See No Evil
Back Cover
Saying that Preity Roshan's life has been hell would be the understatement of the year. When she was young she lost her dad and then soon afterwards she lost her mom. She moves to a small town just on the outskirts of Edison City and finally her life is taking off...that is until she witnesses something that threatens to destroy her.
Luke Sinclair has been having a bad feeling, and whenever the Edison City cop gets this feeling something bad happens. Then a hysterical woman seeks him out to help find her best friend who has gone missing. Now Luke is shoved into the path of a serial killer who has his eyes set on Preity and if he gets the chance, will take Luke as collateral damage.
See No Evil
by Kendra Mei Chailyn
Published by MuseItHOT Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Kendra Mei Chailyn
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Dedication
For you, my Grandma
Darkness shall fall throughout the land and a mad man will reign. He will destroy everything! When he thinks no one knows; he is wrong. Something is watching…
…The Eye.
-Kadian Tracey-
Prologue
Night had fallen over the ghettos. But then again, it was always night in the ghettos. No matter if the sun was out, the place still seemed as though it had a black cloud over it – completely blocking out the sun. The people living there didn’t live there because they wanted. They were stuck there; stuck in the same mentality as their parents. It was the mindset that nothing was good and that the world was out to get them – nothing mattered more than survival. No one mattered to them. The thick silence over the neighborhood was often times broken by the screaming of sirens going by. It was either squad cars, ambulances, fire trucks or all three. With disastrous frequency, gunshots broke through the air and sent everyone ducking for cover. When the smoke cleared, someone was either badly hurt or worse—someone was dead. Many times it was someone who was too young but people didn’t care. One less person to them equals one less mouth to feed, one less thug; one less potential murderer.
Those were the worse nights.
When someone got shot, no one got any sleep. When someone got shot there were lights, engines, yells, more gunshots—it became a dark swirl of confusion, a kind of atmosphere no one in their right minds would want to be a part of.
But these people, for the most part, weren’t in their right minds.
A raw stench crept through the air. It was the smell of fear, hate, depression and brutality all mixed into one. It was a smell that no one there recognized but most of them hated inhaling. A few of the residents allowed this scent in and those were the ones to live and die by the gun. They were the ones who let the streets eat them whole. They allowed the eeriness of the place to crawl through them like a plague.
It was hell here.
But the deepest, darkest part of hell seemed to be in one house.
Before all hell broke loose, the whole place went silent. The silence was enough to make a person go insane. It wasn’t the kind of silence that happened after some people stopped speaking, but the kind that came when everyone stopped moving, speaking and breathing all at the same time as if in anticipation of something about to happen. It was the deafening kind of silence that made one want to run to the nearest dark corner, curl their body into the fetal position and hide there in fear.
It was dark outside and the boy knew what was coming. Not that he was psychic or anything like that; it was much worse. He knew what was coming from raw, horrible experience.
What was coming was the same thing that came every time it got dark. The shouting, the beatings, things breaking; it was a given that every time night came at his house, evil descended in the form of his father through the front door like an unwelcome apparition that would continue to haunt him forever. It was the kind of haunt that clung on and would not leave until it was exorcised. Even then, sometime it stuck around, taunting outside a window while he cowered in fear.
The stench of alcohol already spelled doom in the boy’s little mind and each time he smelled it, whether he was at home or not, he would try hiding. If the smell snuck up on him he would whimper then fall to his knees with both hands up protecting his head.
At his age, he should be worried about the newest toy car on the market, what Santa was going to leave him for Christmas or what mud puddle to jump in the next time it rained; but not this little boy. He wasn’t as lucky as the other little boys on his block, in this tainted neighborhood, where everyone hears you cry; yet, no one heard. This little boy had far bigger things to think about because to his father, this boy was a man, an adult. The kicks to the ribs, punches to the face, caused him to grow up faster than was recommended. With each broken bone, sprain or open wound, his skin got thicker and thicker.
He tried to figure out what was happening around and to him. It was the way things had always been and always would be. He didn’t know anything else and chances were he would just carry on the vicious circle.
The cycle continues…
Round and round it goes, like a wheel or the hand of time.
Where it’ll stop, nobody knows-
It’s taunting you.
The dining room was the last place the fights reached and there he would be safe until his mother tried to run. When the beatings began she would try and run for the stairs or out the front door but he would always catch up to her. It seemed as though he could move at the speed of light.
He is the Boogey Man.
The house wasn’t large enough to escape a man’s wrath for long and this was tattooed to the little one’s brain. There was no where to hide. Closet doors were ripped off the hinges; they were used as previous hiding spots. Bedroom doors had gaping holes in them from his fists. Windows were boarded up because he had thrown a beer bottle through each window on different occasions. Everything in that house was broken with scars and patchwork.
A broken down chair sat in the far corner of the room that had always been there for as long as he could remember. When he slid past it, the little mind wondered what it would be like to be a broken down chair. To just sit there, in a corner, for so long that people didn’t even know you were there anymore. What would it be like, to be covered in dust and cobwebs and just be ignored? Would it make all the happenings around him less terrifying? From somewhere inside his body a small voice gave him an answer that didn’t make the little boy any happier; it would be just like being a human.
Humans broke.
The chair broke. It had long since used up its usefulness but like a punishment, they left it where it was, propped up without pride. No one threw it out and the little boy knew he couldn’t touch it. He knew that the moment he picked that chair up and set it on the curb for someone else to take away—because garbage trucks rarely visited—his father would miss it. His father would demand to know where it is, and the little boy would suffer a fate worse than death.
What a wonderful thing it would be to be invisible.
What would it be like to not be able to feel anything anymore; just like that old chair that everyone walked pass day in and day out but didn’t even see. Still it didn’t cry. It didn’t beg for someone—anyone to pay attention to it. It just sat there, in the corner.
The old table cloth that hung over the shaky table used to be white. Now it was a terrible brownish color, with spill stains all over it. Some of the stains were food. Others were sweat stains, dirt and even blood. Others, the little boy didn’t even recognize.
On his knees, he crawled until he sat down and looked up. All he could see was the dirty table cloth. He sat there, arms wrapped around his knees and waited.
and waited…
It would come. The big blow; the screaming, heart pounding, things shattering – it would come. He straightened his legs to work the sudden cramps that raged through his poor feet. The calves throbbed, warning of a Charlie horse.
Swing low sweet chariot….
Where was that coming from?
The little boy sat underneath the table with his hands covering his ears. Ignoring the throbbing in his legs, he pulled in his knees tucking his face into them humming the old slavery song Swing Low Sweet Chariot he had heard the teacher sing. She had explained that slaves would sing it when they got scared. She said it calmed them but he wasn’t a slave, far from it. He wasn’t even black. The song wouldn’t work so he stopped humming and rocked back and forth.
He was tired of hearing his parents yelling and most of all he couldn’t take his father beating his mother around. On a few occasions he had tried jumping on his father’s back to get the man to leave her alone but only succeeded with getting tossed across the room into a wall. On those occasions, he always ended up in the hospital. “I fell off my bike,” was the explanation for the three broken ribs he had sustained the first time.
“I was hit by a baseball,” he explained the black and blue circles beneath his left eye.
“I fell out of my tree-house.” This one for the broken arm.
I don’t have a tree-house.
I don’t have a bike.
I hate baseball with a rabid, unexplainable passion.
The boy was shocked that the authorities had bought the tree house explanation since there were barely any trees in the ghettos. The only trees he could remember were the ones in the park. Those had little fences around them to protect them from the drug head that went around cutting them down one summer.
Fences around trees? What a joke!
From somewhere outside, in the black of night, a dog barked and then for some strange reason, it began howling. Quickly the howling turned to pain filled cries. The dog smelled the doom that was coming. There were no other explanations.
The little boy darted from beneath the table. He was taking a chance in giving up his hiding spot just so he could rush up the stairs. His father screamed after him to stop but he wouldn’t listen. He simply kept on running as fast as his little six year old legs could carry him. In the safety of his bedroom he slammed the door and stuck a chair behind it like he had seen in the movies. He crawled into the closet and pressed into the farthest, darkest corner he could find.
There, morning caught the little boy sleeping soundly with his head tucked against a pair of shoes. He found out later that his father had tripped down the stairs knocking himself out. That was the only reason why the boy didn’t get a beating that night – divine intervention.
Hallelujah!
* * * *
Seven years later, at thirteen, the boy walked into the house but was grabbed in a choke hold and yanked backward. He flailed his arms. Like any human being, the boy panicked because death flashed before his eyes. His short life turned into a movie inside his head. Every good thing, bad thing or stupid thing he’d ever done came forward and played in slow motion; all the girls that laughed in his face due to his awkwardness around them, nights of beatings – everything.
He yelped in pain and tried harder to pry the hand from his throat as he coughed and sputtered. Air was being cut off from his brain. A strangled voice began screaming that he needed to breathe.
“I—can’t—breathe,” he managed, flailing in the air like a dying fish and as his hands clawed at the hand holding him in a death grip. The harder he tried to draw air into his dying lungs the dizzier he got. His body began slowly losing its fight as he looked up with his last ounce of strength to see his mother standing at the door of the living room with a smile on her face. Her hands were folded over her chest as she just stood there.
It was as though she was happy that her man was killing him. She didn’t try to help him.
It was then that he knew that she had made a deal with the devil; him for her. Somewhere deep inside his dying brain he knew that mothers were supposed to do things the other way around. They were supposed to protect their off-springs with their lives; but his mother wasn’t typical. He wasn’t sure she was even a mother. She did things that completely went against what mothers are.
He stopped fighting.
As the last bit of oxygen continued leaking from his body, the boy used his last thoughts, strength and consciousness to vow revenge. His stepfather made one fatal error that day—he should have killed the boy.
* * * *
Getting his first pay check, the seventeen year old smiled. “What’re you going to do with your first check, boy?” the severely overweight man dressed in the dirty chef’s uniform asked as he picked his nose before reaching back to pick a wedgie.
The teenager smiled. “I’m going to get me a birthday present. Something I’ve wanted ever since I was six.”
“I see.” The man hauled up phlegm from the back of his throat and spit it. The horrible, black looking blub sailed through the air and landed on a bicycle stand across from them. “That’s good. Don’t blow it all in one place now.”
Disgusted, the tall lanky kid hurried on his way while whistling, Happy Days are Here Again, jovially. Nothing was going to spoil his day.
He had plans. Those plans were hatching in his head ever since he was six, and finally, he could do something about them. His first stop was at the bank. He handed over his card proudly to the woman at the desk who eyed him suspiciously. It was the first time he would put money into his account since he had created it two weeks before. Since he was still young they assumed he was in school so the account didn’t have any bank fees charged to it. When she asked for his check, he gave it to her.
“I’d like to deposite half and would like the other half in cash please,” he explained.
She nodded and was soon placing cash in his hands. Task one on his list was complete. He mentally checked it off an imaginary list.
He exited the bank and almost skipped a little way down the street to the hunting store. He entered with purpose – head held high. His steps were those of a man who had accomplished something – he had money in his pocket. He browsed slowly until he came to what he wanted. Carefully checking each item in the large glass case, he finally made a decision and nodded his head as though in confirmation. With a skinny finger, he jabbed against the case pointing to the hunting knife when the storekeeper finally looked up from his tattered newspaper.
The older man with the old cigarette butt hanging from his lips didn’t ask any questions. He simple accepted the money, wrapped the knife and its case into a piece of newspaper before shoving them into a bag and handed it over. Without even saying Have a nice day or Thank you come again, he sat back in the corner and pulled out his newspaper.
The boy didn’t let the unfriendly storekeeper wreck his good mood. He simply smiled at the man’s newspaper and exited the store causing the bells above the door to jingle. He did a silly impression of Fred Astair by jumping and clicking his heels together, spinning around a telephone pole before hurrying down the small stretch.
Still whistling the teenager stopped by a local beauty store and bought a stick of Vixen, a red lip stick. Upon his exit, he stopped for a brief moment to smirk, flip himself the bird in his reflection on the beauty store’s window then headed for home.
He didn’t go the short route to his small house in the ghetto. He took the scenic route to clear his head. The scenic route was nothing spectacular; with giant graffiti on store walls that spelled out any number of swear words along with names and things like “Hyde wuz ere.”
“Wuz ere? How?” he asked then arched a brow.
He then got the joke. “Ha! Clever!” He laughed.
And what in the world was a fuck-tard?
He stopped briefly to whiz against a tree, and then ducked across the train tracks that were no longer in use. Passing beneath some tress he jumped up to grab an apple from a low hanging branch and without even wiping it in his shirt he sunk his teeth into it. Sweet nectar ran down the sides of his mouth as he finally crossed a small bridge over polluted water and headed down the alley behind Mister Cesaer’s Bakery. He stopped and pushed through the front door of the bakery and bought himself a donut. The sweet pastry was still slightly warm causing the teenager to moan in utter satisfaction. The down side was, four bites later, the snack was gone.
Emerging in front of Tony’s Pizza, which everyone had to know was a front for some kind of illegal activity, he stopped, cupped his hands against his face and peered in through the window. A group of gang-bangers sat, hunched over a table in deep conversation. One turned to flip him off. The teen shrugged and continued on his way across town while thinking of the kind of weirdos that lived in that neighborhood. Whoever said that the freaks came out at nights, definitely didn’t know what they were talking about. Either that or they have never been to his neighborhood. Down here freaks roamed all day, every day.
Down here, the freaks ruled.
Happy days were definitely back.
Finally, he was before Mrs. Howell’s house. Her husband used to be the postman until he was shot and killed in a drive-by. Then no mail got to the ghettos. If anyone wanted mail, they had to drive into the city to the post-office. The boy looked both ways and when he saw no one, he hunched down and proceeded to yank every rose and all the other flowers from the ground and stomped them to death. When his task was finished he smiled down at his destruction with satisfaction, laughed and was on his way. The thought of why he’d just done that flashed through his mind and for a moment he stopped in his tracks to think about it. He finally stopped on the thought it was simply because he wanted to, shrugged and carried on.
He checked to see if his mother was home – like she’d be anywhere else. She was sitting in her usual spot. Humming to himself he climbed the stairs to his room. He spent the evening, in his room, putting things into their rightful spots. He placed his shoes in order by color then by style. He hung his shirts by color and his pants by the reason he would need to wear each. Often his mother called him an obsessive compulsive but he liked things in their rightful place and order. He recently started shaving—later than most boys his age—but he was proud of that. He bought a whole lot of razors. He laid those out on the shelf over his bed in alphabetical order by the company that created them since he hadn’t decided which would be his brand yet. That was how he would use them until they were all gone.
That night, he sat down at the table and silently ate some cold cereal. His mother, as usual, sat in the living room puffing on a cigarette even as the previous one was still smoldering in the ashtray. As long as he could remember, she never cooked anything major for dinner and he would have been lucky if she was sober enough to remember to feed him; this meant he had to learn to fend for himself early. One day he almost burnt the house down by catching the stove on fire when he tried to make soup. It boiled over onto the burner, got caked on and started a fire. When he felt the heat and saw the rising flames, he got scared and darted for the phone. He called emergency services and the ambulance, fire department and cops all showed up. His mother lied—told them she only meant to sit down for a second and was so tired that she fell asleep. They bought the excuse.
No surprise there.
He was ten.
When he was finished, he washed his bowl, turned it down in the sink and proceeded to his room and changed. He was still in his work clothes and didn’t think it was right to wear that for the special occasion. He got dressed in a black pair of jeans, a black t-shirt with Pookie for President written on the front—even though he didn’t know who or what Pookie was he found the shirt to be perfect for his ever changing moods. The Pookie shirt was for days when he felt silly and happy. That unbelievable happiness that girls must feel when they gathered around each other, held hands, jumped up and down and screamed at the top of their lungs. He didn’t get much of those days and the truth was, he couldn’t tell when the last time he had one. That was why his Pookie shirt seemed fairly new.
Slicking his hair back, he smiled at himself in the mirror, did a corny gun salute to himself with a wink and took a deep breath to study himself. He was positively giddy.
His eyes were hollow and lacked life. He had bags underneath that told the tale of countless sleepless nights. His chiseled face sunk in as though he had been smoking for years but he never had a cigarette. Personally, he detested the things because they stink and caused everything around him to smell. He hated cigarettes because when he was a kid they caused him to cough for so long that sometime he would holler that his throat was on fire. True to form his mother would only ignore him and light up another just to blow the smoke into his face.
Picking up the bag with his toys and then a second bag he got a week prior he walked down the stairs and sat down in the living room with his mother. The room was fogged up with thick cigarette smoke that caused him to cough when he entered. He fanned a hand before his nose to try and get some fresh air in but gave up after a few seconds because he knew it was futile to even bother.
Sitting down across from his mother, he watched her. Over the years, her beautiful black hair had changed. It was now a dull, silver color and he marveled at what damage age caused. But age wasn’t the only thing to blame. His father had used her as a punching bag and the cigarettes took away the vitality that her skin once had. To add to it all, karma seemed to be kicking her butt. Age didn’t have time to work on his father. One night his father had messed with the wrong man while in a drunken stupor. The teen didn’t think six feet under was enough to bury him. At his father’s funeral, he stood and screamed. “Deeper! Bury him deeper!”
“How many times,” he started after a while, “had you seen Dad beat me?”
His mother didn’t answer. She simply puffed on the cigarette. Being ignored only made him angry and he growled. “Answer me!”
“Don’t you raise your voice at me!” she snapped back and he moved from his seat. “I am your mother!”
She tried moving but he was quicker and grabbed her from the sofa. He pushed her roughly against the wall near the window and hauled off his belt.
“What the hell are you doing, you little jerk?” she questioned. “Get your hands offa me!”
His mother began fighting but he just continued working calmly as though she was a willing participant in what was about to happen. Strapping her hands against the window rack screwed tightly into the wall, he backed away from her and pulled his chair up to face her. He sat down and crossed his legs.
“Well, now are you more inclined to answer my questions?” he asked in a composed voice. “I mean I have all the time in the world…but you, dear mother, are on borrowed time”
Leaning over, he picked up his first bag and removed a gun. The gun was bought a week before with money he had stolen from a neighborhood bully. That kid didn’t have any responsible use for all that cash anyway. His mom’s eyes widened as he screwed on the silencer. The last thing he wanted to do was disturb the neighbors. They had to work or rob and pillage in the morning. He sat back toying with the tip of the gun for a while; feeling the weight in his hands, twirling it around, pointing it at himself then at her. It was as if he wasn’t holding a dangerous weapon. Each time he pointed it at her she would gasp and press her eyes shut. He would simply laugh so hard tears streamed down his face.
“Any answers for me, mother dearest?” he questioned. “No? All right then.”
Aiming the gun, he frowned and fired. Because she refused to answer his questions, the bullet tore through her head.
Silently in the dim light of the room, he removed her eyes carefully with the hunting knife and placed the orbs on a plate. Now she wouldn’t be able to watch him get beaten up again. He had helped her.
Being a good son, he cleaned up after himself, buried the body in the backyard and dropped the eyes in a bottle of water and covered it.
He climbed the stairs slowly as he thought the urge to kill would stop…
Those delicious urges…
Chapter One
Tick tock. Tick Tock.
The giant clock in the hall was the one of the only sounds that emanated from the room until it had started raining. The sound of the rain falling outside was not noticed by the occupants of the small home until thunder crashed across the heavens and lightning streaked across the sky. They had much more important things to think and worry about. More important than the rain outside that would cleanse one's soul should they stand in it. What in the world could be more important than being pure?
Life?
Darkness.
The one thing that seemed to be more important than anything else was also the one thing that was followed by a gasp and said in a whisper.
Death.
Death was placing his hands over the family within and taking from the midst of love, a mother.
What would be left when the mother was gone? She had always been the lifeline of the house; the one parent whose prayer was said to be stronger than any other. It was said that she had the ear of the gods and it was said that of all the gifts to the earth, the most precious was mother.
A home will never be a home without her and no one could love more completely than a mother. The love and comfort of the arms of a mother would be gone with her and there was nothing anyone could do to stop that.
A miracle?
The remaining occupant of the house no longer believed in miracles, for miracles are for children who are still naive to the evils in the world.
Darkness flowed over the small house like an eerie cloak covering everything except the small room where the teenager hunched over the bed. She was gently dabbing a cold cloth along the forehead of the woman that occupied the small bed while whispering a lullaby the old woman had long since forgotten but found comfort in.
The tick–tock of the clock was a distant memory now as the sky opened up and sobbed for the loss of a cherished one—mother. The loud roll of the thunder outside drowned out everything except for a sound of love and sweet memory. The melodious voice carrying the Hindu lullaby cut through the silence that had returned and plagued the house ever since the month before when the same scene had happened. Death had arrived and taken the man of the house. When the song ended, the silence came back and wrapped its arms around the house once more.
When the rain eased, insects could be heard chirping away outside as the darkness grew thicker and thunder rolled above. The rain wasn’t back but the sky showed its displeasure of the injustice of the lost angel.
The teenager looked up to see if lightning would follow but it didn’t and she looked back at the pale woman.
“Ma,” she whispered because she knew what was coming. It was a feeling she knew all too well. The sensations of tiny fingers dancing on the back of her neck and then reaching down to twist her gut into knots. The cool wind that only blew against her neck as though a spirit stood there breathing against her.
She knew the end was near and she didn’t want it to be. How could a mother leave her daughter in a world that seemed so foreign? What would the daughter do; she was an outsider in her own life.
“Don’t leave me, Ma,” she begged, pressing her forehead to her mother’s chest. “You can’t leave me. I will die. Kripyaa—Please.”
In a way she was being selfish. Her mother was in pain and all she could think about was how lonely she would be if her mother passed away. She couldn’t help it, she was only human.
When her mother’s voice caught her ear, she didn’t lift her head until a feeble hand brushed her hair. “If it was up to me, Beti,” the woman spoke in a voice that was barely a whisper, “I would stay. But the gods don’t see it that way.”
She shook her head stubbornly causing her tears to topple freely down her cheeks. “Nahi,” she whimpered. “No.”
“It’s time, Priety…”
* * * *
Priety jerked into sitting position on her bed panting for air. It was like someone was holding her nostrils shut and as she tried to breathe through her mouth they sat on her chest. Her neck felt as though she had twisted it the wrong way during her sleep and she massaged it. She prayed the action would alleviate the pain and allow her to breathe normally again. Holding her breath, she counted to five with her eyes closed before exhaling and opening her eyes.
With shaking fingers, she shoved a mass of black hair from her face and looked around. Her eyes traveled over the framed picture on her bedside table of her parents on their wedding day. Her gaze moved to the clock and then the vacant dresser. The fleeting thought of why she didn’t have anything on the dresser breezed through her mind and disappeared like a puff of smoke before her gaze moved again. Eyeing the coat rack behind her door she wondered why it was still there. After her parent’s death she carried it up from down stairs—to do what? Priety couldn’t remember.
She looked back at the picture of her parents. Her mother’s face was covered with a red veil and her father was smiling. They were truly happy, she knew that. During the years she had them they were smiling, loving to each other and to her. That was one of the times when an arranged marriage was a good thing.
She looked out the window to see sun streaming in through the blinds and swore softly to herself before flopping back against the bed.
Why had the nightmares come back? It had been so long since her parents were ripped from her life without much of a warning. Priety had mourned by seeing shrinks and writing in journals to calm her nerves. She cried and starved herself and finally she managed to pick up the pieces of her life and move on.
What was the meaning of the nightmares’ return?
Staring up at the ceiling she continued trying to control her breathing as she closed her eyes to fight the tears. Instead of stopping, they just streamed through her lashes at the thought of her mother and father. She thought back of the pain she had gone through watching them die because the hospitals claimed there was nothing they could do for them.
“So? How do we make this better?” Priety asked as she looked from the doctor to her mother. “There has to be something.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Roshan,” the doctor started but Priety cut him off by slamming her open palm into his desk.
“No! Don’t you dare tell me you’ve done everything because you haven’t done everything or my mother would be getting better! There has to be something else!”
“There is no cure for the cancer your mother has, Miss Roshan,” the visibly shaken doctor managed to get out. “And by waiting this long before seeking treatment didn’t help her case any either. If she had come to us earlier chemo and surgery would have helped. It has spread too drastically for any further treatment. We could operate but she wouldn’t live through it.”
Priety opened her mouth to say something but her mother simply touched her arm. “You’re telling me that now I have to watch my mother die like I did my father?”
The doctor didn’t say anything so Priety continued on the brink of tears, “She’s going to be in pain, damn it! Do something! Anything!”
“All you can do is make her as comfortable as possible,” he advised her.
Priya and Jai, Priety’s parents, needed a specialist and with their savings and her small salary, she couldn’t afford one. The doctors had looked at the sobbing sixteen year old and told her that the best she could do for her parents was to make sure they were comfortable for their last few days—first her father, then her mother. It was the same thing all over again. What were the chances?
Why were the gods punishing her?
At the time, the tender age of sixteen, Priety was still a virgin so why had they taken her parents from her? She had done everything her parents asked of her without complaints even though sometime she wondered the validity in their requests or orders.
She was a good girl.
Using an angry hand, Priety wiped her tears away as the alarm clock began blaring. “I’m up.” She swore and slammed a fist into the snooze button but stayed where she was a little longer before shoving her feet out of her bed. She didn’t know why she had the alarm clock set because it was her week off. She worked so much that her boss finally told her she should take some time. It was pointless to argue with him, even though she tried her best to let him see things her way. She wanted him to see she would go crazy if he forced her to stay home. He laughed and said that he would pay for her stay at the asylum. It was a big joke for him but Priety wanted to deck him.
Yawning, she stripped as she walked toward the shower. By the time she got there and closed the door, Priety was buck naked. Rubbing a hand over her stomach she eyed the shower with contempt. It seemed everything was starting to rake at her nerves.
She lifted her face to the downpour of water beating against her. Lowering her head, she allowed the water to throb against the back of her neck, lifting her head to try and beat the memories of the night’s nightmare from her mind. Flashes of her mother’s last words came to her followed by her father’s dying wish. Her father wished that she would find a husband, settle down and be happy.
No such luck.
By the time she showered and dressed, her mind calmed down. She sauntered into the kitchen. She had a craving for pancakes. The quiet of the house was starting to unnerve her. She needed some form of noise to make her feel as if she was all alone in the world. Taking a deep breath, she hurried into the living room, flipped on the television, cranked it up and returned to make her favorite, pancakes with chocolate chips.
“Do something other than worry about us.” Priya’s voice came back to Priety. “I know you and all you do is feel guilty about things…you have a life to live. You are young…”
“We are sorry we couldn’t provide more for you, Priety,” Jai spoke as he broke out into a bout of coughing. “We are so sorry…”
Although her parents’ deaths were separate and so long ago, they were beginning to mesh together in her head. Priety squeezed the fork she held in her hand until she felt it would sink through her flesh. Looking down, through tear-dazed eyes, she opened her fist but the fork didn’t fall. She used her free hand and pulled it. Luckily, it hadn’t cut through the flesh but left an imprint.
A defeated sigh left her lips. She wished she could go to work. Priety wanted to work so hard until she forgot her name.
Money.
Throughout the day, Priety tried to find something else to do so her mind wouldn’t go back to her nightmares. But everything brought back the memories; a sound, the smell of curry, absolutely everything reminded her of how alone she was in the world and she felt like throwing up everything. Self-pity had never been her strong suit but lately she seemed to be getting better at it. Everything around her reminded her of her parents and it seemed easier to be pulled down by doubt and guilt rather than fight.
Fighting took too much energy, something she was quickly running out of. Every morning, she woke up and felt less and less alive. Just getting out of bed took more energy than she cared to admit.
Reading was something Priety loved doing. She tried reading but the romance novel she was reading was given to her by her mother. After tossing the book so hard across the room, it ripped into nothing but pages. She watched the different pages fall soundlessly to the ground and that made her fly after them, falling to her knees, sobbing, while trying to gather and stick the pages back together feverishly.
She needed a drink, something that would make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end; a drink that would burn its way down her throat to take her mind off the pain in her heart. Ignoring the pages, she braced against the wall to pull herself to her feet before weakly wobbling out the door.
* * * *
The television blared from the living room and Priety couldn’t believe she had left it on. Her head pounded like someone was inside taking a hammer to it. She winced. Every thought, movement, every breath caused her to want to curl up into a ball and die. The throbbing just wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t believe she drank so much; it wasn’t at all like her. Somehow, during the evening she had found her way down by the local pub and sat at the bar. Most of the night’s memories were foggy but now her head throbbed like the devil. With a groan, she grabbed her head to stop the sound vibrating off her brain causing her vision to blur. Priety stumbled out of bed and staggered into the living room to flip off the television before collapsing onto the sofa. It was amazing how much energy it took to stop one’s head from exploding.
Every noise, no matter how low, caused her head to throb and she closed her eyes, resting her head back against the sofa. How could she have been so stupid? She knew no one at the bar would tell her she had too much to drink. The bartender would never cut her off. It was after all Danny; Mister Shit For Brains. The same guy that thought the capital of Jamaica was Mexico. Well it was not really all his fault; she was as much to blame for her hang-over as anyone else. She had wanted something to kill the pain and Danny handed over a bottle of vodka.
The shrill ring of the telephone caused her to jerk and moan in pain. She looked around for something to toss at it but that only caused the phone to ring longer. Like a daredevil, she dove across the sofa and grabbed it. “What?” she groaned.
“Priety?” the voice called from the other end.
“I think they can hear you in Turkey,” she rubbed her forehead. “I don’t want to change my long distance plan. I don’t want to see your girlfriend on your cam. I don’t want to enlarge my penis – whatever you’re selling I don’t want or need. Got that?”
The feminine voice on the other end chuckled. “Priety Roshan, are you drunk?”
“Hoo boy!” She sobered up somewhat, the pain in her head turned to a dull throb. “I am so sorry…”
“Drink lots of water,” the woman offered. “That will help.”
Heat charged Priety’s cheeks and she smiled even though she knew her best friend couldn’t see her. “Thank you. I don’t normally get this drunk, I…”
“I know, hon.” Kerry giggled. “Listen, I’m coming over. I have news and we should celebrate.”
Priety moaned; she couldn’t believe she was still so out of it, she didn’t recognize her best friend’s voice. She opened her mouth to say something but before she could protest or accept, she heard the dial tone. Staring blankly at the phone she made a sound in her throat and let it fall into the cradle before leaning back against the sofa to calm the spinning in head.
Grabbing a hold of furniture and walls, she made her way into the kitchen and grabbed a glass. Filling it with water, she began chugging.
“The person who thought of this hang-over cure obviously hasn’t heard of water poisoning,” Priety moaned, but chugged another glass of water.
By the time the doorbell rang, Priety drank enough water to cause a small flood and used the bathroom a good five times. She jerked when the Dixie horn of the doorbell blared. She tried remembering why she chose that tune for her doorbell. It was getting more and more annoying. Putting down the glass she rushed for the door and pulled it open.
“Diva!” Her best friend Kerry cheered while waving a bottle of champagne and grabbed her into a hug. “I am so happy! We so have to celebrate!”
“No more alcohol.” Priety covered her mouth with a hand. Even the mere thought of alcohol made her ill. “I’ve had enough for two lifetimes.”
“Nonsense.” Kerry giggled while hurrying into the kitchen with Priety following behind her.
“I am not kidding, Ker. Anymore alcohol and I swear I’ll hurl! And then you’ll have to clean it up.”
“Spoil sport.” Kerry pouted but placed the bottle down and turned to face her friend to wiggle her ring finger in the air. “He asked me !”
“Chad asked you to marry him? Finally?”
Kerry nodded with a wide smile on her face and Priety screamed before diving into her best friend’s arms. The force she rushed with caused both women to topple to the ground with Kerry on the bottom.
“Congrats! About time! I would offer you a happy squeal but, hang over and all.”
“I know!” Kerry echoed. “Took him only five years.”
“Okay we need to make a toast,” Priety admitted as she helped her friend up from the floor. “But with juice.”
She hurried over to the fridge. “Orange or strawberry juice?”
“Orange.” Kerry moved to the cupboard to grab two champagne glasses.
Filling them with orange juice, Priety raised hers and smiled. “To new beginnings and good times,” she smiled even though deep down it felt like something was missing in her own life. She couldn’t be jealous of Kerry; Priety swore never to get married unless she was in love. But increasingly men didn’t want love. They wanted to hit it then quit it – that was how the man on the television had said it. Men wanted sex and that was it. They didn’t want the strings – children, commitment. What was it he called those kind of men? Commitment-phobes. They even had a name for breaking a woman’s heart into a million little pieces.
What was the world coming to anyways?
“To new beginnings and good times.” Kerry repeated.
Absentminded, Priety touched her glass daintily to her friend’s.
Hopping back onto their seats the two friends leaned forward as though sharing a secret no one else in the world could hear. “Can I ask you a favor?” Kerry spoke up and placed her glass down before staring at her fingers.
“Anything, you know that.”
“I would like it, if you’d be my maid of honor.”
Priety blinked in disbelief. “What? Are you sure? I mean I don’t want to mess things up because I’ve never been in a western wedding before…” Priety made excuses, but she actually hated weddings. The few she went to in her life always reminded her just how completely unlovable she was. She saw them as a slap in the face and something she could never have. But Kerry was her best friend and for her, Priety would do anything.
“You’ll do fine, just boss everyone around.” Kerry laughed and Priety chuckled. “And if Chad gets cold feet and tries to run, you have my full permission to take him out.”
“That I can do!” Priety laughed heartily.
It was late that afternoon when Kerry left and Priety began going through proofs for the photo shoot she did the week before. Her boss told her not to worry about it until the end of her vacation but Priety never did like idle hands.
Chapter Two
The crime rate in Edison slowly grew, proven by the number of cold cases piled on top of the desk in the mid-size office. Homicide had almost tripled in the last two years and rapes—the ones that were reported—along with assaults were through the roof. Edison was in trouble. The politicians kept on denying it but that didn’t change the truth. With a frown he rubbed his tired eyes and grabbed another folder. It seemed as though it never ended. Each time his crew solved a case, it seemed like a hundred more took its place – one foot forward, six back.
The sound floated down the corridor like a familiar spirit and everyone knew what was happening. Chief Chen was at it again. The man screamed into the phone until he got beet red in the face like he forgot he was human and needed to breathe. A few of the officers had bets going on when the chief would finally yell for so long he’d pass out. It was cruel but funny at the same time. Two officers with notepads stood off to the side peering into the office through the glass wall wondering who was going to win the bet.
Detective Luke Stanton shook his head and flipped the file shut before running a tired hand over his face. Sitting up straight, he stretched his aching back and could literally hear the bones cracking back into place. He moaned and rubbed his neck before tilting his head one way and then the next. He rubbed a hand over his cheeks and under his chin. He could feel his day old stubbles growing in and made a mental note to shave. He didn’t like shaving one bit, he would rather catch his pants on fire or run down Main Street naked but he had to shave in order to maintain a business-like demeanor. He wasn't a beat cop anymore but still they wanted him to look his best. With a tired sigh, he wondered why. It wasn't like he was going to see anyone from behind a desk or going door to door or mocking through a crime scene. He would end up getting muck on his good suits and ruin them.
He missed being on the beat; the chases through long, worn out alleys. Memories of tackling perps in mud after a downpour were enough to send Luke’s adrenaline pumping. Luke missed his stops over by the Black Magic Jamaican restaurant on the west side of Edison. Due to his new promotion to detective, he barely had enough time to breath much less going across town for delicious, mouth watering, eye-burning Jerk Chicken. His favorite order over at Black Magic was their fried fish and festival, a fried, sweet pastry. His stomach growled in disappointment from not eating the chicken, and festival or the fish. Luke moaned. What he wouldn’t give for some good-ole soul food from Jamaica. He made a mental note to stop by the restaurant one day soon but knew chances were slim.
Placing the folder on top of the pile he gathered of Edison City's cold cases, he glanced at the clock and flew out of his seat. He hadn’t realized it was so late. Grabbing his things, he reached for his leather jacket on his way out the door and rushed toward the locker room to pick up a few things before heading home.
Walking into the locker room still felt strange. Even after so many years on the force. He still hoped to see Riyu Kotsuke and Michel Toriano when he entered with their conversation “Who is hotter? Jessica Alba or Beil?”
He had to remember they were no longer in the academy. They graduated, with honors and stationed throughout Edison. Grown men who sometimes fell into the games of who would you do, or who is hotter, just to pass the time. They said boys will be boys and when Luke, Michel, Ryu and Luke’s brother Keegan got together, that statement couldn’t be truer.
But back in the academy it was worse. The games happened everyday. He would walk into the change room after a long day to Riyu and Michel going back and forth yelling, “Alba!”
“Beil!”
“Alba!”
During these arguments Ryu would be hauling on some kind of graphic t-shirt that said something inappropriate like “I’d hit that,” or have pictures of naked women silhouettes on it with one crossed out and below those images were the words “my to-do list.” The two would argue back and forth until Luke would jump in with a smirk saying, “They're both hot and I would do them both, alright!”
The other two friends would simply arch a brow and smile before heading to the showers.
But those were good times.
With a labored sigh, he reached into the locker and pulled out a t-shirt that said Edison City Police, and stuck it into his bag. He grabbed another with everything’s bigger in Texas and an arrow pointing downward on the front. Luke frowned at it. That wasn’t his at all – chances were it was Ryu’s.
How’d that get in here?
He shoved it back into the locker. He slipped his arms into his jacket before grabbing a plastic bag with clean socks. Shoving his gun into the holster around his shoulders, he re-attached his shield to this belt and pulled both sides of the jacket in to zip it up. It had been a long day and even though he couldn’t have a drink with his boys, he had one of them stopping by the house for a drink. He didn’t really feel like going out that night, but then again he never felt like hitting a club. He hated the club scene.
Maybe I’ll see what Keegan is doing tonight--
Drunken women hitting on him was not Luke's idea of a good time. It annoyed him as he tried to figure out why a woman would do something like that to herself when they knew all the dangers that lurked in the dark corners of a club. Perhaps it was the cop in him showing its face again but it worried him that no one taught these women that you just didn’t pick up some random guy and take him home. Didn’t their parents teach them not to talk to strangers?
Other officers around him in the locker-room talked in hushed tones because it seemed as though he was the only veteran there. All the others in the room were rookies. That wasn’t something that bothered him but he still wished there were more than a handful of seasoned cops left at Edison. All the others retired early to go on to other things like the army or SWAT. Luke shook his head at the thought of the ones in the army getting deployed to Iraq and his heart sank.
Grabbing his gear, he bid the others good night and left the precinct. When the door opened, the cool air greeted him and the sounds of a busy highway called out to him. The sounds of vehicles whizzing by lulled him like a sweet lullaby. Then again lately he wasn’t getting much sleep.
The same feeling kept grabbing his insides and twisting it into a knot and he didn’t know why. One of his close friends, Detective Riyu Kotsuke, had only laughed while weightlifting and told Luke he was being paranoid. Luke didn’t think it was paranoia, something wasn’t right.
“See? That’s the thing about you, Luke,” Riyu explained. “You get the feeling and half the time you’re right. Which is starting to creep the hell out of me.”
Michel put down the weights he was wielding and began strapping a pair of boxing gloves to his hands. “Riyu's right. Instead of sitting around here going X-Files on our asses, go out and look around see what you can find. Even though you don’t know what it is yet. Who knows? You might crash into something.”
“I don’t know, bro. That’s like looking for trouble,” Luke pointed out. “I don’t want trouble I just want this feeling gone.”
Dumping some files onto the passenger seat along with his bag, he got into the late model SUV and pulled out of the parking lot. The drive back home didn’t take long; Luke knew the short cuts to get around the traffic.
After scoping up the mail that had been shoved through the mail slot in his front door, he set his cell phone to charge and rifled through the envelopes as he made his way for the living room and his voice mail.
“Junk, junk, junk,” he muttered as he tossed envelope after envelope into the garbage but stopped at one. “Would you like to enlarge your—” Luke frowned and crumpled that one in a fist for even suggesting he needed help in that department. He tossed it into the garbage and returned to the others. “Bills, bills,” those he chucked onto the counter while wishing he could trash them.
Turning his attention to the voice mail and the flashing red light, he pressed play and began rummaging through his bag. Five of the calls were different companies wanting to know if he wanted to change his long distance plan and he growled. How many times did he have to tell them to take him off their lists because he didn’t want what they were selling. Deleting the annoying messages, he stopped at a message from Riyu saying he would try to show up at the get together later that night but he wasn’t sure. Finally, there was a message from his brother Keegan asking what was happening that night and if he was invited.
Chuckling, Luke reached for the phone to call his brother.
“It’s a party, son,” Luke laughed when his brother finally answered the phone. “You want in?”
“I am going crazy, bro,” Keegan complained. “Taking time off work is a pain in the ass. There is nothing to do around this dump.”
Luke smiled at Keegan referring to his house as a dump. In fact, Keegan’s house is no dump with five bedrooms, a swimming pool, and professionally decorated. The house is beautiful. The hot tub is large enough to hold an entire football team’s defensive line.
“Let me guess, you would rather be on the job, busting down some doors playing G.I Joe for the day?” It was a rhetorical question and Luke got a grunt for an answer so he chuckled. “That’s why I don’t have to deal with that crap. I don’t take time off.”