Lust Demented

{XXXV}

I STARED AT THE BACK of Chiara’s birth certificate letting Kiko block her face with it. She was absorbed. A one page life story for her to read and me to feel.

“She’s out there somewhere. Kiko help me find her. I can’t think anymore. My mind is empty. My heart is so full, but my mind is empty.”

“Look who the signed witness is…”

“Hawaii.” My voice hung in the air just long enough for whoever opened the front door to discover that the company had made it home before them.

“Farrow.” Kiko’s mouth moved without a sound, stretching in slow motion, so I caught the drift of her air breaking.

The door latched with a sound loud enough to make it clear that we were all locked in together. Only a faint shuffling followed. There weren’t any sirens in the air. No voices on the sidewalks. No construction, banging, clacking. No trucks idling or horns honking. NYC wasn’t even here anymore. We were in America I guess after all. It was a dead man’s apartment that resembled a colonial house. My daughter’s birth certificate missing my name was balled-up flying out the window. The cops were tip-toeing up the stairs.

Sgt. Bethany Powers stared me down with a joker’s grin, keeping a hand on the gun in her holster for effect. Kiko seemed to wish she had longer nails. The type that could skin alligator scales.

“Hey Farrow, you got your book back.” The cop moved in on me shifting my dick with a carnivorous lick of her lips.

“I’d rather have Chiara back.” Saying her name felt powerful. A new strength was building inside me that should have always lived there.

“Chiara. Funny this must be her bedroom. Strange it never came up in conversation when we first met.” Sgt. Bethany Powers stood over the crib, spinning the soft cartoon stars attached to the mobile. “But I guess your heart isn’t aching for Percy, her legal father. And the mother… Hmmm… what I would do to meet Missy Featherton. Think she’ll come back for her share of the inheritance? Did you know he left her this townhouse? Think it’s worth twenty million in this market?” Sgt. Bethany Powers drew her gun, jabbing me in the belly with it.

“If you cops are so fucking smart, where’s Missy? Where?”

“Answering questions with questions, are we? It must annoy you that we figure out so many things before you. When you do something day in and day out, you get good at it. Just like writing Farrow. Except for us somebody already wrote it, but we can’t see the whole story. We have to play with what’s missing until it makes sense.”

“Sounds the same to me. Maybe you should become a writer and I should become a cop.”

“Farrow you’re more than a writer. The con you pulled with Percy was no less than criminal genius.” Sgt. Bethany Powers pursed her lips with yearning.

“You’re sitting on a fortune now, time to invest in some new shoes.” Detective Anderson stepped on my dirty sneaks with his combat boots.

“What did you do Farrow?” Kiko tugged on the neck of my shirt pulling me into her ribs.

“Tell us or we’ll write it ourselves.” Detective Anderson had both hands in fists, but didn’t seem aware of it in the least bit.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I want is to see my daughter. I can’t get my friends back. Please help me. I don’t want to lose her.”

“Help yourself Farrow. We’re taking her with us.” Sgt. Bethany Powers grabbed Kiko, twisting her arms behind her back.

“Someone’s got to take the fall. No way around it.”

“It’s okay Farrow. I’ll go with them.” Kiko’s loyalty gave me chills.

“Take me not her.”

“Farrow you’re not here. I don’t hear you. I definitely don’t see you.”

“She’s innocent.”

“Nobody’s innocent.”