House of V

by Raen Smith

  “The stolen identity will be dropped to a misdemeanor, no jail time will be sentenced if you cooperate with our investigation and you agree to parole for three years,” Sanchez finished, looking up from his folder.

  “Evie?” James asked, turning toward me. “We can discuss it further if you want. I can call a friend of mine who is a criminal lawyer to help explain?”

  “No parole,” I said, my eyes staring hard at Sanchez. I didn’t want to be committed to staying here; I didn’t need anyone watching my every move.

  “Two years,” Sanchez replied.

  “No parole.”

  “You realize that your felony charges could land you up to fifteen years in a federal prison? Hard time? You’re a tough woman, Evie Parker. One of the strongest women I’ve ever met, but you’ve never been federally imprisoned and you don’t want to be, not with your name,” Sanchez said, shaking his head.

  My name, what did he mean by my name?

  “He’s right, Evie,” James said quietly, now tapping a pen on the table. God, his nervousness was starting to really agitate me. “Let me call my-”

  I held my breath, not wanting to hear the words that were about to come from my mouth, but Sanchez was right, I didn’t belong in prison. The back of the police car was bad enough; the confines too restricting for me. The bars of the prison would drive me insane.

  “One year.”

  “Deal.”

  ***

  I knew Delaney was on the other side of the glass wall, but the reflection I saw was my own. My hair barely grazed my shoulders, the auburn hue shining in the fluorescent lighting of the room. The black-rimmed glasses and brown contacts were a nice touch, but my small features and angular face remained evident. Still, I wouldn’t pick me out of a line-up as Evie Parker. I’m surprised Delaney recognized me so quickly, but she’s changed, too.

  The pull of sisters.

  Yet, I was furious at her for letting them follow her so easily and for discovering the emails exchanged between us. She should have been more careful in reaching out to me. And I should have known better. I should have seen it coming. I wondered if I was slipping, if the year away had disrupted my ability to see things clearly. I’d always been able to see things like this coming. My mind had always played out scenarios before they happen; the visions flash through my head in quick succession. My senses had always been heightened and aware. But I didn’t see it coming at the zoo. I didn’t see the officers following her. I was becoming soft, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not now when Sister Josephine needed me.

  The jet lag waned through my body as I stared through the glass. I imagined Delaney was staring back at me, studying the features she finds in her own face, comparing the two. I wondered what our brothers would look like if they were alive. They would be in their thirties now and probably married with bouncing children on their sides. That was what people in the Midwest did; they married young and started a family right away. How many nieces and nephews would there be?

  And would I still have the same revolting feeling to having children of my own had I grown up as I should have? Maybe I would be married with children of my own instead of standing in an interrogation room at a police department agreeing to one year of parole. But I couldn’t look back on life with regrets. This was the hand I had been dealt, and I was going to do the best I could with it, even if it meant succumbing to the parole.

  Sister Josephine. That was why I needed to be here.

  The agreement meant I would stay here, within the confines of a parole officer. With any luck, James would be able to negotiate the terms of the parole officer, and I could be monitored in a different location within the state. We had all agreed that staying in Appleton wasn’t feasible long-term, and most likely, a hazard to my safety. The state would need to sign off on the papers; the ones that I hadn’t signed at this point. James was finalizing the agreement with his contact, and he had urged me to wait on diving into the case until I signed the papers.

  So I stood in the room alone, waiting for James to come back with the papers and for Sanchez to return after excusing himself for a phone call. My thoughts fled to Sister Josephine. Why had someone taken her? What could someone possibly want from her? Then the most important question of all, when was it going to end? When would the tragedy surrounding my life and the people I associated with stop?

  I turned my head at the sound of the door to see Sanchez with a coffee in his hand. He set it down on the table across from him, in front of my chair.

  “I thought you might need this,” Sanchez said as he sat down, opened his folder and leafed through the first few pages. He stopped and looked up at me before he motioned for me to sit down.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking one last glance at the mirror where Delaney was surely standing - my sister, the reason why I wasn’t out on the open waters of the sea with Ryan - before I found myself in the seat across Sanchez, staring into the blackness of the coffee. I liked my coffee black. No cream, no sugar. Just like life.

  “Two days,” he said, pulling out a single piece of paper. “We have two more days to find Sister Josephine.”

  “When was she taken?”

  “Two days ago, sometime in the morning. Officer Hobart went to her apartment to finish another round of questioning, but she wasn’t there. He called the Church to see where she was, and the office assistant, Carol, said that she was staying with her. When Hobart went to check out the house, Sister Josephine wasn’t there. He went to the Church and found her bike, but no Sister Josephine. According to Carol, she never saw her come in. This was around ten in the morning,” he said.

  “And the letter, you saw the letter that she got, right? Since you saw the email that Delaney sent me,” I replied, closing my eyes to see the passage. “Psalm 116:15: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

  “Yes, Delaney informed us of the content of the message. Sister Josephine should have come to us right away. No one should feel like they should take the law into their own hands,” Sanchez said. His eyes hardened for a brief moment as he turned the sheet to me.

  “Yeah, well, you can’t exactly always trust law enforcement to do their jobs. How’s the sweep of your department going? Did you get rid of all the corruption? Your track record for keeping a clean crew isn’t exactly on par,” I said, digging in a little harder. I didn’t want to get in a spitting contest with Sanchez, but he needed to be put in his place after his comment. I saved countless lives by taking the law into my own hands and made his department look like the fools that they were.

  “We’re clean,” he replied flatly. “Without a doubt.”

  “Good.” I said, not entirely convinced.

  Silence.

  “We’re not getting off on the right foot here.” Sanchez sighed, leaning back into the chair as he massaged his forehead lightly.

  “I can’t disagree,” I said, leaning forward in the chair to look at the paper in front of me. As much as I hated being here, I needed to find Sister Josephine, with or without the Appleton Police Department. I was here, and there was no going back.

  “I need you, whether I like it or not. Not everyone in the department sees it that way, but I don’t care because it’s my department. We have a reputation to rebuild and a job to do. And we’re just not there quite yet. We need more information on this case, the inside scoop on who Holston was and what past he had. There’s no one better than his own daughter.”

  “I’m not his daughter,” I corrected.

  “You know what I mean. You knew him the longest and discovered what he was doing before any of us did. You took him down before we could get our heads out of our asses,” he said as he signaled his hand to the mirror behind him.

  One of the officers from the zoo stuck his buzzed head in. “Yeah, Chief?”

  “Turn off the camera for a sec.”

  “Chief?”

  “Just do it, Hobart. I’ll tell you when to turn it back on.”

  I eyed the cam
era in the corner of the room before setting my eyes back on Sanchez.

  “I know you took Theron Olson.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My face was as straight as an arrow. I’d never played poker, never gambled really, yet I’d be one hell of a player. I didn’t break. Ever. I’d only taken Theron Olson after Gunnar had sliced through his chest. I hadn’t planned on taking the student Delaney slept with, but he turned out to be good bait for both Holston and his henchman Gunnar. It was too bad that I wasn’t able to take care of Holston back then, right along with Gunnar.

  “I know you took Theron Olson and set the barn on fire. I also know that you killed the three men in the barn.”

  Wrong. Only two. Delaney took care of the third. My face was still, not a single twitch or blink. I could go like this forever, however it was infuriating to think this was how Sanchez thought he should build trust.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I repeated.

  “The point that I’m trying to make, one I’m not doing very well apparently, is that I know what you did, and I’m not doing anything about it,” Sanchez finally said.

  “No evidence.” I shrugged my shoulders indifferently.

  “Theron Olson paid me a little visit after your picture was splashed across the newspaper,” he rebutted.

  “Oh yeah?” I said coolly, still not moving. Sanchez needed me so I wasn’t going to confess to anything. Trying to threaten me so I would trust him wasn’t going to work.

  “He said it was you that took him. He recognized your eyes,” he said.

  “A lot of women have blue eyes.” I was beyond aggravated at this point. Sister Josephine was out there in the hands of some psychopath and needed our help.

  “Not like yours.”

  “My sister has the same eyes.”

  Sanchez cleared his throat and moved back into his seat. “I told Theron we didn’t have enough evidence for a criminal charge at the time, but that we would investigate. He told me not to ? that he didn’t want to press charges because he didn’t want to get involved in the whole ordeal. He wanted to move past everything, but he said that he just needed me to know. I think he needed to get it off his chest, to be honest.”

  “I don’t see where this is going. Sister Josephine is out there?”

  “What I’m trying to show you, although apparently I’m not being clear, is that I’m doing you a favor. I’m not looking further into it. I don’t care if I can find evidence that corroborates your guilt. Hell, I don’t want to find it. The whole department needs to move on and start solving the cases that we have in front of us so we can put a stop to all this?” Sanchez waved his hands in the air, unable to finish the sentence. He was trying not to insult me, but I knew that “all this” was referring to me ? my association with Holston Parker and the events of the last year and half. “Too many lives have been taken. And I think you can help put a stop to this,” Sanchez finished.

  “I don’t accept favors. I don’t want to owe anything to anybody,” I replied.

  “It’s not yours to accept or decline. It’s already done.”

  I was silent, trying to process how this conversation was getting us any closer to trusting each other.

  “How did you do it? How did you get out of there so fast?” Sanchez leaned back across the table as his forehead glistened above his black brows.

  “Where?” I asked, knowing the answer he was looking for. I never would have been able to get out of the country as fast as I had without Ryan’s help, but I was never going to give Sanchez his name.

  “Who helped you? Who picked you up?” Sanchez asked as his eyes flashed wide in inquisition and his lips cracked a hint of smile. “I’ve wanted to know for a year.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. I would never give up Ryan. Sanchez could torture me, but I would never utter his name.

  “It’s off the record.”

  “I know.”

  “Damn.” He let out a small sound that sounded like a laugh, but I wasn’t sure if Sanchez was capable of laughing. I was familiar with the restricted ability. He cleared his throat and his face fell back into the more comfortable seriousness I was accustomed to.

  “As much as I hate to say this because I don’t advocate taking the law into your hands at any point, I want to tell you that you did a damn good job tracking down Holston Parker, and I’m glad that the son of a bitch is dead,” Sanchez added.

  “Me, too.” For the first time, I felt my face lighten and my lips part, curling into a small smile I tried to press down. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t suppress the relief I felt every time I thought of pulling the trigger.

  “Well, I’m glad we can be on the same page with at least something,” Sanchez said, returning his own thin-lipped smile before tapping the paper in front of me that I hadn’t looked at yet.

  A photocopied letter of the note Sister Josephine received in the confessional sat in front of me. The words were scribbled in small, cursive lettering. Tread carefully, Sister Josephine. Psalm 116:15:Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. The words were verbatim to Delaney’s email. The letter was printed on a white piece of paper with a torn top. The sides and bottom were straight and clearly intact.

  Sanchez slid another photocopied sheet next to the first one. It was another letter on the same type of paper with a torn top, straight sides and bottom.

  “This one was found taped near a side entrance of the church. Sister Josephine’s bike was found on the grass just ten feet away. Carol was on the other side of the building and never heard a sound.”

  The same handwriting was sprawled across the note. Tick-tock goes the clock. Matthew 7: 7-8: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

  My eyes scanned through the letter, reciting the verse from Matthew. “He’s looking for someone. Asking for something, but what?”

  Sanchez slid a third piece of paper in the row, the final one glaring back at me in the same curved lettering.

  I want Evie Parker. You have four days to bring her to me. Or else, tick-tock, you’ll never find God’s flock.

  My chest squeezed my lungs, the air fighting to come in and out to sustain my life, but my body stopped and so did the air as I read my name.

  So here I was, Evie Parker, a girl that preferred to be unwanted, and I was being hunted. Both by Sanchez and a mysterious man who had taken Sister Josephine as ransom.

  “So that’s why you needed me. You need me to be bait,” I accused, my eyes following Sanchez’s still outstretched hand to his uniformed shirt; black, both crisp and clean. I wanted to grab a fistful of the shirt and pull it toward me, yet I refrained, and instead, watched him carefully.

  “That’s not what I want and that’s not why I need you - ” Sanchez started.

  “Bullshit and you know it,” I called, slamming my finger into the sheet.

  “I thought you could help?”

  Help. He thought I could help by exchanging me for Sister Josephine. It was an easy transaction and an easy decision. Nun for killer. Ask a hundred people and you would hear the same response. Which would you save? The nun every time.

  “I’ll do it,” I replied. “Let’s do the exchange. Tomorrow work well for you?”

  “Evie,” Sanchez yelled, slamming his open folder shut. “I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m not giving you up to that bastard. I needed you to know that he’s after you and that we are going to do everything we can to protect you and to get Sister Josephine back.”

  I bit the inside of my mouth down hard, glaring back at the window where I hoped Delaney was still standing. I wondered if she knew about the letter and about the psychopath trying to hunt me down. To get to me, he killed Father Haskens and took Sister Josephine. They were simply more notches to my belt. Elizabeth, Ethan, Fat
her Haskens. All dead because of me. Because of him, Holston Parker. I thought I’d taken care of the problem but apparently not. And if I didn’t do anything to help find Sister Josephine, she would be dead, too.

  I felt the metallic taste of the blood seep into the back of my throat as I finally released the clamp on the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t let Sister Josephine be another notch. But why was he after me? Who would want me dead?

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Evie,” Sanchez started again, this time quieter.

  “No, I’ll do whatever you want me to. I’ll help with the investigation to track this son of a bitch down. I don’t have any leads or any special persons of interest that I can think of, but there has to be something. Someone who Holston crossed. I think he’s coming after me to seek revenge. He knew the only way to get me here was through Father Haskens and Sister Josephine. He knew he couldn’t get close to Delaney or any of the Jones family. I assume you’re watching them, right?” I broke my thought, looking up to a bewildered Sanchez.

  “Yeah, we are now,” Sanchez stammered.

  “Before Father Haskens died?”

  “We were checking on Delaney every once in a while to make sure she wasn’t having any contact with you,” Sanchez replied.

  “He knew it would be too high profile if Delaney or anyone else was taken. The FBI would get involved immediately,” I said, my head now reeling. “But this. This is low profile enough to only have the local police department on it, enough to get me here. So here I am. Just what he wanted.”

  “The perpetrator broke into the rectory on June 14. It was a relatively silent break-in. Just the clips on the window were broken. Sister Josephine happened to be staying with Father Haskens that night in the other bedroom across the house. She called the police right away, and after he left, went to investigate. That’s when she saw Father Haskens. He died of a heart attack before the ambulance could get him to the hospital,” Sanchez said.

  “So he didn’t take anything else?”

  “No, he wasn’t there to burglarize, but I don’t know that he was there to kill Father Haskens, either. There was no sign of a struggle, and Sister Josephine said he couldn’t have been in the house for more than five minutes. She said she’d barely heard him come in, but that she’d heard him leave in a hurry, which makes me think things didn’t go according to his plan.”