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  “Tell us again about the hooded chef,” said Agent #1.

  Lexa glanced at her reflection in the large two-way mirror. “I saw one of the chefs staring at me. He was wearing a large hood that covered his head and most of his face.”

  “If the hood covered his face, how could you tell he was staring at you?” asked Agent #2.

  Think, Lexa. How could you tell?

  “I don’t know.” She tried to suppress the nausea building in her stomach that now heralds the arrival of one of her mind-splitting headaches. “I just…I could feel him looking at me.”

  Agent #1 asked, “Did the hooded chef have anything with him?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  “CK told us he saw a hooded chef carrying some kind of bag,” Agent #2 said.

  “Oh yeah, he had a bag. Or a knapsack or something,” Lexa said, glancing back at the two-way mirror.

  Agent #2 added, “Was it big enough to hold Ms. Clark’s head?”

  Shocked speechless by the bluntness of the question, Lexa lowered her head and wept into her hands.

  “That’s enough for now, Ms. Rhodes,” said Agent #1 after he realized they’d gotten all they were going to get out of the young woman. “If we have any further questions, we’ll contact you.” He opened the doors and motioned for Lexa to leave.

  Lexa stood and took one last look at her reflection in the two-way mirror before exiting the interrogation room.

  ***

  Paige, CK, Cassie, Bastian, and Palmer ran up to meet Lexa when she stepped into the lobby.

  “Are you okay?” Paige asked. “God, I can’t believe what’s going on.”

  Bastian struggled to mask his sorrow with derision. “Well believe it, sunshine. This isn’t some fucking dream we’re going to wake up from.”

  “Are they sure the head…” Cassie gulped, “that it was Kimber?”

  Lexa nodded. “The FBI said they identified her headless…her body inside her apartment.”

  “Shouldn’t one of us call Kimber’s parents and tell them?” Cassie said tremulously.

  “I’m sure the cops have already told them,” Palmer barked.

  “Yeah, but we should still talk to them ourselves in person. We owe Kimber that much,” CK said.

  While Lexa and the others stood talking, Deputy Detective Scott Peters, a balding, overweight gentleman in his early fifties, approached them from behind.

  “Before I let you go, there’s one more person who wants to talk to you,” he informed them.

  Captain Marsha Styles, a tall brunette with an athletic build, entered the room. “Hello, I’m Marsha Styles, captain of the Long Beach Homicide Bureau. I know you’ve all been through a lot, so I’ll make this brief.” Captain Styles held up Lexa’s cellphone. “You told the FBI you received a text message from Ms. Clark just minutes before her head was discovered.”

  “Yes.”

  “You also stated that Ms. Clark sent you a text this morning which said she had to deal with a personal matter, an ex-boyfriend I believe, and would catch a later shuttle.”

  CK took a step forward. “Yeah, I remember Lexa saying—”

  Styles shushed CK, then turned back to Lexa.

  “Uh, yes, Ms—Captain Styles.”

  Styles held up Lexa’s phone. “You don’t mind if I keep this for a while, do you?”

  Lexa shrugged. “Sure, go ahead.”

  Bastian smirked. “Like you have a choice,” he mumbled.

  Styles shot a scathing look at Bastian before saying to them all, “The whole island’s under lockdown—no one in or out. We’ve checked out your villa and others surrounding it and they’re all clear. Round-the-clock security has been arranged for you for the rest of your stay, courtesy of Senator Storm. That’s all, for now. See you all at the funeral.” Just after Captain Styles turned to leave, she stopped and turned back around. “There’s just one thing I want to go over, to make sure I’m understanding it correctly.” She strolled in front of the lineup of friends the way a drill sergeant does in front of new recruits. “Apart from the two text messages Ms. Rhodes received, none of you had any other contact with Ms. Clark, correct?” She stopped in front of Lexa, but didn’t turn to face her.

  “Correct,” Lexa answered.

  Styles closely examined her detainees’ facial expressions, which ranged from pondering to umbrage, then faced forward and resumed her stroll. “No phone calls, nothing?”

  “No,” Cassie said timidly while the others simply shook their heads.

  “Really? That’s odd.”

  “Yeah? How so?” asked Palmer.

  When Styles reached CK, the last person in line, she reversed her walk of inquiry.

  “I’d have thought that at some point during the day at least one of you would have tried to reach her for a good ol’ fashioned voice-to-voice phone call, if for no other reason than to see if she was on her way yet.” Styles raised her eyebrows. “I mean, if it were me, at your age, and we were all on a swanky all-expense paid trip to a swanky island paradise with swanky private limo service and our own swanky private villa, and one of my good friends, who was also invited, missed the boat and was coming up later…” Styles paused and made eye contact with the two sighted girls of the bunch. She took a quick look at Cassie’s white cane and carried on, “…I would imagine I’d be on the phone nonstop with my absent girlfriend, describing the captain’s lounge, sending her inane selfies from inside the limo, telling her she won’t believe how absolutely sick the villa is. You know, behavior typical of your generation.” Even with her back to him, Palmer’s muted scoff was caught by the captain’s attentive ear. She whirled around to face him. “Did I say something you don’t agree with, Mr. Randolph?”

  “A couple of things,” Palmer answered indignantly.

  “Please, don’t be afraid to speak your mind.” Styles folded her arms and stood awaiting his response.

  Sensing that his friend was gearing up to say something he would regret later, Bastian grabbed Palmer’s shoulder and took a half step forward toward the captain. “Um, I think what my well-to-do friend here was about to disagree on was your overuse of the term ‘swanky’.” The untimely, but amusing, quip drew grins from all except Lexa and Cassie.

  Styles approached Bastian like a Black Mamba slithering toward its next meal. “That’s very funny. Think I’ll start calling you Funny Man.” Bastian cast his eyes downward and snickered. “Isn’t it a shame though, Funny Man, that Ms. Clark isn’t here to enjoy your levity along with the rest of us? Oh, that’s right—she’s dead, isn’t she?” Bastian’s grin dropped into a resentful frown.

  “That was insensitive,” Paige countered. “And completely uncalled for.”

  “No, Ms. Turner, what’s insensitive and completely uncalled for is your friend lying in the county morgue with her head carved off with a hunting knife.”

  Cassie whimpered aloud. CK put his arm around her and then caught Styles’s eye. “I wanna know what good you think this is doing?”

  “Yeah?” Styles snapped. “Well, I wanna know why none of you bothered to call Ms. Clark on the phone today.” She looks across the row of friends.

  “Are you insinuating that one of us—”

  “Of course not, Mr. Randolph. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this apparent lack of concern you all had for this supposed friend of yours.”

  “I don’t know!” Cassie sobbed. “I don’t know why any of us didn’t call her!”

  “What about the rest of you, huh?” The others lowered their eyes and stood in communal silence. “What about you, Ms. Rhodes? You and Ms. Clark were best friends, right?”

  “Yes, we are. Were…” Lexa replied amidst a volley of quiet tears.

  “Why didn’t you try to call her?”

  “I don’t know.” Lexa broke down into uncontrollable sobs.

  “Not even one of you has a theory as to why?” Styles pressed.

  “I guess we’re all just a bunch of self-centered asshol
es,” Bastian said with facetious spite.

  “In your case, Mr. Shadwell, that’s not theory, it’s fact.” Styles took a few steps back from the shell-shocked individuals and faced the group as a whole. “I promise you, this is just the beginning,” she warned with dead seriousness. “A fucking monster killed your friend, and fucking monsters never go away. Not until somebody stops them.” Captain Styles straightened her collar and trod off toward the interrogation room doors.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HOME SWEET HOME

  Tired and overwrought from the day’s dreadful events and Captain Styles’ haughty manner and accusatory tone, the senator’s six guests were taken by limo back to their villa. They entered the darkened foyer and for a long, lasting moment, stood in solemn silence. After a while they each came to realize they had inadvertently positioned themselves in a “missing man formation.” The reality of Kimberly’s murder crashed down upon them for the first time. The weight of this realization sent them trudging up to their rooms. Except for food runs to the kitchen, the six kept to their rooms for the next couple of days, each submerged in their own particular style of mourning. Lexa’s sole coping strategy was taking extra doses of her anti-psychotics. After a forty-eight hour investigation produced no further leads, the island-wide detention was called off and the group was granted permission by Captain Styles to leave.

  ***

  The six remaining members of the Magnificent Seven hardly spoke a word to each other on the boat ride back to Long Beach. When they arrived at the landing in downtown Long Beach, several network news vans and helicopters were awaiting. The six friends disembarked as a group, gradually separating and integrating into the throng of passengers milling toward the exit. Paige checked her makeup, then artfully changed her direction toward a reporter who was looking back and forth between a campaign picture of Spencer’s Magnificent Seven and the arriving passengers. Bastian straightened his collar, by coincidence approaching the same reporter. Palmer, not wanting any exposure, put on a pair of dark sunglasses and plotted a course away from the journalists. As CK led Cassie through the crowd, his eyes trailed Lexa, who was making a retreat toward the open arms of her Uncle Claude, who was fighting his way toward her through a sea of anxious tourists. Claude hugged his shaken niece, then scuttled her to his car through a contingent of reporters clamoring for an interview. When he started the car and drove away, Lexa’s spirit plummeted by the sight of the chaos of media scavengers feasting on the carrion of her murdered friend.

  ***

  Claude and his charge arrived at the house. When they pulled into the driveway, Lexa saw her brother and Aunt Amanda waiting impatiently on the porch. When the car came to a complete stop, Alex leapt off the steps and rushed to the passenger side. Lexa threw open the door and jumped out, embracing her twin. As they held each other, Lexa could feel herself drawing restorative energy from Alex, who was intentionally sending it into his distressed sister. For the longest while, the entwined twins’ communion made them oblivious to all around them, like two withdrawal-ridden addicts receiving their much needed fix.

  Claude closed the trunk, then took the luggage up to the porch where his wife was waiting to greet her niece.

  “Is she okay?” Amanda asked her husband. The trepidation in her voice matched the disquiet in her eyes. “How does she seem? Maybe we should—”

  “She seems okay, all things considered,” Claude answered. After setting down the luggage, he wrapped his arms around Amanda and gave her a kiss on her lips. “What she needs is for us to allow her some space, and some time to process it all.” When Amanda opened her mouth to speak, he placed his index finger on her lips. “Okay?”

  Amanda sighed in resignation.

  After breaking their timeless embrace, Lexa took Alex’s hands and asked, “Always?” She looked at him through tear-filled eyes as she placed one of his hands over her heart.

  “Always,” Alex repeated. “Forever?” he asked, taking Lexa’s hand and placing it over his heart.

  “Forever,” answered Lexa.

  Alex pressed Lexa’s hand tightly against his chest while giving her a look that shot straight through her eyes and pierced her soul. “Forever isn’t long enough,” he said. They gazed at each other for another moment or two, then glanced over at their aunt and uncle who were watching them from the porch. “Well I guess we better not keep them waiting any longer.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Lexa replied.

  “I always am,” Alex said with a devilish grin. He stretched out his arm toward the porch. “Shall we?”

  Lexa took a calming breath and then started toward the porch with Alex following closely behind. The closer she got to the house, the stronger she felt the telltale signs of a massive headache mounting behind her eyes.

  Aunt Amanda’s self-restraint abandoned her and she rushed off the porch to throw her arms around her niece. “Oh my baby!”

  Amanda’s smothering clench and excessive blubbering caused Lexa to lose it and weep aloud as well, not just for the loss of her close friend, but also for the stark realization of where she was—a pretty prison she’d been sentenced to since the age of eight, a place where escape seemed impossible.

  Other girls her age had experienced middle school and high school, with its homecoming dances and proms, first crushes and first kisses, its cliques to vie for and social strata to navigate—all things Lexa missed out on because of her home-schooling and strict, unsocial upbringing. What of the things possibly yet to come? Career, marriage, house, kids? All things made possible after gaining one’s independence. Not that Aunt Amanda and Uncle Claude were monsters. No, just the opposite. They cared too much, to the point their care overwhelmed and suffocated her. Their overprotectiveness was fueled by their desire to see no further havoc wreaked upon her already damaged psyche. And what of Alex? Always and forever? How would one separate a pair so joined at the hip? Was her desire for freedom and a life on her own stronger than her interdependent attachment for her twin? How could she willingly leave someone she couldn’t live without? Without her, could Alex even survive? How could she both stay with him always, and leave him to follow her dream to be on her own? She was aware she couldn’t do both, and that awareness was slowly sending Lexa teetering toward the edge of sanity…

  “Let’s get you inside,” Aunt Amanda said, shuffling her into the house.

  Amanda sat her niece down in the middle of the couch and wrapped her in a throw blanket that she had crocheted. “Now you just relax while I run and get you a hot cup of tea.” Aunt Amanda wiped her tear swollen eyes and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Uncle Claude walked up to Lexa, kissed the top of her head, and carried her luggage upstairs to her bedroom.

  Lexa’s and Alex’s eyes met and they shared a silent moment of acute mutual understanding in which only twins were able to participate:

  Alex: Are you really okay? I would have died if anything happened to you.

  Lexa: I’m okay. Well, not really, my head is killing me. I’m just glad to be back with you.

  Alex: I missed you, Sis. You are my whole world.

  Lexa: I missed you, X-Man. You were in my thoughts the whole time I was away.

  Alex: I will always love you.

  Lexa: I will forever love you.

  The twins were brought back into the world around them by the somber voice of a television news anchor. “…take you live to the Catalina Landing in downtown Long Beach…”

  “Here we are,” Aunt Amanda said, entering the room carrying a steaming bone china cup of tea. “Careful, it’s hot.” She passed the cup to her less than receptive niece.

  “Thank you,” Lexa said coldly. She took the cup and set it down upon the coffee table in front of her.

  Aunt Amanda painted on a smile, then turned toward the television.

  “The victim, Kimberly Clark, was a key member of the newly elected Senator Spencer Storm’s campaign team. Surviving members of the team had this to say…”
r />   “Oh my God! That’s Paige!” Alex exclaimed when a close-up of her face filled the screen.

  Lexa shrank into the couch. On the screen, Paige said, “I just can’t believe what’s happened. I mean, who would do something like that to Kimmy? She was…”

  “My God.” Lexa turned her pain-ridden head in disgust. Now, Paige? At a time like this? Can’t you go one fucking day without the need to take center stage?

  Lexa’s best friend Kimmy was dead—butchered—and the Plastic Princess was up there working a sound bite, the self-centered bitch!

  “Maybe this isn’t something you should be watching,” Amanda said gently.

  “You think?” Alex muttered.

  Bastian’s interview was next: “I just hope Captain Styles is able to come up with more than…”

  Amanda switched off the television. “There.” She glanced at the cup sitting in front of her niece. “You better drink your tea before it gets cold.”

  “Why?” Lexa snapped.

  The attitude caught Amanda off guard. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why should I drink my tea before it gets cold?” Unable to come up with a sensible answer, her aunt is struck speechless. “I mean, is my drinking hot tea gonna bring Kimmy back?”

  “Lexa,” Alex murmured.

  “Or will my drinking hot tea cure all of my psychological issues?”

  “Lexa!” Alex hissed.

  “Like the inability to cope with the death of my parents?”

  “Lexa, that’s enough,” Uncle Claude shouted from the staircase. He walked over and stood next to his wife, who was on the verge of an emotional deluge. He put his hands on Amanda’s shoulders. “Don’t take your sorrow and frustration out on your aunt. She’s trying her best to help you right now.”

  “I know,” Lexa said apologetically. “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry that drinking water from steeped tea leaves can’t bring the dead back to life. I’d be happy if it’d just give me a little relief from this goddamn headache!