DoubleDown V (9 page)

“Please let me read to you.  Last time we started a Danielle Steel novel.  Should we continue?”

The woman just stared at her.  “Please,” she whispered one more time.

Karen picked up the paperback novel and flipped it open to Chapter Four, where she’d left off the day before and she started to read.

*   *   *

Forty-eight hours later, Mrs. Olivia Jenkins was dead.  In those last two days, she suffered immensely.  She couldn’t catch her breath and felt as if she was breathing through a straw.  Her guts were full of shiny glass fragments that churned and ripped her insides, her brain assaulted by lightning bolts.  Even the morphine drip did little to dull the eternal pain.

Karen wanted to help her, but there was nothing she could do.  She had little control over the medication the patients were given.  After all, Mrs. Jenkins wouldn’t be at the clinic if she weren’t a terminal case waiting for death.

That didn’t make Karen feel better.  All of a sudden she realized that many of her patients wanted her help, to ease them away from the horrible last days ahead of them into a peaceful sleep.  Most didn’t ask with their mouth—they asked with their eyes.  She now knew the meaning of the wide-eyed stare that greeted her so often.  Until now she’d thought it was fear, which made total sense to her; but now she realized it was also a plea for help.

*   *   *

One night when she was twenty-one, she lay in bed with Bonnie, both of them naked.  Karen needed to hold her tightly, wanting to feel the love of her girlfriend, hoping the feelings they shared would help remove the memories of her day job.

She kissed Bonnie passionately and rubbed her back from the shoulders down to her ass.  The two girls pressed their bodies together, and Karen felt herself getting wet, the memories of the waiting dead finally falling from her mind.

Suddenly, her arm was wrenched down to her side with a sudden jerk, and she was slammed onto her back as if an invisible giant plucked her off Bonnie and tossed her like an old Barbie doll.  It happened without warning and both girls were stunned.

“What happened?” asked Bonnie.  Her voice was full of confusion.  “I thought you were enjoying it.”

“I was.  I didn’t pull away.  My body just slammed down.”

“That’s impossible.” 

Karen realized what happened.  She felt her belly and found a sticky spot.

Fucking Bobby Jersey.  Ohmygod, he was here.

She knew without even having to consciously work it out.  Time had frozen for Bobby, and he used his secret time to come to her.  He’d found her making love with Bonnie, pushed her aside, probably fondled both of them, and masturbated on her.

Fucking pervert.

Tears spilled down her cheeks.  “I’m so sorry, Bonnie.”

“But what happened?”

“I—I’m not sure how to explain.”

“It’s okay.  I’m here for you.  You can tell me anything.   You know that.”

“Yes.  I do.”

And she did.  She told her everything about being able to move when everybody else was stuck in time.  She told her about Bobby and about her dad and her sister’s loser boyfriend.  She told her about all the buried secrets she’d found over the years, and she pulled out her Secrets Journal to help convince Bonnie what she’d seen.

The only thing she didn’t tell her was the time when Karen had spied on Bonnie herself.

It took two hours to get her story out, and during that time Bonnie barely talked.  She nodded occasionally and let the story unfold.  As Karen revealed more details, she was convinced that Bonnie thought she was a freaking nut case.  By the end of the story, she was sure she’d ruined the only true love she’d ever felt.

When she finally stopped talking, though, Bonnie smiled and just said, “I love you.  I want to hear everything from this point forward.  No more secrets between us.  Pinkie swear?”

Karen grinned and held out her smallest finger to connect with Bonnie’s.

*   *   *

Thirteen days passed before time stopped again for Karen.  In that time, three of her patients had died, and she’d had no further visits from Bobby.

She had planned her time-freeze this time.  It was the middle of the night.  She snapped awake and saw Bonnie curled up beside her, like a cute little snail.

Karen was wearing pajamas and didn’t bother changing.  Nobody would see her.  She went to the kitchen and picked out a sharp carving knife.

It had taken very little effort to find out where Bobby lived.  Unlike her, he was outgoing and wanted everybody to know everything about him on Facebook, Twitter, and a few other sites.  Once Karen decided to track him down, she had his address within a few hours.

He lived in the basement of an apartment owned by his mom.  She broke a window, not caring if there was an alarm system.  If there was, she’d be long gone before the first ring of the claxon.

He was sleeping naked (no surprise to her).  Karen pulled the covers off him and used the knife to slice a very thin line on his belly, the same place he had defiled her with his semen.

She’d already written a note that she left propped beside him:
Leave me alone, you fucking creep.  If I ever see you again, I’m going to cut your cock off.  You know I’ll have no qualms about doing it.

She left and walked to the Mayberry Care Center.  The building was mostly dark so the patients could sleep, but there were still a half-dozen employees keeping track of things. 

Carlene Jameson was in room 173.  She was an old woman, close to eighty, who’d been waiting to die for more than two weeks.  Like most of the others, she was in pain every minute of every day and just wanted it to be over.

Karen walked in to the drug room and filled a hypodermic with morphine.  She took it to Carlene Jameson’s room and inserted it into her IV, depositing the deadly dose so it would bring the rest that the old woman desperately wanted.  She’d begged Karen for help several times, and Karen no longer feared helping.  She’d just needed to have time stop so she could take care of things without being caught.  She’d never be allowed in the drug room normally without authorization.  This way, she could help Carlene and leave no indication she had even been in the same building.

“Good-bye,” she whispered.  She kissed the old woman on the forehead and then took her time as she left the building.  She walked around downtown until she felt the calling and smiled as she went back home to sleep with Bonnie.

Four years passed.

Karen was twenty-five, and it seemed that she’d always lived with Bonnie. Any secret insecurities Karen had felt about her relationship were long gone; she knew they’d be together forever.

Long gone also was Bobby Jersey.  After threatening to hurt him, Karen had not heard from him again.  She rarely thought of him, since she no longer needed him.  Once he had been the only person she could share her secret life with.  Now, Bonnie shared that part of her, even if it wasn’t something she could directly participate in.  It didn’t matter.

Karen loved her work at the care center.  She loved being able to soothe her patients, but when they had that special look in their eyes, she could help them with that too.

Carlene Jameson was the first, but there’d been many after her.  Karen knew in her heart that she was truly helping them.  They suffered and had no chance of recovery.  Waiting in pain to die is something few people were equipped to do gracefully.  Karen only helped when time stopped for her, so there was no way to tie the murders to her.  As far as she knew, nobody ever really suspected anything unusual had happened.  Terminal patients die.  No surprise there.

Only one area of her life nagged at Karen. She sometimes woke late at night and thought of her father.  She remembered the four boxes he’d squirrelled away in the closet and the words in his confession, written so many years later:
I wish I could say I’m sorry, but when I face myself in the mirror, would I really believe my own lies?

Part of her tried to forgive him, to say that she was just as much a murderer as he was, but that didn’t hold water for her.  She was killing to help people.  He took the life of an eight-year-old girl who had her whole future ahead of her.

Tammy Preston had been dead in her grave for close to thirty years.  She would have been in the prime of her life right now.  No punishment could be doled out to her father anymore, but there was still one thing that Karen had struggled with since finding her father’s secrets nine years earlier.

“Hey, Mom,” Karen called when she walked into the house.  Even though she hadn’t lived there for years, it still felt like home to her.

Her mom was in the kitchen, baking bread.  It was a hobby she’d picked up in the past few years, when she found a cooking group organized at her local supermarket.  She smiled when Karen walked in, and they hugged.

“How’s things?”

“I’m good,” said Karen.   “We’re both doing great.  One piece of news for you—we’re looking into adoption.  It’ll take a long time, but you always told me good things come to those who wait.”

“That’d be so wonderful!  It’s been a long time since I’ve heard little footsteps padding around this place.”

After a pause, Karen said, “Mom, I need to show you something.  It’s kind of a big deal.”

She took her mom by the hand and started up the stairs to the master bedroom.

“What is it?”

Karen sat on the bed with her mom beside her.  Both of them could feel tension in the air.

“A long time ago, I found some things that Dad had been hiding away in the closet.”

Her mom stared at her, clearly surprised Karen had snuck into their bedroom closet.

“I know I shouldn’t have gone in there, but I did.  I think you need to see what he was hiding.  You need to know because you have a view of Dad that you may have to modify.  I’ve been haunted by the boxes in the closet for years, and I just need you to know they’re there.”

Karen went to retrieve the boxes and placed them on the bed beside her mom.  She suggested they be opened in the same sequence she originally had opened them: the report cards, the magazines, the gun, and the note.

Karen hugged her mom, who just looked confused.  Then she smiled and said, “I’ll be down in the living room. I’ll make us coffee for whenever you’re done.”

She bit her tongue as she left, wondering if she’d done the right thing.

*   *   *

Thirty minutes later, Karen’s mom came down and sat with her, smiled as if resigned to the truth found upstairs and gave Karen a long hug.  They never spoke of the boxes again.

The last of Karen’s stress points melted away, and she smiled as she thought of her future.

Two years passed.  Karen and Bonnie had the perfect life.  They loved each other, they enjoyed their jobs, they enjoyed their home, and they found time to travel a little bit each year.

They hoped to adopt but so far that hadn’t worked out.  That was okay; they were patient.  They knew it would happen one day.

Karen was twenty-seven.  She had helped a dozen terminally ill patients find the peace they wanted so badly, and she’d made the final days of a hundred others easier by reading to them, listening to them talk about the events that shaped their lives, or just smiling and holding their hand while they watched television.

Even that part of Karen’s life felt perfect to her.

*   *   *

Bonnie came up with the idea.

“Hey, let’s go to the Halloween party at the Micimac this year.”

“Really?”  The Micimac was a pub a couple of blocks from their home.  They dropped in from time to time, but Karen had never thought of joining the regulars there.  “Like get dressed up and everything?”

“And everything!  Of course!”

Karen wasn’t sure, but Bonnie hugged her and said she knew Karen would love it.

They dressed up as characters from a recent movie, both men, both wearing fake beards and army gear.  To her surprise, Karen loved the party.

At midnight, they were dancing with a dozen other couples.  Karen would always remember the D.J. was playing “Mermaid” by Train.

All of a sudden Bonnie let go of Karen and grabbed her throat.  She started to choke.

Karen felt like time had stopped, but this time it hadn’t.  She was frozen with fear and confusion as she looked at Bonnie.

Blood gushed between Bonnie’s fingers, spurting over the dance floor.  Her face was white with shock and her mouth opened and closed, but Karen couldn’t hear any words.  The noise of the music drowned anything she might have gasped.

When Bonnie sank to the floor, somebody screamed.  The music stopped suddenly and the lights all came on.  Somebody yelled, “Call 911!”

Bonnie looked at Karen, who was still frozen, her mind unable to comprehend what was happening to the woman she loved.

Finally, Bonnie rolled onto her side and that broke the trance.  Karen dropped beside her to see what was happening.  Bonnie’s hands fell away, and Karen saw more blood dripping from her neck.  There was a thin slash line cut horizontally through Bonnie’s throat.

“No!  No, don’t take her from me, Bobby!”

Karen looked around and saw a woman dressed as a genie.  She grabbed one of her scarves and placed it around Bonnie’s neck, hoping to stop the bleeding; she was afraid to pull it too tight, though, for fear of choking her.

It seemed forever before the ambulance arrived. Two men pushed her aside to work on Bonnie.  They put her on a stretcher and took her away.  Karen ran after them, and they let her ride in the ambulance to the hospital.

The paramedic kept her away.  “Don’t get too close.  She needs air.”

His eyes told a different story, though
.  Somebody sliced her throat.  If it was you, you’re not getting close enough to finish the job.