Dying to Remember (The Station #2) (9 page)

She forces an
elbow into his side, causing him to lose his breath and also loosen his grip on
her hair, but he still has his arm around her neck.

Nails;
scratch his face!

Seconds later
a scream pierces through the forest around us and he finally let's go of Jess.
Stumbling backwards with his hands covering his bloody face, he trips on the
wall he was just recently sitting on, toppling over it backwards. Jess is
panting and has one of her slender hands at her neck where the boy was holding
onto her. No doubt she'll have a bruise there tomorrow.
The bastard!

Woohoo,
girl! You did it! Now let's get the heck out of here before he gets up!

But he's not
moving on the other side of the wall, or cursing, as I was expecting. And Jess
notices this too. She takes a tentative step toward the place he went over
against my better judgment.

I mean,
come on, Jess! Have you not seen even ONE scary movie? He's going to pop up at
any second, so the further away you get, the less likely he will KILL you!

I'm holding
my breath as best as I can considering I can't
really
breathe while I'm
inside Jess's mind, and I know she's not breathing either as she places her
dusky-pink manicured hands on the top of the wall and peeks over the side.

The boy is
lying awkwardly on his back, with his feet resting straight up against the
layered rock wall. His arms are extended away from him like he's about to do a
snow angel in the grass and he's staring, unblinking, up at the sky. One of his
eyes is badly scratched and bleeding, but it's not the small amount of blood on
his face that has me wanting to puke out my stomach lining; it's his neck. It's
bent in such a way that his head is awkwardly parallel with his right shoulder.

Oh, sweet
Jesus. We just killed a man.

***

In all
honesty, I'm not sure who screams louder…me or Jess. She runs from the tree
line toward a house that looks like it was plucked out of a glossy magazine
featuring cabin mansions inside. I can't tell her to slow down, because I'm
still in shock over what has happened, and the fact that she is rushing toward
the rear entrance of a home that looks like it has not just one, but three
large wings. When her feet hit the deck stairs, I finally use my voice in an
attempt to calm us both.

Okay Jess,
listen to me now. It's okay. Let's just take a moment to calm down.

The stained
deck is large enough to use as a decent sized dance floor, yet she flies across
it in seconds, slamming into the back door in a blubbering mess. With her
forehead and palms pressed flat against the glass, her body shakes with emotion
until her knees buckle.

On the floor,
and now thoroughly freaked out, she begins weeping loudly. All sounds of the
forest have died down, so it seems as if her cry echoes over the mountain,
without interruption. When the back door slides open, it startles us both.
Standing in a sleek pencil skirt and matching jacket is a svelte woman in her
forties, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun and impeccably done makeup
that highlights her green eyes.

"What on
earth is going on?" she asks Jess, with a hand placed up high on her curvy
hip. I know the moment Jess peers up at her, that this woman is her mother.
Jess tries to talk, but all that comes out is a slew of syllables all strung
together in a blubbery mess. Her mother waves her hand in the air impatiently,
urging Jess to speak clearly.

Lady, you
have no idea what's just happened.
I dislike her immediately.

"Jessica,
seriously. How am I possibly going to understand you, if you don't use words?
Are you hurt?" Her terse voice comes across as irritated and cold. Well,
obviously we have mommy issues here. Jess shakes her head vigorously, still
unable to speak, but she does point out into the trees where we just came from.

"What?"
A look of concern crosses her mother's face temporarily and I think she just
might get it.
Yes Mommy Dearest, something awful has happened to your
daughter. Yank that stick out of your butt and help her.
What she does
instead shouldn't surprise me, not after what I've seen and experienced already
as a volunteer, but I'm shocked regardless.

"Oh good
Lord, Jessica. I don't have time for your games. I just got home from work, and
Isabel doesn't have supper ready, if you can believe that. Pick yourself up off
the floor and come inside before you let the cool air out…" her voice
trails off as she walks away into the bowels of the massive home.

Jess sits
still for a moment longer, staring at the spot where her mother was just
standing, before letting out a final shudder and wiping her face. She manages
to stand and slowly enters the house, looking around for someone I can't quite
place from her memory yet. She doesn't bother to close the door.

You need
to find someone, or call the police. You have to, Jess. I know you are scared,
but it will be okay.

Jess weaves
her way around a room full of tan-colored chairs and couches, obviously
well-trained to avoid the sharp corners of the jaggedly cut marble coffee and
side tables as she moves in the same direction that her mother took off in.

After we pass
through a series of doors and a foyer that has a spectacular double stair-case
leading to separate wings of the house, she rounds a corner and enters the
first open door in the hallway. It's a laundry room and standing inside wearing
a white uniform is an older woman with grey-streaked hair folding laundry. I
scan Jess's mind to place her name, and sure enough, this is Isabel. After she
places the fluffy white towel atop a towering pile of similar items, she looks
up to see Jess standing in the doorway.

"Sorry
supper is late, Miss. It will be ready for you soon," she says nervously.
Jess says nothing, just stands before the older Hispanic woman in silence with
her arms stiffly at her sides.

"Miss?"
Isabel knows now that something isn't right and takes a few slow steps toward
Jess until she can place her wrinkled hands onto her shoulders. "What's
happened, Miss?"

You need
to tell her, Jess. Just take her out there; show her what's happened.

"I-I
need to show you something," Jess's voice squeaks.

"Sí,
Miss?"

"Outside…he's…outside,"
she stammers. I feel the tears building up inside her again as she takes the
confused woman by the hand, leading her back through the house and out onto the
deck. It's still silent outside. No bird or insect dares to speak or shuffle
the leaves as the three of us walk through the trees toward the long wall that
borders the back of the property. Only the wind dares to move as Jess stops at
the tree swing and points to the low wall with a shaky hand.

Isabel looks
around with a confused expression but then follows the direction of Jess's
outstretched fingers until she reaches the wall. She shrugs, unaware that a
dead boy is sprawled out on the ground just on the other side of the wall.

"Look
o-over the wall," Jess says.

It's okay,
just take a deep breath.
Oxygen rushes to her brain as Jess does just that
and we watch with fearful anticipation as Isabel steps up to the wall placing
her hands on it much like Jess did earlier to survey what was on the other
side. Isabel's hands fly up to her mouth but it doesn't stop the scream that
resonates through the trees as she backs away from the wall in horror. As the
startled birds explode from the trees Jess begins to tilt to the side.

Jess! Hold
on, it's okay!

But it's too
late. My view through her eyes blurs around the edges before fading completely.
Poor Jess has fainted and trapped me in the dark. Unable to see anything around
her, I slink onto the virtual floor of her mind and begin sifting through the
rubble, attempting to piece together what memories I can while she's still and
quiet. I have a feeling when she wakes, she'll be teetering quite nicely on the
brink of Hell. I don't want her diving over the side.

What have
I gotten myself into now?

By the time
Jess wakes up, I have more than enough memories pulled from her mind to put
together a decent picture of her past, at least enough to know what I have to
work with. Now, how to respond? Well, that's different entirely.

She did
indeed recently have an abortion. And it was less out of spite than sheer
terror. Of her parents mostly, but also of her ex-boyfriend, Chris. Who was now
sprawled out on the forest carpet on his back, killed by the fastest acting
form of Karma I've ever seen. Not that I wish death on anyone, but after seeing
their past, it seems Chris was just one good fight away from killing Jess out
of pure rage.

She might
have been willing to take a slap from him here, a punch to the gut there, but
she wasn't willing to have his baby; a baby that would bound them to each other
forever. It was her final straw, regardless of his cheating. Ironically,
getting Jess pregnant pushed Chris away temporarily. No doubt he was just as
freaked out by the idea of becoming a parent at seventeen years old as she was.
Sifting through the memories of their many teenage fights, I was certain the
last girl he cheated on Jess with was not the first. He was a jerk in every
way.

When Jess
awakens she is surrounded by two police officers and her mother, suddenly
acting the concerned parent, which I now know to be a fallacy, as well as
Isabel, the family's live-in housekeeper, who genuinely seems distraught. A
tall man dressed in an expensive looking charcoal-colored suit stands near the
wall, talking to another pair of officers. The trees teem with life now as if
every bird in northern Arizona has come to watch the show and gossip freely.

"Oh,
honey, you're awake. Thank goodness; I was worried." Mom looks at Jess
with her large, cool eyes and irritably swats the air in front of her at a
hovering fly. Her suit doesn't match the outdoors very well. Heck,
nothing
about the woman fits in with this picture; except maybe the giant mansion with
the cabin facade on the other side of the trees.

Jess moans
softly before sitting up with help from one of the officers and Isabel.
"What…happened?"

"You
fainted," her mother answers for her before the officer has a chance to
speak.

"Chris?"
Jess asks without looking up.

"Oh
honey," Mom pats her knee before straightening, tugging on her jacket and
smoothing out the fold of her skirt, "Don't say a word."

And the witch
is back.

***

A full hour
later and we are finally sitting inside the house in the main living area with
half a dozen officers…some plain-clothed, some in uniform.

"Tell me
again what happened, Miss?" asks a short man with a portly midsection
while he scribbles furiously on a small notepad.

It's okay.
Tell the truth. Take a deep breath, and just…tell them everything.

Her throat
clenches tight as she attempts to keep from bursting into tears again, but
after a few deep breaths she is able to clear her throat and speak, "I
told you; we were arguing and when I went to walk away he grabbed me, started
choking me and I didn't think he'd let go. He had me by the hair and all I
could do was kick or scratch him, so I tried that and finally…he let go of me.
Then…then…" she stops briefly, giving her voice a chance to recover.
"And then…I must have gotten his eye pretty bad because he yelled and
stumbled backwards. He just fell over the wall."

"So, you
didn't
push
him over the wall?" The short detective peers up at her
over his notepad to gauge her reaction.

"No! I
told you, he stumbled backwards. I was already trying to run away. It wasn't my
fault!"

"Right.
Well, he could have easily lost his balance had you
pushed
him."

"Don’t
respond to that, Jessica," says a man hovering behind the sofa in a suit
just as expensive as Jess's fathers, if not more so. He turns toward the
Detective with a warning glance and says flatly, "She's already answered
your question, move on."

"Relax,
you know I have to ask," sighs the detective before flipping his notepad
shut and tucking it tenderly into the breast pocket of his jacket.

"This
was clearly a case of self-defense, Detective Manning, nothing more," says
the man whom I now understand to be the family attorney.

"Well,
that may appear to be the case but we need to finish doing our job. You'll hear
from me soon. And Mr. and Mrs. Levy, please don’t leave town, got it?" The
Detective shuffles out of the room after speaking to a few of the uniformed
officers and slowly the group of various officials begin to clear out of the
house. Chris's body was long ago loaded onto an ambulance, and now that they
have Jess's informal statement on record, there wasn't much to do here.

"Oh,
this is just fantastic!" Mommy Dearest breaks the silence first by
throwing her slender arms up into the air while she begins to pace behind the
sofa that we sit on.

"Mom, it
wasn't my fault. I didn't mean for this to happen," Jess whimpers. Her
mind races at the same speed as her blood, and a thought carries along with
it…Jess wished it had been her that had died.

"It was
an accident, Jessica. We understand." Her father pats her shoulder
awkwardly, unsure of how to comfort his daughter.

"An
accident
?!
We just found a dead boy on our property, Jules! A dead boy! Oh my God. I have
to make calls. Do I call Chris's parents? Vincent, what's the protocol for
this?" She snaps her fingers at the Attorney who is looking frustrated and
concerned at the same time.

"Now
wait a moment, Andrea. We don't need to contact anyone right now. In fact,
please don't. Let the police handle that. Right now we need to make sure that
Jessica is alright, and decide on our next move if the police come back with
more questions," Vincent the Attorney replies.