Excerpt: Someone's Watching

Sean glanced upward at the billboard before him and sighed. It depicted an outline of a tall, thin, busty woman with long hair perched in a suggestive position beside three foot high letters that spelled the word "Silhouettes". The building itself, situated right under the sign, was an old, run-down cinderblock structure, the windows dark. A few people were scattered outside the front door, milling about seemingly aimlessly. Resigned, he stepped out of the car, hugging his jacket to him as the wind gusted suddenly, bitingly cold. Frankie jumped up from her place in the passenger's seat to join him, but he caught her quickly by the collar and pushed her back.

"No," he said firmly, rolling down the window marginally and shutting the door with a sharp snap. "You can't come with me this time. You're too young for this; I don't want you seeing anything you shouldn't be."

Frankie gave a pitiful whine with her nose pressed against the glass, then let out a sharp, insistent bark as Sean turned away and started toward the front entrance to the building.

"I'll be back in a minute, girl," he said, turning back to her momentarily. "Patience is a virtue, you know."

She barked once more but he ignored it, stepping gingerly around a pile of empty, crushed beer cans that had accumulated near a parking block and heading to the doors. A burly, mean-looking bouncer glared at him as he passed. He slipped inside the front doors, dodging a second bouncer with a surly look on his face.

The inside was, if possible, darker than the outside, lit only by neon "exit" signs at the door and cheap set of stage lights that highlighted a pair of pole dancers in a very unflattering way. Sean studiously ignored a pair of scantily clad women who leered at him from nearby as he made his way to the bar.

The bar was crowded mostly by several older men in grungy baseball caps and John Deere work shirts, nursing Budweisers. One had his arm around a young girl with short cropped blond hair. She looked intensely bored. Sean hesitated a moment before the bartender spotted him standing there awkwardly.

"What will it be tonight? We've got a special going on this weekend, buy a lapdance and get two drinks free—"

"Uh, no thanks," Sean replied loudly, straining to be heard over the music pounding out of the speakers nearby. "I'm just looking for Julia Phillips. I was told she worked here."

The bartender nodded knowingly. "Patsy! Go find Julia, will ya'?" he called to a second blonde loitering nearby. "Tell her she's got a customer."

Sean opened his mouth to correct him, but then thought better of it and closed it again, shaking his head in exasperation.

He waited there where he stood, trying his best to stare at the floor and not inhale too much second hand smoke. The intensity of the music being played was beginning to give him a headache, and he could feel the beady stares of the nearby patrons on him. After a few long minutes, he glanced up and saw Patsy the blonde heading toward him with a second, darker haired woman in tow.

"What can I do you for?" Julia asked once she reached him, looking him carefully up and down.

"I was just hoping I could talk to you for a minute—"

"Oh, like I haven't heard that one before."

"No, really," he replied, wondering why he suddenly felt the need to defend his motives. "Ryan sent me here. I was hoping I could get your help in finding your brother, Mark."

Julia's expression changed to momentary suspicion, then back to listless uncaring as she nodded toward the door.

"We can talk outside," she answered shortly, turning and weaving her way through the room toward the door. Sean followed dutifully; as they stepped outside one of the two bouncers stationed there started forward threateningly.

"It's alright, Mickey," Julia said, waving him off. "We'll just be right over here for a minute or two."

Mickey? Sean repeated to himself silently, The bouncer's name is Mickey?

Julia headed to a secluded spot under the light of a lamppost, just out of earshot of the two bouncers. Under the flickering light, Sean could now see that her hair was a pale, uninteresting shade of brown, hanging just past her shoulders in a lank curtain, and her eyes were the same shade of gray that Ryan Phillips's had been, but they held none of the same warmth. Instead, they seemed huge and dead in her pale, gaunt face. In fact, she seemed that way all over, Sean noted with an inward grimace—she was painfully thin, her collarbones sticking out sharply and her cheeks hollow. The ratty red lingerie gown she wore hung loosely on her frame, and as she pulled a pack of cigarettes from the side of her calf-high boots and raised one to her lips, Sean saw with awful clarity the angry red striations winding up and down the inside of her forearm.

"So, what exactly do you need to know about my brother?" she asked suddenly, not looking at him as she attempted to light her cigarette.

"I'm trying to find him," Sean said, holding back the urge to shiver violently as the wind cut through his jacket and jeans. He could see Julia trembling, but she didn't give any other indication she cared about the cold. "I'm a private investigator from Raleigh and I think he might be involved in a case I'm working on. I spoke to your brother Ryan earlier today but he didn't have any information for me. He told me you might, though, and said I could probably find you here."

"Last time I saw Mark was about two years ago," Julia said, "He came by here one night."

"Did you two talk?"

"Not much," Julia replied, shrugging. "He told me he'd moved away from the area recently and gotten a new job. Asked me to come move in with him and bring my daughter with me, but I told him no."

"Can I ask why?"

" 'Cause no matter how nice he was acting then, I knew it was just a front," Julia said, her voice bitter. She took a long drag off her cigarette and then flicked the ash aside. "Mark was really good at that sort of thing. He tried to apologize for any of the bad stuff he'd said to me before, even wanted to give me some money. But I was just sick and tired of having my hopes lifted and then let down every time he decided to come around."

"I imagine he didn't like that very much."

Julia gave a mirthless laugh. "You could say that," she said, "He followed me home that night."

She pushed back her stringy hair and tilted her head to the side a little, exposing the side of her neck, where a jagged scar cut across the pale skin, running from just under her left ear to nearly under the center of her chin. Sean's stomach rolled unpleasantly.

"He did that?"

"Once he failed trying to strangle me with a belt," Julia replied, her face strangely blank. "My little girl walked in on it and for whatever reason, he left then. I haven't seen him since."

Sean swallowed hard, trying to get past the bad taste in his mouth. "Did you go to the police?"

"Are you crazy?" Julia spat, scowling. "He does this to me and you think I'm going to piss him off more by reporting him? No, thank you. Knowing him, he'd go after my girl then."

Sean nodded. He guessed she had a point, but he didn't pretend to understand it.

"So you haven't heard from him since?" he asked.

"He left some letters in my mailbox for a while afterward," she replied, "I burnt every last one. I haven't seen him around any, though."

She took one last draw off her cigarette and then tossed the stub to the ground, smushing it out with the heel of her boot. "Good riddance, I say."

Sean was quiet for a moment, trying to digest this information. It seemed he was about to hit yet another dead end, and he was getting more than a little frustrated by that fact.

"So, you don't have any idea of where I might be able to find him?"

Julia shook her head. "If you want my advice, I'd say quit looking for him," she said, "He's not going to bring you anything but grief if you do find him. Trust me, I know."

"Julia, it's really important that I do find him," Sean said, "Are you sure you don't know anything at all?"

"I told you I didn't."

Sean held back his sigh. Julia eyed him for a moment.

"You said you think he's involved in your case?"

"Yes."

"Well, that wouldn't surprise me in the least," she answered with a note of disgust, "What exactly do you think he's done?"

"I'm looking for a missing woman. I think he may know her kidnapper or be it himself."

Despite what she'd said, Julia looked surprised. "A missing woman? From around here?"

"She was from Cadence. Johnston County," Sean said, "Her name was Evelyn Locke. She disappeared about three weeks ago."

"Oh," Julia said, "I heard about her. So you're a detective on her case?"

"I'm a private investigator," Sean corrected, "The local police have pretty much given up on her, so a friend of hers hired me to look into it."

"That's just sad," Julia said, shaking her head. "Just shows you can't count on the authorities to do anything for you."

Sean nodded and huddled deeper into his coat. He could tell he wasn't going to get anything else out of Julia, despite whatever she really did know, and he was getting very tired of standing out in the cold. He chanced a peek over his shoulder—Mickey the Bouncer was watching him with a steely expression on his bearded face.

"Well, thanks for your time, anyway," he said, looking back to Julia. "If you hear from your brother or think of anything else, please, give me a call."

He handed her one of his business cards. She took it and glanced once at it, then tucked it into the inside of one boot.

"Sure thing," she said, shrugging. "Like I said, though, I think you're really barking up the way wrong tree with this. Be careful if you do find him."