What Hurts the Most: An engrossing, heart-stopping thriller (7th Street Crew Book 1)

by Willow Rose

  “Yes,” I say. “And I am determined to prove that.”

  “But how?” Sandra asks.

  “I don’t know yet. It’s not like Olivia will testify. She’s way too afraid of her husband. If only I could get to Jamie Barley, the witness, and talk to her. Or if I could somehow figure out who really killed Jamilla Jenkins.”

  I sigh and put on the mask again. My throat is sore and I am hoarse. I can feel the aftermath of the smoke inhalation injury now. The doctor told me it would happen, that I would feel tired and short of breath. I look at Danny and grab his hand.

  “How are you doing?” I ask. “Any news about the investigation?”

  He shakes his head, then looks down.

  “There was another one,” Alex says.

  “What?”

  Danny nods in agreement. “It’s true. Someone else was killed yesterday in her home here in Cocoa Beach by the same killer as Jean.”

  “How do you know it was the same killer?” I ask, baffled.

  “She was found in her home with a pair of scissors in her throat,” Alex says. “Just like Jean.”

  “The strange part is that it is another person we know from high school,” Danny says.

  “Who?”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  September 2015

  Cassie Morgan? Cassie is dead? I can’t believe what they are telling me. I am breathing hard in my mask now, sucking all the oxygen I can out of it, while trying to calm myself down. What the heck is going on here? Another woman from my high school who has been murdered? Is someone targeting people from my high school? Just going randomly through the yearbook or what? And why?

  “They used to be friends,” I say, once I remove the mask again. “Do you remember? Jean and Cassie?”

  “Sure,” Sandra says. “They always hung out together. Knew each other since preschool at FUMC.”

  Most of us actually went to the same preschool together, those of us that were born and raised in Cocoa Beach. I mostly remembered Joey from back then, since he had already decided that we were going to get married once we grew up, and told me once when his grandfather brought him into school one day.

  He pointed at me and said: “This is the girl I want to marry.”

  All the grown-ups laughed, naturally. But Joey and I both took it very seriously. We remained friends all the way through elementary and surfed together constantly through high school. We even went away to college together, and that was when we started dating. We had always been together, always enjoyed hanging out so much. How could we have gone so wrong?

  “Anyone else freaking out about this?” Marcia asks. “I mean, it is kind of creepy that two girls, two best friends that we grew up with have been killed. It doesn’t sound like some burglary gone wrong or some psycho walking in randomly from the street. These girls have been murdered. Targeted and murdered. So, the question is…who is next? I, for one, am locking my doors tonight.”

  I nod pensively, thinking it is amazing that Cocoa Beach is still this small community where people don’t lock their doors. After living in New York for a few years, I can’t imagine not locking everything safely. But I get what she is saying. Something is off here.

  “What do we know about Jamilla Jenkins?” Joey suddenly asks. “I mean, the only way we can help Blake is to figure out who killed her, or at least get the jury to doubt he could have done it. Like the lawyer told Mary, we need to show that the investigation wasn’t done properly or thoroughly enough. Now that we know he was framed, there must be evidence out there that the police have overlooked.”

  I shrug. “Not much. She was a soldier. Was found in a motel room, Motel 6 on A1A, stabbed in her chest.”

  “Don’t they have surveillance cameras on these places?” Chloe asks.

  I shrug again. “Sounds like they should have.”

  “They do,” Danny says. “At the front desk. There was a fire a few years ago in one of the rooms. It turned out to be an arsonist traveling through town, and they found his picture from the surveillance cameras when he checked in.”

  I look to Chloe. She nods. She knows what I am thinking. “I can give it a try. I might also be able to find a little on the girl from the army’s database. It might not be usable for anything, but they have her files there. I can check them out.”

  “The army database?” Danny says. “That sounds like something you could go to jail for, for a long time.”

  Chloe shrugs. “They’ll never know it’s me. Patrick Air Force Base is one of my clients. I work on securing their systems. I already have access.”

  “All right,” I say. “I’ll call the lawyer and tell him what I know so far.”

  “Do any of you remember Joanne?” Sandra suddenly says.

  We all nod. Joanne is a girl who went to our school as well. She became pregnant at only sixteen and had to drop out of school. Most of us haven’t seen her since. Except for Sandra, that is. They used to be good friends.

  “I kept in touch with her over the years and helped her out with the baby. Her life changed completely and we drifted apart, but every now and then, when I came back from my trips I would go visit. Her son is now twenty-two. His name is Billy.”

  “Yeah. And?” Marcia asks impatiently.

  “Well, yesterday I saw his picture in the paper. Apparently, he was hospitalized for drinking drain cleaner. I couldn’t believe it was him and went to visit. He has suffered severe damage to his mouth and trachea, the windpipe. They don’t know if he will be able to breathe on his own again.”

  “That’s terrible,” I say.

  “The thing is, the doctor told Joanne that it looks like it was forced into his mouth. The way he was bruised around his mouth and the fact that it went into his windpipe and not the gullet shows that he was in distress, and therefore he hyperventilated and pulled the liquid into his lungs. Like he was panicking. Unfortunately, he is unable to speak to tell what happened. The police say they believed he drank it himself, that he tried to kill himself, but Joanne doesn’t believe he would do that.”

  “That’s odd,” Joey says. “Who would be so cruel as to force him to drink that stuff?”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” Sandra says. “I found it very strange. But the reason I mention it is that he was also found in a hotel room, at the International Palms Resort. The police say they don’t want to spend resources on investigating it, but I thought, what if he wasn’t alone? Maybe Chloe could find out who he went there with. Just to help out Joanne? For old time’s sake.”

  Chapter Sixty

  September 2015

  The next morning, I am being discharged. Joey has taken the morning off from work to come and pick me up. Salter is with him. They’re smiling and have even brought me a box of chocolates. I open the box right away. Hospital food hasn’t done much for me, and I’m craving something sweet.

  We all go to see my dad. He is lying in his bed when we enter. Tubes and everything. His eyes are closed. It’s just like the movies. Instruments are beeping, telling me he is in fact still alive, even if he seems more like he is dead.

  I take in a deep breath. My throat is still sore. I walk to him and take his hand. Salter and Joey stay behind while I approach him. A nurse walks in and stands on the other side of him.

  “He doesn’t seem to react to anything,” she says. “Maybe he will when he hears his daughter’s voice.”

  My dad is still in a coma. He is severely burned on two thirds of his body. They had to transplant skin from other places of his body. He looks terrible. I start to cry and lean in over him.

  “Oh, Dad. I am so so sorry. This is all my fault. I am so sorry. Please, don’t give up. Please, come back to me. I need you. We never talked. We never made amends. We just let time pass. Why did we do that, Daddy? Why didn’t we ever talk about what happened?”

  Joey comes closer. I feel his hand on my back. He pulls me closer and hugs me. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he whispers.

  I sob heavily. “I blamed
him, Joey. I blamed him for everything. I always wanted to talk to him about what happened, but I never dared. Instead, I became angry with him. Bitter and angry. I can’t blame him for running into the arms of Laura. I was a terrible teenager. When Mom died, I went completely mad and blamed it all on him. I never thought about how it affected him. He lost her too. So did Blake. I only thought about how bad I felt. And he was the only one I could take it out on.”

  “I know,” Joey says. “I was there, remember?”

  I look at him and chuckle. “True. You were always there. You have always been here by my side. What happened to us?”

  Joey shrugs. “We grew up. We believed life would be a dance on roses once we got married and had a child. But it wasn’t. It’s not easy being a grown-up.”

  I chuckle again while Joey wipes away a couple of my tears. Our eyes meet and lock for just a second. I want him to kiss me, and then I don’t. I am vulnerable right now and don’t want to do anything I’ll regret. I love him, yes. But do I trust him? Do I want to open that door again? I don’t think so.

  “We should go,” Joey says. “I gotta get to work.”

  I nod and sob again. I grab my dad’s hand in mine again and squeeze it. When I let go of it, it falls flat back on the bed. I touch his cheek. It feels cold. I wonder if he can hear anything in there behind those closed eyelids. The instruments keep telling me that he is alive, with their little beeps and dings, but I feel like I have lost him. Maybe I already did many years ago?

  I lean over him and kiss him on the forehead. The nurse smiles at me when I draw back.

  “We’ll let you know immediately if anything happens,” she says. “Hopefully, we’ll have good news soon.”

  I nod. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  When we walk out of the room, I feel Joey’s hand in mine. I let him take it because I need his care right now. I only hope that Salter doesn’t believe that we’re back together again.

  When we’re in the car, I find my phone and call James Holland, Blake’s lawyer. Joey drives out on 520 and I have a lump in my throat, thinking about my dad, who is still back at the hospital all alone.

  “We need to talk,” I say, when the lawyer comes to the phone. “I have reason to believe Blake was framed. As a matter of fact, I spoke to someone who admitted to having placed the chisel in his studio to make sure he was arrested for it. Now, I can’t convince her to testify. So what do you suggest we do?”

  James Holland lets out a deep sigh from the other end. I don’t understand why he doesn’t sound happy.

  “I wish you would have brought this to me a little sooner,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Yesterday, your brother declared himself guilty.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  March 1992

  The gun drops to the floor. AK is staring at the woman, who is no longer falling. She is lying at the bottom of the stairs, head first into the plush carpet, blood gushing out of her and coloring the carpet around her.

  Ally’s heart has stopped. She can’t breathe. The sight of the woman lying lifeless on the stairs makes her sick to her stomach. She bends over and throws up. Meanwhile, Mary and her father rush down the stairs. There’s a lot of screaming and crying and yelling. AK looks at Ally. Her eyes are terrified.

  “Run,” she yells through the chaos.

  Ally shakes her head. “Where can we go?”

  AK grabs Ally’s arm and pulls. “I don’t know. Just out of here.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Ally decides to follow AK out the front door and into the street. They throw their ski masks and the gun in a bush and run. When they hear sirens in the distance, they decide to go down to the beach and run instead. To not be seen. It’s dark down there. Ally doesn’t care. She’s in shock. She doesn’t know what else to do. So she just follows AK, tears rolling down her cheeks, wondering where they can go. There is nowhere to hide, nowhere for them to stay.

  I just watched someone die. My God, what have I done?

  They reach the lifeguard tower on 16th Street and Ally knows they’re now leaving downtown Cocoa Beach. They can still hear sirens and they spot a police car drive past on the road. By now, everyone is looking for them. There is no way they can get away.

  “What do we do?” Ally whispers with a pounding heart.

  “We keep going,” AK says.

  They run across the sand. Ally is sweating and panting heavily. They pass Taco City and continue till they reach the last house on Cocoa Beach, where Ally knows the Air Force Base starts. She is tired now and can barely even walk anymore. AK is worn out too. But they have to. They have to keep moving.

  That’s when they spot the three houses. Three small houses on the beach that are owned by the Air Force, that they know are used to house military personnel.

  “Come,” AK says and pulls Ally’s arm. “They look empty.”

  They choose the first one and walk up to it and look in the windows before AK breaks one of them with her elbow. She cries in pain and then crawls through. Ally feels sick again and throws up once more. She suddenly misses her mother more than ever.

  What have I done? How will I ever get out of this?

  AK opens the front door and grabs Ally’s arm. She pulls her inside and closes the door. They both fall to the floor, panting heavily. Ally starts to cry. She pulls her knees up underneath her chin and cries while rocking back and forth. AK growls angrily at her.

  “Stop it,” she says.

  “What have we done?” Ally asks. “What have you done? You shot that woman. You shot her and she…she fell.”

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” AK says.

  But Ally can’t stop. Now that everything is quiet, her mind is spinning with all the scenarios.

  “They’re going to come for us, aren’t they? They’ll find us and bring us in. Oh, my God, we’re going to be put away for life, aren’t we? We’re going to spend the rest of our lives in prison?”

  “SHUT UP!”

  AK is standing up now. She slaps a hand across Ally’s face. “Shut up so I can think!”

  “Who’s in here?”

  The voice is coming from one of the rooms. Ally gasps and looks. She sees a man come out of the darkness. She can’t see his face because there is no light other than what comes from the streetlamp outside. But as he walks closer, she spots a gun between his hands.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  September 2015

  The police call me later in the day and ask me to come down. I take Salter with me and enter the small building next to City Hall. I glance at the new fire station that has just been built and wonder if Danny is at work.

  Detective Chris Fisher greets me at the entrance and shows me into a small room. Salter is left to sit on a chair outside. I feel very uncomfortable as the detective sits down in front of me. He is a few years younger than me, and I remember him as a little punk.

  “You want coffee or anything?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “We have donuts,” he says with a smile. He is annoyingly nice to me. It pisses me off greatly.

  “I’m good, but thanks,” I say, even though every fiber of my body craves something sweet right now.

  “First of all, I would like to tell you how deeply sorry I am for what happened to your father. I hope he’ll get better. We’re all praying for him. He is a big contributor to our small town. A very respected member of our community.”

  I always loathed the way they talk about Cocoa Beach like it was a sect or something. Now even more than ever, since the words are coming from his mouth.

  The hypocrite.

  Did you do it, huh? Did you set the house on fire for the general, did you?

  “The reason I have called you down here is that I am in charge of the investigation of the fire. As you know, we believe it was arson. Since your dad was inside of the house, it has suddenly become an attempted murder investigation. I want to assure you we take this matter very seriously, and I intend to fi
nd whoever did this and make sure they are brought to justice.”

  All the right words.

  “I appreciate it,” I say, trying to stay calm.

  “Do you know of anyone who might wish to harm your father or your family?” he asks.

  “I was threatened yesterday,” I say.

  Chris Fisher looks surprised. “By whom?”

  Like you don’t know.

  “By a soldier at the base. He told me he was giving me a message from General Hartman, told me to leave town if I knew what was best for me. Those were his exact words. An hour later, my dad’s house was set on fire and he was almost killed.”

  I can feel how my voice is cracking as I speak the last words. I feel so much anger at this instant I can’t hold it back. It’s bigger than me.

  Detective Chris Fisher stares at me, biting the end of his pen. “You mean to tell me the general actually threatened you? And that you believe he is responsible for the fire?”

  He sounds like he is trying hard not to laugh. I want to slap him across his face and wipe the smirk off like I remember doing once when he was still in middle school and groped Sandra’s boob at his sister’s pool party.

  “Yes. I don’t believe he set the house on fire himself, but I do believe he had someone do it for him.”

  Detective Fisher is still staring at me. A smile is emerging slowly. He doesn’t know what to say. I can tell he is looking for the words.

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “I’m deadly serious. The general has it in for my brother and doesn’t want me to help him. He is trying to keep me from finding out what really happened to Jamilla Jenkins. My brother had an affair with his wife. That’s why.”

  Chris Fisher blows out air and whistles. “Wow. I don’t know what to say to that, Mary. That’s a lot of conspiracy right there. I never took you for being one of those. The general is a very well respected man.”

  I slam my palm on the table. “He threatened me, Chris.”