Page 3 of Go Under

She stepped into the shower, resisting the urge to close her eyes and let herself relax. Instead, she swiftly and thoroughly scrubbed herself from head to toe, working up a lather everywhere and ignoring the fine coat of fur growing on her arms and legs. She’d have to shave tomorrow.

Miraculously, the shower actually softened some of the tension straining her neck and tightening her temples. Her vision expanded, and her breathing returned to normal. Her heartbeat gradually relaxed.

When she stepped out of the shower twelve minutes later, she was refreshed and able to think a little more clearly. She had let herself go a little today, but that was all right. She would put her research away, order some food, kick back, and let herself wind down. Tomorrow, she would put one last burst of effort into her investigation and determine once and for all whether there was something to Cox’s words or not. Then she’d accept whatever that answer was and move on with her life.

At least until Cox arrived again.

She frowned and dressed, sweatpants and a t-shirt again, but at least they were clean.

She headed downstairs and gathered the files, looking at them but not reading them or observing the photographs, just grabbing them, stacking them, and putting them back in the shoebox she was using to store everything. She tried to put the lid on the shoebox and found that it wouldn’t close. She’d need a second shoebox soon. Or, you know, a filing cabinet.

She felt a pull to open the shoebox and go over the photographs one more time. Maybe Cox was somewhere in the crowd her father was speaking to. Maybe Peter S. Gadd, the man accused of killing him and later acquitted when the lead detective on the case determined he couldn’t have been the killer, was among them, glaring at William and planning the murder that no one could seem to decide if he’d committed or not.

Kate forced herself away from the table. She’d take the shoebox upstairs later.

She turned to the living room and realized that the acrid smell hadn’t left yet. Apparently, her body odor was only part of it. The rest came from a collection of takeout boxes, water bottles, energy drink cans, napkins, and utensils scattered among a generous layer of crumbs and dirt.

Okay, clean the apartment, then order food, then eat it in front of the TV.

She got to work, pulling on a pair of latex gloves before subjecting her freshly clean hands to the gunk she’d accumulated over… was this really only two days? Had she cleaned the day Marcus left?

She sighed, thinking of the field day Dr. Okafor would have when she heard about this.

“Well, that’s easy, Kate,” she muttered. “You just won’t tell her.”

That was the nice thing about being thirty-seven. If you didn’t want to tell your psychiatrist about your mental breakdown resulting in pigsty living conditions and enough body odor to gag a skunk, you didn’t have to.

She was only seeing Dr. Okafor because Winters wanted her to. That was supposed to end after Cox was captured, but since instead of being captured, Cox almost killed her and then escaped, she was still seeing the good doctor one hour a week at the medical center adjacent to the Field Office.

She gathered the trash—two full bags and one close to it—and took it downstairs. It was still early in the day, just past noon, so she wasn’t worried about being outside without Marcus.

Gee, what a modern woman I am. I need my never-quite boyfriend and live-in partner to protect me any time I’m out after dark.

And what would keep Cox from shooting her in the daytime? Sure, he liked getting up close and personal, but he was rapidly losing his very tenuous grasp on sanity, so who was to say he hadn’t forgotten all about strangling her or immolating her or sacrificing her for the sins of humanity and just wanted to watch the light go from her eyes?

She flung the garbage bags into the dumpster. They hit the back wall with a satisfying triple thud, then fell to the bottom.

She stomped back upstairs, fired up her trusty Bissell, and vacuumed. It felt good to clean. It felt good to accomplish something. It felt good to think that the world wasn’t on standby waiting for Elijah Cox to pop up again.

Or his body. Marcus insisted that he’d clipped Cox at least once during the chase, and Kate knew he’d shot her at least once when he almost killed her in St. Anselm’s in Baltimore. He could be gone.

But he’d survived near-death before. He was like a cockroach. You could step on him and grind him under your heel, but he’d still slink away. Kate was pretty sure they could lop his head off, and it would still roll around looking for her, telling her, Wait, Kate. Don’t you want to know why? Don’t you want to know why your father told me all about you?

Kate finished vacuuming and removed the cylinder (see through so you can have a visceral reminder of all the shit you’ve been stepping in!), and walked to the trash can to dump it. She stepped on the little pedal to lift the lid and saw that the trash can was full. She’d filled almost three bags of trash but forgotten about the kitchen can.

That was just fitting. There was always something lurking. Just when Kate thought she’d figured everything out, some new rancid odor wafted into her nostrils and ripped her back down to Earth.

She set the vacuum cylinder down and replaced the bag. Rather than empty the cylinder into the new bag, she carried both cylinder and trash bag out to the dumpster. Her heart was pounding again but from anger this time. God damn it, if she was going to do nothing else today, she was going to clean her damned apartment. She could at least do that much. She could at least manage that.

She threw the cylinder into the dumpster, then opened the trash bag and dumped it out. Halfway through, she realized what she’d done.

She stood there, empty trash bag fluttering in the soft winter breeze, brown streaks of filth visible through the translucent plastic, arms outstretched so she could reveal the dust and gunk her arms had collected after cleaning, rendering her shower pointless.

She stood until goosebumps rose on her arm. Then she realized she was standing outside in the middle of January in Portland, Maine with wet hair and should probably get inside before she caught cold.

She dropped the bag. The wind caught it and blew it to the opposite side of the dumpster where it hung draped over the side, flapping lazily back and forth with the breeze.

She left it there. She left the vacuum cylinder in the dumpster, too. She’d buy a new vacuum cleaner tomorrow.