“You look a little green like you might puke, girl,” Eamon said from the driver seat. “Yell if you need me to stop.”
“Let’s just get back.”
The SUV eased through the quiet neighborhood like a jaguar on the prowl for its prey. Eamon pulled into the drive, the uneasy feeling still with me as I looked upon the house, my heart racing away. From what I could tell from my time with Eamon and Hackett, Hackett was obviously the one in charge. He always seemed to take the lead, and this evening was no different.
Eamon hung back, staying by my side as I wrestled with the food and my purse. My thoughts were all over the place after my meeting with Sebastian, which as deliciously yummy as it was, I was having a difficult time with the feelings and emotions I was having. And having an even greater difficulty making heads or tails of the unsettling anxiety I felt after leaving the house. Whatever the hell it was, I just wanted it to stop. I wanted this case to wrap up in a nice bow, and quickly, so that I could get back to my life and, at the very least, enjoy any perks it led to for my career.
While Eamon stayed with me, Hackett strode to the door, cautious and on guard, his body stiff but moving effortlessly like a trained killer. They hadn’t acted like my nervous feeling was a big deal, but they obviously weren’t taking any chances. I guess men like them learned to trust their instincts.
Eamon stepped in front of me as we neared the house, Hackett gliding through the front door, gun drawn, ready for what, I had no clue. Eamon stepped into the doorway, blocking my view for a heartbeat or two before moving forward. Being the good girl I was, I remained behind him, but close enough so I could feel the heat of his body, my heart banging wildly against my ribs. The house was silent, the only sound I could hear coming from the shower running in the hall bathroom. Hackett returned, giving Eamon a nod that I, for some reason, assumed was an all-clear. Wasting no time, I padded into the kitchen, plopped the pizzas on the counter, and began pulling plates from a nearby cabinet. I was so dang hungry I could eat half the pizza by myself, but I wouldn’t.
“Can one of you guys knock on the bathroom door and tell Meg to hurry up.?” I shouted as I lifted the cardboard lid, my stomach growling as the delicious scents wafted into the air.
“Sure,” Hackett grunted.
I continued plating the pizza, sneaking a few bites of the toppings as Hackett pounded on the bathroom door, his rumbling, deep voice relaying my message. Then nothing. He knocked a few more times with no response. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black case. I watched in utter curiosity as he removed a slim silver instrument with a hook at the end.
He peered in my direction, a look of concern etched across his face as he jabbed the slim little tool into the door knob. With a few quick moves, the lock was disengaged. He spoke in a calm even tone, calling out to Meg as steam billowed from the small bathroom. No response. A shudder licked its way through me as I stood frozen at the kitchen door, a mere twenty feet or so away.
Hackett slipped into the sea of steam, only to back out of the room seconds later. I don’t remember moving, but I found myself at his side within seconds.
“What?” I squeaked, my throat suddenly dry. “Is Meg... is she okay?” Somehow I knew the answer to my question before he even responded. I knew she wasn’t. The look on his face told me everything I needed to know.
“No,” he barked, grabbing my arm as I moved to step inside the bathroom. Tears welled up in my eyes.
Hackett pulled me into his side, easing me back down the hall to the living room where Eamon sat unfazed on the fluffy sofa, watching television. He glanced towards us. “What’s wrong with her?”
“We have a problem. Meg. She’s dead.”
“What?” Eamon sat up instantly.
“Someone got to her while we were gone. I know it’s not our thing, but we have no choice but to call the police in on this one, Eamon. I’ll make the call. You take care of Haven.”
Fifteen minutes later, the police arrived taking over the house like a swarm of locusts. They buzzed about, asking questions and taking photographs of the scene. A couple of detectives questioned the three of us separately. We had no real answers for them. None of us knew Meg personally. All we knew was that she was a lab technician on the team. Suddenly I was engulfed in a sadness that rocked me to my core. She was too young to die. Too young to have missed out on living her life, a life she had barely begun to live. That realization made me sad, but it also made me angry as hell.
A short, thin female detective sat on the couch beside me. I barely gave her a second glance. My thoughts were elsewhere. No matter how much I wanted to believe this was some random attack, I knew it wasn’t. Meg was dead because we left her behind. We... no... I was responsible for her death. I should have waited and demanded that she go with us. It was my fault. Had I been thinking clearly, had I not been wrapped up in thoughts of Sebastian fucking me senseless, she would still be alive.
“It’s my fault,” I whispered, the words rolling out before I could stop them.
“Why is that?” the female detective asked pointedly, as she arched a single brow.
“I left her behind. I shouldn’t have left her behind.”
The officer sat quietly for a moment, not uttering a single word. She did glance at Eamon and Hackett who, for the most part, remained quiet unless asked a direct question. The first officers on the scene had spent very little time talking with us. Hackett had simply told the men that we had returned from grabbing dinner to find Meg’s lifeless body in the shower and called the police.
It hadn’t exactly happened that way, though. We had gone about things as if nothing was wrong. We hadn’t known she was in trouble. All I could think about was if she had laid there dying as I plated slices of pizza. Could we have saved her? There was no way of knowing the answer to that question. Honestly, I didn’t know if I could live with the answer. I pushed back my emotions as best I could, noticing the strange way the female detective – Officer Patrick, I think she said her name was – looked back and forth between Hackett and Eamon, then back at me.
“What is it that brought you here?” Officer Patrick asked.
“We... well, I was here to meet with a client.”
“And Miss Charleston?”
“Meg is... was a lab technician on our team.”
“And who is your client?” She glanced towards Hackett and Eamon. “Then we will get to these two gentlemen.”
“My client is Sebastian Christakos… and these gentlemen are my research assistants,” I said, matter-of-factly, not liking the line of questions or the tone used in the delivery. I might be a newbie lawyer, but I wasn’t stupid by any means.
Obviously growing tired of my short, to-the-point answers to her questions, Patrick turned to Eamon and Hackett. She’d get no more from them than she did from me. Probably even less so. I stifled a laugh as she powered through question after question, getting vague answers that would take her nowhere. I had to give her an ‘A’ for effort. She was one tough woman.
Several hours later, the cops had gone and we… well… I had refused to remain in the house. We checked into a cheap motel just of the interstate. As tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep. So many questions and too few answers clouded my mind, keeping the sleep far away. Was Meg’s murder related to our case? If it was, why did the killer pick her? It didn’t make sense. The only thing she did was draw and test blood and various specimens. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Sitting up lightning-fast, I jumped out of bed, freaking out my personal mafia goons as I raced to my bags. I snagged the receipt from the blood work Meg had overnighted to Austin.
“That’s it!” I grunted, digging my phone from my purse and scrolling through the contact list. I clicked on Davis Jackson and waited.
“Haven?”
“Davis, Meg was murdered tonight. I think the real killer targeted her.”
“Oh my god! How? Why?” Davis asked his voice cracking as he spoke. “It would make more sense to come aft
er the lawyers fighting for his freedom.”
“No. It makes more sense to target those that help procure the evidence to prove his innocence. If I’m right, then this case could get messy.”
“Yes, it could,” Davis agreed.
“Meg overnighted a blood sample to you this afternoon. Let me know when it arrives, and process it as soon as possible. Any luck with your family history search?”
“Not really,” Davis replied. “I’ve extended the search another hundred miles in all directions of the estate.”
“Good. We need to find the sibling… and soon. If he’s our killer, we will need proof of his existence to free Sebastian. I should be in Austin after lunch tomorrow. We can talk more then.”
“Okay.”
We said our goodbyes and I sat at the small table, trying to figure out what Sebastian’s parents might have done with the child. Why would they get rid of one and not the other? I closed my eyes, letting my mind wander through all of the details of the case, hoping and praying for an answer. But I got nothing. Yet.
Chapter Ten - Theron
“Just because two people look the same, doesn’t mean they have the same dreams.”
- Brandy Scraps
Jealousy is a fickle bitch. Just when you get a feel for what it is that drives it, it changes. It evolves into something else. It becomes something more than you could have ever imagined. Sometimes it takes days, weeks, or even years before it pushes you to act out the desires feeding your vengeance. That is what happened some six months ago. Longer than that if you count the many months I spent planning my revenge.
It was a lifetime in the making really. They left me no choice.
My jealousy was born of another’s actions. I didn’t know this in the beginning. No. I learned of the truth surrounding my existence many years later. My beginning could have been... no... it should have been different. The life I was meant to have was stolen from me. My brother was given everything and I was given nothing.
From the bushes lining the house, I sat in the shadows, oh so still and silent, as the two burly bastards watching over my brother’s young attorney piled into a fancy SUV. I had wanted to kill my brother myself in the beginning, but fate had intervened instead, sending his sorry ass to prison for the murder of his wife. A murder that I had committed. Funny how things work out differently than you expected sometimes.
I could still feel the warmth of Astra’s blood on my skin even now, as I squatted in the dirt, the metallic scent embracing me as I stabbed and sliced my way through her thin little body, the taste of her blood on my lips as the knife arced through the air, hitting home over and over again.
Her last breath whispered across my face as I leaned over her body, glaring into her eyes, watching the flicker of life recede. Before she slipped away to wherever one goes when they die, I spoke to her. I told her why she had to die. I wanted her to know that I wasn’t her husband. But she already knew that. She sensed it almost immediately. Maybe it was the soft gentle touch or the way I’d kissed her passionately. Neither were something my brother would have done. I told her he was the reason she had to die, but before I could tell her more, her light burnt out. I had gotten carried away and damaged her too much too quickly.
I hadn’t expected Sebastian to keep fighting for his freedom. That had been a surprise. No, I imagined he would lay down and keel over like a wounded puppy. I lingered around after the trial, watching his attorney – the portly Mr. Jackson – pull together a team of professionals.
It was then I began to worry. My night with Astra hadn’t went as planned. Not exactly. She had fought for her life with a vigor that was unexpected from a woman like her. I had dropped my knife while wrestling with her, cutting my hand on my own blade. It was an amateur move which sickened me even now. I had thought the medical professionals would have caught the difference in our blood before the trial, but luckily they had not. Lucky for me anyway.
Now I wasn’t so sure it would remain that way. It wasn’t until Davis had brought in Meg Charleston, a young brilliant lab technician, that I began to worry. That worry had sky-rocketed when Haven brought the little cunt with her to see Sebastian. The cooler she carried with her told me I was right to be concerned. They were on to the truth. It wouldn’t be long before they found out about me. Too close for my comfort. I had no choice but to erase her from the equation, but not until I knew what Davis and his team were up to.
So that was why I was stuck in the prickly hedges lining this damned house, waiting for the burly bodyguards to drive away. I needed time alone with Meg. Time to find out what they knew… and kill her if she refused me. Haven and the goons drove away, their taillights fading away into the darkness. Quickly and oh so quietly, I entered the code and slid inside the house.
The sound of Meg humming a soft tune cut through the silence of the house, bathing it in a temporary beauty that almost made me hesitate. My back pressed against the wall, sweat beading my brow as I watched her slip her clothes off and step into the warm embrace of the shower. Pillows of steam bubbled out the crack in the door calling to me with its curled tendrils, urging me to enter the small confined space.
Easing the door open and stepping inside, the weight of the steam caressed my body, weighing me down, slowing my movements, and then I saw her. Her pure, beautiful body beckoning for my touch, but I froze, fighting the lust within me. I wasn’t here to be sated. I was here for something more than that and she would give me what I wanted.
Two long strides and I was inches away, barely breathing, as she remained unaware of my nearness. Grasping the edge of the shower curtain, I gave it a hard yank. The girl jumped, her mouth opening for a scream that would never come. I thrust a hand forward, covering her mouth, her eyes going wide as I pressed her against the wall of the shower.
“Don’t make a sound or you will die. Nod your head if you understand.” I growled, my hand squeezing her face tighter. She whimpered, tears welling in her eyes, and nodded quickly.
I slowly released my hold on her face, loving the red marks I left behind. She was shivering, not from the cold, but fear. There was no way of knowing how long I had before the others returned so I had to work fast. Such as pity I didn’t have time to play.
“Turn off the water. Now!” I said calmly, quietly, my unblinking eyes staring into hers. She blanched at my tone, which only excited me more. Pinning her with a cold dead stare, I watched as she eased along the wall, her shaky little hands fumbling to do as I ordered.
“Wh...What do you w... want from me?” She whimpered softly.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
“Y... yes.” She looked at her feet, as if not looking at me would save her.
“Why are you here?” I asked, keeping my voice calm and level. Sounding calm always seemed to panic them more. “What are you planning?”
“I don’t...”
“Don’t lie to me,” I said, barely above a whisper, pulling my knife from its sheath at my hip. The lab tech squealed in terror at the sight of the blade, just as Astra had done months ago. My heart hammered in my chest as the sounds of the two women merged in my mind.
“I took a sample of blood from Sebastian. For comparison to... to yours.”
“Where is it?”
“I mailed it to Mr. Jackson. Please. Please don’t kill me.”
Anger flooded me, mixing with pure adrenaline. I was losing control again. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Sebastian had to pay. They were on to me. It was only a matter of time before they managed to get him released from prison. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Rage won over and I snapped, as I had done with Astra. The knife seemed to lift into the air of its own accord, slashing and digging into the smooth flesh of the woman’s body. It was so beautiful. The yelps of torturous pain were music to my ears, the rivers of red streaming over her pale perfect skin, an eddy of blood and water moving this way and that, painting my masterpiece.
Her body crumpled to the floor in a heap, her chest
rising and falling, at first fast and harsh, then slower and slower as her body lost its will to fight. I smiled at her while tilting my head to the side ever so slightly, watching her in amazement. She fascinated me, this young gorgeous creature that suddenly was unafraid. At ease. Then she was gone, erased from the world for getting in my way, for stopping me from achieving what I wanted most, leaving me wondering why she seemed so at peace in her final moments. Why? She was so different from the others.
With a leather gloved hand, I turned the shower back on, making sure to angle the spray away from my masterpiece. Then I backed out of the room, locking and closing the door behind me. I got what I came for and now it was time to leave. It was time to find that fucking blood sample and stop Sebastian’s lawyer from setting him free.
Chapter Eleven - Haven
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
- Emile Zola
It’s true I didn’t know Meg Charleston very well. I really couldn’t call her a friend… but still, my heart ached at losing her. She was too damn young to die. No matter how many times I replayed the day, in the end I always blamed myself for her death. I should have demanded that she ride with us to town. But instead, my mind had been on Sebastian and how he made me feel, the way he commanded me to submit to him. I couldn’t help but blame myself.
I should have protected her. Davis had told me to expect the killer to get his panties in a twist as we dug into the case. I should have believed him. I regretted that now, even though it was too late for Meg. From now on, I’d be forever vigilant of the possibility of the killer returning for more blood. Would he stop now? Doubtful. Would he pick us off one by one now to ensure his brother remained in prison? Definitely possible. However, no matter the risks involved, we had no choice but to push forward with our investigation.
Convicted: A Mafia Romance Page 5