Security(11)

Vivica is humming a pop song. The Killer is directly behind her. She’s throwing her bagged gloves down the trash chute. She sets the carpet cleaner in its place on the shelf, drops the rag into a dirty linens hamper, straightens a bottle of furniture polish, and turns around. She jumps, screams. Then she laughs. “You scare me, Mr. Franklin.” Franklin likes to play pranks. “Mr. Franklin, you a bad man.” Vivica pokes him. It occurs to her, abruptly, that this man is a foot and a half taller than Franklin. The Killer has pressed the controller’s single button. The shelves behind Vivica move. “Mr. Franklin?” The Killer pushes Vivica into the secret elevator. He shoves her so hard, she bounces off the secret elevator’s far wall. She cradles her elbow and sinks against the dull wood paneling. The Killer follows her inside.

“Knife, looks like,” says Brian, who has reappeared from under the dishwasher, “or scissors.”

“Seriously?” Justin says.

Brian gets up and sorts through the tool kit. “It’s a good thing whoever did it cut the wires, because he cut the hoses and piping, too. There’d have been water all over this floor if he’d left the power connected.”

Justin watches Brian’s hands. They’re grimed black. They push bolts and screwdrivers and pliers through the toolbox’s pristine tiers, rejecting them in pursuit of something else.

Justin says, “So you’re the foster brother.”

“I could patch it if I had duct tape. MacGyver it for now.” He keeps searching the toolbox, though he’s done so already, and effectively. “You’ll still need a repairman out here tomorrow. It’ll be a temporary fix, hold for a day or two, max.”

Justin goes to a cabinet beside the industrial stove, where ingredients for cherry coulis are flung and dribbled everywhere, as if there’s been a food fight. “Heads up,” Justin says, and Brian catches a roll of duct tape still wrapped in cellophane.

“Nice.” His face lights. He stabs a box cutter through the plastic. His phony offhandedness is revolting as he asks, “Tess talked about me?”

“To Jules,” Justin says, “not to me. Tessa isn’t exactly an open book.”

Brian laughs through his nose. He cuts lengths of tape. His swipes with the blade are expert, practiced. “Depends who’s reading.”

Justin waits. He has a master’s in psychology from UC Davis. That’s where he and Jules met. Jules was doing a double master’s in psychology and business management, after quitting nursing school and earning a BA in art history. They both like to cook. Justin is a better cook than Jules. Jules does a kind of cooking there’s a special word for; it means she makes everything with a side of foam. The foam is supposed to improve or contrast or enhance the flavor of whatever it’s served beside, but the main thing one thinks when being served steak with a side of mushroom foam is: Weird. Justin and Jules opened a catering business straight out of grad school. It was foundering when they met Tessa at a catering conference three years ago. Tessa folded them into Destin Management Group, but they still do side projects on their own. Weddings, mainly. Justin now owns a hang glider, and Jules teaches Pilates. They like to rib Tessa by saying she saved them. This wouldn’t count as ribbing, except Tessa hates it, because it’s a compliment.

“I was ten,” Brian says. “She was eight.” He’s still cutting duct tape. Flaps of it hang like silver tongues off the counter. “Me and Mitch—that’s my twin brother. Did she tell you I had—?”

Justin nods.

“Me and Mitch—I mean, it’s, ‘Boys, say hi to your new little sister.’ You’re a foster, you’re laughing at that. It’s funny, because she’ll be gone. You’ll never see her again. Six months, nine months. Maybe a year. Maybe.” He points at the fifteen or so strips of duct tape. “Hand me one every time I say, okay? You got a bigger flashlight? Something that can stand on its own?”

Brian could hold the small flashlight in his mouth. But Justin unclips a large one from the wall, by the fire extinguisher. Brian disappears under the counter again, only his legs and groin visible, but his voice continues, bolder. “First day of school? Tessa’s first day—it’s the middle of the year, February, I think. She’s a second grader, got all the body fat of wheat chaff, just tiny. Tape.”

Justin sticks a strip to Brian’s outstretched finger.

“And we’re taking the bus, because Lorraine’s lazy as shit. Me and Mitch sit in the back. We’re cocks of the walk on that bus. You know, made it clear early that if you messed with one of us, you messed with both of us. We weren’t big guys, not ever, but there’s a mystique with identical twins, and we played it way up. Tape.”

Justin sticks a strip.

“Now, Tess hasn’t said a word. Not to me, Mitch, Lorraine, nobody. And me and Mitch, we’re fine with that. Whatever, right? She’ll be history pretty soon. Tape. But there’s this bully. His name’s Lance. Swear to God, a bully named Lance. I mean, polo shirts, gel in his hair. Kid’s eleven, and he gels his hair. Tape. Tess is wearing this hat. Blue with green polka dots. Got a little pom--pom on top, blue and green yarn. It’s a funky shape, looks handmade. I’d bet anything a foster made it for her. And Lance starts in on her, calling her names, making fun of her secondhand clothes, and—tape—and Tess doesn’t say anything. Won’t even look at him. So Lance takes her hat and throws it out the window. I start getting up, but Mitch pulls me back in my seat, looks at me like I’m nuts. I still should’ve—tape—I mean, she didn’t cry. She didn’t do anything. She just sat there, her hair sticking up, static--y. Her hair—even then, you couldn’t look at Tess and not kind of—even then, she was—her hair was really nice, but that’s . . . So we get to school, and the bus’s door opens, and Lance is at the door first because he’s a d--bag like that. Tape. And Tess just—wham! Out of nowhere. Shoves him with everything she’s got. He goes flying off the top step—”