THE NEXT MORNING I KNOCK on Daisy’s door. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.” She waves me in.
I close her door and sit down at her desk. I’ve never known how to do the pleasantry part of a conversation. I always get right to the point. But as I stare at her sitting on her bed, I spin a few niceties through my brain, trying to come up with exactly what I want to say.
She laughs. “Lane?”
I chuckle too. I really don’t know how to ask her if she has any dark thoughts or urges without it coming across odd.
So I decide on, “Ever since Mom died I’ve been remembering a lot of things.” Like the Barbies and the meat mallet. “Kind of like you remembered your eighth birthday.” And Marji’s name.
Daisy nods.
“I guess I just want you to know that you can come to me if you remember things and have questions. Or if you have any thoughts you want to talk about. You will never get judgment from me. Only support and honesty.” I study her eyes, trying to show her in mine how serious I am.
To my surprise she doesn’t do a typical giggle-it-off Daisy move. She nods thoughtfully.
“No matter how odd the memory seems,” I clarify. “Okay?”
Daisy’s brows come together. “Like what kind of odd memories?”
Why is she asking me that? Has she had one? “Anything,” I assure her. “No matter how off it seems, and I’ll help piece it together.” Or I’ll help bury it. “Like the name you overheard—Marji. I found out she was just some friend of Mom’s from when they were kids.”
“Why were Mom and Dad arguing about her?”
“Because”—I decide to tell her the truth—“Dad didn’t really like Marji.” I shrug. “Just like you and I don’t like people.”
This seems to appease her, and she smiles. “Did you learn all this big-sister communication in your grief group?”
I hold my hands up—“Busted”—and we both laugh. “I guess that’s enough bonding for now,” I joke, and get up.
“Thanks, Lane,” she says as I head out.
“Sure.”
The conversation was a good start. Not too deep. Not too light. Just enough to lay the foundation for follow-up. Enough to let her know I’m here if she wants to talk. I don’t want her to be confused or lost like I’ve been with my thoughts, my impulses, my needs.
All I can do is keep an eye on her. Be here for her, and hope she wasn’t exposed to the same things I was as a child. Hope we’re not doomed to be the evil mirrors of our mother and Marji.
I research the incidents Catalina’s father mentioned—another prostitute and another homeless person attacked. Suspected drugs are involved with both. All done with Tasers and zip ties to copycat me, and beaten afterward. No deaths. Just beaten. Horribly beaten with a baseball bat.
Catalina said the task force thinks there’s a real Savior and a copycat. I wonder which one they think did these. I wonder if Catalina knows.
After my Wednesday Patch and Paw shift I climb into my Jeep to go home, and catch sight of Dr. Issa sitting over to the side on a bench beneath a parking lot lamp. He’s talking on the phone and hasn’t even seen me come out of the building. It’s not often I get to sit and just watch him.
I crack my window and his voice floats in, but I can’t make out what he’s saying.
Memories of the first time I met him come back. I was fifteen and had just started working at Patch and Paw. He came in as an intern, straight from Hopkins. He introduced himself, we shook hands, he gave me that shy, intelligent smile, and my heart experienced its very first female flutter.
I smile a little to myself.
Done eavesdropping, I go to roll my window up and see him stand.
He paces away from the bench and back, his voice lowering in anger. He stops talking, listens, then fires back a retort. He brings the phone away, looks at it, and puts it back to his ear. “Hello?” I hear him say, then he chucks his phone into the bushes.
He kicks the bench, and it reminds me of the time I saw him kick his tire after an argument with a girl.
Dr. Issa’s temper always catches me off guard. I’ve seen it flare a few times, but it just seems so . . . not him.
He retrieves his phone and heads inside, and I continue sitting for a few minutes. What gets him so angry? A girl? His father? I wouldn’t think Zach.
I check my watch. It’s a little after nine. Catalina’s house is on my way home, and so I do a drive-by. If she’s home, I’ll stop and see where she and I are in things. See if she’s still pissed at me for snapping at her.
See if she’s learned anything from her dad’s bugged office.
Her VW Bug is not outside. I pull along the curb and parallel park among all the vehicles in her neighborhood. I’ll wait a few minutes and see if she shows up. There are a few lights on downstairs and one on upstairs. But her room is dark.
I turn my Jeep off, and while I wait, I start to think through things. There are three people I know for sure are or were members of “my” site: Kyle, Catalina, and Tommy. There’s j_d_l, who, from the posts, I’m positive has been following me. Then there’s M, the creator of “my” site. Finally, there’s my copycat, who I’ve been convinced is j_d_l. But what if he’s not? What if M is my copycat?
Either way, the two people I know for sure with a direct link to M are Catalina and Tommy. I’ve already searched Tommy’s place and came up with nothing. I look up to Catalina’s dark window. It’s time I searched her.
The ancient VW Bug putters in from a side street and hangs a left into her driveway. She doesn’t even notice my Jeep parked along the curb in between all the other vehicles. Still, I duck down in my seat and watch as she gets out. She grabs a duffel bag from her backseat, pops the lock on her front trunk, and stows it inside.
She heads into her house, and I stare at her car. I bet anything if she has something I want to see, it will probably be in her car, not her bedroom. Just like me—I keep stuff I don’t want people to see in my Jeep. Like my Masked Savior kit.
I don’t have time to look now. But later tonight . . . well, that’s a different story.
I glance at my bedside clock, watching as it transitions to two a.m. It’s time. Dressed in all black with my long hair shoved up inside a dark beanie, I stealthily climb down my fire escape ladder and hit the ground running. It’s sprinkling, but not full-on rain yet.
I jump in my Jeep and drive straight to Catalina’s house. I park a couple blocks down and look around. I am the only one out.
I speed-walk my way to her Bug, which she’s moved from her driveway to the curb to make room for another car. Probably belonging to one of her parents.
Her Bug is old with no security. It should be easy to break in to.
I peer into the front, the back. It’s clean. No garbage. No anything.
Way back when I was little kid, Victor drove a VW Bug. That’s how I know the engine’s in the back, storage is in the front, and the hood release is located in the glove compartment. I also recall watching Victor wedge his fingers in the wing window and pulling up on the door lock.
I mimic my memory, wiggling my hand through the side window and down to the lock.
I open the door, pop the glove compartment, release the hood, and round the car to the front.
Inside the storage area there’s a duffel bag. I quickly rifle through it and find a change of clothes and toiletries. I set the duffel aside, and in the darkness I feel around. Wires. Tubing. A tank of some sort. All on top of a piece of plywood.
With my gloved fingers I find the corner of the plywood and lift up to discover a small lockbox hidden beneath. It reminds me of the one my parents keep passports and birth certificates in. Why would Catalina have something like this?
I lift it out, put everything back like I found it, and speed-walk back to my Jeep.
It takes a deviant to know a deviant.
That thought enters my mind and makes me pause. Me and Catalina. Deviants. Deviating from the norm. Yes, that would describe us.
In my Jeep I get my pick and work the lock. I can’t get it to open. I press the pick a little harder and it snaps off. Damn.
In the early-morning darkness I squint but can’t really see the broken piece in the lock. I don’t want to turn on a light. So I put my Jeep in gear and drive home. I’ll get some of Victor’s tools and jimmy it open.
Back at my house I climb up my ladder and slip into my room. I open my door at the exact second Victor’s light flicks on.
Shit.
I yank my beanie off and dive for my bed and under the covers and hope to all holy hell I look like I’m sleeping.
He opens my sister’s door first . . . then Justin’s . . . then mine.
The lockbox. I put it beside my bed. I don’t think he’ll see it. It’s dark in here. Or did I? Oh my God. Where did I put it? I didn’t leave it by the window, did I? This isn’t like me. Hasty. Scatterbrained.
Leaving my door slightly open, Victor turns and shuffles back to his room. I listen for his door to close, but it doesn’t. A few minutes later I turn in my bed and look all the way down the hall to his cracked door and the light spilling out.
He’s up. Either he can’t sleep or he’s going into work early or both. Either way, him being up means I’m going nowhere. I can’t go down to the basement where he keeps his tools.
The lockbox. I glance over the side of my bed, locate it, and slide it under. I lie back, stare up at the ceiling, and think about the box. Down on my floor. Calling me. Taunting me. Luring me to open it.