Crooked

“Any other names you can think of?” Adam asked. He sat back in his chair, his feet kicked up onto the desk, a soggy toothpick hanging from the corner of his mouth. He chomped relentlessly on it, and I almost wished he’d start smoking again.

“No,” I replied. “That’s all of them.” The two of us stared down at the list, almost a full page long. Each name had a dark black line drawn through it. Dead ends, every single one of them.

We’d been searching for any sign of Wesley. I’d thought of every name I’d ever heard him use, and we’d searched everywhere. No apartments had been rented under any of his names, no credit cards were listed, and there was no criminal record. I knew he’d found a way to wipe all traces of his existence so that I couldn’t find him, but Adam insisted that we keep trying.

Wesley would find me when he was ready. I didn’t need to go searching for him. I just needed to live my life, and wait for things to be normal and happy and smooth again. That’s when he would show up, I was sure of it. The moment when everything felt peaceful and content, he would swoop in and kick the rug out from under me, just like that.

“You don’t find Wes,” I said. “Wes finds you.”

“Well I’ll tell you one thing,” Adam said, “when he does find me, he’s also gonna find a bullet in his leg and a pair of bracelets around his wrists.”

“It’s not that easy with Wesley,” I said. “Unfortunately, if you tried to shoot him, you’d end up shooting yourself in the face.”

Adam raised an eyebrow at me.

“He has a way of getting into people’s heads, so to speak.”

“Like you?” Adam smirked.

“Sort of,” I replied. The clock on the wall told me it was time to go home. Eleven-thirty at night. I’d have to be back here in less than eight hours. “I’m going home, Bliss. I suggest you do the same.”

Adam breathed a laugh. “Sure. I’ll be right here in the morning.”

“Give up, Deputy. Go home, get some rest.”

“Watkins, I can’t go home.” He looked up at me beneath heavy eyelids.

I didn’t need to know, and I didn’t want to ask why. It wasn’t my problem. I just wanted to go home and sleep. But another part of me gazed down at his tired face, like an abandoned puppy, and felt sorry for him. The slack in his posture and sleeplessness in his eyes sparked a tiny flame of sympathy inside me.

“Give me one good reason why you can’t.”

“I’ve been sleeping in my car in the parking lot for three weeks.” He said this as if I should have known already. So much for being observant. “I thought you knew. My ex took the house, kicked me out.”

“Jesus,” I replied. He stared at the carpet. I couldn’t just abandon him. I rolled my eyes as I hoisted my things from my desk. “Alright, get up. You’re coming with me.”

“Huh?” He sat up abruptly, the chair squeaking as it jerked back into its upright position. “Where we going?”

“You can stay at my place,” I sighed. “If you can find room.”

Adam tossed his toothpick into the rubbish bin. "Don't you live alone?"

#

We trudged up the stairs of the building and shuffled down the long corridor to my apartment. I could hear the television on inside, and a buttery, warm scent flowed out around the doorway.

“Mmm,” Adam said. He stood behind me sniffing the air. “Smells like popcorn.”

The door opened and Adam followed me inside. All of the lights were off and there was a poorly filmed horror movie playing from the TV. Randy was in the armchair, gripping tightly to a large bowl of popcorn.

“Hey,” Randy said, not turning away from the film. “Lenore’s home.”

I puzzled momentarily at the odd greeting, until I noticed someone’s head pop up from the couch.

“Hi,” Jane said. “We’re watching –” She stopped when she saw Adam behind me, and finished slowly. “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

“Jane,” said Adam. “Uhh, what are you doing here?”

I stood frozen, looking back and forth between them with my mouth open. Admittedly, it wasn’t odd for Jane to be there. She lived by herself in an absolutely repugnant neighborhood, and the two of us agreed that she could stay with me whenever she wanted. Lately, her overnight visits had become much more frequent.

“Hello, Deputy Bliss.”

I looked at Adam, and he looked at me, my face surely expressing something he’d never seen on me before. His lips crawled into a wide, knowing grin and I could feel my own face turning red hot.

“Why, deputy Watkins,” Adam said, his voice jeering. “Are you sleeping with the Captain’s daughter?” His eyes wide, he started laughing.

“Oh my god,” said Jane. She put her hands over her face, but I could see her cheeks pulled into a smile.

“Actually,” said Adam, “that explains a lot. I mean, I get it. How long has this been going on?”

I shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s none of your business.”

“This is amazing,” Adam said.

“What?” Randy asked. “You didn’t know?”

“The kid knows what’s going on before I do?” Adam chuckled. He kicked his shoes into the corner, which Randy had clearly decided was the place for shoes, and wandered into the kitchen. “No beer?” he asked, standing in front of the open refrigerator. He picked up a bottle of white wine, half full, and shook it at me. “Can I drink this?”

“Sure,” I replied.

I headed toward my bedroom, and Jane followed.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“You weren’t expecting me, I should have called first.”

“No, no, no,” I replied, shaking my head. “I told you that you’re always welcome here, and I meant it. Yes, you surprised me a little, but it wasn’t an unhappy surprise. Adam is just jealous.”

“Of me, or you?” She smirked.

“I’d surmise both.”

“Why is he here, anyway?” Jane said.

“Apparently, he’s been sleeping in his car for weeks.”

Jane nodded. “You know, I wondered how he was getting to work on time so often, lately. Very out of character for him.”

“I know. I’m not sure how I didn’t realize it sooner.”

“What happened to that so-called psychic intuition of yours?”

I thought of the opium stashed deep in the back of my closet. “I must be a fraud,” I said. I kissed her forehead. “I need a shower.”

When I emerged in my pajamas about twenty minutes later, the three of them were in the living room. Jane laid asleep on the couch, her feet in Adam’s lap as he sipped wine straight from the bottle. He winked at me before turning back to the television. Randy was half asleep in the chair, and I took the teetering popcorn bowl from his lap. I locked the doors and pulled the blinds closed before heading into the kitchen to take an Advil. Exhausted, mentally and physically, I fell into bed and slept.


 #

In the morning, Jane was sleeping soundlessly in my bed, but Randy and Adam were both gone. My first thoughts were Randy being at school, while Adam went out for a pre-work breakfast tequila. But I quickly realized this was not the case when I saw the door standing open. The door’s wooden frame had splintered and cracked around each of the three locks, and one of them dangled oddly by a single screw. In the corner, Adam’s shoes still sat atop the pile of Randy’s sneakers.

My heart pounded as I rounded the corner into the kitchen. No one was there. I stepped out into the hallway, pulling my bathrobe tight around me, and looked left, then right. I suddenly felt frantic.

“Randy?” I called out. “Adam?” I stood in silence, urging my mind to reach out for any sign of them. But my abilities were weak, and I could feel nothing. I shouted again, “Deputy Bliss?” but the only response I was met with was a muffled “shut the hell up” from one of my neighbors.

“What’s wrong?” Jane’s voice came from behind me. I spun to see her, rubbing sleep from her eyes, her feet tucked into soft lavender slippers with bunny ears on them. Her hair was wild around her face.

“They’re gone.” I brushed past her, pulling her into the apartment and closing the door. I pulled a chair over to lodge beneath the knob, then began to pace. My hands made fists in my hair as I willed my mind to work, cursed myself for using again the drug that stunted my ability. That mental web, like long, thin fingers that could reach for miles and pick up the tiniest glimmer of a thought, any miniscule piece of a person’s essence, the one thing that could help me find them, I’d pushed away. My skill, my gift, was a squashed spider on the wall, and I’d painted over it.

“Lenore?” Jane asked. She followed me down the hall, her forehead wrinkled in confusion. I stood in front of my closet to put on some clothes. “What’s going on?”

“I have to go find them,” I said. “I need you to stay here, okay?” I nodded toward the closet. “Grab me that box there, on the shelf.”

“Okay,” she said, “but just for the record, you’re freaking me out.” It was a shoe box; she handed it to me and I lifted the lid to reveal my gun. Not my police gun, my old gun. “Should I call the station?”

“No,” I said. “No, not yet.” I took a deep breath as I strapped the gun to my hip. It had been years since I last held it in my hand. I’d been Isabelle the last time I fired the thing. “I’m going to have to ask you to trust me. I can’t tell you anything right now, but I promise I will.” Jane wasn’t looking at me, and I wasn’t looking at her. I was rifling through my dresser drawers, looking for my brass knuckles. “And I apologize for this next part, because I know it’s asking a lot of you, but… I need you to do everything I say, exactly as I say to do it.”

Meanwhile, something had caught her eye in the back of my closet. A wrinkled white paper bag with a big orange sticker on the front that said EVIDENCE. She was silent as she pulled it from the closet and opened it to peer inside.

“Janey, did you hear me?” I turned around and my heart stopped as I saw her face, frozen as she looked down at the contents of the bag. I knew what was inside, and I knew that it looked much worse than it truly was. “I have an explanation for that.”

Her eyes were suddenly on me, wild and bulging. “What the fuck, Lenore?” She reached her hand inside and pulled out a syringe, shaking it in the air and yelled, “What the fuck?”

“That is not what it looks like.”

“It looks like you stole drugs from the police station.”

Technically, she was right. “So, then, it is what it looks like, but not really.”

“So you’re a junkie? You’re a drug addict or something?” She dropped the syringe into the bag and pulled out a small bottle. She read the label; “Is this fucking opium, Lenore? What the hell do you need this for?”

“I have an… affliction.” I searched for a different word to describe it, but found nothing that would sound sane. “The drug helps me deal with, you know, the symptoms. But I don’t use that.” I shook a finger at the bag in her hand. “I have never injected it. I swear.”

She nodded, her chest rising and falling rapidly. I moved to stand in front of her, taking the bag from her hands and dropping it onto the bed. There was anger and confusion in her eyes, but there was also fear. A panicking, unknowing fear that pierced my chest.

“This looks really, really bad,” Jane said.

“I know it does, I know.” I tried to sound as reassuring as possible. But, I knew, the only way she would ever believe me is if I told her an actual truth. “Jane, I promise I will explain every little detail when I have the time. For now, all I can say is this: I have a sort of illness, and the opium dulls the effects of it. And there’s a man, who has been stalking me, and he has the same illness that I do. That doesn’t really matter, I suppose. What matters is that he might have taken Randy, and Adam, and they might be in great danger. I need to go to them, and when I return, I swear I will tell you everything that has ever happened in my life.”

Jane shook her head. “I don’t know—“

“I need you to stay here, where you’ll be safe. I’ll send you a message every now and then to let you know I’m alright. And if you don’t get one for an hour, call the station—“ I frowned up at the ceiling. “Call your dad? And let them know where I am.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Jane huffed. “Lenore, how—“

My hands tightened on her shoulders and I said, “I know it’s a lot to ask, especially now, but I need you to trust me, Jane. This man is dangerous, and the affliction makes him more so. I need to know you’ll be here, safe.”

She nodded, but somehow, I wasn’t convinced.