So Damn Beautiful: The Lonely One: Book 1 of the SO DAMN BEAUTIFUL Crime Horror-Thriller Trilogy Read online

  SO DAMN BEAUTIFUL

  Part I: The Lonely One

  By A.E. Hodge

  A Fiction Fugitive Select Publication

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART I: THE LONELY ONE

  About This Book

  Chapter 1: The Lonely One

  Chapter 2: Photographs in Black and White

  Chapter 3: The Bad Side of Town

  Chapter 4: Alarm

  Chapter 5: Emergency Exit

  Book 2 Preview

  Join the A.E. Hodge Newsletter

  About A.E. Hodge

  About This Book

  Ever since a drunken one-night stand gone wrong, single mother Meredith Banks can't seem to shake Christian Morgan, the hypnotically attractive and dangerously obsessive intern from her office. It started with the late night phone calls, the hang-ups, the unwanted visits to her row home in Detroit. Now her son Troy, all that matters in her world, has gone missing after school.

  Meredith knows Christian is behind her son's disappearance, but the cops won't help without evidence. To find her son and his psychopathic kidnapper, Meredith sets out alone into Christian's deadly world: the criminal underbelly of Detroit, a surreal nightmare of depravity, desperation, and murder. The further she steps outside the law, the less hope she has of turning back. Failure now would cost Meredith her son--but finding him may cost her soul.

  Thus begins SO DAMN BEAUTIFUL, a finished horror-thriller trilogy for adults. The full serial includes:

  1. So Damn Beautiful: The Lonely One

  2. So Damn Beautiful: Children’s Home 5

  3. So Damn Beautiful: Lost Sanctum

  And don’t miss the FREE prequel:

  So Damn Beautiful Prelude: Seduction and Pursuit

  Chapter 1: The Lonely One

  By the time I reach the office, breathless and clutching a lukewarm McCoffee, it’s almost ten o’clock, another sunless morning in Midtown Detroit. In a half-assed attempt at hiding my lateness, I slip through the back door of the Law Offices of Spector & Krunk, Attorneys at Law.

  The sight of my reflection in the hallway mirror makes me wince—my long red hair, still wet from the shower, is drying into a mess, and my green eyes look drab without makeup. My purple blouse is wrinkled for lack of ironing.

  My unusual height makes it hard to sneak into the office unnoticed, and I’m forced to smile and wave at the older woman working reception. Her eyes slide from me to the clock on the wall with disapproval.

  When I reach my tiny two-walled cubicle, I set my knock-off purse under the desk and sit down. Invoices and documents pile up in my black plastic “To-Do” bin, but I ignore these. Like my tardiness and my frumpy appearance, work couldn’t concern me less right now.

  I turn on my computer, sip coffee nervously, and start to research my son’s latest ailment.

  Pinworms are small white roundworms that live in your upper digestive tract. At night, the female pinworms crawl out of your ass and expel their eggs while you sleep. The eggs make you itch, and when you scratch yourself you get the eggs under your nails, and then in your mouth, and thus back in your guts—the circle of life. According to Google, it’s one of the most common parasites. Over forty percent of the human population has or has had a pinworm infection. Most probably don’t even know it.

  A trace of sandalwood cologne penetrates my concentration, and I turn to see the office intern, Christian, leaning casually against the gray wall of my cubicle. He wears a light blue Oxford shirt, perfectly fitted and tucked, no blousing. His dark hair’s long, but neat. When I look up, he moves in closer, eyeing my computer screen. “No solitaire this morning?” he observes.

  I’ve been so pre-occupied, I almost forgot about Christian. Today is his last day in the office. “Do you know what a pinworm is?” I ask him.

  He lifts an eyebrow. I motion him closer and he stands behind my faux-leather chair to watch my computer screen while I play an online video taken by a microscopic medical camera. The video shows hundreds of worms crawling on the glossy red walls of someone’s intestines. Christian sums it up perfectly: “Nasty.”

  “But harmless. Almost always harmless.” I smile cheerlessly. “You could have them and not even know it.”

  He looks a little concerned for me. “Is that so?”

  “Sorry,” I say, realizing what I’m talking about—and who I’m talking to. “It’s just my son has these things. Here I am this morning, trying to work the damn coffee machine, and Troy comes in and says his turd has a tail...”

  Christian smirks. “How is he?”

  I shrug. “He still wanted to go to school.” I sigh and shake my head. “I should’ve been washing his bed sheets more often…”

  “He probably caught it from school,” Christian assures me. “Those shit-holes are incubators for disease.”

  I mistrust Christian’s smile; that damn cocky smile. “I’ll start washing his sheets every week,” I say again.

  Hoping vaguely that he’ll leave, I swivel back to face my computer. The worms greet me on the monitor and I feel a pang of nausea as I close the web browser. The desktop background on my PC is a tranquil image of the sunset over the Mediterranean. My husband used to take photos for calendars before he died. I always thought this photo was his most beautiful.

  Behind me Christian says, “They were talking about us in the break room.”

  “I know,” I say, idly adjusting the gold wedding band I still wear. At thirty-one, I’m the youngest woman in our division. The other three are old crones with crepe necks and barely a full head of blue hair between them. Christian calls them the Norns. Instead of weaving fate, our Norns weave gossip, and after the last office party, Christian and I are their targets.

  “I say let them talk,” Christian says. I feel pressure on my chair as he lays his hand on the backrest—so close, I can smell him. Sandalwood, ylang ylang. Is that Versace? God, how does a boy so young have such classy tastes?

  Somehow I maintain a brisk professional tone. “You only say that because you’re leaving. I don’t want to be known as the office whore.”

  “Shh.” His breath moves the tips of my hair as he whispers, “Relax...”

  “Damn it, Christian!” I leap up and whirl to face him. But when I look into his steel blue eyes, which are soft, sort of sad, like a model’s, I don’t know what to say.

  “What?” he asks, almost challenging me.

  I look down. It’s been years since I had to dump a guy and I never exactly mastered the art. The fact that this one’s so damn beautiful isn’t helping. I have everything rehearsed in my mind: how we were both too drunk for it to mean anything, how he’s too young for me and I’m—as much as I hate it—too old for him. It would be easier to say if I believed a word of it—and right now I don’t; not now, as he stands before me, immaculate and daring in slim-fit clothes, smelling like sweet memories.

  At that moment my boss Richard Anderson emerges from his office next to my cubicle. I freeze up like a criminal caught in the act; but Anderson seems to find nothing curious about Christian being in my cube. No doubt he’s oblivious to the rumors.

  Anderson is a big man in an expensive pinstripe suit, probably Armani. His face is dominated by a round, red, Irish nose. His thin black hair is slicked back in some retro haircut that only makes him look more like a wannabe mobster.

  “Morning, Meredith,” says Anderson, a little coldly, probably because I was late. He darts a furtive glance at my breasts, then flashes Christian the hyperbolic sort of smile most people reserve for infants. “And Christian! Just the man I was lookin for. Guess what?”

  “What?” Christian says, still wearing his own princely smirk.

  “Seeing as it’s your last day, we planned a little going-away lunch for you down at Hunan House. Best sweet and sour in Motown.” Anderson glances toward my breasts again. “Everyone’s invited.”

  Christian grins. “Hey, all right! Sounds good.”

  Anderson waves his hand. “You deserve it. You’ve done such good work for us. Best college intern we ever had!”

  Christian grins in genuine pleasure. The stupid boy hasn’t been here long enough to realize that Anderson will throw a party for anything. When the Lions lost out on the playoffs last year, Anderson threw a “better-luck-next-year” party.

  The most recent office party was almost two weeks ago. Jim Dawson from Accounting turned forty, so Anderson took us all out for drinks after work at this cute, tacky restaurant called Tully’s. Christian came even though he’s supposedly shy of twenty-one. No one carded him. He turned out to be a brown liquor man. Rum. Bourbon. Beer chasers. No discretion. I was surprised by how much he downed. I was on my second daiquiri and just about ready to leave when he came and sat at my table. His face was flushed but he was coherent, a little wild, more confident than ever. I think he was on his ninth or tenth drink. We talked about fish sticks, classic rock, my former brief career in modeling. Somehow we got around to movies. Turns out he’s a cinema buff and his dream was always to direct, and when I ask him why he’s studying business instead of film, his answer makes me sad.

  “Because dreams don’t pay the rent.”

  And I find that so mature, and at the same time so tragic, and in a little while I’m on my fifth dri
nk and we’ve both lost count of his and it turns out he’s a fan of my all-time favorite movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” and when he smiles at me, and says my name, and offers to give me the moon, I know I’m lost. I know and I don’t care.

  And later we’re in his car and somehow he’s driving and I’m a little afraid but also exhilarated, since I’ve done nothing like this since before Troy was born; and when we reach Christian’s apartment we stumble up the stairs, disoriented by fluorescent lights, to his room on the second floor. I remember bay windows and a beat-up sofa in the living room. He says he has roommates but I never see them.

  Next we’re in his bedroom, behind a closed door. The furniture is glass and stainless steel, the bed sheets black and beige, everything Spartan and immaculate, like a room in a magazine. I remember Christian lying on the bed, shirtless, all wiry muscle and alarming scars, looking up at me with cloudy blue eyes, so daring. I couldn’t help but touch him.

  One brief lapse of judgment, and we were set on a road to ruin.

  * * *

  At noon we carpool downtown to Hunan House for Christian’s going-away lunch. I ride in the back of Anderson’s Lexus. Christian rides shotgun, talking football with Anderson.

  In the parking lot of the restaurant we meet other co-workers—two Norns, Jim and Homer from Accounting, others—and when we go inside, an ageless Asian girl seats us at a vast booth and lays out our menus.

  At the bottom of the menu is a playful account of Chinese numerology. In numerology the date of your birth is used to calculate which of your incarnations you are currently living. You get nine—nine lifetimes in which to realize the purpose of your existence, before you step off the wheel.

  Here’s how you do the numbers: Add all the digits of your birthday together and reduce them to a single digit. For instance, my birthday is 8/11/1982, so it would be 8+1+1+1+9+8+2 = 30, which can be reduced further, 3+0 = 3. That makes me a ‘Three’—I’ve lived and died twice before, and this is my third incarnation in the world.

  According to the menu, I came into my current incarnation with a creative soul, a caring heart, and a natural drive to nurture. I don’t put much stock in this kind of stuff, but it makes for a cute distraction.

  Until Christian notices what I’m reading.

  “Hey, looks like I’m a One,” Christian announces. He’s sitting across from me, of course. “Says I’m creative, assertive, have ambition, and I’m at my best when facing a challenge.” He looks up at me and smiles.

  I look down at the menu. A Life Path of One comes with a negative side, too. A One can become dependent instead of independent; prone to aloofness, narcissism, and loneliness; roaring with frustrated energy, an infant soul thrust screaming and bloody into the wheel of life.

  The waitress returns and takes our orders. While we wait the conversation at the table shifts to Christian, and he revels in it, describing his plans to move to Colorado when he’s finished school and live near Denver.

  “There’s nothing more beautiful than the mountains in winter,” he says.

  Someone kicks me under the table and I look over. Jim Dawson from Accounting sits beside me, smiling. He’s nearly a decade older than me, but seems even older. He wears wire-framed glasses and his cheeks, rather than firming up, somehow seem to sag even more when he smiles. His hair is thinning, and the platinum blond color only makes it seem more translucent, like a halo around his head. He wears an unflattering plaid shirt that doesn’t match his yellow tie.

  “You all right?” he whispers, as Christian is blathering about something to the rest of the table. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Troy isn’t feeling well,” I confess.

  Jim’s face contorts with sympathy. “Aw, poor guy. Is it that flu going around?”

  “It’s a pinworm infection,” I whisper.

  Jim smiles and nods in an awkward way, so I’m not sure if he knows what I’m talking about or not. “Well, I hope he feels better. I’ll have to get you my mother’s recipe for chicken soup. It always perked me up when I was feeling down.”

  “Thanks,” I say, forcing a smile. Aside from Christian, Jim is the closest thing to a friend I have in the office. The Norns don’t like me, the married men avoid me, and to Anderson I’m mostly just a day planner app with tits.

  The food arrives. It’s mediocre, but at least it silences Christian. He eats quickly, sloppily. He does so many things like a man, but just as many he does like a stupid kid. Between him and my son’s worm infection, my stomach is in knots. I barely touch my orange chicken.

  As the meal ends, Anderson receives what he calls an important phone call—perhaps from one of his young paramours—and excuses himself from the table.

  The young waitress returns and refills our water glasses. In Anderson’s absence, she looks at the rest of us with polite uncertainty, and asks if we’re ready for the bill. Christian smiles and locks eyes with her in that almost predatory manner.

  “Sure,” he says. “By the way—love your boots.”

  The Asian girl’s smile is radiant and makes her look even younger. She scurries off, almost tripping over her own heels.

  “Oh, please,” I mutter. “They’re pleather.”

  Anderson returns to the table from the direction of the men’s room, sloppily tucking in the blue shirt under his pinstripe suit as he resumes his seat. He glances at the bill, smiles good-naturedly, and announces, “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to leave from here straight-away. You guys that rode with me can get rides with someone else, right?”

  He looks at Christian. “It’s been a pleasure having you work with us, buddy. You know you always have a place with us when school’s not in session.” They shake hands.

  On the way to the parking lot, Jim offers me a ride, but before I can escape with him, Christian asks to come too, of course. The three of us drive back to the office in Jim’s Nissan, mostly in awkward silence.

  Jim fidgets as he drives, smiling over at me when he can, but saying little. I’m fairly certain he’s in love with me. Since my husband’s death two years ago, Jim’s been desperate to spend time with me—and though I rarely accept his invitations, I never shoot him down outright, either. Like I said, it’s never been easy for me breaking someone’s heart.

  Maybe I’m afraid to lose my only friend. Maybe I’m just afraid to lose the attention. Either way, the result is this awkward friendship.

  “So did you finish that Sue Grafton book?” he asks.

  “Yeah, finally. It was okay. I saw the twist coming.”

  Jim grins. “Yeah, I know. You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.”

  He says this with adoration more than sarcasm and I’m not sure what to say next. Silence follows. After a while I wonder if I should say something more, and I look at Jim from the corner of my eye; he’s hunched over the wheel, paralyzed, staring ahead with a look of fixed anguish.

  In the passenger-side mirror, I can see Christian faintly in the backseat, a gray grinning phantom. I look away from him.

  “How about you?” I ask Jim. “Read any good ones lately?”

  Jim’s bright grin returns. “Oh! Uh, no, not lately. I’ve been so busy with church lately, I just haven’t had time. Hey, speaking of which, we’re doing a pot-luck dinner this Saturday. You’re welcome to come by if you want.”

  Automatically my mind scrambles for excuses. “Oh, I promised I’d take Troy to the park. Maybe another time?”

  He shrugs, only the hint of disappointment entering his voice. “That’s probably a good call. Poor little guy. A little time in the sun might make him feel better.”

  The conversation dies there, and I don’t mind. I accept the silence, look out the window, watch the sullen streets go past, and try to ignore Christian’s face in the passenger side mirror.

  When we arrive in the parking lot of Spector & Krunk, I thank Jim for the ride and he replies with a note of resignation that I’m welcome, anytime. I depart toward where my car is parked on the far corner of the building, near the rear entrance.