Page 19 of Roma King
Patrin’s victorious smile makes me want to retract my words, but it’s too late now. He’s already making his way out of the door. “This is all just a hiccup,” he says, grinning. “The tattoo parlor. The fighting. The apartment. You’re gonna change your mind about all of it the moment you come home. Just you wait and see.” His grin is the most arrogant, annoying fucking thing I have ever fucking seen. “Trust me,” he says, as he walks out of the shop. “I’m feeling really good about all of this.”
I just smile and nod as I watch him go.
He won’t be feeling so fucking good about this when he finally takes a look in a mirror and sees the massive dick I’ve just tattooed onto his back.
7
ZARA
HARROLD FOREVER
The morning doesn’t so much break as emerge in a lazy, thick fog over the rooftops of Spokane. I didn’t go back to sleep. I stood in front of the payphone and waited for it to start ringing again—italwaysstarted ringing again—but the night sky turned from a deep, bruised royal blue to purple, to an angry red, and the phone had remained utterly silent. Apparently, whoever called calling, waiting for me to pick up, had delivered their message and they weren’t planning on repeating it.
At eight a.m., when Detective Holmes finally shows up for work, I’m already on hold, waiting for him to sit down at his desk. He sounds like he hasn’t slept either, or he hasn’t yet fulfilled his morning coffee quota. “Yeah?” His greeting is shitty to say the least.
“This is Zara Llewelyn. We spoke yesterday at the dispatch center. I…I was the one who took Corey Petrov’s 911.”
The line buzzes. Holmes is quiet, then he clears his throat. “Right. Yeah. Zara. I’ve already logged the additional information you called in with about the door. I spoke with the officers who attended the property. They said they found a boot print on the door frame. Could be useful. Have you remembered something else?”
“No. Well. I haven’trememberedanything, but last night…” How do I tell him about the constantly ringing payphone and the message I received last night without sounding completely crazy? It’s all too interconnected to be plausible, I know that. I have no option, though. I have to tell him what happened. If there’s any chance Corey is still alive and he’s somewhere near Rochester Park, then the police have to investigate.
Quickly, I rush through the events of last night, explaining about the non-stop calls and my frustration at Cyscom, and Holmes listens silently. When I get to the part about hearing Corey’s voice on the other end of the line, he starts asking questions.
“When was the call?Exactly? It’s critical that we can pinpoint the exact time, so we can trace its source.”
I’ve already written down a number of details that I figured he was going to ask; I’ve had plenty of time to replay everything that took place at least a hundred times in my head. “I don’t know to the precise minute, but it was around four fifteen. I’d only been in bed an hour and a half or so after my shift ended. I looked at the clock when I got up to get a glass of water, but not before I ran out of the apartment. I’d say that time is pretty accurate, though.”
“And the person on the phone. What else did he say? What were his demands?”
“Like I said, I couldn’t tell if the voicewasa man’s. And it only said those two things before the line went dead. There were no demands. Nothing. Just, ‘Rochester Park. The end of the line.’”
“That makes no sense. Rochester Park isn’t even on a train line. The subway that used to connect with Rochester shut down in the nineties years ago. And even if this mystery caller of yours was referring to that subway station, there were eight stops after Rochester. It wasn’t the end of the line. Not even close.”
I shrug uselessly. “I’m sorry. I’m just telling you what I heard.”
“There must be something else. Something you’re forgetting.” He sounds a little accusatory, as if I’m playing some sort of weird cat and mouse game with him. I didn’t intentionally withhold the information about the door being kicked in at the Petrov’s place; I called him and told him what I’d pieced together seconds after he left the dispatch center. The hard, irritated edge to his voice now gives the impression that he thinks I’m purposefully screwing with him.
“I swear, that’s everything. If there were any other details, I’d give them to you, believe me. I have no reason to conceal information. That little boy is out there somewhere, and—”
“I’m well aware.” Clipped. Cold. Final. “Thank you for calling, Ms. Llewelyn. We’ll contact Cyscom and see if they can locate the caller. I think this unfortunately might end up being a dead end, though.”
“Dead end? How so?”
“You’ve barely given us anything to go off. A place name, and a cryptic statement that doesn’t make any sense. Sounds like someone from work or one of your friends is messing with you, Zara. You told someone about the missing boy. You let slip about how worried you are, how weird this whole thing is, and someone thought it’d be funny to play a prank on you. You must have considered that.”
“My friends and work colleagues don’t joke around about kidnapped children, and anyway, I haven’t spoken to anyone about Corey. His disappearance hasn’t even made the news yet.Ididn’t even know he’d been taken until yesterday afternoon. The phone was ringing for days before that. You’re right. I’ve given you two pieces of information. A place and a turn of phrase. It might not be much, but it’s something. More than you had twenty minutes ago. I’d make sure I looked into the new information before dismissing it out of hand, Detective. You’re smart. You’re a problem solver, and these are clues to help solve the problem you’re dealing with right now. Please don’t treat me like an attention seeker who has nothing better to do than waste your valuable time.”
If I could slam the phone down, I would. It’s far less satisfying stabbing the ‘end call’ button on my cell phone. Yesterday, Detective Holmes had seemed concerned over Corey’s disappearance. He’d appeared anxious, kind even, and I’d believed him when he’d told me to call him anytime, but now the man has had a change of heart; the information I gave him hadn’t seemed to interest him one bit. Itwasvague, yes, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important. That didn’t mean that it might not be vital in tracking down whoever broke into the Petrov house and took Corey.
You could call me angry at the detective’s lackluster attitude, but it would be more appropriate to call melivid. At ten a.m., after pacing up and down the length of my living room a countless number of times, I throw on an oversized NYU sweatshirt that once belonged to my father, stuff my feet into a pair of Ugg boots, and stomp up the two flights of stairs to Sarah’s apartment. I knock twice, two loud, abrasive, authoritative thumps that have the woman looking a little flustered when she answers the door. Half her bright blonde hair is still up in rollers, the other half a wild mass of corkscrew curls. Her robe is sheer—leopard print, of course—and her negligee beneath barely covers her ridiculous cleavage. By the looks of her you’d have thought she was expecting company of a romantic nature, but that’s not the case; Sarah dresses sexily, does her hair up every night, wears a full face of makeup no matter what, and insists on heels that would cripple most women, but there’s no man in her life, and she isn’t trying to attract one either. She’s had her heart broken enough times that little more than shreds of it now remain, and she guards those shreds very fiercely.
“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” she asks, blinking at me through eyelashes clumped together with too much mascara. “Sounded like the fucking police were here to raid me.”
I shoot her a tight-lipped smile as I sidle my way past her and into her apartment. Empty wine bottles and vases filled with desiccated, faded bouquets of flowers dot the counter tops and the mantlepiece. On the small white table in the middle of her living room, a stack of magazines and newspapers lie in disarray, and a pile of coupons have been neatly gathered to one side; today must be Sarah’s couponing day. Once a week, she likes to crack open a bottle of Chardonnay first thing and hunt down the next week’s deals while she listens to NPR on the radio.
“I might have,” I tell her.
“You might have what?”
