House of V

by Raen Smith

  “You sure you’re ready?” Sanchez asked on the other end. I could see his cell phone glowing in his car behind me.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be. I just want to make sure I’m right on time. I want to kill a few minutes,” I said.

  “You want to go over the protocol, again?” Sanchez asked.

  “No, I got it.” We had gone over it what felt like a million times. I had it down. No pulling the gun unless I was in danger, no muffled talking or whispers and no forgetting the safe word. Yes, we had a safe word in case I was in danger except we weren’t in a BDSM situation. The safe word was dragonfly, and I had no idea how I would work that into a conversation. I didn’t plan on using it anyway.

  “Want to check your tap one last time?”

  “Remember, you’re supposed to trust me?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I trust you,” Sanchez replied.

  “How’s the search on Cross and Harris coming?” I asked. “Did you find either of them?”

  “Not yet,” Sanchez said. “Too many of them to filter through. We’ve checked all the employee records at Parker Enterprises, and we’ve gone through criminal records, but we don’t know for sure - ”

  “If they have ever been arrested,” I interrupted as the headlights of a van slowed first and then moved past us.

  “Exactly,” Sanchez agreed.

  “Well, I plan on finding Sister Josephine tonight, so we shouldn’t have to worry about them,” I said, white-knuckling the wheel. Sanchez knew I was going to do whatever it took to find Sister Josephine, even if it meant putting myself at risk, but he would never admit it.

  The silence hung between us for a second before Sanchez replied, “Good luck, Evie.”

  “I don’t need luck.”

  I ended the call and put the phone on silent before sliding it in my pocket. I drove the rest of the way, listening to the soft hum of the road and envisioning the night before me. I would find Sister Josephine and bring that bastard to his knees. She would make it out alive, unlike Elizabeth and Ethan. I would put an end to all of this madness and move on, hopefully, with Ryan. Life for me could - would - be normal one day. I promised myself all of these things as I neared the house I had killed my so-called father in.

  Sanchez turned off just a mile before I pulled along the road in front of the house. He would be back in a few minutes, along with the other twenty officers. They had only given me fifteen minutes even though I requested more. They had just wanted to storm the house military style and arrest everyone for breaking and entering. Then they would question them, but the drawback there was that they needed all of them to cooperate.

  I argued that if I could get any information first, then we could pinpoint Sister Josephine’s captor and work on only him to get to her faster. However, fifteen minutes wasn’t nearly enough time to make my mark and uncover inside information into Sister Josephine’s whereabouts in a group of fifteen people. I would have to turn on the Evie charm if I wanted to get anywhere.

  A deep chill shuddered through my body as I soaked in the outline of the house. The driveway was filled with seven vehicles, all lined neatly in a row. The house glowed the slightest hue, barely visible even though the night was now turning black. It was only a minute until show time.

  I closed my eyes and watched Holston fall as I emptied the shot in his head. He was gone. Nothing left other than distant memories of a monster I couldn’t associate myself with. Everything would end tonight. I would bury it all, along with whoever had taken Sister Josephine.

  My hand pulled toward my holster inside my bra, on loan from Delaney, and felt the unfamiliar grip of the borrowed 9mm from the police department. I moved my hand over and grazed the microphone taped inside my bra before I killed the engine. There was nothing standing between me and the house. I pulled out my disposable phone one last time, sending a quick “going in” text to Sanchez before sliding it back into my pocket.

  Within a minute, I found myself standing on the porch of the house with my hand held high, ready to knock. It suddenly swung open to the man with neck tattoos and two first names, Jeremy George. I quickly surveyed him; black pants and matching shirt with a red plastic cup in his hand. My eyes moved down to his black combat boots before I looked back up to see the wide grin on his face in the shadows of the soft light glowing behind him.

  “You alone?” he asked. He darted his head out of the door and checked the perimeter.

  I nodded my head with a quick jerk. “Yeah.”

  “Evie Parker, you came,” he whispered as he hesitated at the door for a second too long before stepping back to let me in. “Come in, please. Come in.”

  I stepped through the threshold and the tightness of Holston’s presence consumed me. The white, clean lines and design of the house screamed his name. The memories of him echoed off the walls. I swallowed hard and tried to push the screams down into my gut.

  Push. Push. Push.

  “I’m so glad you came. I hope you don’t mind that we’re technically breaking into the house,” Jeremy said as he turned to me in the foyer. “I assure you that we will leave it as we found it. No harm or damage will be done. The lock Fred picked to get in is totally still functional. We only have one light on in the living room so we can see just enough without bringing too much attention. The cars are kind of a dead giveaway, but there aren’t too many people around this neck of the woods anyway. Pretty secluded out here, don’t you think? Makes for the perfect atmosphere.”

  “Yeah, it definitely does,” I replied coolly, returning his gaze. Perfect atmosphere for what? Worshipping my dead, so-called father?

  “I like your haircut,” he added as he pulled his hand out as if he was going to touch my hair. He pulled his hand back at the last second, registering my look of contempt.

  What was with this guy?

  “Did you do it just for us?”

  I nodded my head and looked forward to the living room. Although Jeremy was really starting to creep me out with his “Evie Parker” fascination, I knew he hadn’t taken Sister Josephine. He was wasting the precious minutes I needed to find the bastard that took Sister Josephine.

  “Awesome,” he said before he took a swig from his cup. The smell of Vodka stung my nose. “I’m just so glad you came. Everyone is going to be so thrilled to see you. They really are a great group of guys. You’ve got to trust me on this one.”

  Trust. What was with trusting everyone? There wasn’t anything trust-worthy about this situation, but I nodded my head anyway. “I’m sure they are.”

  “Good, good,” he said as he stopped just short of the living room. I heard a buzz of soft voices talking and laughing just a few feet around the corner. “Just to warn you, there’s going to be a fair amount of questions, if that’s all right? Hopefully nothing too jarring, but just, you know, some questions about Holston and that day. The guys here have read a lot about your story and have followed it from the beginning. This is their chance to explore a living artifact.”

  “No problem.” I shrugged my shoulders and followed his lead toward the light. Artifact?

  The room fell dead silent the moment we walked in and every head turned toward me all at once. I felt the eyes of fifteen men dressed in black, some wearing fedoras, studying me as Jeremy handed me a red Solo cup to match the rest of the crowd. It bothered me, not the black, but the fedoras. I wanted to flip each and every single one of those hats on the ground and smother them beneath my boot. I never wanted to see another fedora again.

  I scanned the room and took stock of the replaced wing-backed chairs and new couch in the same places I remembered from that day last year. I leaned over the couch to see a pristine surface; there was no red stain from James. My eyes travelled to where Holston’s body once laid in a pool of blood. The rug was gone and the floor was scrubbed clean as far as I could tell in the dim lighting. Two men were sitting in the chairs where I had seen my mother and sister sitting as they had been held against their will by Holston. The memory was still there, f
estering in my mind like an open sore. It all came flooding back to me in a wave that made my head foggy and my vision blurred. I blinked hard, not once but a dozen times until the room came into sharp focus again.

  “HP Chapter, I would like to introduce our guest of honor, Evie Parker.” Jeremy stood tall next to me, grinning like a proud parent. He put his arm around my shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze as if we’d been friends for years, not the mere acquaintances we had become in the last twenty-four hours.

  Silence.

  I could have sworn I heard the gunshot echoing in my ears and the smell of gun powder and blood wafting through my nose, the shriek of my mother and the moans of James on the couch.

  Silence.

  I felt my legs buckling beneath me, but my head forced them to hang on and stay straight. So I did what any normal person would do in this situation. I held my cup in the air and said, “Cheers.”

  A loud “Holy shit” rang through the air.

  And that’s what did it. The men erupted in a small round of clapping and hollering as they took turns patting Jeremy on his back.

  By now, I only maybe had ten minutes to find out any information. I had to do it fast.

  “I’m happy to answer any questions that you have,” I said, raising my cup once again in a joyous salute. I still didn’t take a drink. Instead, I dropped the cup against my thigh and scoped out a good place to set it down. I wanted both my hands available.

  I scanned the shadowed faces of the men, trying to profile each of them, but the light wasn’t bright enough to make out all their features. However I recognized the two men in baseball caps, still wearing the same hats from the night before. And the older man in the glasses. He was one of the men that wore a fedora. That left nine unknowns.

  “What was it like? I mean killing your father and everything?” The question came from an unknown in the back with a thick southern accent. Kentucky, maybe.

  “Jerry, you asshole, he wasn’t her real dad.” The guy next to him elbowed him in the side. Definitely, Kentucky.

  “Well, whatever, you know what I meant. What was it like? And is it true that you aren’t really his daughter?” Jerry asked the question again.

  “Jerry, seriously. Remember, Holston took her and raised her as his own, but he actually took the wrong kid.” The guy hit Jerry in the chest and then shook his head. “Sorry for Jerry’s question. It’s been a long day. We drove up from Kentucky, left at five this morning.”

  Count these two assholes out on taking Sister Josephine. Down to seven unknowns.

  All eyes moved to me.

  “No, I’m not his daughter. And killing him was like the best sex you’ve ever had,” I replied with a straight face. I knew this was going to get these guys going. The group busted out in a short-lived laughter that was followed up with another question.

  “Be honest, how long did you know that your father was a vigilante?” This question came from one of the guys in the baseball caps.

  “About an hour before I shot him,” I said coolly.

  “How long were you planning it?” Another shout-out from the back of the room.

  “I didn’t plan it,” I said carefully, finally shifting to put the cup down on the sofa console ahead of me. I felt the tape that secured my microphone pull against my chest. “It was self-defense.”

  There were a few snickers throughout the room that were quickly followed by a heated discussion between the group.

  “Self-defense?”

  “No way. There’s no possibly way. It was too planned. Too calculated.”

  “Where were you anyway on your hiatus? You came back for a reason, didn’t you?”

  The talk swirled around my head as I tried to pinpoint one question to answer, but they were firing questions too fast. I couldn’t keep up with them all, so I stood there instead, assessing each and every one of them. No one was standing out as a person of interest, and I had little time left. This wasn’t going anywhere.

  Damn it.

  Jeremy leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “That’s a huge point of contention for the group. They all think you planned it. You had to plan it, right?”

  I shook my head no.

  “All right, all right. Settle down,” Jeremy said, talking over the group. “I think this is a bad way to do this. Why don’t we let Evie walk around, and we can talk in smaller groups. Let this party roll a little more freely. You can get your questions answered one-on-one without the noise of the group. After all, she didn’t really sign up to be a speaker at this event. Right, Evie?”

  I nodded my head, thankful for Jeremy’s interruption. This might give me the chance that I needed to get closer to some of these guys. I needed real information, fast.

  The men agreed and went back to the small groups they had been in before we walked in. The laughter and buzz of the room immediately started again.

  “Thanks,” I whispered to Jeremy. I maybe had five to six minutes left, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. The Appleton Police Department would come barreling in here before I had a chance to find anything out. I scoped out the room and scanned for targets. There was a loner in the back. The two baseball caps that looked relatively harmless. None of them screamed to me, but I knew I had to start somewhere. I headed toward the loner in the back when I was cut off by the guy in the glasses and fedora from Bazil’s the other night.

  “Evie Parker,” he said as he held his hand out. I dug my fingernails into my palm to prevent myself from flicking off his hat. I shoved my other hand into his sweaty palm. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” I said, studying his eyes behind the glasses. There were bags around his eyes and deep set wrinkles beginning to form. He was most likely in his fifties, maybe even pushing his sixties. Neat in appearance with that same slicked to the side hair that he’d had at the bar. Accountant, I guessed. Or maybe Engineer. Someone I wouldn’t necessarily pick out of a crowd.

  Killers are just that, though, you don’t pick them out of the crowd. The good ones that get away with it are “normal”, somewhat average-looking individuals that are so-called socially adjusted. They’re calculated and know how to work the system. My mind raced back to the picture of Holston and Sister Josephine. The other boy in the picture would be around the same age as Holston. I let my arm fall to my waist as he started talking.

  “I’m such a fan of yours,” he said, pushing his glasses further onto his face. “Your father was an amazing man. A true visionary with plans, but I understood your need to kill him. He did deserve it, after all. Had it not been for those poor boys, it would have been a different story. It’s a shame really, that something so early had to ruin the rest of his career.”

  “Career?” The word stuck like the rot of a corpse.

  “Vigilantism is a call to action, a career in ridding the world of evil. It was his career to take out the bad seeds one by one. And you, in turn, were mentored to take on the role. Although, it appears that you haven’t been fulfilling your role, lately.”

  This guy had definitely gotten under my skin and fast. It had only taken him a mouthful of words to get him there. He was talking about Holston as if he were a Financial Planner. Killing people like Holston had wasn’t a career. It was psychotic. Even me, the girl who killed her own so-called father, knew that. The fact that I killed the people I had to didn’t make me a vigilante; a visionary, according to this sick bastard. It made me a survivor, a fighter, and too stubborn to give up on my life, even though it was a crappy one at best.

  “Oh yeah?” I said, glancing around me. Jeremy was just off to my right, talking with one of the baseball caps.

  “Where have you been?” he asked. “I thought maybe you had disappeared for good. It sounded like you had fled the country, but there weren’t any traces of you. I see you’re back now. Was there a particular reason why you came back?”

  “I can’t tell you where I’ve been,” I said, glancing at the sweat dripping down his brow. “But I will tell you that I
came back for a funeral.”

  “Oh yeah? Whose funeral is that?” His face lit up with an uncensored surge of excitement that I wanted to scrub off with an abrasive kitchen pad.

  “A lifelong friend of mine. A mentor, I guess, really. Father Haskens died of a heart attack a few days ago,” I replied, feeling my heart begin to pulse against my chest. My fingers twitched, ready to grab the gun.

  His face fell in disappointment as he wiped his hand against his shirt, “Oh, I hadn’t heard that.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled before he slipped his hand in his front pocket. I jerked my hand to my chest about to pull out the gun when he retrieved a small, folded piece of paper from his pocket. He briefly looked at it before he turned it toward me. “I wanted to know what you thought about this.”

  I looked down at the list; Holston’s clear handwriting stung my eyes. I pulled the paper closer to me to see that it was a photocopy of the TBK list that Sanchez had shown me yesterday except this list had a thick black line through Fred Sullivan’s name. And Griffin was checked off. I looked down to see my name with a question mark behind it. The man pulled the paper back out of my hands.

  “I didn’t know where you were, until now,” he said as his lips quivered into a crooked smile. “I’m so lucky to have met you. It was a surprise to say the least.”

  “Where did you get this list?” I demanded.

  He shrugged his shoulders in simple indifference.

  “The list. Where did you get this list?” I asked again. I tried to steady my voice, but I could feel it rising, the anger in my throat cased my words.

  “The world is a vast place, Evie,” he responded with a tip of his hat.

  “Why is Fred Sullivan’s name crossed off?” I asked, keeping my eyes on him as I pointed to the list in his hand.

  “I thought you would be pleased,” he responded as his eyes searched my face. He was taken off guard, completely surprised with my anger and accusations.