As Brennan popped a chip in his mouth, he heard his father slap his mother so hard in their bedroom.
"Stop! Please, baby, stop! You're hurting me!" Brennan's mother cried out.
At first, Brennan ignored it. He knew this was the norm for them whenever they ran out of money which was always. He took a piece of fish and dipped it in sauce, tuning them out. He thought about his sister instead. She received his message and was doing better in school.
"Bitch! I will kill you in here if you don't go out there and get me some money now!" his father hollered.
Brennan was numb to his parents' arguing. So numb that it became normal to him. But whenever he heard the words "kill", he knew he'd better pay attention.
He heard more commotion, thrashing about, and his mother's piercing screams as he took a swig of his orange soda.
"Oww! My eye! You stabbed me in my eye! I can't see you bloody bastard!" she screamed.
This time Brennan couldn't take it. They fought regularly and it became the norm, but he felt this time was different. His mother was stabbed and could die!
He ran to his parent's room, saw his father tossing his mother about like a ragdoll by her hair. Rage filled up in his body, causing him to growl out loud. He searched for the nearest thing to hit his father with and found something. Brennan picked up a large glass bottle on a small table with what he thought was spring water in it but was really alcohol inside. Bursting it over the back of his father's head with a loud crash, some of the contents spilled out on the floor. Brennan smelled the contents as it spilled down his father's back and legs and onto the floor.
What Brennan didn't know was that his mother's lit crackpipe was on the floor causing a small explosion around his father. It fell from her hand when her husband stabbed her. Keeping his grip on his mother, Brennan's father turned around with terror in his eyes. He screamed out in fear, but Brennan didn't care. He looked him square in the eye and smirked. Brennan felt liberated. Hearing his father's screams for help, Brennan then grabbed his mother's lighter, lit it, and threw it onto the spilled alcohol which spread onto his already burning father. The fire ignited more into a glowing orange ball engulfed around Brennan's father's frame.
Brennan reached out for his mother as his father stomped his feet and flailed his arms like a wild turkey.
"C'mon Mum, we must get out of here now!" he hollered, his voice cracking.
She shrieked at the sight of her husband with her one eye, blood still gushing out of the other where his father had stabbed her. Brennan held his arm out as he ignored his father's reaching for him, the smell of burnt clothes and skin filling up the tiny bedroom.
Brennan grabbed his mother's hand to leave but she pulled back trying to get the flames off his father. She looked at him with a pleading look. Begging for him to understand. That she valued her husband more over her own children no matter what he put them through.
"No! I won't leave him, Brennan! Look what you've done! You've killed him!" she cried out, crawling over to Brennan's father.
Brennan looked on with shocking angry tears filling his bewildered eyes. His father held onto the bedspread, causing the fire to spread wildly. The bed burning, Brennan backed up as he watched the dirty carpet catch fire, latch onto the thin curtains and the drugs they had on the nightstand. That caused the fire to explode savagely as Brennan backed out of the hallway. He took one last look at his mother now wrapped up in the flames, screaming for help.
Brennan ran into the living room, covering his mouth from the smoke. His eyes averted across the living room as he scooped up his backpack on the chair and started grabbing what he could. They didn't have much, but Brennan knew deep down inside he had lost a lot in a matter of minutes. He took a portrait of him and his sister on the mantle, clothes, flung open the door and bounced down the stairwell out into the air. Coughing and spitting as he fled outside, he realized at that moment that he truly left his parents behind.
He then heard his mother hollering for him from the window, banging on the glass. Running back upstairs, he tried to go back inside the living room, his arm protecting his face from burning, but the fire had become so big just that fast! It was too much smoke and flames encircled around the entryway.
"Fire! Fire! Get out everyone, get out!" Brennan screamed as he turned around making his way out of the flat unscathed for a second time.
Looking up at the window, he could still hear his mother's screams as he ran outside in the cold air. He looked back once more for a miracle that his mother might have made it out. When he saw the glass from the windows of his flat burst out into the air like an inferno, he knew it was over.
With glass sprinkling onto the ground from above, Brennan yelled in anguish out loud. He coughed and heaved thick smoky air until he collapsed wearily on the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
"Now I know I would've remembered hackathon prize money," I said to Lance as we sat at my kitchen table. We finally arrived at my home after speaking with Jessica Garcia and her mother. We went over notes, made calls to some leads that were just dead or jokes from sickos and tried to figure out what we were missing. I even called the volunteer squad and returned Lieutenant Ben's call. He was concerned so I caught him up to speed leaving out the part that I flashed my badge in order to get Johnston to talk. Hopefully, he would understand later if it ever came out.
Lance nodded. "Okay, so how is it that he is getting all this paper, as the younguns would say," he said, his brow furrowing as his thick fingers slid across his laptop. He was following up on the work that he needed to catch up on. I felt bad taking him away from his livelihood.
"Listen, Lance. I appreciate you helping me out here, but you have a life, too. Perhaps you should go back to your office to do some work. How are you able to be out of your office so much anyway," I asked curiously.
He kept typing and chuckled. "One, I am able to do so much out of the office because I am a crime writer, so I need to be in the streets to report on crime. Two, you're right, maybe I should go back to the office, but I'd rather help you. So with that said, let's try to figure out where your nephew is at. I am confident that he will turn up safe and sound." He stopped typing, offering me a concerned look.
Gosh, he really did remind me of Mateo. Sure of himself and good-looking. I had to contain myself. We were in the middle of a crisis and I was already wondering how good of a kisser he was. I am sure he was thinking the same thing. And then some.
I exhaled and gave him a smile. "Thank you, but for real, I won't hold you up any longer. Let's go over some other details."
"Right like the hackathon prize money. We know there wasn't any." Lance added.
"Yeah, and not only that, I only gave Rodney permission once to go to the city. His father said it was okay. I sure as heck don't have that kind of money so where did he get it from?" I thought out loud.
"And he never mentioned Jessica to you or these two other guys?"
I shook my head thinking back on how Bly criticized me and my family for not keeping a closer eye on Rodney.
"Unfortunately, no. I wish I knew what this kid was really into, but I was trying not to be so pushy, you know? With all that he's been through with his mother?" I scoffed.
"Hey, don't fault yourself for that, you're doing your best," Lance said, smiling warmly. Just as he was about to say something else, his cell phone rang. He answered it, listened intently to whoever was on the other line and hung up. He exhaled and closed his laptop.
"I'm sorry Nina, but I do need to get back to the office. There's a fire that took place at a nursing home and the police think it could be an arsonist. I want to get this story, no doubt, but I also want to help you," he stood up and put on his coat.
"Understood. I told you, you should be at the office," I said jokingly.
He grinned. "No Nina, the streets. Just like your profession."
I walked him to the door. "I will keep you posted if I hear anything of course,
" he said, giving me a long stare. He touched my arm gently and left out.
I let out a long breath, looking around at the house. I hadn't cleaned, done laundry, cooked or anything in two days. That could wait. I had some places to go first.
Driving to the sheriff's department, I relayed all the information I had minus my conversation with Jessica and Rodney's ties to the club. I am sure Bly had already blabbed his mouth about it anyway. Speaking of Bly, he wasn't there according to the head sheriff. He was working with the volunteers.
I tried not to give off such a surprising look and thanked him instead. The weather reports were calling for more snow so I figured I'd better go and check-in with the volunteers who had since moved on to the other side of town looking for Rodney.
When I pulled up to another wooded area, the crew were leaving out. One person who was there stood out to me. Bly.
I got out of my car and walked over to him, trying not to shiver. The area was not one that I was totally familiar with and one that I didn't want to think Rodney was in. It seemed very remote, thick with trees and cold.
He turned to me and smiled. "Mrs. Westbrook, I was just about to reach out to you, he said, oddly cheerily. He shook my hand. I actually looked down at it first then reluctantly shook it.
"So what you got?" I asked.
"First let me tell you that I apologize to you about my suspicions about Rodney's disappearance. The town doesn't need any extra publicity. I will still, of course, do my job and do everything that I can to help find Rodney," Bly said walking over toward his car.
I kept my eyes focused on him. "My family and I sure do appreciate that Sheriff Bly." My gut was telling me something was off, but I went along to see where this was going. He seemed too jovial as supposed to how rigid he was with me when I filed the report.
"Yup. I also didn't mean to bark at you. To be honest, you're NYPD, right?" He asked me.
I shrugged. "Last time I checked, why?"
He continued walking. "Well seeing you brought back memories of another incident where the state troopers made the sheriff's department look weak. We needed their help with something. Not that your help is not needed, it's the-"
"I know. The publicity," I said cutting him off. "But it's cool, I get it. I just need to find Rodney. Safe." I don't know why, but he touched my arm. This was the second man of the night to do that.
He pulled it back. "Oh man, I'd better not do that. Wouldn't want your boy Lance to see us. Get some rest, Mrs. Westbrook. It's going to get pretty bad out here. The crew will be in touch, but they need to go back to their hotels. We've already hit up all the shelters, hospitals and of course other county jails. Soon as I hear something, I will let you know. I'm going home, got graveyard shift tomorrow so I need all the rest I can get."
"Good. Thank you. And Sheriff Bly? I'm glad we had this talk," I said. He turned around and smiled then got in his car, driving off.
For some reason, I felt strange about Bly being nice all of a sudden. It wasn't adding up. He knows something, but what I don't know. A sharp pain trailed down from my shoulder to my lower back. I had forgotten all about my medicine. But then again, I didn't need it as it would make me sleepy.
***
Bly lived in an area where there weren't many houses and drives almost an hour away from each way to and from work.
He drove past a secluded area and tried not to think about the house in the back that hardly anyone knew about. Bly sure did. He hadn't seen them in a while but he had been so busy with work lately and trying to keep Nina from looking for her nephew. Shaking the thought off, he just wanted to get home, eat his wife's Wendy's famous spaghetti she left him before she left and get some rest. He couldn't wait to see Wendy that next weekend. She was in medical school in Canada.
Soon as Bly pulled up to his house, he noticed his lights are out. That was strange. He always left his porch light on no matter what time of day it was. He looked around the secluded cul-de-sac, the next neighbor half a mile down the road.
"I wonder if Wendy is home to surprise me early," Bly said with a chuckle. He put the key slowly in the lock and opened the door. He didn't hear any sounds and the house was completely dark.
"Wendy! Are you home?" he called out for her, laughing nervously. He called again, but the house was still. Bly realized that she wasn't home. He then heard a loud crash of something dropping nearby his feet. Looking up, Bly turned on his utility flashlight and shone it right into a man's face.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The man punched Bly out sending Bly crashing back into his glass coffee table flat on his back.
"I should've known I couldn't trust your ass to keep this case under wraps, Bly." Dazed, Bly struggled to get up. His fingers slid over his holster for his gun. He wrapped his fingers around it, aimed it, but the man was fast. Warren rushed him with a knife, placing it against Bly's neck, k. The gun flew out of Bly's hand and across the room like a boomerang.
"Argghh!" Bly screamed out as Numbers landed on top of him and pushed the sharp blade closer against Bly's neck, drawing lines of blood.
"Please don't kill me, I'll fix this! I promise!" Bly shrieked, dropping his flashlight.
"Ha, that's what the last guy said before I made mincemeat out of his ass and dumped him in a hole," Warren gritted through his teeth, referring to Po. Standing up, Warren aggressively snatched Bly up by his coat. Tossing Bly toward the kitchen area, Warren was right on his heels. He pushed the knife against his back, feeling for other weapons on Bly, unholstered the gun in his ankle and took it out. He placed it in his pocket.
"Walk," Warren ordered.
Bly obliged, stumbling through the dark house. He felt a deathly darkness fall around him as he approached the kitchen. "Put your hands up!" Warren shouted at Bly.
Bly did as he was told, walking slowly. Something didn't feel right.
Warren let out a crazy howl of a laugh, his eyes filled with rage. "How does it feel now Sheriff? To be on that other side?"
Bly's throat was dry, and he couldn't even swallow. He was thinking of a way out of this. Someway to coerce Warren that everything would be okay. But he knew Warren. He knew how crazy he was even back in high school when Bly wouldn't let anyone see him talking to Warren. He should've never let the money get to him. The money Warren offered, more like threatened for him to take to help him.
Bly failed and Warren knew this, that's why he was there.
Breaking him out of his thoughts, Warren shoved Bly again this time making him fall by a kitchen chair. Bly landed with a thud, his head hitting the corner of the table. He shook it off and rested his elbow on a bended knee, tears forming in his eyes. His eyes averted all throughout the kitchen area as he felt a presence. His eyes made out a silhouette in the dark of a woman sitting down in a chair, but her head was hanging down. His mouth dropped open, but nothing came out at first.
"Wendy!" Bly cried out, his arms outstretched.
He turned to Warren in anger knowing what was wrong now. "What did you do to her?"
Warren took Bly's flashlight, placing it on the counter upwards. The light gave off a circular brightness revealing Bly's horrible suspicions. Wendy was dead. He heard something dripping and sniffed the air. It was blood.
"If you had done what you were supposed to do, we wouldn't be sitting here with your pretty little wife's corpse now would we?" Warren teased.
Bly got up and charged Warren landing him into their open pantry. Cans and jars of food flew off the shelves from the hard impact. Warren took the knife he held tightly, bringing it down in a swift motion in Bly's shoulder.
Bly cried out falling out of the closet. Rolling and landing on his side, he tried to get up and hit Warren with a can, but he was too slow. Warren was already up, slashing the knife across Bly's arms as he scooted backward back into the kitchen. Warren pushed Bly into the chair.
"This time, you will be quiet," Warren barked, smacking him hard in the face. Blood flew out of
Bly's mouth. Bly glared at Warren with an ice-cold dagger, forcing a glob of blood and spit out of his mouth and onto Warren's jacket.
Warren chortled. "When I'm done with you, I'll be using your scalp to wipe this blood off my clothes." He took a step closer, brought the knife up in the air again and came down on Bly's other shoulder. This time, he twisted it until Bly heaved hot air out of his lungs and tears streamed down his face.
Warren stepped back. "See Bly. I couldn't trust you anymore since there was nothing in the papers except about the missing kid, his past, his family and the fat guy running for mayor. In fact, this boring ass town had nothing but the kid going viral and you didn't stop it."
Between sharp hot pains streaming up Bly's shoulder blades, he managed to beg for his life.
"You can rest easy though Numbers. I promise. It wasn't even like that, you know I'm handling it," Bly pleaded, feeling woozy from the blood loss.
"Rest easy? Really? How so?" Warren toyed with him. He pulled up a chair and sat in front of Bly, poking out his bottom lip to mock Bly.
Bly was beginning to feel dizzy, but he was still awake. "You know I'm not the chief of police. I can't make things disappear like that."
"Nah, not Bly. Big bad don't-eff-with-me Bly! The golden boy of Oswego! The one who wants to kick Lance Steele's ass but he knows he can't. The one who is taking my kickbacks to keep this kid's story out of the media, but don't even have the balls to do so," Warren growled. He swiftly snatched the knife out of Bly's shoulder making him holler out to the sky. He bent over, clutching his painful shoulders.
"I can fix this, I promise man, just give me one more chance, I'm telling you!" Bly begged again.
Numbers laughed out loud. "Again, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, from everyone who crosses me. I don't know why you and all the other numbskulls keep doing this. Knowing how crazy I am. How I truly get down. You know Bly when we first met again after all these years at the gym and I approached you about making some real money, what was your response?"
I Know What I Saw Page 13