Free Little Death by the Sea by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Page B

the wine on his breath. She was suddenly angry
to think he had been out having dinner somewhere, enjoying a glass
of wine or two, while she’d been scraping up five thousand dollars
and worrying her father.
    “Never contact us again. Do you understand?
We’ll call the police next time.”
    He spat at her, a fleck of the spume grazed
her cheek as it splattered against her car door. Her foot slipped
from the clutch and the car stalled. Before she had time to
re-start it again, she saw Gerard lean over the child seated next
to him in the car, jerk open the passenger side door and push the
form out onto the parking lot tarmac.
    “A little something I don’t want anymore.
Maybe you will like it now, no? With the compliments of Gerard
Dubois!” He slammed the door shut and drove off with a squeal of
tires. Maggie watched, shocked and aghast as he drove away, leaving
the lumpish bundle of clothes, arms and legs in a heap on the
ground. She stared at the body. It twitched slightly and then
moaned.
    Quickly, Maggie jumped out of the car and ran
to the body of the woman on the ground. For now it was clear that
it was not a child at all.
    “Hello, can I help you?” Maggie knelt next to
the woman and touched her shoulder gently.
    The woman moaned and struggled to raise up on
one elbow. Maggie could see she’d scraped her arm in her forced
exit from Gerard’s car, but her hair hung in tangled sheets of
brown snarls, obscuring her face.
    “Are you French? Parlez-vous anglais ?”
Maggie scanned the darkened parking lot for any sign of another
person, perhaps a cruiser? Security?
    “I am American.” The woman croaked out the
words as if unused to speaking. “Where...where am I?”
    In an instant, Maggie grabbed the woman’s
arms and pulled them away from her face, the woman weakly resisted
her as she did so. Maggie touched the ravaged face, pulling it
towards her, her fingers pressing into the woman’s skin. Their eyes
met, one pair hunted and cloudy, the other wide and
disbelieving.
    It was Elise.
     
     
     

PART II
    “Rose-Lipped Maids Are Sleeping...”
     
     
     

Chapter 6
    1
    Maggie stood quietly in her living room, a
bulky cardigan pulled tightly around her. The heat of the Southern
night had given way to a chilled moistness—a result more of her
spirit (or lack of it) than any actual temperature fluctuation.
Twice, she’d nearly picked up the phone to call her parents and
twice she’d stopped herself. She rubbed her arms as if to bring a
surge of warmth back to them and looked down at her sister sitting
on her couch, her feet tucked up under her.
    Elise looked like an older version of
herself. Like a police rendition of her sister as a hag or a bag
lady. At twenty-nine years old, she looked nearer to fifty. Her
hair was dry, probably hadn’t even been combed in months. Her face
was lined and haggard as if it had formed every possible
exaggerated expression of woe and mirth and had no elasticity left.
She was thin and her clothes smelled as if she lived in them. But
it was her eyes that were the worst. Protruding in their sockets,
they looked at Maggie with hunger and despair.
    Elise clutched a coffee mug upon which was
scrawled: Smart Ass White Girl. Maggie tried to remember where
she’d gotten the ridiculous thing. Elise’s lips were cracked and
sharp like a bird’s beak, she drank as if she’d not quite mastered
the skill.
    “I wish you’d sit down.” Elise’s hands
clutched the cup as she brought it to her lips. Maggie wouldn’t
have been surprised to see the mug shatter between her fingers.
    “Are you in any pain?”
    Elise looked up at Maggie and smiled. Her
eyes were filled with such angst that Maggie wanted to weep for
her. Oh, Elise, what happened to you?
    She had bundled her sister into her car and
home in a fluster of tears and questions and hugs. Elise had been
too weak to do much but simply receive Maggie’s barrage of
affection and queries. She had dozed on the short ride back