Page 83
Wearing a wholly unamused expression, he opens one of the drawers beside him and produces a black razor. After popping off the old blade, he snaps on a new one from a full cartridge, before handing it to me.
“Thanks. I won’t be long.”
The door clicks behind him when he exits, and I twist back around to the sink. Opening the top drawers to my right reveals hair pomade, a comb, and a brush. The next drawer holds the shaving supplies, all neatly arranged and uncluttered by the usual mess I grew accustomed to from living with a single man. Everything gleams with the kind of cleanliness and order that would have Russ rolling his eyes, if he were here right now.
Smiling to myself, I close the drawer and glance up at the blue toothbrush peeking out from that odd contraption and imagine mine next to it. As if it belonged there. It’s a thought that has become as foreign to me as the idea of love itself. Nothing lasts. Not even homes.
After removing the brush from its packaging, I do a quick cleanse of my teeth and tongue, followed by a gargle of mouthwash I found in the medicine cabinet.
The shower controls are completely alien to me, and I stand scratching my head, trying to figure out which knob goes to which spigot.
“Far left,” Thierry says through the door, and I lurch back, instantly covering my bare breasts, but he doesn’t enter. For a shyster, he’s fairly respectable about boundaries.
Before Russ and I landed the cabin in Marquette, we stayed with an older man, a guy Russ bartered with to forego rent in exchange for some maintenance he offered to perform around the place. While Russ tinkered away in the guy’s garage one afternoon, the asshole snuck into the bathroom during my shower and cornered me in the stall. A scuffle ensued that ended when Russ found him on top of me and bashed his face into the toilet’s tank, leaving a bloody mess all over the white tiles. We fled afterward.
That was the last time someone tried to put their hands on me without my fighting back, because Russ made a point to teach me a small bit of self-defense.
From what little I gathered over the years, he’d spent a good amount of time in prison, and I’ve always been curious to know if that’s how my dad came to know him, as his shrink. If that’s the case, it never made sense to me that he’d trust the guy to his only daughter, but I guess it doesn’t have to. Because Russ never laid a hand on me. Never looked at me that way, or even hinted a single sexual thought toward me. Minus his flaws, he was probably the best stand-in my father could’ve picked.
Once the water heats, I step inside and let the pounding spray beat against my muscles, knees weak as if they might buckle from the utter relaxation of it all. It’s funny how much tension we walk around with, unaware of its presence until it’s literally beaten out of us.
In the quiet, my mind shifts to earlier in the evening and my little discovery behind the walls of the house. Brie. Russ. What I think is my mother, though I haven’t confirmed that. All the millions of answers I’ve searched for now slamming against one another inside my skull.
The urge to know what’s on the chip tugs at my curiosity, and I wonder if Thierry might allow me to use a computer, if he has one, to investigate. Since he seems to be naturally suspicious around others, it’s probably best that I don’t view anything in front of him, though. Perhaps I’ll just tell him I have to check my email, or some benign act for which most people in the world tend to use a computer.
A flicker of the woman in the photo flashes behind my eyes, and I shake my head. I will not go there tonight. That she’s creeping in is reminder that I need to take my pills. And I’ll surely have look into replenishing my supply soon, because the last thing I need to deal with right now are the withdrawals and consequences of not taking them. I’ve promised myself to try quitting once this is over, and I’m ready to move onto the next part of my life. But right now, as all these memories from my past begin to step into the light, I can’t risk the fragility of my head. Especially around a man like Thierry.
Foot hiked up on a marble-looking bench, I soap my leg, pausing a moment to sniff the delicious scent, and run the new blade over my shin, all the way up my thigh. When I reach the bumpy texture of my scar, I slow my stroke, careful not to tear over the damaged skin. The scar has been there for as long as I can remember. Longer than the one across my jaw. Can’t even say how I got it, except that it has a weird shape that looks almost deliberate. Like a branding, but healed wrong. From what I remember of the before, in my past, there’s no recollection, or explanation. No major injury that I can remember.
Clean, with the lingering scent of sandalwood that smells like him, I exit the shower and dry off with a towel I scrounged from the closet. It baffles me the way everything is so convenient here.
Like, who the hell stores extra toothbrushes? I was lucky if Russ remembered to change ours out every year, let alone every six months.
Wrapped in the towel, I step out of the stall on a waft of steam, and sigh when I spy my clothes lying on the floor in a heap. It’s been a week since I’ve not had a washing machine, and with the few clothes I decided to pack up, I’m starting to run out of clean options. As much as I hate the thought of putting on the same clothes I wore pre-shower, I don’t plan on sleeping naked.
With my clothes gathered into a heap in my arms, I exit the bathroom, where I skid to a halt on finding Thierry rummaging through my bag.
21
Thierry
“What the hell are you doing?”
The silky texture of her voice is a warning against turning around, because chances are, all she’s wearing is a towel, and looking will mess with my head.
“Going through your things.” After carefully removing the music box from the depths of the bag, I resume my foraging for any weapon she might’ve stuffed away, as well as any evidence of something that Julio and his men could possibly be after.
Bringing her here probably wasn’t the best decision, but at this point, the girl is an asset. One that needs to be protected. Perhaps my golden fucking ticket out of laundering for the cartel, if Julio decides she’s worth something. Besides that, if keeping her hidden makes Aric look like an incompetent schmuck, then I’m all in.
“Why? That’s … so rude.”
“And you weren’t going through my cupboards and drawers just now?”
“That’s not the same thing. Those are my personal effects. Personal.”
“If you’re referring to your lemon panties, I own a strip club, chère. Those might as well be incontinence diapers.”
I pull a book out of the bag and set it on the bed beside me. Black Magic. Another object is a Baphomet painted completely black. A few months back, I’d have just chalked her up to one of those stupid adolescents who gets their rocks off sleeping in haunted houses and playing with Ouija boards, but I’ve recently become aware of the cartel’s involvement in the occult, and there are no coincidences. Ever since I watched that pale-skinned, gothic wannabe drag Castellano into Julio’s house, I’ve been curious to know the link. Turns out, it’s not uncommon for cartel leaders to seek out these dark arts priests, many of whom are well-versed in religions like Palo Mayombe, and the like, in order to exact brutal revenge and ensure personal success. Some even act as advisors.
