Wicked Girl (THE FIRE Book 1) Read online

  With my eyes blinking rapidly, I looked at my stomach and realized they were all, including the kids, staring at the big stains of blood on my cream white jacket.

  Blood! On my jacket! For the first time, I learned there were blood stains on my jacket. Fear of my mind cut through me again. I quickly rubbed my hand on the stains and my hand turned red like I touched a fresh wound.

  Jane grabbed her two younger kids by their hands. She shouted to the two older ones to run home. Karen stared at my eyes for a few seconds and did the same thing as Jane – except, she didn’t run. She strolled to her house.

  I was confused but I managed to say, “Um…Where is Grace? Grace is missing. She …” But I was talking to myself.

  Jane turned and gave me an ugly eye before disappearing into her house, which was adjacent to Karen’s – house 44. Karen’s, house 43, was closer to mine, but she went in last. Her kids were terrified by Jane’s behavior and ran into the house, but she didn’t. They turned and shouted, “Mom, run!” She didn’t. She walked like a couple madly in love in the park on a summer afternoon.

  I sighed and rubbed my chin. I didn’t know what to do. I only wanted to ask the ladies if they had seen anyone knock at my door. That’s all. But they were scared away by the blood. I had no idea where it came from. I was also surprised at them. Unfortunately.

  The understanding part of me didn’t blame them though: I came with big, fresh blood spatters on my jacket, and when they asked about Grace, I said she was missing.

  But I wished…I knew I had not killed her as they thought. They had to believe me and stop being ridiculous. Nothing had changed – I was still the simple Elijah they knew – Grace was genuinely missing.

  I overheated. The last thing I expected from Karen and Jane was a cold shoulder when I told them their neighbor and friend was missing. I expected them to be shocked and help mobilize people to form search parties. They ought to support me whilst I did everything to find her. But they took me for a stupid murderer and abandoned me. They rubbed pepper on a bare wound. More especially Karen. She had to take a stand on her own and trust me – forget the queen of overreacting. She knew me way more than Jane, after all. At some point, she even pushed to know me more than Grace herself.

  I looked at their bluish white snowman smiling at me – laughing actually. I quickly drew close and kicked it in the stomach. It crumbled instantly. The black hat fell on the road. Suddenly, I realized I had messed up. When I turned and stared at Karen’s house, I noticed she was staring at me through her living room window. Even Jane stared at me. I didn’t see her but felt her angry eyes penetrating my skin – probably from the bedroom upstairs.

  Obviously, I had to apologize. I stared at the black hat fast turning white on the road. I walked to Karen’s house first. She disappeared from the window. I knocked at the door, but she didn’t respond. “Karen, I’m sorry about the snowman; it wasn’t intentional.”

  At that point, I hated myself. Here I was apologizing for crushing a useless snowman, instead of running all over New York looking for my love. I felt clumsy.

  Karen shouted, probably from the dining room, “Elijah, please leave or I will call the police.”

  I laughed, not believing my ears. Karen wanted to call the police on me! The same Karen I helped – protected a million times when her violent ex-husband would almost kill her with kicks, punches, bottles…and a pistol. Honestly, I expected a lot from Karen, probably Jane could act the way she did – she wasn’t that close to Grace and me, but Karen was like a younger sister to me. “Karen, why are you treating me like this? Please talk to me at least.”

  “I will call the police. Please leave, don’t involve me in whatever you have done,” Karen said.

  “Mommy, who are you talking to?” Dave, the youngest of Karen’s kids, asked.

  “Karen,” I shouted, “Okay, I will leave now, but please…”

  A blue Audi A5 stopped in front of Jane’s house with a squeak of tires. It was her beefy husband. He gave me a scary stare, shaking his head before running into their house.

  “Karen,” I said. “Let me ask one question and then I will leave.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Whilst building the snowman did you see anyone climb to my veranda and knock on my door?”

  “Elijah, please leave. Now you want to recruit me to be your witness and lie to the jury. You know very well you were the first person to walk on the snow in your yard. Before you came out, it was smooth and untouched. Elijah, please leave.”

  A few blocks away, I heard a police car siren rushing towards our street. I ran to my house. I dropped on the couch, still clumsy and bleeding inside. I was like Jesus on the night He was betrayed by His friend, Judas Iscariot.

  Out of all people! Karen! Yes, I was mature enough to understand that people shouldn’t be trusted, but I never classified Karen as people. To Grace and me, she was someone – a little sister, perhaps, not people. All her problems were ours. And we expected all our problems to be hers. Unfortunately, the very first time I desperately needed her help, she shut me out and threatened me with police and the jury. I was sour. Very much so. It was like I had been run over by a Boeing 747.

  Losing Grace was horrible enough. But Karen took things to another level, and I couldn’t comprehend why.

  The police siren drew closer. My body temperature rose even though I knew I was innocent. I didn’t kill Grace; I wanted my lovely wife alive, obviously. It’s just that I also feared the blood thing. Since I had no cuts, I also failed to understand where it came from. I hastened to the bathroom to clean up my jacket. The police car pulled over outside and turned the siren off.

  10:02 AM

  I stood at the living room window, watching the two detectives having a conversation with Karen, Jane, and her husband in front of Karen’s house. The two women moved up and down narrating and demonstrating what they saw. But it was Jane who was more vocal. Probably, Karen did feel guilty for treating me like a criminal when she knew how much I went out of my way to help her. At times, I would even clash with my own wife because of her. I don’t know how many times Grace blamed me for treating Karen gentler than her. I couldn’t even blame her. I also felt unsure if Karen was always genuine or hitting on me, until one fateful night.

  She invited me for dinner when she knew very well Grace was in Boston. I enjoyed the meal but the whole thing wasn’t cool at all – there was obvious tension. And we both knew we were not supposed to eat together if Grace wasn’t with us. Also, the decor in the dim dining room was romantic – almost everything was reddish – scented candles were the only source of light. Barry White, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston… sang softly in the background. Even her crimson evening gown made me very uncomfortable. It made me sweat a lot, in fact. After the great Italian dish, I had a few spoons of the wonderful trifle she had made. Then, I rose and thanked her for the dinner. I knew I had to terminate the flow of planned events and leave or I would mess up my marriage and dignity. But she also jumped to her feet and asked me not to go. “Please, El. I will do anything for you.” She rolled her brown eyes and started undressing, coming towards me, whispering, “El, let’s run away from everything, from everybody. I love you. I’m tired of this torment in my heart.”

  I ran out. I laughed as I walked to my house, shocked.

  Karen and I lived a life of a cat and a rat thereafter. I was the rat, of course. I reached a point where I stopped going to her house alone since she escalated her seduction stunts to almost irresistible intensities. Also, she never ceased beseeching me to run away with her or divorce Grace and marry her.

  I slapped the window, feeling bad I wasn’t doing anything to find Grace. A part of me found reporting the matter to the police close to nothing for they always say they do their best. Their best, which falls short of good results in some cases. Nobody wants to be called to identify a body – everybody wants to drive a loved one home safe and sound.

  Jane pointed at the crumbled snowman
and kicked, demonstrating how I brought it down. She also pointed at Karen’s house. Then Karen took over. She seemed to be telling them that I came to her house.

  My posture collapsed, and I clutched myself, gripping both elbows. My body felt heavier. I failed to comprehend what was going on in Karen’s small head. How could she dare score points to her friends, to the police, using my name during my hour of dire desperation? Where were all those people when she screamed my name, scared for her life?

  Bitterness swept through again. Clearly, I wasn’t doing enough to find my love. Instead, I was destructed by stupid, overacting neighbors. I also felt angry at the two detectives for responding to their call. Rather than directing every resource towards finding Grace as they had promised that night, they were out to waste time.

  As I tried to recall the detective’s names without success, they walked towards my house. I almost ran through the back door, but I stood still. I knew I was not guilty. I even reported Grace’s disappearance that night. I didn’t even wait for the following day. If I was guilty, I would have at least, waited for the next day. And I would have a solid alibi. A receipt, perhaps. But I had nothing solid. I wouldn’t consider Kim a solid alibi. Someone who still believed in tooth fairies that exchange milk teeth under the pillow for cash.

  The cops knocked. For whatever reason, my temperature rose. Nevertheless, I welcomed them in and explained what happened, starting from the call, the knock and then the blood on my jacket, which was probably mine, I explained. Making them buy my story wasn’t difficult because they were the ones who came early in the morning when I reported Grace’s disappearance. Detective Eleanor Reid, the stunning female detective, took notes most of the time whilst Detective Edward Howell asked the questions.

  “So this is the jacket you are talking about?” Detective Howell said, pointing at me with his head.

  “Yes, it’s this one,” I said a little ashamed. I had just realized the living room wasn’t fit to host visitors. My kicked-off shoes, Kim’s dolls, and the doll’s cutlery were scattered all over the rug. Even the empty cans of soda I drank in the evening when the stress mounted were all over the coffee table.

  Detective Howell stared at me. “May we go with it? We need to conduct some tests on it. Just to be sure. As you say, it might be your blood, but we have got to be sure.”

  My heart hit harder on my chest. Yes, I knew I did no harm to Grace. And the blood on the jacket wasn’t hers. I hadn’t done anything to hurt my wife, but there was one problem – I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure where the blood came from. Only if –

  “Mr. Turner,” Detective Reid called.

  I almost jumped. I looked at them as they exchanged glances. “I’m so sorry.”

  I gave them the jacket. They loaded it in a transparent bag. Then they promised they were doing everything they could to find Grace – no leads yet, since every account she owns had been dormant in the past twelve hours. But they assured me they were doing their best. And since I had signed the publicity consent form, they said her images were already showing on television, websites – print media would start on the following day. Even the radio was spreading the news.

  Glimpses of hope brewed in me. As a blogger, I knew the power of the media.

  Through the window, I watched the officers walk to the road. The three were still waiting for them. Jane and her husband complained to the detectives. I couldn’t hear what they said, but their body language was that of disapproval and disappointment. They threw their hands all over the place and looked like they were shouting. They obviously expected them to arrest me. Karen didn’t say anything; she only stared at my misty living room window. She couldn’t see me, but she knew I was staring at them too. Then she walked back to her house. I longed to know what was going on in her head. Probably, she had recalled I did come to her house and Jane’s the previous night to ask if Grace was with them.

  A disturbing thought crossed my mind, and I quickly raised my eyes to look at Karen again. But I couldn’t see her; she had disappeared into her house. Even the officers had left. But then I thought: “No, it’s a stupid, far-fetched theory – Karen wouldn’t take her obsession to the next level by killing Grace. No, she wouldn’t. But what if she did – what if some savages she hired had Grace in a black van, driving to the woods to kill her, probably after raping her.”

  I slapped the couch behind me. The thought of Grace being raped made me feel sick. I rushed to the bedroom and put on a coat, a black one. I walked fast to the bus station. I had to catch the 11:00 bus – the noon one seemed decades away. I rushed cautiously though. The snow removers were not done yet. The road and pavements were still white and slippery. Besides, the snow was still falling. But it fell in tolerable magnitudes. Magnitudes that only made trees, plants, and houses white and Christmas Eve-ish. Roads remained usable.

  I stopped on the road, thinking probably, I was taking things too far. Probably, I was being unfair to Karen, like I was taking revenge for the way she treated me earlier. But deep down, I knew I wasn’t revenging; a part of me suspected her. And it felt okay, even if our relationship could be messed up forever. As long as I was doing something to get my Grace back, it didn’t matter. My love for Grace would make me do anything. I would even kill for her. Our love had reached a point where it wasn’t just a warm feeling within but genuine love, genuine caring, and genuine respect.

  I proceeded to pace to the bus station. I wasn’t being unfair to Karen. She deserved to be listed as a suspect.

  11:01 AM

  Anger caught me off-guard, and I found myself already exchanging heated glances with the bus driver who stared at my hand as I dipped my Metro Card into the fare box, making my payment. I didn’t appreciate his stare – as if I was some crook all out to dodge $5.25. What was that change compared to the heavy log on my shoulders? Besides, my mom and dad raised an upright citizen, not some crook or shoplifter. Even if I forgot to pay, I would walk from home to make the skipped payment.

  Due to the chilly weather, few windows on the bus were open. I ignored the stale atmosphere and balanced with the dangling, leather hand loops until I found a seat in the middle, among the quiet folks minding their own business. The loudest noises around me came from a passenger’s earphones and of course, the occasional rattling of newspapers. One lady had a baby singing a song only the mom understood. The front seats were taken already. The backseats had energetic folks. They were debating about the previous elections – the new president, in particular. Some debated against him and his policies, claiming he would be impeached before his term ends. Some claimed he would be the best president in history since he had a business background, not a political one. Others talked about the New York Giants’ pitiless victory over the weekend.

  In my normal days, I would sit with the folks chatting about football. But as things were, nothing mattered to me. Football. Money. Life. Food. Nothing meant anything, except finding Grace alive, unharmed. So it fitted me well to sit among the quiet folks, thinking or busy on their cell phones or tablets. However, even the engine irritated me as it revved and rumbled on Vanderbilt Ave, heading towards the 278 Interstate Highway.

  Those who talked about the Giants’ victory were unfair to me. They made my mind jump to Saturday afternoons – Leon and I screaming and running all over the living room when the Giants had scored. Tears began racing down my cheeks.

  I wiped them and tried focusing outside, on the Christmas Eve-ish view to avoid sinking even deeper and fueling the weeping. But I could not completely avoid them. I could even hear that the weekend game was terrific.

  I yawned so loudly that some old lady in a blanket- like, light brown coat across the aisle glanced at me. She smiled when our eyes met. I only managed a grin and looked at the other side, outside – lest she started a conversation. I was too messed up, hungry and exhausted to small-talk about a lot of nothing. It was definitely my heart pushing me to press on; otherwise, my body demanded many hours of bedtime and a full meal for I had skipp
ed supper and breakfast.

  I found myself scanning every young woman with long brown hair and an hourglass figure, walking next to the road. The bad part was that I wasn’t the one driving the bus. I couldn’t slow it down when I saw someone extremely close. A curious individual observing my moves must have thought I was counting all the pedestrians walking the road. My head did quick front – back, front – back, front – back movements.

  I felt peaceful that at least, I was going to furnish the detectives with a name. An evil suspect they could target. For the first time, she would have to answer for hitting on a married man – a man married to her friend. She would explain how far her obsession propelled her. And more importantly, where she kept Grace.

  “Jesus!” I screamed reflexively, “Grace.” Unfortunately, I drew lots of attention. I pulled the wire and rushed to the front.

  The driver glanced at my face. “We are four minutes away from the next stop, relax sir.”

  He must have recalled I gave him an ugly stare, I thought. And he decided to seize the opportunity to take revenge. “Please, drop me here. Please,” I said, gazing at him.

  “Sir you know, rules are rules. And it’s you folks who report us,” the driver said.

  “Stop the bus!” I screamed, surprising myself for acting that way in public. My eyes even widened. I had never acted so militantly in front of dozens of strangers. Only Grace had witnessed such episodes before, not the public.

  The bus went dead quiet; you could hear an ant coughing. At the corner of my eye, I saw all the people staring at me. Some were shaking their heads. Others seemed frightened, probably thinking I would take out a gun and shoot some of them to show the driver I was serious. But I didn’t care how anybody viewed me. They had no idea how it felt to be me at that point in time – definitely, none of them could handle being me.