My Sister's Murderer

by Liv Bennett

  “I don’t remember reading that rule.”

  “Go over your contract. You’ll see it.”

  “I don’t have the contract with me. I must have left it in the room.”

  Her answer comes quickly, her growing anger showing in her edgy voice. “No, it wasn’t there.”

  I should have known the deal was too good to be true. She decides whatever she wants and hides the contract we both willingly signed from me. I can tolerate anything but not injustice. “I don’t think what you’re doing is legal.”

  “Well, call the police if you want. I’m sorry, but I have to think about my children. I can’t have you around them until the case is resolved. Fran was a dear friend. I hate to think I’d be helping her murderer.”

  My shoulders sag, and I press my purse against my chest. “I had nothing to do with her death, but I understand. I won’t bother you again.”

  Blood drains from my face when she closes the door on me with a loud bang. I have very little money and no place to live.

  Again.

  I can’t believe I’m still running around in the same vicious circle.

  I crane my head to steal a glimpse of Austin from over my shoulder. He must get a kick out of seeing me homeless again. I’ve become his charity work.

  I don’t have to stay with him. I can look for a place of my own. I must have enough money in my bank account to help me stay afloat for a few days. Draining my bank account is a better option than trusting him with my safety.

  Like a zombie, I walk down the stairs and just stop. When I remain standing in my tracks, Austin climbs out of the car, hurries over to me and throws an arm around me to guide me gently back to his car. “You’re gonna stay with me.”

  I look up at him on our way to his car. “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

  “It’s the best thing to do. There’s a murderer on the loose. You may have been his target. My home is your safest bet.” Spoken like a true murderer.

  “I really don’t feel comfortable about it.”

  “Why?” He gives me an incredulous stare, looking genuinely surprised by my reaction. “Is it about Lena? I told you nothing happened between us. I’m ready to move forward with you.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

  Despite my body craving him, my heart breaking at the hurt look on his face, my lips longing for his, and my soul crying out for his comfort, I remove his arm from around me and let it go. Strangely enough, moving away from him, taking that first step onto the sidewalk, feels like the hardest thing to do, like slashing off a limb.

  “Where are you going?” He calls out after me. “Let me at least drive you there.”

  How is it possible that everything he says and does sounds like it’s coming from a murderer? Although I have to drag my feet, I force myself to move quickly down the sidewalk toward Broadway to be in the crowd and locate an ATM.

  I hesitate to look back and see him still standing in his spot, possibly waiting for me to change my mind. He’d take me back with open arms and without making me feel awkward about it. In different circumstances, parting from him wouldn’t even cross my mind. I’d even look past his mistake with Lena.

  An ATM in a food court catches my eye, and my stomach growls immediately. I find my bank card in my purse and insert it in the machine. My eyes grow large at the sight of my savings account balance. Clint hasn’t withdrawn the hundred thousand dollars yet, although enough days have passed for him to withdraw the full amount and invest it in something lucrative. Tara must be turning his life into a living hell for each day he doesn’t retrieve the money.

  Beads of sweat break out on my forehead. Something must have happened. He may have had a cardiac arrest or worse with the stress of the past few weeks. The possibility pulls at my heartstrings. Even though he’s not my biological father, I still care about him and love him as if he were.

  Forgetting my hunger, I withdraw everything from my account without touching Clint’s money. Three hundred and twenty dollars to be exact. I head for the closest phone repair shop. Fortunately, I remember seeing one within a mile and they sell used phones. I buy the cheapest one, sacrificing fifty dollars for it and an extra twenty dollars for the line and text-and-call credit.

  I dial Clint’s number. Fortunately, he has kept the same number since the first time he owned a cell phone, and I’ll probably remember it as long as I can remember my name.

  While listening to the long beeps, I can feel my throat closing up. His repulsed expression during our last encounter appears before me. He looked as shaken as he was during Ruby’s funeral.

  As it’s always been with him, I should keep my expectations low about this call. He’ll hang up on me the moment he hears my voice. Knowing he’s not suffering from a health condition should be enough for me.

  “Yes,” he says, his voice raspy and agitated.

  I let out a sigh. At least, he’s alive. “Hello, it’s me, Ashley.”

  He doesn’t hang up. He doesn’t curse or yell at me. “Hello, Ashley.”

  I feel tears pushing. My voice trembles with relief when I say, “Hi, I just wondered if you were all right. You didn’t withdraw the money, and I thought something might have happened to you. I hope you’re well.”

  “Thank you. My health is all right. As for the money, it was wrong of Tara to ask for it back from you. I won’t withdraw it. It’s your money. Spend it as you like.”

  “What? Why? I don’t deserve it. You gave it to me to investigate Ruby’s death. I couldn’t resolve anything about it.”

  “I didn’t give you the money so you would go after the people responsible for her death. It was foolish of me to ask you that favor to begin with. Think of the money as my inheritance to you. I knew for a fact Tara would try everything to avoid giving you a cent after I pass.”

  My heart jumps to my throat. I don’t even think clearly when I ask, “Dad, are you going to die?” I realize once the words are out that I called him Dad.

  My mistake doesn’t bother him. “No, sweetie, I’m good. Don’t worry about me. Anyway, Tara won’t be a problem for you after all.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It wasn’t right for her to tell you the truth about your mother. We decided to keep it as a secret, and she broke her promise. After that day in your hotel room, I couldn’t stay with her anymore. I moved out. I’m staying at a bed and breakfast in Denver.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Dad.” It seems I can’t stop calling him Dad. “How are you holding up?”

  “It’s not so bad. I don’t have a commander in chief ordering me around twenty-four-seven. I might travel down to Mexico or maybe to Asia and stay there for a while.” He chuckles, sounding rather happy at the prospect of his having long vacations. “Oh, by the way, Tara didn’t tell you the full story about your mother.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anabelle didn’t get me drunk to sleep with her. I was with her willingly. My wedding with Tara was approaching, and I wasn’t entirely sure about it. Anabelle was going through a breakup with her ex at that time. We helped each other out, and when she became pregnant, I used it as an excuse to break up with Tara. I know it wasn’t very mature of me. When Tara and I met again after a few years, I thought I’d made a mistake by running away from her. I didn’t know I was committing a bigger mistake by abandoning Anabelle and you. There was no going back for me once Tara got pregnant. Then, Anabelle died.” His voice falters, and he clears his throat. “I saw my mistake every day on your face. I was horrible to you. I just want you to know I’m truly sorry, sweetie. I hope you can forgive me someday. You’re my only family now.”

  “Oh, Dad.” I slap my hand over my mouth as I burst into tears. I thought I’d be lucky to hear his voice. Never in a million years would I have imagined I’d get an apology for his neglect of me. “I have to tell you something.”

  “What is it, sweetie?”

  I can’t get enough of him calling me sweetie. “A
nother murder took place last night in the same apartment Ruby died. The girl worked at the same restaurant and was enrolled in the same major and at the same college as Ruby. She was Ruby’s roommate for two weeks. She died the same way. Suicide, but the police now believe it may be homicide.”

  “Dear Lord. Is that true?”

  “There’s something else, but please sit down somewhere before I tell you this. It’s really bad.”

  “You’re scaring me, honey.” His voice going faint sets off alarm bells in my head. Just for now, I decide to skip the detail about the possible rape Ruby had to deal with leading up to her death.

  “The officer I talked to found something important in Ruby’s blood analysis.”

  “What is it?”

  “Ruby took pregnancy abortion pill the night she died.”

  “Pregnancy…what?” he roars, shock and pain thick in his voice. “How? She wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t have been. She’d have told us.”

  “I know. Are you gonna be all right? Should I drive down to Denver? It’s only an hour’s drive,” I offer.

  “No, sweetie. You don’t need to come. I’ll be fine.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please, stay safe.”

  “You, too, darling. I love you.”

  It’s as if suddenly a full palate of colors is infused into my life. I notice the bright rays of the sun, the squirrels jumping from branch to branch, flower beds on the sidewalk, smiles on people’s faces. My dad’s love words for me opens up a new world before my eyes.

  If only Ruby were alive, too. Everything would be perfect.

  Ch 31

  STARING STRAIGHT INTO A MURDERER’S EYES

  I return to the food court to finally have my breakfast at five p.m. I order a super-sized hamburger and fries and gobble them down before heading for the nearest bus stop. Since I’m still in Boulder, and the murder cases will take a while to be resolved, I might as well continue with my original plan.

  I take the bus to the pizza joint and hope Max doesn’t fire me on the spot as soon as he hears I’m the one and only suspect in Fran’s death.

  Back in the restaurant, seeing his face, his creepy gawking of my body, I wonder why I stopped considering him as the person behind Ruby’s death.

  His rapist attitude alone qualifies him as, at least, the suspect for Ruby’s pregnancy. He came close to raping me while taking advantage of my momentary weakness. Who says he didn’t pull the same trick on Ruby, or worse, drugged her and raped her while she lay unconscious?

  The deeper my disgust for him goes, the more convinced I am that I should keep my job at the pizza joint. If he so much as touched Ruby, I’ll castrate him while making him witness the whole ordeal.

  “Hey, Max, can I talk to you for a minute?” I step a little too close to him and watch his gaze fill with lust due to my close proximity.

  I don’t miss Lena’s murderous glare at me from over behind the bar. She looks like she’s moments away from throwing the fit of her life. “Finally, Miss Front Desk arrives. To what do we owe the pleasure of having you at work seven hours too late?”

  I’ve never liked her and despised her attitude as if she owns the restaurant while she’s nothing but a server and bartender, but her baseless attack on me without knowing the full story is the last drop.

  My nostrils flaring, my hands in fists, I turn to her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it for opening, but I found Fran dead in her apartment this morning and had to go down to the police department to make a statement. Now that you know, you can go back to your work and wiggle your ass some more at the patrons.”

  At least, there’re no patrons inside to overhear our catfight.

  It’s hard to read her face from the thick cake of her makeup all over her skin. “Is…is Fran dead?” she mumbles, her surprise hardly convincing.

  “Yeah,” I add. “I’d take a break from hooking up with strangers for a while if I were you…you know for safety reasons.” And also for STDs, but she’s probably hosting a few of those already.

  I turn to Max, wincing inwardly. If my tardiness hasn’t convinced him to fire me, my attitude toward his beloved Lena will. “I just wanted to tell you what happened earlier. There was no way I could make it here earlier given what happened to Fran. I’d love to continue working if it’s okay with you.”

  “Sure,” Max says with a shrug of his shoulders. My eyes fall on his arms in search of a tattoo in case he may be the mysterious Officer Murphy. His skin has only a thick layer of hair, which doesn’t clear him of any suspicion.

  Erin comes out from the kitchen and stops suddenly in her tracks when she sees me. She approaches me as soon as Max returns to his office. “Where have you been? Where’s Fran? I thought both of you must have decided to quit.”

  I pull her toward the booths and make her sit down before breaking the bad news to her. She comes close to crying but contains herself. I have to leave her when a family of four walk in and ask for a booth. I lead them to a booth in Lena’s section to give Erin some time to let the news sink in and collect herself.

  Taking advantage of Lena’s distraction, I sneak into the servers’ changing room to leave my purse in a locker. My eyes fly to the coat hanger, and the feeling of shock I had yesterday at seeing Austin’s mother’s cardigan among the coats comes rushing back to me. Even if he doesn’t turn out to be a murderer, breaking off things with him was the right decision for me. I don’t need emotionally immature men around me.

  As more guests arrive and fill up the tables, everything feels back to normal, and during some fleeting moments, I even forget the disaster of the morning, and my eyes search for Fran.

  A feeling of guilt strikes me whenever I remember how I suspected her of being the one behind Ruby’s murder based on the things they had in common. Instead of being a murderer though, the similarities made her a target for the real murderer.

  What will happen to her daughter? Her parents turned Fran down when she got pregnant, but the news of their daughter’s death will hopefully make them accept their granddaughter into their family. It’s disheartening to see, but, yet another time, some of us can only find the right perspective when something as drastic as death happens.

  Since both Ruby and Fran worked at the same restaurant and studied the same major, I should allocate all my focus to the restaurant and the economics department. I can drop my gym membership, as Fran never mentioned going to the gym. The poor girl could barely find time to study between her work and child.

  I try to remember my conversations with Fran and if there was anything suspicious she did or said. She mentioned Kelly Somerville who was Ruby’s best friend, but she never said anything about her own friendship with Kelly. Again, her limited time likely didn’t allow her to develop a wide network of friends.

  A new thought strikes me just when a couple of senior citizens arrive and follow me to a table while both are yawning. Fran couldn’t stop yawning those last two days before her death. She complained about being beat more than once, and it felt even strange to me, although I’d only known her for a few days.

  It falls in line with the change in Ruby’s health. She lost her cheerfulness and became sickly. Could the two occurrences be connected to their deaths?

  My questions lead to more questions, and I feel trapped with too many unknowns. I should call the sheriff’s office the first thing in the morning to let them know about my observation. As long as they’re not protecting the murderer, this information may give them something to work with in their investigation.

  Two hours before closing, as the customers slowly wrap up their dinners and ask for their checks, the front door flies open and Austin storms in with long, hasty steps. His eyes flash with fury when his finger points at me and then toward the hall behind me. “You’re coming with me to the office.”

  The waft of alcohol coming from him speaks of the reason for his outburst. He may be the man I’m trying to stay away from, but he’s also my bo
ss’s boss, and I can’t turn him down at the restaurant.

  My teeth clenching, I follow him into the hall. On his way, he calls Lena, who’s carrying beer to guests, and motions her toward the hall as well.

  In his rage, Austin nearly kicks Max out of his office. I can’t say I’m not enjoying Max’s quick obedience despite the look of restrained anger on his face. He closes the door ever so softly in order not to anger his master.

  I cross my arms over my chest and keep close to the door. “What’s going on?”

  Austin starts pacing the office, hands on his hips, cursing under his breath. “I’m tired of this shit. I’m telling you nothing happened between Lena and me. You won’t believe me. So, I want you to hear the truth from Lena. She’ll tell you what happened yesterday.”

  As effective as the idea sounds, I cringe at the thought of being in the same room with Lena. She’d be the last person I’d want to hear from about Austin.

  Lena yanks open the door without even a knock and holds the handle while standing at the doorway. “What?” she snarls.

  Lena’s attitude is the exact opposite of Max’s unconditional obedience. Hers isn’t a strong and unyielding character, but the bratty attitude of a narcissist lacking respect for others.

  Austin waves her into the room. “Come in and close the door. We need to talk.”

  With a long huff and an exaggerated roll of her eyes, she stomps into the room and shuts the door with a loud bang that must make a few patrons flinch in their seats.

  She walks straight to Austin. “What do you want? Make it quick. I need to be back at the bar.”

  “I want you to tell Ashley what happened yesterday after I texted you to meet me.”

  “What do you mean what happened?” Lena shrugs her shoulders while still remaining with her posture turned toward Austin, ignoring me completely.

  Austin motions his hand toward me with a look of impatience toward Lena’s attitude. “Just tell her what happened between you and me.”