We once had a break in at our old house in Portland. Nothing serious, just a couple of my mom's jewellery and a TV. Luckily, no-one was home when it happened and I was the first to discover it when I came back from school. The experience is so vividly engrained into my memory because of the intense sense of violation I'd had.
Someone had been inside the house.
I imagined them walking around, touching the TV, sleeping on the couch, smelling our clothes. For a few weeks that other presence, that looming shadow of darkness, was weaved into the fabric of our home.
Somehow, I'd felt someone had been in there even before stepping into the hallway. There was just an overbearing presence of something. Like a foreign energy had shifted the ley lines of the house, it just felt...invaded.
That same weight strangles me now as I step into my apartment. I know Connie is here from the musky smell of marijuana that hangs in the air. I've asked her to smoke on the balcony, if only so that it doesn't get on the couch. But I guess she figures the smell will go well with the wine stain.
"Connie?" I will my voice to be natural in case someone other than my new flatmate is here.
The cold polished metal of my keys is smooth on my thumb as I tighten my grip on it for reassurance. It isn't the best, but it's the closest thing to a weapon I have right now. I can feel the presence of that looming shadow of invasion - slowly, permeating its malicious intent.
The reflective polish of the double door fridge is distracting as it simulates a moving shadow from the corner of my eye. And despite the dishwashers humming, the breakfast nook view assures me that there's no-one in the kitchen.
Ahead, is the all-white open bathroom, and the two bedroom doors. For the first time, since I've moved here the hardwood floorboards look vast and never-ending. I'm probably worried about nothing. But still, I just can't shake the feeling, that I can't shake the feeling.
Throughout the time Connie's been here, I've never walked into the house with this sense of foreboding. I know I have a person staying over, so where is this feeling coming from?
Instinctively, I'm cataloguing my belongings. The TV's perched on the white stand. My oversized twin lamps guarding the curtained windows. The three ceramic encased plants are still congregating on the wooden coffee table. Everything is in place.
Everything is in place so why do I...
"Oh finally." The deep familiar baritone stops my heart as my adrenaline slams into my chest.
Emerging head first with his swagger and tanned suit, Thomas Hart walks out of my guest bedroom like I'd invited him over for lunch. So much so, for a brief second I'm asking myself if maybe I had.
"Thomas?" I question, my heart hammering in my chest. What was he doing here? Did Connie let him in? Did they know each other?
His smile is genuine as he walks forward to embrace my still body.
"You want some coffee?" He asks, facing away from me and into the kitchen. "I just put it on."
The man struts around my kitchen and actually helps himself to a cup of coffee. "Hmm," he inhales. "The good stuff."
"What are you doing in my house Thomas?" I ask incredulously.
"I don't know Liz." He takes another sip and stares me down the cup with his ever present dimpled smile. "I should be asking you?"
Even in my state of confusion and growing anger, I can admit that Thomas Hart is the epitome of cool. His tall frame, draped in an unbuttoned tan suit and a light knit cream turtleneck, makes for an intimidatingly impressive figure. The way his presence caresses the atmosphere, as he walks to the window, makes me question if I even live here. If I didn't know any better, I'd think I was visiting him.
"No-one really knows what I do at Trillium. Hell, my pay cheque doesn't even come with a job title." His speech carries a musical cadence to match his polished appearance, almost like he's reciting poetry. I wait patiently to see where he's going with this. My fears turning to a bubbling irritation from waiting for him to reach the point.
"But I like to think of it like working at a railway station. See Trillium is a big train Liz. It's a big train, with big steam, running a lot of big industries. Which means, that that train can't afford to fall off. And my job, is to make sure that that train keeps on running. I'm like...like an engineer. See all the little bits that fall out? I gotta knock 'em right back in so that the train keeps on running."
In my tenure as SA, I'd spent a lot of time trading favours and secrets. The one thing I knew about blackmail and 'favours' was that the bigger the secret, the more you had to lose and the easier you were to manipulate.
Up until now, all Thomas and his associates had on me was my clandestine affair with the presidential nominee's daughter. An easy enough scandal that would blow over within one news week of its release. With the final debate in two days and Will being a clear winner, it wouldn't be of any consequence to them and their ambitions for the presidential candidate at this stage.
However, as of yesterday, at 11.30 pm my secrets had made me the biggest target for anyone with a political crossbow set on the bullseye of this years election.
How could anyone have found out about it so soon though?
"Now, a couple of hours ago I get a call asking me to go down to Skyline Towers and await further instructions. My guy says there's a problem with our candidate and his little SA." He moves to place the cup on the table and crosses his legs on the sofa. The feminine posture takes nothing away from his seeping masculinity. Thomas Hart was the very essence of a well-groomed cosmopolitan man.
"Now I don't ask questions Liz. I like to do my job. I like to do my job, get paid and occasionally treat myself to a good cup of coffee. See, there's really only 3 ways to get rid of a Trillium problem. Money, blackmail or something a little more: permanent."
I can feel sweat pool between my toes and my back is itching with worry. I ask slowly, hiding the mounting fear in my voice: "What are you doing in my house Thomas?"
His stare tries to uncover my secrets but that's a game I would never lose.
"Let me show you something." He stands and walks towards my guestroom and I curiously follow. Standing aside in the doorway, he gives me an opportunity to glance at what he so mysteriously wants me to see.
Before I can step into the room, everything hits me at once. The acrid smell of copper punches me in the guts and I lose my breath. The sound of squelching flesh floods my ears as images of the blood drenched plastic sheeting return to me. Kristen Wyland's twisted neck morphs into my father's pallid grey face and the images blur into Connie's blood splattered open neck.
The pulsing at the base of my skull returns tenfold and like a camera lens, my vision zooms in and out of focus. Oxygen swims and roils in my guts and I feel my heart gag and leave through my lips.
No, that's not my heart, that's actual vomit.
Thomas' baritone cuts through my assault with its false reassuring tone. He bends over to speak lowly in my ear:
"My advice, it's less painful to work with Trillium than against them. Now," He clears his throat and adjusts the cuffs of his jacket.
"Someone will come over in a few to clean this up, be sure to sign them in."
