Twelve Shades of Midnight: Page 9

  I glanced toward their bedroom through the transparent cops and transparent walls. I once wondered why everything was transparent when I dropped and came to the conclusion that I was not in any sort of reality. I was literally seeing ghosts of the past, even the ghosts of objects as it were.

  I was transparent as well. I could see the tile floor through my hands. It totally freaked me out the first time I’d dropped, but I was only seven when it happened and my mother—hoping the gift would skip a generation—had yet to tell me anything about the big family secret. She’d told me there was one, of course, but I’d always thought it was the fact that my uncle was a perv. Dropping, a spiritual form of time travel, had not been on my radar.

  The bed in the bedroom was made. There was a shirt and a pair of pants thrown over the back of a chair. Otherwise, everything was in its place. The Padgetts were neat, their lives orderly, and judging from the décor, they were happy. Then again, this could be one of those Sleeping with the Enemy situations. Rob could have been abusive and controlling. One simply never knew what went on behind closed doors.

  No more stalling. Because that’s what I was doing at that point: Stalling. Without any further ado, I closed my eyes—though I could see through my lids regardless—and dropped. Time reversed around me. People rushed past my periphery. The clock on the mantel spun backwards. Fresh flowers on the side table folded into themselves to sleep once again.

  I turned away from the kitchen and hurried time along. I wanted to go back to the beginning without getting a sense of what happened there. I wanted to start from the beginning, to see what the Padgetts had done that day. Had they fought that morning? Argued at lunch? I dropped as far as I possibly could: 24 hours from my starting point, before I felt the resistance that always let me know when I got close to my boundary. It was an energy pushing me back, only letting me go so far, like a mother in a mall, pulling her child away from the escalators. I could have gone farther. I could see time falling away like the steps on the escalator, disappearing into the great unknown below, but because of that tug, because of that invisible gravitational force, I could only go so far, I could only get so close, before very bad things started to happen.

  When I emerged from the drop, the clocks were 23 hours and 57 minutes from the moment I dropped. I’d checked my watch. 7:12. Now, the clocks read 7:15.

  I heard a woman’s lyrical voice coming from behind me. “You’re going to be late.” I turned to see Veronica making coffee.

  Rob walked in then, fidgeting with his tie. “Do I really have to wear it?” he asked before offering his wife a soft peck on the cheek.

  “Your mother is paying you a surprise visit this morning, and she loves that tie.”

  He took a huge bite of a bagel then mumbled through his full mouth. “If it’s so hush-hush, how is it you know about it?”

  Veronica crinkled her nose. “I think she suspects.”

  Rob glanced at her in surprise then walked up, wrapped an arm around her waist from behind, and let his hand flatten against her stomach. “Did you spill the beans?”

  “No, I quit my day job,” she said with a chuckle. She poured coffee into a travel mug, secured the lid, then handed it to him. “Not a word. You have to promise.”

  “I promise, but my mother is like a bloodhound. She knows when I’m hiding something. Always has.”

  Veronica placed both hands on her belly, and I realized she must be pregnant. If she was, she wasn’t far along.

  After Rob went to work, I fast forwarded through Veronica’s day. She cleaned the kitchen, did some laundry, watched a couple of soaps, took a long bath, and read a book on what to expect during the first trimester. Then, just as she was about to start dinner, Rob called to tell her his mother was having a dinner party and insisted they go.

  “Did you tell her?” she asked, crestfallen.

  “I didn’t say a word. She guessed.” I could hear his voice over the phone, the adoration he felt for his wife coming through loud and clear.

  “Fine, but I’m not naming the baby, yet, no matter what your mother says.”

  “Deal.”

  Veronica put the food back in the fridge then sat at her dressing table to sweep her dark hair into a beautiful twist. She then spent the next thirty minutes trying to decide which dress to wear when her phone rang again.

  She answered it, waited, then said, “Look, I’m having this call traced as we speak. The cops will be at your house any minute. I’d run.” A second later, she held out the phone to frown at it. “That’s what I thought.”

  Rob walked through the door, and she ran to meet him. Grabbing his hand with a giggle, she led him to the bathroom. “Your shower is ready.”

  “Are you implying I smell?”

  “We are going to be late,” she said, chastising him with the arch of her brows as she tugged off his tie.

  “I had a client.”

  “You always have a client,” she said as she headed for their closet. “Red or blue?”

  “He was more of a pasty white.”

  “Your tie. Red or blue.”

  “Purple.”

  She leaned into the bathroom. “Your mother hates purple.” She thought a moment, then crinkled her nose in delight. “Purple it is.”

  He stripped and stepped into the shower. “I need help with something.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No.”

  “Please. It’s going to be really embarrassing if we don’t take care of this before we get to my mother’s house.”

  Veronica laughed as she strode back to the shower and screamed as he pulled her in with him. “I did my hair,” she called out in protest.

  “I like it better down anyway.”

  They had fun, flirty sex while I stayed in the kitchen and looked the other way, then they left the house in a flurry of coats and scarves. I was beginning to wonder where the unhappy couple was that dies in a murder-suicide not two hours from now. Unless they got into a terrible argument at that party, they seemed like the happiest married people I’d ever seen. Nothing out of the ordinary happened all day besides the strange phone call.

  I fast-forwarded to get to the nitty gritty of the evening, but a sound, like a drum roll, caused me to slow time back down. I rewound then listened again. A slow, methodical thud was coming from somewhere behind me. I turned to see a kid in the living room, and the creep factor skyrocketed. Where had he come from? What was he doing in the Padgett’s house?

  I studied him as he stood at the front window, watching the driveway as though waiting for the couple to get home. And he never stopped hitting his head against the wall. The rhythm never changed. His focus never strayed. Finally, his head started bleeding. I stepped over and perused his features so I could draw him later. His thin mouth was pulled into a severe line, his fists clenched at his sides, his brows drawn hard over his dark eyes. He was young, probably still in high school or recently graduated. He had muddy brown hair, a threadbare jacket, and baggy jeans. And his features weren’t quite right. The sat disproportionate from each other, as though he’d been born with a mild case of fetal alcohol syndrome, if there was such a thing.

  I continued to watch as thin rivulets of blood dripped down his face, yet he never stopped banging his forehead against the wall. Never wavered from his vigil, not until we saw headlights pull into the driveway. A clock on the mantel struck midnight just as the couple walked in through the back door. The kid moved at last, walking silently into the dark hallway that led to the bedroom.

  “We’re going to miss it,” the husband said as they stumbled into the kitchen through the back door. He turned on a television on the island and surfed the guide until he found what he was looking for.

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to warm them, to tell them there was someone in the house, but the deed was already done. I was literally watching ghosts from the past, like a horror movie on replay. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t change what happened. I could only watch helples
sly as the atrocities that kid was capable of played out before my eyes.

  His wife laughed softly as she raided the fridge. “Oh, my god, what is this supposed to be exactly?”

  “Hell if I know,” he said, settling onto a stool at the island. “Some kind of meat. I was afraid to touch it. We might need to rethink these dinners, hon.”

  “Agreed,” she said with a smile in her voice. She paused and looked over her shoulder. “Turkey or ham?” She was going to make a sandwich to make up for the horrendous food they were served at the dinner party.

  A voice echoed throughout the room as talk show host Max Midnight performed his opening monologue. “And what’s with the president’s drinking problem?”

  The audience burst into a chorus of well-timed laughter as Max continued ragging on the president’s most recent faux pas at a state dinner.

  “Ham,” he said, absorbed in the monologue. “No, turkey. No, ham.”

  She chuckled and stepped next to him to catch a bit of the show. “You know, this might sound crazy, but I think you can have both.”

  His head snapped toward her in feigned surprise. “No, really? I won’t get arrested?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t announce it to the world or anything, but your secret will be safe with me.”

  With a huge smile crinkling the edges of his eyes, he wrapped an arm around her before grabbing the remote to turn up the volume. “There it is!” he said, his excitement infectious.

  I stepped around to see what all the fuss was about. “Here at Padgett and Cline, your family comes first.”

  It was him, Mr. Padgett, and he was in a commercial for a local insurance company. He must’ve owned it with a partner, and they’d done a commercial. That was what all the excitement was about. And here I thought he just really liked Max Midnight.

  His wife clasped her hands over her heart. “You look amazing,” she said, truly enjoying her husband’s fifteen minutes.

  “It’s all the makeup. I’m thinking about using it every day now, or no one will recognize me from the commercial.”

  She giggled as he squeezed her waist. “A little foundation will do wonders. I have one that makes you look ten years younger.”

  Ignoring the rest of the commercial, he looked over at her, appreciation glittering under his lashes. “Are you saying I look old?”

  She grinned and smoothed a lock of hair at his temple. A graying lock of hair. “Not at all.”

  He started for her neck with a growl when he stopped and looked toward the back hall. “What’s that sound?”

  I’d been lost in their happiness, drowning in their bliss when the thudding sound hit me again. My heart stopped beating as both his wife and I followed his gaze. The kid was still in the dark hallway, banging his head against the wall again. It was almost time.

  I braced myself and, as selfish as it sounded, I hoped this wouldn’t take long. Would he torment them? Torture them? Or would he make it quick?

  Mr. Padgett stood to investigate, but the kid slid along the wall and showed himself in the doorway. Before anyone could react, he raised a gun. My hands flew to my mouth when he fired. Mr. Padgett lunged to protect his wife, taking the bullet in the chest. He gasped for air as the kid fired again. My hands curled into fists as I looked on. Bile rose to the back of my throat as I watched another bullet strike Mr. Padgett’s midsection. Then his shoulder as my mind registered a high-pitched scream.

  Mr. Padgett looked over his shoulder. “Run, Veronica,” he said before collapsing onto the island and sliding to the floor into front of her.

  In this world, nothing was quite solid. Everything had a strange transparency to it, and I watched as Veronica ducked behind the island and draped her body over her husband’s, her shoulders convulsing with sobs.

  The kid walked around the island and watched her cry. Her body shook uncontrollably as she looked up at him. The shock on her face when she finally got a good look at the assailant proved she new exactly who he was.

  “Travis?” she asked, her voice paper thin and raw with emotion.

  Without uttering a word, he lifted the gun and fired again.

  My lungs seized as her head jerked back. She seemed to hover there, as though time had stopped for her as well before she fell forward and collapsed onto her husband.

  I dropped to my knees, fighting the sobs clawing at my throat.

  The kid tilted his head to one side as he examined his handy work. The blood splatter on the cabinets seemed to fascinate him. He stepped over the lifeless couple, dipped a finger into a small pool that had gathered on the countertop, and drew a smile on a decorative pumpkin before walking out the back door without a care in the world.

  I should have followed him. He could have dumped the gun nearby. I could only go so far, about a hundred feet in any direction, but I could have watched him just in case. Did he have a car? A motorcycle? A bike? Anything that could help the authorities identify the killer, but I couldn’t do it. I had to get out. I had to go back before I got lost. It had happened before and the outcome had not been good.

  With one last glance at the Padgetts, I released my hold on time and skyrocketed back to the present. The moment I felt my physical body again, I crumbled to the ground beside the chair, catching my weight with the palms of my hands and dry heaving onto the tiled floor.

  When I got control of myself, I looked up. Special Agent Strand stared down at me, doubt and confusion lining his face. To him, it would appear as though I’d bowed my head, paused a second, then fell to the ground gasping for air. He would think my reaction a tad melodramatic. A performance. But when I dropped at a point in time, I had to return to that exact point. He wouldn’t understand. Screw him. I didn’t care.

  I coughed out a heavy sob and tried to catch my breath. Strand stepped forward as though to yank me to my feet. When I jerked out of his reach, his anger multiplied. I could see it in the constricted lines of his face when I looked up. He did this. He sent me in there believing I would witness a murder-suicide. He knew that wasn’t what happened. He’d lied to me. They had all lied to me. Especially Detective Murphy.

  Chapter Three

  Before the agent realized what I was doing, I scrambled to my feet and ran for the hall that led to the front entrance. Bursting through the door, I spotted my target: Murphy.

  I rushed toward him and started swinging the moment he was within arm’s reach. My fist made contact. I had just seen a brutal murder and they seemed to think it was a joke. I was a joke. Like it wouldn’t affect me.

  Still, I was attacking a detective in a room full of detectives and uniformed officers. They would have to arrest me, now. It was the law. But at least I would be incarcerated for something I actually did. They would have to process me, so at least I could get a lawyer and do something productive about my situation.

  Agent Strand pulled me off Murphy. It was probably for the best. The detective had reddened with rage and he was approximately one nanosecond away from planting my face into the floor. That would have sucked, but he’d lied to me.

  I fought the agent to get back to Murphy. I kicked and swung, clamoring to scratch out his eyes even though blaming him for this atrocity was like blaming our soldiers for the Vietnam conflict. It wasn’t their fault and this wasn’t Murphy’s. I knew that, I did, somewhere deep down inside, but my anger at his lying and the cost it had on me, what I was forced to witness, grew stronger with each beat of my heart. Even though the truth wouldn’t have changed anything. Even though I never knew what I was in for when I dropped. This time I had thought—had hoped—to be more prepared. I expected a heart-wrenching tragedy. I expected violence. I knew it would not be easy no matter what had happened, but still I’d been prepared for one thing and got another. I clawed at Agent Strand’s arms, trying to squirm out of his grip for another go at the arrogant detective.

  “Calm down!” Strand said into my ear, his voice harsh, but I couldn’t. The unfairness, the needless violence, the senselessness had hijacked all
my faculties.

  I used to watch movies with gratuitous violence without giving them a second thought. I hadn’t been able to watch one since my first drop at a crime scene. My whole life changed. I no longer saw violence as entertainment but as a reality, and I had to trim as much of it out of my life as I could. And then this. This day. This tragedy.

  Agent Strand finally got his arm around me and pressed me in to the wall as a couple of the other detectives in the front room held Murphy back. I was lucky they were there.

  “What the fuck?” Murphy yelled at me as he tried to push past the barrier. “What the hell did I do?”

  “You lied to me!” I screamed over Agent Strand’s shoulder. He held me pressed against the wall, his body like a bank vault door. I ground out the next words, my revulsion with Murphy clear. “You said it was a murder-suicide. You lied.”

  Agent Strand looked down at me, the blue of his irises sparkling with surprise as he studied me. I watched him with breath held until I felt his hold loosen. With a mental shake, I pushed out of his grip, but I didn’t dive for the detective again. Red means stop, and Murphy’s bald head was glowing scarlet. But just to be safe, Agent Strand placed a hand on my shoulder, letting me know he was still there, as the older man he’d come with walked innocuously past the panting Murphy to come face-to-face with yours truly.

  “Ms. Grace, I’m Deputy Secretary Terrance Gill.” He held out his hand—now he introduces himself—and I looked at it bewildered. What was the deputy secretary, a man I assumed was pretty high up in the grand scheme of things at Homeland Security, doing at a crime scene in a suburb of Chicago?

  When I didn’t take his hand, he continued. “What do you mean Detective Murphy lied?”

  I glanced at the offending detective before elaborating. He glared back, brushing spilled coffee off his jacket and huffing with unspent anger. “He told me this was a murder-suicide. It was not.”

  The deputy secretary eyed his colleague.