I knew how it worked, I’d been here before, they’d call me in tomorrow or the day after to talk about it, put the grind to me about what I knew.
I’d answer them that I had no idea who Doris was, or that he’d received a gift. I'd be mad at him for drinking it without me, for if I’d drunk it with him, we’d both be dead and together.
The waterworks would come out, which usually sorted the men from the boys, and they’d release me, rule it unsolvable unless they could find Doris.
In just a few weeks, I’d be ready to be on the prowl again.
My phone rang again. Jesus…would his family leave me alone already?
I pulled it out and looked down at the number. It wasn’t saved in my phone but it was recognisable.
“Hello?” I answered.
“You don’t seem upset,” the annoying voice of that little pest reporter came down the line.
“Why do you insist on calling me and threatening me? You do realize I have a police detective outside right now and he can arrest you for harassment.”
“You wouldn’t do it,” he said, his tone dripping with arrogance. “I could end your little party.”
“Party?”
“You’re a black widow,” he said. “I have proof and soon they’ll see it too, and you’ll be strung up and hung for what you’ve done.”
“No one conducts hangings anymore, little boy.”
“They’re coming for you,” he said, his voice getting angrier as the time went on.
“You’ll never catch me,” I said, my threshold for annoying little pricks wearing thin. “I leave no trace. You call me a black widow, do you know why they are the most feared spider? Because their venom is reported to be up to fifteen times stronger than rattlesnakes and they’re quick. Be careful poking at my webs, Mr Dale, I have ways and means to eradicate any predator.”
“If you think I haven’t been recording this, you’re the idiot, Maurelle.”
“Well done, little boy. You’ve learned my birth name. You did better than the last one who tried to stop me. Be a dear and listen back to your recording, take it to the police. I’ll be here waiting for them.”
I hung up the phone, knowing full well that the recording he’d used would be useless. I had an anti-recording app on my phone which meant he’d have nothing but static on his end. I hadn’t gotten away with it for this long without learning some tricks of the trade.
It did annoy me that he knew my real name, though.
Just how much had he learned of my real identity and how much of a threat did it pose?
Kane
Tommy walked back into the station house and I felt something shift in him. He sat down opposite me, staring off into space.
“You good?”
I seemed to break him from whatever spell he’d been under and he straightened in his chair, pushing into the desk and moving his mouse to wake his computer up.
“Yeah…something off about that woman.”
“I know,” I said. “But we don’t have enough to bring her in and question her.”
There was a moment, a brief one but a moment all the same, when I thought to tell him about Stanley’s folder of bullshit, but I knew Tommy would read too much into it. The kid had risen in the ranks far too quickly, and he took everything to heart. He was fuelled by his heart, and gut instinct, so a lot of things were done far too quickly. It was probably why they stuck him with me. They needed him to mellow out.
“Did she give anything away when you were talking?”
“No,” he said. “Not really. She just seemed far too calm, especially since she was near hysterics on the phone calling it in.”
“Maybe it sunk in,” I replied. “We know these things happen all the time.”
