Chapter Three: The Reaper

Thursday, Feb. 7, 2002

10:43 A.M.

“It was the best sex of my life.” Charlie answered with a happy little sigh.  Connie laughed aloud and flicked a spoonful of sugar at her friend.

      “I can’t believe you took my advice.  I wasn’t exactly serious, you know.”

      “Oh, I know, but …well, I met up with Scott at the bar again and he wound up bringing me home again …and things just spiraled from there …spiraled into heaven …ah, bliss …” Charlie replied, practically swooning.

      Connie’s brows rose.  “Whoa.  Glad I spent the night at Jackie’s place then, I think our place would’ve been too hot and steamy for sleep.”

      “Right there.”

      “So, what’re you guys gonna do now?  Become an item?  Go your own separate ways like you have before?  Inquiring minds want to know.”

      “Obviously,” Charlie commented drolly.  “I think we’re going to try to make something work, at least for a while.  Not just because the man is great in bed, but also because he’s a pretty good guy, stupid sometimes like all males, but nice anyway.  I don’t know when or if we’re planning on making it public …but …you know, whatever I guess.”

      Connie nodded.  “Mmm hmm, I know how it is.  Damn,” She slapped her thighs lightly.  “You are really making me wish I had some fine piece of work to warm my bed at night.”

      Charlie laughed in return.  “Your day will come, girlfriend, someday your day will come.”

            *                                  *                                  *

Thursday, Feb. 7, 2002

3:02 P.M.

Sam Veran was an easy-going, laidback sort of guy, the type to anger slowly and laugh easily, very relaxed no matter the tension about him.  It was one of the things that the others envied, though it was also one of the things that helped him to befriend them in the first place.  All in all, an admirable trait for the most part, too much stress in a job like theirs would take its toll eventually and Sam’s cool attitude made him a nice person to talk to, no matter how hot the situation was.  Of course, what everyone envied most about him was Cherri, the petite raven-haired dancer at the Celestial Twilight.  There is only a thin line separating admiration and the hope for a good life for another and envy and the longing for a good life for oneself, but they were all managing to tread that line diligently.

      Indeed, Charlie mused, we’re all walking that path together, in regards to everyone else and quite often ourselves as well.  The sweet, tender relationship between Ted and Francis was like that of teenagers, their love akin to a child’s fleeting fancy, though she was beginning to perceive that something deeper lay between the two, tying the young men together.  Whatever there was between herself and Scott was too new and dangerous to explore just yet, it was moving so fast and yet they were still able to keep it from the others, with the exception of Connie, not as though the others would begrudge them for it.  Charlie sighed softly, wishing that she had the confidence that the others all thought she did, wishing that she was as strong as she liked to pretend, wishing that she wasn’t afraid of what was developing between herself and Scott.  Was it natural to fear happiness?  Was it natural to be afraid of love?  She wasn’t sure and wasn’t ready to try and learn the answers.

      Jealousy.  Yes, she was jealous at the moment of the casual love Sam and Cherri shared.  Loosely linked hands, caring touches, how Cherri’s jade-green eyes would glow when she looked at Sam, how he would – with her in his arms – lean over to kiss her softly on the cheek, and how she would muss his hair just a bit.  Unlike attention-seekers, unlike teenage lovers, Sam and Cherri did not scream their love out to the world, they were quiet but not secretive about it, they were simply in love and not afraid of what others thought about it.  Cherri, the tiny young woman with Asian features and a French name, Sam with his short, messy blond hair and warm brown eyes, the body of a California football player who surfs on his downtime.  A stranger pair Charlie had never thought she’d see.  Cherri was a proud young lady, self-assured and with a quick tongue and sharp temper, very intelligent and never one to badger where one was not wanted, whereas Sam was Mr. Cool himself, world and street wise and just generally full of useless information that no one else felt the need to know, though what Sam knew came into play far too often.  Sam had self-confidence as well, and he respected Cherri greatly, never pestering her to quit her job as a stripper and never infringing too much on her rights as a person.  Sam was chivalrous and Cherri, though many would likely think her a feminist, gladly accepted his out-dated ways, including holding doors, paying after meals, and standing up for the downtrodden.

      One of the strangest things about their relationship was how they had met.  Cherri had been a potential target for the murderer about a year and a half back and Sam had been assigned guard-duty for her, which included hanging around her work and watching her unobtrusively so neither she nor the killer, if it was she he was after, noticed a thing awry.  Charlie really thought they made a cute, if unlikely, couple and most of the time she wished them the best, even if she was jealous of what they had together.

      She shook her head to clear away those thoughts, though her gaze remained on the young couple, Sam leaning against the wall with his arms wrapped about her waist, Cherri leaning against him, her small hands holding his arms in place and both smiling gently, occasionally murmuring to each other.  It wasn’t rare that Sam brought Cherri in to their meetings, despite the fact that he wanted to protect her from having to see the pictures and hear the gruesome details, for Cherri was a strong, outspoken girl and she generally got her way.  Charlie often longed to have the same composure as Cherri, to be as self-possessed as she made herself out to be.

      Charlie sighed softly and glanced to Scott, feeling a blush rise in her cheeks as she caught him watching her.  It felt nice to be lusted after, to be an object of affection, but she still could not shake her fear of being loved.  It was a strange and troublesome affliction that had been a part of her for a long, long time.  Any number of childhood things could have been the cause, from her mother’s abusive love to her father’s habits of molesting his daughters, to how her sister grew to accept love from anyone and how she, after a time, found herself doing anything for love, no matter how feigned.  It could have been that her boyfriend raped her in her junior year of high school, or how her tutor liked to touch her instead of teaching her.  Come to think of it, all of that was likely at root, but no matter how she distanced herself from her earlier years of life, no matter how she strove to get beyond a painful past, it continued to haunt her.  She didn’t want to wind up like her sister, practically begging men to love her, doing just about everything for those simple signs of love that she somehow believed in.  She did not want to be the victim again when it came to matters of the heart, and so most of the time she ignored her heart, but now it seemed as though it had finally conquered her defenses, for she was rapidly loosing herself to Scott.

      Scott.  She had known him for so long now, surely he couldn’t be as bad as she feared …but still, the possibility crippled her.  Yes, they had made love, yes, he was nice and considerate towards her, perhaps even genuinely concerned on occasion, but such a man could not be possible.  There was always some catch, some dirty little secret that wouldn’t come into light until later, when there was no hope of escaping it.  She was cursed and she knew it.  But now wasn’t the time to mourn her own tragic love life, now was not the time to play out fantasies and daydreams of gentle, true love and honest joy.  Now was not the time for impossibilities and she knew it.  They had a mission, they had lives to try and save and the dead to avenge and her own personal problems shouldn’t and couldn’t be a part of that.

      She could weep later, she could cry and scream and punch the wall, and loose herself in drink to forget what she did not and could not have once they were through.  For now, all she had to do was push her real emotions and thoughts away, to lock them behind the heavy door in her mind and to let her mask smile for her and laugh for her, since she couldn’t seem to do that by herself anymore.  No one would notice anything different because this was what she had done every single day of her life for as long as she could remember, hiding the bad, hiding what she could not face alone in the dark recesses of her mind while allowing herself to be a puppet whose strings were pulled, unknowingly, by those around her.  Never would they know who she truly was, and she was fairly certain she didn’t know either.  Ignorance is, after all, bliss.  But bliss …bliss was part of a faery tale she had forgotten long ago.

            *                                  *                                  *

Charlie had the lost, distant look in her eyes again Ted noticed, having looked up when, despite the noise of conversation from all around, he heard a familiar sounding sigh.  He watched her with concern for a time, sighing inside as he saw the walls slide down around her, her eyes guarded, as if she had drawn the shades on the windows of her soul.  There was something troubling her, Ted knew, and he had watched as both Connie and Scott warred with themselves over how to best help.  Ted wanted to help her as well, but it wasn’t his place, although it wasn’t really Scott’s place either.  She and Connie shared an apartment, Connie knew her best, and Connie seemed to be the most deeply worried.

      He thought that it might be their line of work.  Anyone could break given what they were, having to see the mutilated bodies and to clean up the crime scenes, having to play a guessing game while lives were lost.  Charlie always seemed so sure of herself though, so capable and certain.  It seemed highly unlikely that Charlie, of all of them, would be the first to crack, but perhaps he just didn’t know her as well as he thought he did.  On some days though, days when he thought he didn’t even know himself at all, it was hard to look at the others and see anyone but strangers.  Merely working together for years, working those long hours, did only so much to bring them closer together.  If asked, for example, what sort of movies Connie liked, or what Jackie’s favorite color was, or which football team was Sam’s favorite, he would only be able to guess.  The only person he was really close to was Francis, but their relationship had been a long time in forming, each taking small, uncertain steps until they’d been able to acknowledge the feelings they had feared.  Even after they had gotten together, it had taken time to tell everyone else, and he remembered laughing when Charlie had said, rather matter-of-factly that they had all known about it for a long time.  Some secrets were just obvious, she had told them both, and Ted was wondering now if some pains were obvious too. 

      He blinked.  “Huh?” Francis had apparently just asked him a question and Ted couldn’t remember hearing it.  He wasn’t even sure what he conversation was about now and everyone else was quieted, all eyes – even Charlie’s – on him.  “Uh, say again, Franny?”

      Francis scowled good-naturedly.  “I asked if you had any eights.”

      Ted’s brow furrowed for a moment and he allowed his gaze to stray downward.  “Oh!  Uh, no …go fish, Francis.”

      Grumbling, Francis rooted around in the mess of cards on the table and drew one out.  “What’s up with everyone today?  Ted’s spacing, Charlie’s spacing, Connie’s spacing, Scott’s spacing, Jackie’s spacing …am I the only one actually here today?”

      “Hey,” Sam started,  “Cherri and I are here today.  We’re not spacing.”

      Francis grinned at the couple.  “Sam and Cherri are cuddling.” He added.

      “Well …okay …that may be,” Sam allowed.  “But what are we supposed to be doing?  Connie, Jacqueline, you two have us a shorter list of Graces?”

      Connie snapped out of her thoughts and nodded.  “Umm, yeah.  We’ve only got four now.  The rest are all gone, some on vacations for the upcoming Saint Valentine’s Day and some for business.  Trouble is, most, if not all, will be back by the nineteenth.”

      “Dammit.  I doubt we’ll be able to watch them all then.” Scott muttered.  “Why is it we never seem to get a break?”

      “Must be one of Murphy’s Laws or something,” Jackie mused.  “It’s just our luck, Scott, the gods are frowning down upon us.”

      “You’d think, if gods really exist, they wouldn’t want to see humans killing other humans.” Ted thought aloud.

      Jackie gave a shrug.  “Who knows?  Maybe they’re just trying to correct the mistake they made by creating humans in the first place in the easiest way, self-extermination.”

      “I’d sooner believe in that then gods that truly cared for us.  God is a bully.” Francis quipped.  “Everyone is always giving praise to Him that He might guard us from grief and sickness and death, and basically those are the foundations of our world, our life.  To be born, to experience pain, betrayal, grief, love, joy, all those other emotions and such, and to die.  What ‘benevolent’ creature or immortal being would create people only to hurt them and eventually kill them?  If God truly exists, then He is one seriously whacked out guy.”

      Ted snorted.  “Who didn’t know that?  God would have to be insane or really screwed up to create us in the first place.  Besides that, I think that if anything like that is true, it would be that God and Satan or Beelzebub or Lucifer or whatever you want to call him, God and the Devil are one in the same.”

      “Okay, okay, steering away from the religious topic …” Sam interrupted.  “What’s the plan?  We’ve got about eleven days to get our plan concrete in order to stop our friendly little killer.  What’s the order of business, eh?”

      “Contact the HP?” Connie suggested.

      Cherri glanced at Sam.  “HP?”

      “Head of Police.”

      “They won’t do anything until the day of, not about two weeks before.  Man, if we tell them to jump, they don’t.” Charlie complained.

      “Okay, so Charlie goes to tell the HP in about half an hour what we’ve got so far and what we think the Reaper will do next.” Scott announced.

      “Hey, I like that, the Reaper …doesn’t necessarily imply femininity or masculinity.  We can call our pal that.” Jackie said.

      Connie nodded.  “It works, I like it.  Charlie,” She called in a sugary sweet voice,  “There’s a phone right in the hall if you’d like to use it …” She suggested, smirking at her roommate.

      “I knew you’d get back at me for that.  Next time somebody please remind me to shoot the messenger.”

            *                                  *                                  *

Friday, Feb. 8, 2002

11:32 AM

“I’ve got a killer headache, the heat in this place is stifling, I got almost no sleep last night and I’m extremely cranky.  This is a general warning to everyone in the vicinity: do not attempt contact.  In fact, leave me the hell alone.” Jacqueline stated, rubbed blearily at her eyes.

      “We figure that the murderer is obsessed with beauty.  Aesthetics, making art with non-standard painting tools, like the blood and body parts.  We’ve also got a possible lead.  Care to return to being human instead of the Incredible Bitch?” Sam asked matter-of-factly.

      A dark glare.  “No.”

      “Today really isn’t your day then.  You’re going to have to.”

      Jackie growled deep in her throat.  “Okay then.  What do I have to do?”

      Sam gave her a stern look and pursed his lips.  “We’re assigned you to Grace Emal, a beautician with an appreciation for horror novels and scary movies.  Connie, Charlie, Scott, Ted and Francis are already paired off with the potentials and I’m going to be hooking up with mine in a few hours.”

      “Great. So we’ve got to keep tabs on these girls, get to know their schedules and all that bull in the hopes that we can maintain a watch on ‘em when the due date rolls around, eh?  Just like all the times we tried this gig before, only this time we’ve got higher hopes.”

      “Basically, yeah.”

      “All right, I can dig that.  Are we stalkers or chums?”

      “Be chummy, a stalker act-alike might freak her too much.  Just get a manicure and a facial and become her bosom-buddy.  If things get into a pinch and she’s the one the Reaper has targeted at least she’ll have you as a friend and a guard against the kiss of death.”

      Jackie raised a brow.  “You mean the cacophony of death, my friend.  Give me some Tylenol and directions, Sam.  We’re going to stop this bastard this time around.  No more needless deaths, we’re going to give Grace a saving grace.”

To be continued …

Oh man, I’m so sorry I’ve taken so long to get this third chapter out!  I’ve just been so swamped with everything …lucky me though, because I’m failing Geometry my mother grounded me so I’ll have nothing else to do but homework and write!  Hooray!  Maybe I can have the fourth installment up quicker than this one was.  Wish me luck!