His dark eyes narrowed. In one motion, Dori dropped her bag, stepped back and reached for her weapon. But she only felt the bandage under her shirt where her Smith and Wesson should've been. She swayed in momentary confusion and then remembered she'd locked it away. When she looked back up into the window, he was gone.
Dori stood there with her pulse kicking against her neck. He couldn't duck faster than the blink of an eye, nor was the window shade moving in the wake of a sudden movement. It hadn't been that long since she'd been with a man that she'd start making one up as Grammy had repeatedly warned. Warning pricked at her nerves. She pulled up alongside the edge of the door and peeked into her dark kitchen. She strained her ears, listening for movement in the house. Against her better judgment, she reached over and turned the key.
She pushed the door open and the smell of cologne stopped her short of walking inside. Dori instinctively rocked her weight onto the balls of her feet, her muscles tensing for a fight. Night crept across the yard behind her.
As a cop, she'd been in much scarier situations than this. But back then, Dori had a gun at her hip and a radio for back-up. Unlike real bad guys, figments of her imagination couldn’t send her to the hospital. Dori told herself to go out to her car and call the cavalry.
Instead, Dori propped the door open with an old brick. This was her house damn it and it might feel good to kick some ass.
Dori made her way through the gloomy kitchen and flipped on the light switch. The fluorescents flickered to life and their hum filled the silence. She crossed the kitchen and then poked her head through the door leading into the butler's pantry. The air held still, as if the house held its breath.
She crept across the floor, scanned the dining room and then reached in to turn on the dining room chandelier, which thankfully had survived the architectural rape and pillage of the 1970s. His shadow moved across the wall in the hallway. Fear shot up her spine.
"I'm armed," she called out, backing into the kitchen for a knife. Her Mossberg was upstairs in the safe. Then she remembered the knives were still packed in a box. She had a spork from her and Grammy's KFC lunch earlier today.
"Walk out the front door and you won't get hurt," she ordered, clutching the spork in her hand as she tiptoed back to the dining room. Her voice echoed.
She pressed the light button and the hall lights switched on. "Go out the front door."
The hall was clear. With her back pressed to the wall, Dori held her breath as she waited for an answer or a creak of a floorboard that would give away his position. She should go for the Mossberg. But she peeked into the front parlor, the room that had suffered the most damage in the house. Something slammed against the front door and the lights snapped off.
Chapter Two
The spork dropped to the floor and Dori's fingers buzzed from the jolt of adrenaline. She couldn't move and she heard the blood pounding past her ears.
She was out in the open, vulnerable to whoever was in her house, watching from the shadows.
The door thudded again. One moment Dori was frozen; the next she fumbled with the locks and dead bolts. The door swung at her. She leapt out of the way, her lips pulled tight, baring her teeth at whoever waited on the other side.
The porch was empty and so was the yard. The trees hissed and swayed from the wind. Fingers traced down the back of her neck and Dori bolted outside, the porch floor bowing under her weight. She ripped through the crime scene tape and then stumbling, turned back to see if he was coming after her.
She blinked but no one appeared in the hallway or the gaping door way. Her hair blew in her eyes and she pushed it out of her face. Thank God none of her neighbors were looking out their windows, shaking their heads at the crazy neighbor who just flew out of her house like a bat out of hell.
Rain dotted the top of her head, tapping impatiently on the ground. He could be anywhere in the house. Dori reached for her cell phone but it was in her purse by the kitchen door.
She jogged over and then sidled up to her purse and her CVS bag, keeping clear of the open doorway. When she was back in the safety of her car, she dialed National City PD.
An hour later the cruiser pulled into the driveway, the rain now coming down at an angle in the headlights. The officer pulled behind her car where Dori had told the dispatch she'd be waiting. Now she was beginning to second guess her decision.
"Thanks for coming out in the rain," Dori said, rolling down her window as the officer approached.
Holding a black slicker over her head, the officer didn't look happy. "You have an intruder?"
Dori nodded, hoping the man left some trace of breaking and entry so she hadn't come out for nothing. Then again, on nights like this, what else would the officer do except work traffic calls? "I'll come in with you."
"Did you see him leave?"
"I didn't."
The officer looked at the dark brooding house and then Dori. "Stay here. I'll clear the house."
Dori watched as the officer's flash light beam moved through the house. She went from the front parlor to the living room and then a few moments later, the bedroom next to Dori's. The lights came on, room by room. After what felt like forever, the officer stepped onto the porch, her arms shooting out to catch her balance as the floor boards threatened to give under her. Dori got out of the car and ran across the drive.
Officer Cruz had her jacket and slicker pulled open over her duty weapon. "No sign anyone came through the windows or the back door. Did you see him leave?"
"He disappeared when I unlocked the door." Dori gave a quick explanation of how she'd seen him through the kitchen window and then followed him down the hallway. She left out the spork and her panic at the lights turning off.
"Well, I checked all the rooms upstairs and downstairs. No one is here."
"I know I saw him," Dori said, her voice shaking. She cleared her throat. "I smelled his cologne when I opened the kitchen door. I followed him into that room."
She pointed to the front parlor.
"Come in out of the cold." Dori knew from having been in Officer Cruz's shoes what was going on in her head. "Do you live here alone?"
"I do."
"You see this guy before? Is he an old boyfriend or something?"
"No. Nothing like that."
Officer Cruz took her time before asking the next question, her eyes scrutinizing Dori's face and wet clothes. "This happen before?"
Dori glanced over and saw the spork lying on the floor where she'd dropped it. She held her breath as she thought of all the ramifications that could come from just one stupid phone call. Officer Cruz would write a report, which would find its way back to her sergeant and the homicide supervisor who was investigating the shooting. Dori would have to explain herself.
"Detective Orihuela, are you all right?"
She opened her mouth to answer but her throat went stiff. Her fingers were so cold they hurt. Dori forced herself to focus on the officer's face, not quite meeting her dark eyes. "No, I- Nothing like this has happened before."
An 11-83 call for accident no details on the Sweetwater Road off-ramp came over the radio. Officer Cruz never took her eyes off Dori. "I'll go with you to lock up the doors. If you see anything, you can call us again."
"Thanks. I appreciate your time."
When Dori didn't move, Officer Cruz pointed to the front door. "You want to start with that one?"
They asked Dori to dress as close to what she'd been wearing on the day she shot and killed Kaylee Matthews. The doctors had cut away her blouse and pants. Her jacket had been trashed by blood. Only her boots had survived and she wished they'd been tossed out as she pulled the zippers up her legs.
She had been calm and focused during the walk-through of the scene with Lt. Llevanos of Homicide and her sergeant, Dean Carr. Dori had already given her statement in the hospital. She had no flashbacks walking through the front door in the apartment. Just nerves boiling in her stomach. The place had been cleaned and shut up for weeks. Sw
eat bloomed over her skin when she breathed in the smell of the chemicals that the clean-up service had used.
Dori pointed where everyone stood as if she were staging a play. The little boy had been curled up on the couch against the window, wrapped in a dirty beach towel. The daughter sat on the floor in front of the TV, twisted around to look over her shoulder at Dori, her partner Elliot and the social worker.
Kaylee stood by the television, no expression on her face as Dori explained their business.
The walk-through had taken only an hour. Dori shook their hands as they prepared to leave the place for the last time. When she reached the threshold, she hesitated.
"Everything all right?" Lt. Llevanos asked.
"Yeah, I-" She patted her pockets as if she'd left something behind. Dori walked out onto the balcony overlooking the cracked and stained driveway. As he locked the door, she wondered what the next tenant would think if they learned what had happened here.
"You saved those two kids' lives," he said when they reached the sidewalk. "She was probably one of those who would've killed them and then herself before letting them go."
Sergeant Carr placed his hand on her shoulder. "You did a good thing."
Dori nodded and then said good-bye before she crossed the street to her car. She'd planned to tell them about last night's encounter with National City PD. But they'd been more concerned about her state of mind leading up to the shooting.
Their blue, unmarked sedans headed west towards downtown and she wasn't sure where to go or what to do with herself but return home. She just started driving, thinking of the how Officer Cruz talked to her last night. Her cheeks flushed and there was this strange shakiness starting in the center of her chest. For weeks, she'd been in a state of total numbness and just as Grammy had predicted, the dam was now leaking. Dori pressed her hands against her chest until it hurt. But the shaking increased and the muscles around her mouth quivered and jumped.
She slammed her palm against the steering wheel. She shouldn't be driving with tears in her eyes.
Dori pulled into her driveway. She realized she had no memory of driving home from East San Diego. She had no control over the keening sounds that broke through her clenched teeth. Ever since her second day in preschool, when Angel Lopez ran over her hand with his tricycle, Dori controlled her emotions. The humiliation of showing weakness had been ingrained in her by Grampy, who after she'd come to him crying over what Angel had done, leaned down and looked her fiercely in the eye. "Don't ever come crying to me again. You cry like some baby and you're meat for the coyotes."
He'd shoved her away from him and refused to speak to her until she stopped sniveling.
Dori had promised. She wasn’t one of those women went crying to their girlfriends with her broken heart. She sure as hell wasn't one of those cops who lost it on the job or even in the ladies room. She was the tough Orihuela her grampy had molded her to be; that her fellow officers respected and admired for keeping a cool head, returning fire and allowing two kids, her partner and a social worker to walk out of that apartment unscathed.
She grasped at the broken pieces of who she had been. But they slipped through her fingers. She wasn't supposed to be this sniveling, crying, weak woman. She'd done her duty.
But she'd taken a life. Good or bad, it didn't matter right now. She had a mother's blood on her hands and it was unraveling who she had been to the point where she now saw "make-believe" men running through her house.
Wrapping her arms around herself, Dori rested her head on the steering wheel until the burning in her chest slowly died out.
It had rained. Dori smelled it in the air. Moisture seeped into her shoes as she walked across the grass. Spent clouds crowded against the mountains and faint wisps of steam drifted up from trees under the morning sun. She stopped at a circle of rose bushes bursting with blooms so vivid that they might drip their colors on the grass. A stone bird bath stood in the center, reflecting the house in the still water.
Startled, she looked up. The house – her house - glowed with a coat of fresh white paint. The windows reflected the trees as if they’d just been washed with vinegar and newspaper. Fresh gravel had been laid on the semi-circular drive and smoke drifted out of the chimneys.
A crow cawed and swooped overheard, the wind rustling its wings. She watched it land in the middle of the road where a man in a gray suit stared up at the house.
He straightened the sleeve of his jacket over a glittering watch. He looked like he'd taken a tumble through the dirt with a ripped out knee. He wasn’t much taller than her but he had thick shoulders and powerful arms. The sun glimmered off his polished shoes and as he passed her by, she recognized him as the man she’d seen in her kitchen door window.
Without moving, Dori stood beside him at the front door. His hair was brushed back off his forehead; his profile proud and sharp against the white house. She smelled stale smoke and cologne.
The door swung open and an unsmiling short guy scowled. "Your kind usually tries to run," he said.
"Only after our enemies are dead," the gray-suited man replied, his deep voice hushed and accented like her Grampy’s.
Dread uncoiled in the pit of her stomach. Dori was pulled into the house behind the gray-suited man, and the hall went dark as the door slammed shut. She shivered even though a fire crackled in the marble fireplace. Cold seeped out of her bones as she stood there alone with the gray-suited man. He stood in front of the mirror over the fireplace, as if memorizing what he looked like.
Her heart jumped when the double doors slid open behind them. A large man with curly black hair stepped out of the front parlor.
"Let's go, Vince," he said, his eyes so piercing and blue that Dori thought he could see her. He watched Vince back away from his reflection in the mirror and walk down the hall.
"Before you go in, I need to tell you that-" He paused and laid a meaty paw on Vince's shoulder, squeezing as if they were father and son. He wore a blue sapphire on his ring finger. "I didn't want this. When you come out, I'll have a place for you. I promise."
Vince stood absolutely still. He started for the parlor and the large man moved his hand as if to stop him.
Dori reached out to grab Vince and pull him back. But her arms wouldn’t move. She opened her mouth to shout, but nothing came out. She struggled to pry her voice loose, but she could only stand there as the doors slid shut. Voices rose in anger, and then something slammed against the doors, nearly rattling them off of their tracks.
The doors pulled her closer until they melted away. Dori wasn’t prepared for what lay on the floor.
Two red-faced men stood over Vince, laughing as he fought for breath. His jacket was half ripped off, dirtied with boot prints. A pool of blood oozed off the rug and onto the wood floor. His fingers were so broken and mangled; they were more pulp than skin and bone.
"No one’s gonna miss one more grease bag Mexican." The two men laughed. Dori saw the deputy stars on their leather belts. One had a bloody chain wrapped around his fist.
They giggled and wiped sweat from their brows. Another man with a moustache watched from his leather wing back chair by the marble fireplace.
Dori choked on the horror of their amusement.
"My God, what did you do?" The blue-eyed man now stood in the door way. "You were supposed to arrest him. Not- Not this! You'll frame me for murder."
"It'll keep you locked up good and tight. You got your deal, Jimmy," the mustached man said.
Dori felt something wet land on her foot. Vince groaned as he pushed with one leg to crawl out of the room.
"Look at him," one of the deputies said. "Let’s just shoot him like a dog."
"I would if he were dog," the mustached man joked, and the others, except Dori and Jimmy laughed.
Vince lifted his face from the rug. Dori never would’ve recognized him if it wasn’t for the suit. His mouth gaped open, with bits of teeth floating in the blood and broken flesh.
Through the swol
len folds of skin she made out his eyes, staring straight into hers. "Do you see me?" he wheezed. His cold, bloodied hand squeezed her foot.
Chapter Three
A hand smacked the window. Dori jolted awake. The seat belt still strapped her against the seat. Her neck felt like a wilted stem.
"If you don't open this door right now, I'm throwing a rock through the God damned window!"
Heart pumping, she turned to see Grammy frowning at her. Confusion as to how and why she was in her car came and went as Dori realized she had been dreaming.
"That's it, I'm gonna find me a rock," Grammy muttered.
"Wait!" Dori struggled to get free. Her hands shivered.
"What the hell is going on here?" Grammy demanded when Dori managed to open the door. "You finally go out for a bender?"
"No." Panic burbled under the surface. The cool air felt good on her face that was sticky with dried-up tears. She scanned the yard for signs of Vince and the man named Jimmy. "What time is it?"
"I'm retired. I don't keep the time. Why are you sleeping in your car?"
The mental fog cleared and Dori took in deep breaths to calm the fear racing under her skin. But as she stepped out of the car, she winced from the stiffness of her side.
"Looks like you need a Tylenol and bourbon," Grammy assessed, coming over to help her straighten up.
"I didn't sleep last night. I must’ve just closed my eyes and-"
"Mija, you got to take better care of yourself with a gunshot wound!" Grammy shook her head and then grabbed Dori’s arm. "Your grammy knows all about these things. You need to be lying down with a St. Jude candle burning."
Dori looked down at the Big Ben grocery bags next to Grammy’s car.
"What’s all that?"
"Your groceries," Grammy said. "I don’t like you eating all that tofu garbage. You need meat to make your blood strong."
"You didn’t have to do that," Dori said, pulling away to help carry the bags inside. She needed to do something normal. But Grammy sank her claws deeper in her arm. "Ow! That’s not helping."
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