Page 48 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

Her response? She curled into the foetal position and refused to look at me. I decided to take that as a yes.

A dustpan and brush, a thick layer of newspaper, a garbage bag… I soon had the glass swept away and took a moment to reflect. Kim obviously had problems, but she’d managed to function in society and run a successful business for years. Was this just a temporary blip? I didn’t want to ruin her reputation by calling in professionals if I could help it. After all, she hadn’t been an awful client to work for, and she’d paid in full. More than full. I thumbed through the roll of notes she’d shoved at me. Ten thousand dollars, and she kept it lying around? Definitely unhinged in more ways than one.

Back in the living room, she was sobbing quietly to herself. Perhaps if I could get her upstairs and then call Annie or Kayla…

“Can you stand?”

She looked up at me with unfocused eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Forget that. Let’s just get you to bed, okay?”

“My bed?”

Well, it was hardly going to be mine, was it?

“Yes, your bed.”

Another stumble, so I picked her up again. She didn’t weigh much at all. Her shoes were already gone, so once I found her bedroom—the pink one with piles of fancy shit on the dressing table, I assumed—I peeled her out of her jacket and tucked her under the covers in her dress. It didn’t look too comfortable, but no way was I about to try removing it.

“He’s gonna… He’s gonna take another girl, you know,” she mumbled. “Three so far, at least. Maybe more.”

“Who’s gonna take another girl? Tim?”

“Who else? Me, Georgette, Jacqueline… He won’t stop. Why would he stop? Nobody can catch him.”

I knew I was going to regret asking this, but… “Who’s Georgette?”

“Georgette Riley. The dead girl in the car. In the back seat. He killed her. Well, she had an asthma attack, but he made it happen. And now she’s stuck there forever and Jacqueline’s gone and I’m the only person who knows and nobody will believe me.”

“Georgette was who you were talking to earlier?”

“Hahahahahahahaha! Yes! She likes to talk to me because nobody else can see her. You can’t see her, right?”

“And Jacqueline? Is she in the car too?”

“Nope. Nobody knows where Jacqueline is. Not even Georgette, because she’s reeeeeeally bad with directions.” She looked at me again, and those eyes tugged at my damn heart. “Do you believe me now?”

“I believe that you believe that.”

“So you don’t believe me?”

“You have to admit, it does sound slightly…absurd.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Her eyes began to close. “I’m not…I’m not a liar.”

“Sleep, sweetheart. Get some rest.”

Amazingly, her eyes closed, and within a few minutes, her breathing deepened and became more rhythmical. Perhaps her downing half a litre of vodka in one go wasn’t such a bad thing, after all, although I didn’t want to leave her alone in case she woke up and started puking. I’d done that once or twice myself in the dim and distant past—the joys of a misspent youth followed by a stint in the military.

I headed downstairs and checked the doors and windows were secure, then fetched my laptop from the car. If nothing else, I could finalise my bill in the warmth while Kim slept.

The total came to a little over six thousand dollars, which seemed too much considering the outcome. But I couldn’t afford to undercharge. By the time I deducted expenses and paid off the last of my credit card debt, I’d have fifteen hundred dollars and a clean slate to go on with. I ran a hand through my hair. No, I still hadn’t gotten around to visiting the barber.

While I had my laptop open, I dug a bit deeper into Kimberly’s parents. I couldn’t get at her mother’s medical records, but her obituary showed she’d died after a battle with cancer. No mention of any psychiatric problems but there wouldn’t be, would there? Not when Kimberly’s father was an influential lobbyist used to twisting the truth in Washington. Kim said they weren’t close, and after reading some of the stories about Mr. Jennings, I wasn’t surprised. He was the thunder to her fairy dust.

Before I could stop myself, I’d typed another name into the search engine: Georgette Riley. Not many hits, but a girl by that name had disappeared from Arlington the year before last. After a brief investigation, the police came to the conclusion that she’d most likely run away. Trouble at home, relationship problems, blah, blah, blah. But she’d never shown up. I found her Facebook page and scrolled through it. Georgette had lived her life through social media until one day her postings suddenly stopped. Apart from a few dozen messages from friends asking where she was, the account was dead, just like Kim claimed Georgette was.

A pretty girl, a brunette, she didn’t look much like Kim although they both had heart-stopping smiles. She’d owned a horse by the looks of things, and half of her photos featured the palomino’s antics. Then one snap made me pause. A candid shot, Georgette and a group of friends at a barbecue with flames coming out of the grill. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. I squinted, then enlarged the picture. Yes, Georgette had an asthma inhaler in her hand.

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