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21

My forehead pressed against the door, I stood with my hand on the doorknob, feeling like an asshole while simultaneously cursing the damn rodent in my backyard. There I'd had the chance of a lifetime to sit and talk with Daphne and open up to her, and I had ruined it. Perhaps my delivery of the new information I'd uncovered was a little forward and confronting, and yes, her reaction to said news did seem to reveal that it affected her very deeply, but I didn't think it was all that bad, at least not unmanageable.

Until the squirrel.

Before I even moved away from the door, rapping came from the other side. A quick look through the peephole revealed a grumpy-faced Gary, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the door. His eyes were bugged out like a cartoon character on meth. I dusted my pants off, pinching the creases once more for good measure, and then opened up, still feeling like the clues I'd found warranted a much keener eye than mine. Gary would be the one. With forty-plus years in the industry, he would have been anyone's go-to for advice, and he was my boss.

"This better be good," he croaked as he stomped through the open door past me. "My wife is not happy right now, and she's waiting in the car, so we have to make this fast."

"Right." I stutter-stepped past him and half-jogged to the computer, already pulling up the same photographs I'd shown Daphne, and Gary followed me with his own rushed steps. "So this is what I've discovered."

Each click brought up a new photo, and each photo made Gary's look of curiosity turn more into an expression of intrigue, then concern, then alarm. He nudged me out of my seat and took my place, scanning through documents and files as I poured myself a glass of wine again, this time realizing it was more to calm my nerves after the kerfuffle with the good doctor. Gary sat hunched over, his face inches from the screen, an expression of concentration stretching across his face. I said nothing, knowing how much brain power it took to read words that small, and figuring he wouldn't appreciate being interrupted.

"Well," he finally muttered after several very long minutes. "Looks like we have a few suspects." He turned to look at me, leaning back in my chair and scratching his chin.

"Yeah, so I have been looking at this Siphon character a lot. He has ties to all of the victims, and he was seen in a lot of these photos staring right at this woman here." I pulled up the photo of Daphne, though I didn't tell him I knew who she was, or that she was my therapist for that matter. I felt I could leave that part out.

"And this woman." Gary pulled up the single photo of Daphne walking out of the club with Henry Watts, dangling off his arm like a cheap paste tennis bracelet you'd buy out of one of those twenty-five-cent gumball machines. "She seems to be in all of these photos." He scrolled through my files with ease, highlighting every picture that connected Daphne to that club, and my heart clenched in my chest, hoping he wouldn't ask why I'd pulled so many pictures of her. "We need to look at her, find out everything we can."

A lump formed in my throat and a sip of wine tried to force it down, but it only stuck there worse. If I revealed to him what I knew about Daphne he would only have more questions, so I kept that knowledge safely tucked away inside my head and blinked hard, trying to make my wine-drenched eyes work properly.

"Kenji."

"Yes, oh... Well, yes. She is in these pictures, but I don't think we have to look into her. I mean how could a woman overpower a man anyway? And what if she was just a regular?"

"If you think this bartender has something to do with this, you need to look into her too." Once more his fingers took to scrolling the pictures, and he clicked on the photo of Daphne leaned over the bar, her face inches from Siphon's. They were clearly engaged in an intimate conversation and well acquainted; anyone who saw the photo could tell that. "And look here..." Gary chose another photo, one I must have overlooked in my haste to find information on Siphon. The picture was very incriminating. Daphne was seated next to one Taylor Merck. Her hand rested on his thigh, and her facial expression painted a very clear picture of lust.

"What?" I squinted and leaned over Gary, my glass tipping and dribbling a bit of wine on his trousers, which he smoothed away with a hand as he scowled at me. "No. She's not involved in this in any way. She is just an innocent regular that goes to the bar."

"Who."

"What?"

"Who goes to the bar--not 'that goes to the bar.' For a journalist your grammar is awful."

"You know what I meant, and I've had a few glasses of wine." I straightened and slurped my wine down, placing the stemware next to my mousepad.

"Okay, well I'm telling you right now, I want you to look into her. Find out everything you can about her and report back to me." Gary stood and brushed at the now wine stain on his pants and scowled again.

I slumped back onto my chair feeling a bit despondent. I knew Daphne would never do anything like he was suggesting, but he didn't know that. I would have no choice but to reveal everything, which of course to a journalist was unethical, but if it meant protecting Daphne I would. I opened my mouth to speak when Gary's abrupt and harsh voice cut me off.

"And really, Kenji, I should ream you really good for botching that story. Carter! Carter of all people?" He shook his head, disgust written on his face. "Yes, you were given a story that seemed 'pointless,' but can you see now how any story could be the thing your career needs?"

"Gary, I--"

"And to think I stood up for you about this story."

Gary trudged through the door, hands in pockets. When he turned around with mirth in his eyes I was confused. He appeared to be the one with wine in his system, and here I was standing by a half-empty bottle. With a crooked grin that revealed one dimple through his stubble-covered face, he chuckled.

"You know, Kenj, if you pull the evidence and blow this case open for the cops, you may just land yourself in a really good position with Sheffield after all. All the other news networks have moved on from it. To my knowledge you're the only one even looking for answers still." With one hand on the doorknob and the other in his pocket his look turned serious. "Where did you get this information anyway? By now the cops would have had this stuff."

My stomach tightened and shamed pulled my chin toward my chest. I couldn't look Gary in the eye. I knew the dark web was a credible place for information, and I knew reporters used it all the time, but I also knew how much he frowned on it, and that everything I'd pulled up was inadmissible in court because I'd obtained it without a search warrant of any kind. Photos of the inside of the club would be thrown out--illegal search and seizure.

"You went to the dark web, didn't you?" His tone told me everything I needed to know. He had been a beat reporter and remained true to the old ways. I was a shame to the craft.

"Yeah."

I could hear his teeth grinding against one another as his jaw clenched, the muscles on the side of his face and neck moving beneath his five o'clock shadow. "Get something admissible. Even if you have to go into that club to do it... Meanwhile I'm going to start looking into things myself. If that woman is involved, we will find her. We just have to find out who she is."

When the door latched shut behind him, my heart sank. Daphne was innocent, and now I had to not only find out who was actually guilty, but prove that, protect Daphne from that person, and prove she had nothing to do with any of it. Not an impossible task, but it wouldn't be an easy one either, and it may require me to be even more unorthodox in my approach. I wondered if Neil would be up for a bit of an adventure to Daphne's place.

My mind started to swirl with possibilities, but the wine was making it swirl even faster and the need to lie down seized me. I stumbled to my bedroom and turned down the bed, the scent of my freshly bleached sheets wooing me into their arms. The wine made me so relaxed I didn't even care that the door was not deadbolted--oh, it crossed my mind, I just didn't have the will to move as soon as my clothes were on the floor and my body was between the sheets.

My white, down comforter was barely over my shoulder when I felt sleep tugging at me. I melted into the mattress, a lump of drunken emotions and fatigue, and a night of restless movies in my mind began to play out on the silver screen of my imagination.

"Kenji..."

A woman's giggle. The fluttering of a red dress in the wind. Stalks of tall grass seed-heads bowed in the breeze. I was running, following this slender beauty, feeling my heart race with excitement and emotion. Not a care in the world, I jogged behind her, my bare feet feeling dewy and cold, watching her hips sway as she evaded me, her floral print sundress dancing in the wind, laughing and calling my name.

"Kenji..."

She stopped under a large tree, a fruit tree of some kind, its branches low and sprawling wide, creating shade from the sun which seemed to neither leave me cold nor warm me, only shed its light onto the beautiful smile of the woman as she turned... Jessica...

My heart soared with a fullness I'd not experienced since childhood. I came to stand under the tree with her, padding across the forget-me-nots that grew amongst the soft blanket of grass and English ivy vines. Her scent drew me in, like the smell of summer on a warm day when you've just hung the washing the way a mother would, and I laced an arm around her waist, drawing close to her until my body pressed against hers and my lips brushed over her jawline.

The bulge of her breasts and the roundness of her stomach against mine reminded me I would be a father as I breathed her in, remembering how she felt in my arms, longing to feel that warmth again. Her right arm pulled me closer, one of her legs sliding between mine. I found myself lifting her skirt, finding the hidden valley nestled between her thighs. My fingers wandered, searching the tender folds and drawing sighs from her lips.

She kissed me and I was breathless. My body craved her, swelling to join with her heat in a feverish union of body fluids and urgent sounds. I was in her, warm and safe as her teeth sank into my shoulder. I pressed her against the tree, her breasts crushed between us as she panted my name.

Then, a sudden noise made her stiffen. Someone was shouting. I felt her pull away from me, the warmth where she had just been suddenly gone, replaced by a feeling of panic. She ran, taking off across the meadow and down a fence line. I raced after her, but the obstacles she effortlessly dodged seemed to hold me up at every turn. She was getting farther and farther away from me with each step. I called to her over and over, but my voice would not work. When she glanced over her shoulder, I could see the fear in her eyes, a terror that begged me to save her.

"Jess..."

My mouth wouldn't work. My legs felt like they'd been tied together, not wanting to move. And then I saw it.... A brick overhead, flying through the air, headed straight toward Jessica's head. I tried to call out again, but my words stuck in my throat. Panic rose up and I wanted to scream, to reach out and scoop her up, to save her from what I knew was going to happen. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks, and I ran faster, pushing my body to its limits.

Then I watched as she fell face first into the tall grass. And I collapsed beside her, sobbing, shaking her and begging her to wake up. Her limp body was easy to turn over, her hair strewn across her face hiding the sight I knew I would see--blood.

I lifted the locks of her hair, carefully uncovering her, and I blinked back tears that blinded me as I leaned forward and hugged her to my chest, kissing her forehead and crying. My tears dampened her face and clung to my lips as I cried. When I sat up, gently laying her back in the grass, and wiping my eyes, my heart nearly stopped at the face I saw.

"Daphne?"

I scanned the entire area, but I was no longer in the meadow in the soft grass with Jessica. I was kneeling next to Daphne's body, beside an empty barrel lying on its side in a marshy area. She was covered in blood, naked and bruised. Her eyes were wide open, staring at me, haunting me, beckoning me to come closer, to listen to what she would say. I leaned in, hovering just above her face, hoping to hear the sound of her breathing--anything...

Soaked in sweat and panting for breath, I jerked awake, forcing myself to open my eyes and erase the horrific image my brain had painted for me. Blinking hard, I squeezed the pillow in my arms, wishing it was Jessica, trying to make sense of the dream, fearing something horrible had happened to Daphne. My emotions were a tangled mess of anger, fear, and grief. The clock blinked one-thirty-seven a.m., and a crack of thunder announced why.

My head pounded, and it was still dark out, so I turned over, listening to the sound of the rain tapping on the glass pane and seeing the flashes of lightning out my window as I tried to calm my body. Jessica was dead; she was never coming back.

But Daphne? I could still save her.

22

A clap of thunder startled me awake, my eyes fuzzy from sleep, the dim light making it hard to see even if my eyesight had been clear. Awakened out of a bad dream, my heart was racing; sweat dampened every inch of my body, which was naked and tangled in sheets. The clock flashing across the room revealed the power had gone out, but it wasn't my clock. I searched my brain for what could possibly have happened, my memory foggy at best, but all I could recall in that second were vague flashes of the dream I'd had about the night my sister died.

I finally blinked my eyes open enough to make out a silhouette of the bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey on an end table nestled next to my head, which lay on a pillow that was also not mine. I clasped my pounding head and grimaced when a clap of thunder rattled the room, jarring me and sending my fight or flight response into overdrive.

A shot of adrenaline caused my chest to sting, and my hands felt instantly clammy, my breath dragging through my throat like wheels through sand, scraping along. I shot up, forgetting myself for a moment as I tried to get my bearings. Groping in the darkness, my hands searched for my phone, which I knew I would never leave very far away from myself, and finding it I discovered I had no service, as if the storm had claimed more than just the electricity.

A glance over my shoulder revealed an empty bed, but my brain was still struggling with foggy memories, the Jameson clearly having done a number on me. I knew I hadn't been bumping, my stash of ecstasy left securely in the top drawer of my nightstand.

My legs prickled with gooseflesh as I slid them off the side of the bed in the dark, a strange cold metal railing scraping on them as I reached with my toes for the ground. I clutched my phone to my chest for a moment before it clicked that I could use it as a flashlight, and then I swiped my thumb across the lock screen, and it glowed. Using what tiny light came from the illuminated picture of Nan and me junior year decked out in our prom dresses, I rifled through the covers searching for my clothing, but finding nothing, I tiptoed across the room to the red light flashing the time.

There on a small stand was a pile of my clothing, neatly folded, my purse laid on top and my shoes situated underneath. The slightest fraction of relief washed over me as I jammed my phone into my purse and snatched my bra and panties, furiously shoving my limbs into them. It wasn't very often I made the mistake of being so drunk my night was a blur--sans drugs--but lately it had become more frequent. My brain set to cussing me out for being so stupid, and at the same time gratitude fueled the flight mode my panicked body was in--thankful that whomever I had spent the night with was not there and I could escape without being seen.

I reached for my shirt but a creak in the floor behind me caused me to stop mid-reach. My body froze like that girl in the Disney movie during the blizzard, and I swallowed the desert in my throat as I turned around in the darkness, and put my hands out in front of me, hoping to at least feel the person before they got to me. My mind screamed at me to grab my clothes and purse and run, but the darkness laughed in my face reminding me I could not see anything.

"Hey," a voice said, distinctly male, gravelly and thick. I freaked out.

I don't know why it happened. I'd spent plenty of time in strange men's rooms, sneaking out before they awakened, though I'd only twice before done it without E, and that had been before Victor. I remembered those times, but this time was different. I had flashes of having sex, lightning lighting the room, ghost sensations of a man's hands on my skin. Echoes of words whispered into my ear, the faint hint of a cologne I couldn't place but didn't entirely dislike. But here, in the dark, waking up with no light, no cell service, no way to see who it was or what was about to happen, my body lost control. I felt the action happening as if someone else was in control of my body--the same way I felt the night Victor attacked me, and the very thought of him touching me sent me spiraling out of control.

Lightning flashed and my eyes locked on the window across the room. A silhouette of someone standing there watching me for the briefest of seconds appeared. Victor. I screamed. With balled-up fists, I came out swinging. A right hook, a left gut punch. It was better to be on the offensive than to be attacked. I had no time to think, no time to understand what was happening, I only swung my fists. My knuckles connected with skin, and I knew it was not a face shot. I felt soft tissue, a neck probably, but the gut shot hit its mark, and I heard him wheeze. I didn't waste any time, bringing my left knee up as he bent over and connecting with his jaw. I felt fluid on my leg as I lowered it to the ground to catch my balance, and I hoped it was blood.

Before I knew it there were two incredibly strong arms wrapped around me, picking me up and tackling me to the bed again, restraining me face down on the mattress. His weight was crushing me, my nose and mouth smothered by a wad of blankets that smelled like his cologne. I screamed but the screams were muffled, and I kicked and writhed but it was no use. He was so much stronger than me. I could feel his skin touching my back, clammy and cool. I felt as one of his legs draped over mine and curled around mine making it impossible for me to kick any more. Then I felt him squeeze me so tightly I thought I would suffocate, before he rolled me sideways.

Gasping for breath, I sobbed.

"Hey, come on now..." he cooed and all I could hear was Victor trying to calm me so he could take advantage of me. The alcohol, the darkness. His voice.

"No! Who are you? Let me go!" I fought harder, thrashing and using my fingernails to claw into his thigh and his arm, praying that by some chance I would escape his grip.

"Daphne, it's me." His breath on my face and in my ear made me tremble with fear, and I jerked my body harder, pushing my hips back against his body. I felt clothing on him, a pair of shorts or boxers, and he tightened his grip further, making it difficult for me to breathe in.

"I can't breathe," I squeaked out, and he loosened his arms, rolling me over and pinning me to the bed, still on top of me so that I was unable to move.

When his face hovered over mine, I raised my head up as hard and fast as I could connecting with his face, and feeling the bone in his nose crunch and hearing him wince, I knew I could free myself. I took a deep breath and drew my right knee up into his groin and watched him double over and curl up into a ball. Then I saw my chance. I rolled away from him and clambered to my feet, grabbing my belongings and fumbling with my phone enough to turn on its flashlight mode so I could see where I was. I only wanted to find the door and run out, even if I was only in my bra and panties.