sensation like pussy willows, and I
thought about calling Daisy again. I can't remember the last time we
spoke. I miss her so much. She once told me that people are made out of
the same things as rocks and gas and dust. But a rock won't curl up on the sofa
with you. Gas can't kiss you. Dust doesn’t sing you lullabies. I think Daisy
needs somebody. I think she's as crazy as I am, in her own demented
way."
Anna tried to explain what it
was like being her: "My thoughts
will split off from my mind and become these jagged pieces of glass that
cut into me and torment me. They burrow under my skin and dig deeper and
deeper, so I won't ever forget. It's like I'm not allowed to forget. Like
I can never forget who I am. It's like being held hostage by my own memories."
Often she focused on her obsession
with Mr. Barsum: "Where did he go
after Mom found out what he'd done to us? Where is he now? He's probably
still a bank teller. He's probably out there somewhere, getting away
with things."
Around ten o'clock, emotionally
drained and still jet-lagged, Daisy turned off the light and went to bed.
At some point as she was drifting off to sleep, she imagined Anna's breath
against her cheek. The two sisters had once been so close they could finish
each other's sentences. They sometimes spoke Anna's Language. They
played Monotony when it rained.
They shared DNA secrets late at
night, whispering to each other from their twin beds. DNA meant Daisy and
Anna. Sometimes they conspired against their mother, and Lily would
feel ganged up on. Eventually, the girls grew so close they felt close- trophobic .
Daisy could picture her mother
inside that big old house, lying under three or four blankets. Tonight
the wind would be howling. The snow would be falling. Sometimes it got
so cold in Vermont you thought you were going to die. You'd have to bundle
up whenever you ventured outside and not expose even an inch of skin. A
vicious twenty-mile-an-hour wind in the dead of winter could peel your
scalp right off your head. She saw her mother's dusky, shivering form.
Lily wore pale pink lipstick and a few swipes of rouge on her withered
cheeks. She liked to read books and drink tea. She volunteered at the local
hospital and had her bridge game.
Tomorrow, Daisy decided, she would
call her mother and apologize. Then she'd contact a group called me Los
Angeles Center for the Missing. Somebody had told her about it today.
They helped family members print and distribute missing-persons posters,
coordinated search teams and provided hotline services. Daisy realized
she could no longer count on the police. She would go back to the beach
tomorrow. She would find her sister no matter what. The blinking red sign
outside her window kept waking her up with its fiery neon glow. It was as
if the whole world had gone nuclear, only she was somehow safe. She closed
her eyes and tried to drift like a leaf on the surface of the motel pool.
6.
The De Campo Beach crime lab occupied
the first three floors of a drab five-story building on Thomasius Street. The building's facade clung to its 1970s veneer like an aging
movie starlet clutching a makeup kit. The plumbing needed a major
overhaul. The walls needed a new coat of paint. The fingerprint lab was
located down in the windowless basement, a large partitioned space
full of evidence waiting to be processed-everything from postage
stamps to ATMs. The floor was sticky with chemical spills and covered with
about a pound of dust.
"Did you hear about Bryner ?" Ramona Torres asked Jack as she placed
an eight-ounce water glass inside the superglue-fuming chamber.
"What about him?"
"Ha! I know something you
don't know. Na na na na na na ."
"Okay, you got me." He
cracked the flimsy lid of his carryout coffee. "What happened to Bryner ?"
"He quit."
"No kidding? That shocks the
shit out of me."
"Exactly. I thought he was a
lifer."
"For chrissakes ,
I stand in awe of him. Maybe I should quit, too." "And do
what?"
"I dunno
thought about calling Daisy again. I can't remember the last time we
spoke. I miss her so much. She once told me that people are made out of
the same things as rocks and gas and dust. But a rock won't curl up on the sofa
with you. Gas can't kiss you. Dust doesn’t sing you lullabies. I think Daisy
needs somebody. I think she's as crazy as I am, in her own demented
way."
Anna tried to explain what it
was like being her: "My thoughts
will split off from my mind and become these jagged pieces of glass that
cut into me and torment me. They burrow under my skin and dig deeper and
deeper, so I won't ever forget. It's like I'm not allowed to forget. Like
I can never forget who I am. It's like being held hostage by my own memories."
Often she focused on her obsession
with Mr. Barsum: "Where did he go
after Mom found out what he'd done to us? Where is he now? He's probably
still a bank teller. He's probably out there somewhere, getting away
with things."
Around ten o'clock, emotionally
drained and still jet-lagged, Daisy turned off the light and went to bed.
At some point as she was drifting off to sleep, she imagined Anna's breath
against her cheek. The two sisters had once been so close they could finish
each other's sentences. They sometimes spoke Anna's Language. They
played Monotony when it rained.
They shared DNA secrets late at
night, whispering to each other from their twin beds. DNA meant Daisy and
Anna. Sometimes they conspired against their mother, and Lily would
feel ganged up on. Eventually, the girls grew so close they felt close- trophobic .
Daisy could picture her mother
inside that big old house, lying under three or four blankets. Tonight
the wind would be howling. The snow would be falling. Sometimes it got
so cold in Vermont you thought you were going to die. You'd have to bundle
up whenever you ventured outside and not expose even an inch of skin. A
vicious twenty-mile-an-hour wind in the dead of winter could peel your
scalp right off your head. She saw her mother's dusky, shivering form.
Lily wore pale pink lipstick and a few swipes of rouge on her withered
cheeks. She liked to read books and drink tea. She volunteered at the local
hospital and had her bridge game.
Tomorrow, Daisy decided, she would
call her mother and apologize. Then she'd contact a group called me Los
Angeles Center for the Missing. Somebody had told her about it today.
They helped family members print and distribute missing-persons posters,
coordinated search teams and provided hotline services. Daisy realized
she could no longer count on the police. She would go back to the beach
tomorrow. She would find her sister no matter what. The blinking red sign
outside her window kept waking her up with its fiery neon glow. It was as
if the whole world had gone nuclear, only she was somehow safe. She closed
her eyes and tried to drift like a leaf on the surface of the motel pool.
6.
The De Campo Beach crime lab occupied
the first three floors of a drab five-story building on Thomasius Street. The building's facade clung to its 1970s veneer like an aging
movie starlet clutching a makeup kit. The plumbing needed a major
overhaul. The walls needed a new coat of paint. The fingerprint lab was
located down in the windowless basement, a large partitioned space
full of evidence waiting to be processed-everything from postage
stamps to ATMs. The floor was sticky with chemical spills and covered with
about a pound of dust.
"Did you hear about Bryner ?" Ramona Torres asked Jack as she placed
an eight-ounce water glass inside the superglue-fuming chamber.
"What about him?"
"Ha! I know something you
don't know. Na na na na na na ."
"Okay, you got me." He
cracked the flimsy lid of his carryout coffee. "What happened to Bryner ?"
"He quit."
"No kidding? That shocks the
shit out of me."
"Exactly. I thought he was a
lifer."
"For chrissakes ,
I stand in awe of him. Maybe I should quit, too." "And do
what?"
"I dunno
Similar Books
In the Court of the Yellow King
Tim Curran, Cody Goodfellow, Gary McMahon, C.J. Henderson, William Meikle, T.E. Grau, Laurel Halbany, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris
