Don’t fear the reaper. Just be very, very aware of her.
“So, I look up and there he is.”
Cookie held a piece of popcorn at her lips as she listened to my tale, her eyes wide with astonishment. Or possibly primal, bone-chilling fear. It was hard to tell at that point. “The Big Bad,” she said.
“Right, but you can call him Bad for short. Anywho, he’s standing there just watching and I’m all naked and covered in afterbirth — though that didn’t really register at the time. I just remember being mesmerized by him. He seemed to be in a constant state of fluid motion.”
“Like smoke.”
“Like smoke,” I said as I snatched the buttery morsel out of her hand and popped it into my mouth. “You snooze, you lose, chica.”
“Do you remember anything before him?” she asked as she reached for another piece, only to hold it in limbo at her mouth as well. I was trying not to crack up and break the spell.
“Not so much. I mean, I don’t remember being born or anything — thank the gods, ’cause that would just be gross. Just the stuff that came after. And it’s all very peach fuzzy. Except for him. And my mom.”
“Wait,” she said, holding up a finger, “your mom? But, your mom died the day you were born. You remember her?”
A slow smile slid across my face. “She was so beautiful, Cookie. She was my first … um, customer.”
“You mean—”
“Yes. She passed through me. She was light and warmth and unconditional love. I didn’t understand it at the time, but she told me she was happy to give up her life so that I could live. She made me feel calm and cherished, which was a good thing, ’cause Bad was kind of freaking me out.”
Her gaze slid past me as she processed what I’d said. “That’s … that’s…”
“Impossible to believe, I know.”
“Amazing.” She looked at me then.
The relief that flooded my body couldn’t be helped. I should have known she’d believe me. But people I’d grown up with, people I was closest to, never believed the being-born thing.
“So, you kind of got to know your mom in a way, right?”
“I did.” And as I grew older, I realized it was more than a lot of kids got. I would be forever grateful for those few moments we had together.
“And you know every language that’s ever been spoken on Earth?”
Thankful for the change in subject, I replied, “Every single one.”
“Even Farsi?”
“Even Farsi,” I said with a grin.
“Oh, my goodness!” she almost shouted. A thought must’ve popped into her brain. Then her features changed, darkened, and she pointed an accusative finger at me. “I knew it. I knew you understood what that Vietnamese man said to me that day in the market. I could see it in your eyes.”
I smiled and looked back at Reyes’s image, fell into him. “He said he liked your ass.”
She gasped. “Why, that little perv.”
“Told you he had the hots for you.”
“Too bad he was small enough to fit into my cleavage.”
“I think that’s why he liked you,” I said, a bubble of laughter slipping out.
Cookie sat silent a long while after that. I gave her some time to absorb everything I was telling her. After a moment, she asked, “How is it even possible?”
“Well,” I said, deciding to tease her, “I don’t think he could’ve actually fit in your cleavage. Though I’m sure he would have enjoyed the challenge.”
“No, I mean the language thing. It’s just so—”
“Freakishly cool?” I asked, my voice hopeful.
“—mind-boggling.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess it is.”
“And you understood what people were saying to you on the day you were born?”
With my nose crinkling in thought, I said, “Kind of. Not literally, however. I had no schema, no past to relate the words to, no meaning to process it with. When people spoke to me, I understood them on a visceral level. Oddly enough, I talked and walked and did everything else at a normal rate. But when anyone talks to me, I understand them. No matter what language they’re speaking. I just know what they’re saying.”
I nudged my mouse when the screen saver popped up, forced the image back to Reyes. “I understood the first words my father ever said to me, too,” I continued, trying to disguise the sadness in my voice. “For the most part anyway. He told me my mother had died.”
Cookie shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
“I think my dad knew. I think he knew I understood him. It was like our little secret.” I grabbed a handful of popcorn and tossed a piece into my mouth. “Then he married my stepmother, and everything changed. She figured out pretty quick I was a freak. It all started when I got hooked on Mexican soap operas.”
“Charley, you’re not a freak.”
“It’s okay. I can’t blame her.”
“Yes, you can,” she said, her voice suddenly honed to a razor’s edge. “I’m a mother, too. Mothers don’t do that, step or otherwise.”
“Yeah, but Amber wasn’t born a grim reaper.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s your stepmother. Period. It’s not like you became a serial killer.”
God, I loved having someone on my side. My dad had always loved me without reservation, but he never really had my back like that. I think Cookie would have taken on the Mafia single-handedly for me. And won.
“So, the day you were born, that’s when he called you Dutch?”
“Yes.”
“Now, was this before or after your mother crossed through you?”
“After, but I just don’t get it. How did he know? I’d never realized until tonight that Bad didn’t say my actual name that day. He didn’t call me Charlotte. He’d called me Dutch, Cookie, just like Reyes did when I was in high school. How could he have known?” My mind started spinning, trying desperately to put the pieces together.
“Okay, let me ask you this,” she said, her forehead crinkling in thought. “The first time you saw Reyes, did you notice anything unusual about him?”
“Besides the fact that he was getting his ass kicked by psycho-dad?”
“Yes.”
I pulled in a long, deep breath and thought about it. “You know, I may have but didn’t realize it at the time. I mean, maybe there was something different, something supernatural, but all the adrenaline flooding my body had me thinking it was just the direness of the moment. He was so magnificent. So beautiful and agile and perfect.”
“From the way you’ve described it, maybe Reyes is some kind of supernatural being. The fact that he took a beating like that and just walked away like you seem to do every other week has me wondering.”
“I’d never looked at it that way.” As I thought back to that night, the memory both unsettling and fascinating, I could see Reyes in my mind. “You know what?” I asked in realization. “He was different. He was, I don’t know, dark. Unreadable.”
“Well, he sounds suspiciously supernatural to me.”
If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have laughed. “You’re suddenly the expert?”
“If it’s hot and dark, yeah, pretty much.”
That time, I did laugh.
“So how many times have you seen Bad?” she asked, seeming to come to terms with everything I’d told her. This was good. Productive. Cheaper than therapy.
“Not many.”
“Well, when you saw him, what happened?”
I picked up my cup and took a sip of the hot chocolate Cookie’d insisted I switch to.
She placed a hand on my shoulder, a knowing look on her face. “In the park. With the Johnson girl.”
When I placed the cup down, I tried to do so with as much nonchalance as I could muster. Thinking of the incident with the Johnson girl was like running a finger over a raw nerve. I had been trying to help a mother out of the grieving hole she had withdrawn into when her daughter went missing. Instead, I caused a town scandal that ended up being the final straw for my stepmother. She turned against me that day and never looked back.
So, yes, the incident was a sore spot on my psyche, but I had worse. I had gaping wounds that refused to heal, and Cookie knew only a minute amount about them.
“Yes,” I said, raising my chin. “In the park. That was the third time I saw him.”
“But your life wasn’t in danger. Or was it?”
“Not at all, but maybe he thought it was. He was so mad, I think because my stepmom was yelling at me in front of all these people.” My head lowered at the memory. “And she slapped me. It was quite a shock.” I locked eyes with Cookie, suddenly wanting her to understand how afraid I was of him. “I thought he was going to kill her. He was shaking with anger. I felt it, like electricity prickling over my skin. I whispered to him as my stepmother berated me in front of half the town and begged him not to hurt her.”
Cookie’s mouth thinned in sympathy. “Charley, I’m so very sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m just not sure why he scares me so much. I can’t believe what a wuss I can be at times.”
“I’m sorry that he scares you, too, but I meant the part about your stepmother.”
“Oh, no, don’t be,” I said, shaking my head. “That was totally my fault.”
“You were five.”
After a hard swallow, I bowed my head and said, “You don’t know what I did.”
“Unless you doused the woman in gasoline and set her on fire, I’m not sure her reaction was appropriate.”
A half smile crept across my face. “I can assure you, no petroleum products were harmed in the making of that memory.”
“What happened then? With Bad?”
“I guess he heard me. He left, but he was not a happy camper.”
Cookie nodded in understanding, then said, “And I would be willing to bet one of the times he showed up was when you were in college.”
“Wow, you’re good.”
“You know, you’ve told me about how you were attacked when you were walking home after a class one night, but you didn’t tell me he was there.”
“Yep, he was. He saved me, just like he did when I was four.”
Surprise washed over her face. “Four? What happened when you were four? Wait, he saved you when you were attacked in college? How?” she asked, stumbling over the questions that were surely tumbling through her head. I realized my description and taxonomy of the Big Bad may have led Cookie to believe that he was, well, big and bad. And he was. Kind of.
But I still couldn’t tell her how he saved me. I couldn’t do that to her, not until I knew she’d be okay with the knowledge.
“He … got the guy off me.”
“Oh, my goodness, Charley. I guess I didn’t realize.… I mean, you made it sound so minuscule. And your life had been in danger?”
With a shrug, I said, “Maybe a little. There was a switchblade involved. I didn’t even know they still made those things. Aren’t they illegal?”
“He shows up when your life is in danger,” she repeated, deep in thought, “and he saved you when you were four? So, what happened when you were four again?”
I shifted in my chair, so sore I could barely manage it. “Well, I was kind of kidnapped, though not really kidnapped so much as led away.”
A hand shot to her mouth to squelch a gasp.
“God, all this sounds so awful when I say it out loud,” I complained. “I whine more than a Goth with a blogging fetish. It’s really not that bad. I actually grew up rather happy. I had lots of friends. They were mostly dead, but still.”
“Charley Jean Davidson,” she said in warning. “You cannot use the word kidnapped in a sentence, then not elaborate.”
“Fine, if you really want to know. But you’re not going to like it.”
“I really want to know.”
After a long, breathy sigh, I said, “It happened here.”
“Here? In Albuquerque?”
“Here in this building. When I was four.”
“You’ve lived in this building before?”
I suddenly felt like I was in therapy and all the things that had happened to me in the past, both good and bad, were gushing from a festering wound. But what happened in this building was the worst of the worst. The knife in my flesh, buried so deep inside me, I doubted it could ever be extracted fully. At least not without some serious anesthesia.
“No,” I said, drawing another sip, testing the rich, warm chocolate on my tongue before swallowing. “I’ve never lived here. But even before my dad bought the bar, it’d been a cop hangout. And he’d taken me to it on several occasions, quite innocently, mostly for birthday parties and such. And a few times he had to chat with his partner, as those were the eighties BC.” When Cookie’s brows slanted in question, I added, “Before cells.”
“Ah, of course.”
“But on one particular occasion, I’d upset my stepmother when I told her, in a rather matter-of-fact way, that her father had died and had crossed through me because he wanted me to give her a message. She hadn’t known yet that he’d passed away and she was furious, refused to listen. She never even let me give her the message. I didn’t understand it anyway. Something about blue towels.”
“She wouldn’t listen even after she found out he’d actually passed away?”
“Absolutely not. By that time, Denise was anti-anything-death-related.”
Cookie took a deep breath as if to calm her nerves. “The woman never ceases to amaze me.”
“You should try her meat loaf. It’ll put some pretty coarse hair on your chest.”
She chuckled. “I have enough hair to deal with, thank you very much. I’ll pass on family night at the Davidsons’.”
I shrugged. “Your loss.”
“So, you were four.”
Geez, she was so pushy. “Right. Four. So, my feelings were hurt as usual, and when we drove to the bar where my dad was having a beer, Denise left me on the bench by the kitchen to go tell on me to Dad. I loved it in the kitchen, but I was all mad and hurt, so I decided to run away. When Mr. Dunlop, the cook, wasn’t looking, I snuck out the back.”
“A four-year-old, alone at night, on Central? A parent’s worst nightmare.”
“Yeah, well. I figured I’d show her,” I said. “I wasn’t the brightest four-year-old on Central. Of course, the minute I stepped outside, I changed my mind. Not that I was scared. I don’t get scared like most people. I was just … aware. But before I could dash back inside, a super nice man in a trench coat offered to help me find my stepmother. Oddly, instead of going into the bar where I knew she was, we came into this building.”
“Oh, honey,” she whispered, despair in her voice.
“But nothing much happened,” I said with a lift of my shoulders. “Like I said, Bad saved me.” Trying to make light of a dark situation, I added, “Looking back, I don’t think that man ever planned to help me find my stepmother.”
Cookie reached toward me and wrapped me into a huge, long hug. It made me think of warm fires on winter nights. And, for some reason, roasting marshmallows.
After, like, an hour and twenty-seven minutes, I mumbled, “Can’t … breathe.…”
She leaned back with her brows creased in thought. “Is it just me, or does the fact that you live in the same building you were abducted into seem a bit morbid?”
“Pffft. It’s just you,” I said, discounting the entire bizarre, ghoulish thing.
I was so happy she didn’t push for more details. The devil was in the details, and I wasn’t feeling particularly satanic at that moment. “Oh,” I said remembering another incident. “This guy in high school tried to run me over with his dad’s SUV. Bad shoved the vehicle through a store window.” The memory brought a smile to my face.
“Someone tried to run you over in high school?” she asked, appalled.
“Only that one time,” I answered.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, then asked, “So, those are the only times you’ve seen Bad?”
I counted off silently with my fingers. “Yep, that just about covers it.”
“And our job is to figure out how Reyes plays into all of this?”
“Yep again. We should roast marshmallows.”
“Then I feel it my duty,” she continued, unfazed, “as friend and confidante, to analyze in panoramic detail the shower scene.”
I held back a giggle. “I’m not really sure the shower scene plays into this on a salient level. It seems more, I don’t know, nonsalient.”
“Charley,” she said in warning, “spill or die a slow and painful death. Who was in the shower with you? Reyes? The Big Bad? Work with me here.”
“Okay,” I said, acquiescing, “you know that Reyes called me Dutch that night when I was fifteen, right?”
“Right,” she said, clearly impatient to jump to the shower scene.
“And you know about the beautiful man showing up in my dreams every night for the past month, right?”
“Right,” she said, a sigh softening her voice.
“Well, today, Dream Guy wrote Dutch in the condensation on my mirror, and he called me Dutch in the shower.”
“Now we’re talking.” She scooted to the edge of her seat, then stopped abruptly in realization. “So, Dream Guy is Reyes?”
“That’s what I mean. I realized tonight Bad called me Dutch the day I was born.”
She frowned in confusion. “So, who was in the shower?”
I grinned and gazed at her, suddenly in awe of the woman sitting beside me. “You know, I just told you that this big, scary creature follows me around and saves my life every so often and that I remember the day I was born and that I know every language ever spoken, and you have yet to run out of the room screaming. How can you just accept what I say?”
After a long, thoughtful pause, she asked, “Are you purposely trying to change the subject?”
A deep chuckle almost doubled me over. I grabbed my aching ribs and cried out, “Stop! Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Sorry.”
She wasn’t. I could tell.
“What did you find out from the prison?” I asked, my tearful gaze returning to the screen. “Is Reyes still there? Is he … alive?”
“All the officer could tell me was that Reyes was still listed as an inmate in the prison registry, housed in D Unit. But I have to say, I got the feeling she wasn’t telling me everything.”
“I’m going tomorrow.”
“To the prison?”
“Yes.” I clicked on the personnel files that listed the administrators of the prison and highlighted the picture of Neil Gossett. “I went to school with the deputy warden.”
“Really? Friend or foe?”
I wondered the same thing myself. “That’s a tough call. Had I suddenly burst into flames in the school lunchroom, I doubt he would have sacrificed his vitamin D to save me, but I’m pretty sure he would have felt guilty about it later.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Cookie said, gazing wide eyed at another article in her hands. I leaned over, winced at the pain the movement caused, then stopped when I read the last paragraph of the article.
Uncle Bob had been the lead detective in the case against Reyes. Well, crap.