Stephanie Doyle - Possessed

Cautiously, she opened the door. “What do you want?” Instantly, she found herself on the defensive. Considering his prior verbal assault, she decided it was the smart place to be.

“To talk.”

“We talked last night. I heard every word you said.”

As she moved to shut the door, he put his hand against the frame. Part of her felt no qualms about slamming the heavy door against his fingers. A few broken appendages might teach him a lesson, but it wasn’t her style.

“Let me rephrase. I need to talk to you.”

And that’s when it occurred to her why he had come. He knew about the second victim.

“Someone told you.”

“I have…”

“Connections,” she finished.

“Yes. Can I come in?”

Against every reasonable instinct she had, she backed away from the door and let him inside. “For a few minutes. That’s all.”

Malcolm came in but stopped short as he took in her apartment. “You don’t believe in furniture, or you can’t afford it?”

“Don’t need it,” she answered quickly, remembering his comment about her coat. She took note of the Rolex watch on his wrist. Even his blue jeans sported a brand name that probably wasn’t often found on construction sites. This was a man who believed in having things. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “Don’t worry. I’m not a destitute waif.” Just jobless and short.

“I’m not,” he said quickly. “Worried that is. What happened to your lip?”

“Bit it. You wanted to talk.”

Malcolm hesitated. Staring down at her in her pajama bottoms and oversize sweater, he was immediately seized with the realization that the idea that had brought him rushing to her door could very well be absurd.

Suddenly agitated, he moved inside the spartan room.

It’s just that when he received the call about the second attack, his contact at the police station had told him that the body was found by the same woman who had questioned him at the station the night before.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Instantly Malcolm had phoned Brody to let him know that he wanted her brought in for questioning regarding the murders, but he’d been practically laughed off the phone and assured that he was wrong.

He should have suspected as much. Detective Brody had seemed quite friendly with her. The two of them must have some sort of relationship. He concluded that they were sleeping with each other. Maybe she had seduced the detective to protect herself from suspicion. Or possibly to get close to the case. To know every move the police made. It didn’t matter.

What did matter was that she was involved in his sister’s death. There was no question about that in Malcolm’s mind. He knew it because she had obviously known Lauren. She’d spoken with her, learned about her life and her history with him. Heard the story about the nurse from her.

It was the only explanation. If she knew Lauren, had gotten close enough to her to extract such insignificant details like that story, then why hadn’t she said as much to the detective?

The only reasonable answer was that she’d had something to do with her death. If the police weren’t going to arrest her or even question her about it, then he was.

However, standing here now in front of her, he didn’t see how it was possible.

Lauren was at least several inches taller. Probably twenty pounds heavier, too, yet she’d been overtaken, beaten, stabbed…by a waif?

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you,” he began, unsure of how to address her.

“Cass is fine.”

“Short for Cassandra?”

She nodded once.

“Cassandra is lovely name,” he said, stalling for time. This was insane. He should go, but the story kept banging around inside his head. Only Lauren, him, the nurse and his parents had known about what happened in that hospital room. Yet she knew. How?

Exhausted after being up for more than thirty hours, he tried to force his brain to make some sense of the facts. The waif knew Lauren. Lauren was dead. The waif was lying. To protect someone?

What if the murderer was here? Or, if not, maybe he left something behind. He should search the apartment. Search it and find…what? The bloody knife lying in the sink under a stack of dirty plates? It didn’t seem likely.

“It’s Greek legend stuff,” Cass said, filling in the silence. “Cassandra could predict the future. Apollo came down from the mountain one day to woo her, but of course she would have none of it. Apollo sounds like an ass, doesn’t he? Always forcing himself on the mortals.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not up on Greek mythology.”

Malcolm moved beyond the kitchen into the living room and saw the cats. He also saw the yoga mat and next to it some rubber bands that he knew from his experience in gyms were Pilates equipment. He turned and studied her again, this time concentrating on her body under the oversize sweater. Thin, yes. But that didn’t necessarily mean weak.

“Ahh.” She winced and gripped her stomach with her hand.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Cramps. Anyway, when Cassandra spurned Apollo, he cursed her. No one would ever believe her prophecies again. A hell of a thing to know you speak the truth, but to have no one believe you. I give my mother credit. She picked the absolute right name for me before she split.”

He looked up from his continuing assessment of her body when she stopped talking. He knew she’d caught him looking at her, staring really, but he didn’t care. Maybe she would chalk it up as typical male perusal. With her elegant face, jet-black hair and green eyes, he had to imagine she was used to the attention.

In fact it occurred to him that she was stunning. He hadn’t noticed that last night when he’d called her disgusting.

The knife, he caught himself. He was supposed to be looking for a knife.

“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” he asked. “I want to splash some water on my face. It’s been a long night.”

She hesitated. He could see it. But eventually she shrugged. “Sure. First door on the right.”

He made his way down the short hallway and took the time to check the door on the other side of the hall. An unmade bed dominated the tiny space. Turning away from the room he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

A small shower with a solid blue shower curtain. A toilet and sink. There was a faded bath mat on the floor, an oversize towel that hung from a rack and a toilet seat cover. All in soft blue. Simple and small. A far cry from his hundred-square-foot master bath.

In fact, it reminded him very much of his first home. The same type of run-down apartment he and his father had lived in before his father had married Malcolm’s very wealthy stepmother. In hindsight, he knew that Lauren’s mother, Becca, hadn’t been as fabulously wealthy as she’d looked through the eyes of a twelve-year-old. But she’d had enough money to make everything easier. It had definitely been a step up for him and his father.

A step that had led to him getting into the right prep school. The right college. Meeting the right people, making the right friends, so that when he was ready to graduate, it seemed the world was open to him, where for so long it had been closed. He and his dad were going to own their own business, make good money together.

But that wasn’t to be.

In a blink one day, his father was gone. A heart attack at a young sixty and it had been over in an instant. Becca died a year later of what Malcolm believed was a broken heart. It had been just him and Lauren, but it seemed like enough. Like family.

He worked hard. For his father’s memory. For Becca’s memory, too. To make her proud of him and to assure her that the opportunities she had given him hadn’t been in vain. But mostly he worked for Lauren. He needed to know that he could give her everything that his father and Becca would have given her if they had lived. That she could have anything she wanted. Not that she ever asked for anything other than his time and attention.