Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"
-M. Night Shyamalan

El Fantasma has broken out into complete chaos. There are people banging on the front doors, girls running around and hiding in their rooms. Abegail looks about ready to have a panic attack. Customers are leaving, guards are surrounding the building. The noise is deafening.

"Did you hear me?" Hilary suddenly cries. "Maisie's dead, Andie. Dead. I know you said you would get to the bottom of Tara's murder, but I didn't think you were going to kill her!"

I shake my head, narrowing my hazel eyes at her. "Hilary, I didn't kill Maisie."

"You didn't?"

"I try not to do anything rash unless I have to," I explain.

"But if you didn't kill her, than who did?" Hilary asks. "I thought you said she was the one behind the murders?"

"I thought she was, yes," I confess. This doesn't make any sense. Maisie is dead? But I heard her speaking to Maxwell not two hours ago. I heard her talking about me, talking about Rodney. Rodney. "Where's my handsome friend you appear to be so fond of?" I ask.

"He's back in our room," she says.

"Dammit Maisie," I say to no one in particular, "Why did you have to go and get yourself killed?"

Hilary ignores me. "Do you think that man killed Maisie? The one who was with her in that room?"

Good question, I think. Could Maxwell be responsible for the murders of all four girls? But if he and Maisie were working together, why would he do away with her? Perhaps she threatened to rat him out. Maybe she did rat him out. But to who, and why?

"Anything's possible," is my reply. "Where is she?"

"Maisie?" Hilary asks, raising her brows. "I'm sure they've dragged the body out of here by now. We found her about an hour ago; the inspectors where here and everything."

Jack, why do you always have to show up at the worst possible times?

The tiny blonde prostitute is at my heels as I descend up the stairs in search for Rodney, obviously a million questions on her mind. Many questions I don't have the answers to. "Rodney told me who you really are, you know," Hilary tells me.

I raise my eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Who am I, then?"

She scurries up beside me. "A vigilante."

I laugh. "Not exactly."

"A detective?"

I shake my head. "Rodney didn't say anything to you, did he?"

"No, he didn't," she admits with a tilt to her head. "But I won't say I'm not curious."

I don't say anything to this, just chuckle to myself and continue down the next hall. Some people would find this place extravagant, with its large paintings on the walls and overweening drapery. I don't find it so exuberant but excessive and gaudy. I will admit, though, it does scream wealth. Abegail does everything to show off how much money she has and how much her girls make. I suppose some people are attracted to that.

Suddenly, Hilary exhales loudly. "Aren't you going to tell me?"

I stop before her room, pivoting to face her."Tell you what?"

She huffs in annoyance. "Who you are, what exactly it is that you do? Why you do it?"

I raise my eyebrows, feigning innocence. "No."

Hilary seems offended, narrowing her eyes at me like a spoiled young girl who has not gotten her way. "Why not?"

"Because it's none of your business," I tell her simply, opening the door to the room before me.

"But I'm helping you!" she exclaims, following me into the room. "I think I deserve to know!"

"You volunteered yourself," I reply. Rodney is lying across the bed I've spent the last few nights, staring at the ceiling blankly, as though he has not even noticed the two of us entering. Finding this interesting, I jump up on the bed, stepping so my boots are at either side of his ribs. "Find something interesting?"

He gives me a blank look. "Like what? A corpse?"

The tone of his voice is so empty, so bland, and so unlike Rodney that I find myself concerned. "You found Maisie?"

"Yeah," he states. "While you were busy having a fabulous time downstairs with your buddy Jack, Hilary and I were accidently discoveringa dead bodyand blood all through the corridor."

I am so shocked by this response that I am silenced. I, Andie Bryant, am unsure how to reply. Shocking, right?

"He's just cranky because he doesn't like the sight of blood," Hilary says from behind me. "Actually, I think it's the smell too, because he was acting like this before we found her."

"Humans can't smell blood," I tell her.

Rodney rolls his eyes at this. "Could you move, please? You're blocking my phenomenal view of the plaster that is the ceiling."

I'm curious as to Rodney's foul mood, but I step off the bed anyway. Perhaps Hilary is right and his indignant statements are to be blamed on the body they apparently discovered downstairs. Either way, such emotions will have to be dealt with later. I don't have time to deal with moody men.

"Where did you find her?"

Hilary takes a breath. Surprisingly, she doesn't seem so upset at finding her roomates body cold and unmoving, as one would assume."In a closet down by the main hall," she tells me.

"The closet?" I repeat. I'm shocked, I must admit, to hear that Maisie's body was probably found in the very same way Kamella and I had found Stanley's body not months before.

"Are you all right?" Hilary asks. "You're suddenly very pale."

I swallow nervously. "Was she... hanging, by chance?"

Hilary is looking at me strangely. "Yes. How did you know that?"

"Are you sure this was a murder?" I ask, turning so I can ascertain Rodney as well, " Was there anything in particular that made the two of you think someone killed Maisie intentionally?" I inhale, trying my best to ignore this hostile, nagging feeling forming in my gut. Perhaps Maisie was a completely different person than I had originally thought.

"Maisie would never kill herself," Hilary tells me, infringement in her tone. "Why would you even come to that conclusion?"

"I'm not concluding anything," I say, defending my assumption, or rather, consideration. "I just think if there weren't any particular signs that pointed you to the direction of murder, that perhaps we should conceive Maisie's death a suicide."

Hilary instantly jumps to her friend's defense. "Maisie did not kill herself, Andie."

But Rodney, however, seems to have an opinion of his own. That is by the thoughtful expression on his face. "There was something. A marking."

"What kind of a marking?" I ask him further.

"I couldn't tell," he explains. "There was too much blood. It was carved into her arm."

Hilary shakes her head. "I didn't see anything."

"Then you are blind," Rodney tells her, peeved by her reaction.

"They've already taken the body down to the morgue," I think aloud. Sighing, I then consider what would be the beginning of a plan. "I think we're going to need Jack for this one."

Rodney falls back onto the bed, rolling his eyes once more. "Count me out."

I watch him for a moment, studying the feigned look of lack of interest on his face, and the slight downturn of his lips. "Rodney, can I speak to you outside for a moment?"

His eyes snap open. "Why?"

"I have something to ask you," I say, pulling him up by his arm.

"Something you can't ask in front of me?" Hilary asks, offended.

"Yes," I say bluntly, pulling the first mate of the Black Pearl out through the door and snapping it shut behind me.

Rodney leans back against the wall, waiting for me to speak. He doesn't look at me. "What's your problem?" I ask.

"My problem?" he repeats. "You just go running back to Jack, after telling me how much you hated him, and you ask what my problem is?"

"So this is about Jack," I conclude.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "This is about you. It's always about you."

And with that, he walks away, and I let him, watching with confused eyes as he chucks a blue vase off the surface of the nearest table and into the confines of the wall. It shatters into an infinity of pieces and crumbles to the floor like broken hope.

88888

I try and push all thoughts of Rodney and his sudden mood swings and harsh words from my mind. It's hard, considering all of what he said, and all of what I still do not understand. But I have a job that needs to be done, a job that cannot wait. He can wait. Or so I hope.

As I peer down the next hall, with Norma Jeans following at my heals, the door to Jack's room opens. A moment later he emerges, straightening his navy blue coat with a satisfied look on his face. It's not long before he notices my rushing towards him.

"There ye are, love!" he says, "I was just-"

I cut him off, grabbing him by the arm. "I need your help."

I pull him through the corridor, avoiding Abegail at all costs. She would have questions if she was to see me leaving, and I'm not in the mood to make up some bullshit excuse at the moment.

"There's been another murder," I explain as we slip out through the doors and past the crowd, out into the hot Spanish sun. "I need you to distract the surgeon long enough for me to look over the corpse," I explain.

Jack laughs. "I believe distracting the men is normally yer job, am I right?"

"Not this time, Jack."

He raises an eyebrow. "You're really bent on solving this mission, aren't you?"

"There's something about it that creeps under my skin," I tell him, but leave it at that. I wasn't lying back in that room when I said things won't be the same between us. I really don't trust him. And it's not just because of his betraying embrace with Kamella that has made me feel this way, although both Kamella and Chester's dishonesty has put a dent in most all of my relationships, including Rodney's. I'm hesitant to trust anyone anymore.

"What happened?" he asks, his eyes dark and intense.

Perhaps if I keep up the conversation I won't think about the way he looks right now, all warm and golden and delicious in the sun. Or the fact that the moment I said, 'I need your help' he jumped on the gun, no questions asked.

"She was hanged," I say. "Or she hung herself. I don't really know."

"And ye think the way that girl did herself in has to do with Stanley and the Fortunes of Athena, don't ye?"

I give him a sideward glance. "I'm not sure if I want to know how you know any of that."

Jack shrugs. "Kind of know how yer mind works by now. But what exactly are ye planning on finding that would prove this, love?"

"Rodney said there was a mark," I reply without thinking. "Something was cut into her arm."

"But Stanley didn't have any markings," Jack says. "Besides, how does that prove her death was a suicide? Don't marks of some kind normally point to murder?"

I stop, looking up at the building before me. The morgue. "Then I'm here to prove myself wrong."

Jack sighs. "Are you sure you want to do this? What if you discover something you're not going to like discovering?"

I move towards the door. "Well, it's too late to turn back now."

Jack is staring distastefully at Norma Jean, narrowing his eyes at her back. "Why did ye have to bring along the mut?" he asks.

I look down at her for a moment, panting from the heat, before shrugging my shoulders and meeting his eyes with mine. "She makes me feel safe. Like Stanley is here with her or something."

His eyes go soft, nodding his head. He's quiet for a moment, taking this in, before changing the subject. "You want me to lure the man away from the building?"

"No," I reply, shaking my head as I peer at the nearly rotting wooden doors and chipped windows. "Just distract him until I come back out."

Jack has no objections. "All right."

"You ready?" I ask him.

With a nod of his beaded head, I throw open the doors and begin screaming and carrying on about a creepy man outside trying to kill me. Silence. There's no one in sight in the corridor, but there are a few doors that I am sure have to lead to an actual live person in this place.

I turn, looking at Jack. "Was I not convincing enough?"

"You were surely loud enough," he agrees. "Perhaps they don't speak English?"

"Does it matter? I'm a damsel in distress, dammit!" I exclaim.

"And you really look like one in that dress, too," Jack says, eyes active over the low-cut bodice and full skirts I'm wearing.

I roll my eyes. "Don't rub it in. I feel like a whore."

"Well, technically..."

"Hello! Anyone here?" I yell, giving Jack a look of warning. "Crazy guy, right here, wanting to kill me..." There is a sound in response from one of the rooms. "Please, there's a mad man running the streets! He... tried to kick my dog!"

Norma Jean, standing on alert beside me, perks her spotted ears up.

"Couldn't you think of anything better than that?" Jack asks, looking around to spot which door the noise was coming from.

"Like you said, they probably don't speak English," I hiss.

Suddenly, the first door on the right opens with a click.

"¿Tiene usted todo el razón, falta¿Por qué usted está gritando?" (Are you all right, miss? Why are you screaming?)

"Thank God!" I exclaim, running to the Spanish man with long, pulled back hair and wise, discerned eyes. "Please, sir, you must help me! This man, he's trying to kill me!"

I turn on the waterworks just for dramatic effect, clutching the white coat he is wearing between my fingers. "¿Él ha hecho algo lastimarle?" (Has he done something to hurt you?)

"Please, do something!" I cry, extending a blaming hand towards Jack, who is standing right outside the open doorway.

The man tenses beneath my hands for a quick moment before dashing at Jack like a rabid animal. I whirl around to see the pirate's brown eyes grow huge for a moment before he takes off without a word, giving me the perfect chance to slip inside that door the Spaniard had excited just a minute earlier.

I do so, gliding inside quietly before closing the door behind myself and Norma Jean, keeping it slightly ajar for an easy exit. I see Maisie's body instantly, lying atop a table, completely motionless. The room is dark, drapes closed over the windows and the air of the room most melancholy. I take a step forward, swallowing thickly at the sight before me.

It never settled with me well, seeing dead bodies. I see them often, obviously, with my professional and all, but I always forget how frightening and disheartening it is to see one until they are right before me, in arms reach.

Noise from outside reminds me to quit being such a pansy and get on with the investigating. I see blood on her arm instantly, rich crimson against the harsh ivory of her skin. The mortician had already washed off most of the gore, although the two markings that Rodney had mentioned earlier are very evident. Literally carved into her arm are two numbers; 2 and 8.

With nothing else nearly or at all being considering suspicious on the body, I take a look around the room for anything else concerning El Fantasma. This being the third proven death in the brothel, you'd think the detective assigned to these cases would have put the coincidences together by now and have the mortician compare all damage to the bodies, to see if the deaths, or murders, were not just consequential.

All right, so I admit it; I've done this far too many times for my own good.

And that's when I see a stack of papers on a table near the door. Papers with the names of Tara Miller, Paulina Sanchez, and Helen Cortez. Shuffling quickly through them in order to hurry up the pace of my investigating, I'm surprised to discover that nothing is alike with these three murders. Maisie obviously died of asphyxiation, while Paulina was shot in the chest, Helen hit over the head, while Tara, of course, disappeared all together, presumed dead.

It's then that the shouting and calling from outside the morgue draws me through that door and outside to the street. The moment my feet hit the dirt, I look straight ahead to see Jack hit the mortician over head with the gold hilt of his sword.

"Jack!" I yell over at him, "I said distract him, not knock him out cold!"

The pirate captain shrugs, grinning as he reveals several gold teeth. "Care to help me drag him inside, love?"

"Hope dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption
Winding in and winding out
The shine of it has caught my eye
And roped me in so mesmerizing, so hypnotizing
I am captivated, I am vindicated
I am selfish, I am wrong, I am right
I swear I'm right, I swear I knew it all along
And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself."
"Vindicated" -Dashboard Confessional