First, I had taken a moment to stop by my car and, surprisingly, found my gun. Papers and receipts were scattered all over the floorboard. I started cleaning up, then realized crime scene investigators might want to check for fingerprints or other trace evidence, so I grabbed my gun and made my way to the mansion.
Once back inside the confines of the Burchfield property, I’d found no sign of Stan or Moreno. One of the two remaining uniforms said the detectives had been called away by the deputy chief for an urgent meeting. Saul and his boss had also left. Zeke was still at the house, on his phone coordinating more security. I’d put in an urgent text to Stan and waited. After an hour of reading Emma her favorite bedtime book and providing assurances that her dad would be okay, I’d sent another text to Stan. He’d sent me a one-word response: Later
That midnight message was the only communication I’d received from Stan.
I walked to the bedside table and checked my phone for another text from Stan. Still nothing.
“Did you ever hear back from the walrus?” Cristina had just stuck her head inside my door, her hair covering half of her face.
“You mean Stan? No, and I’m starting to feel anxious about having all of this information. I don’t think dialing nine-one-one and spilling everything out is the right way to handle it.”
“You’re right. Maybe he’s sleeping off a candy-bar binge.”
I giggled, but she didn’t. And her hair draped even more over her face.
“By the way,” she said with a hand on the doorknob, “Emma’s already up. I gave her breakfast, and now she’s watching the fish movie for the hundredth time.”
“Thanks, Cristina.” I tried to study her face, but I could barely see her eyes. “Everything else going okay?”
“Sure. I’m just tired,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
Did I just see a black-and-blue mark under one eye? I walked closer.
“Gotta pee and take a shower,” she said. “Can you watch Emma?”
“Of course.”
She left the door open, but quickly scooted away. When I looked out into the hallway, I saw her bedroom door shutting behind her.
I slipped on some shorts and walked down the long corridor to reach Emma’s playroom. She was chilling on her beanbag chair, holding a stuffed horse, her little eyes focused on the flat-screen TV. I quietly sat down next to her. A few moments later, she had her head leaning against my arm. After everything we’d experienced in our brief time knowing each other, she felt comfortable with me. She trusted me.
And there was no greater compliment than trust from a child. Well, maybe unbridled love, but I figured that was for Mom and Dad, not the latest hired help. Emma laughed at some of the Dory jokes, and I couldn’t help but join in. The banter was funny, but Emma’s giggle could bring joy to even the most jaded person.
My mind went back to Cristina. She seemed to be in a funk. Last night when she arrived, I sensed something wasn’t quite right. She was present, yet distracted. This morning, more of the same. And did my eyes deceive me or did she have a black eye? While we’d grown closer over the last few months, I knew she was a private person. A loner. Like me, but younger. Which meant she didn’t appreciate people telling her how to run her life, even if she was just seventeen and needed guidance. I viewed my role as more of sharing my wisdom than giving direct instructions, but she heard it in her own way.
I’d give her a little space. Maybe she’d come around on her own. I’d also try to get a better view of her eye. She wasn’t dating anyone that I knew of. She better not be. Not because that was necessarily a bad decision. I was just hoping she hadn’t hooked up with a guy who abused her. Then again, if anyone was dishing out punishment, my money was on Cristina.
My phone buzzed. I was able to pull it from my pocket without disrupting Emma. It was a text from Stan.
Got 2 hours sleep last night. Been talking to DC, chief. They want me on case w/Moreno. Will be at Burchfield house after lunch. Meeting fbi. We can talk. Until then I’m out of pocket. Sorry:)
I started texting a quick reply, but then deleted the words and set the phone aside. He’d finally given a response. It just didn’t happen to match my urgency.
Tapping the phone against my opposite hand, I thought more about the cowboy and his apparent interest in me. Unless he was no more than a thief and happened to randomly pick my car.
Yeah, right. He had followed Black Beauty earlier in the day. Then I found him digging through my car under the cloak of darkness. Still, it took some balls for him to do that with all of the media folks around, as well as cops.
Was he the sniper who’d tried to kill Dillon? I don’t know why, but my mind couldn’t logically get there. For the shooter to return to the crime scene amidst so much activity would have been flat-out stupid. Or desperate.
I couldn’t rule out his involvement in the shooting, even if he hadn’t fired the shots. Maybe he served some other function for Belsito. But what about the sticker on the back of his truck window? That told me he likely had another gig.
“Hey.” Cristina walked into the room, her partially wet hair still hanging in her face. She had on jeans and a black T-shirt.
I told her about Stan’s text and when we could expect him and others to arrive.
“You just going to sit around and wait? What if this cowboy had something to do with the shooting?”
As soon as I locked eyes with her, she turned around and started putting toys away. Seemed like she was avoiding me.
“That’s what I’m struggling with, wondering if this guy—”
She finished for me, still with her back turned. “—is just another member of your personal fan club, or sees you as no more than a connection to Dillon.”
“Daddy?” Emma sat up, looking over to Cristina.
“Everything’s fine, Emma. Want to make that Get Well card for your dad?”
“Sure. After Finding Dory, okay?”
I patted her shoulder and lifted to my feet. “Okay, sweetie.” I walked over to Cristina, put my hand on her elbow.
“You just going to stand there or help me clean up more toys than twenty kids could play with?” Cristina said, turning away from me again.
I leaned over, grabbed a handful of books, and set them on the shelf above Emma’s toy-box compartments.
“We need to make sure we don’t alarm Emma with all of this discussion about the shooting and other people like this cowboy fella prowling around the area,” I said, leaning closer. “She’s only four, but she’s sharp.”
“Agreed.” She didn’t stop picking up toys. She flipped around, and I saw the front of her T-shirt.
“Johnny Cash, ‘Folsom Prison.’ That’s a classic. Where’d you get that?” I asked, attempting to draw her out of her shell.
“Someplace. I don’t know,” she said a little too quickly, which immediately made me suspicious.
“Seriously, you don’t recall?”
“Maybe at that thrift store near the downtown market.” Even with the floor clear of toys, she continued to look for others things to sort on the shelves.
“Cristina, are you going to share what’s got you so worked up?”
“I’m not worked up,” she snapped.
Emma glanced over her shoulder at us, and then Dory said something funny, and she went back to the movie.
“I’m fine. No worries here,” she said, straightening the spines of a row of books.
I put my hand on her shoulder and invaded her personal space. “Can you show me your face please?”
She huffed out a breath, then curled a lock of hair around her ear, her eyes finally finding mine. I could see base makeup trying to cover up shades of blue and purple under her left eye. I raised a hand. “Who did this to you?”
She looked at me as though I’d just asked her to jump off a bridge.
“Are you going to tell me?”
She leaned down, picked up a spare block I hadn’t noticed. “I broke up a fight a couple of nights
ago.”
I waited to see if there was more to the story. She didn’t continue, so I prompted her. “And?”
“This girl swung her elbow and clocked me perfectly.”
I nodded. “Did anyone go to the hospital?”
“Wasn’t one of those kind of fights.”
“What kind was it?”
“The kind where you don’t run off and tell the world what just happened. Sheesh.”
More attitude. Her story seemed fabricated, and I debated my next move.
“Ladies.” We both turned to the door. Zeke motioned for us to join him in the hallway.
I went over and put a hand on Emma’s head. “We’ll be right out in the hallway, Emma.”
She muttered something, and I joined Zeke and Cristina in the hallway.
“Just talked to the boss, and he agreed with me that we should lie low today. Stay on the premises,” he said, nodding at each of us. He still had on his tuxedo shirt and pants from last night, but he looked wide awake.
I checked my phone, wondering if Dillon had texted me. He hadn’t. “Makes sense.”
“Just so you don’t worry about security, I’ve brought in another team to supplement me and Squash.”
“The vegetable?” Cristina asked while looking the opposite direction in the hall.
“He’s that stumpy guy at the party last night,” Zeke said, scrolling through something on his cell phone. He looked up. “We’ve got three men patrolling the exterior of the property, and another three within the fence.”
I wondered why he hadn’t put people on the outside last night, after the shooting. Maybe he thought the cops had it covered. Someone sure had missed the cowboy getting into my car.
His phone buzzed. “I need to take this. At least one of you will have eyes on the little girl at all times?”
“Affirmative,” I said, trying to match his lingo.
“Oh, one more thing. The detectives and a group from the FBI will be out here around one. Didn’t want you to be alarmed. I’ll be ensuring they get everything they need.” He walked off and down the stairs in no time.
Cristina swung back around, and I was staring her in the face. I saw scratch marks on her cheek, seeping through her base makeup.
“Don’t start, please.”
I put my hands on my hips and released a breath. I couldn’t help someone who didn’t want help. Especially Cristina. But I immediately thought about a task where I could make some headway. “Can you handle Emma on your own?”
“Heck yeah. We’re best buds. You bailing on me?”
“The window sticker on the truck. I might be able to get a lead on the cowboy.”
“Cool. Let me know. I’ll be fine here, being guarded by MI6 and all.”
I took her sarcasm as humor and I laughed, hoping she’d jump in. She didn’t.
“I’ve got one thing to do before I take off.”
Once the movie ended, I found paper and crayons, sat down at the tiny play table, and helped Emma create a colorful Get Well card for her dad.
“Now, I’m out,” I said when we were done.
“Be careful,” Cristina said. She plopped on the floor and started playing with Emma and her horses.
I walked out the door, thinking Cristina certainly hadn’t been careful herself—and wondering if she would take her own advice in the future.
19
Cristina paced in front of the bank of kitchen windows as Emma munched on a snack of pretzels and applesauce.
“Now, Daisy, you need your fruit too, young lady.”
Cristina turned and watched Emma pretend to scoop up a spoonful of applesauce and bring the play spoon to the mouth of her curly-headed doll, Daisy, sitting in a high chair.
“It tastes yummy, doesn’t it?” Emma asked, using her napkin to wipe the corner of her doll’s mouth. “We both need to eat well if we want to do horse jumping in the Olympics.”
Cristina was envious at how Emma was able to create her own imaginary world, one where people were kind and kids still had unbridled dreams to do something with their lives. Maybe she had been that way at age four. Too much shit had happened between then and now to remember exactly.
Her eyes swung to the backyard, where she saw Zeke talking to Squash near the pool. The two men carried hard looks on their faces, but she had no curiosity about what they were saying. Her mind couldn’t begin to take on more stress. Her anxiety was at its limit, on the verge of spilling over. She squeezed her phone and continued pacing, her thoughts being stolen more with each passing second. Thoughts of Jesse holding her down on the ground. Of his rancid breath and sweat invading her body. For a fearful moment, she had believed he would not only rape her, but also beat the crap out of her until she took her final breath.
He was the most vile person who had ever walked the planet.
How could you have allowed Jesse to fool you so easily? You should have known your mother wouldn’t reach out to you. She never gave a shit about you.
She took in a breath, her jaw trembling. She couldn’t break down in front of Emma. No way this little girl deserved to be exposed to her garbage.
“Are you going to have a snack wif me? Daisy is all full now.”
Cristina thumbed a tear from the corner of her eye, flipped around, and tickled Emma, just to give herself a moment to control her runaway thoughts and emotions. “I guess I’ll have a few pretzels.”
“But Daddy says you need to have a fruit if you want to keep growing. Are you going to have a fruit?”
“Sure. Do you guys have any apples?”
Emma smiled, apparently happy that she’d convinced Cristina to follow her lead and eat a healthy snack. “Let me go get one out of the bowl.” She slid out of her chair and scampered across the kitchen.
A moment later, Cristina was sitting in the kitchen chair, slicing her apple. She held up a wedge. It didn’t look all that appealing, not with her stomach in knots.
“Do you want to jump a horse in the Olympics with me?”
“Uh, sure. That would be fun,” she said.
“Better eat up, then.” Emma shoved a heaping spoonful of applesauce in her mouth, and then gave her a wide grin. Cristina could see the applesauce seeping out of her mouth. She quickly grabbed her napkin to clean off Emma’s face.
“Okay, I’m done now,” Emma said, extending her hands. Cristina was lost in one dreadful thought after another, her mind drowning from images of two nights ago. She then realized Emma was waiting for her hands to be wiped off, and she walked over to the sink, found a rag, and then cleaned Emma up.
“You want to blow bubbles with me outside?” Emma said, tugging on Cristina’s T-shirt.
“Oh, sure. Just let me clean up the snack mess while you run upstairs and get the bubbles.”
Emma was out of the kitchen in a flash.
Leaning against the kitchen island, Cristina took in breath. She couldn’t help but think of her mom. Was she actually pregnant with Jesse’s baby? Or had Jesse once again played tricks with her mind? If her mom was pregnant, maybe there was a chance she’d been able to stay off drugs, to keep the baby safe.
She looked down at the small screen on her phone, wondering if she could withhold the urge to reach out to her mom. The woman was like the forbidden fruit. Take a bite, and you might regret it for the rest of your life.
20
With the hope that Stan and his team of forensic experts might be able to find evidence in Black Beauty later in the day, I decided to leave my car parked under the canopy of trees. The Burchfield property was located in Olmos Park, home to some of the most affluent San Antonio residents. Aren’t these kind of neighborhoods usually associated with low crime? Then again, the person who broke into my car didn’t appear to be after my stereo.
From Dillon’s mansion, I took an Uber ride twenty-five minutes west to SeaWorld—a tourist magnet. The people of San Antonio took almost as much pride in the water-themed park as they did in their Spurs basketball team, even if they tended
to ignore the growing issue of whales in captivity.
It was still before noon when the pimpled-face driver dropped me off right at the park’s front entrance. Temperatures were already above ninety degrees, and people were entering the park in droves. I weaved through the swarm of people, swim bags, and floats until I reached the parking lot. Hands at my waist, I surveyed the massive swath of cars. I could feel the heat radiating off the concrete. Taking a patient and methodical approach, I started down the first row, looking side to side for a silver Dodge Ram. By the time I reached the end, I’d spotted twenty-two pickups, five silver cars, and three Dodge Rams. But none that met all three qualifications.
Undaunted, I continued the march down row two. More of the same. It took a good thirty minutes to reach the last full row, where I found two silver Dodge Ram pickups. One was an older model than what I was looking for, and neither had the sticker or the correct license plate.
Quick footfalls brought my attention to the right. A lanky kid wearing a cap and a blue collared shirt was speedwalking between two cars. Something about the size of his frame looked familiar. He tilted his head in my direction.
Is that the…?
“Hey, valet kid,” I yelled.
He continued on, acting like he didn’t hear me when there was virtually no noise around us.
“I know you can hear me,” I said, walking his way.
He stopped, put both hands in the air. “Okay, okay, you’ve got me. Geez.”
I pulled up behind him. “Why do you have your hands in the air?”
“I remember you from last night. The woman in the pink dress. You found out I stole those two beers, and now you’ve come to make a citizen’s arrest or something like that.”
“What? I didn’t know you stole any beers,” I said, taking the opportunity with his head turned to use the bottom of my T-shirt to wipe a layer of sweat off my face. “Why’d you do it, since you are under age?”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 59