Ashes to Ashes

got to get back to my office before my witness steals all my good pens.”

ANGIE MOVED AROUND Kate's office, restless, curious, jumpy. Kate was pissed off about the sketch. She'd hardly said a word all the way back from the police department.

Guilt pricked Angie like so many tiny needles. Kate was trying to help her, but she had to look out for herself. The two didn't necessarily go together. How was she supposed to know what to do? How was she supposed to know what was right?

You're nothing but a fuckup! You never do anything right!

“I'm trying,” she whispered.

Stupid little bitch. You never listen.

“I'm trying.”

Scared was what she was, but she would never speak the word, not even in her mind. The Voice would feed on her fear. The fear would feed on the Voice. She could feel both forces gaining strength inside her.

I'll give you something to be scared of.

She clamped her hands over her ears, as if she might be able to shut out the voice that echoed only in her mind. She rocked herself for a minute, eyes wide open, because if she closed them she would see things she didn't want to see again. Her past was like a bad movie playing over and over and over in her mind, always right there, ready to pull to the surface emotions better left buried deep. Hate and love, violent anger, violent need. Hate and love, hate and love, hateandlove—all one word for her. Feelings so intertwined they were inseparable, like the tangled limbs of two animals attacking each other.

The fear swelled a little larger. The Zone was zooming in.

You're afraid of everything, aren't you, crazy little bitch?

Trembling, she stared at the fliers tacked to Kate's bulletin board. She read the titles, trying to focus on something before the Zone could sweep in and suffocate her. Community Resources for Crime Victims, Rape Crisis Center, The Phoenix: Women Rising to a New Beginning. Then the titles blurred and she sat down, breathing just a little too hard.

What the hell was taking Kate so long? She'd left with no explanation, said nothing more than that she'd be back in a few minutes, which was—how many minutes ago? Angie looked around for a clock, found it, then couldn't remember what time it had been when Kate had left her. Hadn't she looked at the clock then? Why couldn't she remember?

Because you're stupid, that's why. Stupid and crazy.

She began to shiver. It felt like her throat was closing. There was no air in this stupid little room. The walls were pressing in on her. She tried to swallow as tears flooded her eyes. The Zone was zooming in. She could feel it coming, could feel the change in the air pressure around her. She wanted to run, but she couldn't outrun the Zone or the Voice.

So do something. Make it stop, Angel. You know how to make it stop.

Frantic, she shoved the sleeves of her jacket and sweater up and scratched a stubby thumbnail along the thin white lines of the scars, turning them pink. She wanted to get at the cut she'd opened yesterday, to make it bleed again, but she couldn't get her sleeve up that high and she didn't dare take her coat off for fear someone would come in and catch her. Kate had told her to wait there, that she would be back in a few minutes. The minutes were ticking by.

She'll know how crazy you are then, Angel.

The Zone was zooming in . . .

You know what to do.

But Kate was coming back.

Do it.

The shaking started.

Do it.

The Zone was zooming in . . .

Do it!

She didn't dare take the box cutter out of her backpack. How would she explain it? She could stick it in her pocket—

The panic was setting in. She could feel her mind begin to fracture just as her desperate gaze hit on the dish of paper clips on Kate's desk.

Without hesitation, she grabbed one and straightened it, testing the end with her fingertip. It wasn't as sharp as the razor. It would hurt more.

Coward. Do it!

“I hate you,” she muttered, fighting the tears. “I hate you. I hate you.”

Do it! Do it!

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she whispered, the pressure building in her head until she thought it would burst.

She dragged the piece of wire across an old scar on her wrist where the skin was as thin and white as paper. She cut parallel to a fine blue vein, and waited for her tear-blurred vision to fill with blood. Rich and red, a thin liquid line.

The pain was strong and sweet. The relief was immediate. The pressure lifted. She could breathe again. She could think.

She stared at the crimson ribbon for a moment, some lost part of her deep, deep inside wanting to cry. But the overwhelming sensation was relief. She set the paper clip aside and wiped the blood away with the bottom of her sweater. The line bloomed again, bringing an extra wave of calm.

She drew her thumb down along the cut, then looked at the way the blood had smeared into the whorls and between the ridges of the pad. Her fingerprint, her blood, her crime. She stared at it for a long time, then raised her thumb to her mouth and slowly licked it off. She felt a kind of release that was almost sexual. She had conquered the demon and consumed it. She drew her tongue along the cut, taking up the last few beads of red.

Still slightly weak-kneed and light-headed, she pulled her sleeve into place and got up from the chair to move around the office. She took in every detail and committed it to memory.

Kate's thick wool coat hung on a wall rack with a funky black crushed-velvet hat. Kate had cool taste in clothes for a woman her age. Angie wanted to try the hat on, but there was no mirror to look in to see it.

A small cartoon on the bulletin board showed a lawyer grilling a witness—a groundhog. “So, Mr. Groundhog, you claim you saw your shadow that day. But isn't it true you have a drinking problem?”

The desk drawers were locked. There was no purse in sight. She tried the file cabinet, thinking she might find her own file, but that too was locked.

As she fingered through the papers on the desk, she was struck by how she had been in such a state of panic just a few minutes ago and now she felt strong and in control, just as she had slipping out of and back into Phoenix House undetected. She hated that part of her that let the Zone take over. She hated how weak that part of her was. She knew she could be strong.

I make you strong, Angel. You need me. You love me. You hate me.

The fresh strength let her ignore the Voice.

She flipped through the Rolodex and stopped on the name Conlan. Frank and Ingrid in Las Vegas. Kate's parents, she guessed. Kate would have normal parents. A father who went to work in a suit. A mother who made pot roast and baked cookies. Not the kind of mother who did drugs and slept around. Not the kind of father who didn't give a shit about his kids, who left and left them at the mercy of the jerks their mother brought home. Kate Conlan's parents loved Kate like normal people loved their kids. Kate Conlan had never been locked in a closet or whipped with a wire hanger or forced to go down on her stepfather.

Angie pulled the card from the Rolodex, tore it into tiny pieces, and stuffed the pieces into her jacket pocket.

A stack of mail sat unopened in the in basket. Another stack sat in the out basket. Angie picked the envelopes up and sorted through them. Three official pieces of correspondence in Hennepin County Government Center envelopes. One bright yellow envelope addressed by hand to someone named Maggie Hartman, the return address on a gold foil label in the upper left corner: Kate Conlan.