Share

Chapter Five

last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2021-09-06 16:19:08
CHAPTER FIVE

The second she saw the policeman, the look in his dark eyes, her hand flew to her mouth.

“Ma’am, we believe we found your daughter.”

Two months had passed. Two months of looking out the window and doors and standing on the front porch in the wind and rain and sunshine, just in case Aleta forgot what home looked like. If her little girl happened to wander by, confused, looking at houses and front porches and trying to remember which apartment had been hers, why, there would be her mother! To love and hold and greet her. To smooth her hair back from her eyes and promise she’d love her always, no matter what had happened, no matter what she had been forced to do. There was Grim Marie, who would become Benevolent and Joyful Marie, and her little Aleta would be safe.

But the eyes of this man, of the way he held her gaze far too carefully while his partner couldn’t manage to hold her gaze at all, told her she had no need to stand in that doorway ever again.

“Oh,” she said. She didn’t remove her hand from her mouth. It was far too comforting. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

His mouth moved some more, but his words meant nothing. They were strange sounds made by an animal that didn’t understand how to communicate. She watched his mouth move, watched his lips stretch and bend and press themselves together. She was reminded of caterpillars. His tongue was pink and wet and somehow earnest, and that earnestness made the muscles of her mouth pull up at the corners, made her want to hold out her arms to him like he was a baby. When Aleta was just a wee one and was learning how to talk . . .

The thought. Aleta’s face. The glint of silver in her dimples, the shine of her eyes that set off the wary hardness there. Marie felt a sharp pain in her stomach, like a baby’s foot placing itself firmly in her ribs, and she felt the blood run from her face into other places in her body. Her eyes, mostly, because they began to leak.

“ . . . scraps of fabric. She was identified by dental records, because by the time we . . . we came upon her, there really wasn’t much left . . . ”

“Yes, she had very nice teeth,” Marie said dreamily, and it was true. Aleta brushed them at least twice a day, and used a certain type of mouthwash, because she would never taste man in her mouth again, never ever ever, and Marie made sure that even when the money ran out, the mouthwash never did.

“Such a little thing to do, really,” she said conversationally, and saw the policemen glance at each other. One reached out to take her hand. The other put his arms around her shoulder and guided her to the steps.

“Is there somebody I could call?”

The second policeman was meeting her gaze now, and his eyes were warm and light and nearly suspiciously wet. Marie put her hand up to his cheek and patted it as if he were a little boy. And he was. Look at this man. Look at the way his skin hangs on his frame as if it belongs there. Muscles bunching under his uniform, she saw that he was distressed, that he wanted to take it all away, that he wanted to physically run down some monster and take him apart with an axe. For vengeance. For justice. For sweet little girls who were only trying to help their mothers.

“You have children, don’t you?” she asked him, and that was all it took. The bone structure under his jaw shaped and changed and formed, and she wasn’t looking at a man anymore; she was looking at a wolf. A wolf who knew somebody in the pack had reason to be cast out. A wolf who would find that offender and rip out his throat as he had snuffed a little girl.

You’ll find him, she said, but then realized her lips hadn’t moved. Her hand had dropped from his face. Her fingers fluttered on the ground, useless.

Broken butterflies.

Shredded sparrows.

“Ma’am,” the first officer said again, and his voice was so kindly that it hurt her. Be cruel to her. Yell and scream at her for losing her child. Tell her all of the things she told herself every day, but please don’t be kind. Nobody can stand up to that kind of thing.

“Ma’am, do you understand what we’re saying? Are you able to process the information I just gave you?”

Your lips remind me of young puppies and your white teeth nip at your wife’s neck. Your tongue will taste ice cream and my little girl was identified by dental records.

That was what she thought. This is what she said.

“You’re telling me my daughter was found. In pieces.”

The first policeman drew back as if the words were verbal cat-o-nine-tails lashing his skin. They had pieces of metal, girls’ jump ropes, and tiny facial piercings wrapped into them.

The second one, the man of the wolves, simply nodded once.

Yes. That was what was said, the nod told her. You understand. I’m so terribly sorry, but you understand.

“I know all about wolves,” she said aloud, and then she couldn’t say anything more.

Lanjutkan membaca buku ini secara gratis
Pindai kode untuk mengunduh Aplikasi

Bab terbaru

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Eighteen

    CHAPTER EIGHTEENOfficer Will took the call with sorrow. Grim Marie had taken her own life. She was found in the bath with expensive-smelling bubbles and a candle. She had used a razor.He wished this hadn’t surprised him.His heart felt heavy, but he tried to convince himself that at least she was at peace now, enfolded in the arms of her mother and her daughter. A third little urn lined up on the shelf, perhaps. At least the pain and misery of her hunt for The Wolf was over.He sighed.“I’m responsible,” he said aloud, and the words pierced. They twisted up inside of him like a jangle of knives and sharpened bones and Dead Marie’s razor blades.He had sent her after the man she believed to be her daughter’s killer. Told her to keep an eye out for any DNA he might drop. He hadn’t believed this man was The Wolf, but it didn’t matter. It gave her something to do. Gave her something to throw her heart and soul into, since she had little heart and no soul left. Picking up a littered

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Seventeen

    CHAPTER SEVENTEENThe test results came back. This wasn’t The Wolf. Neither the DNA nor the bite marks were a match.She had done it, but it wasn’t worth it. Not at all.

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Sixteen

    CHAPTER SIXTEENOfficer Will’s wife met her at the hospital.“Thank you for coming,” Marie sobbed. “Thank you so much.”“Of course I’d come,” Winnie said. She sat in the corner of the room while the nurses scrubbed and swabbed and collected everything they could. It was like being violated all over again, except with soft voices and lighter touches.The worst, Marie thought, was when she exposed her breasts. Bite marks everywhere. On her nipple and ribs and on her stomach.“I hope it helps,” she whispered to nobody in particular. “I hope it helps my baby.”They didn’t understand and she didn’t bother to explain, but pictures were taken. Bites were measured. Details were taken and carefully written down.It seemed to last for hours. At last they said she could go home.“I’ll drive you,” Winnie offered, and Marie nodded wearily.The car ride was silent for a long time. Marie leaned her head back against the seat and stared at the dark sky.“Thank you for coming today,” she sa

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Fifteen

    CHAPTER FIFTEENShe walked into the police station. Officer Will took one look at her and leapt up from his desk.“Marie!”“Don’t touch me. I have DNA. Lot of it.”“Marie, what did you do?”He reached out to touch her but she pulled back.“Please. Could you take me to the hospital? Is that what I need to do?”The officer’s face changed. Anger and concern, yes. A little bit of hope. Something that looked like sorrow, but she couldn’t be certain. But underneath, something primordial and snake-like roiled to the surface. Hatred and revenge.“He assaulted you?” he asked. “I can’t believe he would be so stupid. Where is he?”“It wasn’t like that at all. He didn’t do anything that I didn’t ask him to do.”Marie didn’t realize another person could look so stricken. His concern was making her lose her nerve.“Please,” she said. “The hospital. Because after this is done, I really want to take a shower more than anything else on earth.”“Marie.”He reached into his desk for his ke

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Fourteen

    CHAPTER FOURTEENShe left him while he was sleeping, sprawled naked and stinking on top of the hotel sheets.She vomited quietly into the toilet. Once. Twice. Then she slipped her clothes on and crept out of the door.Marie held her body far too carefully. She was tired, and sore, and disgusted, and so, so jubilant. When she stepped into the lobby that she had only been in a few hours before, the man behind the desk raised one eye at her.GLENN, his nametag read.“Hello, Glenn. Would you call a cab for me? Please?”“Certainly.”Glenn the Polite spoke quickly and quietly on the phone. Marie leaned against the desk, aware that her eyes were starting to blacken and her face was swollen. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss?” Glenn asked her. His words were professional, but his tone said so much more. Sweet, kind Glenn. A lamb working at the desk, unknowingly serving a wolf.She looked him deeper in the eyes, then, and realized that he knew. That there was a weariness

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Thirteen

    CHAPTER THIRTEENShe wondered where he lived. She bet it was a disgusting hole underneath a rock. A dirt cave he decorated in children’s bones and chicken legs, like Baba Yaga.He led her to a motel. Not cheap. Not nice. Just a thing. A place. An anonymous hidey hole squirreled away in an odd corner of the city.“This is where you live?” she asked, trying to keep her nose from crinkling.“No,” he said simply.And her heart dropped. How was she to lead police triumphantly to his home if they weren’t going there? She had worked hard on memorizing the way, the street numbers, but they were just In The Middle Of Nowhere, USA.“Do you . . . stay here often?”He stopped and dropped her wrist abruptly. The look in his eyes made her swallow. Hard.“I don’t bring people to my home and I don’t answer questions. Do you understand?”She nodded. He was suspicious. She was losing him. She knit her fingers together and bit her lower lip.“I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m nervous. This isn’t . .

Bab Lainnya
Jelajahi dan baca novel bagus secara gratis
Akses gratis ke berbagai novel bagus di aplikasi GoodNovel. Unduh buku yang kamu suka dan baca di mana saja & kapan saja.
Baca buku gratis di Aplikasi
Pindai kode untuk membaca di Aplikasi
DMCA.com Protection Status