The Bachelorette Party, page 4
Shardai: Yes, I suppose that’s true.
Trayvon: You suppose? Come on now. We’ve had more than one show where the victim ended up being just plain wrong, have we not? And it cost someone his life. Usually a Black person. Some of them executed, in fact.
Shardai: Sadly, yes. We have.
Trayvon: I’m just saying. Maybe it happened in this case too. To Eric Myers.
Shardai: Yeah, but wait a second, here. We’re not just talking about facial recognition, Tray. We’re talking about something much more obvious than that.
Trayvon: But that’s the thing. How valid is that either? I mean, Leigh Jones was in shock. It’s not her fault. I’m not trying to blame the victim or anything. I’m not saying she’s trying to lie.
Shardai: No, I get that. But how could she have gotten something like that wrong? I mean, she might have been in shock. She might be bad at identifying White folks.
Trayvon: Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re saying.
Shardai: But this piece of evidence is rather distinctive.
Trayvon: True. It is. (Pauses, then laughs.) Aren’t you going to tell them what it is?
Shardai: Oh, Tray. You know we have to have a cliffhanger for the next episode, don’t you?
Trayvon: Indeed, we do.
Shardai: Check us out next week, when we’ll talk about the key piece of evidence that Leigh Jones brought to the police.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NOW
Fighting to stay awake, my brain skates in circles.
My dream problem has a name per Dr. Google: REM Behavior Disorder.
It turns out you’re supposed to be paralyzed when you dream, which makes evolutionary sense. Lying down like prey for a third of our lives seems foolish enough. But jumping out of a window while dreaming of skydiving takes it a step further.
Dr. Google blames my Zoloft, which I coincidentally started when the dreams did. First, I had to get the restraining order against Chris. Then Toby wanted to discuss why I seemed “distracted” lately, forcing me to explain my teeny, little concern about getting murdered by my ex and ending up on our show. (A Crimeline intern on Crimeline? That pitch would definitely fly.) Then came friction over the wedding with Jay, my mom worrying, his ex-wife sniping, and his son as solemn as a funeral. Suffice it to say, I got a lot of shit going on. If I tell my doctor about the dreams, she’ll take me off the Zoloft. And I really need it right now.
The fire crackles, and I stare up at a crack in the ceiling, trying to stay awake.
The crack goes blurry, then double, and I blink my eyes again to straighten it.
My so-called “dream enactment” has been fairly standard fare thus far. I’ve researched much worse cases. In fact, Crimeline covered one case where a man drove to his in-laws’ house in his sleep and bludgeoned them to death. He got off, as it actually was due to sleepwalking. (Supposedly.)
So far, I haven’t done anything too dangerous in my sleep, but I’ve come close. I once grabbed a pair of scissors, which means I opened the drawer with no recollection. Luckily, we don’t have any guns in there. I woke up with feathers wafting around me, and realized I’d stabbed my pillow. Shamefully, I threw away the scissors and the pillow, as if they were to blame somehow. From then on, I slept in the guest room, with wind chimes on the door handle to alert me (and Jay) to any wandering. We even hid the car keys, just in case.
The crack in the ceiling doubles again, and I blink my eyes and pinch my thigh, hard. The crack straightens, then slithers on the ceiling, twisting into an S-shape as I start drifting off.
Sitting up abruptly, I decide maybe reading would help keep me awake.
I grab the book, leaf through the photos, and land on one of Noah Thompson. He was a friend of Nicole White, and one of the key witnesses in the trial. One picture shows Noah in the courtroom, looking nervous in an ill-fitting suit.
His eyes are striking, even in black and white. I remember them from the trial photos, a root-beer–hazel color, with flecks of gold in them. I flip to another more casual photo of him in his bedroom, shy but smiling with the usual boyhood accoutrements: cans of Mountain Dew, car posters, a video game console, and his wall stenciled with an outgrown sports theme, a row of soccer balls, footballs, and baseballs. I try to read through the captions, but my lids keep closing, as if drawn closed by weighted pulleys.
I try to hold them open but must have failed.
Because I startle, with a vision of Lainey, blood coming from her mouth like a vampire. My hands clench, ready to fight her, but I wake up before I can even take a swing.
Glancing over, I see my book on the ground, and Lainey lightly snoring, without blood-dripping fangs. I notice the screen of my phone lit up, and I’m shocked to see it’s not even eleven thirty. It felt like I was asleep for hours. Then I see the text, which must have woken me up in the first place. I don’t know how it’s possible since we have no coverage. But maybe we had signal just long enough for a text to slip through.
Have a nice bachelorette party, it says.
I hope you fucking die.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JUNE
“Thanks for seeing me,” Eric Myers says, sounding almost bashful.
Butterflies float in my stomach as I adjust my computer screen. The prison finally gave us the approval for the interview. “Thank you for seeing me,” I say, hearing the nerves in my voice. It feels weirdly like a first date. But if so, it’s a cheap one, as Crimeline will only pay for a virtual date.
I’m home on my hybrid day, and he’s obviously in prison.
The guard, a beefy guy with enormous veined biceps and a shaved head, leans against the wall with a bored expression. Eric clears his throat.
Eric Myers has aged from the trial photos, where he had certain cocky swagger, good-looking in a Jim Morrison way, with wavy brown hair and a wild animal energy, his body rangy with muscles. Now, his muscles appear gym-bought, his hair an institutional brush cut, brown mixed with gray, and wrinkles fanning around his eyes from too many cigarettes. I can almost smell them over the screen. In other words, the years have not treated him well.
My mind runs through possible starting lines. How was breakfast? (Inedible.) Have you had any visitors lately? (I know the answer is no.) Beautiful outside today, isn’t it? (He doesn’t have a window.) The usual rules of small talk do not apply in prison. In the awkward silence, “I can hear the washer shifting gears, and the whine of the dryer from the mudroom.
“You say you’re innocent,” I say, deciding to plunge right in.
“That’s because I am innocent.”
I don’t respond, allowing him to fill the silence, and he watches me, perhaps doing the same. I’m not sure if this is more of a first date or a chess match. I double-check the red recording button, and watch the timer count out ten long seconds of silence.
“I know it doesn’t look that way,” he says, breaking first. “But everything they have against me is circumstantial. Everything.”
A scramble of footsteps sounds out behind him, a man yelling, a tirade of fury and expletives. We both wait for him to pass, the guard barely glancing up. The outburst jars me yet doesn’t seem to affect Eric Myers. Just another day at the office.
“I talked about the problems with the picture they used to identify me in the email, right?” he asks. He pushes his orange sleeves over his elbows.
“Yes,” I say, “we did.”
My eyes are green. I’m not that tall. Blah, blah, blah.
“I feel bad for Leigh Jones and all. I really do.” He shakes his head, with a mixture of disbelief and frustration. “But, come on, the guy was wearing a balaclava.” He throws up his hands, emphasizing the point. “A balaclava!”
The washer in the mudroom bangs as the machine rocks, the drum off balance with sheets twisting around it. “She did see something else though, right?”
His expression hardens then, his gaze dropping to the table.
“I think before we go much further, we have to talk about it,” I say, gently. The washer thuds now, shimmying like it might pull away from the wall. “The elephant in the room, so to speak.”
Eric licks his lips, then takes a hard swallow. “I thought you were here to help me,” he says, his tone plaintive, soaked in self-pity. “To tell everyone what really happened.”
“Not exactly,” I push back, lightly. “I’m here to do a profile on the ten-year anniversary of the killing. But I’ll go where the facts lead me.” The washer hums now, madly spinning. “And hopefully, you can help me with that,” I add, as an olive branch. I muse at the tightrope act, trying to befriend Eric Myers without being manipulated by him. Fletcher Fox is better than I give him credit for.
The dryer in the mudroom lets out three beeps, followed by the sudden silence as it stops. A crystal-clear meow emerges from the kitchen.
We both look toward the sound.
“What’s that?” he asks, peering at the screen, as if trying to see around the corner. “A cat?”
I’m about to lie when she meows again. “Um, yeah,” I say. I have to remember to put her in the bedroom next time. I don’t like him knowing anything more about me than absolutely necessary.
“What kind?” he asks, conversationally.
“Oh. Um. A torty,” I say.
He nods, smiling. “What’s her name?”
“Her name is … Whiskers,” I say, my face flushing. I’m sure he knows I’m lying. I’m stupid enough to have several Babushka-themed passwords, but not stupid enough to tell him the name.
“I used to have a cat,” he says, half smiling at the memory. “Named Marty.” Then his face darkens. “Some kids in the neighborhood killed him though.”
I shiver, and can’t help but wonder if Eric Myers killed the cat and projected the act onto others. This would be classic sociopathic behavior, a little practice before moving onto more advanced mammals. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, it was.” He nods in agreement, twiddling his thumbs. “Some people are just evil like that.” He stiffens then, seeming to realize this term could apply to him. “I’m not like that though.” He shakes his head. “I could never hurt someone like that.”
“Yes, I’m sure.” I would love to coddle him, to draw him out of his cocoon before pummeling him with the first obvious question. But Toby laid down the law. I have six months to decide if he’s truly guilty or not.
“Let’s talk about the tattoo,” I say.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NOW
I can’t open my eyes.
My knees ache, cold and wet.
Wake up, I yell at myself.
I try to move my fingers, but they barely twitch. Numb. My eyes cannot open—glued, stitched shut. I try to yell through dry, cracked lips, making only a weak, scratchy sound. My eyes stay closed. But I’m not fighting or running. I’m not punching. Just paralyzed, frozen.
Wake up. You are dreaming. Wake up.
Open your eyes.
WAKE UP.
Slowly … they open.
I gaze around, disoriented. Automatically, I reach out for Babushka, looking for Jay, but then realize I’m not in my bed, not in our apartment.
Then it all comes back to me.
The party, the hunting lodge. 666 on the wall.
White Widow.
But I’m not in my sleeping bag either, not in the family room even. There is no fire. No Lainey or Melody. Lying on a cold, hard floor, I can barely see anything. I touch chipped tile, a drain. As my eyes acclimate to the darkness, I can see the outline of … a yellow duck.
A yellow duck?
Reaching out, I push away the plastic curtain as the realization crawls too slowly into my head. I’m in the shower.
The familiarity of this provides some measure of relief. I must have sleepwalked into the bedroom. Slowly, I sit up, my head dizzying. Every muscle feels worn down, exhausted. But then a memory whips through my brain, unfolding in stuttering frames.
Whispering, screaming. A flash of a knife.
I squeeze my eyes closed, and open them again. It must be the White Widow playing tricks with my mind. I try to stand up, my hand on the freezing porcelain. My thighs burn with the effort. I stagger one step out of the shower, nearly slipping on my wet fuzzy socks as more memories insert themselves.
Screaming, running.
Am I dreaming? Is it possible that I’m still dreaming, but with my eyes wide open?
But no, I am not. I am in the dreary bedroom. In the window, the moon slips out behind a cloud, lighting the room gray. The bed sits untouched. Subconsciously, I pat my pockets for my phone, then realize I’m in my pajamas. My hands feel sticky, maybe from the shower. Wiping them on my pajamas, I walk toward the window and stand there in a daze.
The wind howls, banging against the glass. Black-green trees shiver outside. A blistering white moon shines a perfect circle in the sky, the icy tree branches glistening in the light, eerie and beautiful.
I open and close my hands, stiff and numb, caked in dried sweat.
That’s when I see it.
Bewildered, I look closer. For a confused second, I think they are not mine. They must be someone else’s hands. But with horror, I realize they are my hands. They are attached to my wrists. My wrists attached to my arms. My arms attached to my body. Me.
Yes, they must be my hands. And I have dipped them in something. In the brash moonlight, I can see it. Not from the shower, not sweat.
My hands are covered in blood.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JUNE
Eric Myers rubs his hand over the ink as if trying to erase it.
But obviously he can’t. He can’t hide the blue tattoo on his wrist. The numbers have grown fuzzy and blurred with age but remain unmistakable.
666.
The same numbers written on the wall. The same numbers Leigh Jones described to the detectives, the tattoo revealing itself as his sleeve slipped up off his wrist. The same numbers that maybe Nicole White saw in her final minutes on this earth. The numbers that gave him the catchy serial killer moniker, beloved by Crimeline shows.
The 666 Killer.
He hangs his head. “That’s when everyone stops listening, when they hear about the tattoo,” he says. He tents his hands on his lips a moment, then looks up at me, desperation shining in his eyes. “But here’s the thing. That’s all they have, right? This one little thing. That’s all. Nothing else sticks.”
I tap my foot on the kitchen tile. “How do you explain it though?” I ask. “That Leigh Jones was attacked in the exact same way as Nicole White, with those numbers written on the wall. And that Leigh Jones saw your tattoo?”
He stares down at table, tracing a hieroglyphic with his finger on the surface. “I can’t explain it. That’s the problem.” His blue eyes loom over the screen. “But it doesn’t change the fact. I still didn’t do it.”
Something in his eyes (blue, not green) gives me pause, makes me want to believe him.
The evidence couldn’t be any more obvious. But part of me wonders if it’s almost too obvious. Then again, maybe he’s just convincing. Sociopaths often are.
He raps his fingers on the table. “I have some theories on it. Not that you’d believe them.”
I move closer to the screen. In truth, I would love to believe him. I would love a theory that makes sense, that would get Toby to reinvestigate the case for the show. “Try me,” I say.
“Okay, well.” He crosses his arms, leaning back in his chair. “Number one is this. Maybe Leigh Jones is lying for some reason. She got someone to attack her, just so she could blame me for it.”
I stifle an incredulous laugh. “You’re saying she got herself scarred for life and nearly killed just to mess with you?”
She met him briefly at a party per the court files. But she didn’t really know him and didn’t recognize him during the attack. She would have no reason to pretend he did this to get back at him.
The guard at the wall moves, jangling his keys.
“Or,” Eric says, putting both palms on the table. “She was attacked as she says, but someone else had the tattoo, and then they left town.”
“Uh-huh,” I say at this equally ridiculous theory.
Checking my expression, Eric Myers registers my skepticism and moves on. “But what makes most sense, in my opinion, is theory number three. That someone framed me. They just drew the numbers on their wrist before attacking her.”
Of any of the theories, this seems the most plausible, but still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. “Why though?” I ask. “Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know,” he mutters, with a pronounced shrug. “Someone with a grudge against me. I don’t know why that would be. But it’s possible, right?”
The clock ticks on the wall of the kitchen as I think this through. “She described the tattoo perfectly though,” I argue. “Every little detail. That would have been quite a feat to copy.”
Leigh Jones had focused on the tattoo during the attack with an almost photographic memory. She drew it out for the detectives, including a pale line at the wrist crease, where the ink had faded, and little nubs at the top of each numeral. The imposter would have to have copied these exact details.
“What made you get it in the first place?” I ask, with genuine curiosity. “Does it have any specific meaning for you?”
He lets out a sardonic laugh. “Do you have any tattoos?” he asks, turning the question around.
I notice the guard listening now, with a prurient interest. It’s none of their business, but I don’t see any harm in responding.
“Yes,” I say but don’t elaborate. I got my tattoo freshman year. We all did, Lainey and Melody and me, bright orange-red-yellow sunbursts on our ankles. Chris used to trace his fingers over mine, sending almost painful shock waves of desire through me. Jay calls it my youthful indiscretion. He doesn’t have any tattoos.
“Does it have any specific meaning for you?” he asks, his intonation mocking the words.
