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Chapter 1
Moo told me that she could see herself killing someone to protect her children, but would never murder someone “just because” she didn’t like them.
I didn’t think I could murder someone “just because” either. There were too many things involved with murder, well premeditated murder anyway. When you premeditate it, you have to think out everything—how to do it, where to hide the body, who to blame, where to run, your motive, and so on. You rationalize premeditated murder where as there is no rhyme or reason for crimes of passion, there’s no rationalization process. There's no time to think whether or not you’ll go to heaven or hell for it. You just pick up a knife and stab away, and later you can plead insanity of the heart.
Our murder conversation was sparked after a news report from New York 13, a quasi-news channel as they tended to report fantastical stories. The average murder rate in New York City, they said, has been declining since 1995, which is good news, but not necessarily comforting. A decline to zero would be nice, but may be completely unrealistic for a town with over eight million people. Today there are only 400 murders a year instead of 544, or something like that. I wasn’t too sure their statistics were right, since they weren’t the most reputable news station in the city, and the anchors didn’t seem to really believe it either. One actually said, “Wow, I thought it was at least ten thousand or something. My neighbor just found a head in his freezer!” It was his attempt at making a crass joke about dead squirrels and not dead humans. I thought it was funny, but only because I was drinking my poison, Grey Goose vodka, and anything was funny with a little Goose in your system.
My best friend, known by the entire world as high-fashion super model, Molia Hart, who has always been just “Moo” to me, brought up the fact that she would rather be killed for killing someone who was trying to kill her unborn babies than see her babies killed. It was confusing but did make sense: Moo would rather die before she let anyone touch the little human growing inside of her.
“I’ve wanted this baby for so long,” she whispered as she ran her soapy hands down her taut six-month-old belly. “When you get pregnant, Stela, you’re going to want to do anything for your baby. And murder is just one of those things.” She said the last part with a little nonchalant flip of the hand, like she had seriously considered it in the past; like it was a casual topic over tea. Suddenly nervous around her and the ease of which she was talking about murder, I slipped to the opposite end of the tub with my tumbler of vodka and watched her cautiously. Would she kill me if I simply poked at her stomach, which I tended to do a lot? Probably not, but I'd definitely be more careful about the poking in the future.
Moo and I had been watching the news from the gigantic tub in the master bedroom of her Long Island beach house. We had an entire three-day weekend to ourselves as her husband was out of town, so we decided to spend it doing things for “old times” sake, which included our traditional Moostela Bath, where we lounged around in our underwear, content under an enormous mound of peach-scented bubbles in hot bath water that left us pruny and soft.
“You’d kill for me, right?” Moo asked as she pushed her auburn hair out of her eyes. “I’m mean... I’d do it for you.”
I sipped my drink and then sat up slightly to set the glass on a small side table just outside of the tub. Of course I’d kill for her, but, well, under the right circumstances. I wasn’t going to kill a person for cutting in front of her in the grocery line, but if she were in the process of being mugged or raped, I could definitely see myself grabbing a pipe or a 2-by-4 and smashing his damn head in. Maybe the vodka had muddled my brain, but the idea of coming to Moo’s rescue—like Super Woman or something—was really appealing to me. Maybe I’d have my aunt sew me a nice yellow cape. It would have the initials E.R. on it for Estela Ramos. Well, in three months I’d have to get her to change it to E.H. for Estela Hood, since I’d be married, but in the mean time E.R. would do nicely. Maybe I could even have a theme song, like Bond.
Estela. Estela Hood. (Said if a very James Bond-like way)
“Jeremy said he’d probably kill for me,” Moo murmured as she smiled dreamily. She and Jeremy were still newlyweds and being around them now was almost worse than when they were just dating. The only difference was that this time Moo didn’t live in the same apartment building as Caleb and me. I couldn’t walk in on them in the throws of passion, or find Moo parading around with only a Tutu of Pleasure around her waist anymore. I knew it was worse because every time I called Moo I could hear Jeremy in the background, beckoning her back to bed, or the sofa, or the kitchen counter, or the floor. The places where they could do the deed in this monstrosity of a house were endless. Hell, they’d probably done it in the tub!
With that thought, I slowly stood up and grabbed one of the big beach towels, wrapped it around my round little body, and stepped out of the tub. Moo stretched her legs and lazily blew at the bubbles, pushing them up in the air where she batted at them until they settled back down in the water. I watched her stare whimsically off into space and decided that even though she talked tough about murder, she didn’t really have it in her to actually do it—unless truly threatened. She didn’t fit the stereotypical characteristics of a murderer anyway. According to info we found online, most murderers in the westernized world were male between 17 and 30 and killed other males. Every other case outside the norm was just hyper-reported by the media to seem like it always happened. Like school shootings. You'd think they happen every day by the way they're covered in the news.
“Would Caleb kill for you, Stela?” Moo asked as she dipped lower in the water. “I bet he would.”
I was sure he would, but I didn’t want to think about it. All of this death and murder talk made me queasy.
I mean, why exactly does another person take a life? What’s the process that goes through their heads? How do they rationalize it? I wanted to know the psychology behind murder because if I ever want to kill a person, I want to know how to stop such destructive thoughts. I mean how does it really go? Maybe the thought process is something like this: I hate her. — I wish she was dead. — I think I might kill her. — Would it be bad to kill her? — Will I get caught? — Will I go to hell for it? — I’m a soldier of God; he’ll praise me for killing her! — I killed her! — Now I feel better and I want to kill someone or something else.
Moo said that most people stop at “will I get caught?” I think I’d stop at the going to hell part, but it’s hard to tell, because sometimes I really think that I could be capable of killing another person—for the right reasons of course.
So, after our bath, Moo and I decided to make a list of people we would kill for. Her list was short and sweet, and I was at the top. After me there was Jeremy McCullum, her husband of less than two months; then Jeremy’s daughter Sandy; and then it was Moo and Jeremy’s unborn baby, which she had written down as “Baby J”. I told her that it was unfair of her to list only one of the babies—because I knew she was having two, even though only one showed up on the sonograms—so she wrote down “Baby J #2”. I told her it wasn’t fair to give them numbers, but she just pushed me playfully and rolled her eyes.
My list was a little more extensive, and Moo was at the top of mine. Then it was my fiancé Caleb, then my Tio Sylvester, my Tia Amilia, my mother (I wanted to put her further down the list, not because I don’t love her, but just because I’m not sure where exactly I would be on her list—we have a few issues that still need to be sorted out), then there were a bunch of other people. My half-sister Daisy Harper; my half-brother Scott Harper; my birth father Andrew “the General” Harper; then of course Caleb’s twin Adam; then my friend Olive and her triplets, Christian, Lucas, and Jasper; and then there was Caleb’s parents, Audrey and William. And I thought about adding my new step-father, Juan Ortega, but Moo pointed out that I was just writing down everyone I knew. I wouldn’t actually kill for all of those people, she said.
So I left Mr. Ortega off the list, but kept Moo, Caleb, and my uncle on for sure. Why just them? Because, they complete me. It was corny and very Jerry McGuire to think that way, but it was true. I felt whole with the three of them in my life and I think very few people actually feel that in their lifetime.
Moo and I talked about murder so much while I was at her house that it was no surprise that it was still on my brain as I drove back to the city for a meeting at Winright Modeling, an agency that Moo had been with for nearly a decade. Though Moo had been a model an in the business since she was six, I was still pretty new to the world of size double-zeros. When we were seventeen, Moo hit it big and went off around the world while I went college and earned degrees that I have yet to use. Sometimes life just works like that. My mother doesn’t understand it, but I do. I just wasn't ready to grow up yet—the world is a scary place.
I was always in the background of Moo’s career, until this past January when Moo officially named me to replace her long time manager Martin Wise, who was a scum bucket and a sleaze. I knew nothing about modeling or the social world of models, but I was slowly learning what was in and what was out. I learned very early on that everything but fruit, veggie platters, and liquid laxatives was out.
Okay, it’s not fair to judge them all as barfing, pooping, hot air balloons, but there’s a good chunk of them who are. Moo was fortunate enough to be spotted by Vanessa Winright, who promoted health and beauty above all else. Vanessa had literally dropped models from her agency for eating disorders or drug use, two of the leading ways these girl’s stayed slim. Moo told me once that a lot of the girls kept their conditions on the D.L. from Vanessa. Moo herself had a bout with heroin; she had been a slave to the drug for a little over a year, but was now clean and sober for four and a half years. Vanessa found out after Moo kicked the habit and kept her on only because Moo was actively—and is actively—going to Heroin Anonymous meetings. Moo announced her semi-retirement in January, but now that she was married and pregnant she wanted to get back in before no one wanted her anymore. And since Moo was almost 27, her modeling days were numbered.
Now that Moo was pregnant she was being heavily sought after by Alexander Vinci, a man who designed high-fashioned maternity wear for the rich and famous. I was meeting with him and Vanessa to discuss the contract and the shooting schedule, which we would start now and again Moo was further along, and the moment I reached to the city, traffic hit. I was nearly an hour late for my meeting.
The double glass doors at the entrance of Winright Modeling moved quietly on the electronic tracks upon my approach. I stepped into what I always liked to think of as fashion-thin hell and was immediately flanked by tall, bone thin starlets, with perpetual beauty frowns. Most of them ignored me, and why wouldn’t they? I was tall, 5’-10”, but wore a size fourteen, which would make me eligible to model super-plus sizes, since most plus models now were around size eight or so (if that!). I always thought that it was unfair to us slightly-above-average girls to walk into a plus-sized store only to see clothes made for our bodies draped on mannequins three sizes smaller. Most clothes never looked as good on me as they did the mannequins. The fashion world could be cruel and viscous and ugly and—.
“Estela!”
I turned at the clicking heels of Vanessa Winright, a beautiful woman with dark brown hair cut into a bob that just brushed her strong jaw line. She was a lovely woman actually, not judgmental or cold hearted, which one may stereotype people in the industry as. I genuinely liked her, and I’m pretty sure she liked me too. As tall as was, Vanessa had to stoop over to hug me.
“I'm sorry I'm late, and I’m sorry that Moo couldn’t be here, but Jeremy’s coming home with Sandy—”
“I completely understand,” Vanessa laughed. “And luckily Alex does as well, come on, we’re all set up in the conference room.” As we walked she pointed to a petite girl in a black pencil skirt and green blouse. Her blond hair was parted at the side and then swept back into a perfect pony tail. She had on square red-tinted glasses and was carrying a large black binder with her. I would say that she was about my age, 26, or maybe younger. “Do you remember Megan?”
I didn’t.
“Ummm,” I stammered.
“She’s my personal assistant,” Vanessa laughed.
“Oh, good to meet you,” I adjusted the strap of my purse on my shoulder and started to follow Vanessa to the conference room, and heard Megan whisper,
“I’ve only met you like five times.”
I felt instantly ashamed that I didn’t remember her, but then I do have this slight flaw of not actually looking at people when I meet them—especially attractive people. It's a self preservation thing; I subconsciously did it so that I wouldn't berate myself for not being as good looking as they were. Ask my fiancé, he’ll tell you some exaggerated story that I hadn’t looked at him for an entire year while he tried to woo me over Krispy Kreme donuts. And as much as I liked to deny it, it was true. I probably hadn’t given Megan the time of day in the past, because she was a pretty girl—one of those perfect ones we love to criticize.
“Estela, this is Alex Vinci.” Vanessa made a grand sweeping gesture with her hands as we entered the conference room.
I brought my eyes to obese man wearing a white Hawaiian shirt with blue flowers. The shirt was open at the collar and a few buttons were undone to expose a furry patch of brown chest hair where a sterling silver cross on a silver chain laid. I brought my eyes off his patch of fur and smiled. Alexander Vinci grunted as he pushed himself up and extended his hand to me. I took it, trying not to grimace at the warm sheen of sweat against his palm, and smiled brightly.
“Great to meet you, Mr. Vinci!”
“Yeah,” he smiled as he sat back down with another grunt and adjusted his shirt over his big belly. “Good to meet you too—I was hoping that Molia could be with us, but I know pregnant woman more than I know myself.” He went on to tell me how he and his wife had eight children and that he was considering divorcing her to marry younger woman to give him more kids. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his wife, he said, she just couldn’t have any more babies and how else was he going to get excited in the bedroom? He didn’t say it in those words, exactly, but he did say that his sexual fantasy was a pregnant woman.
Vanessa interrupted his tale—thank God!—to hand me Moo’s contract. “It’s a basic contract; we’ve used the same one in the past. Alex wants Molia for about six shoots. Three within the next couple months and then three when she’s further along—eight months, I think is what we agreed on.” I nodded and skimmed the contract even though I had no clue what it said. I’d take it to Moo’s lawyer, Trent Pryce, and he’d let us know if there was anything non-legit with it. I wanted to make sure Moo’s pictures would be in a magazine, and not in some personal scrapbook used for Vinci’s crazy sexual needs.
“Great, I’m sure we’ll have no problems with this,” I opened my planner and pretended to make a note but just drew a heart around Caleb’s name, which I had doodled on my calendar.
“What about the other girl?” Alex asked as he slurped his coffee.
“Other girl?” I sat up a little. “I thought that this was exclusively for Moo, as her comeback.”
Vanessa looked uncomfortable. Her mouth fell open as she stared at me, struggling with what to say maybe. “Um, there have been a few changes, Estela. I’m sorry, I should have mentioned them to you right away. The money is still the same, but Alex wants to use a second model for the shoots. So Molia will be working with her also. Alex wants a progression of pregnancy.”
“Okay, but that kills the exclusivity clause, doesn’t it?” I sat back closing my planner with an aggravated sigh. “Who is the other model?”
As if I had to ask. I knew it would be Kat Miller before she even had the chance to show her stupid, boney, unwanted face in the conference room.
I hated the 21-year-old supermodel for one reason and one reason alone: she had a thing for my fiancé. Kat was my nemesis; she was the bane of my very existence, and went out of her way to make my life hell. Kat said she loved Caleb, and did everything she could to get him, which included hurting me any chance she got. She publicly humiliated me in the tabloids, put me down with rude comments constantly, and openly flirted with Caleb whenever he had to work with her.
The most recent occurrence happened only a few months ago when Caleb, who's a high fashion photographer, rescheduled a Victoria Secret shoot at the studio he had in the apartment we shared. I was shocked out of my mind to find Kat walking around my house topless and throwing herself on Caleb. I was heart broken by it actually. Caleb rectified the situation by closing his in-home studio and buying a building in the Chelsea District. If he worked with Kat I didn't have to know about it, which was a relief and a concern.
Kat breezed into the conference room with an air of superiority and condescension, which I felt as she stared down her perfect little nose at me. I expected that snobby look, the way her nose turned up when our eyes met. What I didn’t expect was the swell of her belly just under her flowing, white lace blouse.
Kat Miller was pregnant. She was smaller than Moo, but definitely pregnant.
Initially, many thoughts—not all of them good—rolled through my head as I watched Kat bend over Alex Vinci, touching her stomach and breasts to his shoulder. The man went red in the face and stared at her stomach like a starving man. He asked her if he could touch her stomach and she drew back slowly and lifted the hem of her blouse. I stared at the smooth, taut skin on her stomach, and frowned as she laughed. The giggly quality of her laugh was like nails on a chalkboard. She leaned against Vinci’s hand and brought her eyes to mine. For a fleeting moment I had an intense fear that she was about to tell me that the baby was Caleb’s. I mean, if she seriously wanted to hurt me she’d do exactly that. She could sew seeds of dread and doubt in me and let me dissolve into a bundle of sadness and paranoia that would undoubtedly destroy my relationship.
God… she doesn't even need to do that, I thought sadly. The seeds were already sewn, and although I knew deep down that Caleb would never cheat on me, sometimes irrational thoughts were far easier to believe than rational ones.
“It’ll be fun working with you, Estela,” Kat cooed as I gathered up my things to leave ten minutes later. “And I really would like to put all of this in the past.”
I dropped my Blackberry and my planner into my purse and looked up. “Kat… you’re a bitch,” I said simply. “Please don’t pretend to be anything other than that.”
I swept out of the room, feeling slightly shameful for not acting more professional, but excused myself due to the fact that I was a bundle of unsure nerves. I headed for the exit quickly; the sooner I was home the better. Kat followed me rubbing her stomach the entire way. “It’ll be fun to pose with Molia—I could be like, her kid sister or something, since she looks old enough now.”
I stopped and turned. “You’re just jealous that—”
“You’re just jealous of me,” Kat interrupted her eyes narrowing as she stared me up and down. I thought I saw her eyes linger on my left hand and the giant engagement ring Caleb had bought for me. I wiggled my fingers and her eyes jerked back to me. They narrowed and she tipped her nose up again. “You’re jealous that Caleb’s always wanted me over you. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but he could be the father of my baby.”
Inside I died a little bit when she said those words. I knew she was saying it to hurt me, but… well, what if Caleb had accidentally done something in Milan when he was alone with her for a week during that photo shoot last month? Okay, they hadn’t really been alone, but, well, I wasn’t there to keep him satisfied. Men sometimes made stupid decisions, right? I shook myself physically and stabbed my finger in her face.
“You’d do anything just to spite me—even find a way to intrude upon Moo’s contracts.” I snapped.
“Oh, that wasn’t me—that was my new agent,” Kat turned slowly and pointed across the way where Martin Wise was standing talking to two young models and their mothers. “He’s brilliant, you know.” Kat bent her head to my ear and lowered her voice to whisper, “Molia was so stupid to fire him and take you on. What can you do for her besides make her look even more beautiful?” Her laugh was short and chopped. “I suppose anyone would look more beautiful when standing next to you.”
“Ms. Ramos, you forgot this,” Megan appeared at my side with my Blackberry. I didn’t remember leaving it behind, and I took it with a confused, but grateful, smile. Megan turned toward Kat and lifted her chin. “Ms. Miller, Mr. Vinci is asking for you back in the conference room.”
“Oh, right,” Kat smiled at me. “Say hello to Caleb for me, and please tell him I’ll be in touch.” She paused before walking away and ran her hands down her belly. “We have a lot to talk about, he and I.” I watched her walk away feeling my boiling point increase exponentially. I was about to leave when Megan tapped my arm. I had forgotten that she was standing there.
“Can I have my phone back?”
Her hand was outstretched to me. I looked at the Blackberry in my hand and then noticed the initials M.H. glued in pretty pink rhinestones. I handed her the phone and laughed. “Sorry Megan, that was stupid of me.”
“It’s okay,” she smiled and gave a little shrug of her perfect little shoulder. “I thought you might need rescuing,” she opened the big binder and glanced inside. “Anyways, will Molia be here next week for the fitting or should I schedule the clothes to go to her?”
“No, she’ll be here,” I answered making a mental note.
“Okay, great!” Megan beamed. “Oh… um, just so you know…” her voice trailed off slightly, “sorry, this is probably none of my business, but the rumor going around is that it’s her agent’s baby.” I glanced from Megan’s calm blue eyes to Martin Wise who was approaching me. I watched Megan turn on her toes and hurry off toward the conference room. I watched her for a minute and then turned and left the building before Martin could ask me if I had given plus-sized modeling anymore thought.
--
On the drive home I realized that Kat was just trying to rile me by saying that the demon spawn in her belly was Caleb’s, and upon realizing that, my frustration, anger, and hate for her skyrocketed. I was so angry that I slammed the front door closed, knocking two pictures on the opposite wall down. The glass in them shattered, which only aggravated me more. I took off my shoes and lobbed them at the closet door before dropped my purse and stomped across the room headed for the bedroom.
“Baby, you okay?”
Caleb was sitting in the living room with Oscar Boyd, his personal assistant and friend. He hadn't looked up from the blue prints sprawled across the coffee table, which didn't surprise me. Whenever I came home from Winright's I was frustrated and crabby. I paused just behind the couch as he looked up. The smile on his face slowly evaporated and his green eyes filled with concern. He stood and dropped the pen he had been holding on the table. “What’s going on? You seem really upset.”
“Pppst,” Oscar spat. “She looks rabid, not upset.” Oscar pushed his curly blond hair off his forehead and twisted around on the couch to look at me. His playful blue eyes seemed less enthusiastic than normal. His smile was sympathetic but distant also. I touched the top of his head and then walked toward Caleb, who took me into his arms and kissed my face, the soft hairs on his jaw and cheek tickled my skin.
“So, Es, I was wondering what you’d think about moving out to Long Island to be closer to Moo?” He picked up a slip of paper from the coffee table and handed it to me. It was the specs for a house a few blocks from Moo's. I tried to focus on what he was saying, on the house he was showing me, but I couldn’t.
“Did you know Kat Miller’s pregnant?” I blurted out. “Did you know that she’s about four months along and—”
“And the whore doesn’t know who the father is,” Oscar said with a bored yawn. “Of course we knew—that’s old news. What’s new news is that—” I didn’t stick around to hear him finish his thought. Instead I went back to the bedroom and into my closet.
I needed a stress reliever and I knew just were to find it. A few months ago while in Washington D.C. meeting my birth father's side of the family, Daisy and Moo made a voodoo doll in Kat’s likeness, and gave it to me as a present. I was too scared of the thing to play with it then, and had actually hidden it in a shoe box that I littered with Holy Scriptures in effort to keep any “evilness” inside the box. But now, now that I was filled with rage and hate, I didn’t mind stabbing the thing a little bit. Hopefully it would be a better medicine against high blood pressure than a low-salt diet.
I sat down on the floor of the closet and pulled the brown-haired doll out of the box. The small pin with a skull-and-cross bone head felt heavy in my hand, and after only a moment of hesitation, I bent over the doll and shoved the pin straight through the doll’s face. I thought one stab would be enough, but quickly learned that it actually felt good to stab the doll. Soon I was stabbing the thing all over.
“Take that, you stupid, stupid, bitch!” I hissed as I threw the doll into the bathroom after stabbing it about 30 times. Pushing myself up, I marched over to where the doll had landed just outside the shower and stomped on the head with my heal. I was stomping it hard when Caleb came into the bathroom. He made a noise that sounded like a muffled laugh, which I confirmed by looking at him to see his big grin. I stomped the doll harder and then dropped down to my knees to stab it a few more times.
“She told you the baby was mine, didn’t she?” Caleb asked as he squatted down beside me. I pushed the needle slowly into the heart of the doll and then sat back on my heels. When I looked into his green eyes I felt so foolish for letting Kat twist me up like she had. Annoyed, I picked up the doll and threw it as hard as I could against the shower door. I watched it slide down the door. It landed face down in the fluffy white rug. As I reached for it again, Caleb caught my hand and drew me to my feet. “I’m sorry she upset you.” I closed my eyes as his arms wrapped around my body and his lips came to the soft patch of skin under my ear.
“I know what she said was stupid and ludicrous," I murmured as he kissed and nibbled my skin. "I know you’d never cheat on me. But she’s just so evil, Caleb, she’ll do anything to hurt me.”
He held me tightly and nodded. “I know, baby, but you don’t have to worry about Kat anymore, okay? She’s nothing to us.” He pulled me out of the bedroom and brought me back into the living room where Oscar was waiting with a sympathetic smile. I sat down beside him on the couch and let my mind focus on something other than Kat Miller.
“You’d be willing to move to Long Island?” I asked.
“Sure, it’s a great place,” Caleb said. “You’d be closer to Moo, which I know you’ll like, and I sort of want to take up surfing. It’ll be the best for both of us.” He handed me print outs of house listings and sat down beside me. I looked at Oscar who was watching TV; he was completely not interested in new houses. I wasn’t really sure why he was there to begin with, since Oscar never just stopped by to hang out. I turned my confused eyes to Caleb who explained that Oscar had just had a bad breakup and didn’t trust himself to be alone. Nodding sympathetically, I turned my attention back to Caleb and the houses and we looked through them together.
--
“Es,” Caleb’s hand moved down my side and up my arm in one fluid motion. I cracked on eye open and saw him leaning over me. The sun was pouring into the room and over the bed. It was high enough in the sky to tell me that it was pretty late. It had been late when we went to bed, we had gone to bed late weighing the pros and cons of moving, so I wasn’t surprised that I had overslept. I started to sit up, but Caleb put his hand on my shoulder. “No, don’t get up.” He covered me with the blanket.
“Then why did you wake me?” I stretched my arms over my head and stretched my back. “Do you want to make love?” I reached up to touch his stubbly chin. He caught my hand and gently pressed his cheek to my palm. “I’m all for making love, you know. I was too tired last night, but, I’m ready now.” I grasped a handful of his t-shirt and tugged him closer.
“No, that’s not why I woke you up.” He let my hand drop and stared at me with an expression that made me fearful. Something was really wrong! God, had someone died? Was it Tio? This time when I sat up, he didn’t stop me.
“What is it?” I asked. “You’re scaring me.”
“Kat’s dead,” Caleb whispered. I heard what he said, but I didn’t actually “hear” him. Kat Miller couldn’t be dead, I mean, I had just seen her yesterday and she was very much alive. “It’s true, Es, it’s in the papers and everything. All of the news stations are reporting—it’s gone national.”
“What?” I gasped. “What happened? Was she in a car accident? Did she get sick or something?” I watched as he revealed a newspaper from behind his back. I stared at him for a long time. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see what the headlines said, I just couldn’t believe it—I couldn’t believe that a woman I had wished gone was actually gone now. Caleb set the paper on my bent knee and I finally looked down at the headline: Supermodel brutally murdered in her home.
Hands trembling, I unfolded the paper and began to read the article:
Katherine Miller, 21, a supermodel out of Vanessa Winright Modeling, was found dead in the bathroom of her home, according to a police report filed just after 10pm, Friday, June 10th. The medical examiner has stated that the cause of death may be due to blunt force trauma and multiple stab wounds to her entire body. NYPD detectives are currently investigating the murder and say that the majority of the stab wounds were found Kat Miller’s abdomen. She was three and a half months pregnant; the father of the baby is rumored be Martin Wise, who declined comment.
I blinked several times and then shook my head. “This isn’t real.”
“It is, real, Es,” Caleb whispered. “I’m so sorry… I….”
“Oh my god, I did this,” I gasped. I pressed my fingers to my trembling lips and shook my head, my eyes moved over the words of the article again but I didn’t read them. My mind was too swarmed with other thoughts.
There was no doubt in my mind that I had killed Kat Miller. Maybe I hadn’t laid a hand on her, but the damage was done. Pushing the blankets off my body, I walked into the bathroom and stopped outside the shower where the voodoo doll was still laying face down on the carpet. I wondered if Kat had been found face down as well. I wonder if the knife was still in her.
“We need to burn it,” I whispered as Caleb walked behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Burn what, Es?” he murmured against my shoulder.
“The evidence,” I drew away from him and picked up the doll by its brown hair. I didn’t look at it. I just held it out to him and prayed that he would take it without question so that I could wash my hands with bleach. He didn’t take it though. Caleb stared at me and then looked down at the doll.
“Es, what—”
“We have to get rid of the evidence Caleb, that’s what murderers do,” my voice trembled and tears stung my eyes. “We have to get rid of it!”
“Estela, you didn’t kill Kat through the voodoo doll, it’s just a toy!” Caleb laughed and took it from me when I shook it at him again. He put it on the vanity by the sink. I made the mistake of looking at the needle still sticking out of its chest. My nervous stomach began to cramp and I felt the bile at the back of my throat. “It’s just toy, Estela,” he said as I moved to the toilet and dropped down onto my knees. I stared into the water for a long time and waited to be sick. “You didn’t kill Kat, babe. It’s just a coincidence.”
Was it a coincidence that she was found stabbed and bludgeoned in her home only a few hours after I had went to town on her voodoo doll? I didn’t think so. It was too eerily the same. I wish I had listened when he told me not to speak ill of people. I said I wanted Kat dead weeks ago and now she was. I had stabbed the voodoo doll so many times I had lost count. I had stomped its head in and now… now Kat was dead.
“You didn’t kill her, Estela.”
I brought my eyes up to Caleb's and stared at him. Maybe he was right. It was just a doll anyway, and Daisy said that I had to be the one to hex it personally for it to really work, so, maybe I hadn’t killed her. Maybe it was a coincidence? It was definitely a little too close to home. I looked back at the voodoo doll and then at Caleb.
“It’s just a toy,” he flicked at the doll’s leg and I could practically see Kat’s mutilated body on a cold slab in the medical examiner’s office, twitching unnaturally. He flicked it again and the bile rolled up my throat. I leaned over the toilet, ready to vomit. “You didn’t kill her, Es,” he said again, very softly.
“Fine,” I whispered. “But then who did?”
I glanced back up at him and he shrugged his shoulder before moving down behind me. We sat in front of the toilet for a long time. I stared at the voodoo doll and Caleb stared at me. He kept saying that I didn’t do it, and said it so much that I was starting to wonder if he was trying to convince me—or himself.