When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(87)

I climb out of bed, cross to the console. I have two pieces of paper left. I snap on the lamp. I pick up my crayons, and with the image of my beautiful mamita in my mind, I draw and I draw.

Red earth. Black hair like a river. Brown eyes soft as an embrace. I draw my mother’s love. Then, I draw her pain.

“No, chiquita,” she whispers at my shoulder.

But I keep on going. Pouring our story onto the page. No longer dreaming. Now completely wide awake.

Which is why I’m the one who hears the screaming first.



* * *



—

THE BLOND DETECTIVE BOLTS OUT of bed. One moment she is snuffling in her sleep, the next she is upright, yanking on her clothes, grabbing her gun from the bedside table.

“Stay here,” she orders me. Then she’s gone.

I hear more noise now. Footsteps, hammering down the hall.

“What is it?” The FBI lady’s voice.

“I don’t know. Flora, stay with Bonita.”

“Like hell.”

“Dammit.”

More screaming, shrill and high pitched. The voices and footsteps pound down the hall.

I rise to standing, place my crayons on the console. Then I do as the detective did. I pull on my clothes, open the door, and I follow, slowly, painfully, down the hall.

I encounter the first person in the lobby. It is the motel manager. The one who said we must leave last night. He’s staring out the glass doors in horror.

He glances over at me. “Do not go out there,” he says.

But he doesn’t know all the things I’ve seen.

I limp my way forward. Resolute, even as I feel the silver shimmer of my mother dance in front of me.

Outside, the sun has just broken above the horizon, bathing the parking lot in rosy color. A crowd of people has gathered. I make out the detective, the FBI woman, Flora who carries a knife, and the man who is always beside her. There are others. Hotel guests roused by the noise. Strangers passing by. I have no idea.

Then I look up, and what I see finally stops me in my tracks.

Hélène. Poor, scared, lovely Hélène. She is still wearing her maid’s uniform. And now her body dangles lifelessly from a tree planted at the edge of the parking lot. I have a sense of déjà vu. Blue running as a river into a pool of red.

He has cut her. Blood drips down her hands, both legs. It is not enough for him to kill. The Bad Man, he likes to destroy first. Until when he goes for the final blow, his victims lift their chins in gratitude.

Beside me, my mother is very still.

I look around the parking lot, but I don’t sense him. He came. He staged this gruesome scene. He left.

“I’ll call Sheriff Smithers,” the FBI lady is saying to D.D.

“We need to cut her down.”

“The ME won’t be happy about that. Destroys evidence.”

“I know, but this isn’t just about the murder of a young woman. This is a message.”

“Another hint we should get the hell out of town? Because frankly, the more bodies that drop, the longer we stay.”

“No,” D.D. says, turning to the FBI lady. “It’s a message to the locals. Look what happens if you talk to us.”

“Shit,” the FBI lady murmurs.

“Bonita can communicate with pictures. She can’t do a literal rendering of our UNSUB’s face, but she did reveal another girl had been killed at the B and B, probably the day before Martha Counsel.”

“Good God, and where is that body?”

D.D. looks around. “It’s a big, big mountain range, with how many hundreds of miles of trails?”

Flora has moved closer to them. “I can cut her down,” the woman says softly. She is holding her fancy knife, with an intricately carved pattern that both fascinates and repels me.

“I’ll help,” D.D. says. “It’s important to preserve the knot for forensic analysis. We’re going to need a ladder.”

“I can hoist Flora up on my shoulders,” Flora’s companion says. “Then she can lower the body down to you.”

“We need to get this circus under control,” the FBI lady mutters.

“We need to find the motherfucker who did this,” D.D. states. She turns and spots me. Her eyes widen. She looks around frantically, as if the Bad Man is here, as if he’ll see.

But I already know he’s not. He is gone; Cook is gone. It’s just Hélène and me. Again.

I hobble forward. I ignore the detective who is hissing at me to stop. I ignore the gawkers who are staring at a woman who was never my friend, but my sister in pain.

I move till I’m right beneath her body. Till I can look straight up and see what he did to her. Poor Hélène. Beautiful Hélène who was so afraid. If she hadn’t fled the kitchen yesterday. If she’d just stayed with me.

I stretch up now. I don’t mind the blood. I have seen it, cleaned it, felt it running down my own wrist. Blood is nothing to fear. People are.

I place my hand gently on Hélène’s bare foot—all I can reach.

And I promise her, as I have promised the others, I will not rest, I will not retreat.

I’m going to kill the Bad Man. I don’t know how. I’m weak and gimpy and small. I don’t know knives the way he does. I’ve never held a gun. I have no idea how to fight. I’m just me. Wordless and helpless.