by Pamela Crane
Benny’s witnessing my dad getting beat up by Jay. Richie getting hired to emphasize a message. Yet the finer details of my father’s involvement remained shrouded in mystery. They had as good as pointed a finger at my dad being the root of it all, but the dots weren’t fully connected yet. What the hell did my father do to piss someone off enough to kill my sister?
And then there was George Battan—Tina’s abductor and possibly the man who killed Josef.
George, George, George.
All the evidence kept pointing back to that name. But he was in police custody—untouchable to me—and yet Tina was now missing. If I removed George from the equation, who was left? Not comatose Killian. Not mourning Rosalita. Possibly my father, but it wasn’t likely. There was an x variable I hadn’t accounted for. But who?
Why couldn’t I figure out where she had gone? Like grains of sand, the answer slipped through my fingertips. It was right there in my grasp, but too slippery to hold on to.
I needed to move. Do something.
I stood at the sink, sudsing the two glasses and plate left there earlier. As I wiped and washed, I noticed the glasses for the first time—really noticed them.
Tina’s familiar scarlet lipstick stained one edge—a vibrant color she once forced upon me and I had just as quickly wiped off—and the other glass had a vague spidery imprint of a pale shade of pink. Two colors, two different lip prints.
Had I just scrubbed away the only DNA evidence that might have linked to who was here earlier?
Shit shit shit.
Other than me and Rosalita, what other female friends did Tina have? Who else was in her life that she had mentioned … or hadn’t mentioned? Was it one of her fellow sex-trafficking victims playing the Grim Reaper?
The glasses—and the tequila—were my only clue. There had to be more to it. Initially they led me to Rosalita, because I remembered the tequila at Josef’s crime scene. The whole murder had felt familial, intimate. Sitting down to a shot or two together before the kill. Then framed as a suicide. It only made sense that it was someone with a personal vendetta. Rosalita had been my prime suspect, but she had proven her innocence. If not her, then who?
It had to be a woman, someone from Tina’s past. Someone who would want Josef and Killian and Tina dead.
Someone with ties to all three.
And suddenly the answer congealed—I knew who she was with and where to find her.
Grabbing my keys and cell phone, I ran out the door hoping I wasn’t too late.
Chapter 42
Ari
D-Day
The deed had been the answer all along. Such a minor detail, and yet so significant. I should have known that only a woman would have cleaned up so meticulously, vacuuming and sprucing up behind her killing spree.
Only a woman would toast for nostalgia’s sake before her kill.
I arrived at 813 Gregson Road and the first thing I noticed was the living room light dimly peeking through the closed curtains. The gray of early evening shrouded the surrounding woods, creeping eerily toward the house as night settled in, enhancing the glow from the window.
Someone was home. Maybe sitting on the bloodstained sofa. Maybe creating another crime scene.
Pulling my cell phone from my back pocket, I pressed the button to dial Tristan but it was dead. Damn. I had forgotten to charge it last night. Just my luck. I was an hour and a half away from the only person I trusted with no cell phone to call for help. I considered my options. Go straight to the Dunn police station, or check things out first on my own. I really didn’t know what was going on inside. It could be perfectly harmless. Tina could simply be cleaning up the mess, finally going through her father’s belongings in a wistful moment.
I peered into the dusty garage door window and saw a beat-up SUV inside. I hadn’t checked the garage the last time I was here, so I had no clue if the vehicle was a permanent resident here or not. As I stepped out of the shadow hanging over the home, a splintering crack slammed across the back of my skull. A flash of white blinded me.
Then nothing.
**
My pulsing head jerked me awake. The rhythm of my blood pooling and swirling and vibrating behind my eyes created a wave of nausea that I struggled to choke back. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.
A migraine was brewing.
The sting of tears in my eyes turned my surroundings into a watery mirage I couldn’t quite make out. A bright orb blinded me from one corner of the room. I stretched my fingers out along the carpet beneath me, its texture coarse. I slowly, steadily lifted myself upright, groaning and pushing through the razors ramming into my eye sockets until I was propped up against a wall behind me. I couldn’t remember where I was or how I got here. A burrowing, throbbing torture—the only sensation that felt familiar.
I allowed myself a momentary reprieve to let the agony abate, like a gently lapping wave slinking back into Mother Ocean. Opening my eyes again, the scene was crisp. I hunched against Josef’s living room wall, mere feet from where his dead body had pooled his lifeblood into the sofa a handful of days ago. The stench of stale death and copper hung in the air, magnifying my queasiness.
Muffled voices reached me from down the hallway where I remembered Josef’s bedroom had been. With wobbly steps, I stood up and inched along the wall, resting one hand along the cracked drywall for support. When I got to the open bedroom door, a frail Hispanic woman spun to look at me. I saw Tina sitting strapped to a chair behind her, wet mascara streaking down her cheeks, ruby lipstick smeared across her chin, eyes rimmed in seeping black eyeliner.
In one hand the captor clutched a knife and reflexively jerked the jagged blade toward Tina’s neck as I startled her with a step forward.
“Back up!” she yelled.
I retreated half a step.
“Ari!” Tina cried.
“You must be Mercedes.” I fixed my stare on hers. “Nice to meet you,” I said in a monotone.
Eyes still on me, Mercedes steadied the quivering blade firmly against Tina’s flesh, indenting the splotchy pink skin of her neck. With how jumpy Mercedes was, one wrong move could slice right through Tina. I needed to get her to drop her defenses and lower her arm before her impulses took over.
“And you must be Ari, the savior.” She sputtered the word like it tasted of venom.
“Just a friend checking in on her.” I shifted a foot forward.
“Glad to see you’ve woken up. I hope I didn’t cause any brain damage.” Her voice was calm and even—too much so for the circumstances.
“So you’re the one behind Josef’s death, Killian’s attack, Tina’s abduction, huh? Can I ask why?” I stepped forward as I talked, closing the distance between us.
“I’m saving my family. Simple as that.”
“Saving them? How do you figure?” Another step, the gap closing.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, turning away from me to stroke Tina’s hair.
“Try me.”
“You want to know so badly? Fine. My family is cursed. Josef sold our daughter into sex slavery. My only son was turning into his father, which I couldn’t let happen. And Sophia, well, Sophia will forever be tarnished by what she went through. Heaven is the only home for her now—where she can be blameless and pure again. Where we can all be together, but happy this time.”
“You know I can’t let you kill her, don’t you? It’s not up to you to fix her. It should be up to her what happens.” The serenity of my tone belied the panic bubbling beneath. Now an arm’s reach away, my brain was spinning, my thoughts frantic and hasty. Lowering my hand cautiously to my hip, my fingertips grazed what they were searching for. A bulge Mercedes hadn’t noticed when she knocked me out and dragged me in here.
There was only one way out of this situation—the messy way.
“I’m her mother! And who are you to her? Don’t you dare tell me what Sophia needs or doesn’t need.”
Tina yelped as the knife nicked her, leaving an inch
-long sliver of blood. The trail dribbled down, absorbing into the bra that peeked out from her tank top.
Bile rose in my mouth and I gagged back the acidic taste.
Mercedes was losing control, and in a moment I was about to lose my lunch. The headache was too much. Grisly scenarios played out on a mental screen. Tina’s throat spurting blood. A knife plunging into my gut. The pair of us dying together. But that was all the dying I had time for. I needed to get myself together and stop this psycho.
With a staggering lunge, I leapt forward, pulling the mace out from my pocket and spraying Mercedes directly in the eyes. She screamed and covered her face with her free hand, frantically rubbing at the mace with her fists. But what I hadn’t expected her to do was fight back. The thrust of metal into my abdomen caught me off guard as I wrestled with her over the knife—her still covering her eyes while swinging blindly at me, me doggedly dodging her while cupping the hole in my stomach. I started to feel woozy from the blood loss—or the head trauma, God knows which—but a burst of enraged adrenalin kicked in, giving me the edge I needed to knock Mercedes off balance.
As we tumbled to the floor, I wrenched the knife from her grip as we landed, but the weapon disappeared in a heap of clothing and bodies. Hot wetness oozed over my hands, through my fingers, and as I glanced down, it bloomed over the front of my shirt. Too much blood. I was soaked. I knew in a few minutes I was as good as dead. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell Tristan goodbye … or how much I wanted to jump his bones.
And then I blacked out.
Chapter 43
Mercedes
2005
Mercedes Alavarez had endured much. As far as she was concerned, too much. Married too young. A no-good drunk for a husband. A nosy mother-in-law who lingered like a bad virus. And now children doomed to misery—the only child she had left, that is.
It was already ten o’clock and Josef still hadn’t arrived home. Some nights he’d spend at the bar until dawn, leaving her restless as the hours passed, then furiously exhausted come morning when she had to deal with a temperamental son and hung-over husband … and a drained bank account.
But not anymore.
Her bag was packed.
The secret stash of money she’d socked away month after month tucked in her purse.
The escape arranged.
The end of suffering finally near.
Sophia had been sold not even a year ago, and every day since was a hell she couldn’t bear. Her firstborn. Her sweet little girl. And yet Josef went about as if nothing had changed. How nice for him to be so unaffected as he doted on Killian, bonding with his son over futbol in the yard. Only Mercedes, despite her flaws, felt her world crack a little deeper as the sun rose and set on her pain.
Her only daughter, gone. And for what? Financial freedom? They still spent too much on booze and food. But food was only good for nourishing the body. What about the soul? What reprieve could she find to bandage a soul sold to the devil himself?
The agony of her own part in Sophia’s fate haunted her fiercely this morning. If only she hadn’t complained to Josef about the new heels Bernada wore that Mercedes couldn’t afford. Or the stunning couture dress Isabel wore to the grocery store—yes, the grocery store! Who wore designer clothes to shop for produce? Her own green monster was the reason Josef first contacted George Battan. By her own hand she pushed Josef into action, not realizing the repercussions of greed.
Unlike his chatty sister, Killian had become a taciturn five-year-old ever since his sister’s disappearance. His small voice could barely be heard over the arguments in Mercedes’s head anyways. The endless loop of condemnation clung to her gray matter, breaking her psyche little by little. They had never explained to Killian where Sophia had gone each time he asked, only stating that his sister was taking a long trip and would be back soon. Yet his nightly weeping into his pillow told a different story about how much he understood.
She had traded her daughter in exchange for misery. It was not something she could overcome. No matter how much Killian attempted to wrest her from the sadness with hugs and cuddles and kisses. She simply turned him away, refusing to be comforted. She didn’t deserve consolation. She didn’t deserve Killian’s unconditional adoration. She earned a death sentence.
Death—the freedom it promised grew more enticing by the day.
Death—life’s ultimate journey, a final destination.
Death—what she wished she could offer Sophia to stop her suffering.
In Catholic tradition, Mercedes believed in heaven, where death was only the beginning. She hoped that this selfless sojourn to rescue Sophia would be enough to please the saints into letting her through those pearly gates.
The minutes ticked by and the night grew dimmer, and Mercedes knew the time was ripe. She couldn’t risk running into Josef, or the neighbors, who now held their children a little tighter to their chests when Mercedes walked by. All their whispered suspicions about what exactly happened to Sophia only intensified the sense of isolation she felt. No good mother would want their child near her, which of course ruined Killian’s social life as well.
Killian’s stifled whimper slithered down the hall as she hoisted her belongings onto her smooth, bony shoulders. With one last peek into her son’s room, she blew him an unseen kiss and uttered her undying love for him. Maybe one day she would return to him, after she found Sophia and rescued her. But what if she couldn’t find her daughter? She only knew that George was from the States, but nothing else. It could take a lifetime to find her. But she would. She swore to herself it was the only way to make amends. Either that, or killing herself.
The latter was a last resort.
As her footfalls removed her from the house she’d known for six years, the yard her children once played together in, and then the street that she walked daily, she wondered how her disappearance would impact Killian. Would he be okay with Josef? What would Josef even tell the boy, his young mind too innocent to truly understand the complexities of life?
Sophia was never coming back.
Mommy left us.
She heaved a sorrowful sigh, knowing Killian would never fully recover. But her mind wasn’t right. It would never be right until she saved her daughter. She could fix everything else later, once Sophia was safe in her arms again. And if the damage was too much, if her daughter’s life was stripped down to nothing but ash?
Well, there was always the fresh breath of death.
Chapter 44
Ari
D-Day, Hours After
So this is what dead feels like.
It feels like nothing at all.
Pure oblivion.
I didn’t walk toward any white light.
My life didn’t flash before my eyes.
It was simple, black nothingness … a deep, restful, dreamless slumber.
Damn, it felt good.
And then my senses awakened as warmth permeated my body, the smell of antiseptic cleaner invaded my nose, and the abrasive rub of rough fabric clung to my skin. Something beyond my eyelids brightened in a canopy of orange-red, and the Grim Reaper scuttled away just like that.
I had been dead for approximately two minutes, the nurse later told me. It was a miracle, really. I shouldn’t be alive, but I was a tough little bitch.
When I came to, the first thing in view was Tristan gazing down at me, stark white heavenly lights illuminating a halo around him like an angel. When I realized it wasn’t heaven but the hospital, and felt the sore row of stitches running along my side tingle like thousands of ants crawling across my skin, I almost wished I had died. But his smile welcomed me back to Earth where I suddenly felt warm and safe … and the ants suddenly didn’t feel so bad.
The past few hours were a blur of events I couldn’t quite piece together.
“What happened?” I asked, my tongue sticky and dry.
He handed me a ginger ale, which I greedily sipped from the straw poking out of the can.
A sense
of dread engulfed me as he coughed lightly, clearing his throat. It was bad news. I remembered falling beneath Mercedes, and then nothing. Mercedes must have gotten to Tina after I passed out.
“You sure you’re ready to talk about it?” His voice was irritatingly gentle.
“Please just tell me.”
“You saved Tina, that’s what.”
“What? She’s okay?” I couldn’t believe it! How had she survived? How had I survived?
“Yep, when you tackled Mercedes, the knife … she landed on it. Tina was able to get free and call for help once Mercedes passed out. I guess you lost consciousness before you knew you incapacitated Mercedes.”
“Is she—?” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t push the words out: Is she dead?
He nodded his head yes. Nothing else needed to be explained.
“Is Tina okay?” Discovering her mother had been behind the murders—I wondered how she was taking it.
“She’s alright. Hanging in there. Thanks to you and your mad linebacker skills. You should try out for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I bet you’d make the team with tackling like that.”
“I don’t think they’d let me use mace on the field.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
I smiled appreciatively at his levity when I needed it most. Laughter truly was the best medicine—until the fact that the gash in my belly was laced up like a football reminded me that I needed to laugh a little easier.
“Don’t make me laugh, dammit,” I pleaded with a grimace. “Don’t want to tear my stitches.”
Cupping my hand where an IV stuck into my vein, Tristan lifted it tenderly to his lips and kissed my fingers. His eyes turned watery.
“Don’t get sentimental on me,” I joked, but something was wrong when he didn’t crack a smile. Something he wasn’t telling me. “Are you okay?”