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The throbbing inside my skull intensifies, and on a new wave of pain, I screw my eyes shut and sit up in bed, the heel of my hand making a futile attempt to soothe the ache at my temples. Alcohol flows thick in my veins, as the dark room spins in my periphery, before my vision lands on a figure standing in the corner. I squint and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand that still clutches the fifth of whiskey.
“Are you having a nightmare, Daddy?” Isabella’s soft voice soothes me like a warm glass of milk laced with poison.
She isn’t real.
“You’re not really here.” I frown to hold back the tears, kicking myself back against the wall behind me. “You’re not real.”
Through my frantic attempt to wake myself up from this torment, I see her step closer. The nightgown she wears is the same one she wore in the hospital during her last bout of chemotherapy.
“Daddy? I don’t want you to go after that Goat man.”
My frown deepens, the confusion muddling my brain, as I try to decipher whether, or not, I’m awake, or asleep. My heart prods me to reach out for her and not let go, but my instincts don’t dare try to touch her.
“He’s dangerous. And bad. He’ll do bad things to you,” she adds, wringing the fabric of her gown as she stands off from me.
“He’s the reason you’re not really here, Bella.”
“You’re the reason I’m not here. Or Mommy. You left us alone.”
The words pierce my heart, offering proof that one still resides inside my chest. “Please … don’t say that.”
“It’s true. You left us alone. And now you want to leave us again. Promise me you won’t go to the Goat man.”
With tears in my eyes, I lurch toward her, heartbroken when she backs herself away. “I promise. I won’t. I won’t leave you again.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
The edges of her form begin to fade, and with urgency in my muscles, I scramble forward, reaching out to grab the nothingness, and lose my balance. The cold crack of wood hits my temple as I crash to the floor, and I stare up at the ceiling as it fades in and out.
Standing over me, Isabella stares down, until everything fades to black.
21
Ivy
There’s a method to murder, I suppose—a way that those who commit it on a regular basis manage to skate through the aftermath without a single drop of remorse.
I’m not one of those people. On one hand, that comes as a relief.
Parked at the side of the church in Damon’s car, I stare off through the long-settled night toward the shadowed yard in the back, where I know Calvin’s body is buried.
No, not buried. Dumped.
The car sits just outside the halo of light from the street lamp, concealed in the darkness, in case Father Ruiz happens to be up and about this hour. I told Damon I’d drive the vehicle only when necessary, seeing as how not actually owning a car over the last decade has severely impaired my skills. I don’t know that the trip to the church qualifies as necessary, but it has become my source of torment over the last couple of days, in my masochistic attempt to reconcile the guilt swimming through me. A reminder that I took part in killing a man.
He’s dead because of me.
It’s been about a week now. Some days, I can easily justify his murder, reminding myself that he slaughtered an innocent woman and child, and who knows how many more, besides them. Other days, I wish this guilt—killer’s remorse, as Damon once called it—could be wiped from my slate. That I could go back to before that night and leave L.A., as I’ve plotted so many times over the last few years.
Calvin would’ve found me, though. He always did, somehow.
I glance down at the digital clock to see it’s after eleven. Three times since that night, I’ve come here to stare off and contemplate all the possible consequences of this slaying, not the least of which is that my soul will inevitably burn for it. My hell will be spending an eternity in flames with the very asshole I helped kill. I wonder if Calvin was actually dead when Damon threw him in there, or maybe just deeply passed out from the torture he endured.
Two nights ago, I dreamed I was trapped in that suffocating stench of shit, with no light, no air, no hope. I woke up sobbing in an empty bed. Damon’s assured me, numerous times, that there’ll be nights like that, nights when I’ll swear I hear Calvin’s voice in my apartment, or feel him crawl into bed beside me.
I want these unreal encounters with him to go away, so I can forget him, perhaps even long enough to be able to look at myself in a mirror again without cringing.
Mamie’s funeral is tomorrow, right here at the church, and I’m grateful that it took a bit of time to arrange, because a week ago, I probably would have stood up during the service and confessed to Calvin’s murder.
