Hunt Evil, page 15
I gave her a sideways little grin as I devoured the muffin. “Please. Knock yourself out. I don’t mind.”
She smiled and intertwined her fingers on top of her stomach. “So, how are you feeling?”
I wanted to tell her that I didn’t think I had ever felt worse. I felt betrayed on so many levels, and she was part of it. How could she be friends with someone like Steve? She was a mental health professional. Wasn’t she supposed to be able to see through people? But that wouldn’t be smart. What if she was involved in this somehow? I couldn’t imagine that, but then I hadn’t been able to imagine that Steve was such a freak, either. Anything seemed possible now. I had to be very, very careful here. I had to watch what I said. One mistake and she’d be on to me.
“I’m exhausted,” I began and leaned back against the couch. “So much has happened in such a short time. Like, I can’t believe my mom is actually dead. It’s awesome obviously, but so surreal. And I can’t believe what’s happened to Neera.” Warm tears filled my eyes at the thought of what my little sister had been through. I tilted my head backward in an attempt to keep them from streaming down my cheeks. I stared up into the ceiling. “I can’t believe what he did to her… She’s just a little kid. How can someone be so evil? So…cruel? Oh God. If he were here right now, I’d beat him to death…”
I couldn’t stop the tears no matter how much I tried.
Silently, Dr. Navarro got to her feet and picked up a box of Kleenex that sat on a side table. She handed me the box and I pulled out a couple of tissues that I used to wipe at my wet cheeks. I hated that I was crying like this—hell, I was 19 years old, a man—yet I couldn’t stop myself. Sitting here with Dr. Navarro felt so good, like I had come home. I felt safe with her.
She couldn’t be involved with Steve, I thought as I watched her watch me with that kind, warm, liquid gaze. I couldn’t be so wrong about a person. She wasn’t bad like him. Life couldn’t be that unfair as to take her away, too. I had suffered enough, hadn’t I?
“You sound like you know who took Neera and did those things to her,” she said softly. “Do you know who it is, Shane?”
Sniffling, I contemplated her, tried to decide if I should tell her the truth or lie. Was she fooling me too? Was she just much better at it than Steve? What made her think I knew the guy who did it? Was it something I said? All I had done just now was referring to the person who raped Neera as a “he”. “He” could be any dude. In the end, I decided to tell the truth. My gut told me that she was on my side and that was all I had to go by right then. I wanted to trust someone, so I did.
“Steve did it,” I murmured and much to my surprise, another crying jag attacked me. “Our Steve. My old neighbor…”
Her eyes widened and she looked stunned. I couldn’t tell whether that was because she was surprised that I knew, or because she was just surprised to hear that Steve, her friend, was the monster responsible of all that had happened recently.
“Steve Brezinski? My friend Steve who put us, you and me”—she pointed to me, then to her—“in touch?”
I blew my nose with a couple of tissue before I replied. “Yes. The cops have him. I mean, the FBI. Anyway, they’ve arrested him. He won’t get away with what he’s done.”
She stared at me, looking like she had a hard time processing what I had told her. Then she said, “So Steve is under arrest right now?”
“Yeah. They tracked him down on the subway.”
She screwed up her large lips. “Did you know Steve came to see me last night?”
“He came to see you? At what time?”
“At around six, six thirty. He stayed for a few hours. We had dinner together here. He needed to talk.”
I stiffened. “He told me he was going to have dinner with his brother and his girlfriend. Or wife. I guess she’s become his wife now.”
“Yes, he told me he told you that. He told me you came to see him. Shane, he’s very, very worried about you. That’s why he wanted to talk to me. I don’t think he’s the one who did those horrible things to Neera.”
“No?” I sat up straight on the couch, defiant now. What the hell was she talking about? Of course he had done it. That was the only explanation for why Neera’s doll’s shoe had been in his bathroom.
I told Dr. Navarro about the shoe I had found.
“Really?” she said. “That’s strange. You’re sure the shoe belongs to Neera’s doll that’s missing?”
“Yeah. Positive.”
I told her about the key the authorities found next to Mom’s body, how I had seen it in Steve’s apartment.
“That does sound weird,” she agreed. “But it also sounds like someone might have planted those things.”
I frowned at her. “It does?”
“Well, I guess I could have bought the shoe suddenly appearing in Steve’s apartment, but that he would then also drop his key next to your mom’s body and not notice it? Sounds a bit convenient, don’t you think?”
She was making a good point, I had to admit. It did sound sort of convenient now that I thought about it some more. But if he didn’t do anything bad, why hadn’t he returned any of my attempts to get in touch with him? I asked Dr. Navarro as much.
“I don’t know that for sure,” she replied. “He left my place at around nine to spend the night at a friend’s house. I think he’s seeing this person he just met. It’s a girl. Steve is not gay in case you wondered. I know the cross-dressing makes him appear gay, but he’s not. He didn’t mention that you called or texted him while he was here. Did you try to reach him then?”
I thought about that. “No, I didn’t start trying to reach him until a little later, like at ten.”
“Oh.” Dr. Navarro nodded. “Well, to answer your question why he hasn’t gotten back to you, I think it may have to do with him being scared of you.”
“Scared of me?” I scoffed. “Why would he be scared of me? I have given him no reason to be scared of me. That’s ridiculous!”
“That’s not what he told me.”
I glared at her. “And what did he tell you? That I threatened him or something?” I scoffed again the thought of that was so absurd.
“Something along those lines, yes.”
My chin dropped and I huffed, outraged. “Well, then he’s lying.”
Dr. Navarro didn’t look like she agreed with me at all.
35
“Shane,” she said, uncrossing her legs and leaning toward me slightly. “Please calm down. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you’re under a lot of stress, but getting mad won’t help. Whatever is going on, I’m here to help you. You know I want what’s best for you always, right?”
I didn’t say anything, just sat there, considering her. Did she want what was best for me? I couldn’t be sure, but I did agree that flipping out over Steve’s lies didn’t help. So I just nodded.
She smiled. “Good. I was wondering if you would let me hypnotize you again? I think that would be very helpful.”
“Really?” Hypnotize? I thought about it. Did I really want to go there? What if I accidentally confessed that I had been the one behind Ariel’s death, not Neera? Did I want to risk that? Then again, what if I would be able to give her clues the authorities could use as to who had raped Neera and killed Mom? Maybe Steve worked with someone else. My getting hypnotized was how we had caught Mom. Agent McHenry had suggested I might have useful information lodged deep inside my brain. Accessing that information was more important than Dr. Navarro finding out about Ariel’s death. Besides, it wasn’t like I had absolutely no control over what I was saying while hypnotized. If I felt we were entering dangerous waters, I could always snap out of it, tell Dr. Navarro that I didn’t want to do it anymore. Yes, I told myself inwardly. Hypnosis had produced great results the first time we did it. It was how we had gotten to Mom.
“Okay,” I told her. “Are we doing it here? Right now?”
“Why not? Now is as good as any other time and you’re here.” She gave me a wink and smiled.
“All right,” I said, then spotted the phone beside me. “I need to keep the phone on, though. I need to know what’s going on with Neera. If she wakes up.”
“You can keep it on if it’s important.”
“Thanks.”
“Okay, why don’t you lie down and make yourself comfortable? I need to get a couple of things. I’ll be right back.” She got to her feet and disappeared out of the living room.
I removed my sneakers and the tray, then I stretched out on the couch, placing the cell phone on my stomach. I closed my eyes, the exhaustion rolling over me like a tank. If I didn’t watch it, I would fall asleep any moment.
I heard Dr. Navarro return to the living room and pull up something heavy-ish next to me. Opening my eyes, I saw her sitting down on the footstool. She smiled warmly at me.
“Are you tired?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m beat. But that’s okay. Let’s do it. You can always wake me up if I pass out.”
“Okay.” She pulled up a necklace with a huge green stone hanging from it. It looked like an emerald, but I didn’t think it was the real deal. It glittered in the setting sunshine that entered her living room windows. “I’m going to need you to focus on this pendant. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” I replied, staring at the green stone.
“Put your hands on your belly and breathe in deeply through your nose. Breathe in all the way to your stomach. Deep down into your stomach. Don’t force it. No need to force anything, remember?”
“Yes.” I did as I was told, slowly breathing through my nostrils so deeply I felt my stomach expand in my hands, the phone going higher.
“Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out,” she continued in a soothing voice. “Feel how you’re relaxing. Keep looking at the stone. Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out. All the tension in your body is leaving you. Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out.”
She kept repeating the same calming phrases and I felt myself drifting away, as though I was floating in the air all of a sudden, but not like I wanted to fall asleep strangely enough. It was a weird but pleasant sensation. I kept breathing deeply into my stomach, feeling more and more relaxed and centered.
“Close your eyes now,” she instructed and I did. “Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out…” Over and over, she repeated the same words, soothing my mind. I felt like I was entering a dream of sorts, yet I was still awake. I couldn’t remember ever having felt so at ease, so relaxed as I did right then. A sense of goodwill enveloped me, lulling me into a soft trance. All of a sudden I was also feeling sleepy.
“Shane, how are you feeling?”
“Good. I feel good.”
“You’re tired, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m very tired.”
“Why don’t you go to sleep? It’s okay if you fall asleep for a few minutes. I’ll wake you in a little while and you’ll feel better, your head clearer.”
“Really? I can fall asleep?” The idea of taking a quick nap did sound appealing.
“Yes, you can. I need your head to be clear when we do the session. If you let yourself go to sleep for a short moment, it’ll be easier to dip into your mind. To hypnotize you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to put on some music that will make you relax, help you fall asleep. Okay?”
“Okay.” I was already halfway into Lalaland. The music seemed unnecessary, but I wasn’t about to stop her if that was what she wanted to do.
I could hear how she got to her feet and walked away from me. She did something somewhere, I couldn’t tell what, but I also didn’t care. All I wanted to do in that instant was to sleep, get some rest.
I was lounging in the sea, on a giant air mattress somewhere, lapping up the hot sunshine. Steve and Mom were also on the mattress, laughing and splashing water on each other like little kids. They looked like they were in love. I nudged Mom’s lower back with my toe.
“What, honey?” she asked, shooting me a glance over her shoulder.
“Can you stop splashing water in my direction? I’m trying to sleep here.”
“Want me to sing you a lullaby?”
Before I could answer, a red doll Mary Jane fell on me. I shaded my eyes and gazed toward the sky and saw how two more red doll Mary Janes plopped down on the air mattress like huge raindrops. Then a silver key with an orange cap hit my thigh. And another and another fell from the sky, landing in various places. Another red doll shoe plopped on Steve’s shoulder and one on Mom’s head. More keys with orange caps rained from the sky. Soon, so many tiny red shoes and silver keys fell on us that I could no longer make out Steve and Mom. I was drowning in all the shoes and keys. I couldn’t get away from them.
Then, out of nowhere, a woman’s voice said:
“Sean. Sean, can you hear me?”
I wanted to tell whoever was talking to be quiet, her voice hurt my ears despite that it was exceedingly soothing-sounding.
“Sean? Are you awake? Can you hear me, Sean? You need to wake up.” Again, that voice I knew so well yet couldn’t place.
Who was talking to me? And why was she calling me Sean, not Shane? No one had ever called me that. Even so, I didn’t mind that she was calling me Sean. I did like the sound of it. Sean. Sean. It was more manly than Shane. Shane sounded like the name of a wimp. Sean, on the other hand, was virile and strong. I preferred to be called Sean, I realized. It was who I was. Who I was always meant to be. Why had I even questioned her calling me Sean? I was Sean.
“Open your eyes, Sean,” the voice beckoned.
Slowly, I forced myself to open my eyes. My eyelids felt heavy, my eyes like someone had poured sand into them. But you can handle a little sand, can’t you, Sean? a voice somewhere inside my head asked. You’re a man. The man. No one pushes you around! No way. You’ll show them if they do. No one fucks with Sean. You’ll kill them if they do. You’ll kill all the fags.
The light felt glaring to me, but I was able to see. A trashy, brown-skinned woman with lots of eye makeup, red-painted lips, and fake gold jewelry sat before me, smiling at me with a mouth that had too many teeth in it. Her red hair was piled in a messy hairdo at the crown of her head. Her black dress was tight and the zipper in the front was pulled down so low her big tits could fall out if she made a careless move. Who the hell was she? I had never seen her before, but she still felt familiar.
“Hi there, Sean,” she said softly. “How are you feeling?”
36
“I’m okay,” I muttered. What the hell was it to her anyway? She wasn’t my friend, and she was definitely not my girlfriend. Maybe my girlfriend’s mom. I looked around the room I was in. It was a bedroom that was nice and cozy. I had never been there before. “Where am I…?”
“You’re in my house. My daughter met you at a party and you were really drunk, so she and her girlfriend took you here to sleep it off. You were in really bad shape. Would you like some water?”
She held a big glass of water in front of my face. I pushed myself into a seated position and snatched it out of her hand, then gulped its cool contents down. I gave her the empty glass to hold when I was done. I could think more clearly now. So this was the mother to one of the bitches at the party I had gone to earlier this evening? My buddy Black Cobra had brought me.
“You Mika’s mom?” I asked.
“Yes, Mika is daughter.” She smiled and there was red lipstick on one of her teeth now. “You like my Mika, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” I wanted to say that I liked banging Mika, nothing else, but I cut myself short. Her mother would probably not appreciate the comment.
The smile on her face faded and she was suddenly dead serious. “What’s going on with the bitch?”
“What bitch? Oh, you mean my mother? I killed her.” I let out a harsh chuckle. “A few days ago.”
The woman gasped. “You killed her? You bad, bad boy…” The smile she gave me and the way her dark eyes glittered with excitement told me she really liked me being a bad boy. “Well, I guess that blond bitch had it comin’…”
“She sure did.”
“How did you kill her? And how did you ever find her? Not even the cops could find her.” She tossed her head back and let out something between a scoff and a laugh. “The pigs are so fuckin’ stupid.”
“Believe it or not, she came to me. One night when I was in Astoria to see that fag Steve. I knew she would come one day, so I was ready for her. I was packing.”
Her dark eyes became round and big. “Really? You had a gun? How did you get a gun?”
“I bought it from some people I know. Shady people. Wasn’t hard at all.”
“Oh, got it. Good move. You need to be able to defend yourself from psychos like her. So how did she come to you?”
“When I was on my way to the subway, she attacked me from behind. In the middle of the street. She hit me with something that made me pass out. When I woke up, I was in a dark, stinky alley somewhere. She was standing above me, watching me. She told me to stand up, so I did. That’s when I pulled out my gun. I always keep it at the back of my waist. That way it’s hard to find if someone pats me down.” I laughed as I thought back to that moment, when Mom had discovered that I was armed. She had been terrified and had struggled to hide it. I knew I had her then. “She was so surprised. I’m pretty sure she patted me down after she’d dragged me over to the alley and didn’t find it. That alley must’ve been near cuz I’m pretty heavy.”
“Yeah, probably. Did you shoot her then?”
“Nah, I realized that we were still in the city cuz I could see the street and apartment buildings behind Mom. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I decided it was better if I strangled her instead. Much less noise.”
“Yes, that’s much better. And did you?” The old broad gazed at me, on edge. Why did she seem so on edge? Maybe she was a coke whore who needed another hit. Yeah, that must be it. She seemed like someone who did snow to feel good. Being old must be a miserable life. I would never let myself get old.
