Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

Chris shrugged. “Thanks, I guess. Where did you hear—”

“I have a friend at James Monroe, and she has a blog,” Serena explained before he finished asking the question. “I see you didn’t let my mother, the Wicked Bitch of the West, scare you away. What happened to the woman you were with? She’s not your mother, is she? She looked too young.”

“She’s my step mother,” Chris explained. “She’s on her way home.” He spied Mr. Corson’s sister across the room and pulled Serena into a corner. He hoped a potted palm by the wall blocked the woman’s view of them. “You said something about your aunt getting ready to leave your uncle before he was killed,” he whispered.

She nodded. “More than ‘getting ready.’ She actually moved out, took my bratty three-year-old cousin, Todd, and went to her sister’s in Yakima. Uncle Ray had to drive to Yakima to visit Todd. But he didn’t complain. In fact, he renewed his life insurance and kept Aunt Jenna on as the beneficiary. My mom’s still pissed off about that.”

“But you said your aunt was back again. . ”

“That’s right. While she was in Yakima, she had movers take her stuff from the house to this apartment she rented in Kent. I guess she wanted to be closer to Seattle in case my crazy cousin, Tracy, ever decides to come home. Aunt Jenna’s there now, only my mother wants everyone to think she’s still in Yakima, crying her eyes out or something like that. Todd’s in Yakima with her sister, but my aunt’s at her new apartment in Kent. She just didn’t want to come to Uncle Ray’s wake.”

“Why not?” Chris asked, frowning.

Serena shrugged. “Beats me. And Aunt Jenna’s paying for this thing. You’d think she’d want to put in an appearance. I heard my mother on the phone with her last night, begging her to come, saying ‘How do you think it’ll look if you don’t show up?’ and shit like that. If you ask me, Aunt Jenna just didn’t want to be a hypocrite.” She squinted at Chris. “Why are you so anxious to see my Aunt Jenna?”

“I want to tell her that I’m sorry,” Chris admitted. “Maybe explain things to her, set the record straight.”

“You mean, about you and Uncle Ray?”

He nodded.

“I heard he was trying to fuck you,” she said.

“You heard wrong,” Chris replied soberly. “Was that on your friend’s blog, too?”

“Yeah,” she said, half smiling.

“Terrific,” he grumbled. He glanced over toward where her mother had been earlier, and she was no longer there. Chris looked around, but didn’t see her. A panic swept through him. He didn’t want another chewing-out from her. He turned toward Serena again. “Listen, do you know where in Kent your aunt is staying? Do you have the address?”

She shrugged. “Well, not on me. It’s one of those new apartment complexes near Southcenter Mall.”

Chris suddenly spotted Mr. Corson’s sister emerging from a group of mourners nearby. She started toward him and Serena.

“Oh, shit,” he murmured. “Listen, I got to go, thanks a lot—”

Ms. Corson was pointing at him. “You. .”

Just then, a smartly dressed older woman with silver hair grabbed her arm. “Sherry? Sherry, dear, I’m so sorry about Ray. I remember when the two of you were just kids, and you had those skateboards. . ”

Ms. Corson stopped and talked to the older woman. Her smile looked forced.

“Thanks again,” Chris whispered to Serena. He almost knocked over the potted palm as he hurried out of the room. He saw a sign on the wall between a tall grandfather clock and the edge of a corridor: RESTROOMS, OFFICES.

Chris retreated down the hallway and into the men’s room. It smelled like cinnamon-scented urinal cakes. Ducking into a stall, he caught his breath and waited for a few minutes. He figured Serena’s mother wouldn’t come after him in there.

He stood by the toilet with hands in his jacket pockets. He wondered why Mr. Corson’s wife hadn’t come to his funeral. Did Mrs. Corson believe the lies broadcast on the blogs?

More than ever, he needed to see her and explain that her dead husband had never done anything inappropriate — at least, not with him. He owed Mr. Corson that much. He wished he could get her address somehow.

He took his hands out of his pockets, and his sunglasses fell out. They landed beside the toilet. He was about to pick them up off the floor, but he heard the bathroom door squeak open, then footsteps. Chris froze. The person seemed to stop just outside the stall. He tried to peek through the gap where the door was hinged, but he couldn’t see anybody.

“Chris?” he heard someone whisper. It was a girl’s voice.

“Serena?” he said, ready to open the door. But when she didn’t answer right away, he hesitated. “Serena?” he asked again.

“Chris, it’s about to start,” she whispered. The voice didn’t belong to Serena, he could tell.

“Who’s there?” He fumbled with the door lock, trying to undo it. “What are you talking about?”

“The killing is about to start.”

“What?” he murmured. A chill raced through him.

There was no response, just footsteps on the tile floor again, and the restroom door yawning.

Chris twisted the lock another way and finally pulled open the stall door. He raced out to the corridor. It was empty. How could she have moved that fast? He knocked on the women’s room door. There was no response, so he peeked inside at the small lounge area with a settee, chairs, and a dressing table — with two boxes of Kleenex on it.

He ventured through the next doorway. He heard a steady drip from one of the sink faucets. The washroom looked empty, but two of the three stall doors were closed. Chris crouched down and peered at the openings between the floor and the bottom of the doors. He didn’t see anybody’s feet. He straightened up.

“What are you doing in here?”

Chris swiveled around and saw a middle-aged woman with stiff-looking platinum-blond hair gaping at him from the doorway.

“Um, sorry,” he managed to say. “I was looking for my sister.”

She just stared at him, a hand on her pearl necklace.

“You didn’t — you didn’t happen to see a girl run up the hallway a minute ago, did you?” he asked. “Maybe she was in the lobby?”

Frowning, the blond lady shook her head. “If you don’t mind, young man, I’d like to use the facilities.”

“Sure, sorry, excuse me,” Chris muttered, brushing past her, and then out the doorway.

He glanced down the corridor again, thinking maybe Serena had ducked into an empty office. That must have been her in the bathroom, playing a joke on him. She knew his name. Who else could it have been? She’d done a good job disguising her voice. But why would she say that? The killing is about to start. Leave it to a Goth girl to think that was funny.

Chris noticed a long window along the wall farther down the hallway. The wooden venetian blinds on the other side of the glass were slanted open wide enough for him to look into an office. A pale, balding, thirtyish man with black-rimmed glasses sat in front of a computer screen on one of the two sleek mahogany desks. The small office was nicely appointed with hunter-green walls, bookcases full of what looked like catalogs, and a window overlooking Cal Anderson Park. In his black suit, black tie, and dark blue shirt ensemble, the man at the desk seemed to take his job in the funeral parlor very seriously.

Chris knocked on the door, and then opened it. “Excuse me, hi,” he said.

The man glanced up at him, thinly disguising his annoyance. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, did you see a girl run down the hallway here a few minutes ago?” Chris asked.