Emily Littlejohn - Inherit the Bones

From the four corners of the tent, the acrobats emerged like boxers at a match, each sprinting to the center and doing a jig to pump up the crowd. They wore the black leotards we’d seen during practice, but true to Tessa’s word, they each carried a long saber with a wicked-looking tip. Red sashes held the swords to their waists, and as before, each acrobat wore a black Zorro-like mask.

The crowd went wild with cheers and applause and the performers strutted before the audience like court jesters, high-fiving the children in the first row. After a few minutes, the four met back in the middle and huddled, then broke apart in pairs and climbed the long ladders at either end of the tent.

There was something different from what we’d watched in rehearsals but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Once on the platforms, the four drew their swords and began their daring dances on the narrow planks. To the right, Tessa and Doug teased and taunted each other. Tessa danced backward, Doug’s sword at her belly, and then she lunged forward, pushing him back toward the ladder, away from the plank’s edge. The audience gasped as he feigned a slip and fell to one knee, then cheered as he regained balance and resumed his attack on Tessa.

On the opposite plank, the sisters, Onesie and Twosie, fended off imaginary assailants. They stood back to back and slashed their swords at the air, moving to and fro along the platform as one unit. The silver weapons flashed in the spotlights like strobes and I closed my eyes, feeling the beginnings of a migraine. Between the late night, my lack of sleep, the heat of the day, and now the pulsing lights and music, plus my hormonal swings, I knew I didn’t stand a chance against the vise slowly tightening around my forehead.

As the music switched from the flamenco guitar to a steady, throbbing Latin dance beat, the acrobats laid down their swords and shook hands and hugged. As in rehearsals, Tessa was first off the plank. This time, though, she did a stunning dismount that involved a backward flip that left the audience gasping. She grabbed the first bar and the audience sighed with relief and the show went into full swing. The other three acrobats joined Tessa and soon they were jumping and twisting and diving with, literally, the greatest of ease.

In front of me, a child whispered to his father, “What if they fall?” and the father whispered back, “They won’t, honey, they’re professionals,” and I realized what was different from the rehearsal we’d watched earlier.

The green safety net had been removed.

If someone did fall, it would be a forty-foot drop straight to the ground. I gulped and felt the hot dog I’d eaten turn inside me on a wave of nausea.

“What’s a pofresshunal?” the child whispered, and the father answered, “It means they are so good at their job, they won’t fall.”

With the realization the net was gone, watching the acrobats was suddenly a nerve-racking event. I held my breath through the next ten minutes, until finally they swung themselves, one by one, back to the platforms. They paused, panting, on the planks as the audience gave them a standing ovation.

As Finn and I stood and clapped, I looked down to the left. Lisey was gone. Scanning the room, I saw a flash of red at one of the side exits. “C’mon,” I said, and grabbed Finn.

“Don’t you want to talk to Tessa again?” he asked, and followed me as we made our way through the stands. Every second person had to turn sideways or stand back up to let us by.

“Yes, but she can wait,” I said. “I want to talk to Lisey first.”

I wondered if Lisey was the second person in Tessa’s car last night. If so, maybe she had come back to my house on her own, later, and left the message. But really, what would have been the point? I was finding it harder and harder to believe that anyone from Reed’s life had been involved in his murder, especially given the wording of leaving the past alone.

Everywhere I turned seemed to point right back to the past… to the McKenzie boys, and the Woodsman.

To this town.

Outside, I threw up an arm against the glare of the bright sunshine. I’d left my sunglasses in the car, and as I squinted and waited for my eyes to adjust, the throbbing in my head increased. I slowly turned, scanning the throngs of people that milled on the midway between the various booths and tents and food stands and Porta-Potties and rides.

All I could see for miles was kid after kid, clown after clown.

“Where did she go? Do you see her?”

“I don’t know, I don’t… wait, there? Is that her?” Finn asked. He pointed to a small open space about fifty yards away.

Lisey stood, her back to us, one hand raised to her hair, the other on her hip. She wore a tight yellow T-shirt, too small for her voluptuous frame, and men’s carpenter-style jeans that hung loose from her hips and sagged at the rear.

We pushed through the crowd. When we were a few feet behind her, I grabbed Finn’s arm and held him back.

Lisey was speaking but there was no one else there, and I realized she was on the phone.

“I told you, I’m through,” she said. There were tears and anger in her voice. “No, no more. You promised. I don’t care how much, it’s not worth it.”

Finn looked at me with raised eyebrows, as Lisey screamed, “No, screw you! I’m done. Don’t call me again!”

She threw the phone in an arc toward the woods that surrounded the fairgrounds. After a moment, she sighed and then stomped off and started searching the ground.

Finn and I walked to her.

“Lisey?” I said softly.

She jumped and turned and stared at me without any sign of recognition. Her face was tear-stained and I saw that when she wasn’t scowling, or stoned out of her mind, she was actually quite beautiful. Her skin was the color of fresh cream, her eyes an amber brown. Her cheekbones were wide and with her ample body, she could have been a model for Titian or Rembrandt.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember me? I’m Detective Gemma Monroe, I visited with Tessa at your cabin a few days ago?” I asked.

Lisey shook her head. “It’s not my cabin anymore. I moved out yesterday.”

She started to turn away, then stopped, twin roses blooming in her cheeks. “Oh, I remember. I was, uh, incapacitated when you stopped by.”

I nodded. “That’s right. Are you feeling better? I understand you were upset about Reed’s death.”

Finn bent down and picked up a pink sparkly object. “This your phone?”

“Thanks,” Lisey said. “I… dropped it a few minutes ago.”

We stood there awkwardly for a moment. I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t mean to be nosy, but why did you move out of the cabin? I thought you and Tessa were friends?”

“Tessa doesn’t have friends. She uses people like toilet paper and then flushes them out of her life,” Lisey replied, dropping down to the ground. She sat cross-legged and jabbed at the keypad on her phone. “Shit, I think it’s broken.”

“Let me take a look,” Finn said. He bent and plucked it from her hands.

Lisey started to protest but he shushed her. I watched as she eyeballed him, top to bottom, and then she closed her mouth with a pretty little pout. Finn’s blue polo shirt matched his eyes and his slacks were clean and pressed, and I tried to see him as she did, but it was no good. I knew him too well.

I squatted down beside Lisey and within a few seconds, my knees and quads were screaming, so I lowered myself all the way down to my butt. The ground was grassy and comfortable and I sighed, the weight off my feet. It was going to be a hell of a struggle getting up but for the time being, I was content.

“Lisey, I don’t follow,” I began. “I was under the impression that you and Tessa were… close.”