Well, it is close enough to Friday, right?

Are you ready?

Half of Two

With both hands gripping the counter in front of her, the jittering and shaking began to subside as she willed herself to quell the cacophony of voices within her head and prayed for a brief moment of lucidity.

One deep breath followed another.

She knew she was sane, but understood how easily others could dismiss her behavior as bizarre or eccentric and label her schizo and manic, among others. What they could not know was the accuracy of the softly Southern vernacular which described her as “touched.”

“There. That’s better,” she said to no one as she approached the light within.

Seizing upon the blessing of an instant of clarity, she quickly rifled through what remained of her thoughts, knowing she had only one chance to make all well once more. The choice seemed clear. She had to reach Jimmy. She had to reveal all. Surely, he would help her. He must.

While she hated leaving the tiny, almost subterranean efficiency she had called home for almost two years, she knew she had to reach Jimmy before they came for her. And they would come for her, the voices had already warned her.

Calling out to him in her thoughts, Oh, Jimmy, I am so sorry. She sighed and tightly pulled the sweater around her. The sweater was her security blanket, despite the balminess of the early evening. It represented the tether to a reality she once knew and to people she once loved.

The sweater was a graduation gift from her grandmother, lovingly hand knit from the finest cashmere on the tiniest of needles. Its pattern was formed of intricate cables, almost map-like in their delicately decorative construction. Its shade was a deep, almost midnight blue which still displayed twelve of the thirteen amber colored gemstones encased in filaments of platinum. An odd choice, she had always thought, for buttons, but they had been very dear to her grandmother.

“Sweet child,” her grandmother had told her as she gently rubbed the jewels on the garment she had handed her, “keep these near, they will protect you when I am no longer able to.”

The original fit had made her blush when her grandfather referred to her as Lana, an appreciative reference to Lana Turner, one of the original sweater girls from his youth. While still fair skinned, the cotton top she sported as a child had continued to darken just as the sweater had grown over her shrinking frame. Her heart ached for those lovely hot, sticky summers in New Orleans with her grandparents. Her heart ached more deeply with how she missed them all so.

A gnawing sense of urgency pulled her back from her indulgent reverie. She had to get to Jimmy, he was the one tie in Gotham from her past and her only hope to quash the chaos that threatened to reign.

Turning to the front door, she caught a brief glance of a familiar stranger out of the corner of her eye. Moving toward the antique silvered mirror which, too, had once belonged to someone special, she looked beyond the dark spots silently declaring the glass’ own lost youth, and studied the reflection in search for some sign of the person she once was.

Nothing.

The only remotely recognizable feature was the intense, but incredibly odd pair of eyes which stared back at her. Her left eye was emerald green and her right eye was the deepest of blue. Almost every one she encountered had commented on their uniqueness, but she knew of at least one other similarly marked.

The clarity quickly faded leaving her shaking her head and muttering to herself once again, trying to appease the demons which plagued her. Easing the door open, she glanced this way and that several times before stepping from the shadowy doorway. With short, rapid steps, she quickly merged into the foot traffic on the sidewalk. Her slight stature was immediately engulfed in anonymity.

***

Fighting a wave of nausea cultivated from greasy food, hard liquor, bad coffee, and little sleep Jake Cole covered his eyes as he massaged his temples, a lifeless stub hung loosely from lips almost frozen in a groan while his other hand continued to cradle the remnants of a coffee, long stale. His jaws were tightly clenched to halt the promise of a biliously unpleasant tide.

He could hear the regulars being greeted as they knocked off from the grind and stepped up to the bar across the room from his small, dark corner, and signaled for their individual brand of “usual.” Another work day was done and he had not yet made it back to the precinct.

How many days had it been? He wondered absently.

Indeed, how many days had it been since Dave, his mentor, his partner, his friend had finally succumbed to the damn cancer that invaded first his lungs, then his brain? How many days since he had stood in the rain in his dress uniform and saluted a man who was so much the better man than anyone he had ever known. Dave didn’t deserve to die.

A buzz on his hip was followed by another “beep” alerting him he had a message. Flipping open the phone he could tell it was the wife. No, it was the ex-wife who obviously wanted something because Diane always wanted something. The divorce has been bad enough, but now that was over, she was still nagging the crap out of him.

First it had been marriage counseling. Diane had to have marriage counseling. She had insisted because she did not feel close, to him. Close, hell, they had sex and pretty damn regular sex, how much closer did she want?

Apparently, that had not been enough. After the counseling bombed, probably because he rarely showed up for that waste of time, Diane got quiet and almost quit the nagging. She got interested in getting her degree, something that was waylaid when they married, actually, when they had to get married.

More salt. Yet another open wound.

Losing Dave was bad enough, why did he have to go back to losing the baby, too.

No Dave, no son, no wife.

Pulling the old smoke from his mouth, he flicked it, unburnt, across the room and pulled a fresh one from his pocket. Striking a match off the table he almost lit it as an image of Dave conjured itself before him. Dave all strung up to hoses and IVs trying to draw what would become his last few breaths making him promise not to smoke.

No Dave, no son, no wife, no freakin’ smokes.

Slamming it all down in front of him, he picked his phone back up and scanned Diane’s text. She was still on that annulment kick. It seemed that prick college professor, the same damn one he discovered banging Diane in the shower that he was paying the frazzlin’ mortgage on, actually wanted to marry her. Dumb bastard.

Signaling the barkeep, Cole ordered his usual, after all, it was obviously after five, somewhere.

Closing his eyes, he rotated his neck in an attempt to work the kinks out when a soft thud announced the arrival of his drink, Scotch, neat.

Reaching for it, he discovered a hand was still attached to it, a slim hand with well manicured tips maintained a hold on it.

He knew that hand.

Allowing his gaze to drift up the arm and to her attractive face and brunette hair, he asked: “What are you doing here, Diane, pencil prick dump you?”

Taking a long sip before presenting the glass to him as she sat down, she responded: “Have you gone by to talk to Father DiCarlo yet?”

“No.” Came the surly response.

“Come on, Jake, please. Mark and I want to get married in the church. We want to have children. You and me, we were a mistake. You know it. You have said it yourself.”

“You can marry, have kids, the whole white picket fence. You don’t have to bastardize my son to do it.”

To her credit, he noted, she paled before moistening her lips, reaching for his hand and replying: “Our son is dead. Our son was still born. He will always be our son. Nothing will change that. Please, Jake, give me a chance to live a normal life. Please give me a chance to be happy.”

Softening, he did want Diane to be happy. Despite the infidelity, she had tried to be a good wife. He was just a rotten husband.

“Okay, Diane. You win. I will go by the rectory and see Jimmy on the way to my place.”

“It’s Father James Francis DiCarlo, not Jimmy,” she softly scolded before leaning over and giving him a brief kiss in farewell.

Not long after she had departed, Cole took a leak, cleared his tab, and made his way to St. Joseph’s. It was well into the evening, but he suspected the ever-efficient Diane had alerted the good Father he would be stopping by to sign off on her request for annulment.

He had traveled at least three blocks before he noticed it was no longer raining. It had started to rain the day Dave was buried and continued to rain, off and on, the ten days since. He surmised the sun must have been out while he had wallowed in the bar because the sidewalk and streets were dry and almost fresh, though there was some residual humidity.

Another two blocks and he was standing in front of the impressive, though Gothic, façade of St. Joseph’s. As he entered the sanctuary, it struck him that he had last passed through those doors when he and Diane had married, some ten years before. They were young, so young, full of life and such hope for the future.

Trapped in his reflections, he initially failed to notice the odd muttering and twitching of a petite woman wrapped in a dark sweater until she touched his arm and pulled him toward her.

Looking down, he saw her small bony hand pulling on him as she whispered: “Please, please, help me.”

Raising her head, she offered a full view of her face, but he saw little other than the intense and urgent gaze of different colored eyes. He was transfixed. Never before had he seen such brilliant or consuming shades of deep blue and green.

As he stared, he felt her reach under his jacket and release his piece from its holster. When it cleared his jacket, he instinctively reached for it, his hand cupping the stock and his index finger covering the trigger. Both her hands clamped around his, madness giving her the strength of ten.

While the struggle lasted only a second or two, each one ticked by in an eternity before all was shattered by a single pop.

***

It was not that he actually liked the morgue, but there was something about the shiny, sterile surfaces, and cool, nearly chilly, temperature that added to the quiet solitude that appealed to him and made him comfortable, almost relaxed when he was there. He had noticed it often over the years and equated the tranquility of the environment to something of a sensory deprivation chamber – no horns, no sirens, no constant drone of inane humanity, just the hum of the flickering fluorescent lighting for stimulation. He was always able to think best when at the morgue. Particularly, when carrying on a unilateral conversation with the victim whose killer he was trying to catch.

Unfortunately, as he studied the placid face of the sheet covered corpse in front of him, victim and killer appeared to be one and the same.

After the grilling he received from his Captain and Internal Affairs, he was faintly surprised he was even allowed to follow up on this case, except there was no case. It was officially ruled a suicide of an unfortunate and unstable young woman. He suspected the Captain also wanted to give him a chance to get over Dave’s death and keep him out of the bars and out of trouble when he consented to Cole’s request to further investigate the death.

But for the dark circles under her eyes and the unnatural gray pallor to her skin, she looked most child-like in her permanent slumber. With her luminous eyes open, he had not noticed her fine cheek bones or the soft fullness of her lips. Her features were quite beautiful, but everything had been obscured by the eyes.

She had had no form of ID on her, but one of the parishioners at St. Joseph’s was able to provide her name: Lyric Chatelain. The church rolls gave an address. When all the paperwork and questioning were completed at the precinct, he should have gone over to check out her residence, but felt drawn to see her at the morgue first, before the body could be claimed.

Making note of the number on the receipt tied to her big toe, he located the corresponding box and emptied its contents onto an empty stainless steel surface. In addition to her undergarments, there was a pair of sandals, a bloody blouse, ratty old sweater, and a necklace. On the necklace was a small round pendant. The front of which displayed some decorative scrolls. The name “Lyric” in script was engraved on the back. There were no other personal possessions.

“Poor kid.” He said out loud. “What was so bad you had to shoot yourself in the chest?”

“Is that how she died.” A quiet voice from behind him asked.

Spinning around, he blinked several times as he rapidly looked back to the body on the slab and the specter of her standing before him.

After a moment, the apparition spoke again: “I am very real, I assure you.”

Still unsure, he shifted his position to put both the body and the woman within his direct line of vision. Studying the woman, he recognized the same alabaster skin and bewitching blue and green eyes, but this one was very much alive. While certainly not heavy, she was less emaciated than the dead one. She certainly talked a hell of a lot more.

“May I ask your name?” She began.

Finding his voice, he answered: “Jake Cole.”

“Your full name, please?” she pressed

Clearing his throat and a bit indignant at the assertiveness of her request, he announced: “Detective Jacob Constantino Cole, NYPD.”

He would not have thought one as pale as the woman before him could blanch, but the instant he spoke his middle name, blanch she did.

Rather than rush to question her in kind, he found himself explaining uncomfortably, “It’s an old family name…”

“From your mother’s side.” She finished for him.

Drawing his brows together suspiciously, he replied: “Actually, yes.”

Stepping over to the corpse, she pulled a hand from beneath the sheet and carefully held it between her own. Her gaze remained on the dead woman while she inquired: “She died by your hand?”

“Whoa, lady, hold on. It was my gun, she grabbed my gun, but she shot herself.” He protested.

Gently releasing the hand and laying it back under the sheet, she faced him and asserted: “Your hand was on the gun.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “but she squeezed my hand.”

“Then, she died by your hand.”

Shaking his head in dread, guilt, and disbelief, he knew it was not his fault. By all accounts from those who knew her, the dead woman was nuts.

As if reading his thoughts, the alabaster one said: “Fault is not yours to assign, but if it makes you feel better, you harbored no intent to harm.”

With his back to the gigantic headache that this mysterious slip of a woman had become, Cole decided it was all too much. He wanted a stiff drink, a hot shower, and a damned smoke.

Damn those luminous dark eyes, not only could he see them when he was not looking straight into them, but he could feel them boring into his back and probing his heart, as well as his ever-loving mind.

Lighting up he took a long drag, adjusted his homicide detective’s mask, then turned to engage in a little line of questioning of his own.

Avoiding her eyes, he popped open his pad with poised pen in hand, he asked the obvious: “Now, Miss, what are you doing here?”

“My sister is dead. I am here to claim her body and her possessions.” Came the calm reply.

“First things, first. Who contacted you regarding your sister’s demise?” Because he was unaware anyone had discovered a next of kin.

“No one.”

“You expect me to buy that, lady?”

“Yes. We are twins. I just knew.”

Staring at her hard, he continued: “What is your name?”

“Lyric Carmin Chatelaine.”

Disbelief and irritation consuming him, he exploded: “Cut the crap, lady. Your resemblance to the stiff over there indicates you may well be related, but the information on her, including her pendant, supports her name as Lyric.”

Visibly disturbed for the first time in their fifteen minute acquaintance, the woman delved into her bag and produced a driver’s license and passport for his appraisal.

Snatching both from her he studied them for a few long minutes before he noticed it. Thinking back to the body, when she approached him she had a green eye and a blue eye. Her left eye was green and her right eye was blue.

The woman standing before him and in the pictured documents in his hands also had one blue and one green eye; however, her left eye was blue and her right eye was green.

“If you are Lyric Chatelaine, what is her name?”

“Pandora.”