Repressed Page 27

  He’d always know.

  Not that it mattered anymore.

  He barely registered filling the syringe, but now it was loaded, liquid and sweet and more vital than it had ever been. He leaned back on the bed, widening his legs, staring at the vein where his leg met his torso. The old mark could have been an ingrown hair or a little pimple, but now the scar appeared like a target—an evil eye. Nothing to worry about, nothing at all. He picked up the needle and brought the point to the center of the scar, but the tip wouldn’t stay still; his hand shook with such force the needle scraped along his inner thigh, leaving a thin, angry line.

  Just one little injection and his head would clear. Just one prick and he’d be ready to go back out and find them. He’d know who Janey was. Where Danny had met her. He’d know what to say to her. He’d know where to find her. Maybe.

  He brought the needle back, pressing the pinky side of his palm against his thigh, trying to force his hand steady, but it was no use. His hand vibrated. The needle shook.

  And if he missed … he had no more. One chance to do it right, that was all he had.

  He brought the needle to his chest and laid it against his heart. The plastic was frighteningly cold next to his sweaty skin, though maybe not for long. Would the drug stop his heart on the first pull? Probably not, but it wasn’t impossible, and he knew it. Had always known it. And it had never stopped him before, either.

  Back then, it wasn’t that he didn’t care about death. More that he didn’t care about life without the drug.

  But now he did, didn’t he? He gasped for air and held Evie’s photo in front of his face. Her pudgy cheeks, her wide, innocent eyes so like his in color and shape. His baby girl. He could almost hear her laughing. She was why he had stayed clean. He’d been clean before her, but after there was no greater reason in all the world than the remotest chance of looking into her eyes again. Even now she was probably crying, needing him. He wasn’t there.

  Those fuckers. That bitch. Torturing his little girl.

  He screamed at the ceiling, unleashing a string of profanities, resisting the urge to fling the needle across the room and watch the case splinter against the doorframe, soaking the carpet in the precious, vile liquid.

  He would not let them win.

  But if he didn’t do this, he might lose.

  He looked once more at Evie’s picture, steadied the needle and slid it into his vein.

  40

  The cool of the liquid quickly morphed into a glow that spread through his legs, his belly, his chest, wrapping every part of his body in a pleasant tingly warmth. The world around him mellowed into pure love and he could have kissed his creator the moment the euphoria flooded his brain. The nods came fast then, perfect and quiet, a heavy, peaceful sleepiness that drowned the pain, the helplessness, the terror. He felt his eyes flutter open—had he closed them?—almost of their own accord. He didn’t want to miss anything of this glorious world. He was back with the family who’d been there for him when he had no one else. He was home.

  His head dropped back against the pillow and the ceiling was the purest, most perfect shade of white he’d ever seen, clear and clean and utterly devoid of color. Then his eyes were moving, his head lolling to the side and he rejoiced, sure he’d see the window there, the awesome rays of light borne by a glorious midday sun.

  But he didn’t.

  It was Evie. Evie’s picture, crumpled in his fist on the other pillow, illuminated by the garish light. Her tiny face was creased and marred with hairline cracks, red drips coating her eyes like she was the devil incarnate. Blood? Had he hurt her? And in his leg, a sharp pain—the syringe had broken. He stared at it as if it were something entirely foreign to him. And smiled.

  Until he remembered. Even as tears of joy sprang into his eyes, even as his chest vibrated with glee—he remembered. They were gone. Shannon and Evie were gone. And pain collided with the pleasure, euphoria slammed by panic so intense the buzz almost silenced itself. But only for a moment. Then it was nothing but a slight dampening around the edges of the blissful cloud he was riding, a storm under him that he’d surely have to acknowledge once he fell, but now—he was untouchable.

  His eyes fluttered closed again and he rode higher and higher, pleasure shutting out the world, and the blackness cocooned him in the deepest peace he’d ever felt. A name came from below his cloud, one small whispered word carried on the breeze as if by angels: “Danny.”

  The dark around him began to gray at the edges, and then images shuddered to life: a curtain whispering in the breeze though he could see no window, a bedspread with a comforter as ice blue as Shannon’s eyes. He could feel his wife there too, loving him, her presence wrapping around his heart and squeezing until he was certain the adoration would cause him to burst and he’d finally succumb, leaving the world with her name on his joyous lips. The green walls pulsed, glowing with the vibrant energy of new spring buds. The wood floor was a sea of honey beneath him, sweet and ripe.

  And … the ants. Ants all over, tiny, persistent soldiers forming impossibly ordered lines. They were trying to fix something, helpers, and he wanted to reach out to them, to help them too, for their nobility was like nothing he’d seen, each and every one of them a hero. Or a martyr. He smiled at them and they seemed to smile back at him, and he felt their adoration as clearly as if they had whispered a collective “We love you.” And he smiled at Danny. At Danny’s blood? Or maybe it was his own blood, running even now over Evie’s picture.

  Danny.

  I killed him.

  The room was alive, swelling and shrinking with violent gasps, the now heavy curtains whispering to him about the blood that snaked across the earth, vast and wet as the ocean, and each crimson wave murmured sounds of serenity in his ear. And Danny: a bump on his forehead, the center of the welt split open like a shattered egg, clear to the pure, peaceful white of his skull.

  Danny’s lips were bluer than the most beautiful cerulean sky and Morrison rejoiced, for they too seemed to want nothing more than to wrap him in a glorious mist of everlasting unity. And he was so overcome by the elation at being near his friend that he wept. Wept for Danny’s beautiful lips, for his pure alabaster skull, for every ant on his face, for the way he was looking at Morrison now, eyes glassy and so full of love that Morrison had to turn away lest he be blinded.

  And behind him … voices. Girls.

  “My turn!”

  “No, me next.”

  It was like a VCR tape rewinding, scrambling backward over time and space, and all he could see was a screech of blur and color. But then part of him was outside himself, a conscious splitting as if someone had taken a divine axe and severed his soul from his physical being. The calm peace that had wrapped him remained thick and heavy in his body, but the other him, the one that walked away now—his heart was frantic. He was choking.

  “My turn!”

  “No, me next.”

  Morrison tried to see who was speaking, but the room was filled with fog and smoke. He twisted a little more and caught sight of them: they were laughing, their faces hidden behind dark, silky curtains of hair and they were beautiful. And he saw himself, the other him, sitting on the bed, back against the headboard. Not looking. Maybe he’d never seen them—maybe he’d already been in the cloud when they arrived.

  Morrison closed his eyes and let the cloud take him again, inhaling the mist into his core and releasing it.

  “Goddammit, give it here!” A girl.

  Danny: “Shut up, dicks, you’ll wake up my cousin, and then we’re all fucked.” Morrison’s eyes flew open and there was Danny, standing at the foot of the bed and there were no ants on him and Morrison wanted to cry with relief. But the world was sideways. How had he gotten here? Was he lying down? Then came a scuffling sound, the swishing of fabric, and Danny approached the foot of the bed, by Morrison’s feet, holding the syringe. Danny shoved it into his own arm, pulled it out and wavered, and she—long hair but she was all black and white
and misty—grabbed the needle from Danny. Then Danny whipped around and faced Morrison, and here was the part where he’d get upset, where Morrison had surely beaten him to death and Morrison wanted to stop it but the heaviness in his arms and the calm in his chest kept him down. He just watched. Danny smiled and his lips were moving—“Fucking A”—and then he was stumbling toward the bed, tripping, grabbing at the mattress where Morrison lay, but missing, crashing. His head connected with the end table, a book flipped up, the green ant farm tumbled, and Danny hit the floor with a hollow-sounding thud. Morrison giggled softly to himself, the crash and the thud and all that tinkling glass such an improbable, comical thing to happen, as if every hilarious thing he’d ever seen, ever done, ever felt, was multiplied a thousand times over.

  And then his perspective changed again and he was watching from across the room. Watching himself wake up on the bed. Other Him looked awkward and lonely, and decidedly not high—though This Him still felt really fucking high.

  Danny. Other Him didn’t say it, but Morrison heard it in the air as Other Him peered over the side of the bed at Danny’s face, at Danny’s closed eyes, that sleepy fuck. And then Other Him had the bed sheet—what the fuck?—and he leapt off the mattress and held it to Danny’s head. Danny was going to be pissed about the sheet. Danny was going to punch Other Him in the nuts. And then something slammed into Morrison as if he’d been thrown into a wall and Other Him was gone and it was just Morrison, staring at the floor, staring at the comforter, staring at Danny and his glassy eyes and the ants. Morrison’s hands were wet. Why were his hands wet? And they were red … and the sheets were red … and he could smell it, stronger now, the iron in the air, thick at the back of his throat—rust, metal, death—but his body wasn’t sure what to do. Laugh or cry, maybe, but neither seemed quite right even when the ants swarmed Morrison, crawling up his legs into his pants. And then they kept coming, pinching jaws attacking his flesh over and over again. He remained still, unable to move, unable to run, not even really wanting to, but his heart was seizing, throbbing with the panic that was slowly creeping in through the haze of the drug. He had to get out of there. Someone would come soon, and they’d see that he had done this, that he’d fallen asleep while his best friend bled to death on the floor.

  Morrison looked at the ants. At his crimson palms. He ran to Danny’s adjoining bathroom and let the water pour over his hands, icy and sharp, the sink turning first red, then pink. When the water ran clear, he wrenched a towel from the hook over the counter, twisting it around his hands as if it were a tourniquet and he was the one bleeding. But the world was still foggy around him and the panic pulsed and retreated as if it were merely a butterfly alighting on a flower, then fluttering off.

  The girls were gone. He’d never known them, never seen them outside of their curtains of dark hair. Janey had to have been one of them, but he was no closer to an answer. Find them. He ran for the bedroom door—four feet away, three—then the knob twisted of its own accord and the butterfly of panic returned, beating its iridescent wings until the air itself was alive with horror. The door squealed and came toward him before he could hide.

  Her.

  Tiny, twelve years old maybe, red hair, freckles, eyes wide, smiling. “Dan?”

  Morrison put his finger to his lips, shoved past her, and tore down the stairs and he was tumbling, falling, head over heels over head, the world cartwheeling away from him in a perfect spiral of white and black and—

  He opened his eyes. Evie’s photo was stained a brilliant cardinal red. He could still smell the blood. Danny’s blood? No. This time it was his.

  Who was she?

  Shut up, dick, you’ll wake up my cousin and then we’re all fucked.

  Cousin. Was Janey Danny’s cousin? He’d already investigated immediate family, anyone nearby he might have met, but maybe he hadn’t gone far enough. He wanted to be angry about this, knew he ought to feel incensed by his own incompetence, but his limbs were too heavy and too loose and he was just too fucking blissed-out to care about anything.

  He could almost smell Evie’s hair. Feel Shannon’s hand on his arm, soft and warm and loving.

  The cloud was still there, promising respite. Morrison breathed it into his lungs and walked into the mist, letting it consume him.

  41

  The phone pulled him from his nodding—insistent, a harsh and angry buzzing. Voicemail from Decantor. He’d missed three calls from Valentine, too. He touched the screen and put Decantor’s message on speaker, his palm sticky and bright with injuries that were only now beginning to sting. He turned his hand over, appraising the hash marks on his palm.

  “Morrison, we’ve gotta talk. I just got back from Michael Hayes’s place. Someone filleted his ass. All we found were swaths of … flesh. Someone tried to skin him alive.” Decantor coughed, gagged. Maybe he was still there, looking at the mess. “Fucking horrible. Listen, I’m going to head your way in a little bit. Hope you’re around.”

  Fuck. Morrison headed for the living room on shaky legs, the wavering of the world pulling at him a little, but mostly he felt … dreamy. Sleepy. He’d been so stupid. And already the promise of more pleasure was taking root in his head. He’d be good for a few days, and then he’d—

  He punched the wall on his way down the stairs, letting the drywall crack and shower to the carpet as if he could obliterate his thoughts with a left hook. Photos of Shannon pregnant and Evie as an infant rattled in their frames as he pulled his hand free, knuckles smarting, but at least this time it was his own blood on his hands. He squared his shoulders. He would get his fucking family back and he’d move on like he always did. Shannon and Evie would be his bliss.

  But not like heroin. Nothing was like heroin. Nothing.

  Morrison almost tripped down the last of the stairs, caught himself on the railing and stumbled into the kitchen. Coffee. Then research.

  Janey. Danny’s cousin. Danny’s last name had been Krantz and that was the name she’d given Palmer, but Janey Krantz didn’t exist. He pulled Danny’s parents and grandparents, but there’d been no adoptions, and Danny’s father hadn’t had brothers—no one to pass on the family name. He frowned into his coffee cup. No Krantz anywhere. He cross-checked birth certificates for each aunt and uncle, then cousins, then second cousins. No Janeys, but …

  There she was. She’d been right there all along.

  Janice Lynwood. Danny’s cousin once removed. Parents deceased, automobile accident, the year before Danny died. Though she never was formally adopted, her school records indicated she’d lived at the Krantz house since the death of her parents—but she’d gone to a middle school and later a high school nearly an hour away. Problems in the nearby school? But there was no record of her enrollment there at all. Had Danny’s parents tried to keep her with the friends she’d had before her parents died? Either way it explained why she was able to use whatever name she wanted when she met Karen Palmer—if they went to different schools, Karen would have been none the wiser.

  But … Janice had been a child when Danny died, and she’d only gone to be with his family the year prior. They were too far apart in age to share much more than blood. Though from Roger’s description of her, Janey was prone to obsession and a self-righteous rage, as though she were intent on having someone else pay for the shitty hand she’d been dealt. He considered the suicide attempts, the threats she’d aimed at Roger. Maybe she was just terrified to be alone, to be abandoned. Under most bad behavior is fear.

  Morrison understood loneliness well, and a tiny part of him just under his heart tightened with sympathy but he crushed it, smothered it with the heat of fury when he pictured Shannon’s skewered lips. After he’d lost his father, and years later when he’d found his mother on the living room floor with her brains bashed in, he’d felt the same. Anger. Abandonment. Loneliness. And if he’d found the asshole who had done it, he’d have sent him to meet his maker just as quickly—back then, anyway. Over time he’d been able to let the ange
r go and move on.

  But Janice still blamed him. She had no one to blame for her parents careening off a rain-slicked road, but she did have someone who would pay for Danny’s death: the man she’d seen that morning, and everyone he loved, innocent or not.

  The doorbell rang. Morrison jerked his head toward the entry hall and kept typing. Searching. Janice Lynwood. No brothers, no sisters. The bell rang again.

  Once you remember me, you’ll know exactly how to find me.

  Four marriages. All out of state. No children.

  Pounding, incessant, on the front door.

  He typed. The knocking stopped but he could feel someone out there. Decantor—of course it was Decantor—could probably hear the clacking of the keyboard.

  House deeds. Mortgages.

  Morrison’s cell buzzed. He took it from his pocket but didn’t answer, just set it on the table.

  A text came through:

  “It’s Decantor. Where you at?”

  “Out to lunch. I’ll meet you at the station.”

  Morrison searched property listings and deeds in the names of any of her immediate family. No current properties listed for any of the living family members within five hundred miles. Click, click, click. The cell pinged again.

  “Who are you eating with?”

  Morrison had left his car in the driveway. He should have put it in the garage.

  He stabbed at the phone:

  “Sister-in-law.”

  Did Decantor know Shannon didn’t have a sister?

  “K. An hour?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Morrison wouldn’t make that appointment either. Nor would he have his cell with him when Decantor called to ask where he was—not if he figured out where Janice was hiding. Where is she?