Own Your Demons

	“Fourteen G’s is my final offer. Let me go.”
	Caroline yawned behind one delicate-looking hand. “You’re not in a position to bargain, Todd,” she said, twiddling an old-fashioned straight razor stolen from Todd’s bathroom in her long, pale fingers. “We’re not making a deal. I’m making a demand and you’re saying ‘yes ma’am.’ I hired you to manage the Children Living With Cancer Foundation’s accounts. You used your position to steal one-point-five million dollars from it. And now you’re going to put it back.”
	“Or what? You’ll kill me?”
	She raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows as though he’d just provided her with a viable option. The truth was that she didn’t have a strong feeling either way about this man’s life. Was she actually capable of killing him? That would be impractical tonight, and would surely result in a family scandal and time in prison, but under other circumstances…? She didn’t have time just now to think about what that meant about her character, because introspection would lead to an appearance of weakness. Right now, she needed to be anything but weak. 
	Besides, who would steal money from children’s cancer research? It was impossible to feel bad for the man now as he sat there, tied to his bedroom sitting chair, glaring up at her as though she couldn’t possibly hold power over him. Remorseless. Audaciously asserting himself above her. It infuriated her that he still expected her to quail like a subservient maid. She was above him in many ways, and not just because he was tied up and she was holding a razor. She was his boss, his social and financial superior, the daughter of a family of fortune, ivy-league educated, a burgeoning entrepreneur, and clearly morally superior…
	Was she morally superior? A thought for later, perhaps.
	Something of her rage must have showed through, because for the first time, Todd showed fear. “Is this about the ass-grabbing thing? Look, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”
	She bared her teeth, further incensed by the memory of his unwanted advances, on top of everything else. “I like to stay on topic, Todd. If this was about that, I’d have killed you already.”
	The words left her lips before she could stop or think about them. Yet another thing to think about later. How was it that she was so calm just now? Was that a bad thing? She filed the questions away and added, covering up the hanging statement, “But you’re lucky. I’m reasonable. I’m firing you for sexually harassing me. I’m tying you up and holding you hostage for stealing money from me. Tonight, I’m giving you your laptop and you’re moving the money back. Tomorrow, you’re packing a box and handing in your key fob to the building. Understood?”
	“Look, the truth is, I…I don’t have the money anymore.”
	“You spent it already?” she asked, sizing up Todd’s cheekbone against the angle of the razor. “On what?”
	“Get that away!” he spluttered, watching the razor glint in the moonlight streaming in through the tall window. “You’re crazy!”
	“No, I don’t think so,” she said honestly. “I feel fine. What happened to the money, Todd?”
	“I’m going to report you for this!”
	“Not unless you want me to report you for stealing all that money and promptly losing it. Who do you think would fare better in prison? And who do you think would get a longer sentence? Just wondering.” The moonlight flashed along the length of the blade into his eye.
	He’d begun to shake. Good.
	“Where’s the money, Todd?”
	“I paid for the vacation I’m taking next month. It’s almost all gone – hotels, private jet, a cruise, entertainment…” He avoided her gaze then.
	“And women,” she finished for him.
	He shook as he looked up at her, but she hadn’t quite hit the nail on the head yet.
	“Girls,” she corrected herself in a whisper.
	He actually whimpered. The razor cut into his cheek. He deserved more, and she wanted to give it to him. Rage pulsed through her like a poison, and she was its master.
	“Have you ever touched your own girls?”
	“N-no! No! I swear! It’s illegal in America-,”
	“But not in South Asia, yes…I know.” 
	I’ve been there, she thought. I’ve seen them outside the brothels, trying not to cry after having already been with thirty men that day, carrying on because they think their families are the ones getting the money. They’re desperate. And their families are never coming for them because they’ve already been paid. The girls will be killed once someone realizes they’ve contracted HIV. And that’s their whole life story…I can’t imagine the hopelessness.
	She glared at the man sitting before her. “So someone else’s child is okay to hurt as long as it’s not yours, or another American’s? But Todd, hasn’t anyone ever told you that the law and morality aren’t the same thing?” She narrowed her eyes and pressed the blade further into his cheek. It was sharp. It sank in easily. “An eye for an eye, perhaps?”
	“I don’t h-hurt them,” he stammered, shaking. “I-I-I…”
	But he couldn’t finish his sentence. “It’s not like a falling off a bike, Todd,” Caroline whispered. She leaned down and put her face close to his, forcing him to look into her gray eyes. “It’s not like burning yourself after you’ve been told not to touch the stove. It’s not that kind of hurt.” Suddenly, she removed the razor, reached out, grabbed his tie and pulled him closer. “But I bet you sleep great at night, right beside your wife, because you don’t think the hurt I’m talking about counts as hurting.”
	Looking into his eyes, seeing all of his flawed humanity as he sweated and panted, Caroline still had the vague inclination to kill him here and now. But she wouldn’t, because she had a better idea.
	She shoved him by the forehead back into his chair and withdrew, then used the razor to cut through his best work ties, which were currently holding him to his sitting chair. It wouldn’t do for his wife to enter the room and find him tied to the chair. “I’m keeping this as collateral,” she said, taking his laptop from the side table and handing him back his razor. She wasn’t the least bit afraid of him. Not now. “Find a way to get our money back. You have thirty days to figure it out. In the meantime, I’ll take back what you haven’t spent. You can wire it over to the foundation’s account in the morning. You’re still fired.”
	Without even glancing at him again, she turned and walked out of the bedroom, closing the door to the hall and striding back down the wide spiral stairs to the entrance hall. She’d lied to him. She had no intention of returning the laptop. She would call the police station in the morning and give it to them, saying Todd had left it at work with some disturbing things left up on the screen.
	“How did everything go?” Isabelle, Todd’s wife, asked from the sitting room. The living space was an open floor plan, and Isabelle was able to look up from her magazine and watch Caroline walk by toward the front door.
	“Oh, just fine, Izzy. Just clearing some things up, really,” Caroline said, smiling sweetly so her dimples showed. “You have yourself a nice weekend!”
	“You too, dear!” Isabelle called, returning to her magazine as Caroline showed herself out the door.
	“Hope to see y’all at our Independence Day barbeque!” Caroline called out as she opened the door and stepped into the sweltering, humid night.
	Isabelle hadn’t asked about the laptop, and Caroline wasn’t about to draw attention to it. Caroline had come here requesting a work-related meeting with Todd (which in all honesty it had been), and carrying around a laptop wasn’t unusual within that context. 
	Caroline climbed into the driver’s seat of her car and exited the circular driveway into the quiet street. She’d come alone; she hadn’t wanted a driver for what she was doing tonight. Instead of going home, she drove a ways until she found the park she was looking for. It was brightly lit with streetlights. No one was around, but the park never exactly closed. It was simply a river front walking path and grassy expanse. Leaving the laptop stowed under the front passenger seat, she locked her car and traveled the short distance to the pier she knew to be here. The night air lifted her long blond waves off her neck as she walked out onto the pier and sat down, looking out at the water. She could hear the water running underneath her, and the sounds of birds cooing, settled down for the night along the shore. All was still otherwise.
	What kind of person am I? she asked herself. She had been willing to kill Todd tonight, but had calmly decided it wasn’t in her best interests. But she’d been mentally capable of it. For most people, killing another person was an unthinkable crime, wasn’t it? For her, it just wasn’t a smart move. She liked her job with the foundation well enough, and she didn’t want to embarrass herself or her family, so she had decided not to kill. Even under the influence of all that rage, she’d kept her head, and had been able to discern between necessity and base urges. 
	But she definitely wasn’t a crazy serial killer. She had no strong urge to kill anyone now. It wasn’t a thing she ever fantasized about. It wasn’t a drive. It simply seemed she had no qualms with the matter either way.
	Should she be scared of herself right now? She didn’t think so, because she knew perfectly well that there was a difference between capability and choice. Perhaps she was just slightly deviant from the normal range of human behaviors. There must be others like her somewhere. She knew enough to know she wasn’t that unique. Traveling the world had shown that to her.
	Bill had shown it to her, too. 
	She closed her eyes, remembering his crooked grin. She would never forget the summer – the best summer of her life – that she had spent with Bill, painting the town red. She’d just graduated from college and wanted to spend the next year traveling. Her first three months were spent bouncing around the States, and that’s when she’d met Bill, who had traveled with her. They had stayed together for as long as was practical, for they’d both known from the beginning that their arrangement was temporary.
	He’d shown her what it meant to be truly alive. She’d dated before, but Bill was unforgettable. He was wild and passionate, like a human firework: he came into your life and then disappeared quickly, but left you happier than before. Sure, she’d cried when they finally parted ways, but she’d smiled too. Deep in her bones, she would always be grateful that she’d met him. 
	He had been her first experience with poverty. And it was Bill who showed her that, no matter who you are or where you come from, you’re still human. You still bleed. You still want happiness, and in fact, being human means you deserve happiness. You still make love and eat and sleep. You’re still willing to steal beer from a gas station at 2 am when you’re young and drunk and anonymous (for she hadn’t ever told him who she really was). You still feel angry when you drop your map in a mud puddle. All of it. You’re human, and no matter how many things you own, you’ll never escape your own mortality, and feelings, and desires, and demons.
	 He’d shown her it was best to stand up tall and own all of those things within yourself, no matter how scared it made you to do it.
	Caroline opened her eyes. It was time to own her demons. She was capable of killing, and that fact wasn’t inherently wrong. It wasn’t wrong because she also knew something else about herself: she wasn’t evil.
	So what did that mean…was she the vigilante type or something? A giggle escaped her before she stifled it behind one hand, imagining being the first real person to become some sort of Bat Woman superhero.
	Well, perhaps going that far was impractical, but it wouldn’t hurt to take self-defense lessons. And it wouldn’t hurt to finally move out of her parents’ house. True, she had her own quarters, much like having an apartment, where she was able to create space between herself and everyone else. But she had a feeling that if she was going to start having nights like this one, she couldn’t afford for her movements to be noticed.
	Her phone buzzed in her jeans pocket. She took it out, flipped it open and read the text from her younger brother: Where are you? Mom and Dad are worrying again.
	She sighed audibly before replying, All fine, just at the park. Coming home. It was just like Dane to snoop on behalf of their parents.
	Yes, she would definitely need her own place. And now that I think about it, she thought, standing up and walking back to the car, I don’t want to be Bat Woman. Maybe Cat Woman…?
	Once she was safely at home, making sure to come through the front door so her family knew it, she went to her office and placed Todd’s laptop in a desk drawer. No one would disturb it there overnight. 
	She also removed a small black book full of blank lined paper from her bottom book shelf. Her mother had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday with a wink so she could store contacts…Caroline had assumed they both knew, without saying, which kinds of contacts it was meant to hold. To her mother’s dismay if she were to ever find out – for she was a little obsessed with marrying Caroline off well – Caroline had never once used it. No, she wasn’t a virgin…but people used cell phones now for these kinds of things.
	She opened the front cover. The binding was stiff; it cracked as she moved it. And there on the first page, she wrote:
				Todd Winternitz
				281 15th St NE
				Atlanta, GA 30309
				(404) 555-0166

	When she’d finished, she closed the small book again and brought it with her into her bedroom. She didn’t think she should place it back where it belonged on her shelf. This book would become...something else. Something different. Not your usual Little Black Book. She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant just yet, but writing Todd’s name and contact information there seemed inexplicably important just now. For a second, she looked around her bedroom, with its high ceilings, white crown molding, layers of wine red sheer curtains on either side of the overlarge windows, and soft beige carpeting. Where to hide the book? She decided that her safe, stored in the back of her large walk-in closet, would make the most sense. If she placed it under her mattress, a maid might find it while changing her sheets. If she placed it in her nightstand, there were no promises that someone – maybe even her brother – wouldn’t find it and ask why Todd’s name was written there. She especially didn’t need her mother wondering about the book. No, it was definitely best kept behind a lock. And it was best if her mother thought she’d thrown it out if she ever thought to ask about it.
	Todd didn’t show up to work the next morning. Caroline issued a letter of termination through HR to his home and informed IT that his key fob was to have its permissions revoked. She also gave Todd’s laptop to security and requested that they call the police department.
	Half an hour after dropping the laptop off, as expected, Caroline received a call from security at her desk. She picked up the receiver and said clearly, “This is Caroline.”
	“Ma’am, this is Officer James Mapes with the Atlanta City Police Department. Did you know Todd Winternitz was found dead this morning?”
	She froze as a shot of adrenaline coursed through her body. “No!” she responded, genuinely surprised. “What happened?”
	“We can’t release details to anyone but family just yet. But may we access his records here in case something turns up that helps the investigation?”
	“Of course,” she responded. “I’ll have someone come and show you up to HR.”
	They hung up. She took a deep breath and thought hard. This was definitely not her doing, and there was no way for them to connect her to his death. Surely, Isabelle would report that Caroline had been to their house last night. But the officer had said Todd had been found dead this morning. Not last night. His wife had probably gone to bed with him as usual. Answering the officers’ questions, if they came, should be easy.
	She relaxed. Everything should be fine. They could even search the house and car, if they wanted, and would find nothing of consequence. It was unlikely they would be able to get a search warrant for the safe in her closet. And she was, in fact, innocent.
	The police did ask her a few short questions over coffee that afternoon, but it was no issue for Caroline to answer them. Displaying nothing but dimples and airy ignorance, she readily admitted to coming to Todd’s house for a short meeting and leaving again. She told them he’d seemed normal at the time and that his suicide was such a shock (thinking back now, it didn’t shock her at all). She told them she’d seen a disturbing email asking to reserve Taiwanese children for sex on the screen of his laptop this morning, and that she had brought it to security, as her civil duty demanded of her. She also told them, as they would soon learn in going through Todd’s file, that she’d fired him for sexual harassment. And they thanked her for her time. And that was all.
	When the investigation ended, and Todd had been buried, Caroline retrieved the Little Black Book from her safe and stared at the name and contact information listed. After a few minutes, she made her decision. She struck through the name with a single red diagonal line, and placed the book back into her safe, with the distinct feeling that this was just the beginning.

 

Tags: anger, scary, dark, hate, fear,