Blood filled my mouth. I gritted my teeth, funneling every fiber of my strength into my jaw. He punched and clawed more.
And then a piece of the ear broke away, and he pulled back, his red face etched with shock and anguish. I spit the piece of cartilage and skin into his face.
He pushed up to his feet, jumping up and down, crying out, hurling curse words at me. But he left himself exposed in the best way possible. I thrust my legs upward, cracking him between the legs. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as he coughed out a breath, doubling over.
The feeling was euphoric. “That’s for every girl you’ve raped! Fuck you!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Suddenly, the plane pitched forward. Tires screeched. Dillon tumbled over my body and crashed into the cabin door. The plane rocked left and then right. A smell of burning rubber filled my nose. We were crashing.
“Emma!” I looked to the bedroom door. The plane jerked right, barreling off the runway onto bumpy grass.
And then it skidded to a stop. I paused for a second, taking in a single breath.
I yanked my jeans up, scooted on my butt back to the door, unlocked it, pulled it open. Emma was on the floor. I quickly moved to her side. She was crying but appeared okay. I brought her into my arms and rubbed her head.
Bright lights flashed through the windows. I heard a voice over a speaker.
“This is the FBI. Open the cabin door and come out with your hands up.”
We would live.
Dillon would finally stop hurting girls.
And Emma would be left without a parent.
51
It was almost noon the next day. I pooled water in my hands, splashed it on my face, and looked in the mirror. Bags hung under my eyes, and ripples of nausea still hit every few seconds. My ribs had been wrapped by paramedics at the scene, which made breathing difficult. None of that affected me all that much. There was something ten times worse: I couldn’t get the potent smell of Dillon out of my senses. I’d taken two showers, coated myself with lotion and perfume, but his scent still stuck to me.
“You going to join us, Ivy?”
That was Cristina from my bedroom. She and her mom were chilling at my place until they figured out a long-term living plan. But first we had to discuss her defense strategy. Her lawyer, Ozzie Novak, was on his way over.
“I’ll be out in a minute. Just need to brush my teeth.”
“Cool. You mind if we raid your fridge?”
“No problem. Knock yourself out,” I said.
I grabbed a hand towel and held it against my face. A wave of emotion washed over me as images of Dillon pinged my mind. Each mental picture felt like it was attached to a metal spike, carving a hole deep in my gut.
I clenched my jaw, forcibly flooding my mind with happy memories, many of which involved my “adopted” family: Cristina, Zahera, and Stan. Even Nick seemed like someone I’d known for half of my life. “You can get past this, Ivy,” I whispered into the mirror, my eyes darkening to a hard blue. “You’ve experienced far worse.”
That was my attempt at trying to put this shit behind me.
I heard more voices out in the living room. I took in a deep breath, flipped my brain into a logical mindset, and then walked out to join everyone else.
Cristina and Lena were at the kitchen table eating cereal, but I was surprised to see Zahera there. She was standing next to a man wearing a blue, short-sleeve, collared shirt, a pair of high-end chinos, and shoes that could have been in Herbert Ross’s closet. He was good looking. A pair of dimples and a wave of dirty-blond hair. With a leather briefcase in one hand, he extended his free hand my way. I wiped my hands on my shirt, then shook his hand.
“It’s a pleasure, Ivy. I’ve heard a lot about you from Zahera.”
“Z’s full of stories. I assure you, most are fiction.”
She leaned in and hugged me gently. “I can’t believe the shit you went through, girl. I just never imagined that—”
“I’d rather not get into it.” I cut her off, then looked at the man. “I understand you’re a damn good lawyer.”
He winked at Zahera, and she lit up. “I do my best, but I’ve learned quickly from my father. I’ve actually only been practicing law for about three years. But enough about me. I know we need to have a pow-wow about the next steps for Cristina. I don’t have a lot of time, so do you mind if—”
“Hold on,” I snapped, crossing my arms. “I know you’re Z’s old…friend,” I said, eyeing her for a moment, “but just because Cristina isn’t a big-time client doesn’t mean we should be relegated to just a few minutes of your time.”
“It’s not that,” he said.
“Ivy, chill, girlfriend,” Zahera said, placing an arm on Ozzie’s well-defined shoulder. “He’s getting married in a week. His fiancée back in Austin has him lined up for a tux fitting and about twenty other tasks this weekend, right?”
He flashed an uncomfortable smile. “Zahera’s right. I’m getting hitched. But even after our meeting today, I’ll be back in town next week. When I’m gone on my honeymoon, the elder Novak said he would take the lead on this case. Cristina will be in good hands.”
We looked over to the table, where Cristina and her mom both had mouths full of Cap’n Crunch. They glanced at each other and nearly snorted milk out of their nostrils. They were acting more like sisters, but it was warming to see them finally bond. Hopefully, given enough time, they could put the past behind them.
“We need to get the charges against Cristina dropped,” I said.
Ozzie raised a hand. His fingers were long. It appeared he’d had a manicure. I think we’d just hired a silver-spooned kid, even if he was around my age.
“It’s just not that easy. And I don’t want to be cruel, but I need to be honest,” he said, stepping back, looking at Cristina until she turned to face him. “It’s highly unlikely they will drop the charges because of self-defense. I can submit a motion to the presiding judge asking for that, while providing plenty of backstory on why it’s especially applicable in this instance. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up. If the DA’s office feels like there is ample evidence for manslaughter, usually the judge will let the trial play out.”
“That’s a bunch of crap,” Lena said, jumping to her feet, swiping a lock of her crazy hair out of her face. “The whole system is rigged against us lower-class folks.”
Cristina lifted from her chair. “Mom, it’s okay. No need to get upset on my behalf.”
“Lena,” Ozzie said, “I can assure you that I will keep your daughter’s interests as my number one priority.”
“But how are we going to keep my baby girl from—” She brought a fist to her mouth, obviously holding back tears. “Can you guarantee me right here and right now that you’ll keep my Cristina out of prison?”
Ozzie’s blue eyes bore down on her. “I can only say that I will do my absolute best. I’ll bounce ideas off my father, and I’ll do anything and everything I know. But I can’t guarantee her freedom. I’m sorry.”
“This is crap. It was fucking self-defense. You hear me? It was fucking self-defense!”
Cristina tried calming her mom down. There was a knock on my door. Zahera was a few feet away, and she opened it.
It was Stan who, along with Nick, had used some incredible deductive reasoning to find Dillon’s jet at the Uvalde Municipal Airport.
“My hero!” I walked over and gave him a gentle hug. He seemed stiff. He walked inside, eyeing Cristina and Lena. I introduced Ozzie, but he never took his eyes off mother and daughter.
“Do I need to answer more questions for you? By the way, where’s your other half, Nick?” I asked.
“He’s at the FBI office filling out paperwork.”
He was distracted. Or something. “Stan, what’s going on?”
“Sorry. I, uh...” He stopped, then turned to Ozzie. “I had intended to come over and let you guys know that I will testify on Cristina’s behalf, to let the judge or jury know
what I think of her strong character.”
Zahera touched Stan’s arm. “You had intended? So why are you really here?”
He scratched his whiskers, looking down for a second. “Moreno took the time to go through the video at the high school.”
He paused, glancing at each of us.
“What are you saying?” I asked, noting his pained expression.
“Moreno and team were able to get a pretty accurate timeline of the events of the night based upon the text messages.”
Cristina stepped forward, her mom a half-step behind her, both listening intently.
Stan continued. “Approximately twenty minutes after the last text message—so, presumably after the time Cristina said she left Jesse in the woods still alive—Moreno spotted a woman entering the woods from the side of the high school. After some digital enhancements by the IT guy, he could plainly see that it was Lena.”
The room went deathly silent for a moment. All eyes slowly shifted to Cristina’s mother.
“What’s going on, Mom? Were you actually in the woods after I was? You never said anything. Why didn’t you say anything?” Cristina became more agitated with each word.
Lena picked at her nails, her eyes finding the floor. “I just…” She pressed her lips together, her face flush. More tears materialized, as if she’d queued them up for a round of self-pity.
“You just what?” Cristina asked. “Did you…did you kill Jesse?”
Lena looked around the group, and no one said a word. It was all on her to answer her daughter. She couldn’t hide from the truth. “I couldn’t stand that bastard. He was a fucking monster. What he did to you…he deserved to die in the most agonizing way possible.”
Ozzie put a hand to the back of his neck. “Ladies, I’m not sure you want to air this out in front of the police. Perhaps we can talk privately before we—”
“Screw that,” Cristina said. “Mom here was about to let me go to prison for a crime I didn’t commit.”
Lena stared at Cristina—no words. She reached a hand out, but Cristina shoved it away.
“Tell me, Mom. You killed him, and you were going to let me take the blame.”
Tears streamed down Lena’s face. She tried wiping them away, but the flood was unstoppable. “It was self-defense, right?” She looked at Ozzie. “Your lawyer, he was going to figure out a way to get your charges dropped.”
“I didn’t say that, Lena,” Ozzie said with remarkable calm.
I could see Cristina’s entire body start to tremble. Anger, resentment—all boiling inside of her. It was painful to watch.
“You don’t blame me, do you, Cristina? I’m turning my life around, thanks to you and your friends. We’ve had some good times since I came over. Things are looking up. We’ve got so much to look forward to.” She looked like she was trying to smile, but her lips wouldn’t turn up.
Cristina’s face dropped into her hands. I walked over, and she put her head on my shoulder.
“Take her away,” Cristina said.
“What are you talking about?” Lena’s voice could barely be heard over Cristina’s sobs.
Stan stepped forward and read Lena her Miranda rights, then removed a pair of cuffs from his belt loop.
“What are you doing? We all know that man was a monster. I did the world a favor. I did Cristina a favor. You…every one of you should be thanking me.” Lena’s eyes were wild as her voice grew louder with every word.
“You were willing to let your daughter go to prison,” Zahera hissed at her. “What kind of mother… What kind of person are you?”
“Take her away. Now!” Cristina wrapped her arms around me.
I knew she’d been destroyed all over again, and it tore my heart in two. I had to fight back the tears. “It’s going to be okay.”
Stan secured her wrists and ushered her toward the door, but Lena couldn’t go quietly. “You’re all a bunch of two-faced bitches. You too, Cristina. I did everything I could for you, and this is the thanks I get. You can rot in hell right next to Jesse for all I care.”
Stan pushed her through the door. She yelled obscenities as she walked down the hall. I could hear an echo of her begging Stan to get her some meth. I couldn’t take any more. I leaned forward and kicked the door shut.
Cristina held me at arm’s length. “Why, Ivy, why do I let her hurt me like this? I did it to myself, dammit!” she said through more tears.
“Because she’s family.” That was all I could say. I didn’t know what family was like. But if I ever found a member of my family, I’d do anything for them. Even if they’d hurt me repeatedly, like Lena had done to her daughter.
Cristina cried and cried. I wasn’t sure she’d ever fully recover from this betrayal.
52
A week later, with all of us sitting at a round table at Ernesto’s, Stan stopped attacking some nachos long enough to stand up and make a toast. “To my little cousin, Nick Radowski. Without him…” He kept a straight face, eyeing Zahera, Cristina, me, and then ending with Nick. “…without him, we might have solved this case in half the time.”
Everyone except Cristina broke out in laughter. Nick tossed a napkin at Stan’s face.
“Seriously, thanks for everything you did to help us catch all of the perps. And even though you might live in Boston, we won’t hold that against you.”
“To Nick,” we all said.
Nick held up his beer. “To my entire Boston team. Salud.”
Everyone drank up. Zahera sipped her lemon-drop martini, and I did the same. Cristina drank a root-beer float. Her mood was somber, but not completely disengaged. Considering the circumstances, that was a positive sign.
Zahera set down her drink. “I never heard the details of how you filed those extra charges against Dillon. I know it has something to do with that Italian billionaire, Claudio Belsito.”
“It was really two breaks that got us our perps,” Nick said, his elbows on the table. He glanced at me. “Ivy, here, found a picture at Dillon’s home of two young guys in military uniforms standing next to Dillon. She had a hunch, so we did some digging. Specifically, we ran the pictures through face-recognition software. The name Skip Berry came up on our radar. At the same time, my Boston team—well, mainly Gretchen, she’s our staff operations specialist—searched through hours of video in the area near where the undersecretary of Energy had been mugged.”
“She found Skip Berry?” Zahera asked.
“You got it. Then came the search. Brad and my partner Alex jumped in and worked with officials across multiple local, state, and federal agencies to locate and arrest this Berry character. They found him at the Brownsville-Mexico border about ready to cross over. We picked him up, questioned him, and he sang like a bird.”
Zahera scrunched up her face. “Why did he mug the government official?”
“It was a pissing match between billionaires. A violent one at that,” I said, reciting what Nick had shared with me earlier.
“Kind of what she said,” Nick added. “Dillon had hired his old ROTC buddy from high school, Skip Berry, to mug the federal official, knowing that would lead to a deep investigation into why the undersecretary was meeting with the Belsito’s company, Leaf. Dillon accurately predicted that the FBI would eventually find a trail of bribery. But that’s when Belsito struck back. First by setting up Dillon on the sexual-assault charge.”
“Which,” Stan said, just as he crunched into a nacho, “took a tremendous amount of research into Dillon’s personal life. Lucia hacked into Dillon’s personal laptop, found evidence of his extracurricular activities, and then created this intricate setup. They knew he’d done it before. So, if he didn’t get convicted on the first charge, then they knew it was only a matter of time before we—the FBI and SAPD—would find more.”
Nick put a hand on my shoulder. “We wouldn’t have made this kind of quick headway had you not snuck into that rehab facility and spoken to Cheryl.”
“Then again,” Stan said, sucking
the grease off his thumb, “if you’d bothered to share with me about your run-in with Pudge, then maybe we could have done it together. Less risk and all.”
“You would have never believed me, and I’m not sure he would have trusted you,” I said.
“Good point.” He grabbed another nacho.
I heard the phone buzz in my purse, but I ignored it for now. I moved a nacho from the bigger plate to my smaller plate.
Zahera grabbed my arm. “So, Zeke…he’s been cleared, right?”
“I’m not the police,” I said, winking at Stan.
He took a sip of his beer, then wiped his mouth. “Nick and I questioned him for ten straight hours, and everyone else involved in the slew of crimes. Turns out he knew that Skip Berry was the trigger man on the original sniper shooting. It was all choreographed, including the shot into Dillon’s shoulder next to the pool—all for dramatic affect. But Zeke thought it was nothing more than a ruse to create empathy for Dillon, make him seem like the victim. He had no idea about the real story behind the dual vendettas. He sure as hell didn’t know about Dillon’s perversions. In fact, when we told him about it, he went ballistic, saying he was glad Dillon was locked up or he would have beaten the crap out of him.”
A waitress dropped off another plate of nachos, and Stan immediately moved in for the kill. “Dillon was hoping not to have to use his so-called trump card,” he said.
“Lisa Graham,” I inserted.
Stan nodded in my direction. “Herbert Ross really thought Dillon had the perfect alibi, although he was hesitant to use it because of the implications at Spatium. He knew it wouldn’t be good PR to show he’d had an affair with the head of HR. What Ross didn’t know was that Dillon had an even deeper secret.”
“Her daughter, Nora, and a plethora of other girls he’d assaulted over the years.”
Zahera held up her hand as she finished up a sip of her martini. “I don’t understand why Nora played along with that freak, Dillon.”
Stan exchanged glances with me and then Nick. “She’s got a lot of hate inside her. As much as she hated Dillon, she hated her mother more. We saw her and her mom at the station. It came out that by helping Dillon get away, more blame would fall on her mom for allowing such a monster to troll her daughter.”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 73