Pretty Broken Things, Page 2

  “I can’t, Henry. Just . . . help me get the stretcher.” I stand. “She doesn’t need to stay here any longer than she already has.”

  “Fine.” Henry follows me to what I privately call "the body bus." He’s almost casual in tone, then, as he warns me, “You know we’re going to have to talk.”

  “I’ll have the paperwork—”

  “Don’t be difficult, Jules. If he really is leaving victims for you. . . if he’s fixated on you . . . ”

  “Sure.” I try to match his tone, aiming to sound casual even though I feel anything but calm. “But I live at the funeral home, Henry. My home? It’s safe, and I’m not careless. There’s nothing to discuss.”

  He shakes his head, but he lets it go for now. That’s all I can hope for. Later, when I’ve done my job and I’m in the privacy of my home, I’ll face the realization that a serial killer is paying attention to me. Later, Henry will force me to discuss the unpleasant realities of the police department knowing that one of their own—because whether I wear a badge or not, I am theirs—is in danger. Later, Southern tradition will insist that I am in need of extra defense because I am a woman. Somewhere in there, Henry will pretend it's not personal for him. Even though we both know that it is.

  But right now? I’m going to do my job.

  2

  Tess

  It’s a Wednesday when I meet John Michael Anderson. He doesn’t use his first name in person, and both of his book covers list him as J. Michael Anderson. The extra initial may be pretension, but he’s earned a few pretensions. His debut was the sort of book that’s nearly impossible to follow. It’s rare to have more than one such book in you. I think he knows that; the critics certainly pointed it out often enough the past few years.

  He's older than I remember him being.

  Reid would be too. I think it before I can stop myself. Even after six years, I still think about Reid. What he liked. What he wanted. Where I still fail. He made me who I am. Even without the scars, I can still see the proof of it. There's a kind of thinness that comes from soul-deep hunger, a kind of lost look, a kind of desperation. Sometimes I still see it when I stare into a mirror. Six years, almost a thousand miles, and more than thirty hours of tattoos, and I still see the woman Reid made.

  I hate her. I hate the parts of me that still sound like his Tess.

  But that’s who Michael wants, too. I know why he's in my city. I know what he's seeking here. The oh-so-successful author wants a story, and Tess? The me that used to be? The survivor? She’s a hell of a story.

  There was a time I’d have done just about anything to have him look at me with interest. I did him back then, although I doubt Michael remembers me. I was just another fan on the road, and I didn’t have the maze of ink on my skin that I do now. I hadn’t started to find myself or draw the map.

  These days, the edge of a tattoo somewhere can be seen no matter what I wear, but when I took a tumble with Michael, I was unmarked aside from my scars. I’ve been adding tattoos since I moved to New Orleans, alternating between two different shops in the Marigny depending on my mood. When I have the cash and the stability to sit still, I write my history, etching it in my skin when I remember the forgotten bits and pieces of my past that might one day make me whole.

  Someday, I’ll either run out of skin or of memories. Either way, I’ll be whole then.

  Today, I’m at Mardi Gras Memories, the absurd little shop where I’ve been working.

  Michael walks in like it’s casual. “Tess, right?”

  I ignore him. I’m not going to make this easy for either of us. There are moments in life when we know we are at the edge of a mistake. J. Michael Anderson is a celebrity. Celebrities draw attention. Attention is bad.

  “You are Tess, aren’t you?” He’s wearing the same thing I’ve seen in plenty of photos, the same thing he once stripped off in front of me: jeans, faded enough to look like they’re older than they truly are, a casual shirt, dark leather shoes.

  “I hated your last book.”

  He stills at that, laughs awkwardly. “You’ve read my books?”

  I debate kindness. I remember the peace I found in his touch when I needed it. Kindness won’t make him leave though, and I need him to leave.

  Michael steps closer to me. “Tess . . . You are Tess, aren’t you? I thought you were. They said—”

  “Obviously,” I cut him off before he can lie. I try to be truthful when I can, even when it’s ugly, even when it hurts.

  “I am Tess.” I clench my hand against the urge to scrape my nails across my palm. I want to stay in the now without tricks or pills. Truth helps. I meet his eyes and repeat, “I am Tess.”

  I am not Tessie. I am no longer the woman who did bad things I can’t always remember. I am not the same person as the one who made those choices. Now, I tell the truth, as much truth as I can. It doesn’t undo the past, but it helps me be in the present.

  “I thought so.” Michael smiles. His attention is all the more focused now that I’ve confirmed what he already knew.

  “Are you buying something or leaving?” I keep my tone meaner than I feel, but talking to him, seeing him, everything about this is a bad idea.

  Michael opens his mouth, but instead of speaking, he closes it again and picks up a few strands of beads. In February, they’re tossed from floats or strung out like decorations. When they hang like tinsel in the trees or balconies or are passed out like rarities from floats, they seem valuable. They glimmer in street lights and headlights. Here, on the counter, they’re worthless. Sometimes people are like that, too.

  I ring up the beads.

  “You know, I saw you in Jackson Square,” he half-lies.

  “Mmmm.”

  He keeps going: “I asked one of the fortune tellers down there, and she said you worked here.”

  "I do." Talking is hard. I often feel like there are things I ought to say or not say. The rules confuse me—worse when I know that there are lies in the words.

  Michael hands me a credit card. It seems odd to charge such a small amount, or really, any amount. I am strictly cash and carry whenever possible. Credit cards leave a trail, and I don’t want to be found.

  Ever.

  Michael looks at me expectantly, and I realize that he didn’t think he’d have to have to work so hard for my attention.

  “What do you want?”

  He glances to the side, not meeting my gaze. It’s an obvious tell. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks, and I could use an insider’s perspective.”

  “Really?”

  “I want to learn about the city.” He offers me a full-out charming smile, as if I’m stupid.

  He could find plenty of tours. The Crescent City is a tour mecca. Guides share accurate (or not) tales on everything from voodoo and prostitution to murder and plantations. The tour guides are so numerous that they must adhere to a minimum distance law to keep from interfering with other folks’ tours—and thus their livelihood.

  I shrug. “I can recommend some people.”

  “What I really want is the insider view.”

  “I’m not a native or insider.”

  He gives me puppy dog eyes. “Come to dinner, at least.”

  "No."

  "Coffee?"

  This is a mistake. I want it not to be, but I can’t pretend I don’t realize that I’m on the precipice of a disaster. People do that. They say they don’t know how they ended up in the depths of self-destruction. That’s a lie. We make a thousand small choices that lead to our demise.

  “A drink then?”

  "It's a bad idea," I tell us both.

  I know better. Really, I do. Breaking rules is why I'm here in New Orleans. It's why the pretty things died. It's why I still look into shadows.

  Michael's not the sort of person who goes about unnoticed. Neither am I if the right people see me. I know I look different these days, but under all the changes, I suspect I still look like who I am. Someone could recognize me. I've seen my pict
ure on television. I'm a missing woman. Everything I've done, every choice I've made for years, it's all been about being safe. Safe means hidden.

  Reid can't kill me if he can't find me.

  And despite all of the reasons not to, I nod. Maybe I just want to be found, for it to be over.

  Michael talks. Making plans. I know I reply, but I can’t be sure what I say.

  Maybe it’s not self-destruction. Maybe I’m lonely for someone who knows me. Michael met me when I was Tessie, and he still fucked me. That means I wasn’t all bad, right?

  Or maybe I’m overthinking it. One date shouldn't change everything—but I still take another pill when he walks away. Rules let me survive. Rules keep me safe.

  Michael has already enticed me to break one of them.

  A few hours later, Michael takes me to dinner at Antoine’s, the oldest French-Creole restaurant in the city. It’s far more upscale than I find comfortable these days. It makes me remember a life I won’t ever live again. But this is about Michael. He’s trying his best to figure out how to charm me.

  It’s working despite his efforts, not because of them.

  I shake my head at how silly it all is. It’s quite possibly the least honest date I’ve ever been on. He shoves his real motives aside and flirts with me. I hide my awareness of why he’s sought me out and my memories of being naked with him. It’s possibly the least honest date I’ve ever been on.

  “What?”

  I stare at my dish, weighing words as I study my pommes de terre soufflées.

  Part of me wants to tell him that he’s trying to buy me with a high priced meal instead of just giving me the cash, but I settle on a softer truth than the raw words I would usually use: “Dinner and stories of your movie, your tours, your carefully dropped hints about your success . . . most women probably say yes before the main course, don’t they?”

  “Maybe I don’t want sex.”

  He’s not lying, but like most good mistruths, there is a lie and a truth all twisted up together in his words. Someone told him about my episodes, and he is intrigued. If you ask him, press him hard enough, I suspect he’ll claim that the curiosity is simply part of his avocation.

  That, too, is not a lie.

  It is, also, not the truth.

  He wants to know, wants to collect stories and characters because it gives him power, but I’m not easy about parting with my truths. Some truths lead to blood. Reid taught me that, too.

  I’m done bleeding for anyone.

  I finish my wine, and then I lean closer. “It is a shame that you’re not interested. I had every intention of fucking you.”

  He grabs my wrist, and I see a hint of darkness, telling me that he’s not as polished and civilized as he tries to be. That does more for me than any meal or story of his travels ever could. Maybe because it’s familiar, but I like that threat the way a junkie likes a fix.

  This is why we break the rules, this rush, this easing up on the precipice. I can see disasters looming if I stay on the path I'm approaching.

  Outside, Michael shoves me against a wall and kisses me. Crudely, carelessly, like I mean nothing and everything in that moment.

  It is exactly what I need.

  3

  Juliana

  I never wanted to be in a house that smells like death—and there is a smell. I know it. I'm proud of the work I do, but I can't ever escape the feeling that I smell like a mix of bitter coffee and too sweet flowers. Not every death is that. Sometimes, there's cologne. Sometimes, there's the bite of cigarettes from the grieving who quit years ago, but couldn’t resist the calm of nicotine during the pre-funeral days. No matter what else, though, the ceremony around death smells like flowers and coffee to me.

  When I was a kid, my uncle was actually the fun one in the family. He told the silliest jokes, and he was the first to go play in the rain with me and my sister—and the last one to add new rules to our lives. Uncle Micky was happy to have a tea party with us, but when he did so, we had proper tea and scones. My sister and I loved him, but as an adult I realize that his need to play was a result of the things he saw in his job.

  My job, too, these days.

  I guess I realized that Uncle Micky was lonely. It was just him in his big house in Durham, and sometimes when we visited, plans changed last minute because someone had died.

  When something bad happened, he was the only one who ever knew what to say. Maybe that's the truth of why I do what I do. I want to be like Uncle Micky because he was the only one who could help me when I thought I'd rather crawl in a hole and give up on living. I wanted to be that person for someone else.

  When my sister died, Uncle Mickey was one of the only two people who wanted to talk. No one else seemed to get beyond "I'm sorry to hear about Sophie" or "Sophie and Tommy are with God now." And maybe they are. I want to believe that.

  "He's going to go too far one of these days," Sophie says.

  "Should I ask?" I don't like Darren, but I'm cautious. Everyone who says anything negative about Darren gets kicked out of Sophie's life when she takes him back. My hand tightens on the phone. I want her here where I can see her and protect her.

  "I love him."

  "Uh huh."

  "We just fight so much . . ."

  "Sophie? Did something happen?"

  My sister pauses long enough that I open my mouth, but then she says, "No. It's okay. He's just . . . upset a lot."

  I have come to realize that I couldn’t save her. Sometimes people are beyond our reach. I think about the things I could've done, the things I could've said. Maybe there was nothing. Logic says nothing I do today will bring her back, but every so often, I can't stop thinking about her voice. I hear her voice, and I think about the women the Creeper kills. Did they have sisters they'd call? Do they have kids at home?

  Tommy is harder to think about than my sister. My nephew was the only person Darren treated like he was fragile. For all my issues with my brother-in-law, I never doubted that he loved his son. He claims he still does. Hell, he claims he still loves my sister. He writes to me sometimes, long rambling letters that remind me that the human capacity for self-delusion is incredible.

  And every once in a while, I am terrified that he's not completely wrong. Some of them I've read and re-read:

  Sophie would forgive me. I know she would. Someday I'll be with her again, and she'll tell me. With God's grace, we'll live together in his kingdom with our son. I can't be angry with you, Juliana. Sophie would disapprove. I wish you could understand what happened.

  But after a certain point, I asked not to receive them. They are turned over to the police, to Henry. I can't read them anymore. It makes me feel weak to admit that—so only Henry and Uncle Micky know.

  I'm not sure why I can handle the grief of mourners or the heartbreak over the women the Creeper has killed, but my own grief is too much to unpack even now. I haven't seen or spoken to my sister's killer since the trial. Sophie’s husband. Tommy’s dad. How do men kill their children? Their partners? How do they do the things that I see written on bodies?

  "Jules?"

  Uncle Micky is in the room. The little girl in me still looks at him and sees home. My parents are good people, but my uncle's the one who kept me safe.

  “Rumors are already starting.” Uncle Micky stands far enough away that I don’t feel crowded.

  “About?”

  “The body you and the Revill boy—”

  I shake my head. “He’s thirty-eight.”

  Uncle Micky ignores my attempt to redirect. “Are there things you aren’t telling me, Jules?”

  If I listed all the things I hid, we’d be in this stand-off a while. I walk over and wrap my arms around my uncle. It’s not exactly an answer, but for a moment, I want to be a small child, safe from the monsters in the world. I used to think that the bad things were the stuff of stories, and I believed that things that go bump in the night skittered away when the lights cut on.

  Then my brother-in-law murd
ered my sister and my nephew.

  Then a killer started leaving bodies at my doorstep.

  The world is full of monsters, not make-believe ones, but flesh and blood men who target women. The two men are not connected. They aren’t connected to other men like them either. I’m well aware that there is no great conspiracy. It’s not that complicated.

  Some men simply like the power they can have over others.

  At the end of the day, that’s why Darren writes to me from his cell. It’s why the Creeper sent a letter. And it’s why I’m not going to allow fear to reign over me. My fear—any woman or child’s fear—gives men like that power. I won’t do it.

  4

  Michael

  Despite my inquiries about Tess, I hadn’t been prepared for the woman herself. Nothing had prepared me for her brashness. Above all, the stories I’d collected hadn’t prepared me for the way she seemed to study me.

  Tess judged me. Not just that, she saw me in a way I wasn’t sure I liked. I’ve never felt as replaceable as I felt when she disrobed and looked back at me like I’d missed a cue along the way. Sex with Tess felt vaguely like a doctor’s exam. I’m not sure it was an exam I passed.

  She was satisfied. Her orgasms weren’t faked. Yet I was dismissed like hired help. There were no invitations for future dinners or desserts, not even a vague suggestion that we ought to “get together some time.” She simply sent me on my way with a little wave and a kiss on the cheek.

  I don’t know if she plans to see me again, but I will see her. Whether she wants to or not, Tess will save my career.

  “Think of it as a storyteller’s journey.” That was the excuse my agent, Elizabeth, offered when she told me to “take some time” before writing my next contracted book.