Chapter 11
eleven
Morning arrived pale and fuzzy; the alarm clock sent up one shrill shriek after another. Sophie pried one eye open and was faced with a choice: an extra fifteen minutes in bed or a long, very hot shower to take the curse off the song of stiff pain her body had become.
She ended up hitting the snooze button, then decided a shower would be better and dragged herself off her mattress anyway.
It was a chore struggling to something approaching vertical status; she stood swaying for a few moments.
The more she thought about it, just unplugging the goddamn clock and climbing back under the covers seemed like a better idea than anything else.
But she had to make rent. If she didn’t, her problems would be far bigger than werewolves.
A bitter little laugh bounced off her blank bedroom walls. At least she hadn’t lost her fucking sense of proportion.
Don’t think of Unpleasant Things, Sophie. The next item on the agenda is taking a shower. Just do it. After all, she did know what the bigger problem would be. Homelessness, or getting thrown out of her degree program, or the police pounding on her door demanding to know what happened to Lucy.
So Sophie bent, groaning like an old woman, to flicked her alarm clock off, then shuffled in to take a shower. It was all she could do. After that was dry toast for breakfast, and the usual hurry to catch the bus for the office.
Her back ached furiously, and the side of her head throbbed even though the bruising had gone down a bit, helped by a good twelve hours of unconsciousness.
She was muzzy-headed and scratchy-eyed from crying, and she kept her hair down to hide the swelling—an old trick which rarely worked, but all she could do.
Her left hand throbbed with pain whenever she answered the phone or input patient data.
Of course, right after the midmorning coffee break she didn’t take, a very nice homicide detective named Andreeson came by the office and asked to speak to her.
“Sophie?” Margo, blue-tinged hair piled in a fantastic beehive apparently held with several coats of lacquer, appeared in her cubicle door.
“There’s a man here to see you.” Marge didn’t wiggle her eyebrows, but she did look concerned.
“A police officer,” she amended, mistaking Sophie’s wide-eyed stare for fear.
“I don’t think it’s about your ex-husband. ”
The Battle-Ax’s stage whisper needed a work.
“Oh, God.” It wasn’t hard to sound tired.
Sophie pushed herself up just as the phone rang again.
“I don’t know what else it could be about.
” The lie sat heavy in her mouth. Everything was overly vivid today—lights too bright, smells too intense.
She hadn’t even been able to go into the office bathroom, for Christ’s sake. It was just too foul.
“He’s in the conference room.” Margo folded thick arms across her ample chest. Today it was hot-pink scrubs, and the earrings were garish Carmen Miranda fruit bowls tapping her red-apple cheeks. “I’ll go in with you.”
Great. I’ll have to fool two people at once. “Okay.” Sophie followed obediently, her fingers worrying at the pressure bandage on her left hand. Thank God she was in long sleeves today.
She’d spent a lot of time in clothes meant to cover things. The fingersize bruises on her arm where Zach had grabbed her in the alley were hateful reminders of the mess her life had become even before Friday—and even if, as she hd to admit, he had been trying to get her away from that… thing.
A bolt of hot, nearly liquid fear spilled went through her entire body. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about him, either.
Today, there were distinct bands of smell in the halls.
Passing Margo’s cubicle was like walking through cheesecloth veils of hairspray and old-candy smell from the dish of stale M Dr. Marcus hurried past, his deodorant barely covering a dusting of the youngest billing specialist’s perfume.
They were a hot item, Dr. Marcus and Amy. Office gossip had it that Marcus’s wife knew and didn’t care, since she’d get half of everything anyway.
Sophie almost wished she could shut her nose off.
She’d always been sensitive, but this was ridiculous.
Plus she was craving a French dip, au jus so hot it scorched the tongue—not that she could afford anything other than a batch of cheap fries to go with her ramen today, if the fast-food place two blocks away wasn’t too jammed for her to grab something at lunchtime.
Pull yourself together, Sophie. She blinked and tried to focus, put one foot in front of the other.
Margo paused, her hand on the conference-room door. Small, faded blue eyes were dark with worry. “Soph… you know, if you don’t want to talk to this guy, if it’s about your ex, we can always get Dr. Brunner to throw him out and take up a collection for bail.”
Dr. Brunner was a big bear of a man, endlessly patient with his pediatric patients but not so kind with anyone else. Sophie’s heart gave a massive squeezing leap. “Thanks, Margo.” I take back every mean thing I ever thought about you. “Let’s just see what he wants to ask.”
“All right.” The Battle-Ax’s beehive swelled just like a frilled lizard’s warning signal. “You just remember you don’t have to say a thing, honey.”
“I know. Thanks.” Oh, believe me, I’m not planning on saying anything. I need to stay out of custody. Sophie braced herself as the door opened. A wave of impressions—brown hair, male—flooded out, and the image of a smallish man in a rumpled mackintosh took over the inside of her tired skull.
It was too much. What the hell is happening to me?
The blinds were drawn, so fluorescent light rendered every surface pale and drained.
The long meeting table was clean, its glass top lovingly polished; all the chairs were lined up save one.
The man half rising to greet them looked exactly like the image in Sophie’s head, right down to his crooked once-broken nose, slumped shoulders, and grubby raincoat.
A battered leather attaché case stood to attention at his place, and a brand-new manila folder was settled next just where his right elbow would rest when seated.
His hands were broad, short-fingered, and he was dwarfed beside Margo—a destroyer versus her battleship.
His tie was wilted, the suit jacket under his mackintosh an indeterminate brown, and it was a good thing Sophie’s stomach was empty because conflicting odors of man, wet raincoat, paper, and hair spray made her queasy as hell.
“Sophie, this is Detective Andreeson.” Margo drew up to her full, considerable, breast-jutting height, arms re-folding. She had not, Sophie noticed, offered him coffee. “I checked his ID. But you might want to see it yourself.”
Her throat was so dry. “That’s okay,” she managed, wondering if she sounded as sick and unsteady as she felt.
“Miz Harris.” The man put his hand out, and Sophie was suddenly very sure that if she touched him she would dissolve into a sobbing mess. She tried to copy Margo’s pose—head up, shoulders back, chin jutting proud.
“It’s Wilson,” she heard herself say, a real habit nowadays. “I’m no longer married.” The words tasted like wet ash.
The detective’s hand dropped. “Okay. Miss Wilson. I’m just going to be asking a few questions.”
Come on, Sophie. Her face was a frozen mask. “Is this about Marc—my ex-husband? I don’t want anything to do with him.”
The detective looked pained for a moment. “No, ma’am, it’s not. It’s about your friend Lucy Cavanaugh. At least, her coworkers said you were her best friend.”
“Lucy?” It wasn’t hard to sound stunned. All she had to do was think about the alley, the blood-drenched purple-faced thing, and the horrible gurgling noise from Lucy’s shredded throat as she died. “Yes, she’s… we’re friends. She is my best friend. What’s going on?”
His expression didn’t change, but a thread of urgency like metal wire slid through the warp of his fusty, frowsy smell. “When was the last time you talked to Miss Cavanaugh?”
“I…” Do it like you practiced, Sophie. In the shower, silently while staring out the bus window or between answering phone calls, she had rehearsed a fake weekend.
“Friday afternoon, I think. She was going out dancing; I told her I had to study.” Which was partly true—that had been her first excuse, but Luce had just rolled right over the top of it.
“You’re going to have some fun, Soph, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Oh, Lucy.
“Miss Wilson, something happened Friday night.” Andreeson’s gaze was entirely too sharp. He indicated a chair; she moved mechanically toward it. “Miss Cavanaugh— Lucy—was attacked.”
The world swayed under her. A funny haze marred the mirrored table, streaks of mist like clouds.
She tore her attention away, tried to focus.
She had to stay sharp to get through this interview; everything depended on it.
“Attacked? Is she all right? What happened?” You’re never going to guess what happened to her.
Not in a million years. And I can’t tell you, either.
She folded down gingerly in the chair, guessing he wanted her there because he turned out to be the only thing she could look at unless she craned her neck to stare at the window blinds.
Margo inhaled sharply. She swept the door closed and stood like a guard, almost bristling with protective indignation. With the room shut tight, the smell of hairspray and grubby, mildewed raincoat intensified.
“Miss Wilson, Lucy Cavanaugh is dead. I’m sorry.
” He even sounded sorry, too. His mouth pulled down fractionally, bitterly, as he dropped into his own chair, touched the folder with almost-gentle fingertips.
“I’m trying to find out all I can about her, so I can catch her attacker. Can I ask you some more questions?”
The clouds on the table swirled together.
Sophie’s empty stomach trembled as if she was going to throw up.
The room was stifling, walls suddenly shrinking, closing up on her.
A rattling started in the center of her head—that horrible buzzing, copper-bottomed pans striking one another. “Dead?” she whispered.
Somehow, hearing him say it made everything too real. The all-too-familiar pressure of secrets to keep squeezed her entire chest until a black hole of pressure-panic bloomed. She had to watch where she stepped, or she would fall off the narrow thread of safety.
Just like when Marc got that look in his eye. Oh God, help me; Luce, forgive me. Please. If you can.
Margo stepped close and put a pudgy hand on Sophie’s shoulder. The clogging reek of hairspray swirled; her eyes flooded in self-defense.
Or was she crying, again?
Oh, Jesus. What do I do now? She looked up from the table’s cloud and found the detective watching avidly, tense like a dog before the leash is unclipped. His fingers drummed once on the folder’s front, and she glimpsed paper stuffed inside.
There were probably pictures, too.
Sophie did the only thing she could do. She let go, and burst fully into tears.
It wasn’t too hard to pretend confusion. If Sophie was used to anything, it was parrying well-meaning—or gossip-hungry—questions.
Yes, Lucy was her best friend. No, she hadn’t heard from Lucy all weekend, and what exactly was this all about, anyway?
Oh, my God, no, not Lucy. No, she had no enemies.
Everyone loved Luce. How could you not love her?
Well, except for Marc, but he was angry because Lucy had testified during the divorce hearings, and—
The small broken-nosed detective listened, jotted notes on a crumpled steno pad, and patted her shoulder awkwardly exactly once before Sophie flinched, hard. Margo glowered, arms and legs crossed, in the chair just to Sophie’s left.
It wasn’t that she wanted to lie. But she knew very well what would happen if she started talking about being kidnapped, ranting about vampires and werewolves. She’d end up in the hospital, “under observation,” then Marc would find out.
And all sorts of Unpleasant Things would happen.
No, if Sophie wanted to stay out of the psychiatric ward and in her degree program, she had to keep her mouth shut hard.
The instinct to hide things from the police wasn’t that far away even at the best of times. She’d spent a long time covering what Marc did to her, only partly from fear.
The worst part was the dull, hopeless, endlessly familiar shame.
“Well,” Andreeson finally said, “that about covers it. I’m so sorry to bring you bad news, Miss Wilson. Here’s my card.”
Sophie stared at the rectangle of white paper laid on glossy black glass.
The business card looked innocent and two-dimensional, compared to whatever trick of light was making the table run with cloudy streaks.
She was too goddamn exhausted to figure out why she was hallucinating.
It had to be something wrong with her glasses, or just plain fatigue.
Margo leaned forward, scooped the card up. “Thank you, detective. You can find your own way out.”
“That I can, ma’am.” Andreeson stood, swept that horrid, clean manila folder into the attaché case. She was suddenly beyond certain it contained pictures, most likely of Lucy.
Autopsy photos, to be precise. In glaring, stunning, ruthless detail.
Fresh, sharp grief welled from the black hole in her chest. The detective shuffled away, and the moment he closed the door with a quiet click Margo began fussing.
“…let it all out, and here’s a tissue. My, he certainly won’t win any prizes for tact, will he?
Oh, sweetheart, you need some lunch. Here, I’ll tell Amy to run down and grab you a sandwich—”
It was actually a relief to give in and let the blue-haired Battle-Ax have her way.
Sophie finally escaped to the ladies’ room, and the smell from the commodes was almost enough to drive her back out again if she hadn’t needed sanctuary so badly.
She locked a stall door behind her and cried until she threw up the dry toast forced down for breakfast.
The keening inside her skull was full of black, tar-thick guilt. It shouldn’t have been Lucy on the floor of that alley. The rumpled little detective would never catch her killer. Life wasn’t fair.
And the worst unfairness of all was that it wasn’t a dream. Lucy was really, inarguably, irrevocably dead.
Now Sophie was truly alone.