When the eggs were lightly cooked some two minutes later, I slid them out of the pan onto a white dinner plate. In the fridge I dug out some Green Mountain salsa and some grated Munster. Using my fingers I spread some of the cheese onto the steaming eggs. Last but not least, a big glass of OJ on ice. I was so famished that I ate the food right there, standing inside the kitchen.
I was setting the dishes into the sink when the buzzer sounded. It wasn’t unusual for the maintenance crew to be making inspections of one kind or another, especially on a Monday morning. But instead of buzzing the person in, I made the cautious decision to make my way out my front apartment door and up the steps to the door of my building. Through the glass I spotted a man wearing a FedEx uniform, behind him the still running, orange-on-white FedEx van. The man held a clipboard in one hand and a small package in the other.
The package was a standard eight and one-half by eleven envelope. I couldn’t imagine what anyone wanted to send me that was so important it had to arrive via FedEx. But I signed for it anyway, and took the package with me back inside the apartment.
In the kitchen, I tore the envelope open and peered inside. There was a photograph that was paper-clipped to a letter. Pulling the letter out, I could see that it was a handwritten note from Detective Harris. The attached photo was the black and white shot of Molly and me; the same one to be further examined by print specialists in Albany. The note was a simple one.
It said,
Dear Rebecca,
Whalen’s prints were nowhere to be found on this picture. Neither are Francis Scaramuzzi’s. Still awaiting results from Albany regarding bone samples taken from woods around Mount Desolation.
Take care of yourself,
Harris
So that was it then.
Neither Whalen nor Franny had been in possession of the photo after all. I could only guess as to how it had gotten on the front porch of my parents’ house. If Whalen or Franny hadn’t placed it there, then who did?
Exhaling a breath, I pulled a magnet from off the fridge and set the photo under it. It was the only photograph that occupied the fridge. Tossing the FedEx envelope away, I grabbed my new cell phone, bringing it with me into the bathroom where I set it down onto the sink. I started the shower, letting the water warm up and the bathroom fill with steam. Although I had no definite plans, I would start the day by paying a visit to Robyn. As poorly as she was feeling, I knew that a little visit was always good for cheering her up.
Inside the bedroom, I took my pajamas off.
Standing before the Ikea body-length mirror, I stared at my stomach. Maybe I was only a little more than a couple of weeks along, but I swear I was beginning to show the first signs of a belly. It made me feel good to know that the baby was inside me, growing. Soon I wouldn’t be alone. Soon I would have all the companionship I needed. It would come in the form of a small bundle of boy-joy.
Stepping out of the bedroom, I made my way back into the kitchen where I placed a plastic shopping bag over my cast-covered right hand and secured it with a rubber band from out of the junk drawer. In the bathroom, I pulled back the curtain and carefully stepped into the hot shower. It was the first shower I’d taken inside my own bathroom in what felt like ages. I felt the good, hot water seep into my skin. I felt it seep into the flesh under my skin. I felt it heal the many wounds I’d received up on that mountain and down inside the stone basement of that house in the woods.
The house that no longer existed.
I let the water pour over my hair and onto my face. I felt the good feel of the hot sting. I poured shampoo onto my hair, kneaded it in with my good hand. The thick foam ran down my face. When a little got into my eyes I felt the sting, but I didn’t mind. I actually started to laugh as though getting soap in your eyes was the funniest thing in the world. But I’m sure it all had something to do with being alive, being pregnant with a child I really wanted and really looked forward to loving. It would be my most purist work of art.
Placing my face directly below the nozzle I let the water spray directly into my eyes until the sting started to go away. I made sure to keep my eyes closed tight while I rinsed my hair. When the cell phone chimed I automatically whispered, “Crap.” Of course someone had to be calling me while I took a shower; while I was blinded by soap in my eyes. Reaching outside the shower curtain I picked the cell phone up off the sink, opened it to see that a new text had been delivered. Immediately I thought of Robyn as the water dripped onto the electronic readout.
Thumbing the Send button I opened the message
Cry, cry, cry, little kitten.
The shower curtain flew open. The cell fell into the tub. A hand wrapped itself around my mouth. The hand squeezed my mouth and nostrils tight. I couldn’t breathe. An arm wrapped itself around my waist. The shower curtain began to tear away from the rod, one ring at a time. The pop-popping noise of the breaking plastic filled the bathroom along with shower spray; along with my muted gasps, along with Whalen’s high-pitched strains.
He released his right hand, producing a knife. He pressed the blade of the knife up against the underside of my neck, then quickly pulled the knife back just an inch or two, cutting into the skin. The pain was searing. It shot up and down my spine. I wanted to scream, but the hand was covering my mouth.
My vision escaped me. I saw blackness lit up with stars, neurons exploding in my brain.
He pressed the knife up against the underside of my ribcage. He pressed the sharp blade up against the skin, flicked the knife back quick.
More burning pain.
Legs went wobbly. Blood poured down my ribs and belly.
Then an explosion. A gunshot.
The hand that covered my mouth released and fell away. The knife dropped into the tub. I looked down, saw the blood circling the drain, circling the thin knife and my shattered cell phone. I heard Whalen’s body hit the tile floor. I heard footsteps. Out the corner of my eyes I saw the blurry image of Detective Harris. In his right hand he held an automatic. He grabbed the towel from the rack, put it into my hands.
I was too shocked, too frightened to speak, to cry, to do anything.
“How bad are you hurt?” he demanded.
I managed to shake my head.
He reached down with his right hand, pressed two fingers against Whalen’s jugular.
“He’s gone.”
My back pressed up against the water-slick ceramic wall, I sank down into the tub, the water spray shooting down onto my head, onto my now exposed cast.
Whalen was gone.
I shivered and was suddenly overcome with the urge to cry.
Cry, cry, cry…
It’s exactly what I did.
Chapter 83
More police came. So did the state troopers who blocked off the entrance to the apartment complex with their blue and yellow cruisers.
The EMTs came. The press showed up. TV and print.
Caroline and Franny rushed to the scene when they got wind of it on the radio.
I sat in the back seat of Harris’s Jeep. He’d sent one of the uniformed officers out for tea and I now held a steaming cup in my trembling hands. The EMTs had already looked me over, examined the wounds to my neck and chest. The surface cuts required no stitches. Only butterfly bandages. Still, they insisted I be transported immediately to the hospital for further tests and observations. Given the condition of my healing heart along with the early stage pregnancy, there was no telling what I might suffer in the short term.
I flat out refused.
I’d just been released from the hospital two weeks before. Tests proved there had been no permanent damage to my heart after having suffered the mild heart attack up on Mount Desolation. The EMTs looked at me with skeptical frowns. They asked me to signature a waiver of release absolving them of any and all responsibility should I drop dead on the spot. I did it.