Great, Mrs. Gretsky, the next-door neighbor had spotted her. She smiled and prayed she wouldn't get dragged into a conversation about her collection of garden ornaments. The amount of time she'd had to spend listening to her dad moan about how the gnomes and flamingos ruined the aesthetics of the neighborhood.
Why wasn't he answering? She put her stuff on the doorstep and banged her fist against the door, but there was nothing in response. She muttered to herself and ran back to the car. The curtains were tightly drawn, so she couldn't see anything from outside and put her key in the lock. Silence. There was no blare of the television. The lights were off. Maybe he was still asleep. She felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe he was really depressed, and she had been too busy to really listen to him, to read between the lines.
"Dad? Brunch time." She put on her cheeriest voice but could hear the hint of worry in it. Her voice echoed. It was such a large place for just one person. Must feel lonely. "If you don't wake up, I'm going to have to eat all this without you!" She turned into the living room and the bag slipped from her hands.
Time slowed. Her body seemed incapable of acting. Glued to the spot, her eyes tried to make sense of what they were seeing but couldn't. Her stomach clenched as she willed herself to move. It was obviously too late to do anything. She couldn't do it. It was too much to see him close up.
Blood everywhere. So beaten he was unrecognizable. She wanted to take him in her arms and cry, or scream, or both. Why couldn't she move? She didn't even realize she was hyperventilating until her breathlessness brought her to her knees, and her body shook as she sobbed, crumpled on the floor. It wasn't him. If she didn't look too closely, she wouldn't have to accept it.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and tried to unlock it, but her fingers felt useless, like they weren't even hers, and she had no control over them. The phone hit the floor and skidded across the room, closer to him. The one person she had in the entire world. The thought of getting closer filled her with fear. She stopped focusing and kept her eyes close to the ground.
If you don't look, it's not real.
It was something her dad told her to say when she was a kid and was convinced there was a monster in the corner of her bedroom. She recited it now as she neared her cell phone. She picked it up, turned away from the blood, the carnage. More blood, this time smeared on the wall. She was almost sick in her mouth. The blood had dried, so it looked almost brown, stark against the magnolia wall. YOU DESERVED IT. Her stomach lurched again, and this time, she couldn't contain it.
Chapter Five
SEATTLE
Piper leaned against the door after she shut it, and tears streamed down her cheeks. It didn't take long before she was sliding down the door and sat on the floor, hugging her knees. She sniffed, trying to avoid fluid leaking from her nose, and wiped her damp cheeks with her sleeve. Keep it together.
Still on the floor, she groped around in her pocket for her crumpled pack of cigarettes and eased one out of the box with her trembling fingers. Before, she had been shaking with upset — now, she was trembling with anger. Who the hell was the mother of her ex-husband's new girlfriend, to tell her she couldn't come to her own child's birthday party? It was hosted at her house because she had enough space for the giant bouncy house, but still. The cigarette helped. She inhaled deeply, regulating her breathing. It's fine.
That familiar urge emerged, starting in her solar plexus and rising in her chest. A strange yearning feeling she couldn't describe, like her body was screaming for something to take the edge off. The fact that the liquor store across the road was now boarded up, took away some of the temptation, the rest she could manage on her own.
She pulled up her chair to the table in front of the window and waited for her computer to load. Her skin prickled, still hot with anger, and she gazed out of the window, out onto the street until the home screen flashed up.
The wallpaper on her desktop, was the last painting she had done before giving up the hobby for good. Acrylic fluid art. When she was a child, she enjoyed painting things to look as true to life as possible. As she got older, she resented the rigidness of photorealism. Art should be an escape from reality. She started to pour paint onto a canvas, manipulating it with a hairdryer, or household objects until something emerged. She had no idea what would come of it until it revealed itself to her. It was something pure, spontaneous, and freeing.
She clicked on the internet browser icon and went back to a place where she could unleash her rage for the day before it overtook her.
Let's find this sick fuck. Who's in?
Pipes1983: Anyone have any luck finding anything out about the victim yet?
Quicky_Mart: Unfortunately not.
Pipes1983: What about the killer? He really is a sick fuck.
Quicky_Mart: What makes you assume it's a guy?
Pipes1983: Come on, it's always a guy.
Quicky_Mart: #notallmen. Only joking. It probably is.
Pipes1983: I was racking my brains, but there is nothing to go on.
Quicky_Mart: I know. It's infuriating.
Pipes1983: Is there any way
