The Feminine Touch Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHATPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE PAST

  CHATPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The Feminine Touch

  by V. J. Chambers

  THE FEMININE TOUCH

  © copyright 2017 by V. J. Chambers

  http://vjchambers.com

  Punk Rawk Books

  Please do not copy or post this book in its entirety or in parts anywhere. You may, however, share the entire book with a friend by forwarding the entire file to them. (And I won’t get mad.)

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Do I need to talk into it?” said Billie Martin, bending down her head to get it closer to the lavalier microphone that Nash Wilt had just pinned to her shirt.

  Nash chuckled. “No, it’s fine. Just, uh, lean back and talk normally.” He lifted one of the headphones he was wearing—big noise-canceling ovals that covered his ears like Princess Leia buns. “Say something else.”

  Billie blushed. “Um, what do you want me to say?”

  “Oh, anything,” said Nash. “What did you have for breakfast?” He went over to his laptop to fiddle with the equalizers on the program he used for podcasting. He was Nash Steven Wilt, and he hosted the podcast Cold Case File, which was fairly popular these days. It was no Serial, but Nash did all right for himself. His podcast centered on unsolved crimes, mostly cold cases. He was especially attracted to unusual stories with quirky twists and lots of human interest. His podcast led to renewed interest in the cases, which often meant they got solved in the wake of the episode airing. Sometimes he even solved the cases himself.

  “I don’t eat breakfast,” said Billie.

  “Yeah, I don’t much either,” said Nash. “I like to have coffee, though. Sweet coffee with lots of cream. So, I figure I get my calories.” He looked up from the laptop. “You’re good.” He turned to Billie’s brother Adam. “How about you now?”

  Nash was set up to record in the living room of Billie’s and Adam’s family home. Nash hadn’t asked, but he got the impression no one was living here, but that the two had been keeping the place up for the past few years. That made sense to him, considering that, until recently, no one had been sure whether their father was dead or simply missing. They would have wanted to keep his house for him, if there was any chance he was coming back.

  The living room was decorated in dark blue with light cream accents. The couches were navy. The carpet was light. Pillows on the couch were striped blue and cream. There were tasteful accents on the coffee table and framed art on the walls. It was all very coordinated, unlike Nash’s own living room, which was just a hodgepodge of crap he’d cobbled together from Goodwill and friends’ castoffs.

  Back when he and Madigan had been going hot and heavy, getting serious, they’d talked about buying a house together and how they’d decorate it. But that hadn’t worked out. Madigan still lived in the apartment they’d shared together, and he rented some hole in the wall across town. Not that it mattered. He was on the road a lot for the podcast, so he wasn’t even there very often.

  “You want me to say something?” Adam’s voice was a rich baritone.

  Nash smiled as he heard it. “Yeah, that’s great. Just a little more so that I can adjust a few levels.” He nudged his mouse.

  “I eat breakfast,” Adam offered.

  Nash laughed. “What’d you eat this morning?”

  “Avocado and toast with an egg white omelet,” said Adam.

  Nash smiled. “Perfect.”

  “It does sound delicious,” said Billie.

  Nash had meant that he had the levels set, but he didn’t correct her. “You guys give me a little back and forth just so I can hear you together?”

  Adam cleared his throat. “Uh, test? Test, test, test? That good?”

  “Sure,” said Nash.

  “Test,” said Billie. “Man I feel weird saying that.”

  “You’re both great,” said Nash. He sat down across from the two of them. The siblings were on the navy blue couch. Nash was sitting on an easy chair, also navy. “Shall we get started, then?”

  Billie and Adam exchanged a glance, and then they both turned back to him, nodding.

  “Okay,” said Nash. “So, what we’ll do is go through this. Don’t worry if you stumble over words or anything like that. I’ll edit it all down, so it’ll come across smoothly, okay?”

  They nodded again.

  “So, let’s just start at the beginning.” He gave them a reassuring smile. Keeping interviewees at ease was part of the trick to getting a good interview. It was funny, because Nash didn’t really consider himself a “people person” in regular life, but he found that once he was recording, everything changed. Maybe it had to do with hearing his own voice through the headphones. It didn’t sound like him. It sounded like someone else. And he could feel as though he was someone else. Someone who was gregarious and charming. “This all started for you about two years ago. What happened two years ago?”

  “I think it
started before that,” said Billie.

  “Okay,” said Nash. “When do you think it started?”

  “When my father married Sibel,” said Billie.

  “Well, that was two years ago,” said Adam. “They were only married for about two months before they both disappeared.”

  “Why do you think it started with her?” said Nash.

  “I just… I never liked her,” said Billie. “There was something off about her. I couldn’t put my finger on it back then, but now I think… I think it was her eyes. They were sort of empty in a way I can’t explain. She’d smile or laugh, but her eyes just looked dead.”

  “You’re being dramatic,” said Adam. He turned to Nash. “She was very pretty.”

  “Sibel was?” said Nash. “Your father’s new wife?”

  “Yes,” said Adam. “She was a beautiful woman. Blond hair, blue eyes, very delicate features. She had an air about her, something genteel. She was… classy.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Billie.

  “She was,” said Adam. “I never liked her either, but I could see why Dad did.”

  Nash laced his hands together and rested them on his knee. “So, why do you say it started with her?”

  “Well, I think it’s clear that she had something to do with his death is all,” said Billie. “It’s suspicious. She’s this young, pretty woman—”

  “And when you say young, how young do you mean?” said Nash. “Was she in her early twenties? Was she eighteen?”

  “Oh, no,” said Adam. “She was older than that. I’d say, I don’t know, maybe early thirties. But she was young for my father. I mean, she was young enough to be his daughter.”

  “Right,” said Billie. “She’s only a few years older than Adam. And no one had ever heard of her. She just appeared out of the woodwork, and we all thought immediately that she was, you know, after his money.”

  “My father was very successful,” said Adam. “He was an accountant, and he did very well for himself. He had a lot of his money in stocks and bonds as well. But, to be fair, we don’t know that Sibel hurt our father, because no one’s seen her in two years either.”

  “Well, let’s go back a bit,” said Nash. “Your father introduced you to Sibel, and he told you that he was engaged to her, and—”

  “No, they were already married,” said Billie. “They’d gone off and eloped together. I think that was part of what set off alarms in my head. Why did it have to be so quick? Why weren’t we invited to the ceremony? It just seemed strange.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Nash. “Yeah, I can see that. So, your father is suddenly married after… how long had he been single?”

  “Since divorcing our mom when I was in junior high,” said Adam. “Over fifteen years.”

  Nash nodded. “And so, you meet this woman, and neither of you like her.”

  “No,” said Billie. “I didn’t like her.”

  “I didn’t like her either.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was nice enough,” said Adam. “But I was suspicious.”

  “Yeah, she was always very polite, and she’d speak in this soft, gentle voice and act real sweet,” said Billie. “But it seemed like an act to me.”

  “Why did it seem like an act?” said Nash.

  “Well, no one’s that perfect,” said Billie.

  Adam nodded.

  Suddenly, Nash felt something soft brushing against his feet. He looked down to see a sleek little calico cat rubbing against his ankles. He laughed. “Oh, hey there, beautiful.” He reached down and scratched the top of her head. The cat purred.

  “Damn that cat,” said Billie, starting to get up. “I’ll get her.”

  “Sit down,” said Nash. “She’s fine.”

  “You sure?” said Billie. “Dad loved that cat, so we kept her, but I’m not exactly a cat person.”

  “Not a problem,” said Nash. “If you get up, I’ll have to wire you back up for sound, anyhow.”

  “What if the cat meows, though?” said Billie. “Won’t that mess up the audio?”

  “I’ll edit it out,” said Nash, smiling. Besides, he thought that sometimes ambient background noise like that added something to the recordings. The allure of a podcast was that it was intimate and DIY. It wasn’t a polished, slick recording from a news broadcast, but a guy in his living room splicing together interviews.

  “Okay,” said Billie.

  The cat jumped into Nash’s lap. Nash stroked her. “Uh, where were we?”

  “Dad married Sibel,” spoke up Adam.

  “Right,” said Nash. “So, they’re married. A couple months pass. And then?”

  “And then they go out on the lake together, on my father’s boat,” said Adam. “And they never come back.”

  “Really?” said Nash. The house that he was interviewing them in sat on the lake. There was a dock out back, and when Nash had come in, he’d seen several gleaming boats tied up at the dock. “No trace at all?”

  “Well, the boat came back,” said Billie. “Or, I guess, they found the boat.”

  “Yeah, it was floating upside down a few miles out into the water,” said Adam. The lake here was fairly large. It was man-made as a result of damming for hydroelectric power in the 1920s. “But neither of them were in it.”

  “So, that must have been devastating,” said Nash. The cat was still in his lap. She’d curled into a little ball and was purring away contentedly. He scratched her under the chin.

  “Definitely.” Billie got a little choked up. “We thought he’d drowned. We had the lake searched. Divers went down. No sign of him. No sign of Sibel. But the lake does have a fresh water source that feeds it, and then it goes into the Osso River at the other end, so it was possible that they’d been, um, swept away.”

  Nash paused, nodding sympathetically, keeping his gaze on Billie for a few moments until he thought it was okay to go on. When he spoke again, he softened his voice. “You thought he was gone, but you couldn’t be sure. And years passed. Two years.”

  Billie said, “Yes. Two years passed.”

  “And then what happened?” said Nash.

  “Then, just a few weeks ago, our father’s body was found,” said Adam.

  Nash let out a heavy sigh. “Oh. That must… I can’t imagine, but I suppose that you feel both devastated and a little relieved to finally know for sure?”

  “Yeah, there’s an element of that,” said Billie. “But I think mostly we’re just confused.”

  “Why?” said Nash.

  “Because of where they found him,” she said.

  “And where was that?” asked Nash.

  “It’s, uh, I don’t know, ten miles from here. It’s a nature preserve. There are trails and our father used to take us there when we were younger to hike and have picnics,” said Billy.

  “It’s nowhere near the lake,” said Adam.

  Billie kept going. “He was buried up there, and they found a bunch of other bodies too. A bunch of women’s bodies. They were all buried in these neat little rows, and my father was in line with all of them.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” said Adam. “Someone took him there.”

  “Sibel,” said Billie. “Because you know whose body’s not there? Hers.”

  “You think Sibel murdered your father,” said Nash.

  “I do,” said Billie.

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Adam.

  Nash turned to him. “So, you’re not convinced.”

  “I…” Adam spread his hands. “I don’t see how she did it. And whoever did do it, well, they had to know about those bodies up there in the woods, which means they probably killed and buried those bodies too. And Sibel was not… you know, a person of a lot of upper body strength. I can hardly picture it.”

  Billie snorted. “You’re just saying this because you’re a guy.”

  “What?” said Adam.

  “She’s a pretty woman, and you can’t believe a woman would do some
thing so brutal,” said Billie. “She got under your skin, just like she got under Dad’s.”

  “I’m not saying that,” said Adam. “I mean, I never liked her. I’m only saying that the logistics don’t add up.”

  Billie scoffed.

  Nash broke in. “Well, let’s talk about the other bodies for a minute, okay? What can you tell me about them?”

  “They’re the victims of the Blue Lake Stalker,” said Billie.

  “Who’s that?” said Nash.

  “No one knows,” said Adam. “But for years, women have gone missing from the lake, and they’ve never been found, and the media got this idea that there must be a serial killer at work, and they named him the Blue Lake Stalker.”

  “There was a serial killer at work,” said Billie. “If they found the bodies, that means that someone killed them.”

  “Well, I don’t buy that person was Sibel,” said Adam. “I can’t see her killing all those women.”

  “Maybe she did,” said Billie. “And maybe dad found out, and maybe he threatened to expose her—”

  “I can’t see it,” said Adam. “Besides, the murders stopped two years ago.”

  “Yeah, when she went missing,” said Billie. “Maybe she found some other lake to stalk her victims.”

  Adam chuckled. “That’s just starting to sound nuts.” He turned to Nash. “Look, maybe you want to see a picture of this woman.”

  Nash shrugged. “Is it something we could put on the website for the podcast, so that listeners could see as well?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Adam. He got up and crossed the room. He went to a table across the room and opened a drawer. His microphone picked up the scrape of wood on wood. “We put away all the pictures of them together after Dad disappeared. We thought she was dead too, so maybe it was a little mean-spirited, but neither of us wanted to look at her.” He took out a framed photograph and crossed the room again. He handed it to Nash.

  Nash took the frame. The cat gave him an annoyed glance and hopped soundlessly down to the floor. She padded out of the room with a regal air. Nash chuckled to watch her go and peered down at the picture. It had been taken on the dock outside. Bart Martin and Sibel had their arms around each other. They were both smiling, and the wind was fluttering their hair. They looked happy and tan and trim and attractive.