I turn around, hitching my bag over my shoulder. “Actually, do you know if anyone else was in here at all this morning? Or if you saw me with anyone wandering in the direction of the freezer?”
“No, not that I’m aware of…” He skims the bar, chairs turned up onto the tables, floors swept, the air smelling of Clorox. Someone has cleaned up in here and closed up, which is usually Bella’s and my job. And Bella would have a fit if she did it on her own. In fact, I once asked to get out of it, leave early, and she took off out the front door so I’d be the one to do it—and she barely helps out when she does stay. His attention lands back on me. “Why are you asking about the freezer?”
“It’s where I woke up this morning.” As soon as the words leave my lips, I want to retract them. He shouldn’t know that. It’s weird. Crazy. I’m crazy. He’s going to see the crazy in me.
“You woke up in the freezer? Jesus. How long were you in it?” He scans my body as he continues to scratch at his arms. It doesn’t make any sense—why I can’t at least remember that part. I know I couldn’t have gotten that drunk after I left his office, but I can’t even remember going back up. I’m concerned that maybe all those thoughts about letting Lily take over finally might have made it happen. Perhaps that’s why she’s being so calm about this. Maybe when I blacked out, I turned into her. God, what if I turned into her?
“I’m not sure…. Who cleaned up here last night?” I ask, hugging my arms around myself.
“Bella, I think… Leon was here pretty late too,” he says and I swear he flinches when he says Leon’s name.” I think he might have a thing for her or something because I don’t remember him being that motivated to help out before. But then again, it’s been a while.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”
“Oh, I’d say about ten years or so,” he says with a shrug. “But even so, he’d pretty much just stop by as he was driving through town. I think he’s kind of a drifter or something. Never stays in one place too long.”
I try to recollect meeting this Leon person, the alleged trafficker, but I’m drawing a blank, yet at the same time it feels like I met him.
River crosses his arms, studying me. “Maddie, are you sure you’re okay? You seem, I don’t know…” He extends his arm toward me and brushes his finger down my cheekbone. “A little confused. Nervous. Lost.”
“I’m fine. I promise. I just need to go home and get some rest,” I assure him, moving away from his touch. Then I swing around him and push out the front door before I can say anything more. The last thing I want to do is discuss in details what’s going on inside my head right now. I just want to remember what I did and why the fuck I woke up in the freezer with blood all over my arms… why I’m hearing voices outside of my head… more than just Lily’s…
Swirling in my own confusion, I make my way across the parking lot. Fuck, it’s bright out here. And my ears and head are ringing. Plus the chilled air is stinging against my skin. I’m rummaging in my bag for keys, when I stumble across a white button shaped like a heart and an oval bright red one. I shake my head. Even in a drunken stupor, the obsession still gets to me. I stuff the buttons in my pocket and then start digging around for my car keys again. I’m pulling out the contents—lipstick, brush, a pack of cigarettes—when I notice red and blue flashing lights in the parking lot across the street at the One Stop Quickie Mart. Cop cars are parked in it, an ambulance, people crowding around, gawking. I know that scene. Something bad has happened and I want—I need—to know what it is. I’m not even sure if it’s an obsession this time. More like a need to find out if I’m connected to it at all. Lily grows extremely silent almost like she’s left my body entirely.
Feeling even sicker to my stomach, I cross the road, wrapping my arms around myself as the cold air blows. Cars drive up and down the street slowly, people curious, wanting to know just as much as me what’s going on, yet at the same time I don’t want to know, fear the answer and what it means about me. With each step, my heart slams harder in my chest. By the time I arrive at the curb, I’m barreling with adrenaline, my stomach burning. I know what lies on the other side of the crowd. God, do I know.
When I push through the crowd and reach the front, my hunch becomes painfully correct. A girl lies on the ground, a circle of dried blood pooled around her head making her blond hair look red. She’s wearing an apron too—an apron from the Devil & Angels Bar. I know her. Sydney, the waitress I’ve been fighting with.
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath, unable to take my eyes off her. I know this girl and now she’s dead. Just last night she was walking around in the bar and now she’s here, lying on the ground. I got into a fight with this girl and now she’s dead. I thought about killing this girl and now she’s dead. “This is not good.”
“I know. It’s terrible, right?” Some woman says from beside me, horror stricken as she gapes at the body, probably a first timer in the dead body department. She’s probably in her forties, her black hair obviously dyed, and she’s wearing too much pink blush that matches her shirt that says Jesus Rocks! I actually think she’s knocked on my door a few times to try and convert me to something or anotherism. It actually happens a lot and my mom always sends them away with a smile and a wave as if she’s glad they stopped by even if she never goes to church. “Fairfield’s such a good community… this stuff shouldn’t happen here.”
“And what? Stuff like this should happen in other places because they aren’t good communities.” I say in a low voice.
“That’s not what I was saying at all,” she gasps, offended.
“That’s exactly what you were saying.”
The woman shakes her head in revulsion, and then she inches to the side away from me. I focus on the scene in front of me. Sydney looks so peaceful, like she’s asleep, only the blood shatters the illusion, paints it red with the nightmare that this is a reality. That she’s dead. Her shirt torn. Skin as pale as the snow. The white button down shirt, tied at the bottom, splattered with blood. The white shirt that’s missing a top button... a little heart button… I step back so suddenly that I bump into the person behind me. Muttering an apology, my eyes stay fixed on Sydney.
It’s just a coincidence. I must have found the button and picked it up before all this happened. I’m being set up. I wait for Lily to chime in with whatever she has to say on the matter, but she’s still inside my mind. Everything’s still. My body. My mind. It seems wrong, yet right. I seem empty, yet I seem whole at the same time.
Men in uniforms walk over to the body with a sheet in hand. They drape it over the body, cover it up from the wandering eyes. My heart slams against my rib cage as they start to scan the ground for evidence and I decide it’s my cue to leave. Turning away from the body, I squeeze my way to the back of the crowd and dash across the street to my car. Impatient to get away from here, I dump my purse out on the ground and search through the contents until I find my keys. Then I toss everything back into bag and hop into my car, revving up the engine.
“This can’t be happening… The button isn’t real,” I whisper as I push the car into drive, watching the lights across the street flash, flash, flash. Feel the rain falling… let the building burn… help me… Don’t leave me behind. Please don’t let me die. I’m sorry. A loud bang, and I walk up to the dead body, slowly pulling the buttons I’ve counted for years off his shirt, one by one. And with each one, I get a sick gratification from it.