If You Dare Read online

  She waved a dark-tipped hand down the hall. “Staying in 6G for a while with my brother.”

  6G. Simon’s place. Brother. My eyes dragged over her hair, skin, eyes. They seemed clear and clean, no evidence of drugs present. Her lips moved, the white glimpse of her straight teeth making another unwelcome appearance. I studied her features and tried to conjure up Simon’s face. Tried to recall if, behind the unmaintained exterior, he had been blessed with the genetic makeup this girl carried. I didn’t see it. They were too different. She clean. He dirty. She attractive. He disgusting.

  “I’m Chelsea.”

  Chelsea. Of course she was. I felt the shift of Jeremy behind me, heard the slide of cardboard as he moved my mountain of boxes enough to fit in the next addition. Heard the slice of his box cutter as he ripped apart and broke down one of the empty ones. “Have a nice day, Chelsea.” I shut the door as she started to respond.

  “Have a nice day?” Jeremy mocked my response from behind me.

  I turned to face him. “Too sweet?” I asked, tilting my head and surveying him. His legs were spread slightly, a box cutter still in his grip. He raised a wrist to wipe at his mouth and his bicep flexed.

  He shrugged and the blade flashed against one of my cam lights. “Just was a little tamer than I was expecting. I figured you’d drag her in here and jump on top of her.”

  “Is that what you wanted, Mr. Pacer?” I stepped forward and watched the casual flip of his thumb as he retracted the blade, his eyes narrowing slightly as he caught me watching it. “Deanna…,” he warned.

  “I’m fine.” I stepped closer and unhooked my bra. Took one more step, reaching a hand out and tugging the box cutter free, his body tensing. I didn’t look at it, held my own breath until the moment I tossed it off to the side, the hit and skitter of metal indicating its harmless slide to the far side of the room. I exhaled, the tension leaving his limbs as he returned his attention to my face, a drugged arousal clouding over him as his gaze dropped to my now-bare breasts. “But I’m gonna need you on the bed. Now.” I shoved on his chest, and he staggered back in the direction of my bed, a smile returning to his face.

  I pounced on him.

  Unzipped and pulled him out.

  Silenced his mutters of time with my mouth as I straddled his cock and sat down atop it.

  And sometime, right before I came, I forgot about the box cutter.

  CHAPTER 7

  Past

  “YOU’RE INVITED TO family dinner this Sunday. My sister wants you there.”

  My fork stopped halfway to my lips, a wrap of pad thai noodles slipping free in the gap of time. I looked at Jeremy and noted the way his eyes slid from me. He wet his lips and—for the first time in recent memory—I didn’t want to grab his shirt and kiss said lips.

  “Your sister wants me there?” An interesting choice of words. He set down his fork and sat back in the chair. Lifted his chin and looked at me straight on.

  “Yeah.”

  “What about you? What do you want?”

  His shoulders lifted but nothing else moved, the casual gesture not matching with any other line in his body. His neck was stiff, his jaw set, his eyes now boring defiantly into me. He was physically prepped, as if for battle. It was a ridiculously hot look. I set down my own fork. “You don’t care?” I mimicked him, sitting back in my chair, the metal of its back ice-cold against my bare skin. I should have pulled on a sweatshirt. Or turned up the thermostat. Something so that, right now, I didn’t look like a shivering pussy.

  “I don’t care.” He said the words dully, without emotion, but I saw the darkening of green, the way his hand tightened on the thigh of his jeans. Something was going on.

  “You look like you care.”

  “It’d be nice for you to meet my family. For us to be normal.”

  When the anger came it burned, hot and red through my chest, a hundred emotions pushing out in veins that were too skinny to handle them all. It’d be nice for you to meet my family. It’d be nice for him to meet my family too. Would be nice to have a family to introduce. How dare he shove that in my face? How could I sit there, with his family, and not think of my own? Not compare every hug, every I love you, every child, mother, and father, with my own? For us to be normal. Yeah, J. I’d like to be normal too. I’d like to sit across from my boyfriend and get angry and not think about cutting open his stomach. I’d like to walk outside and not try to kill someone. I’d like to pick a boyfriend because of choices, not because he’s the only fuckin’ person in three years who hadn’t run screaming or died beneath my hands. I closed my eyes and tilted my chair back, felt the lift of the feet, the hover, and gripped the table’s edge for balance. Counted to ten like Dr. Derek taught me. Envisioned a white expanse before me, all distractions, all thoughts fading, muting, in the white. I wondered, with the tilt of my world back, if I needed to do a curl. Roll my body into a ball and let my fantasies run wild. Distract myself from the stabbing pain of memories that his flippant statement just brought on. I’d never curled in front of Jeremy before. Dr. Derek said it would freak him out. Suggested the white method instead. The white method sucks. It gives me no release, no break, is the equivalent of unpopped ears when coming off a flight, my desire to hold my nose and blow out my world an intense itch. I gripped the table’s edge and heard, across the span of white, him speak.

  “Is that too much to ask?”

  I pushed against the table’s edge and let myself fall.

  CHAPTER 8

  Present

  I’M EXAMINING MY face in the bathroom mirror. Today started out late, a killer headache keeping me in bed until almost noon, two Vicodin barely taking the sting off. When I finally crawled out of bed, I showered, then pulled on a baby-blue camisole and matching thong, blow-drying my hair on the floor by my bed, checking e-mails as the hot air did its thing. When I flipped on the bright lights and climbed onto the cam bed, hooking my laptop in and stretching out on the comforter, my face was off camera, my waist and hips on full display, my fingers busy as they logged into different sites and sent my live feed into every corner of cyberspace. When I propped up on one elbow, panning out, and smiled for my viewers, I didn’t understand the image on the screen. I leaned closer to the cam and flinched in surprise, jerking out a hand and ending the stream, my body rolling off of the bed, my feet quick as they hurried to the bathroom. And now, my hand clenched on the edge of the medicine cabinet mirror, I stare into my reflection and at the broken, bloody mess that is my nose. Did I do this? Knock myself out again with another dramatic fall to the floor? Lose control trying to get out of my locked door and headbutt the steel? I’ve never done that before, never caused any more damage than a few broken nails and occasional bruises.

  I need to go out, buy makeup. I can’t cam like this, not without enticing a thousand fans to storm to their feet in chivalrous support. One will probably call the cops, report the jealous boyfriend that they will assume is responsible. I don’t normally wear makeup, nothing more than mascara and gloss, which gives me the innocent look all the men love. But mascara and lip gloss will do nothing with this. This is concealer-and foundation-worthy. Concealer, foundation, and whatever other magical items girls who wear makeup covet. I’ll go to the drugstore. Just a quick trip, nothing will happen. I have to go. I can’t work without it, and can’t expect Jeremy to pick out makeup for me. I’ll hop in FtypeBaby and go, be back within the hour. I grab my keys and stop, looking down at my outfit or, rather, lack of one. I am lacing up my tennis shoes when the knock comes. I finish lacing and try to invent a reason for being dressed, something to tell Jeremy when he asks. I pull open the door and stare into a woman’s face.

  “Deanna Madden?” The woman’s mouth is too big for her face, her lips chewed, a big chunk of lip skin missing from the right side of her smile. She wears eyeliner but no other makeup, the result of which is slightly trashy. She doesn’t smile. Neither do I. Behind her, a black man in a suit shifts on the cheap carpet.

  �
��Yes.” I curl my toes inside my socks and dig my nails into the door frame. Wonder idly if her eyeliner is waterproof. If I strangle her, will her eyes water? Will the liner run? I need more of her voice in order to properly imagine it gasping for help.

  “I’m Detective Boles; this is Detective Reuber. We are with the Tulsa Police Department. May we come in?”

  Detectives. Police. Words I’ve waited years to hear yet today is the moment. How odd. I blink to buy time, and it is too short. May we come in? “I’d rather you not.” No, you may not come in. I will not let you set foot into this place. I lost my virginity here. Touched for the first time here. Seduced here. Contained crazy here. Killed here.

  “We just have a few questions. They’d be easier to handle inside.” Oh, so TheOtherOne can speak. I flick my eyes to him. Notice the calm chew of his jaw as he works a piece of gum. The steady stare of his gaze as he meets mine. The lift of his chin that speaks of more authority than his cheap suit.

  “No.” I lift my own damn chin.

  The woman glances down the empty hall. “Ms. Madden, these questions are of a personal nature.”

  “I don’t really let people in.”

  “We can take this down to the station if you’d prefer that.”

  I hesitate for a long moment, my eyes darting from the woman to the man. The woman to the man. They have guns, both of them, the precious weapons hanging casually from their belts. Bulletproof vests also, the bulk of it most obvious on the woman. Then, against my better judgment, I open the door and step back. “Come on in.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Present

  SHE HAS SOCIAL anxiety. That’s what they’d been told. Detective Brenda Boles looks into Deanna Madden’s eyes and calls bullshit on that right then and there.

  The girl stands, one hand on the knob, the other on the frame, and stares at them, her eyes darting from her, to David, to her. Her back hunches a little forward, her hands are braced on the door as if to hold herself back. Her eyes show no sign of fear, or stress. Instead they are wary. Confident. Smart.

  Brenda has locked eyes with a thousand suspects before. And she can tell you, in that moment, right there in the hall, without a word between them, without a question asked, that this girl is guilty.

  CHAPTER 10

  Present

  I’VE HAD A grand total of five visitors into my apartment. One was Jeremy, his surprise at my setup interrupted by my promptly launched attack. Then there was Marcus. The other three have been a variety of maintenance workers, whose presence was necessary at some point or other in the last four years. Their visits were short and sweet, but the reactions were all the same. I’m sure, to an unsuspecting individual crossing over my threshold, my apartment’s setup would be a bit of a shock. The right side is relatively normal, a bed, some books. If you look further right it starts to get odd, five stacked rows holding over a hundred cardboard boxes, arranged by size and contents, all of the items that an enterprising recluse might need. But it’s the left side of the apartment that really gives someone pause, when their eyes slide back, past the kitchen that divides the two spaces, past the small round table, past the large lone window that tests my sanity. The left side is pink. Pink walls, pink bed frame, pink bedspread, pink dresser and side tables. Posters break up the space and bring in more colors, pillows plump up the bed and make it inviting, the ensemble another level of WTF when you see the giant steel framework that surrounds the entire bedroom set. The framework supports eight high-def cameras, over 10,000 watts of lighting, sex toy attachments, laptops, extension cords, and ethernet cables.

  I hold the door for the detectives and wait for a reaction.

  The woman stops first, an unexpected halt that causes the man to collide into her. He apologizes, she sidesteps, and then he stops. I lean against the door frame and wait, wondering how long this entire production is going to take.

  “Wow.” The woman speaks first. She holds out a weak finger in the direction of the pink bed. “What’s… what’s up with all this?”

  “My work.” I shut the door and walk to the round table. Perch on the edge of it and cross my arms.

  TheOtherOne steps to the left and crouches, lifting the edge of the pink bedspread. Like I’d have hidden something there. Give me a little credit.

  “Step away from that please,” I snap. He looks up and hoists himself back to standing.

  “Just looking around, Ms. Madden.”

  “Look all you want with a warrant in hand.”

  “What kind of work do you do?” EyelinerCop raises a thinly plucked brow and I wonder how she’d take to constructive criticism. Pluck that brow any more and she’ll have to find a new way to spend her free time.

  “I work online. Webcamming.” I expect a blank look and am rewarded; the majority of people having no clue about the webcam business. The woman rubs her forearm and I notice the chill bumps. Smile to myself. Stay in my seat, leave the thermostat where it is. Sixty-four degrees should keep this visit short. I am dressed for success in my sweatshirt.

  “Webcamming…?” She raises her eyebrows and I say nothing. She wants to ask a question, she can go right ahead.

  The man coughs. Of course he knows what it is. I keep my eyes on her and see, in the peripheral, him lean forward. “It’s in the adult industry.”

  If her eyebrows get any higher, they’ll hit her hairline. She looks down and shifts her purse higher on her shoulder. Oh… so it makes her uncomfortable. Interesting. I’ve seen so few reactions to my work. The man turns, and it catches my attention, his feet moving the wrong way, toward my real bed and the library of cardboard boxes. “What’s in the boxes?”

  I lift a shoulder. “Stuff. Supplies.”

  “Supplies?” This woman really needs to learn how to ask a fucking question. I take the bait this time, no real reason not to.

  “Food and toiletries. Lightbulbs for my cam lights, laundry detergent…” I stand and step around to the back of the table and hope they follow me. “That kind of stuff.”

  “Why so much of it?” The man tilts his head, reading a label, carefully written in Sharpie on the side of a box. “You’ve got to have a year’s worth of stuff here.”

  I swallow. Open the fridge and pull out a few waters. Search my future words and look for pitfalls. “I don’t get out much. I prefer to do any shopping online. That means I have to buy in bulk.”

  Now EyelinerCop is looking at the boxes, and the pit in my stomach grows. “Even floss? You buy floss online? Isn’t that a bit… excessive?” She turns to me.

  I set their water bottles on the table. “Did you have something to ask me? Because I need to get back to work.”

  “Is that a safe?” The man’s voice is sharper, and the water bottle crackles from my squeeze. “What’s in the safe?”

  CHAPTER 11

  Present

  I DIDN’T SKIMP when it came to the safe. It’s big, not big enough to hold a body, but possibly could, if the person was chopped into parts. It currently holds two guns, twenty-one knives, my gas mask, leftover fentanyl, and an assortment of other weapons. It also holds a small scrapbook, one that used to sit on our family’s coffee table. I’m pretty sure the detectives will have no interest in that and an overwhelming interest in the rest.

  I shrug. “Family scrapbooks, my passport. Those sorts of things.”

  “Can we take a look inside?” He smiles, a friendly smile.

  I return the gesture. So much cordiality bouncing around. “Not without a warrant.”

  The woman clears her throat. “Can we get to the questions?”

  Oh yes, the questions. This should be interesting. I pull out a chair from the table and sit.

  The woman follows suit; the man fidgets in a familiar way. “Got a bathroom?”

  I point, my eyes following his steps, purposeful and direct. I listen to the door close and thank God I never killed anyone in the bathroom. I hear the drizzle of urine and move my eyes to the woman. EyelinerCop’s eyes are suspicious, th
ey crawl over my face as if they can dig the truth from my skin. I relax against the seat’s back and wait.

  I should be nervous but I only feel excitement.

  “Where were you last night, Ms. Madden?”

  An unexpected question. I bring my eyes up from the water bottle and into the woman’s eyes, wonder if all criminal investigations start with that question or if last night is of particular consequence. Think of my wake on the concrete floor, my crawl to the bed. “I was here. In my apartment.”

  The woman’s eyes dart¸ from left to right, like a Pong paddle. “All night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  When she speaks, her eyebrows pinch together in a sharp V of distrust. I watch their narrow exclamations and wonder what they have on me. Anything? Is this a fishing expedition or a sharpening of the nails that will seal my coffin?

  “Umm… yes. My neighbor. Simon.” I try to push into last night’s vault of recollection, try to move earlier than my pounding headache, but find nothing. Strange. Then again, I was locked in. How much trouble could I have possibly caused?

  “Simon was with you?” From the bathroom, the door opens and TheOtherOne walks out.

  I feel the upward curl of my lip. “No. But he locked me into the apartment. From nine till sometime this morning.”

  That surprises them. I feel the shift of air, the rigid tilt of the woman as she fights against turning her head to the man. Ha. My alibi is unbreakable. He pulls out a chair, sits, and speaks. “I don’t understand.”

  I sigh, an action that buys me a moment to deliberate the wisdom of information sharing. “Simon lives a few doors down. He locks my door at night. So he can verify that he locked me inside last night, and I was here all night until he unlocked me.”