6,000 words.
CRIME FIGHTING RADIOACTIVE STRIPPER FROM TAMPA BAY
by Kiki Schirr
Part One: The Death of Ruby Red
Chapter One
Diya was upside-down with her bra unhooked when she felt the explosion. The entire room reverberated and even the solid pole she was balanced on shook. She gripped it tighter, and continued her spin downward, the pole just barely holding her top in place. She was doing in headstand when the screaming started and the lights went out.
Even Regular Roy got up from his chair then. One of the Ginger Sisters was letting out a long, loud wail, suddenly audible when the door opened—people were rushing out of the strip joint. Diya was so frustrated she could have spit. She kicked her platform heels back down to the ground and fastened her gold-tasseled top back into place. This had been one of her best Fizzy Milkshakes routines yet, and being Saturday night she'd been looking forward to some great tips. Crouching down, she felt for the fallen bills in the dark. What a stellar time for the transformer to blow.
Only, this time it wasn't the transformer. "Lollipop, go call the cops!" she heard Joey, that night's bouncer, order.
If they were calling the cops, it meant bad things. The Ginger Sisters prided themselves on never calling the police, no matter how ugly things got.
Grabbing the last bill, Diya-dressed-as-Fizzy shuffled down the dark hall to the red velvet lined doors to the parking lot. When she opened them, it was far too bright for midnight, especially with the lot's flood lights out.
The whole lot was lit by giant flames reaching up into the night, smoke merging with the clouds. It would have been pretty if it weren't for the smell of gasoline and charred flesh. The Ginger Sisters's turquoise Impala was on fire. Just then, one of the white-wall tires burst, and Diya jumped.
"Fizzy, oh my gosh, do you have your iPhone?" Lollipop asked, running up to her on pink, maribou-trimmed kitten heels.
Diya looked down at her sequin thong-bikini and shook her head no. Lollipop ran on, into the building, and Diya walked up to the crowd forming a short distance from the fire.
At the center of the crowd was Rose, bent over double, crying. Miss Wasabi hand a hand on her shoulder, and seemed to be trying to comfort the older woman. "NO!" Rose said. "NO, this isn't happening. This can't be happening. Oh my God, not Ruby!"
Joey, bless his heart, had found a small safety extinguisher and was running toward the fire.
It was surreal. People were streaming out of the apartments across the street, many of them on cell phones, presumably with the fire department. They wouldn't want their precious home values to dip any further, Diya thought.
When a woman ran up to get a better shot of the flames for Instagram, Rose snapped. "Get out of here, you roaches! You vultures, you WANTED this to happen!" And the crowd of yuppies backed away a bit.
Diya's ears were ringing, and she wondered if her hearing had been damaged by the blast. Had Ruby been in the car when it exploded? Where had she been going without Rose? The Ginger Sisters were inseparable.
Sirens could be heard in the distance, getting louder, and there were pops and crackles from various metal parts in the fire. A man was shouting, panicked because his Mustang was too close to the flames for comfort, or for safe removal. He was trying to pay Joey to move it, but Joey was ignoring him, spraying the tiny plastic hose at the fire. And Rose and Miss Wasabi and Coco were all crying.
The fire trucks pulled up and made everyone, even Joey, move further away. They ushered Rose and Joey to an ambulance, wrapping a tube of oxygen around Rose's head as they treated Joey for minor burns. A few of the firefighters were actively engaged in combatting the flames, but others seemed to be in serious discussion.
Miss Wasabi and Coco huddled against Fizzy, the three of them sharing two fire blankets on a picnic table outside one of the gentrified apartments.
"What the hell is going on, Fizzy?" asked Coco.
Miss Wasabi said, "It was a bomb. I know this, it was a bomb."
"How would you know?" asked Coco. "All your bomb experience?"
"Guys." Fizzy looked at the ambulance. "Quiet. What if Rose can hear you?"
They were silent for a moment. Then, Coco whispered. "Okay, if it was a bomb, who would want the Ginger Sisters dead?"
They all looked down at the picnic table and the various children's toys strewn about the yard.
"Besides the gentrifieds, I mean." Coco said. "They're nasty, but they're just passive aggressive. They wouldn't plant a bomb."
"Wouldn't they?" asked Miss Wasabi. "Just wait until they start collecting evidence. You'll see."
"You've got to stop watching CSI, Wasabi." Said Fizzy. "It was an old car, a '76..." She trailed off when she realized how dumb that sounded. Even ancient cars didn't tend to spontaneously explode.
"Well I might not be some med school genius, Fizzy, but that's just stupid. It's a bomb, that's all there is to it."
Just then a big, black truck rolled up, "Tampa Bomb Squad" written on the side.
"I TOLD you." Said Miss Wasabi.
"How'd you know, though?" asked Coco.
"It smells like eggs--that's sulfur." Said Miss Wasabi. "Thank you, CSI."
"I don't smell it." Said Coco, grinning.
"What, you can't?" Asked Miss Wasabi, theatrically sniffing the air.
Fizzy saw where this was going. "Co--" she started to say.
Just then, Coco leaned away from Miss Wasabi, lifting one butt cheek off the table to rip a loud fart into their blankets. Miss Wasabi and Fizzy screamed and Coco was laughing hysterically, when all three heard someone clear their throat.
"Excuse me, ladies." Said a deep voice.
"Hello, officer." Said Miss Wasabi, stars in her eyes. She'd always had a thing for uniforms.
"I'm going to ask you a few questions, if you're feeling up for it." Before he finished the sentence, Miss Wasabi was shaking her head yes.
"First, did you see anything unusual tonight?"
"No." Said Fizzy and Miss Wasabi, but Coco said, "Yeah, actually."
They all turned to her. "Yeah." Said Coco louder. "There was this guy, standing outside his car for like an hour and a half tonight. I know cause I only get a smoke break every 90 minutes and he was out there twice. I figured he was waiting on a dealer, which is a little strange since the gentrifieds moved in, but..." she shrugged.
"What did he look like?"
"Normal, for a white guy, you know? Maybe a little hipster-y? He had slim jeans and a hoodie on and he looked real nervous. He kept reaching into his pocket for something he was eating. And he had a backpack next to him. I remember thinking it looked like it was really full."
"What color was his jacket?"
"Uh, red? No, don't quote me on that, I think it was brown, maybe?"
The officer frowned. "Did either of you two see this man?"
"I might have, actually." Said Fizzy, realizing. "I was late--"
"As usual." Said Miss Wasabi.
"I was late arriving for my shift and there was someone in a hoodie eating DogeFood in the parking lot."
"Dog food?" asked Coco. "It did look a little like Dog food... ew."
"No, DogeFood, you know, that Kickstarter campaign? The one with the factory down the street with the horrible smell?"
Miss Wasabi nodded, but Coco was pretty oblivious to the tech trends of Tampa. "Never heard of it."
Miss Wasabi said, "It's that food replacement food. Tons of people paid more than $10,000 for a lifetime supply of it. It's supposed to be organic and ethically sourced. They got into Crunchcelerator."
"Yeah, and they never delivered." Said Fizzy. "That's the only real reason I noticed. He was eating it out of the purple pocket protector that came with a $75 donation--I haven't gotten mine yet."
"Ew, you donated?" Asked Coco.
"Ladies." Broke in the officer. "Did he approach Miss Red's vehicle?"
"You mean the Ginger Sister's Impala? He was parked right next to it."
The officer continued asking them questions for about an hour, but nothing else interesting came up. Most of it was identifying which of their patrons had been there that night. No real new faces.
"If you remember anything else, this is my card." He handed each of the ladies a card, and Miss Wasabi leaned forward and pulled out her top a little to stuff it in her bra. The officer gulped. "Have a good night..." he trailed off, awkwardly, and walked back to the other officers.
"Oh yeah, I'm going to tear that up." Said Miss Wasabi, eyeing the officer's posterior.
"You think that guy had anything to do with it?" Asked Coco, turning to Fizzy.
Fizzy frowned. "I'm not really sure. But it's clear he works for DogeFood, between the pocket protector and the nervous-hoodie thing. Total tech geek."
Coco nodded. "You would know. Wasn't your Dad into that scene?"
"Yeah." Said Fizzy. "He was a VC."
"Viet Cong?" Asked Miss Wasabi.
"No, Venture Capitalist. He worked with hundreds of millions of dollars, finding worthy startups to fund."
"Wow, that's cool. What happened? Why isn't HE paying your student loans?" Miss Wasabi wasn't noticing Coco's obvious stare-warning.
"He's dead." Said Diya, flatly.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know." Miss Wasabi looked at Fizzy's blank face. "I guess it's pretty recent, huh?"
"Stop asking questions, dummy." Said Coco. "Don't you--"
The patio door to the apartment opened. "Scat!" Cried a voice.
"What?" Asked Fizzy, right before they were all doused with a bucket of water. The door slid right back shut, with the righteous click of a lock being thrown.
Coco jumped up. "There's gonna be TWO murders tonight!"
#
The next morning, Diya found herself Googling DogeFood.
Crazy, she thought. It wasn't as if she would find anything that the police wouldn't.
But the DogeFood site had pictures of all the founders, and their CEO and "Lead Food Scientist" was a skinny white boy wearing a hoodie. She wasn't 100% positive that Chaz Bottlier was the same guy she'd seen that night--Coco was right, all these tech guys looked the same--but the name sounded sort of familiar.
Bottlier... Chaz Bottlier? As in Charles Bottlier? She quickly typed that into the search bar, and sure enough, according to a fraternity webpage, Chaz stood for Charles Bottlier, the second.
Dang, she thought. He's the son of the gentrified's developer? That couldn't be coincidence. She rooted around in her pink faux-fur purse for the officer's card. When she rang, it went straight to voice mail.
"Hi, this is Diya from Where There's Smoke. You gave me your card last night at the bombing? Yeah, well, I think you'll figure this out, but the DogeFood guy is the son of the apartment complex's developer. You know, Wuthering Estates? Maybe you should look--"
The phone beeped. "If you'd like to replay this message press 4. If not, you may hang up at this time."
"Shit." Said Diya. How un-satisfying.
She might not have been as close to the Ginger Sisters as some of the girls had been, but Diya still felt pretty miserable today. It had been Ruby that gave her the Fizzy Milkshakes moniker.
"Milkshakes!" the middle-aged lady had cried out during Diya's awkward try-out. "You should be called Milkshakes!"
"What kind of name is that?" Rose had cried back.
"Like that Kelis song." Ruby said. "You know, her milkshake brings all the men around?"
Kind of an old song, Diya had thought. But together the three of them brainstormed up "Fizzy Milkshakes," the ditzy, kind of innocent-but-busty character Diya would bring to the stage. She'd actually found playing dumb to be pretty useful at the club. As someone who was generally both intelligent and direct, she was always amazed by how much people would say around "Fizzy." Definitely far more than they would around Diya, former med student. Guys tended to find neuropsychology intimidating.
She turned back to the computer. What else was on the Internet about Chaz? Googling his name turned up pages upon pages of hatred--DogeFood customers that were out for blood. On a crowdfunding forum that was the third result, the discussion went from vitriolic to downright frightening.
"Let's find him and turn him to DogeFood!" One person wrote.
"He's not too hard to find, check out this pic." And there was a picture of Chaz out in front of one of the condos across the street from Where There's Smoke, pointing to his house in pride. His finger was literally pointing to his address, nail gunned to the outside of the condominium.
It was still only four PM, she didn't have to go in to work until seven. Maybe Diya should just take a look around. No harm, no foul, she thought.
The condo was at the end of one of the boulevards, clearly the model unit as it was standing alone, with 3 or 4 free lots on either side. It backed up to the woody former nature park, the one that Bottlier had cited as a reason housing prices in the area would rise despite the seedy surroundings. Actually, as Diya thought about it, she realized that the DogeFood factory would probably also back into the same marsh.
She hoped the condos weren't on well water. Even the gentrifieds didn't deserve to be drinking any of that toxic run-off.
As her junky car rolled slowly down the drive, Diya realized there was something weird about the house. It was covered in graffiti! And the lawn was littered with what looked like trash, and--a tent?
She parked the car in the cul de sac, but on the opposite side from the house so she could scope it out from a distance. She opened the car door, but didn't approached the house. Diya was a little alarmed by the tent, which appeared to be shaking.
"Ah-HA!" a voice cried out, and a short man with a dirty beard jumped out of the tent.
A homeless person? Here?
"Oh." The man looked dejected. "I thought you were Chaz."
"He's not home, then?"
"No, he hasn't been back for eight days."
"Eight days?" Asked Diya, without thinking.
"Yeah, I've been here for about 15 days, watching. The city impounded my car, or I'd still be sleeping in that."
Diya didn't know what to say.
"Do you know that creep? Are you his friend?" The angry hipster looked her up and down, at her tight go-go shorts and beat-up sedan. "I'm guessing not."
"Uh, no. I was just wondering if he was in the area last night."
"Last night?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Did you hear the explosion?" The angry hipster nodded, stroking his beard. "Yeah, well, I was just wondering if he had anything to do with it."
"Not sure Chaz has a good grasp on things like chemistry, so I don't think bomb-making would be in his skill set. But he does hate that strip club."
"Do you know him?"
"Nope, I just go through his trash. He must have been surveilling Where There's Smoke, cause he had professional-looking photographs and a copy of the deed and a few legal documents about it."
"What, really? You didn't tell anyone about this?"
He shook his head. "I just want my 14 grand back."
"What kind of documents?"
"Wills."
They looked at each other.
"I guess I really should have told someone, huh?"
"You couldn't have known."
"I knew Chaz didn't care about anybody but himself. But why knock off two old ladies? He wouldn't do it if he weren't getting something in return."
Diya shrugged.
The hipster looked down at his boots. "You want a PBR? They're in a cooler, still fairly cold."
"Sorry, I've got to get to work."
"You should drop by again sometime."
"Uh, yeah. Thanks."
She walked back to the car.
"See ya!" The angry hipster waved as she drove away.
Chapter Two
Officer Carlyle's phone was still going to voicemail. It was only five. Though Angry Hipster might not have put two and two together, Diya thought there was a pretty good chance Chaz was staying at the factory. She'd guess there weren't a lot of friendly couches to crash on, these days.
The gate to the building was unmanned, and the bar was stuck in the up position. The smell alone was probably enough to keep most people away. Even with the windows rolled up, Diya could, this time, really smell sulfur.
She parked her car one spot away from the only other one on the lot, a silver Audi parked in the handicapped space. Diya rolled her eyes. She'd dealt with a few frat boys back in her college days, but they never failed to surprise with their new lows.
Diya walked up to the front door. Maybe this wasn't a great idea. She dialed the officer again.
"Hi! It's Diya, again. Just wanted to let you know I'm going to drop by the DogeFood plant on Nebraska now. Haha, just in case. Nothing to worry about, but, you know. Okay, bye!"
This was crazy. What was she going to do, face down a murderer? It was time to stop the Nancy Drew act. She turned to leave and walked straight into a large spiderweb, face first.
"Ack!" She screamed a little and clawed at her face and hair, nearly tripping on her purple zebra stilettos. She ran down the sidewalk a way, toward the back of the building where there was less vegetation.
"What the fuck?" Said Chaz, who was laying on a plastic lawn chair, trying to get some sun.
"Um." Diya said. "There was a spider." She pointed back toward the door.
"No. Why the fuck are you here?"
"Would you like to support a children's charity with your purchase of a candy bar?" She gestured toward her fuzzy purse, as if it contained candy. She'd never been good at improv.
"You're that little Mexican hooker from Where There's Smoke!"
"I'm not Mexican!" She said. "Or a hooker. Or from Where There's Smoke." She stumbled back a bit, and her heel caught on a crack in the sidewalk.
"Ha!" Chaz said, standing up and walking toward her. Her shoe was stuck. She was about to ditch them when, without warning, Chaz smacked her hard across the face.
It wasn't the hardest hit Diya had ever felt, but when her head bounced off the brick wall behind her, that sure was. Falling felt like it took forever, and she still felt the sting of her ankle snapping.
She looked up, and everything swam. The sun was bright and Chaz's head was a shadow in front of it, like he had a halo.
"Oh, fuck." He said. It was the last thing Diya heard.
Chapter Three
The light was painfully bright and the sun was in the middle of the sky, like it was noon.
She reached for her purse, and felt only cool, squishy mud.
Oh god, she thought. I'm covered in DogeFood run off.
How long had she been asleep? If it was noon, that meant at least, what, 19 hours? Why hadn't anyone come looking for her? Didn't Officer Carlyle check his damn messages? Her head hurt.
She lifted her head from the ground to look at her feet. She wiggled her bare toes. Functional. But shoeless. Sitting up, she felt a cold sweat run down her back, and the uncomfortable sensation of wet cloth clinging to her skin.
She threw up. God, she hated dirt in general, but this took the cake. She smelled like rotten egg stink bombs covered in chicken shit. Thank God there didn't seem to be any bugs. They probably couldn't survive here.
She stood up carefully, mostly on her left foot, but it sunk deep into the mud, and she had to steady herself with the other foot. She winced, anticipating a flare of white-hot pain, but it never came. Looking down, her ankle looked fine, not even a bruise. She could have sworn she'd heard bone breaking.
Time to get out of this hell hole. She wasn't too deep into the marsh, the lazy little shit hadn't dragged her that far from the building, just enough that she wasn't visible from the road. She squished her barefoot way out of the marsh, praying there weren't any stray snapping turtles hiding in the mud.
The Audi was gone, but her car was there. Locked. And the keys had been in her purse. Well, shit.
She sighed and turned toward the gate. The bar was down now, in locked position, and there was bright yellow DO NOT CROSS police tape wrapped all around it. What? If they'd known where she was, why didn't they come to find her?
Walking out on the street, it seemed surprisingly quiet. Normally she would have just borrowed a cellphone from a pedestrian, but there were none. Knocking on a door in this neighborhood wasn't really an option, so Diya shrugged and started walking. It couldn't be more than six blocks to Where There's Smoke, and she could avoid stepping on a needle that far.
About four blocks later, she was attracting attention.
"Mommy, what's that?" Asked a little boy, as his mother grabbed his hand and yanked him across the street to the distant sidewalk.
Even the dealers were crossing the street to avoid her. Ugh, she must reek. She'd kill for a shower, a blow dryer and some Aqua Net right now.
For noon on a Sunday, the parking lot was packed. Looking around, there wasn't a free space. She saw Joey's car, Lollipop's old Jetta, Coco's Cadillac--everybody was here.
She pulled open the door and walked down the dark corridor. For just a second, she caught the skin of her hands in her peripheral vision--was her skin glowing? And then the curtains opened, as someone stepped through--and screamed.
Lollipop was screaming bloody murder. She looked terrified.
"I know, I know. I need a shower." Said Diya.
Lollipop threw her hand to her forehead as she were taking her own temperature. "Oh my God. Oh my God." She spun around, away from Diya. "Guys, Fizzy's ALIVE!"
"What?" She could hear shuffling, and Lollipop grabbed her arm. "Where have you been?" She pulled Diya through the curtains and into the unusually well-lit room.
There was an alter of candles in front of her Instagram profile picture, blown up to four by four foot dimensions. Shit, Diya thought, at that size, you could totally see the zit she'd tried to conceal with makeup. You'd think someone could have airbrushed it out.
It was a funeral. There were lilies and roses and everyone was wearing black. Still a lot of feathers and sequins, but black. This is what a stripper funeral looks like. They held my funeral at a strip joint.
Joey approached her first. "Where have you been, Fizzy?"
"Uh, the marsh?"
There was silence. Coco spoke up. "You were in the marsh for eight days? That Bottlier scumbag turned himself in, said he'd accidentally killed you in self-defense. What happened?"
"Eight days?" Diya repeated. "I couldn't have slept for eight days."
"...Well, I think you did." Said Miss Wasabi. "You're covered in marsh."
"Are you all right?" Asked Jorge, the other bouncer.
"Yeah, I guess. I'm a little sleepy."
"Holy shit." Said Coco. "They said they couldn't go in to get you. Did you know that factory's run-off is radioactive? They've got a two-block radius quarantined. Won't even let people go back for their things."
"You need a shower." Said Jorge. "And nobody touch her clothes, they're probably radioactive now."
Like me? Thought Diya. And that's when she finally began to cry, standing barefoot in a strip joint, site of her own funeral, covered in radioactive mud.
Chapter Four
Officer Carlyle arranged the meeting, against his will.
"You owe me." Said Diya. "You didn't check your voicemail for a whole 24 hours, while I was lying there, bleeding in radioactive goo."
"You can't just have a lunch date with your accused killer."
"Well, he's not my killer anymore, is he? It's kind of hard to believe he killed me when I'm walking around, bugging you."
Officer Carlyle made a harrumphing noise. He didn't like Chaz, or most of the tech kids in town these days, if he was honest with himself. He got along much better with the old residents of Seminole Heights, like the strippers at Where There's Smoke. Those girls never made any trouble. "I'll put you in touch, but no meeting him without me."
Chaz agreed to meet her at Ulele, which she could barely afford, but she was just glad to have the chance to ask some questions. She and Officer Carlyle arrived late, but not as late as Chaz. They waited another ten minutes for him to arrive.
"Hey, I didn't think there were going to be cops here." Said Chaz.
"I'm going to go stand outside." Said the officer. "Don't go hitting any women, now. This time there'd be a few witnesses."
The officer stood, and Chaz sat in his chair. After watching him walk a way, Chaz looked at her. "You know, you're one crazy chick. Why would you possibly want to talk to me, after I hit you like that?"
"Why'd you kill Ruby?"
"Oh, like I'm going to confess to a murder at a crowded restaurant after seeing just how luxurious Hillsborough County jails are. Nope."
"But you did it."
"Nope."
"Look, I'm not telling anyone."
Silence.
She sighed. "Look, let's say, hypothetically, that the explosion of Ruby's car was staged. If that were true, why do you think someone would have done it?"
"You're not wearing a wire, are you?" Chaz looked at her gold mini dress. "Nah, you couldn't fit a wire under that." He grinned at his own wit.
"Come on."
"Okay, okay. Hypothetically?"
She nodded.
"Hypothetically," He turned to a passing waitress. "Tell our waiter we want two Irish coffees."
Of course he'd order for her. "Mine with soy milk, please." She added.
"Hypothetically, if one were to want to kill two old ladies, they'd want to kill both of them at once, because hypothetically, their hypothetical wills might not have mentioned anyone but each other as heirs. In this theory, Where There's Smoke would have gone up for auction."
"But what does that mean to you?"
"Hypothetically?"
She snorted. "Yeah, hypothetically."
"If one were really broke and living in a dump of a model home condo with a dirty hippie in their lawn, they might hypothetically consider killing off two dirty old ladies to please their father, right?"
"Disgusting." She shook her head. "I really should have guessed."
"You know what I found out, Milkshakes?"
Milkshakes? Great. "What?" A waitress was coming back with two large cups of frothy coffee.
She set one down in front of Chaz, who frowned. "Next time, I'd like a fern pattern in the foam, please. Tell your barista." But he lifted the cup and started drinking. "I learned that your real last name is Thompson. Like Luke Thompson, the notorious VC."
She had been bringing her cup up for a sip, but halted. "So?"
"You're the daughter of Luke Thompson. It's such a small world."
"You knew him?"
"Me? No. But my Dad sure did. He used to laugh about what a goody-two-shoes your dad was. So it's kind of funny, in a dark way, that he turned out to be a criminal."
"He wasn't!" She said, looking down at her cup. It smelled like almonds. They definitely hadn't used soy milk. Gah, topping a bad day off. She put the cup down. She'd pay $6 dollars for this cup of coffee-flavored almond milk, no doubt.
"Yeah, that's what he said. Until, you know, the guilt overcame him and he offed himself." Chaz cleared his throat a little. Hoarsely, he said, "Suicide? That's the best they could come up with?"
Her eyes snapped up to meet his, coffee forgotten. "What?"
He cleared his throat again, and took another gulp of his mug. "Your father," he coughed, "was murdered."
"What?"
But Chaz coughed again, this time so hard that he brought a crisp napkin up to his mouth. Diya watched in horror as the white cotton bloomed dark red, almost purple. She stood up. "Chaz, are you okay?"
"No." He coughed again, and she could see dark blood dribbling down his chin. He pushed his chair back in an attempt to stand, but instead collapsed to the floor of the restaurant.
"Call an ambulance!" Diya told a scared-looking waitress. "Chaz, holy shit, don't you dare pass out. I need you to tell me more."
"It--hurts."
"No, about my father. What do you mean he was murdered?" She needed to know. Diya had never truly believed her father would kill himself, though she had tried to come to terms with it.
Chaz gurgled. "It hurts, it hurts."
She wanted to punch him. "Suck it up. What do you mean?"
"Maybe you should step away from him, ma'am. I'm just an anesthesiologist, but I'd say he needs air." Said a broad-shouldered woman.
Diya looked up at her serious face. Chaz was dying. She looked back down at his body and he began to shake, in the throws of a seizure. This couldn't be happening--what caused this? Just then, she looked up, and their waitress was snapping a picture of Chaz on her phone. She looked a little different, and Diya realized she was wearing a motorcycle jacket.
"You!" Diya said, and the crowd turned to look. The woman raced toward the kitchen. Diya stood up, hesitating for just a moment as she wished that Chaz could tell her more. But this woman needed to be caught. So Diya started running after her.
Despite the woman's headstart, Diya darted through the kitchen and burst outside to the loading dock. From there she could see the woman running to the end of a pier. There was a yellow jet ski moored there. Diya would never make it in time. Especially not in her peacock platform heels.
Cursing, she shucked off her shoes and began to run. Odd, she thought, as the wind whipped through her extensions, I swear I'm running faster than usual. She got to the dock as the woman was boarding the jet ski. Screaming, Diya jumped off the pier as if to tackle the woman below, but the engine kicked into gear and the woman sped off.
With a splash, Diya landed in the bay waters. Gasping, she treaded water and looked at the stream of water from the jet ski, disappearing into the distance. Shit. She swiped her hair out of her face. Of all the days not to wear waterproof mascara. She started to swim to shore.
Meanwhile, a crowd of kitchen staff and restaurant goers were approaching the pier.
"Did you run track?" Asked a sous chef, as she stumbled onto shore, picking seaweed out of her false eyelashes.
"I do a lot of cardio." She answered.
"That was fantastic."
She could hear the sirens of an ambulance pulling away. "Shit. They're leaving?"
An officer ran up then, huffing and puffing. He was carrying a few extra pounds. "Ma'am, we'd like to ask you a few questions."
She agreed, and they walked back into the restaurant, where a photographer was snapping photos and a few officers were gearing up with haz-mat gloves to deal with the blood everywhere. A female officer was dunking what looked like a diabetes strip into her coffee mug. She held the strip up with gloved hands, peering at it as it changed colors. "Yeah, this one's positive, too."
"Positive?" Asked Diya.
The officer nodded. "How many people knew you two were meeting here today?"
"Well, just Officer Carl--oh my gosh, where is he? Is Officer Carlyle still here at all?"
The officer shook his head no. "He's in the second ambulance. He took a blow to the head from behind."
"Oh no!"
"...but he's conscious now. He'll likely have a nasty concussion." He brought out a pad of paper and a pen. "Is there anyone that might be holding a grudge against you?"
"What? No. Is there--wait, positive? Was there something in my drink?"
"Yeah. The same thing as in his. The test strips are showing positive for cyanide and some strong acid."
"Cyanide and...?" She repeated, feeling numb.
"Yeah, that's what that amaretto smell is. The almond odor gives it away."
Chapter Five
"You can't feel guilty about this, Diya." Marsha said, over Skype.
Diya adjusted her headphones and rubbed her temples. She still had a nasty headache, lingering these last five days since her rise from the muck. "Oh, yes I can."
"You survived a poisoning. Whoever was trying to kill that guy also had it in for you. You're lucky; but there's no way you're at fault. Some crazy girl tried to murder you!"
Diya nodded. Looking at the timer beside Marsha's face, she realized they'd been talking for over 45 minutes, about Diya's problems. "Shit, Marsha, I haven't even asked how your day's been."
"Well, there are more important things!"
"Still. I could use a change of subject."
"Yeah, I hear that." Marsha looked out, away from the camera, as if she were scanning the room. "Well, I'm still at work."
"What?"
"Yeah. Hashtag startup life, right? Living the dream."
"It's like, ten PM. Go home."
Marsha sighed. "I can't really. My boss is still in the lab, and safety procedure requires two of us present. He thinks he's this close to curing AIDS, and I swear he hasn't slept in weeks. It's uncanny."
"Make him go home!"
"Look, there's no making Dr. Ming Hernandez do anything. He's as stubborn as they get."
"A workaholic?"
"Understatement of the year. That man lives for genetics. He literally doesn't think of anything besides mitochondrial replication. Or anyone, for that matter." Marsha sighed again, louder.
"Yeah, he should really think about you!"
Marsha looked like she would cry.
"Uh, so there's a sorority cruise reunion, huh?" Diya changed the subject. "Are you going?"
"Wait, are you?" Asked Marsha. "Because I don't think a lot of those girls are very friendly toward you anymore."
"Seriously."
"I know, it's weird, right? Alicia was even the one who got you to take that pole dancing class in the first place, and now she won't talk to you? Why, cause you get paid for what she used to do to show off at frat parties? It's unfair."
"Still, I'd go if you'd go."
"Yeah, right. Like the heartless Doctor would ever--" and she stopped, looking over her shoulder.
"Heartless?" Asked a tinny, distant male voice.
"Uh..." Marsha turned back to the computer. "Omg, got to go." And the screen went black.
Well, dang. Hopefully Marsha wouldn't be in too much trouble for insulting her boss.
Diya removed her earbuds. Marsha was her closest friend from college, and there had been a time when they would have shared every secret. But something about Marsha's strained look, the dark circles under her eyes, and the creepy lab in the background had kept Diya from spilling the biggest reveal of the day.
How do you tell someone that you think your father's suicide was a covered-up murder? She'd started to drag out an old box of newspaper clippings when she'd heard Skype ringing on her Mac. Looking at the box, she wasn't sure she was ready to open that quite yet.
If she started looking deeper, what would she find?