Detective Patterson
She was a shady sort of character, but savvy. Far too savvy to be on any detective’s radar, I thought…
I wrote this for a prompt on Medium (found here) by the imitable Dianne Herbert but the publication requested that I cut it down a bit. Here you will find the full story in its original form.
The short version that was published with The Smut Mill can be found here.
I pressed the “play” button again, chewing my lip. The voice that issued from the iPhone speaker was mature, self-assured with a hint of a smoker’s past.
“This message is for Miss Amelia Bennett. My name is Detective Michael Patterson. I have a few questions for you concerning an acquaintance of yours. Please return my call so we can arrange a time for us to meet at the Bishopsgate Police Station.”
Questions concerning an acquaintance? Was someone in trouble? His tone was neutral. Serious. Unreadable. With a rush of shame, I realized I was disappointed that this was not a message from a random stranger requesting that I make good on my offer of sex. I hated to admit it, but this whole experience had not been quite the punishment I had envisioned. Terrifying, yes. Degrading, absolutely. But, thrumming underneath it all, excitement reverberated like a cello’s deepest note. I could feel it in the pit of my being - each unexpected ding of my mobile bowed that string ever so lightly, every illicit tryst dragged my burgeoning appetite into a fresh crescendo. Each time I acquiesced more readily. And since Number Five…well, since then it felt like anything was possible.
Not right now, I told myself. A detective calling was serious. I ran through the list of people I knew who might have gotten themselves into trouble. He had said “acquaintance”, so I immediately eliminated my parents, not that I would have suspected them of anything anyway.
Vlad…of everyone I knew he was the most likely to find himself in a fix, but after all the precautions I’d taken no one should be able to connect him to me.
Kristen? Unlikely, but not impossible.
Shit. I had been so absorbed with my new life as a moonlighting slut, I hadn’t been paying much attention to her latest messages. She was going through a breakup and taking it pretty hard but, to be fair, when was she not? It was difficult to keep up. She had seemed to like this last one very much and I was being an undeniably shitty friend by ignoring her. And her flair for the dramatic meant she might do something drastic. I swiped open my phone and found her most recent messages.
“I wish I were dead.”
Oh, fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. How could I have ignored that? Guilt and dread wriggled down my spine and settled in my gut. How the fuck could you have ignored that, Amelia? I demanded of myself. I checked the timestamp, knowing even before I did what had preoccupied me enough to let such a desperate message go unanswered. Number Five. You suck. I took a deep breath to steady myself, then dialed Kristen’s number. The silence between each ring stretched abnormally long, like a sick joke. The automated answering machine clicked on.
’The number you have dialed is not available-’
Cold certainty clawed into my belly and clutched my limbs. I was clammy from the inside out. With trembling fingers, I dialed the detective.
“Detective Patterson,” the charcoal voice answered.
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