The nondescript white front door was shoved open with a shoulder and a grunt. Aiden abandoned the suitcase in a corner of the entryway, hiked the laptop further onto his shoulder, and shifted his grip on the vinyl bag with “Buckaroo Tax Free” stamped on the side. With the resolution of a soldier marching to battle, he forged his way further into the house.
As he passed the locked door on his left, Aiden glanced through the glass-panel into the garage and at his baby. Everything seemed in order. He bypassed the elevator and slogged the two flights up the stairs. He would do a more thorough survey of the house later, but he knew what was coming. As he climbed he tried to fill his brain with thoughts: dinner plans, the need for shower, the calls he had to make, the TV he wanted to catch up on. But there were always silences between thoughts. And in the cracks in the flow, new thoughts seeped in.
…the glinting loops of a single golden hair, clinging to the shoulder of her black uniform…
…victim’s coffee-brown locks spiked in thick spears, stiff with blood…
…partially bisected hand splayed open like…
The trickle turned into a torrent and the Idea broke his own thoughts entirely. Aiden staggered as an entirely new murder popped into his head like a cork freed from a submerged bottle.
As Aiden as he set the souvenir bag onto the brushed steel counter with all the care that a 35-year old bottle of scotch and the ugliest ceramic cowboy statue in Texas deserved, it wasn’t his luxurious kitchen he saw. Before his eyes were visions of cheap tan carpet, arterial blood sprays on the ceiling, an abandoned machete coated with scarlet clots. He was seeing a blouse torn open, padding falling out of the black-lace bra that lent enticing shape to an otherwise flat chest.
Hands fumbled with the laptop bag’s zipper as he retreated back towards his office. He did have to stop for a moment, jerked out of his reverie, when he saw the cat sitting in front of his closed door. For a minute he stared at it through the fog, and it stared back. With a shrug Aiden reached over it and opened the office door. Together they entered the large, dimly lit room.
Aiden did not leave it for three days.
Oh sure, his body left it from time to time – he had to feed the cat after all. And on occasion he even remembered to feed himself. There was a dim memory of a shower in there somewhere, maybe even one of falling asleep in his own bed on the fourth floor instead of crashing on the uncomfortable black leather couch his designer had picked out. But his mind stayed in this room and every temporary dislocation was driven from his mind by the time he seated himself behind the massive desk again.
He also received a few phone-calls – Stacy calling to make sure he got home alright and asking him if he’d found an earring. A reminder from John that he had a signing in a few weeks in Connecticut. His sister Lydia wanting to confirm that he was still coming for their Memorial Day party next month. Some other part of him had taken care of the distractions and dismissed the inconsequential conversations from his brain to focus on those of much more moment.
