Wicked Girl (THE FIRE Book 1) Read online

  The next few minutes felt like days to them. And the few miles like thousands. And I was also determined to make it even tougher for them by not talking it over with them. I let their consciences do the thorough job. I had thought I would make them see me when I got off at Clinton Hill, but that wouldn’t be severe enough. It would only torment them for a few seconds.

  The bus revved and rumbled. Their hearts must have shrunk with each rev. When I sighed, they almost ran. Both of them shook at once.

  I pulled the wire and walked to the door. As I waited for the bus to stop, I saw them at the corner of my eye sitting upright and glancing at each other. Then I gazed at their eyes. Instantly, they became cornered rats and squinted up, down, east, and west.

  The bus stopped. I got off and walked home.

  My eyes almost fell on my wooden gate when I saw a lady at the veranda in brown boots, a grey long skirt, zebra coat, and a brown scarf. I stopped breathing. “Grace,” I whispered and ran like a child seeing Dad and Mom come home.

  1:55 PM

  My racing heart made me quiver as I sneaked on the crusty snow. I wanted to surprise Grace – she was still focused on the door, knocking, probably thinking I was napping upstairs.

  I recalled I had gone to see Detective Howell about that. I had seen Grace along the road in brown boots, grey long skirt, zebra coat, and a brown scarf. Evidently, I was right.

  My heart beat stronger as I drew closer to her. She was still knocking, looking like she had exhausted all her patience. Just before climbing the steps to the veranda, I screamed, “Surprise!”

  She let out a deafening, brief scream and dropped her cell phone. I quickly imagined Karen and Jane thinking I was killing another woman. But I couldn’t care less. All I cared about was welcoming my lovely wife home. Crazy ideas were already buzzing in my head: Miami Beach was on the cards already.

  Her right hand still on her small chest and almost hyperventilating, she turned slowly. “You almost killed me.”

  However, it was not Grace. It was Chloe, our previous house-keeper.

  All air escaped my stomach like I had been punched hard. Pain and confusion reclaimed their former positions. I ran my hands through my hair and gazed at Chloe. “It’s you, Chloe. I thought it was Grace.”

  The reality struck and shrunk and weakened my shoulders. They slumped. It was hard to take out the keys from my pocket. Grace is still missing.

  Chloe gazed at my disappointed face. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I saw the story on TV and thought I needed to give you a hand, more especially with Kimberly – taking care of her and stuff. Even you.”

  I climbed the steps and opened the door. “Ok, thanks, Chloe. That’s kind of you,” I said, recalling how we badly fired her. Grace’s suspicion was that she was seducing me with her short skirts and funky yoga pants. “Very kind of you, Chloe. Come in.”

  She put her handbag and bag on the couch and scanned the living room. “A lot has changed here. I’m sure you got an interior decorator.”

  I glanced at her. “No, Grace did all the changes you see.” I went to the kitchen. She followed me. I found it hard welcoming her back. I had to talk and be nice to her – in a way, apologize for how we fired her. But I was disappointed by meeting her. Not that I didn’t want her help, but I thought she was Grace. So every word I attempted to speak was suppressed by acute disappointment. Such depressing moments should find you alone, so you just run to your bed and grieve properly – without any disturbance. “Let’s have some coffee.”

  Chloe’s eyes bulged and shrunk her forehead. She shook her head, her eyes fixed on mine. “Oh no. Have a seat,” she said as I opened the cupboard, taking the cookies Grace had baked about four days ago. “I will make the coffee. Please sit.”

  “You sure?” I said, pulling the seat facing the sink.

  “What do you mean, El? Of course, I’m your housekeeper. I’m back and at your service,” she said already at the sink, filling the silver, black handled kettle with water. “Grace has a gift, I tell you. Even the kitchen is so out of this world. Grey dishwasher, grey fridge, grey stove, grey microwave, grey cupboards, grey wooden table, and chairs. Wow! Even the pots and pans dangling from the rack are grey. You guys and the color grey. You know, the greyish appeal rhymes so well with the black leather couches in the living room.”

  “Yeah, true. I know.”

  When the electric kettle started rumbling Chloe mocked me about the stinking garbage can, “Your grey garbage can stinks.” We laughed as she put it outside. She didn’t say anything about the dirty dishes from the previous day piling up in the sink. I assumed she recalled I’m a neat person only going through a rough page. She also didn’t mock me about the fridge littered with sticky notes even though she opened and closed it a dozen times. She must have remembered the amnesia predicament.

  I stared at her, unsure what to think. Yes, I needed and appreciated her offer, but what about Grace’s feelings? How would she feel if she could come back and find her, not only back, but staying with me in the house again? She made Grace extremely insecure. Yes, to me, she seemed harmless. Fine, she was beautiful, supermodel-ish, but she never ever seduced me as Grace feared.

  Even if she tried, I’d teach her a lesson she would never forget. There was nothing I could do to hurt Grace. She was a dream come true for me. It is every boy’s dream to get a wife who resembles his mother in many ways. The lovely treatment and respect my mom effortlessly gave to my dad weren’t that different from what I got. And I couldn’t be more grateful.

  The salty bacon Chloe fried in the pan persuaded me to not even think of getting rid of her. Not only was she an excellent cooker, she was neat and a great, hard worker too. And she was the only one who could handle the house-keeping and Kim perfectly.

  I picked one brown, spotted banana from the fruit bowl. “Tell me. Why did you buy all these clothes you are wearing?”

  Chloe put down the cheese and knife and turned promptly, “You have forgotten, haven’t you?” She laughed. “Grace gave them to me whilst I lived with you guys.”

  “She did?”

  “Oh, yes. You were also there with Leon watching… Oh, sorry.”

  “It’s okay. In any case, I must get used to living without my boy. I just hope I won’t need to get used to living without Grace.”

  “Don’t say that. Grace will be back home. We are a team now. I will take care of the house and Kim whilst you help the police.”

  “You’re God sent, Chloe. Thanks for your kindness.”

  She put the steaming coffee, the cookies, the grilled cheese, bacon, and the tomato sandwich in front of me. “Thanks. Nice breakfast.”

  Chloe laughed, looking at my face. “Breakfast? This is lunch.”

  I peeped at the wall watch. It was 2:10. “It’s breakfast for me. I didn’t have it.”

  She sat opposite me. “That’s bad. But –”

  “I didn’t even sleep one second.”

  “Oh, no! That’s bad, El. Don’t do that to yourself. But I’m back now. You will eat and sleep well.” She took a bite of the sandwich and sipped the coffee too. “Kim is in which grade now? First?”

  I nodded.

  “She comes home at what time?”

  “Around two thirty. She doesn’t come, we fetch her from school. But I don’t know now. Grace was driving our car when she went missing.”

  “No problem. I will fetch her with a cab.”

  “Ok, thanks.”

  I raised my eyes and looked at her face. “Is it the amnesia thing or you changed your hair? Didn’t you have blonde hair when you lived with us?”

  Chloe smiled. “It ain’t amnesia. This is a wig. Look.” She grabbed the top of her hair and pulled off the brown hair wig. Her blond hair crashed nicely on her shoulders.

  The telephone rang in the dining room. I jumped and ran, praying it was her. Fear cut through me as I thought of the mysterious calls, but I hoped it was her. “Hello.”

  “Mr. Turner. Detective Howell spe
aking.”

  Chloe stood in front of me, gazing at my face also hopeful. But the fear multiplied in me as Detective Howell’s voice wasn’t promising any good news.

  “Yes, Detective.”

  “Please come to the station. We will talk when you get here.”

  My stomach clenched. “What is it? Did you find her?”

  “Mr. Turner, I don’t want to discuss this over the phone. Please come here.”

  I screamed, “Just tell me! You found her or not?”

  Detective Howell sighed. “We found a body. We―”

  My hand lost grip of the receiver and it fell off. I staggered. Chloe drew close and supported me with a firm reassuring hug. But she staggered with me since she was tiny. Eventually, she made me sit on the floor. I cried hopelessly. My fear had caught up with me, finally. I couldn’t believe my ears. I couldn’t believe me. I couldn’t believe I had to live without Grace. Grace dead. Dead. Dead. Jesus.

  Grace and I were like a glove and a hand. Without the glove, the hand is bare and cold; without the hand, the glove is useless. I couldn’t understand how I was supposed to live without her.

  Chloe sat next to me on the floor and hugged me. She squeezed tightly. She made me cry on her warm chest like a baby. She cried too.

  2:40 PM

  The coroner in a white lab coat, hairnet, and a face mask swiped his card and the big door swung open. “Here we are.”

  Hair lifted on my nape and arms. My legs became stiff and my knees locked. My hands were clammy.

  The all-white hallway was wide enough for the four of us to walk in a line, but I let Detective Howell and Reid form the line with the pathologist. I followed.

  The pathologist swiped his card and the second door swung open too. “This time I need you to put on the face masks and make sure the hairnets are tight,” he said, putting on his latex gloves.

  The musty odor diluted by the antiseptics hit my face and left me hopeless. The room was chilly too. I followed with feeble knees and a dead soul.

  The energy saving bulbs made the morgue dim and more hopeless. The windows didn’t help either; they were small and close to the roof.

  Just like the people in the huge refrigerators on my left, I was dead. The ones in the refrigerators were even better – they were in a better place where dying and pain doesn’t exist. Their bodies were parked like one parks a car in a garage, and they had left this world of sorrows.

  It was hard to accept that I was there to identify Grace’s body. Deep in my heart, I prayed a selfish prayer, a prayer of desperation: God let it be somebody else, not Grace. Please. Not Grace. Not Grace. Not Grace…

  On the wall on my right, I saw a big red sticker that read: IT’S ALL OVER NOW.

  “This way please,” the coroner said.

  We followed him into another room with numerous metal beds, most of them with bodies in black body bags. I prayed in my heart, asking God to do a miracle. If he did it for Lazarus, surely, he could do it for my love.

  I felt dizzy and ran out of the room.

  I overheard the pathologist telling the detectives not to follow me, “Just give him some space. He needs it, believe me. It’s normal for people to behave this way here. Actually, it’s a vital process they need to be ready.”

  I stopped at the red sticker. Somehow, I couldn’t even see the reminders around it about washing hands and putting on gloves. I gazed at it. IT’S ALL OVER NOW.

  Those words combined with the images in my head – images of people in bags, exhausted the last ounce of strength I had. My body weight bent my knees, and I found myself sitting on the filthy floor. I couldn’t believe it. I had never pictured myself sitting on the floor of some morgue – a public hospital morgue, not some fancy private clinic mortuary, not some fancy mortuary in the movies, but a real filthy morgue. I wiped the tears with my palm.

  A big lady, also in a white lab-coat, came in with a set like ours: two detectives and a couple. I tried to regain strength to rise to my feet and stop crying, but I failed. They passed just behind me and went to the body identification room. The couple looked confident, more especially, the man. He even held her wife’s hand. The wife was already in tears and weak.

  I was shattered. I almost ran out when I heard the wife screaming like she had been stabbed with a sword in the chest. “My daughter! My daughter! My…” she screamed.

  My entire body shook terribly. I wished I could have some help – someone to identify the body for me. My late father’s words haunted me and I regretted ignoring his wise words, “Son, never love too much. Love enough. If you love too much you will die if she disappoints you or dies. It’s only God who deserves uncontrolled love because he never disappoints or dies.” I became worse. Tears began wetting the floor I sat on. I hated my father’s words for coming back at the wrong hour. They weren’t helping but mocking me exactly like the “I told you” words from a cruel person. But those ones weren’t coming from a cruel individual. They were coming from my mind – my cruel mind.

  The two detectives and the couple passed behind me. Evidently, they were changed people. Their exit from that room was completely different from their entrance. The lady wasn’t even walking or talking. She wasn’t even crying. She was being wheeled on a stretcher. And they were not walking anymore; they were running, rushing the stretcher to the ambulance. Even the man was a mess. He was wailing like a spoiled toddler as he ran next to the stretcher shouting “Danna. Danna!”

  I rose to my feet but avoided glaring at the cruel sticker. I walked to the room of death slowly. I had realized that if I kept delaying, I would witness other families reacting probably, worse than the previous one. And I would get worse and worse. Obviously, no one would go in and come out smiling like they had the best time of their lives. Loved ones had to come out messed up. There was no way around it. I had to man up and establish if my wife was indeed dead. Nobody would do it for me.

  I stood behind the bed they surrounded. They glanced at each other and then stared at me.

  At that moment, it dawned on my troubled mind that better is the stifling suspense that comes with a missing person ordeal than the closure that comes with the finality of death. The stifling suspense does give one the room to hope. But death is final and hopeless.

  “Welcome back Mr. Turner,” the coroner said, his voice slightly muffled by the face mask. “Yes, this is the one. Bed 9. Should I uncover her?”

  All of them turned towards me at the tail of the bed. I nodded because I couldn’t talk – tears ran freely down my cheeks, and my lips and chin trembled.

  Slowly, he unzipped the body bag. I cried the more when I saw the brown hair. I started feeling like I would collapse – the floor was moving. But as soon as I saw the entire head, my strength came back to me. The young lady wasn’t Grace. She looked like her, but it wasn’t her. Besides the looks, Grace never used lipstick or nail polish.

  I sighed. “My God! Thank you.”

  I drew closer to her head. Indeed, it was not her. They all gazed at me. “Yes, this is not my wife. Jesus. Oh, God.”

  DAY 4

  ELIJAH

  Friday, January 20, 2017

  4:07 PM

  I threw the Times on the glittering coffee table and sank deep on the couch. I had enjoyed reading it. Not only because the living room and the entire house was sparkling and smelling like a floral garden, but the newspaper also had an encouraging article. Even the headline was on point: MISSING GRACE: CO-WORKERS & BOSS ON FIRE.

  I gazed at the lifeless television and then at the aggressive fire lighting and warming the living room, but threatening my rug with hazardous sparks jumping from the fireplace. My feet complained about the fire’s aggression too, so I pulled them onto the couch and lay across. My nose also complained as one of the firewoods overlapped and caused the smoke to roll inside. I rose and pushed it back. I lay on the warm leather again, staring at the fire. It brought to mind the past two hellish days I had endured. I couldn’t even understand how I survived
.

  Hopelessness pursued me like a starving cannibal. There was no hiding place for me – in my heart – and definitely, not in my mind. Detective Howell and Reid shot down the tiny remains of hope I had. Not that I was against being investigated. I knew, everybody knows, the husband is always the first suspect in such cases. My problem was time wastage. I knew I was innocent. When they used all their resources investigating me, giving me polygraph tests and following me around, I knew they were wasting precious time. Time they could be using to track Grace and of course, build my hope in the process.

  I cooperated in their investigation for Grace’s sake. Otherwise, I would have felt insulted and refuse to partake. If you are an upright citizen, it’s annoying to be labelled a suspect. I also respected Detective Howell. The old man had my best interest at heart. I even suspected he wasn’t for the idea of investigating me, but Reid did and pushed for it. When they cleared me, I vividly saw the disappointment on her face.

  I wished to see her face when she saw the second supporting article of the story. Surely she hated seeing, MISSING GRACE: ELIJAH IS OFF THE HOOK title.

  On the other hand, I was relieved. Not because I was not the suspect anymore. I was relieved because I knew chances were, they were pursuing the real suspect. Of course, her co-workers and friends couldn’t be trusted. I didn’t blame the police for focusing on them.

  I sighed and bit the inside of my cheek when I looked at the things that came out in the previous day’s Times. It was obvious that whoever leaked the details of the investigation was desperate for a payout. He had no story – only a catchy title: MISSING GRACE: HUBBY THE NO.1 SUSPECT. But that’s all he had. The article shot itself down when he explained that tests for the blood spatters on my jackets were back but they didn’t belong to Grace. They didn’t belong to a human being, in fact. They belonged to an animal, a reptile – a lizard or crocodile or whatever.