Chapter 9
NINE
Lisa twisted the rusty knob to turn on the shower. The hot water ejected from the showerhead like pellets striking her skin. It was probably too hot—she could feel the skin on her back turning red and angry. But she closed her eyes and absorbed the pain. This was nothing.
Months of injections and treatments had made her immune.
She stared at the water pooling around her swollen feet.
A lingering reminder of the ringer she had been through for nothing.
The memory of getting another negative pregnancy test played on a loop in her tired brain.
She wanted to cry but she had run out of tears as well.
All that was left was bone-melting exhaustion.
“Hey, Lisa!” The door to the bathroom burst open and Jim, all beady eyes, thin mustache, and bushy hair, popped his head in. “Did we get any new packages? I didn’t see any in the hallway.”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to check the email for the tracking information.” She wiped the glass wall fogged from the steam.
“I guess I can check that too. Damn it, I really wanted to try out that new console tonight.” Jim breezed in the washroom and began fixing his hair in the mirror. “Have been waiting for it for weeks.”
A lump formed in the base of her throat. “Don’t you have a job interview tomorrow?”
“Yeah, it will be fine. I’m overqualified for that one anyway.” He gave a careless shrug despite claiming to be overqualified for the two other job interviews he’d been rejected after.
“That guy had it out for me, Lisa. He was biased.”
“The commute would have killed me, so I didn’t give it my best shot.”
She searched his handsome face as he began to shave, remembering how butterflies had filled her stomach when she first met him in college.
Years ago, she’d fallen in love with his boyish charm and the ease with which he floated through life.
But ten years later, Jim was still floating.
And Lisa had found herself unmoored and disenchanted.
Jim washed his face and wiped it with a towel, his eyes darting to Lisa. “What are you thinking?”
“Huh?” She blinked. “Nothing…”
He ran his hands through his hair. “I know you’re stressed about the email.
Lisa, I… I don’t think this is worth it.
Let’s not force it. Maybe it isn’t meant to be, you know?
It just doesn’t seem worth it.” His face was pinched like this conversation was making him awkward. “Think about it.” With that he left.
She felt her body go cold despite the scalding hot water. She stepped out of the shower in a daze, wrapped a towel around her body, and waited for the anger to subside. But all she felt was numbness.
Her phone trilled. She unplugged it from the outlet by the sink and checked it. It was time to meet the mayor.
Annabelle Stevens had been murdered, buried, and exploited in a twisted game. It wasn’t the first tragedy to strike Pineview Falls and Lisa knew that it wouldn’t be the last.
Once upon a time, Dawn Harrington used to be a different woman.
A young woman who chased vibrancy. Back in the day, she would find rooftops to soak in the skylines.
She would find silhouettes and contours in city lights instead of the stars.
She would look down to the streets and relish the feeling of people being small like ants.
It was then she decided that she always wanted to feel that way—closer to the stars.
She was always drowning in that hunger for more.
And now she was drowning in grief.
She pulled down the visor and looked at her eyes in the mirror. The corners were wrinkled and the icy blue irises somehow looked a faded powdery blue. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, glancing around at the empty street behind the gas station.
A knock came on the passenger side window, startling her.
She whirled her head and unlocked the door. Adam climbed inside, his frail body disappearing in a lumpy coat and a blotchy beard dotting his jaw. “Don’t you own a mirror? You look disheveled.”
Adam’s smile was forced. “It’s nice to see you too, Dawn.”
“Well, why did you want to meet me?” She huffed. “I’m very busy. It’s not a good time.”
“A source told me you might have to delay your pivotal announcement. A data company deciding to venture into a new market,” he prodded. “Any truth in that?”
She ground her teeth. “Who have you been talking to?”
This time his smile was genuine. “Sources are my bread and butter. Surely you know that? Any idea how much of a hit your stock price is going to take after your shareholders’ false hope that change was coming?”
Dawn had a fair idea. The data storage company she had started from scratch had been fighting to survive for years.
It hadn’t diversified enough early on and now the world was changing at the speed of light.
The ability to write code was at everyone’s fingertips and Dawn’s company found itself marching toward irrelevancy.
It was then that David had had the bold idea to launch into a new space.
Gaming. His voice had wavered when he’d first suggested it and his words had eaten into her heart.
“Why don’t you get to the point?” Dawn snapped. “Why did you want to meet?”
“To discuss the same. I have it on good intel that there was a company theft.”
Dawn stifled a gasp, her throat tightening. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Adam chuckled and drummed his fingers on his lap.
“What I’m curious about is what are you doing about it?
You can’t go to the authorities and have your shareholders get wind of this or you’ll go bankrupt.
But you can’t afford to keep delaying this announcement either as you’ll lose money there too. ”
The vultures were circling, their sharp teeth ready and snapping to pick away at Dawn and her years of hard work.
No one wanted to support her when she was starting out.
But now that she had built something, everyone wanted a slice of the pie.
But she wasn’t ready to feed the leeches. Not even her own son.
“Aren’t there bigger things happening in this town?
I don’t know about you but a murder sells more than writing about earnings reports.
” She flashed him a cruel smile and leaned forward, as she lowered her voice.
“Don’t make an enemy out of me. You have no idea what I’m willing to do to save what’s mine. Now get out of my car.”
Adam swallowed hard. “I’ll see you around.” With that, he opened the door and almost fell out of it.
She watched his toad-like frame grow smaller in the side mirror as he walked away.
That was one bug she had squashed—for now.
A plan formulated in her mind on how to control the situation before it escalated.
The engine revved as she turned the corner and glided the car through the empty streets of Pineview Falls.
Overhead the sky was overcast with clouds that hung low and swollen, ready to pop.
Her mind was buzzing when she found herself in front of Fun House.
The house that had been decomposing for the last two decades had a sagging roof and was sinking in a thick mass of overgrown grass and weed.
Vines crept up the walls and threaded through the cracks.
It reeked of must and death and there was only a warped, wooden fence separating it from the outside world.
A flimsy barrier that was easy to breach, and some twisted people did every now and then.
She felt salty tears in the back of her throat as her nose turned red. She drove away, willing herself not to cry, but Fun House stood there hulking and casting a looming shadow on her life.