Marked (A Dark Serial Killer Romance)

“Hey, Harley,” Johnny greets me as I empty Mom’s grocery cart onto the checkout conveyor belt.

“Hey, Johnny.” I have to bend into the cart to get the last bit, a dozen eggs, and a package of strawberries.

“Your mom with you?” Johnny asks, starting to scan Mom’s weeks’ worth of groceries.

Glancing over the rack of magazines and recipe books, I search for my mother. As soon as we’d gotten in line, she’d dashed off for one more thing.

“Yeah. She’s coming.” I point to her walking toward us with a package of hot dogs. She hates hot dogs, and I’ve never liked them. But they were a staple in our house up until I was thirteen.

“I almost forgot!” She waves the package at me as she side steps through the people behind us and drops it on the conveyer belt.

“Did you need buns?” Johnny points to the package.

I shake my head.

“No. Thanks.” I pull the cart through the checkout lane and start loading the bags into it.

“Harley.” Mom wiggles her fingers to get my attention. “Hun, can you hand me my wallet; it’s in my purse.” She points to the black handbag in the cart.

I dig through it, find the small wallet, and go to hand it to her.

“Can you grab my debit card for me?” She opens her palm.

I open the well-worn, leather, folded-up wallet. I freeze, just for a moment, before flipping past the wallet-sized photographs, all of them of Quinn, and finding her debit card.

I wait for her to slide the card through the machine and hand it back to me, keeping her wallet closed and not giving into the temptation to flip through the photographs. There are more of them now.

When Mom hands the debit card back to me, I shove it in her wallet and throw it back in the bag.

“What’s wrong?” she asks me, after finishing with Johnny.

“Nothing,” I say, moving out of the way as she pushes the cart toward me. “Want me to push?” I offer.

“Yes. Please.” She releases the cart and steps to the side. I grab ahold of it before it rolls off into the vending machine of scratch-off lottery tickets.

“Do you want to stop at the library on the way home?” I ask.

“No. I’m tired.” She sighs as we walk through the electronic doors and into the parking lot.

“All right.” I follow her to my car and open her door for her before unloading her groceries into my trunk.

It’s hot today. The humidity has my hair frizzing and sticking to my neck.

I close the trunk of my well-used Toyota Camry and freeze.

A man.

A specific man stands across the parking lot, in front of a car, staring at me.

It’s the same man from the coffee shop yesterday afternoon.

He has sunglasses on this time, but his build is the same. Muscular, broad, like he puts a lot of effort into his physique. His jaw line squeezes when I don’t move.

Just like yesterday, the same dark brown eyebrow arches over his left eye. He’s challenging me, I think. He definitely wants something.

“Harley, what’s wrong?” Mom calls from her opened window. “Hun, you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine, Mom.” I break eye contact with him and push the cart to the return.

When I head back, I look for him, but he’s not there. His car is, but he’s gone.

I shake my head. He wasn’t here for me. It’s a grocery store. He’s getting groceries. That’s all.

But my skin tingles, like he’s still watching me. Turning around and then around again, I search the lot and the store entrance for any sign of him, but come up empty.

He’s not watching me.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, pushing my abdomen out. Repeating this three times, I get my heart to slow, my brain to mellow.

He’s not here for me.

No one is here for me.

“Harley?” Mom leans across the console to look up at me through my window. “Hun, you sure you’re all right?”

“Sorry,” I say once I’m inside the car, pulling on my seatbelt. “I thought I saw someone I knew.”

“Oh, who? Someone from work?” She pulls her bag into her lap, slips her wallet out, and works the zipper closed.

“No one.” I reverse out of my spot and head towards her house.

“You thought you saw no one?” She chuckles and looks out her window as I drive. “I think this heat’s getting to you.”

She turns the radio on and up, a signal that she doesn’t want to talk. In her lap, she’s gripping her wallet with both hands. Her thumb is tucked inside, between the pictures.

Deep breath.

Clear the mind.

Slow the breathing.

Once we’re at her house, she goes inside and leaves the front screen door propped open for me so I can bring in the bags. It takes three trips, but I get everything inside and brought to the kitchen, then I close the front door.

“You’ll stay for dinner, right, hun?” She opens the fridge, putting away the lettuce and cheese.

“Oh. No, Mom. Thanks, but I have some stuff to do tonight.” I bring the boxed rice to the pantry. I haven’t lived inside these walls in seven years, but everything is exactly the same. Once I’m here, sometimes it feels like I never left.

Like I’ll never get away.

“What do you have to do?” She turns from the fridge with a frown. Her hair, once shoulder length with thick curls and colored a warm chestnut blonde, is now cropped just below her ears and has faded to a mixture of dirty blonde and gray. Her crystal blue eyes stand out against the dull coloring of her hair.

“Just things.” I lift a shoulder. It’s summer, and my last day of classes was two weeks ago. I won’t have anything work related to keep me busy for another six weeks.

“Do you have a date?” Her voice tilts upward, like she’s hopeful that I do. But we’ve danced to this tune before.

“No, Mom. I just have a few things I want to get done around the apartment. I’m thinking of hosting a book club this month.” I’ve thought about it a lot of times. A group of women, my age, talking about our latest read over a bottle of wine, maybe a cheese board.

It sounds so normal.

So casual.

So terrifying.

“Oh? What book?” She shuts the fridge and leans back against the counter’s edge.

“I’m not sure yet. I was thinking of talking to the librarians and seeing if they have a suggestion, or going on the internet. I know there are a lot of groups online.” And I’ve been too chickenshit to even join those.

“Well, you can do that after dinner.” She waves a hand through the air, as though to shove the idea of my existance outside this house away.

The grandfather clock in the living room chimes. I jump at the sudden, deep sound of it, and she shakes her head at me.

“Just the clock, Harley,” she says. “We’ll go through those papers I told you about, and then I’ll get dinner on.”

“Mom. Thanks, but I really can’t tonight.” I won’t stay. “I’ll come over Thursday. We can go to the diner you like for dinner.”

“We can do that, too.” She picks up a bag of lettuce and tosses it in the fridge. “It’s a rough week, honey, for both of us. Shutting ourselves in won’t make it any easier.”

I let loose a slow breath. She’s right. As hard as it is for me, it must be even worse for her. Only by her choice am I here today. I need to be grateful, sympathetic.

“It is.” I nod. “What is the paperwork you wanted me to take a look at? Is it your retirement package?” Mom retired last year. It’s not that she’s too old to keep working, the woman has a mind as sharp as a filet knife. But she’s taught second grade for twenty-five years. She’d had enough.

“No. I went through that already. I got a call from your father’s work.” She redirects the conversation so quickly; it takes me a second to rejoin her.

“The plastics plant? I thought they went out of business years ago.” They’d laid him and half his team off when he was first diagnosed, taking away not only his income, but his health insurance. Three years after he passed away from lung cancer, the plant had been shut down.

I was happy when I heard on the news that the company had gone out of business and the owner had declared bankruptcy. He’d lost everything to a competitor who’d eaten up the market.

No one deserved it more than that man.

A year later, when it was revealed that his wife had left him and he’d eaten a bullet, I smiled. I’d even gone to his grave after his funeral and danced.

The fucker.

A bullet was too easy for him, he should have been given a slow and painful death. Like Dad.

“They did shut down, but the company was actually purchased by someone. They called to tell me there was a small pension your father never mentioned. He would be sixty-five now if he hadn’t died, so they are offering to pay it out.”

“Oh. That’s good, right? You’ll get that now, right?” I loosen my grip on the chair. More income will do her good. Her own pension is enough for her to live on, and she’d been good at saving over the years. But any added cushion will help ease her mind. And this time of year, anything that helps her relax is helpful.

“It’s not much, but yes. I get it.” She finishes putting the rest of the vegetables away. “I’ll get the paperwork.” She disappears into her bedroom that’s just off the living room, and when she returns, she’s carrying a two-inch, three-ring binder.

“They sent all that?” I point to the thick stack of paperwork.

“No, but I put what they sent in here.” It thunks as it hits the kitchen table, and she flips open the cover. “Everything for your dad is in here.” She fingers the tabs on the side of the pages until she finds the one labeled ‘Pension.’

She hands me the letter first, while working the stapled packet from the rings. At a quick glance, it seems all straightforward.

“Is there a direct deposit form in there?” I point to the packet she’s holding.

“Yes.” She flips through and finds it.

“All right. You need to fill that out, so the money just goes straight to your bank account. Unless you want a paper check? But it looks like there’s a fee for that.”

“A fee for a real check? Is that legal?” She sinks down into one of the kitchen chairs and I do the same.

“I’m not sure. I doubt they’d do it if they couldn’t.” I flip through the rest of the packet. Standard information, nothing out of the ordinary. “Mom. It’s almost a thousand dollars a month.” I stop at the last page with the calculations on it.

“Well, Dad was in his forties when they let him go. He’d worked there for almost twenty years.” She takes the packet back, running her fingers over the page. “It would have been nice to know about this back then, though. I could have cashed it in.”

She blinks away tears and looks away from me while she wipes her hand across her eyes.

“It would have helped with the medical costs and his funeral. And then…” She shakes her head, not finishing the thought. “Maybe things could have been different.”

It would have helped with the burial expenses for Quinn, too.

My stomach clenches.

“Well, you’ll have it now. But you should do the direct deposit.”

She nods. “Yes. Of course. Let me get my checkbook so I can fill it out. You have a scanner thingy at home, right? Can you take it and send it for me?” She’s already out of the kitchen when she finishes her question.

“Sure,” I say to the empty room, checking that the form can be emailed.

I glance over at the binder and pull it toward me. Dad’s been gone for twelve years now; why does she still have all this?

I tab through each category; Medical, Funeral, Credit Cards, Blackwood, Pension.

Blackwood? What the hell is that?

“Here we go.” She breezes back in with her checkbook and pen in hand. Moving the binder away from me, she sits back down and fills out the form in silence. I eye the binder.

“Dad didn’t have life insurance?” I ask, noticing there’s no tab for it.

She looks up after scribbling her signature on the form. “Hmm?”

“You have nothing for life insurance.” I point to the binder.

“Oh, it’s there.” She reaches over and closes the binder, pushing the form at me. “You’ll send it tonight?”

“Yep.” I push my chair back, ready to get home. There’re too many memories here of a past I can’t outrun.

“You’re not staying for dinner?” She frowns.

I roll my shoulders back and look her in the eyes.

Be firm.

Be direct.

“No, Mom. But thanks for the offer.”

“But I’m making macaroni and cheese with hot dogs.” She points to the package sitting on the counter.

“Mom.” I soften my tone. “I don’t like hot dogs.”

Her eyes pierce me for a long moment. “Yes, you do. You used to beg me to make them all the time.”

“No, Mom.” I shake my head. “That wasn’t me.” I almost whisper the last bit.

We don’t directly address the elephant that lives in this house. It’s a delicate dance of scooting around without disturbing it, for fear of the thick tusks goring us in the ass.

The silence lengthens, gets heavier as she continues to stare at me. I pick up the cans of black beans and bring them to the pantry, placing them next to the Great Northern beans. She likes things grouped by category in her pantry.

“Oh. That’s right.” She grabs the hot dogs and opens the fridge, ready to chuck them inside.

“Mom, wait.” I stop her, pushing the elephant further out of the room. “Dinner sounds good, actually. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried macaroni and cheese with hot dogs. I bet it’s better than I remember.” I put on a smile, hoping it looks genuine and warm.

She’s been through so much, had so much taken from her. It won’t hurt me to give her this. It’s just dinner after all.

She gave up so much for me.

It’s the least I can do.

“Great. I’ll get them on the stove.” She practically beams with joy, and closes the fridge.

I sit back in my chair, watching Mom cook my sister’s favorite meal. I’ll hate it, just as much I did when we were little. But my mother did the unthinkable for me. I can shovel this meal down if it makes her happy.

The elephant disappears, and it’s just the two of us now.

As it’s been since Quinn’s murder.