“Tonya, you ready?” Her boss, Chad Duncan, was entering the conference room with her co-worker Bernie Hill. Chad’s tone suggested that he was waiting for her.
“In a minute,” she said, dismissing him by turning her back to him. She quickly speed-dialed Mike’s number and waited for it to ring through.
It rang three times.
“’Sup?”
“Mike, it’s Tonya. I just got your message.”
“Tonya! Man, I was worried as hell last night when you didn’t call me back.”
“What’s goin’ on?”
Mike quickly told her. He saw one of the nurses enter momma’s house. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later there was a lot of noise coming from the apartment, what sounded like yelling, then a scream. Mike had stormed upstairs and pounded on the door but nobody answered. Then Natsinet answered the door—well, she spoke to him from the other side of the door. Said everything was okay, that momma just had a bad nightmare.
“She wouldn’t let me in to check, told me she was gonna call the police.”
“Then what?”
She needed to get out there as soon as possible.
Mike told her the rest and Tonya relaxed a little. Chad poked his head out into the hall, watching her, but Tonya ignored him. Fuck his skinny ass white-collar bullshit.
“I hung out ‘til about two but everything seemed okay. Light came back on and I didn’t hear anything. Went upstairs and even listened. Didn’t sound unusual. Like she was maybe cleaning or something.”
“Cleaning?”
“Cleaning, washing dishes, somethin’ like that.”
“You go over there again?”
“Not yet. I wasn’t sure if maybe I was over-reacting.”
Tonya thought quickly. Natsinet wouldn’t let Mike in to the apartment. No arguing that. She could call and tell her Mike could go in, that might help. She was about to suggest this to Mike when Chad interrupted her.
“Tonya? We’re waiting!”
Shit!
“Listen, Mike, I gotta go, but I’m gonna call the apartment and tell Natsinet you can go in. Wait for my call, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll be here.”
“And Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. I’ll call—”
Chad again. Impatient.
“Tonya!”
Tonya lost her temper again and shot her boss a smoldering glare; part of her instantly regretted it.
That fucking asshole, she thought as Chad stormed back into the room. This is fucking great, now that fucking asshole’s gonna get on my ass for giving him an attitude. Christ, I wish he’d just fire me and get it over with!
Mike must have heard the exchange.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. I gotta take care of something first real quick and then I’ll call you back.”
“Okay.”
“Give me an hour.”
They hung up. With a feeling of apprehension, Tonya entered the conference room, already coming up with a plan to worm her way out of today’s meeting and get out of here. Chad could fuck himself if he didn’t like it. If Big Mike called, she knew something was wrong. He wouldn’t just call her like that if he didn’t think it was serious.
Chapter Eighteen
Natsinet awoke to the doorbell ringing frantically and a fist pounding on the door as if someone were trying to knock it out of the frame. She looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was mid-afternoon. She’d slept more than twelve hours. The excitement from the previous evening had exhausted her more than she’d realized.
Groggily, Natsinet pulled herself from the mattress and stumbled towards the door. She seized the doorknob and was about to open it when she remembered Rachael’s dismembered body, still in the apartment. She turned and looked around the room. There were limbs wrapped in trashbags and duct tape lying on the living room floor. Rachael’s head was still sitting in the kitchen sink and her torso was on the kitchen floor, one half wrapped neatly and ready for storage, the other half only partially tucked inside a Hefty bag, slowly exsanguinating onto the linoleum.
Shit, I forgot to put them in the freezer! Goddamn!
Natsinet ran and snatched up the wrapped arms and shoved them into the freezer. The banging on the front door continued as she went back to scoop up the legs. She heard tendons pop and tear as she shattered Rachael’s kneecaps, forcing the woman’s huge legs into the freezer as well.
Fuck, I should’ve cut them in half. Why didn’t I think of that?
She then picked up the head from the sink and the half of Rachael’s torso that was still bleeding on the floor and stored them in the refrigerator.
Rachael’s eyes had begun to sink into her face, with very little brain matter behind them to hold them in place. Natsinet paused a second to regard the dead woman’s expression. It was obvious she’d died in pain and fear; in fear of Natsinet. Something about that made Natsinet feel really good, powerful, in control, the way she’d felt pointing the gun at Rachael’s face, the way she’d felt the last two weeks abusing Adelle Smith, the way she’d felt every time she’d purposely left a surgical instrument or a sponge inside a gang banger after sewing up his guts for the third or fourth time.
Natsinet was smart enough to recognize what she was becoming. She’d always known that she was a clinical sociopath but she’d been able to control it in the past, or at least hide it. Now she’d crossed the line into what criminal psychologists would refer to as an anger excitation killer: basically, a serial killer.
There was no room for the other half of Rachael’s torso. Both the refrigerator and the freezer were full to bursting with her other various parts and she couldn’t leave it there lying on the floor. One of Rachael’s enormous breasts, the nipple as long and rigid as a child’s thumb, was clearly visible, pressing against the plastic. One look and there would be no doubt of what the trash bag contained. Natsinet picked it up and ran it into her room, shoving it under her bed. The banging on the door stopped and then the phone started ringing.
Natsinet was panting hard as she rushed to retrieve the phone.
“Hello?”
“Natsinet? This is Tonya, Adelle’s daughter. I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour. Why didn’t you answer the phone? Is my mother okay? Why are you breathing so hard? Is there something wrong over there?”
Natsinet knew right away who’d been banging on the door. It was that big Black thug from across the street. Evidently he really was a friend of the family.
He must have called Tonya and told her that I wouldn’t let him in.
“I-I was taking a nap and someone started banging on the front door,” Natsinet said, the lie springing to her lips instantly. “It scared me to death. I think they might be trying to break in. There was this hoodlum at the door last night trying to get in. I was so scared. I was going to call the cops, but he went away.”
“That’s just my friend Big Mike. I told him to check on Momma for me. You can let him in.”
The last thing Natsinet wanted to do was let that big thug into the apartment so he could poke around. She could tell he was suspicious. If he found Rachael’s body she wasn’t sure she could handle him, even with the gun.
“Are you sure? This guy was really big and he looked kind of dangerous. He was dressed like he’d just gotten out of prison or something.”
“It’s okay. He’s a friend of mine. Now, please let him in.” Tonya’s voice was cold and emotionless. She was obviously suspicious as well. Natsinet couldn’t help but notice that Tonya hadn’t asked about her mother again, as if she didn’t trust her to give her the correct information. She was waiting on Big Mike to check things out for her instead.