The Caller

Twenty-Two

Once Hunter and Garcia left her apartment, Tanya Kaitlin returned to the sofa in her living room. As she sat down, she once again pulled her bathrobe tightly around her, crossing her arms over her stomach. Her eyes aimlessly circled the room a couple of times before, for no specific reason, focusing on the tip of her toes. Right then nothing made sense and something inside her head was telling her that it probably never would.

‘Why couldn’t I know her number?’ she whispered softly to herself. Her body began rocking back and forth ever so slightly, but her eyes never left her toes. ‘I should’ve known her number.’

There was a long, shivering pause before her voice was reduced to a whispering breath.

‘Three, two, three, nine, five... no. That’s not it.’

The body-rocking stepped up a notch.

‘Three, two, three, five, five... no. That’s not it either.’

Tanya had thought that she had cried all the tears she had to cry, but she was wrong. Without even noticing them, new tears glassed over her eyes and began zigzagging their way down her cheeks.

‘Three, two, three, five, nine, four... no. That’s wrong too.’ The rocking, the shivering, her breathing, all of it were becoming a lot more emphatic.

‘I...’ Her voice caught on her throat. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. I should remember, but I can’t.’ Her quivering hands jetted to her face and she began sobbing again. ‘Karen... It’s all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.’

Tanya had no idea how long she kept her face buried in her hands for, but by the time she lifted her head up again, her fingertips were starting to prune up. Her eyes found the empty pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and reflexes made her reach for them.

‘Fuck,’ she said, full of disappointment.

She had, understandably, forgotten that she had run out of cigarettes.

‘I need a smoke. I need a cigarette.’ The fact that she had given up a few years back didn’t seem to bother her anymore. She dropped the pack back on the coffee table and got to her feet. ‘I really need a smoke.’

Tanya began searching the living room, the words ‘I need a cigarette’ spilling out of her lips every time she opened a new drawer. A new cupboard. A new box.

Nothing.

‘Goddamn it.’ She slammed another drawer shut. ‘I need to go get some more cigarettes.’ She looked around for her purse. Found it on top of the dining table.

In normal circumstances, Tanya would never leave her apartment without having put on at least a touch of foundation, a little eyeliner, and some lipstick; after all, makeup was what she did for a living. She would also never dream of stepping outside her front door in her bathrobe, or with her hair in the state it was in, but these were far from normal circumstances.

If people can go to Walmart in bikinis and underwear, she thought. I can run across the road to the nearest grocery store in my bathrobe.

Maybe people around her neighborhood were more used to Walmart oddities than what she thought, because no one, not even the cashier, gave her a second look.

By the time she made it back to her apartment, Tanya was already lighting up her second cigarette. Her tears had ceased and the shivering had subsided considerably. She returned to the sofa and this time she was even able to lie down. It didn’t matter that she felt so exhausted, or that she hadn’t slept a wink overnight, because she was sure that she still wouldn’t be able to fall asleep then, not without the help of some sleeping pills.

Tanya considered that thought.

She knew that she still had a box of Aventyl at the bottom of her medicine drawer, but she had already gone back to one bad habit in the last few hours, she didn’t really want to go back to a second one.

Tanya dismissed the idea and rested her head against a couple of cushions. Seconds later, her eyelids fluttered heavily and she found it impossible to keep them open.

The calming effect of her menthol cigarettes was a lot stronger than what she had anticipated, because almost as soon as she shut out the light, she was transported into a half-awake, half-asleep world. Dream and reality danced in front of her in a carnival of images that caressed and slapped her face at the same time, but what really bothered her was the noise. Piercing. Disturbing. Irritating. And it was getting louder.

What the hell was it?

It sounded like an electric knife.

Louder still.

No. A chainsaw.

Where is it coming from?

Too loud.

Finally, Tanya opened her eyes.

The room was silent.

‘What a fucking crazy dream,’ she said in a half-chuckle, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands.

Then she heard it again. Or at least she thought she did.

‘What?’ She pulled herself up into a sitting position quick enough to cause blood to rush to her head too fast. The effort made the room spin around her.

Tanya took a deep breath and grabbed on to the sofa to steady herself. She still wasn’t sure if her mind was playing tricks on her or not.

Slowly the room stopped spinning, but the noise didn’t go away.

Tanya looked left then right, but with the curtains shut, the low light, and the stupor of sleep, she could make sense of very little.

The noise came at her again, but not nearly as loud as moments ago. It had somehow lost its strength as it moved from dream into reality.

Then a memory came to her and it petrified her soul.

‘Oh, my God.’ Tanya cupped her mouth with her hands as she twisted her neck around to look behind her. Her front door was unlocked. The security chain undone. She had forgotten to lock it after she came back from the grocery store.

Her body stiffened with fear.

‘Someone is in here. Someone is in my apartment.’

Tanya’s breathing went from resting to ‘marathon finishing line’ in a fraction of a second. The lethargy of sleep was now completely gone, but then, just like that, so was the noise.

‘What the hell. Am I going crazy?’

She focused on listening and waited.

Nothing.

She concentrated harder and waited some more.

Still nothing.

‘Damn! I probably am going crazy,’ she whispered, laughing at herself before finally getting to her feet and walking over to her front door to lock it. Just to be certain, she stood there for a moment, ears pricked like an animal’s.

Silence.

Tanya coughed to clear her throat and that made her realize how thirsty she was. She walked over to the fridge and poured herself a large glass of cold water, but as she brought the glass to her lips, the noise echoed throughout her living room one more time, sending fear cascading down her spine and the glass plummeting from her hand. As it smashed against the kitchen floor, Tanya heard it again — muffled, subdued, but very real — and it had come from somewhere to her right. Immediately her body swung in that direction. This time it took her eyes less than two seconds to finally zoom in on the source of the noise.

Her cellphone.

It was vibrating on top of a paperback book on her dining table.

Tanya let out an almost hysterical laugh.

‘You silly bitch,’ she said to herself, stepping over the broken glass and snatching the phone from the table. She was about to answer the call when it finally dawned on her.

A phone call.

Her throat constricted as if she was being choked by strong fingers.

The phone vibrated in her hand.

Tanya checked the display screen — unknown number.

‘Oh my God! It’s him again. It’s that fucking psycho.’ Once again her eyes were flooded by tears of desperation. ‘No. I’m not answering this. I’m not.’

The phone finally stopped ringing.

Tanya looked back at its display screen with a terrified look on her face — four missed calls.

‘Why? Why is this happening again?’

Buzz, buzz.

The phone vibrated twice in quick short bursts. Not a call, but a text message. The message preview appeared on her screen.

Tanya, this is Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD. If you’re screening your calls, please pick it up. If not...

The fog of confusion thickened inside her head.

Tanya was about to unlock the phone and read the rest of the message when it began vibrating again — incoming call. She hesitated for a couple of rings while the gears inside her brain slowly got back to normal speed. As they finally did, she brought the phone to her ear.

‘Hello?’ Her voice wavered.

‘Tanya, this is Detective Robert Hunter. We spoke earlier this morning?’

Tanya immediately recognized Hunter’s voice. There was something about the way he spoke, a certain confidence in his tone of voice that somehow calmed her.

‘Oh! Hello, Detective.’ She felt her drumming heart begin to slow down.

‘I’m very sorry if I’ve woken you.’ Hunter sounded sincere.

‘No, not at all. I still can’t fall sleep, even though I’ve been trying.’ Tanya turned to look at the clock on her wall and her eyes widened in total surprise. She truly believed that she’d been lying on her sofa for no more than fifteen or twenty minutes, when in reality it’d been nearly three hours since her head had touched those cushions. ‘Oh God!’ she exclaimed.

‘Is there something wrong?’

‘No. No. I just... lost track of time. Didn’t notice it go by so fast.’

‘Given the circumstances, Tanya,’ Hunter said, ‘that’s not actually a bad thing.’

‘No,’ Tanya admitted. ‘You’re right. I guess it isn’t.’ She laughed again. Not hysterically, but still hard enough for Hunter to pick up on it.

‘Are you sure everything is OK?’

‘Yes, I’m positive.’ She looked back at the broken glass and the spilled water on her kitchen floor.

Hunter gave her a few more seconds before he spoke. ‘I’m truly sorry for bothering you again so soon, Tanya, but I just thought of something I need to ask you.’

Tanya took a deep breath. She didn’t want to think about what had happened anymore, but she knew she had no choice.

‘OK. Sure.’ He voice was back to being timid.

‘What I’m going to ask you to do is to think back, but unfortunately, I can’t tell you how far back. It could be a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or even longer.’

‘OK,’ she replied, with no conviction at all.

‘I need you to try to remember if anyone has ever asked you the same question you were asked yesterday, or something very similar. And by anyone I really mean “anyone”, Tanya — friends, acquaintances, strangers, beauty clients, whoever.’

Tanya sat back down on her sofa. ‘I’m not sure I understand, Detective.’

Hunter had a feeling he had worded it too much.

‘OK.’ He tried to make it simpler this time. ‘I guess that since the advent of the smartphone, we have all become a little... lazy when it comes to memorizing phone numbers. Go back ten, fifteen years maybe, and most of us knew at least five numbers by heart.’

Tanya was still young, but she knew Hunter was right. When she was only ten years old, she did have quite a few numbers memorized — her home number, at least two or three of her school friends, her father’s work number and so on.

‘Yes, that’s true,’ she agreed.

‘Great. So my question is — have you ever found yourself caught in a similar conversation with anyone, talking about how we used to memorize several phone numbers before, but now we don’t anymore?’

Tanya squinted her eyes at nothing while she thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she replied at last. ‘Actually, Cynthia and I were talking about how we used to know so many numbers by heart only last week.’

‘OK, who’s Cynthia?’

‘Oh, she’s another cosmetologist at DuBunne, the spa I work at.’

Hunter jotted down the name on a piece of paper. ‘Was anyone else taking part in that conversation?’

A couple more thoughtful seconds.

‘No. Not really. It was only Cynthia and I.’

‘Anyone standing close enough to be able to eavesdrop on the two of you? Can you remember?’

Tanya began chewing on her bottom lip. ‘No. I remember it well, we were at the back, sorting out the supplies room.’

‘OK,’ Hunter acknowledged. ‘Can you remember having a similar conversation with anyone else? Maybe a client, or on a night out with a date... anyone, really. Maybe a conversation where someone dropped a more specific question?’

‘Like if I could remember my best friend’s cellphone number?’ Tanya’s voice lowered, sadness punctuating every word.

‘Yes. But it might’ve not been so direct.’

Tanya took her time. Her left hand moved to her mouth and she began pinching her lips with her thumb and index finger.

Hunter waited patiently.

‘I... I can’t be sure right now, Detective. My mind is still a bit of a mess.’

‘That’s not a problem, Tanya. Thank you for trying. Could you do me a favor and think about it for a while. It might suddenly just come back to you.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Of course I can.’

‘If you remember anything, anything at all, however small it might seem to you, please give me a call. No matter what time, OK?’

‘Yes, of course. If I remember anything I will.’

Tanya disconnected and reached for the card Hunter had left by the ashtray on her coffee table. She studied it for a long moment before paranoia began whispering in her ear. Right then she decided that she would not put that card down until she had memorized both numbers on it.