Page 57 of Sinful Reality

Because you work too hard, never eat properly, never listen to your body, or slow down when needed, your water intake is a joke, and the universe wanted Archer to feel smug for once.

That’s why.

I clear away the mess and dab the warm, wet towel over my sensitive skin; then, finishing up and turning the tap off, I stare at myself in the mirror and grab an elastic when my hair is, well…disgusting.

My hands and arms shake, but I wrangle my locks into a ponytail that keeps the frizz out of my face. Heading back to the door, I switch the light out and happily sigh because the darkness is easier on my eyes, and the lack of clogged nostrils means I can breathe again.

I tiptoe along the hall and into the living room to find Cato’s long limbs slung across the couch, his head on one end and his legs dangling off the other. His blanket covers his torso and down to his knees, but his hands and feet fall victim to the cold. His hair is getting longer; his refusal to get it cut means what used to be an inch-long mop is now two and a half, at least. Midnight black. It’s a contrasting spray against a white pillowcase.

I should go back to bed. Slide in beside my husband and drag hisarm and leg over me like before, since they’re legions better than blankets, anyway. But I move to the kitchen in silence, snagging my laptop as I go, cracking the lid open and setting the heavy device on the counter while it powers up.

This is how you got sick in the first damn place. Working ridiculous hours and relying on coffee to get you through.

But that doesn’t stop me from putting a mug under the coffee spout or gritting my teeth when the machine fires to life. While it pours, I glance over to a still-sleeping Cato, then toward the hall to make sure Archer is still out. Then I look down at Chloe, who sidles up in the dark and rubs her slut body against my ankle. She thinks we’re friends when it’s just us and we have no witnesses. She thinks I’m stupid enough to feed her early, so her fat ass can have seconds and thirds when the guys wake up. But I stare into her arctic eyes and shake my head, arrogantly knowing I have the upper hand and completely ignoring the fact I may be delirious, considering I’m having an entire telepathic conversation with a cat.

Whatever.

I quietly move to the fridge and take out the creamer, and after dropping a little into my coffee, I return the carton and close the door. Then I turn to the laptop’s lock screen and pause, waiting for my sick brain to click into gear and remember the passcode.

Luckily for me, the camera recognizes my face and allows me entry.

God bless the smart people who think up this technology.

Picking up the laptop and fisting my coffee, I wander across to the living room in silence, knowing I need a larger screen if I have any hope of seeing…anything. So I pass the couch and pray Cato won’t wake because of me.

And if he does, I pray he won’t be too mad about it.

Grabbing the remote and flicking the screen on, I peek back and feel bad for the bright light brutally shining across his face.

But he doesn’t wake, so I set the remote down, cross to the TV, and pick up the cord that connects one to the other. Plugging in my laptop and swallowing when the screens duplicate, I spy the bottom right corner and sigh.

02:37.

The problem with falling asleep before eight is that six hours later, I’m awake and done with my night. And the problem with waking at two, is that by the time eight rolls around the next night, I’m wrecked and ready to repeat a crappy pattern.

Placing my coffee and the laptop on the floor, I lower to lean against the couch frame and collect the pen and notebook I left behind last night. Opening it to a fresh page, I plan to watch a few hours of footage and make notes of the people I see. Describe them. What they look like. What time they’re there and what time they leave.

If I’m lucky, I might see the same people more than once and put this whole case to bed.

Unlikely.

Navigating to the folders Pax emailed over, I open the one time-stamped December 1997, the month before Diane went missing. My laptop screen turns black, and behind it, the television does the same, dropping the living room into an eerie darkness for a beat before the Bronx Zoo front gates come into view.

The footage is grainy and blurred, the timestamp an ugly robotic font that reminds me of my childhood. Snow trickles from the clouds, just like it did in my dream, but it’s not the snow we see on television these days. Crisp and clear, where current-day cameras allow us to see individual specks and the glitter that sometimes reflects off them. Instead, this footage shows a mere blanket of static white, camouflaging the bodies thirty feet away, on the ground.

Diane is where this all began. So, even if this is the most headache-inducing footage we have, I press play and drag my legs up to rest my notebook on my knees. Immediately, I jot down details.

A couple walks through the gates at 1608. Black coat, cream coat. The cream could be peach, and the black could be navy, but I’ll never know, because the poor-quality video lacked the technology to document such details.

At 1615, a family wanders through. Two adults and two children.

At 1623, an adult—could be a small man or a large woman—and a child enter, hand-in-hand. So I write that down, too.

I make notes until 1707, when Diane and her mother stop at the ticket desk and present their free coupon for entry. Though, if not forPax’s notes telling me so, I wouldn’t be able to pick them apart from everyone else who visited the zoo that day. But I scribble my descriptions. Lots of moms and their kids, lots of coupons presented, and grainy smiles beaming from people unaccustomed to doing fun things.

The weather is miserable, and the clouds, an ugly gray that promises an unhappy temperature. A vast majority of the zoo’s animals are probably tucked away in their enclosures, hidden from the public and the cold. But a kid who never gets to doanythingfun would consider a walk around the zoo the highlight of their year.

I pull Archer’s hoodie over my knees to keep my legs warm, and reaching out for my steaming coffee, I blink through my owlish sleepiness and savor the tang of caffeine on my tongue.

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