White Lady (25 page)

It’s one minute past midnight. In the corridor.

I lean my back against the wall next to the phone box. I have permission to make one call today.

Just one.

I only need one. One is the beginning of everything. The first step beyond zero. As soon as you step forward and take advantage of one, the spiral begins and never ends. It's written in the sequence.

I close my eyes and hold my breath for a moment, but long enough to hear the shuffle of inmates’ feet echo in rhythm with my heart. The heart that beats for the love of my life.

A man so cruel, but so kind.

Deep down. He’s kind. Deep down. He loves me.

We are a team.

No matter how much I pretended to regret that life, for the sake of my son, I couldn’t help but keep going back. Of course, I should have known. It's written in the sequence.

All these years, I’ve tried to hide from myself. Tried to hide inside the numbers. Each equation a sedative, a code for escape.

Every day I write a new number from the sequence in my little notebook. I found it under my bed when I arrived. It was meant for me. Because on the cover is a zero. A fresh number each day. It's all I need … 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765 …

The only other numbers I see are the ones printed on prisoners’ backs. So I play a little game with myself. I’ve been adding them up every twenty-four hours for the last seven months. And if they match the numbers I've written in my book, I call him. Because Ibrahim is my number one. And I am his. And no matter what happens, we will always exist side by side. It's written in the sequence.

The number one is also known as "unity": the probability of an event that is almost certain to occur; the first figurate number of every kind. It is neither a prime number nor a composite number but completely unique. It's the atomic number of hydrogen and the ultimate reality and source of all existence. See where I'm going with this?

We're
written in the sequence.

My hands shake as I dial Ibrahim’s untraceable number; the tone of the old 80’s phone mimicking the purr of the voice I’m about to hear on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Baby?” My heart steadies.

“Ebedi öpücük. I knew you’d come to your senses.”

“Ibrahim. You’ve got to get me out of here. I’ve got the most brilliant plan.”

Ibrahim laughs. Deep, gentle. “You do?”

I smile, look left to right to make sure no one is in earshot. If they’re monitoring this call, they’ll be out to stop it at any second because Ibrahim’s number is untraceable. So I need to be quick.

I rest my right hand over my left breast, like I’m about to take a pledge, and whisper, “You’re going to be so proud of me. He’s in. He’s finally in. After
all
these years. He's our number two.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s still pretending, like we asked. He loves me. He’s protecting you. For me.”

Silence.

“Can we trust him?”

“Of course. Nash is loyal when it comes to love. And Mia doesn’t suspect a thing.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Once again there are many individuals—writers, editors, friends and family—I’d like to thank for helping me in various degrees during the creation of this book.

First and foremost I’d like to thank my partner, Spilios Tzemos, for being a loving “husband” (We’re not married, but I like to call him that. We do have an eight-year-old mortgage and a seven-year-old dog, so that pretty much counts as marriage, don’t you think?) and for putting up with the endless hours I spend at the computer.

Many thanks go to my parents, Erika Bach and Demetri Vlass, for encouraging me to reach for my dreams and never give up ever since I was a little girl.

Huge thanks to my beta readers, Matthew MacNish, Dawn Ius, and Trisha Farnan. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have even known that Sonia was really a killer.

Thank you to Francine Howarth for choosing the name Kimiko (it was originally Summer).

Thank you Anthony Bell (my other Dad) and Dan Holloway for the mathematics advice. I honestly had no clue, and I really wanted the equations to be symbolic. I couldn’t have done that without you both.

Thanks to my uncle, Jim Baum, for making sure the crime stuff—although very little—was authentic (as a writer there are great benefits to having a cop in the family), and to my editors Susanne Lakin and Amie McCracken for making sure those gate-crashing typos didn’t hang around for the big party.

Thank you Adam Byatt for making me laugh when I asked my friends on Facebook, “What material would a wedding dress need to be made of in order to make a swishing sound when the woman walks?” by replying with, “Her dress swished like a pair of corduroy trousers and generated enough static electricity to power a small household appliance. She dare not risk touching the cat for fear of transferring the power and exploding the cat into bite size nibbles.”

And to Erika Olsen and Peggy Wheeler for confirming that taffeta would in fact
swish
. I decided not to mention the material of Sonia’s wedding dress, but that’s beside the point.

And thank YOU for reading!

REVIEWS AND NEWSLETTER

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If Jessica Bell could choose only one creative mentor, she’d give the role to Euterpe, the Greek muse of music and lyrics. This is not only because she currently resides in Athens, Greece, but because of her life as a thirty-something Australian-native contemporary fiction author, poet and singer/songwriter/guitarist, whose literary inspiration often stems from songs she’s written.

Jessica is the Publishing Editor of Vine Leaves Literary Journal and the director of the Homeric Writers’ Retreat & Workshop on the Greek island of Ithaca. She makes a living as a writer/editor for English Language Teaching Publishers worldwide, such as Pearson Education, HarperCollins, MacMillan Education, Education First and Cengage Learning.

Visit her website:
jessicabellauthor.com

ALSO BY JESSICA BELL

Novels

Bitter Like Orange Peel

The Book

String Bridge

Short Fiction

She: a short story in verse

Muted: a short story in verse

The Hum of Sin Against Skin

Poetry Collections

Fabric

Twisted Velvet Chains

Nonfiction

Polish Your Fiction: A Quick and Easy Self-Editing Guide (Writing in a Nutshell Series, Companion)

Writing in a Nutshell: Writing Workshops to Improve Your Craft (Writing in a Nutshell Series, all-in-one edition)

Show & Tell in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Transitions from Telling to Showing (Writing in a Nutshell Series, Book 1)

Adverbs & Clichés in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Subversions of Adverbs & Clichés Into Gourmet Imagery (Writing in a Nutshell Series, Book 2)

The Six Senses in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Transitions from Bleak to Bold Narrative (Writing in a Nutshell Series, Book 3)

Compiled & Edited

The Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal 2014

The Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal 2013

The Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal 2012

Indiestructible: Inspiring Stories from the Publishing Jungle

WHITE LADY

Copyright © 2014 Jessica Bell

All rights reserved.

Kindle Edition:

Published by Vine Leaves Press, 2014

Melbourne, Vic, Australia

Athens, Attica, Greece

No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

Cover and interior design by Jessica Bell