Protector - Laurel Dewey [73]
It was the end of Anne Perry and it was always the end of Jane’s occasional dream. When Jane awoke, a sense of coldness overcame her.
The early morning light filtered through the living room curtains, casting a creamy lemon glow across the couch where Emily lay fast asleep in the crook of Jane’s arm. Jane snuck a look at a nearby clock. 7:45. Too damn early. Her head pounded relentlessly—a physical consequence of cold turkey sobriety. She carefully pulled her arm out from underneath Emily’s head. The child stirred before going back to sleep. Jane sat up and rubbed her forehead, trying in vain to push back the pulsating pain. It was then that she realized her hand was shaking. She stared at her trembling hand as if it belonged to someone else. Finally, the tremor stopped. The day wasn’t starting off well. At least, Jane surmised, the disturbing, staccato visions had thankfully stopped.
She stood up, taking care not to make any sudden movements that would wake Emily. The soft morning light slowly expanded, illuminating the entire room with a gentle warmth. Jane canvassed the room, taking in every silent detail. She tried to imagine Patricia and David Lawrence sitting on the couch bent over a line of cocaine. The more Jane attempted to force the scene into her head, the more ridiculous it felt. She had never met Emily’s parents and yet, she felt she knew them intimately. They were still in the walls, the floor and the fabric of the house. Their energy occupied every seam. Most of all, their imprint was cast upon their daughter. It was a difficult feeling for Jane to distinguish, let alone explain to others. Suffice it to say that their essence lingered and that essence was not resonating a coked up persona.
Jane felt the need to poke around the room. She walked up onto the landing, brushing her hand against the desk that sat against the staircase. Something called out to her gut that she could not comprehend. There was a strange pull that tugged on her senses, like the eight ball dropping into the corner pocket with a resounding plop. It was the solution to the riddle. It was so close and yet so hidden. The more Jane tried to catch hold of what she was feeling, the farther it slipped from her mental grasp.
Her eyes came to rest again on the liquor cabinet across the room. She moved toward it, quietly creeping across the rug. The cherrywood unit held five shelves of every imaginable alcoholic beverage—everything from Dewar’s Scotch to Bailey’s Irish Cream. She scanned the bottles and noticed something odd on the E&J Brandy bottle. About an inch above the alcohol level there was a black pen mark that looked to be from a thick tipped permanent marker. A careful examination of a nearby Smirnoff vodka bottle showed the same type of black mark on the bottle. Jane scanned every other bottle in the cabinet and found the same markings.
Who marks liquor bottles? Not the drinker. The one who marks the bottles is the one who feels a need to track their partner’s habits. Jane always regarded the act as a somewhat passive/aggressive type of conduct. So what if you mark the bottles and you note a change, she thought. It just proves what you knew already. Then what do you do? Show your partner the bottle with the black marks and raise hell? What’s that supposed to accomplish? Jane scowled with derision at the cabinet. From the little