"Of course not!"
"But Brianna did." I muse and click on a picture icon. It's a photograph of Junior with his hand on a waitress's ass. Another photograph has him with his arms tightly wrapped around Jessica, another waitress, while her face has flickers of fear and anxiety. "And apparently she was gathering evidence against him."
"She was a very moral person," Elizabeth says.
"I see that. Do you think…do you think your brother could have killed her?"
Elizabeth's face becomes paler. "No. Never. He isn't a good person, but he's not a murderer either."
"Elizabeth," I say, choosing my words carefully. "This is a pretty good motive to kill someone."
"He's not a murderer," she repeats.
"Okay."
She nods because she most likely thinks that I'm agreeing with her, but I'm just saying what she needs to hear. I'm placating her, so I can continue Brianna's work. I unplug the flash drive and slide it into my pocket. It's time to look at Junior's alibi. If he could sexually harass his employees, he could certainly pay them off to say he was at work.
Chapter Nineteen
Sarah, 2015 (Tuesday afternoon)
I PUT A CHARCOAL BURGER (which has our secret sauce that mixes barbecue sauce with honey mustard) and a Honolulu Burger (burger with a slice of grilled pineapple, sweet onion, bacon strips, and creamy hickory bacon dressing) on my tray. I walk out to table twelve and serve both the plates.
"Here's the Charcoal Burger and here's the Honolulu Burger," I tell Gavin and Sharon Wright. "Do you two need anything else?"
"No, I think we're good, Sarah," Gavin drawls. "It's good to see you doing so well."
"Thank you. I hope you both enjoy your meals."
As I walk back toward the kitchen with my tray, someone calls out my name. I turn around to see Aaron Grant alone at the table in the corner.
"Hey, Sarah," he says.
I take a few steps closer to his table. He has several folders open in front of him and photographs printed out on computer paper.
"Hello, Chief Grant. What are you up to?"
"Oh, I'm just working," he says. "How are you?"
"I'm good."
"No, I mean…seriously, you just returned to work, right? Is that scary since you were…kidnapped…from this parking lot?"
"Uh, it's a little scary," I say. Debbie, appearing in the booth opposite of Aaron, snorts in disbelief. "But I've been talking with a psychologist—Dr. Walsh—and she says it's important that I try to return to the life I had before the kidnapping, so…that's what I'm trying to do."
"That's good, that's good." He nods with approval.
"Are you being taken care of by one of the waitresses?" I ask. "Do you need anything else?"
As I glance down at his half-eaten On-The-Go Burger (cheeseburger with fries or onion rings inside the bun) and water, I notice what photographs he's looking at—the photos Brianna and I had gathered. How had he found them? Did Brianna do that shitty of a job hiding our evidence?
"I'm good," Aaron says. "Thank you, though."
I nod and rush to the kitchen. I keep moving until I get to the back doors and end up behind the restaurant. I pace in between the dumpsters…I feel as if I'm about to jump out of my skin. What did Dr. Walsh tell me to do when I was anxious? Breathe. Meditate. But I can't get my thoughts to stop whipping around in my mind long enough to try either of those things. I'm suffocating from all of these thoughts.
"Calm down," Brianna mutters, appearing behind me.
I flinch, her voice surprising me.
"You're going to be fine. Just because he knows about Junior doesn't mean he knows you were involved with the whole case."
"Don't trust her," Debbie snaps, stepping in front of me.
I move around her, continuing to walk in circles.
"You killed her. She wants you to get caught."
"Both of you need to shut up," I say, rubbing my temple. "Why would he even think Junior's sexual harassment is connected to the case? He's supposed to be looking into Zoë's murder."
"We live in Wyatt, Sarah," Debbie says. "We don't have the brightest policemen. Maybe you overestimated their intelligence."
"Maybe I should talk to Greg Stalinski," I say. "He seems to like Dad. Maybe I could push him into investigating Walter and Junior."
"You can't push yourself into the investigation any more than you have, Sarah." Debbie sighs. "You need to keep off the police's radar."
"But…you could use someone else," Brianna suggests. "That Nick guy would do anything for you—"
"What is Nick going to do?" Debbie scoffs. "Is little Romeo going to kill his foster daddy?"
"He's probably the only one who could easily get the drop on him." Brianna shrugs her tiny shoulders.
I turn to Debbie. "She has a point."
"Your solution to Aaron finding out about Junior is to kill Aaron?" Debbie asks. "How is that at all rational? We've been planning our attack for almost a month now. Couldn't we just let Aaron arrest Junior?"
"What if his investigation leads back to me?" I ask. "The whole plan is ruined. And he'll never make the connection back to my father—"
"Why would his investigation lead back to you? What evidence is there?" Debbie demands.
"There could be something in the videos that reveals it's me behind the camera sometimes, not Brianna."
"They couldn't prove it."
"They could if they can figure out that the video is from my phone."
Debbie huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. "I can see that I'm outnumbered in this debate. Good luck figuring it out without me."
She walks away from me, disappearing in a blink of an eye as she rounds the corner. I turn to look at Brianna, but she's gone as well.
"I can see I'm outnumbered," I echo Debbie's words.
But they're my words. I've been alone this whole time.
Chapter Twenty
Nick, 2015 (Late Tuesday night)
IT'S ALMOST MIDNIGHT. I wait in my red 2001 Chevrolet S-10 near the edge of Silver Lake. It took me nearly six months to save up enough money to buy the truck sitting outside an old man's house. It was six months of working on construction sites and being treated as if I couldn't do the same work as the other men when I easily made up my lack of strength with stamina.
Now I have my truck and a dream woman.
Sarah's headlights pierce through the night. She drives up beside my truck and the lights flicker off. I jump out then open the passenger door to her truck.
"Hey," she says.
I jump into the passenger seat and slam the door shut. Her radio is turned to some pop music station.
"How was your Spanish test?"
"Era difícil, pero creo que lo hice bien," I say.
"I don't know what that means. I take French."
"It was difficult, but I think that I did well."
She nods. "Good."
An uncomfortable silence settles between us. I always thought if I fell in love with someone, we could sit beside each other without that itching need to create dull conversation, but with Sarah, it's not like that. I feel like we're both so empty that only a constant flow of words and gestures could fill us up.
"Do you want to—?"
Sarah stops my words by pressing her mouth against mine. Her nails brush against the back of my neck. I'll never get used to the feeling of her lips and her hot breath inside my mouth. It seems surreal and overstimulating at the same time. It reminds me of taking ecstasy—the euphoria, the feeling that I'm closer to her than I've ever been, every sensation is amplified and a sense of peace takes every heavy feeling inside of my chest and destroys it.
She leans back into the driver's seat with a coy smile. "How did you like that?"
I grin. "It was amazing. Did you, uh, get out of your house fine?"
"Yeah, nobody noticed. My father was out cold since he had a long case to preside over and he had a few glasses of scotch, and my mom had a sleeping pill."
&nb
sp; I nod. "Do you ever worry she could get addicted to those? My mom used to take them after—"
"Nick. Let's not talk about our tragic lives tonight. I've been trying to make my life better and it's no use looking at my past."
"…But your parents are still alive. They aren't your past."
"Your parents are still alive, right?" she asks. "Do you consider them part of your current life?"
I shake my head. "No. They're dead to me."
"Exactly," she says. "That's how my parents are to me, except I still live under their roof."
She presses her thumb against her bottom lip—it almost seems like a subconscious return to thumb-sucking—and stares out the windshield.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't mean to bring up bad thoughts."
She smiles, almost too hard, returning to that happy-go-lucky cheerleader everyone thinks that she is.
"It's not your fault," she says. "I was actually thinking about you…how you had this terrible childhood and then you thought you found someone great in Aaron, but then he disappeared. I mean, he's a policeman. He had to know how dropping out of your life would affect you after he put your parents in prison."
"I understand he was doing his job when he put my parents in prison," I say. "It's the fact that he could so easily forget about me. I know he had his family tragedy, but still…two years without a single word from him? I thought we had begun to form a kind of father-son bond, but after he disappeared from my life, I realized that I was just a charity case to him. I made him feel better about the fact that he put my parents in prison, and now that his time for grieving his family is running out, he wanted somebody to make him feel like a better man again. Which, apparently, was me."
"He does seem to act like you're his Nobel Peace Prize," she agrees. "Maybe it's time."
"Time for what?"
"Time to get your revenge," she says.
She doesn't even look at me as she says it. She's gazing out at Silver Lake.
"I thought you said we would plan it out more," I say. "You know, try to convince the public that he beat me or that he tried to use me as a drug dealer, too."
"I think we were trying to put too much thought in it," she says. "It's simple. He ruined your life, so you should…get rid of him."
"Get rid of him?" My forehead wrinkles in confusion. "You mean, kill him?"
She glances over at me. "I thought that's what you wanted to do. How many times have you told me that you wanted to kill him?"
"Yeah, but…"
But I was trying to act tough for you.
But I'm not sure I'm capable of murder.
"What happens afterward?" I ask. "Do we go on the run? Would you come with me after it's done?"
"Of course," she murmurs.
Her hand slides up my leg. All of the blood in my body rushes to my groin. Her lips brush against my cheek and hover near my ear.
"I would go anywhere with you," she says.
I grab her by the shoulders and kiss her—probably too roughly, but hormones are racing inside me. If this is the last night I won't be known as a murderer, then I want all of her. I want to push myself so far inside her that we both lose our identities and transform into something formidable. We will become something so menacing that Wyatt will never be able to recover from our presence.
Chapter Twenty-One
Aaron, 2015 (Wednesday afternoon)
I'VE BEGUN SEVEN different texts to Teresa, all of them half-apologies and half-excuses for my behavior, but I haven't sent any of them. I know in order to save our relationship, I should apologize, but what am I apologizing for? For trying to surprise her? For trying to celebrate her birthday?
"Hey." Greg sits beside my desk. The police station is filled with quiet determination—everyone wants to find Brianna's killer. "Did you find out anything more on Junior?"
"I looked through everything Brianna had gathered," I tell him. "And I'm fairly certain there's enough that we could at least get him on sexual harassment. There is one video where he seems to imply he was forcing one of his waitresses to perform oral sex, but I can't be certain that he's not joking. And the name of the waitress is never mentioned, so I can't question her. I could question Junior, but if he's the murderer…"
"…It's better if we catch him by surprise with the murder accusation than a sexual harassment charge, so he's locked up for life instead of getting a fine," Greg finishes. "I know. I could go down and question him, pretending we just want more information about what Brianna's life was like as a waitress. We could see if he tries to imply someone else was the killer and catch him in a lie."
"We could…"
"Have you heard back from the FBI?" he asks.
I shake my head. "Not yet."
"Maybe you should talk to Teresa."
"Maybe."
"Don't you think it's weird that Junior didn't try to get into the house, though?" Greg asks. "If you thought someone was gathering evidence against you, wouldn't you try to find it?"
"Maybe he didn't know she had evidence. Maybe she just told him she was going to go to the police, so he killed her. Maybe he did know, but after he killed her, he realized the magnitude of his actions, and had a mental breakdown," I say. "I don't know. I'm not a sociopath."
My cell phone vibrates. I glance at it, pathetically hopeful it's Teresa.
It's not. It's Nick. I open the text.
Nick: I just received a weird phone call. Someone said they had a tip for you about the Brianna murder. They asked to meet you at the Willow Pier on Silver Lake at one today.
Me: You didn't get a name or number?
Nick: The number was blocked. They just told me to tell you then hung up. I don't know. I just swung home for lunch.
Me: Thanks.
The time on my phone says it's twelve thirty-six and it takes at least fifteen minutes to get to Silver Lake from here.
"What's up?" Greg asks as I stand up.
"Nick says someone called him and they wanted to meet with me in private to give me a tip about what happened to Brianna."
"Who?"
"A name wasn't given."
"Do you want me to come along?"
"Do you think it could be the killer?" I ask.
He shrugs. "It could be. I just don't trust anyone who tells you he has a tip, but don't say what the tip is or even say what his name is."
"Maybe he or she is afraid the killer will find out that they're talking to the police."
"So, they don't tell your foster son who it is?" he asks.
"Okay, why don't you come, but stay behind, all right? We'll make whoever it is thinks I'm alone."
"I'm pretty sure if the killer is going to kill you, he's just going to outright kill you, and there won't be any hesitation. If we stick together, he's more likely to be cautious—"
"And if it's a person with a real tip, two policemen could scare him. You can come with me and stay far enough behind that you're not seen…or you can't come at all."
He huffs. "I used to like you more than your dad as chief, but now I'm rethinking that."
"Dad's nickname for you was Communist after Joseph Stalin."
"I can't help it that my last name is Stalinski. You're both assholes."
I glance at him as I put my coat on. He's smiling.
"Let's go catch a killer."
* * *
Willow Pier was originally a fishing pier, but over the years, less and less fish have been caught here, so the fishermen all went to different areas. It's about sixty feet long and some of the wood planks are sticking up at a slight incline, while a few of the planks are missing. Nobody else is here.
I sit on a post at the beginning of the pier. I keep my eyes trained on the woods around me, watching out for the flicker of steel from a gun. After going to meet Sarah Latham's two kidnappers, Kenny Rodinger and Pete Sevak—and having Mason attack me from behind—my vigilance has skyrocketed.
I see the outline of a person walking up the trail toward the pier. Aft
er a few seconds, I realize it's Nick. He's wearing the heavy black jacket he received from First Baptist Church when he lived with a previous foster family. It's at least two sizes too big and makes him look five years younger than his eighteen years of age.
I jump off the post and rush over toward him.
"Nick," I call out.
He raises an eyebrow, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.
"You shouldn't be here. We don't know who this caller was, and he could be the murderer. You should be in school. You need to go before they show up."
"There was no caller." His voice is unnaturally calm.
"What do you mean?"
"I made that up to get you here," he says. "It made the most sense. I couldn't kill you at your house. I would be the first suspect, but if they thought some tipster called you…"
My breathing becomes so shallow that for a few seconds, it simply stops and his words seem to become foreign to me. All natural reactions escape me and I'm left with a feeling of paralysis.
He stares at me, waiting for a reaction. "This is when you ask me why I'm going to kill you."
He pulls a gun from inside his jacket—it's my Colt M1911 pistol I keep on the top shelf of my closet
"And I'm going to tell you because I want you to know how badly you fucked up."
He waits for me to respond, but I'm still processing what he's trying to tell me. None of it makes sense.
"Anyway…I looked up to you more than I've ever looked up to anyone. You were…larger than life to me. I used to imagine all of these scenarios where we would go fishing together or go to a baseball game…even just watching TV together. And we would laugh about how badly policemen are portrayed on TV. I wanted all of that and I lived for those moments we had together. Then, you disappeared. You just stopped showing up without a single call or letter explaining anything to me. You—"
"My family had died in a fire." I finally find my voice.
He smirks. "Yes. And I thought I was your family, too. I thought I mattered. I was naïve. I thought I was a priority to you, but it turns out that I was just your community service—I was something you did to make yourself feel better, so you could pretend like you were a good, upstanding citizen that gave a shit about the lives you wrecked."
Devil's Dawn (A Grant & Daniels Trilogy Book 2) Page 8