words seemed to fall out of his mouth. “I … I went for a walk,” he stuttered, struggling to fabricate a lie with his breathless words.

“You seem tired,” Zala said with a frosty edge. “Have you been running?”

Lee tried to settle his breathing and calm his nerves. He replied with as much placidity as he could muster. “The wind started to get a bit out of control.” He faked a smile as he struggled to retain eye contact. “I jogged half the way back; the cold practically sucked the air out of my lungs.” He made a choking sound and followed it with a laugh. “I also freaked out a little in the dark, thought someone was following me. It turned out to be a cat.”

“Couldn’t you sleep?” Zala said, seemingly warming to his lies.

Lee faked a serious expression and lowered his head. “I started to think about Riso,” he began, faking enough empathy to seem genuine. “I guess I was so busy thinking about you all day, making sure you were okay and what not. He was your husband, after all, and I know the pain of losing a spouse …” He sighed softly, his head still lowered. “I was so wrapped up with you, I never really thought about how Riso’s death affected me. I mean, I didn’t know him for very long but still … besides you, he was my only friend.”

Zala’s coldness ceased. “He was a good man, a good husband, and a good friend.”

Lee nodded, relieved but still worried. “What are you doing up?”

Zala hesitated before answering. “I was thirsty.” She looked toward the kitchen. “I guess all that crying dried me out.”

“Why don’t you go back to bed and I’ll bring you a cup of hot chocolate?”

“No, it’s okay,” Zala refused, much to his disappointment and frustration. He didn’t know what to do, but he did know that he wanted Zala out of the room. She had turned from a beautiful goddess to an evil seductress and he no longer felt comfortable around her.

“Why don’t you go put the kettle on?” the succubus said with a smile. “We can watch a bit of television while we have our hot chocolate.”

Lee nodded, thought about countering her words, and then headed for the kitchen, defeated. He noticed his hands were trembling when he retrieved two cups from the cupboard. Hearing Zala approach from the rear, he quickly hid his hands in his pockets and turned toward her.

“You should be sleeping,” he said, wishing he had stocked something in his cupboards that he could slip into her chocolate.

Zala stared at him, her eyes boring deep into his. “I’m not really that tired,” she said blankly. She walked around the kitchen counter and leaned on it, her attention never diverting from him.

Lee coughed awkwardly, clearing his rapidly drying throat. “You’ve had a long day.”

“I’m okay, really.”

Lee nodded bleakly. He turned his back to Zala and scooped teaspoons of hot chocolate mix into the empty cups. He stopped what he was doing when a beeping noise alerted him. He looked instantly at Zala.

The hustler seemed embarrassed as she stuck her hand into her pocket and pulled out a mobile phone. “Sorry,” she apologized, red-faced. Lee watched her as she jabbed away at the device for several seconds, deep in concentration, before stuffing it back into her pocket. “The battery is dying,” she explained in a dry tone.

Lee opened his mouth, ready to quiz her, but he quickly changed his question. “Do you want sugar?”

“No, I’m sweet enough.”

The words lying bitch quickly entered Joseph’s mind. “You certainly are.” He scooped three spoonfuls of sugar into his own mug, piling the crystal grains on top of the thick cocoa powder. He figured he would need as much energy as he could get.

A pungent hostility hung in the air. Lee sensed it, he knew it was there, he knew that their conversation was a façade, but he couldn’t be certain that Zala knew. Maybe the hostility was all in his mind, a product of the atrocities he had discovered.

When the kettle boiled, he slowly poured hot water into the cups. He could feel the deep, penetrating eyes of Zala Lechnen on him the whole time, as though she was waiting for him to make a move but wasn’t sure what his move would be. Lee wasn’t sure either; he didn’t know whether to run, fight, or talk. He thought about telling her, confronting her and exposing her, but he wasn’t living in a romance film; Zala wasn’t likely to admit her wrongdoings, apologize, and walk out of his life. She was a criminal and so was her husband. Lee didn’t know how dangerous they were or how dangerous they could be when their feathers were ruffled.

He decided that running would not only be cowardly, but would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. He couldn’t drive and didn’t know the streets. He didn’t have a safe place to go to and he cringed at the thought of running to the police. They knew who he was and would probably laugh at him. At best they would send someone to investigate, by which time the Lechnens would be long gone and local law enforcement would have more reason to despise and distrust him.

He didn’t want to fight, either. Zala was a slight, slender woman; he cringed at the thought of laying a hand on her, despite the heartbreak she had planned for him. What worried him most weren’t the thoughts of fighting, running, or talking, but his delusions of lust and love for her, which still remained, albeit to a lesser degree. A part of him hoped Zala would show some sympathy toward him, that she would acknowledge the time they had spent together, the warmth they had shared and the conversations they had enjoyed. That part of his brain concluded that if he told Zala everything, she would take his side, exposing her love for him and rejecting her undead husband.

He forced those thoughts away, treating them like a disease. He finished filling the cups and handed one of them to Zala, a fake smile on his face.

This wasn’t a film—this was real life and Zala was a real criminal. Sweet faced or not, Lee didn’t doubt that she would rip him apart to get at his money. There was no chance he could turn her like a romantic twist in a Hollywood thriller. She had started a war and Lee needed to make sure he was on the winning side.

Taking a sip of the hot liquid, he glanced at her through the cloud of thick steam rising from the cup. “Let’s go watch some television.”

She nodded and motioned for Lee to go into the living room before her.

“After you.” He was closer to the door, but he remained where he stood. He wafted his hand as she strode in front of him and headed out of the kitchen. He grimaced at the back of her head, piercing through her skull with a razor-sharp stare. “Ladies first,” he said quietly.

____

They sat next to each other on the sofa. His mind was rife with thoughts, so much so that he couldn’t concentrate on what he was doing. Without realizing it, he tuned into a channel broadcasting a blue screen and the message that programs would commence at 8:00 a.m. He then put the remote down and settled back, gripping the mug of hot chocolate like someone stranded in the desert would hold his only bottle of water.

Zala looked at him, baffled, her gaze flickered from the television to his face. “Are you enjoying this?” she wondered.

“Hmm?” Lee had tried to become so alert to Zala’s actions that he had almost forgot to listen to her words.

“Change the channel, for God’s sake,” she said with a laugh, nudging him.

He watched the hot chocolate swirl around in the mug, reacting to the light shove. He picked up the remote again and aimlessly switched channels. He stopped when he saw what appeared to be an action movie.

It soon became apparent—after a scene of a Japanese sword wielding maniac switched to a romantic scene plucked from a teen comedy—that the channel was just running a series of movie trailers.

“Here!” Zala shot her hand across Lee’s body, reaching for the remote. He flinched at her sudden movement but she didn’t seem to notice. “Give it to me, I’ll find something.”

Lee handed her the remote, not making eye contact.

“You’re useless.” She grinned at him.

She quickly found what appeared to be a drama series. Lee watched intently, but his eyes saw past the screen, into his own thoughts. Zala yawned heavily, cupping her hand over her mouth. She curled her legs up on the sofa, shifted them underneath her backside, and then leaned into Lee, resting her head on his shoulders.

He looked down at the top of her head in disgust. He had loved it when she cuddled into him. He had cherished every moment he had spent in close contact with her, admiring her warmth and her fragrance. Now he resented it. He felt awkward and uncomfortable with her resting on him, like being hugged by a sweaty stranger in a nightclub or kissed by a ninety-year-old aunt he hadn’t seen since childhood.

Zala seemed to pick up on this. She lifted her head to speak, her face inches from his. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he lied. He felt his body shudder involuntary. He tried to disguise it by following it with a stretch and a yawn. “I think I’m just tired.”

“You feel uncomfortable.” She prodded his shoulder.

“Maybe I should put on some weight, give you a decent cushion to lie on,” he joked.

“I didn’t mean like that,” she replied with a giggle, a sound that angered and agitated Lee’s blood now that he knew it was an act. “Never mind,” she conceded. “Just stay still.” She rested her head on his shoulder and Lee stiffened.

For ten minutes, they watched television in silence. He never removed his eyes from the screen but he had no idea what he had seen. He wasn’t entirely sure what was on. He made a move, leaning away from Zala, who immediately lifted her head. He placed his empty cup on the floor, slapped his hands on his thighs in dramatic fashion, and then stood.

“Where are you going?” she snapped quickly.

“I’m just going to the toilet,” he said softly, somewhat startled at her tone.

“Okay.” She feigned a smile and flopped to where Lee had been sitting, settling into the pre-warmed cushions.

When he set foot on the bottom stair, he heard her inquisitive voice call to him, “Why don’t you use the one downstairs?”

“There are some pills I need to get in the upstairs bathroom,” he said, thinking on his feet. The downstairs toilet was small and within sight of the living room. He felt the urge to get as far away from Zala as possible.

“You’re popping pills now?” she joked.

Lee made faces at her through the wall, saluting her with two fingers. “They’re just herbal sleep aids,” he said lightly.

“If they’re any good, leave some for me, would you?”

“Okay,” Lee called back pleasantly, cursing under his breath as he climbed the stairs. “Fucking evil little bitch.”

His nerves kicked in when he reached the top. His extremities ran cold and his legs trembled. It hit like an unexpected rush of blood—he felt like he had been sitting down for hours and had stood up too fast. His world turned into a blurry concoction of flashing stars, blood thumped through his ears like a bass drum. The fear and reality of the situation grabbed him and pulled him down. Using the banister, he slowly lowered himself to the floor until he was sitting on the top step, his arms still stretched above him, gripping the wooden rail.

Holding his head in his hands, he waited for the dizziness to cease. He was in a mess that he wasn’t sure he could break out of, and the more he thought about it, the worse it seemed. He remembered the conversation between Riso and his friend; they had only left to clear the van. Soon they would be back and, if they discovered that Lee had been eavesdropping on them, they wouldn’t be happy.

He waited for his vision to clear and found himself recounting Zala’s words and trying to read her body language. She had watched him enter the house in a fluster, and his cover story had been weak to say the least, but if she knew he was lying surely she would have ran out of the house, looking for the arms of her lover and accomplice in crime.

He analyzed the thoughts until his head hurt.

He walked to the main bathroom and immediately spun the cold tap before sitting down on the edge of the bath. What had begun as an opportunity to be with a beautiful woman had quickly turned into a sick game in which he was the victim. He was having trouble coming to terms with the change. His dead friend had become a living enemy, the girl of his dreams had jumped into his nightmares, and the only person to trust him after the death of his wife, perhaps the only person who genuinely believed he didn’t kill her, was a professional liar. What made matters worse was that the very woman who was causing all of his troubles was waiting for him downstairs. He had become a prisoner in his own home.

He sat on the edge of the bathtub with his head in his hands for what seemed like hours, contemplating what had gone on before and wondering how to resolve the situation. When he finally lifted his head, he stared at a small clock on the wall next to the door. He had been in the bathroom for more than ten minutes and Zala hadn’t called for him. He felt the tension in his shoulders dissipate, the weight hanging from the back of his mind lighten. Maybe she had run away, he wondered with delight. Maybe, just like him, she had been waiting for the ideal time to flee, running out of the house and out of his life when he went upstairs.

Confident tricksters were not violent. When trouble arose, they either talked their way out of it or they ran. By going upstairs, Lee had given her the perfect opportunity to flee. She could find her lover, leave the area, and count their losses.

Ice-cold water rushed from the tap, splashing around the sink. He scooped up handfuls and splashed it on his face, bringing some life back into his tired features. He stared at himself in the mirror above the sink. A circle of red had formed around his left pupil—a deep scarlet pool of blood enveloped the tiny orb. Black bags hung underneath his eyes in burrowed pits. His lips were cracked and dried, sporting spots of black, red, and flaky pink where the skin had begun to peel.

He examined his lips like a child would examine a scab, picking to discover bits that wouldn’t be painful to remove before violently detaching them with a pinched finger and a quick pull. He wiped his face and checked his appearance before leaving the bathroom.

At the top of the stairs he waited, sucking in deep breaths to calm himself and keep his heart from exploding out of his chest. He could hear sounds from the television but nothing else. Steadying himself with a succession of deep breaths and a multitude of mental warm-ups, he began his descent.

He let his head hang as he stepped off the stairs and into the hallway, his eyes passing over the spot on the floor that had haunted him for nearly a year. He lifted his gaze as he walked through the open doorway into the living room.

Zala was nowhere to be seen but Lee was petrified by what he saw. Fear hit his heart like a knife and every muscle in his body tensed.

“Hello, Mr. Lee.”

Joseph could only stare blankly, his body frozen.

Riso Lechnen stood in the center of the living room, his tall and strong posture dominating the room. His arms were folded across his huge chest. His eyes showed a glint of sadism as he stared.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly. “Not expecting me?”