Maggie Shayne - Sleep with the Lights On

Looping the rope around a post, he climbed out of the boat, pulled himself up onto the old wooden dock, and realized that it was getting harder. He’d been putting on weight. His joints ached. Thirty-eight. He shouldn’t feel this bad at thirty-eight.

He walked toward the cabin, past the tire swing that dangled from the giant maple tree at the water’s edge. He and his kid brother used to swing out on that tire and try to see who could land farther out in the lake. He smiled as he remembered. They’d had a lot of fun here as kids. His own boys played the same game. Or used to. He hadn’t had the heart to bring them up here in a long, long time.

He’d polluted the water with the blood of his victims. He should have found a different place to put them to rest. Hell, he should have done a lot of things differently. But he was broken, and he didn’t know why. He only knew that he had to find a way to fix himself. To keep the rat sealed behind the wall, keep it there until this time it starved to death.

He walked past the cabin, not going inside. His pickup was parked in front. The hammer, already washed and dried, was hanging back in its spot in the toolshed. There was nothing more to do. And if he could just hold on to his willpower, there never would be. He got into his white F-150 and drove. He needed to be home with his family and to forget about this morning’s task. Forget, if he could, about all of those pretty, pretty boys.

1

If the bullshit I wrote was true, I wouldn’t have been standing in the middle of a beehive where all the bees were cops—not one worker bee in the hive, either— trying to get someone interested in finding out what had happened to my brother.

Then again, if the bullshit I wrote was true, I wouldn’t be holding a white-tipped cane in my hand, either. But the bullshit I wrote was just that. Bullshit.

Solid-gold bullshit, though. Which was, after all, why I kept writing it.

“Look, I’m going to need to talk to someone else,” I said to the queen bee behind the tall counter. My fingertips rested on the front edge, which was up to my chest. Smooth wood, with that slightly tacky feel from being none too clean. I took my fingers away, but the sticky residue remained. Ick.

“And just who else would you like to talk to?” the queen bee asked.

“Are you getting sarcastic with me now?” I leaned nearer. “How about I talk to your boss, then?”

“Ma’am, that attitude of yours is not going to help. I told you, your case is getting the same attention any other missing persons case would get from this office.”

“The same attention as any other missing homeless heroin-addict case, you mean?”

“We do not discriminate here.”

“Not on the basis of intelligence, anyway.”

When her voice came again, it came from way closer. She was, I surmised, leaning over her tall counter. I could smell her chewing gum. Dentyne Ice. “Never thought I’d be so tempted to smack a blind woman upside her head,” she muttered. It was probably supposed to be under her breath, but I had hearing like a freakin’ bat. I heard everything. Every nuance. So I knew she meant it.

“Want to try it now?” I asked. “Because I promise you, I will—”

“Miss de Luca? Is it really you?”

That woman’s voice wasn’t angry. It was adoring, and coming from about seven o’clock. That was how I found things. A clock inside my head where I was always the center. You know, the pin that held the hands in place so they could spin all around me while I stood still. It was an accurate illustration in more ways than one.

I closed my eyes behind my sunglasses, shut my mouth, pasted a fake smile on my face and turned. Sometimes not being able to look in the mirror and see how far I missed the mark from the expression I thought I was making was a blessing, and I suspected this was one of those times.

“Rachel de Luca? The author, right?” The woman was moving toward me as she spoke. I waited until she got just two and a half steps from me before extending my hand. Any farther, you looked like an idiot. Any closer... Any closer was too damn close. I liked three feet of space around me at all times. It was one of a whole collection of quirks I held dearly.

“Last time I checked,” I said, pouring sugar into the words, using my “famous author” voice. “And you are?”

“Oh, gosh, this is such a thrill!” She gripped my hand. Cool and small. She smelled like sunblock, sweat and sneakers. Tinny, nearly inaudible music wafted from somewhere near her neck, and I could hear her pulse beat behind her words. No, seriously, I could. I told you, I hear everything. My brain snapped an immediate mental photo. She was too thin, an exercise nut, five-one or so, probably blonde. Her earbuds were dangling, iPod still playing, heart still hammering from a recent run. She probably didn’t even hear it. Hearing loss due to cramming speakers into one’s ear holes and cranking the volume. Joggers were the worst offenders. Sighted people didn’t appreciate how valuable their hearing was.

Also, she had a beaky little nose and bad teeth.

Don’t ask. I have no freaking idea how I get my mental snapshots of people. I just do. I don’t know if they’re anywhere near accurate, either. Never bothered to ask anyone or feel any faces. (Give me a break, people, it’s just disgusting to go around pawing strangers like that.)

And she’d been talking while I’d been sketching her on my brain easel. Sally something. Big fan. Read all my books. Changed her life. The usual.

“Glad to hear my methods are working for you,” I said. “And it’s great to meet you, but I have—”

“I’m so glad I came in to check on my missing poodle,” she said. “I think she was dog-napped. But I’m staying positive. You know, I used to lose my temper all the time,” she went on. “I’d fight with my husband, my teenage daughter—and don’t even get me started on my mother-in-law. But then I started writing your words on index cards and taping them all over my house.”

“That’s really—” fucking pathetic “—nice to hear. But like I said, I—”

“‘If you get up in the morning and stub your toe, go back to bed and start over,’” she quoted. “I love that one. Such a metaphor for everything in life, really. Oh, oh, and ‘When you’re spitting venom onto others, you’re only poisoning yourself.’ That’s one of my favorites.”

The woman behind the counter snorted derisively and muttered, “Oughtta be droppin’ dead any minute now, then,” just loud enough for me to hear. If I had been the metaphorical cobra in my metaphorical affirmation, I would have spun around and spat a healthy dose of venom into her eye to keep her from costing me a reader.

“Sally,” I said, struggling for patience. No, that’s not true at all. My patience was long gone. I was struggling to hang on to the illusion of it, though. “Like I said—” twice now “—it’s nice to meet you, but I actually have something important I need to do here.” This is a police station after all. I mean, do you really think I’m here for shits and giggles, lady?

“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry.” She put her hand on my shoulder. Familiar. Like we were friends now.

I almost cringed. People think they can touch you when you’re blind. I have no idea why. I hear pregnant women complain about the same thing, but of course I’ve never seen it.

“I hope everything’s all right. Not that I’m asking, of course.”

Yes she was.

“I’ll go.” Two steps, but then the parting shot. I was ready for it, even guessing which one it would be. “Remember, Rachel,” she called back, her overly happy tone making me restrain a gag. “‘What you be is what you see’!”

She left as I tried to remember which of my books had contained that particular piece of crapola. Her sneakers squeaked as she trotted away, until the sound got lost amid the buzz of the drones.