Mother used the motel’s skeleton key to calmly enter the room, clicking her tongue as she saw the body.

“I fail to recall giving you permission to kill him,” she said, the words carrying the weight of accusation, the promise of punishment. So much was left unspoken, but still translated and carried forth. I had failed her, with those simple words.

I wanted to squirm as her eyes swept over the body, the mattress, over me and my disheveled state. I had yet to correct my undergarments, and my skirt was still askew. My blouse was missing several buttons. I was hardly presentable, and that was ignoring the gunsmoke and splattered fluids. However, rather than squirming, I lowered my gaze, communicating my shame.

For it was true: I had failed. I had my reasons, but all the same, I had failed Mother.

I was relieved as her eyes left me, and returned to the overweight man who was splayed half way atop the mattress.

Mother pulled a pair of latex gloves from her tea-coat and snapped them into place, before gliding to the wall and the false mirror. Well, technically it was a working mirror, but it had another function. She ran a fingernail along its seam and pulled its side, causing it to hinge open, revealing a camcorder. She muttered as she stopped the recording function and watched the footage on the small camcorder screen. “You had him exactly where I wanted him, and you killed him. Disgusting. Wasteful. Give your accounting as I clean up.”

She began sweeping over the cheap duvet and carpet, using a black-light to find any obvious remains. Besides the splatter along the ground. There was not much anyone could have done for that, save removing the rug.

We had been running a honeypot with a specific target: The lead detective investigating Mother’s businesses. I had some ideas about what Mother’s business did; how could I not, with all I had seen, though I tried my hardest to ignore the stains and the cries and the sobs for friends and parents who would never come. But when I had grown up with it, grown up helping Mother ‘recruit,’ even before I knew what it was I was doing, not that the crime could be absolved by my own youth, I had to have known, at least a little. It left me sick if I thought overly much upon it.

But I still knew, unfortunately. So when the case against Mother’s business began picking up steam, when her operations began getting hit, a part of me hoped that that would be it. That the nightmare would end.

Of course, nothing was ever so simple.

If it was, then the detective would have never been there.

“Well girl?” she asked. “Is there a reason you drew his service pistol? You might have thought you were doing your Motherdear a favor, but you knew the plan. My daughter is well-trained enough to know that the department will replace him. Why then, why would you make such a mess, and when everything was progressing towards my favor?” she snapped the camcorder shut, having finished the recording.

“He… he started touching me…” I said. I was young enough that the thought of a man doing anything should have been anathema.

“Yes, child, I know. That was the plan.”

I resisted the urge to shudder, but Mother still saw the twinge pass through me.

“Backsliding, then?” she asked in a false tone of thoughtfulness. “I had thought your preparations were adequate. Perhaps that was not the case?”

She found the service pistol, a ruger revolver, and began wiping down the handle, trigger, and chambers, leaving no trace of fingerprints, nor any other evidence. The fact she did so casually, above a murdered man, while scolding me as a disappointed parent would, failed to convey the repercussions. She might have appeared casual, but the preparations, or training, as she called it, could be worse than whatever punishment the justice system doled out for ‘cop-killing.’

And were I not careful, I would experience these preparations again. I needed to appease Mother in some way. She had already seen the video. She would have known what happened. What could have happened, had I not snapped.

So, I began pleading my case.

“H-his intentions went beyond what we prepared for,” I said, stuttering just enough to imply weakness and fear, a form of respect to Mother. Certainly, she had trained me to add such an affectation as a manipulation tactic. Certainly, she knew I was deploying that same tactic now. But she also knew that I knew that she knew, which in a byzantine manner carried over a sense of respect towards her person.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She nodded, reupholstering the gun upon the detective, and beginning to spray down the mattress with an acidic solution, mixed with bodily fluids taken from a variety of persons. The fact that she nodded was promising. It meant I still had a chance.

“I will permit you to explain,” Mother said.

I gathered my thoughts, and calmed my nerves as much as possible. My skin still crawled from where he had touched. But none of that mattered. Right now, I needed to convince Mother.

“It is true, that he would have incriminated himself, and that he had incriminated himself by his actions,” I said, conceding to Mother that her plan had been successful in that regard.

“Obviously,” she said. “So why then, this?” she waved towards his still cooling corpse.

“He was going to–” I shuddered, this time I could not help it.

“Do not stutter without intention or gain,” Mother chided.

Right. I knew better than that. Another breath in, another out.

“Violent. He began with his hands here,” I pointed towards my chest, then collar bone. “But his hands crept up, and he began forcing me down with his weight.”

“If this is your excuse, then perhaps both you and your sister require remedial efforts, for many clients prefer such roughness.”

I resisted the wince, though I still felt the dread fear at the unfairness of it. Trix absolutely did not deserve this, especially as she served Mother in different ways.

“His hands gripped my throat,” I said, craning my chin upwards, revealing the marks I was sure that his throttling had left. “It left me unable to breathe.”

“And so you panicked?” Mother inquired. “Despite that this situation was monitored, and we would have intervened?”

I had to be careful here. I could not bely nor belittle her efforts. I could not point out that she did not arrive in time, but only minutes after the shot had fired. Were I to have relied upon her care, her intervention, then likely I would have paid with my life.

“While I cannot claim there was no panic,” I said, choosing my words slowly, “I worried that I would be irreparably damaged, which would cost your gracious investments that are within myself.”

She tsked, almost sounding amused, but in a stern manner. “Unfortunately, his back was towards the mirror; your reasons may be substantiated.”

Relief swept through me.

Prematurely, it turned out.

“However… that the situation so devolved in such a fashion, shows that you lost control. That, should not have happened. That fault rests with you.”

“My apologies, Mother.”

“Yes. Some additional training will be required. As well as an incentive to avoid creating such messes.”

She had finished spraying the scene with the mix of chemicals and false trails, and she gestured for me to collect myself, straighten my skirt, then follow her out the door.

As we walked out onto the second floor walkway-balcony of the motel, we passed one of Mother’s enforcers, a slim man who was always quick to heel.

“Kerosene,” she instructed him.

He nodded, smiling slightly.

I winced at the order. As Mother was facing away from me, I could escape her notice with such expressions. She owned the motel through an intermediary. The fact that she was burning her own property would cause additional labor. Even if she collected an insurance claim. Her inconvenience would be repaid tenfold towards the one that caused them.

I followed her as she strode purposefully with stiff and perfect posture. I imitated her as best I could, but her gait was longer than mine, forcing me to hurry. We passed several other of her employees, all of them passing the word and claiming whatever valuables they could find. Several gunshots were heard, as Mother’s organization took advantage of the soon-to-be crime scene.

It was industrious.

It left me wincing.

But it was also life.

Soon, we reached her vehicle, a well-maintained four-door sedan. She could have afforded a much more expensive model, with further tinted windows. But those tended to draw more attention.

One of her employees, one of her most trusted enforcers, opened the rear door for Mother, and then led me to the other side and opened the door for me, before he climbed into the driver's seat.

I was pleased to see Trix in the passenger’s seat. She gave me a small small, but I subtly shook my head. She knew well enough to keep her silence, especially if Mother was in a mood, which she certainly was. Her employee, the acting chauffeur for the evening, also knew better than to first break the moment.

It was not until a whoomph was heard, along with the breaking of glass, the flickers of orange light reflected off the night, that Mother spoke.

“Residence nine.”

That was all she said.

I winced. That was the one with the basement.

Trix tried mouthing at me, “What happened?”

A flare of Mother’s nostrils was all that was required to halt any unspoken or mouthed conversation.

The only other words spoken were those of the driver. “Yes ma’am,” he replied, as he put the car into gear. The suspension on the car made it so we hardly felt the potholes as we drove, away from the motel, and further away from city limits.

It would be a long night.