Page 47 of Miserable Marionette

A cold rush washes over me as I pause. My attention finally turning toward him. “What accident?”

He shifts, glancing at the fact that I’ve stopped dead in the middle of the parking lot, blocking traffic. “Poor thing was real twisted up after her dad, you know. Didn’t handle it well.”

“How so?”

“Cut her wrists up real bad. Kid just wanted some attention, she certainly...”

My entire body seems to lock into position, the buzzing of the hornets in my head deafening, drowning out whatever comes from his mouth next. I don’t know if he finishes or not, only barely registering he calls out that he’ll see me at the funeral as I turn and walk toward my car.

I’ve worked on my fair share of suicides, overdoses, gunshot wounds, hanging, carbon monoxide… wrist cutting. The girls always cut their wrists. I don’t try to picture Audrey like them, nude and cold on my table, wounds trailing up their pale arms. I don’t try to think about if I could do it, if I could… work on her. If I could part with what was left when it was time to put her in the ground.

No.

No, I couldn’t.

Not a fucking chance.

Time slips, and I’m barely hanging onto a singular shred of my self-control as I pull into the alterations shop. Everything in me is screaming to get back to Audrey. An irrational, overwhelming need to check on her, to see the scars for myself.

How had I missed them?

Why hadn’t she fucking said something?

Why would she?

I left.

The idea of her having died while I continued on living is enough to sour any appetite I had. The bell to the warm shopfront dings, but activity inside goes on as if it hadn’t. There’s something distinctly nostalgic about it. The smells, the carpet, and the walls unchanged after years away. It was one of the few places Audrey and I could go without the weird kid she’d made a best friend of, drawing an annoying number of whispers and attention. Something that rarely bothered her at all but annoyed me to all hell and back, simply for the fact that everyone kept looking at Audrey.

“Oh, Gideon!” Mrs. Johnson coos from behind the counter, rushing out to grip my arms in her small hands. “How is Audrey? I tried calling the house to check on her as soon as we heard about Bryan, but I couldn’t get through.”

You couldn’t get through because I left the phone off the hook; Audrey needs rest more than condolences.

“She’s hanging in there, but as you can imagine, she won’t make it in—"

“Oh no, of course not. My lord, that sweet girl. I am so glad she has her best friend back to help her through this awful heartbreak—”

“Ah, enough, Loranne. You hated the boy for her,” Mr. Johnson chimes in, his friends all nursing, no doubt, their third pot of coffee this afternoon.

“Well, be that as it may, a blessing in disguise is still a loss to some.”

I hike a brow, suppressing a smirk at her harshness.

Her wrinkled blue eyes cast me a loaded look. “Oh, don’t you look at me that way, Gideon Bell. That boy was a terror upon women, and I won’t pretend otherwise like the rest of these morons. It is sad, of course; I’m not a monster, but our Audrey deserves better.” She gives me a knowing smile as she squeezes my arms before letting go. “Right?”

“Of course.”

“Here, let me run into the back for your suit, and I’ll grab some cookies so you can get home to her.”

No sooner than she breezes from the room, my pager lets out a rapid ding and buzz as one of Mr. Johnson’s friends, a man older than dirt I can’t remember the name of, slams a newspaper on the table. The headline immediately grabbing my attention.

MARIONETTIST STILL AT LARGE.

I nearly roll my eyes at the name as I jerk out the small device.

346

I ignore it like the rest.