Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) Read online

  “There’s got to be something in her apartment indicating what happened,” she murmured. “Maybe the police overlooked something. It’s not like they haven’t screwed up before.”

  Her feet tingled as dew soaked through her shoes. With her chin tilted toward the windows overhead, she crunched through the autumn leaves and circled the complex. Only a few lights beamed from the windows to indicate the residents inside.

  Just what I was looking for, she thought as she spied the fire escape ladders. Vivian looked down at the photo Nikolai provided, red ink circling Krista’s window. Nikolai was gracious enough to tell her which room belonged to Krista. Of course, he said she wouldn’t find anything meaningful inside, which only compelled her to prove him wrong. Maybe Nikolai suspected from the moment he uttered those words she would defiantly explore the apartment.

  He was a sly character with ulterior motives, that much was certain. Vivian shrugged and seized the first rung on the ladder. She hiked higher until she was level with the fourth floor. Reaching for the window fogged with dust, she jiggled it. She was unnerved to find it precariously loose. With a shudder, the window opened to admit her.

  Vivian slipped inside and landed nimbly on her hands. She was instantly struck by how dark the room was. Only the evening glow penetrated the kitchen. A wind chime jingled to her right and she instantly pulled away.

  Debris littered the floor like a cool, black frost.

  She glanced at the small space beyond the kitchen that she failed to notice before. The TV lie on the carpet, and blankets and pillows had been tossed haphazardly across the couch. Vivian could picture Krista falling asleep to the hum of late night TV, unaware of the dark entity creeping soundlessly through her domain…

  Stumbling over an amputated chair leg, she delved deeper into the apartment.

  The bathroom looked like something conjured out of a washed out, yellow cast photo. Plastic sheets stretched across the bathroom floor, hinting at future renovations. In fact, the entire apartment was desperately in need of repair. Not even a splash of paint enlivened the naked walls.

  As Vivian returned to the kitchen, a detail barely visible in the darkness leaped out at her. Gashes adorned the walls.

  “What the…”

  She traced her fingers over the markings. A thin layer of drywall caked her fingers as she pulled away. One step at a time, she retreated across the room to fully take in the scope of the huge letters carved into the wall.

  YOU CANNOT HURT ME.

  A blade snaked around Vivian’s throat, tearing through the top layer of skin. The scream that threatened to tear free of her lungs withered when the blade pressed closer.

  “Who the fuck are you?” a voice shrieked in her ear.

  “Vivian! My name is Vivian!” The blade remained firmly pressed against her throat, an impulse away from carving a smile into her windpipe. Vivian’s eyes darted toward the window, alarmed to find it sealed shut. The killer must have closed it after she entered the bathroom.

  The space between her throat and the knife continued to shrink, ratcheting up the pressure until blood began to drool from the razor edge. She was gurgling now as the air hissed out of her lungs. If she didn’t act this instant, only pieces of her would remain.

  Vivian’s elbow plunged into her assailant’s belly. The force of the blow sent the killer tumbling backward, and the blade nicked her collar. Vivian fell to her knees on the icy tiles as the air rushed back into her lungs. The door loomed less than ten feet away, teasing her with escape. If only she could reach it in time before the blade buried into her back. She spun around to meet her assailant as it bore down—and she couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “You—I saw you at the vigil,” Daniel gasped, clutching a knife in her hand. “What are you doing here?” Vivian continued to crawl on her hands toward the exit. Daniel reached out but Vivian fiercely batted her hands away, choking for breath. She finally slung Vivian’s arm around her shoulders and eased her into a chair.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Vivian stroked her throat, trying desperately to erase the deadly caress of the blade.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she finally gasped. Daniel rushed over to the sink, filling a glass with water. Vivian quickly gulped it down.

  “Now tell me what you were doing in Krista’s apartment.” Vivian hammered the glass down on the table and took in Daniel with her smoldering eyes.

  “I’m part of the investigation into Krista’s disappearance.”

  Daniel’s expression hardened into something unreadable.

  “The police?” she sputtered. “But—but you don’t look anything like a police officer!” Vivian’s deviant appearance certainly didn’t lend itself to an officer of the law. Her flurry of red hair, tattoo-stained skin, and scarlet contacts meshed more with the social misfits. “I’m so sorry! I thought you were the kidnapper! You aren’t going to arrest me, are you?!”

  Vivian shook her head.

  “Well, I’m unofficially part of the investigation. So no, I can’t arrest you. But believe me, I wish I could.”

  “I’m sorry! Like I said, I didn’t know!”

  “You’ll understand if ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t quite cut it.” She released another haggard cough from her throat. “I’ve been following leads to the local disappearances. I’m partnered with a homicide detective.” She immediately regretted those words. Terror seeped into Daniel’s face, replacing the blood in her veins.

  “Do the police suspect Krista is dead? Is that what happens to the women who disappear?”

  “No, I don’t know if Krista is dead!” she pleaded. “But if she is…” The silence grew thick between them.

  “I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

  “I thought I could find some clues about Krista’s disappearance, something that could lead me to her.” Her toes recoiled from the icy water pooling on the floor.

  “This place is a mess. Did Krista live like this?”

  “No. I haven’t disturbed anything since the night she vanished. The police insisted I touch nothing… I haven’t even entered her room since her boyfriend fled town. But I heard the window open and had to investigate. I thought maybe Krista had come back—or the kidnapper.”

  “Nothing says ‘welcome home’ like a knife in your throat.”

  “Sorry,” she smiled sheepishly. She stowed away the blade in the kitchen drawer, and Vivian breathed a little easier. She looked out the window, where Prague gleamed lustrously like a Pandora’s box of jewels. Even now, so many women slept soundlessly in their beds, assured they would never meet the same fate as Krista. After all, ignorance is bliss, right? Nikolai certainly thought so.

  “What can you tell me about the night she vanished?”

  Daniel’s head drooped.

  “There’s something I heard that night that’s been consuming me from the inside. I remember lying awake in my bed, struggling to fall asleep. Sometimes I just lie there for hours, listening to the traffic.”

  “What did you hear?”

  Daniel closed her eyes, washed away in the sounds and sights of the night Krista vanished into the shadows.

  “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  The traffic purred outside Daniel’s window as cars ferried teens on their way to cyber clubs and other gems of the city night life. Sweeping the hair out of her eyes, she glanced at the numbers glowing in the dark. 2:40 a.m.

  Insomnia, the bane of virgin sleep, always plucked her from the solace she sought in her blankets. The cookies she washed down with tea probably didn’t help her case either. That’s the price I pay for a midnight snack. She dreaded the thought of waking up at 6 a.m. to wait on tables at the café. However, she badly needed the income. She only worked fifteen hours a week and rent was bleeding her budget dry. Her meals had been reduced to small cakes and potato soup.

  Daniel twisted to her left and buried her face in the pillow as the placid hum of cars continued their melody. Ju
st twenty more minutes and maybe she would slip into oblivion…

  Ice flowed through her veins and she bolted up in bed. Something slapped against the wall. Her heart hammered out an avalanche in her chest. Daniel winced as another bang emitted from Krista’s room on the opposite side of the wall.

  The next crash rattled her window.

  “Bastard,” she growled, balling up the sheets in her fists. She could almost feel the blows raining down on Krista’s small body. Patrik was the likely culprit, possessed by another drunken stupor. Daniel had twice threatened to report him to the superintendent if he continued beating Krista, but her threats bounced imperviously off his dense skull.

  She almost feared Patrik would strike her when she knocked down his door in fury, but sheer luck saved her. A tenant came strolling down the hall and a nervous Patrik slammed the door shut to his room—and the door to Krista’s prison. This time, Daniel could only listen and wait for the storm to pass. The sounds of struggle echoed beyond the walls, taunting her imagination with horrendous images. Was that the flushing of the drain she heard and water pooling in the tub? Something like chimes rattled in the obscurity, and the table groaned as someone dragged it across the linoleum floor.

  Daniel tried to burrow under her blankets like a timid mouse to block out those malicious blows. She held her breath.

  Something scratched against the wall like nails creeping on a blackboard. She held her breath as the tormenting sound lingered. She crawled out of bed, dressed only in a T-shirt, eying the wall as though it might part into another dimension. Her naked toes slid across the cold floor and she pressed her fingertips against the wall.

  For a moment, the sound stopped. Daniel nestled the shell of her ear against the wall.

  “Krista,” she whispered. She pulled away as the wall screeched and something scrabbled like an animal inside. For a moment, Daniel feared that Krista had been immured in the walls, scratching and clawing in search of freedom. Daniel bounced down on her bed and hugged the pillow close to her chest.

  After what seemed like hours, the grating ceased.

  Daniel collapsed onto the mattress. She couldn’t fall asleep after the sounds she heard emanating from Krista’s room. Maybe Krista desperately needed medical treatment. Flying out of bed, Daniel rummaged through a basket and pulled on some shorts. She twisted open the door and plunged into the vacant hall.

  An incandescent light bobbed in the hallway, casting greasy shadows.

  Room 207 awaited her.

  “Krista?” she whispered. “Krista, are you okay?” Her fingers curled around the doorknob. It viciously jammed in refusal. Daniel bit her lip and wrenched it again, refusing to concede defeat. Finally, she lifted herself up on her tiptoes and peered through the peephole.

  She gazed into a sea of blackness, and the abyss gazed back into her. She looked down at her pale toes, where light seeped out from under the door in an ethereal tide. Daniel lifted her eyes to the peephole again.

  A scene of devastation replaced the darkness. Chairs sprawled across the kitchen, leaving drag marks on the floor. A vase lay overturned on the table, water cascading from its neck. Even the walls were mottled with the indentations of Patrik’s fists. Daniel inhaled sharply. Someone had been looking back at her from the other side of the peephole, just staring at her.

  The light bulb swayed on a chain above the kitchen table, spitting sparks and flickering malevolently. It died with a robust pop, showering the darkness with fiery rain. Daniel retreated from the door. She numbly retraced her steps like a sleepwalker tugged along by an invisible thread. She didn’t even remember returning to her room and curling up in a fetal position among the blankets. Shivering in a cold sweat, she closed her eyes, but she still saw the devastation through her eyelids.

  * * *

  “Krista didn’t come out the next morning,” Daniel whispered. “No one responded when I dialed her room and knocked on the door. I felt I had no choice but to contact the police.”

  Through the shadows, Vivian could see the words carved into the wall. The sound Daniel heard… The kidnapper must have carved the words into the plaster, only ten feet away from Daniel.

  “You cannot hurt me,” Vivian said. “What do you suppose it means?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me. Krista would never hurt anyone. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Do you suppose Patrik…?”

  “I’m not sure if he is responsible for what happened that night. That’s what bothers me. When their fights break out, usually he’s screaming and swearing. This time, there were no voices.”

  Vivian looked at the phone line protruding from the wall like ruptured blood vessels. Suddenly, she remembered an eerie detail from the Blaze article. Krista’s last cell phone signal had been traced to a vacant complex beyond Prague.

  “Has Krista ever been to the outskirts?”

  Daniel perked up.

  “Funny that you should ask… Krista would often wander there. She was fascinated by its history. She said she liked to soak it up and be a part of it.”

  “Have you tried looking for her?”

  “Believe me, I’ve tried, but the authorities won’t let anyone near the outskirts. Don’t you remember what happened there?”

  “Yes. I remember.” Of all people, Vivian knew the atrocities that ravaged that area twelve years ago. She had experienced them firsthand.

  “Krista said she gained passage to the outskirts through a gang in the metro tunnels.”

  “A gang? How did she manage that?” an astonished Vivian asked.

  “I don’t exactly know. I followed her once when I learned she was connected to them. At first, I thought she was hiding in the metro from Patrik, but she would always return to the apartment. I watched her arrive at Nádraži Metro and depart at Line C. Here, maybe this will help you. Let me draw you a map.”

  She traced the layout of the metro and its entangling routes. Vivian simply watched, wondering where her journey would end. She snapped to attention at the sound of Daniel’s voice.

  “You won’t let her die, will you?”

  Vivian’s eyes fell to the tangle of tunnels Daniel had sketched, plummeting deeper underground.

  “Do you really believe what you said earlier?” Vivian asked.

  Daniel stopped drawing.

  “Every word.”

  “So you still have faith that Krista is alive?” Vivian asked, trying not to sound callous. Daniel bit her lip.

  “If I don’t believe, then what else do I have?”

  THREE

  If I don’t believe, what else do I have? Those words radiated with more truth than Daniel cared to admit.

  Even Vivian had to cling to hope’s feeble thread if that was all the world offered her. She couldn’t lose faith for risk of wandering the destitute alleys forever—or signing her life away to prison.

  That notion kept her company all the way to the metro as the hours waned to dusk. The last few trains were departing for distant apartments and city plazas.

  Only an hour remained before Nádraži Metro closed and the gates would be bolted ominously shut. Immigrant workers ferried from factories were already funneling into the streets to greet the last splash of sunlight.

  Vivian glanced down at the ticket stub in her hand. She had no intention of using it.

  She found the usual characters populating the station; boorish men anxiously watching the monitors, salivating for a taste of freedom before they were due to return to work. Mothers clung to their rambunctious children, assuring them the trains would arrive any moment now. Even a few security guards trailed off to the side, studying the passengers as if they were little more than cattle.

  One of them met Vivian’s eyes and she instinctively pulled away.

  The last time she boarded a train, she visited her aunt at a small nursing home. Her aunt had since passed away, shedding the needles poking her skin and catheters that sustained her frail body.

  She closed her eyes for the final t
ime only a week before Vivian ran away. But before that fateful day, they would visit a nearby lake, where her aunt joyously recalled stories of her youth in Peking. A spark like no other reflected in her eyes when she described meeting her husband on the pub-strewn shores of Houhai Lake.

  Ever since, Vivian dreamt of returning to her homeland and exploring those wonders her aunt so vividly described. Maybe she would find her own happy ending. If only the next train would take her there.

  She inched closer toward the edge of the platform, clutching the ticket so tightly that it crumpled in her palm.

  Was that guard still watching her? He kept his eyes trained on Vivian as though he possessed a heightened sense for trouble.

  The guard turned away and she plunged onto the rails.

  * * *

  Strange noises bounced around her as she followed the tunnel’s twists and turns.

  Graffiti obscured the walls in a testament to the vagrants who once dwelt underground. Like untouchables banished from the earth’s surface, they holed up in the forsaken recesses of the metro. Only a fool would trespass on their lairs.

  Something snapped in the distance and a flyer slapped against Vivian’s chest. It fluttered away and landed on the rails. Vivian couldn’t help but chuckle when her heart stopped pounding. She was poised to move when something about the pamphlet caught her eye.

  Phreak of Nature, it read in jagged, bold lettering. Dancing across the rails, she picked it up.

  She was instantly struck by the image of two gorgeous women, not freaks by any stretch of the imagination. She couldn’t immediately tell whether they were promoting a cyberpunk gig or a new nightclub, perhaps even plastic surgery. Their faces mesmerized her, as if those smiles portended something far more insidious than the naked eye could see.