The Feeder (3 page)

I will find you, asshole. And you will pay, I promise.

I moved on to the next part of the message:

its only way ul b safe

Camille obviously felt the need to protect me from this steaming heap of human waste, but she didn’t realize he was the one who would need protection from me.

bye odie

That was strangely out of place, since she always called me Sammie.

Odie was the name of the cat we’d had when we were children. Odie had been scratching in the big litter box in the sky for years. Why would Camille mention her now, of all times?

ODIE!

I jumped to my feet and spun around, facing the bed. The bed was like any typical double bed in any motel room. A mattress sat atop a solid pedestal, which took the place of the box spring. Different from our beds at home, but…

I tossed my phone on the nightstand next to my sister’s drug paraphernalia and tore the bedding off of the mattress. Nothing. I lifted the mattress and looked underneath. Still seeing nothing, I flipped the mattress off of the pedestal.

The pedestal was a plywood box with floral upholstery around the edges. The sides of the thing were solid, but at the head of the bed I noticed a space between the wall and the pedestal. I slid the pedestal back, seeing it wasn’t nailed to the floor and discovered a hollow space underneath.

Camille had been using the space to hide a few things. As I retrieved the contents of Camille’s stash, tears welled up in my eyes at the memory of Odie.

We named the calico kitten Odie, after the dizzy dog from the Garfield comic strip. All kittens are a bit nutty, but Odie seemed to take nuttiness to a whole new level. She did eventually mellow with age as most cats do, but when she was young she was tons of fun.

Odie loved to hide. She could cram herself into the oddest spaces and then simply fall asleep. We often found her sleeping in closets, stuffed into boxes or balanced on top of clothes hanging in the closet.

Odie lived indoors, but she often disappeared inside the house for a day or two at a time. When Odie made up her mind to disappear, she was like a ninja. She vanished until she was ready to be found, and then she would launch a sneak attack on the nearest pair of unsuspecting ankles. Cammie and I used to make a game of trying to find her. She had one hiding spot that mystified us for the longest time.

We were playing with Odie one day, tossing a ping-pong ball for her to chase. She batted it under Camille’s bed and chased it underneath. When the ball reappeared but the cat didn’t, we peeked underneath to see what she was doing.

No cat.

We looked around the room to see if she had come out the other side and she was gone. We called her and tossed the ball around some more to get her attention, but Odie was apparently finished playing and had decided to disappear.

I grabbed a flashlight and slid under the bed on my back to see what I could see and there she was. Odie had either torn or found a hole in the sheer fabric on the bottom of the box spring and crawled up inside. She had slithered between the springs and then curled up for a nap, using the fabric as a handy hammock.

Over the years, Camille used Odie’s hiding spot herself, for various purposes. She stashed her Halloween candy in there when our mother confiscated the bulk of our loot after Trick-or-Treating to try and limit our daily consumption of junk food.

When we were older, she hid cigarettes in there and eventually weed as well. When Camille was fifteen, she visited the free clinic to get birth control pills without our parents’ knowledge. She used the Odie-hole to hide her packages of pills where they wouldn’t be found. It was better than hiding things under the mattress, where they could be easily discovered when changing the bedding. The Odie-hole was the logical place to stash anything one didn’t want found by casual observers.

I sat cross-legged on the bare plywood surface of the bed pedestal and surveyed the items I had retrieved from Camille’s makeshift Odie-hole:

A baggie of pot with a bunch of loose rolling papers stuffed inside. Another small bag of heroin. A large shoulder bag, black leather with snakeskin, featuring several zippered pockets.

The bag contained makeup, a few magazines and other assorted girl-things but the first item I saw when I opened the bag brought tears to my eyes. I hugged the item to my chest for a moment before examining it, praying it would tell me what I needed to know. It was a journal.

Thank you, Cammie!

~ Chapter 4 ~

The Journal

Camille had started keeping a diary at about eight years of age.

I supposed that was the approximate age when little girls began to have secrets from their parents and were literate enough to write them down.

I had never been one for diaries. In my opinion, displaying my innermost feelings on paper for anyone to see just didn’t seem like a logical thing to do. Secrets should be kept hidden, not dangled in front of would-be snoopers behind a clearly marked cover. Trusting one’s private thoughts to a tiny, easily-picked locking hasp seemed to me to be the exact opposite of what should be done with secrets.

Camille was obsessive about her diaries. She received one for each birthday and as a Christmas present; cutesy girly looking books with covers in varying shades of pink and purple, some adorned with fake gemstones, sequins or feathers. The girlier the better; nothing was too garish for Camille.

I on the other hand, had no use for such nonsense. I received one of the locked books as a birthday gift once. It was more of a sensible model than the frivolous stuff Camille liked but I still had no intention of putting any ‘deep personal feelings’ into writing.

I didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings; I knew she had picked out the gifts with love. I did my best to explain that I wasn’t into writing but I think her feelings were hurt anyway. Once again I was left feeling like an ass for being such a coldhearted shithead.

I put my journal to good use anyway. I used it to keep track of addresses, telephone numbers, emails and website addresses I needed to remember in case of an unexpected computer meltdown. My habit of backing up important data via hard copy was an odd one, considering my profession – I was a computer technician by trade.

Camille was the writer of the two of us. She kept a detailed account of everything that happened in her life from eight years of age. A trunk in the basement of our parents’ home in Vancouver held stacks of her diaries, which had accumulated over her childhood and part of her teen years, up until she left home. She dreamed of being a writer one day. She planned to write volumes of fantastic stories based on the adventures contained in her journals. I had always hoped she would but as the years passed and her wayward lifestyle continued, the likelihood of my sister realizing her dream faded.

I gazed down at the gold lettering on the deep violet cover of the small book I held in my hands. I was almost afraid to open it for fear of what it might tell me. What little I had seen of my sister’s life in this brutal city was enough to bring to tears even a coldhearted shithead like myself.

Instead of reading the first page, I flipped to the end of the book. If I knew my sister as well as I thought I did, I knew what I would find at the end.

Like me, Camille had a habit of recording important information in her journal. She never seemed to have the same cell phone long enough to be able to rely on a digital address book. The only difference was she delegated the last half-dozen or so pages for this while I had a tendency to start at the beginning of the book.

Camille didn’t disappoint me. Just as I expected, several pages at the back of the book were filled with names, addresses and phone numbers. I scanned through the list, looking for anything familiar; names she may have mentioned to me at some point. Several of the names in the list were indeed familiar, but not because Camille had mentioned them. They were the names of celebrities, some of them quite famous. Most of them had contact numbers beside the names.

Interesting.

It seemed my sister had been rubbing shoulders with some of Hollywood’s most influential people… or if not their shoulders, then what else had she been rubbing?

I closed the book and once again stared at the front cover, thinking. Having a list of Camille’s contacts didn’t bring me any closer to knowing where she was at that exact moment. It wasn’t like I could just start phoning people on the list.

I had no way of knowing which of the non-celebrity names if any, belonged to her cop boyfriend. By now I was now pretty certain he was her abductor as well as her abuser. I didn’t want to tip him off or endanger her further. The number from which Camille’s cryptic text originated was not in the list.

In spite of the urgency of the situation, I understood the importance of thinking with a clear head and not allowing panic to steer me into rash decisions. I wanted to rush after Camille and rescue her but that was impossible when I had no idea where to go. I would need to have some sort of strategy before I made my next move.

Patience. Breathe.

I leaned back against the wall and opened the book to the first page. With any luck, this journal would provide me with enough information to know what my next step would be.

~ Chapter 5 ~

A Tale of Decline

Friday

“I got a new agent today…”

The sight of Camille’s flowery script brought the ache back to my heart, reminding me once again how much I had missed her. As I read her words, I could almost hear her voice in my head, speaking them to me.

“This new guy is the real deal – a real Hollywood agent, not a sleazy flesh peddler like my old agent, who is, by the way, now my ex-agent. I fired Hot Bods as soon as I signed with Louie. It’s a new agency called Blue Moon Casting, and he specializes in finding new talent and making them into superstars! That’s me, baby! I am finally on my way! No more dancing topless in one trashy bar after another. I can get actual acting jobs through this dude, and he totally believes in me! My first audition is Tuesday, and then I do a photo
shoot on Wednesday for some hot new promo pics. He says I’m as good as booked on this new reality show that airs this fall. It’s like America’s Next Top Model except it’s for actors. I’ll be competing against nineteen other wannabes for a part in a major motion picture and Louie figures I’ll be a cinch to win. But even if I don’t win, he says it doesn’t matter because I’ll get huge exposure either way. All of America will know my face by the end of it and that’s when the job offers start coming in. This is it! I can’t fucking believe it’s finally happening!”

I paused for a moment to absorb what I had read. How did she go from that to… this?

I glanced with distaste at the junkie supplies on the nightstand.

Saturday

“OMFG! Louie took me out tonight, Hollywood style! He said he wanted to show me what was in store for me, so I’d be used to it when it happened. We went clubbing in the company limo, and we even sat in the VIP room in a couple of them. LOL The only ever time I’ve ever been in a VIP room before tonight was to give a lap dance. Yep, I can sure get used to this. This is the life for me.”

Sunday

“Went out again, this time to some club called TOOL. Not as nice as the spots he took me last night, but it had a certain grungy charm about it. Real hardcore band playing. They were called Abscess. Reminded me of WASP from the eighties.”

Monday

“Hung to the OVER! Far too fucked to function, even for me. Taking a ME day. Over to Louie’s for some hot tub time. Screen test tomorrow, and I want to be at my best.”

Tuesday

“I think I totally blew the audition. I still looked like shit and kept stumbling over my words. Louie said it doesn’t matter, they still got a sense of what I look like. I hope he’s right.”

Wednesday

“I nailed the shoot. Did a couple of lines before just to give me an edge, and I was right on top of my game. Looked smokin hot! Those casting dudes will cream when they see these!”

Thursday

“I’ve known Louie for a week and I think I’m totally falling for him. That’s so wrong, since he’s my agent. Gotta keep things professional if I want to be taken seriously as an actor. I don’t want to be seen as one of those tramps who fucks her way to the top. (Even though on top of HIM is where I’d like to be!)”

Friday

“I want him. I can’t help it. Damn it, he makes me hot!

Going out clubbing again! Woohoo! I’m liking being arm candy for Hollywood’s hottest new agent!”

Saturday

“Stayed up all night. Went to an after hours bar in a Chinese restaurant and sang karaoke with a bunch of trannies until 7am. What a blast! Caught a couple of Z’s on Louie’s couch and when I woke there were a couple nice fat white lines waiting for me on his glass coffee table. My hero! Home to shower and change, and he’s sending the limo to pick me up at nine.”

There were no entries for the following week, but I had a good enough idea where it was headed. The next entry was also a Saturday, which I assumed was a week later.

Saturday

“The Hollywood life is fucking sweet! This is where I was meant to be, baby! Louie takes me out to the hottest clubs every night, and we always travel in style. I feel like a superstar each time I step out of the back of that limo. I imagine there’s a red carpet beneath my feet and the city lights are paparazzi snapping pictures of me. One day soon, that will be my reality. One day soon….”

Monday

“Well, it happened. I didn’t mean for it to happen but I couldn’t help myself. It turned out he felt the same way I did. We were sitting at the bar, just talking. Suddenly he turns to me and says, ‘Cut the shit already. You know you want me as much as I want you.’ And then he kissed me. Just like that. Before I knew it we were slamming away in a bathroom stall like a couple of animals. I’m jelly. Fucking JELLLEEE!”