Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

“Hi,” Chris said. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to find the woman who used to live here, Jenna Corson.”

The woman shook her head. “She didn’t leave a forwarding address. I can’t help you.” She shut the door.

Chris felt a huge letdown. Slump-shouldered, he stood by that door for another moment.

Suddenly, it opened again. “Hey,” the woman said, peeking out at him. She bounced the toddler in her arms. “Try Monica Ballitore in three-G, one flight up. She was a friend of hers. She might know where you can find her.”

“Thanks a lot,” Chris said. Then he hurried up the stairs to apartment 3-G and knocked on the door. He heard footsteps, and then someone’s voice on the other side. “Yeah, who’s there?” she called.

“I’m looking for Monica Ballitore!” Chris replied loudly.

The door swung open. “That’s me,” she said. “Who are you?”

Chris stared at the fortysomething woman. She had frizzy brown hair and a birthmark on her cheek. An unlit cigarette was in her hand.

“Your name’s Monica Ballitore?” he asked.

She nodded. “Have we met?”

“Yes,” Chris said steadily. “Jenna Corson sort of introduced us. Do you know where she is?”

“I don’t have a clue. I haven’t heard from her since she moved. You look really familiar. Just where did Jenna sort of introduce us?”

“In her apartment,” Chris replied. “You pretended to be her.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, Christ, you’re the little shit who caused all that trouble for her husband.”

Chris remembered calling Mrs. Corson from his cell phone. In order to get in and see her, he’d said he was a floral delivery guy. But he’d been uncertain whether or not she’d figured out his ruse. With a little help from caller ID, she’d have found him out.

Obviously she had. He never met Jenna Corson. He’d met her friend.

“Why did Mrs. Corson make you pretend to be her?” he asked.

Monica Ballitore sneered at him. “I don’t have to answer any questions from you.”

“She didn’t come to her husband’s funeral,” Chris said. “Is it because she didn’t want anyone to know what she looked like? Did she already have some sort of plan to get even with us? Was she making sure she could move onto our block, and no one would figure out who she really was?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she replied, frowning. “You’re gonna have to leave now.”

“Please, listen to me,” he begged her. “I need to know where Mrs. Corson is. It’s urgent.”

“Well, good luck,” she said. “A while back, I asked the apartment building management company if they had a forwarding address or contact information for her, and they’ve got nothing, nada, zilch.”

“You still haven’t told me why you pretended to be her that day,” he said.

“Because, Jenna asked me,” Monica Ballitore replied edgily. “She didn’t want to see you—”

“All that stuff you said to me about how I destroyed your family, and how you didn’t want to see me again — did she tell you to say that?”

She nodded. “Yeah, and considering what you put her through, you have some nerve coming back here, sniffing around.”

Chris glared at her. “My parents were both murdered, and your friend Jenna Corson is the one who had them killed. That’s why I’m ‘sniffing around’ here. I need some help finding her. You owe me at least that much. Do you have a picture of her?”

The woman let out a defiant laugh. She put the cigarette in her mouth and stepped back to close the door. “Fuck off,” she muttered.

“Don’t you tell me that,” Chris growled. “Don’t you dare tell me that. . ” He shoved the door open.

The woman staggered back. The cigarette fell out of her mouth, and she screamed. “Get out of here! Get out right now, you son of a bitch!” She reeled back and slapped him across the face.

It stung. Chris stopped himself. He realized he’d barged into the front part of her apartment. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides. He took a deep breath and backed out of the doorway. “I won’t ask you any more questions, lady,” he said evenly. “But the police sure as hell will.”

He turned away and the door slammed shut behind him.

His heart racing, Chris started down the stairs. He had tears in his eyes. As he reached the bottom of the stairwell, his cell phone went off. He didn’t realize how much he was shaking until he pulled out the phone and checked the caller number. It was home. He clicked on the cell. “Molly?” he said, out of breath.

“Hi, Chris, I’m glad I caught you.” She sounded tense. “Listen, did you — did you decide to pick up Erin from school?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I just came back from the bus stop,” Molly said. “I was going to meet her. But the bus just zoomed on by. I figured maybe you’d picked her up at school.”

“No,” he said numbly. “No, I didn’t.”

“Damn, I was hoping she’d be with you,” Molly said. “I suppose she’s still angry at me. Did she say anything to you? Maybe she went home with a friend. . ”

“She didn’t mention it to me.”

“Okay, well, then I–I’ll call the school,” she said in a shaky voice.

Chris felt a pang of dread in his gut. “Let me know as soon as you hear anything,”

“I will. Listen, Chris, I’d feel a lot better if you were here. Come home as soon as you can, okay?”

“I might be a while,” he said. “I’m way down in Kent.”

“What are you doing there?”

“I was looking for Mrs. Corson,” he admitted.

There was a silence on the other end for a few seconds. “Why are you looking for her?” Molly asked finally.

“You know why, Molly. I think you’ve been right all along. I’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Good,” she said. Then she hung up.

“She was wearing a navy-blue jumper with a pink long-sleeved turtleneck,” Molly said into the phone.

She stood at Jeff’s desk, looking out the window at the street. She kept hoping someone would come by and drop off Erin — or maybe Rachel would return. But Molly hadn’t seen a single car drive by since she’d come home. All the other houses on the cul-de-sac were empty. It was 4:25 and getting dark out.

Erin should have been on that bus forty minutes ago. Since then, Molly had called Chris and the moms of several of Erin’s friends to make sure she hadn’t gone home with someone else. Erin had hugged her good-bye this morning, but that had been the first and only sign in a few days that her stepdaughter didn’t absolutely loathe her.

Now, Molly wondered if Erin didn’t have a damn good reason for hating her — and for running away this afternoon. Perhaps Erin had been unjustly accused of destroying her painting and that shelf full of elephants.

Erin would have had to use a stool, chair, or stepladder to reach that putty knife on the second to top shelf of the cabinet. And if she’d used something to boost herself up to that shelf, why would she bother putting it back exactly where it had been? The putty knife had been left on the floor, and the tube of paint had been left out with the cap off. Why move the chair, stool, or stepladder back where it belonged?

Yet Molly had found yellow paint smears in Erin’s room and on her clothes. Had somebody set her up? Chris wouldn’t have framed his kid sister and let her take the heat for something he’d done. It just didn’t make sense. But the only other people in the house had been Rachel and Trish.

If Erin had indeed been innocent of the sabotage, then who could blame her for wanting to run away from home — and her crazy, wicked stepmother? Maybe she was sulking in a playground somewhere between the school and here. Molly couldn’t help feeling conflicted about phoning the school and possibly sending out an Amber Alert.