They kill, p.3
They Kill, page 3
“You didn’t need a key,” Grace said. “You obviously picked the lock.”
Sierra gaped at Grace, unable to believe what the woman had said. Then she lost what little patience she had.
“That’s right. When you were asleep – I mean drunk and passed out on the floor – I used my vast experience as a cat burglar to break into your apartment and steal your purse. I put it up for sale on eBay this morning, and someone bid a million dollars on it. I’m on my way to the post office right now to mail it to the buyer.”
Grace’s eyes narrowed and her lips – smeared with too-red lipstick – tightened. She glared at Sierra with bloodshot eyes, and while Sierra felt the raw hostility behind that gaze, she refused to look away. Grace made no move toward her, didn’t raise a hand, but Sierra had the impression that the woman was on the verge of physically attacking her. Then Grace looked at Sierra’s canvas bag, and some of the fire went out of her.
“You’re lying. You don’t have enough room in there for my purse. I’ll give you until tonight to return it. After that, I’m going to the police.”
“You do that,” Sierra said. She turned away from the older woman and headed for the building’s exit. Sierra and Grace lived on the ground floor, and it took Sierra only a few steps until she was outside and walking down the stone steps in front of the building. Her red Volkswagen Beetle – which she called Ladybug – was parked right in front, and she practically ran to it, hoping to get in, get the hell out of there, and leave Grace behind. But before she could reach her car, the building’s door banged open, and Grace came charging out after her. The front of the woman’s robe fell open completely, and her breasts wobbled and flopped as she stumbled down the stairs.
“Don’t you turn your back on me, you goddamned thief!” Grace shouted.
Up to this point, Sierra had been mostly irritated by Grace, but now she was afraid of her.
“Leave me alone!” she shouted.
She reached Ladybug, thumbed her key remote to unlock the door, opened it, jumped in, and immediately locked it. She started the car without bothering to put her seat belt on, but before she could put the vehicle in gear, Grace was at the driver’s side door, smacking the window with her hands, striking so hard that Sierra wouldn’t have been surprised if the glass cracked.
“People like you think you can do anything you want and get away with it!” Grace was screaming now, spraying the window with spittle. “But you’re wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!”
Sierra put the car in reverse, stomped on the gas, and flew backward. Grace’s hands had been on the window when Sierra started backing up, and as the car moved, the woman lost her balance. She spun around, struck the front quarter panel with her bony ass, bounced off, and fell to the asphalt. Sierra was horrified, and for an instant she almost threw the car into park and got out to see if Grace was okay. But then she remembered the insane fury in the woman’s face as she pounded on the window, and Sierra put Ladybug in drive and roared away. As she pulled onto the road, she glanced at her rearview mirror and saw Grace standing there, blood on her knees from where she’d hit the ground, mouth stretched wide in a scream of anger.
* * *
Grace watched Sierra drive away, hands bunched into fists, entire body shaking. Her throat was raw from screaming, her knees stung from being scraped when she’d fallen, and her tits were hanging out for all the world to see.
Let them look, she thought. I hope they all get an eyeful and go blind.
She couldn’t believe what a total cunt Sierra had become. She used to be such a sweet girl – or at least she’d pretended to be. Why should she turn out to be any different from all the other people in her life? Her dumbass ex, her heartless children, and all the unreliable men she’d dated since her divorce. None of them had ever cared for her, not really, and none of them had been there for her when she truly needed them. They treated her like garbage and expected her to put up with it. Well, fuck that and fuck them too. She’d take care of herself, just as she had most of her life. Her dad had run out on her mom and her when Grace was a toddler, and her mom had started drinking. She drank so much that Grace had had to take care of her and do all the household chores, including feeding herself. Her mom died of a heart attack when Grace was in high school, and she hadn’t shed a single tear for the bitch. Thank god she knew how to handle her booze. She never wanted to end up a useless drunk like her mother.
She closed her robe and belted it, then ran her hands through her hair in a vain attempt to make it look somewhat presentable. She then started back toward the building. Her mouth was dry as sandpaper and her head throbbed with a headache that was worsening with each passing second. She needed some hair of the dog. She would’ve made a liquor store run – despite the early hour – but she didn’t have any cash. She couldn’t use her debit card because her checking account was seriously overdrawn, and her credit cards were all maxed out. Besides, all her cards were in her goddamned purse, which that bitch Sierra had stolen. She’d just have to scrounge around her apartment and hope she’d find something, anything to drink.
* * *
The encounter with Grace left Sierra feeling emotionally and physically wrung out. So when her phone rang, she pulled it out of her bag, and instead of checking the display to see who was calling – as she normally did – she answered it.
“Hey, Sierra! What’s up?”
She let out an audible groan upon hearing Stuart’s voice, but if he heard, he didn’t remark on it.
“It’s been a while since we talked, and I thought I’d check in with you and see how you’re doing.”
It’s been a while because I won’t take your calls or answer your texts, she thought. Haven’t you gotten the message by now?
But of course he hadn’t. Stuart Redmond wasn’t interested in other people’s feelings, only his own. And when he claimed something as his – like her, for example – as far as he was concerned it was always his.
“This isn’t a good time,” she said. Not that any time would be good.
“You obviously want to talk or you wouldn’t have answered the phone.”
Wanting to talk and wanting to talk to you are two different things, she thought. Out loud, she said, “I’m on my way to work. Could we do this another time?”
“Considering how long I’ve been trying to reach you, I’d rather talk now, while I’ve got you on the line. Otherwise, it might be another couple months before you answer your fucking phone again.”
She ground her teeth in frustration. This was pure Stuart – pushing for what he wanted by trying to make her feel guilty about denying it to him. The hell of it was, even when she knew he was doing it, she couldn’t keep herself from feeling exactly the way he wanted. She remembered something he’d once told her.
People are like machines. All you have to do is figure out how to work their controls, and you can make them do anything you want.
He worked as a salesperson at Electronics Emporium, and he’d been talking about how to manipulate customers into buying more than they originally wanted, sometimes more than they could afford. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d been giving Sierra an important insight into how he viewed people. All people, including her.
“I’m doing fine,” she said, almost snapping at him. “Things are pretty much the same. No major changes.”
Stuart was silent for a moment, then he said, too casually, “No special someone in your life?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake!
Sierra and Stuart had dated for nearly a year when he asked her to marry him. She’d said yes, although not without some reluctance. Their relationship had still been new when Jeffrey died, and like Grace, Stuart had been there for her during those awful early days of her grieving. She’d been considering breaking up with him before Jeffrey’s accident, but afterward, she’d needed his support too much, and so she’d stayed with him, even though his support was primarily self-serving. He wanted to own her, to have sex whenever he wanted it, and in return he would hold her when she cried, pat her on the back, tell her everything was going to be all right, that it would just take time. And she’d needed to hear those words so badly that she ignored how empty the rest of their relationship made her feel.
So when he proposed, she’d accepted out of what she later realized was misplaced gratitude. But as soon as she agreed to be his wife, Stuart’s attitude toward her grieving changed. Whenever she felt sad about Jeffrey’s death and started crying, he told her that she was being childish, that she’d mourned long enough, and it was time for her to get on with her life.
People die, he’d said. It’s sad, but it’s a fact of life. You have to learn to accept it.
And if he became especially frustrated with her continued grief, he’d tell her how fucked up it was that he had to be jealous not only of her brother, but her dead brother.
And his need to control her hadn’t ended with her grief. He wanted to know what she did during her day – where she went, and especially who she spoke with. He wanted to know who she was texting and what they talked about. He asked her about her students at the college, wanted to know if she had any cute guys in her classes and if any of them were especially friendly toward her. The final straw had come when he suggested she avoid spending time with her parents because they were only “reinforcing your unhealthy fixation on your brother.”
Stuart had not taken their breakup well. He’d kept calling and texting, showing up at ArtWorks and at the college to talk to her, waiting in front of her apartment building for her. She’d had to take out a fucking restraining order on him, and he finally, grudgingly left her alone after that. He still tried to get in touch with her sometimes, which was a violation of the restraining order, but overall, he was so much better than he had been that Sierra hadn’t made an issue out of it. Now she wished she had.
“You’re not supposed to talk to me. You know that.”
A pause, and this time when he spoke, his tone was ice-cold.
“You. Answered. The. Fucking. Phone.”
“And now I’m disconnecting.”
She ended the call and tossed the phone back into her bag. The phone immediately started ringing again, but there was no way in hell that she was going to pick it up this time. Stuart would probably leave a nasty voicemail, which she’d delete unheard. How the hell had she ever ended up with a guy like him? Jeffrey had tried to warn her that Stuart was no good for her soon after she started dating him. At the time, she’d felt like Jeffrey was trying to get back at her because she didn’t approve of his boyfriend, and it became a sore point between them. She wished Jeffrey were still alive for a million reasons, but one of them was so she could tell him that he’d been right about Stuart, and she wished she’d listened to him.
Hindsight might be 20-20, but sometimes it hurt like a bitch too.
* * *
Stuart sat behind the wheel of his hyper-blue metallic Camaro in the Electronics Emporium parking lot. The store didn’t open until nine, but he liked to get there early. He hoped to be promoted to manager soon and getting to work early showed his dedication to the store – he hoped.
He’d purchased the Camaro less than a month ago, and the thing was his pride and joy. The kind of car a person drove made a statement about who they were and, more importantly, where they were going. The vehicle was loaded with the latest hi-tech features – built-in 4G Wi-Fi, heated and ventilated seats, rear camera mirror with streaming video, infotainment system with eight-inch touchscreen, and a forward collision warning system. Driving the car was like piloting a starfighter, and Stuart fucking loved it. What he did not love, however, was being hung up on.
“Call Sierra,” he said.
His phone was connected to the car’s system, allowing him to make and receive calls hands-free. He listened as Sierra’s phone rang and rang before finally going to voicemail.
“Hi, this is Sierra. I can’t take your call right now, so please—”
Stuart pushed a button on the steering wheel to end the call. What he really wanted to do was leave a message telling Sierra she was an immature cunt for disconnecting like that, but he restrained himself. The last thing he wanted to do was let Sierra think she’d gotten him angry enough to lose control. He refused to give her the satisfaction.
Stuart closed his eyes, drew in a long slow breath, held it for a ten count, then released it slowly. He did this four more times before he felt his anger had diminished to a manageable level.
He opened his eyes, then opened the mirror on the driver’s side visor and looked at his reflection. His expression was calm, and there was no hint of anger or frustration in his eyes. He tried a smile, and while it looked a little strained to him, he thought most people would’ve taken it as genuine. When you were in sales, your facial expressions – along with your voice and body language – were your most important tools, and he always made sure his were in working order. Clothes were important too, of course, and today he wore a gray suit with a blue tie that complemented the color of his car. Sierra had told him on several occasions how good he looked in a suit, and the thought of her caused his smile to falter and fade.
He didn’t understand what her fucking problem was. He was reasonably handsome, kept his weight under control, had a good job with excellent prospects for advancement, and he was great in bed. No woman had ever told him he was good at sex, but they didn’t need to. When you were a man – a real man – you just knew. He was everything a woman should want. So why didn’t she want him?
You know why, he thought. It’s because of her damn brother.
Today was the one-year anniversary of Jeffrey’s death. That’s why Stuart had called Sierra this morning. He’d hoped she was feeling sad and might need a little TLC. But it hadn’t worked out that way, had it?
Stuart hadn’t been sorry when Jeffrey died. The man hadn’t thought he was good enough for his precious little sister, and he’d done everything he could to drive a wedge between Sierra and him. After the asshole was gone, Stuart figured it would be smooth sailing with Sierra from then on. And it had been – for a while. But she was obsessed with her brother, and he had no idea why. He could understand being sad for a couple weeks, maybe a month, but a whole fucking year? He just didn’t get it. Sometimes, when he was feeling especially angry at Sierra, he wondered if there hadn’t been more to her relationship with Jeffrey, if maybe they were a little closer than a brother and sister should be. Yeah, Jeffrey had been gay, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t fucked his sister at some point. People experimented, right? When Stuart was a teenager, he’d let his cousin Paul jack him off in his parents’ basement once. When Paul had told one of his friends, Stuart beat the holy living shit out of the little bastard. Fucker had it coming for talking when he should’ve kept his mouth shut. The way Stuart figured it, Sierra and Jeffrey had to have had sex, or maybe come close to it without actually doing it. He couldn’t understand having such strong emotions for someone you hadn’t fucked.
He reached out and patted the Camaro’s black dashboard.
“At least you make sense.”
That was one of the things he liked about technology. It was designed to do specific tasks, and when you operated it correctly, it performed those tasks exactly as you wanted. Not for the first time in his life, he wished people were more like machines. Maybe he’d understand them better then.
He checked the time on the dashboard display. Ten minutes to nine. Time to quit thinking and head inside if he wanted to keep up his streak of coming in early. He hoped work would take his mind off Sierra, but he knew from experience that it wouldn’t. Maybe he’d give her a call later to see how she was handling the anniversary of Jeffrey’s death. Or maybe he’d just show up at her place. She couldn’t get mad at him for violating the restraining order, not when he’d done so entirely out of concern for her emotional well-being.
He thought about it for a moment and decided there was a decent chance she’d buy that story. And if she did, who knows? Maybe she’d realize what she’d been missing and invite him into her bedroom for some make-up sex. And if she didn’t invite him, maybe he could find a way to make her let him in anyway. Once he was inside her apartment, he was confident he could get her into bed, one way or the other. Sure, she might say no, but she wouldn’t mean it, not really. None of them did.
Cheered, he got out of the Camaro and headed for the store’s entrance, imagining the things he would do to Sierra when he finally got her alone again.
Chapter Three
ArtWorks was located in Bishop Hill’s downtown Historic District. The buildings were old enough to earn the ‘historic’ designation, most of them having been built in the early part of the twentieth century, but the businesses located here didn’t fit with that motif. There was a cell phone store, a store that bought and sold used video games, a coffee shop, a hot yoga studio, a pizza joint, a store that sold handmade soaps and essential oils, a store that sold large wood carvings created with chainsaws, and ArtWorks Education. ArtWorks had only been in business for the last five years, about the time Sierra had graduated with her MFA in art. Before that, it had been a local office supply store that ultimately hadn’t been able to compete with the large national chains. And it hadn’t helped that the parking lot was so small. Because of this, the employees at ArtWorks were encouraged to park on the street and leave what spaces there were at the building for students and parents. Parking was free downtown, thankfully, but finding space each morning was a pain in the ass. Sometimes Sierra would be forced to park a couple blocks away and walk, which was no big deal on a day like today since the weather was nice, but which really sucked when it wasn’t, especially in winter.
