Her arm goes up, and the gun smacks down on my head.
36
James
“Maribel Lopez? Never heard of her,” James said. “Who the hell is Maribel Lopez?”
“That’s who rented the car that was at your house. The woman who said her name was Bella Johnson.”
“Well, who is she?”
“I have no idea. I’ll get my PI on this.” Robert sits at his huge mahogany desk and starts tapping into his computer. “This can break the case wide open. Once we find out who she is.”
“Tessa never mentioned her either.” James begged his brain to remember. Was that one of her sisters? No, he would’ve remembered that. Would he, though? Did she even tell him about her sisters? Twins. They were twins. Their names? Hell, could’ve been James and Candy for all he knew. Fuck! Why didn’t he know more?
“Is there anything you need me here for right now?” James said, working through the revelation. “Now that I have a name, I want to go home and see if anything like that sticks out in any of her stuff. I want to know who this Maribel is, why she wanted to come to my house and interview me, and why she changed her name and lied. This woman obviously knew Tessa. And Tessa knew her,” he said, thinking back to the very first night that Solomon came. He said Tessa knew the person and let her in, because otherwise Candy would’ve attacked.
Candy.
She went crazy when he let Bella in the house. James thought she was just being protective over a stranger, but fuck, why did he not trust his judgment? Something was wrong. He knew it. God, he wanted to kick himself. Why did he let that strange woman tour his house?
Fuck! She killed Rosita. She planted the earring during the tour. That’s how it got there! She called in the anonymous tip herself. Why would she kill Rosita?
He knew she had to have Tessa. Why?
Robert agreed that James should leave, so he did. Raced down to his car, paid the parking fee through the automaton, and sped home. A few times he thought he might get pulled over for speeding but didn’t care, although he should’ve. Murder rap sheet, and all.
When he pulled into his driveway, Evan’s car was there.
James was so thankful that, through all of this, he had Evan every step of the way. Friends to the end. Inside, Evan was on the phone, Candy at his feet. His eyebrows rose when James walked in early from his meeting with Robert.
“James, I got here as soon as Robert called me. They found—”
“Evan.” James cut him off. “Thanks, man. Thanks for coming so quickly.” Bro hug. Pat, pat. Things were looking up. “The fake reporter. Robert just got a call. The woman who rented the car was named Maribel Lopez.”
“I know. He texted me,” Evan said. “Who the hell is that?”
“I have no idea.” James looked around his home, in disarray again from the executed search warrant. “She planted that earring. I know it. I just have to find out how Tessa knew her.”
“I’m here. Whatever you need.”
And James knew that and was so grateful that his best friend of twenty-five years never faltered. He wished Tessa had someone like him in her life. At any point.
Unless this Maribel was always there, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Evan left for a meeting, so James and Candy were alone in the house again. James was beside himself when he entered the office. It was in complete disarray, with papers strewn everywhere. He needed to start the cleaning-up process somewhere, and the first thing he grabbed was his monthly expense folder. A receipt fell out, one that he didn’t remember.
It was from last Thursday. The day Tessa went missing.
It was for about a hundred and twenty dollars, and it was from the electronics store in town. After a close inspection, James pocketed the receipt and got in the car. Fuck the ankle bracelet—let them come and get him. Speeding down the driveway, the monitor vibrated the second he left his property. He didn’t have long. It took him three minutes to get to town, and like God wanted him to solve the mystery, there was a parking spot on Main Street right in front of the electronics store. He parked and ran in, not knowing how much time he had until the cops hauled his ass back to prison for leaving his home.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” the skinny, nerdy kid asked, then looked at him with narrow eyes. “Hey, aren’t you—”
“Yes, I’m James Montgomery. Yes, my wife is missing, and yes, they’ve accused me of murdering my coworker.” Nothing like getting the facts out of the way. They both knew exactly who he was. “I found something that can help me, and I need your help finding my wife. And in clearing my name.” He didn’t have time for pleasantries and small talk.
The kid’s eyes shifted nervously, and he took a few slow steps backward and put up his hands defensively. “I—I don’t know what you’re looking for,” he stuttered.
“This.” James held up the receipt. “My wife was in here the day she went missing. What did she buy?”
“I’m—I’m s-s-sorry, I can’t help you.” The kid looked like he was about to shit his pants.
James softened and looked at his name tag. “Look, Ralph. I didn’t kill anyone. I have to find her. I think this might help me discover what happened. Please, can you look it up?” James was desperate. “Please? Her name was Tessa. About five-six, dark hair. Beautiful.” He said it with tears in his eyes.
“Right. I remember,” Ralph said. He pointed to the other end of the store. “She wanted one of those.”
James swiveled his head to the wall, and there was a display of recording devices lined up like toy soldiers. He walked over and his eyes scanned top to bottom.
“What are these? Which one? Why?” He asked the questions like Ralph knew Tessa personally.
Ralph moved cautiously, and his index finger shifted over the wall until he found it. “This one. This is what she bought.”
James knew it instantly. It was the same device Bella Johnson—Maribel Lopez—used for the interview.
It was Tessa’s. James knew it. This Maribel character had Tessa.
“Did she say why she wanted it?”
“No. She asked to record stuff. I remember commenting that she didn’t have an iPhone.”
James was perplexed. What would Tessa want to record?
“Is there anything else you remember?” James’s head swung to the door, looking for the inevitable blinking lights. Ticktock. “Please. I need to find my wife. I think I know who has her. Her life is probably at stake, along with my freedom. And I need to know where she is. What did she record?”
“I don’t know.” Ralph seemed somewhat on his side now. “But if she set it up, it should be in the Moon.”
“The Moon?” Was this kid on crack?
“Yeah, the Moon.” He put on his salesman hat, and his voice changed. “This particular device has a design flaw, where the record and delete button are close together. See?” He pointed at it through the plastic, and James remembered Bella/Maribel mentioning the same thing. “So, if she set up the account, it backed up to the Moon. It’s the low-rent version of the iPhone iCloud.”
Bingo! “You’re telling me there could be a recording of what she was doing that day?”
“Yes. If she set up the account online.”
His desperation came back tenfold. “Can you please, please find out which one she got from this receipt? Does it have a PIN or anything? How can I access it?”
“You’d have to look on the computer and sign in. It asks for a password when you set it up. It needs to be a combination of capital letters and lowercase letters and numbers and one symbol. Eight digits total.”
James was fucked, and he knew it. He’d never be able to figure that out.
And then, Ralph saved him.
“There’s a specific number associated with the one she bought. We have to scan the back and they’re all different. If you’re really innocent, then bring it to the police. They should be able to get a warrant to search it.”
“Ralph, I think I love you. Can
you please give me that number?”
He looked unsure. “They can come in and get it if they have a warrant.”
James’s face fell, and tears brimmed his lids. “I don’t know how long my wife has, and I’m trying to prove my innocence. Please!”
James watched as Ralph tossed the idea around in his brain like a ping-pong ball, then game, set, match. “Okay. Hang on.”
As Ralph wrote down the info, it started. The sirens blared, first low, then louder as they got closer. They were coming for him.
“Ralph, please hurry. They’re coming. I need you to show this to them. Please.”
A screech stopped the car diagonal in front of the door, and Solomon stepped out and whipped open the door.
“Well, well,” Solomon said to James, while dangling handcuffs from his forefinger. “Just the person I wanted to see. Put your arms behind your back, Mr. Montgomery.”
James’s eyes pleaded with Ralph, and he finally pushed a piece of paper toward him on the counter.
“I don’t have time for this, Solomon.” James held up the receipt and the slip of paper where Ralph had the device’s access number. “I think there’s something you should see.”
37
Tessa
I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but when I open my eyes, I’m in a strange bedroom. Blue walls, frilly white curtains, ugly paintings you’d see in a cheap hotel, and I’m under a comforter with a blue and white gingham pattern. There’s a window to my left—it’s evening. Dusk. I can tell the way the light moves into the room. I’m in pain everywhere—my head, my shoulder, my arm—fuck. I’m attached to an IV.
My baby.
“Hello?” My voice is raspy, like I haven’t eaten or drunk anything in a week. I may not have. “Is anyone there?”
A light flips on to my right. “Well, hello there, Tessa.”
I don’t need to look—I recognize the voice and my stomach turns inside out. I press my eyes shut, willing him to go away. It’s just a nightmare.
“You gave us quite the scare, darling.” Drew stands and walks to the bed, then sits on the edge, too close to me and a tear falls down my cheek. “I’ve had you sedated for a few days.”
“Where am I?” Where’s James?
“Shh, shh, my darling.” His finger touches my lips, and I know I don’t have the strength to bite him. “Don’t you worry. You’re fine. The baby is fine. You’ve been very well taken care of.” He motions to the machinery in the room. There’s a big contraption that’s beeping, with squiggly lines of different colors and lots of medical bags attached to wires on hooks. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was in the hospital.
Oh, God. How does he know about the baby?
Maribel.
“Where’s Maribel? She did this.”
“I know, I know. She brought you to me because she knew Jack could get here and fix you up. You remember Dr. Kelly, I presume? He removed the bullet. Got you on antibiotics. Kept you asleep to heal.”
Jack Kelly is a less-than-scrupulous doctor that Drew knows from Philadelphia, one who will give him medical-grade painkillers if he wants to get high, or, on occasion, if I needed them after a beating. Or if I needed to be stitched up and not have any questions asked. Drew knows someone horrible and immoral from every walk of life.
“I remember Jack” is all I say.
“Jack pulled through and got his ass up here when I told him it was an emergency. Don’t worry, you’re safe. All the tests were done while you were sleeping.”
Up here. I’m still near my house. “What tests? How long was I sleeping?”
“Well, tests on our baby, of course. You remember that’s the only thing I can’t do? But I own you, and now, this baby. Little baby Grant is going to be just fine. I hope it’s a girl. You know I always wanted a little girl.”
His smile is evil, and horror seeps through my bones as I get a chill, which makes me shiver noticeably, and he pulls that ugly comforter farther up to my neck. If Drew thinks for one second that he’s getting his hands on my baby, I—oh God, I’ll what? What can I really do? He’s kept me housebound and cut off from the world before and he’ll do it again.
“Where am I?”
“I said you’re safe.” This time, the smile is gone, his voice is deeper and he’s not messing around. He’s not going to let me go.
James. I have to get out of here.
I move, just for comfort reasons, but the pain is everywhere. I try to wiggle my toes to see if I still have feeling in my legs, which I do, but they’re like wet spaghetti right now. I can’t make a run for it. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve moved.
He did say my baby was safe. My baby, with my husband James. My everything. Drew has taken away so much; I won’t let him take this too. I need to find out where I am, how long I’ve been here, where Maribel is, and what his plan is.
So I do the unthinkable. I survive, because that’s who I am in my bones. A survivor. I begin flexing the muscles in my legs and rotating my ankles.
I turn to him, and smile.
“Are you going to take me home?”
Now his disgusting hand is on my face, the backs of his fingers touching my cheek. He smiles back.
Then he backhands me. Hard. I let my head flop to the side. He prefers me submissive.
“Take you home? Of course you’re coming home with me as soon as we can get you out of this bed. Which, now that you’re awake, seems like it could be soon. You were out for five days. I wanted you to heal without complications. Make sure the baby was okay. While I took care of everything else.”
“What else? What else did you do for me, baby?”
He’s rubbing my leg, and I face him and force a smile again, even with my cheek throbbing. I know exactly where every fingerprint will be and how it will look. I feel the bile crawling up my throat, but I push it back down when he begins to talk.
“Maribel played along for the first few days, pretending she wanted you to heal too. But I know how she gets.” He laughs and blows a breath out of his mouth. “Man, she was a jealous one. She was thrilled when you left me. But you’re mine. That’s what no one understands. I own you.” His eyes are wild, possessed. Obsessed with me. “I know what she’s capable of, after she killed Rosita a few days ago. Sure, setting up your man for that was par for the course, but she really killed Rosita because I fucked her. Maribel wouldn’t be able to stand the fact that you’re in my life again. That we’re a family. I couldn’t take a chance with her around you anymore.”
Oh, God. So Maribel did kill Rosita, just like she said she would. Oh no. Is James safe? Where is he?
Instead, I play good wifey. Compliant. “I’m glad you’re all mine again. I knew about your affair, and it hurt so much. But you’re the man, and you provided for me. Who was I to really say anything?” I gulp. “Where is Maribel now?”
He rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “I put her body in the basement. This is an Airbnb rental just outside of the town where you played house with that James character. She won’t hurt you anymore.”
He killed Maribel. He’s going to drag me back to Delaware and keep me locked away and raise my baby as his own.
No way.
I nod at him. “Thank you for doing that. For killing her, to protect me. I always knew you loved me.”
He rushes over to the bed and I involuntarily wince, thinking he’s going to punch me again, but instead he pulls the cover off me and forces me to stand. He hugs me, hard, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d actually think he cares.
I know better.
The wires from the IV twist and pull on my skin. “Ouch. Careful,” I say, and point to it. I’m standing on my own two legs. I can do this. “I’m hungry. Is there food here? Can I make you something?”
After every beating, after every time he patched me up and saved me from himself, I was still expected to cater to him. Today should be no different.
“There’s food in the kitchen.”
I take a step to make sure I can, and I’m able to. I have to survive. “Can we take this out?” I hold my hand up to him, the one with the needle in it. “You were always gentle with me. Can you do it?”
You son of a bitch.
I hate the feeling of the IV being dragged out, and I get queasy but I remember the big picture. Now is not the time for nausea.
I immediately grab the heavy glass lamp from the nightstand and hit him as hard as I can on the head, shattering it.
He grunts and slams into the wall. Unfortunately, I know I haven’t killed him—I’ve only pissed him off. I have to get away from him.
I run.
38
James
Solomon wasn’t amused at James playing detective, investigator, cop, judge, and jury better than he did himself. James sat alone in the cold room in the police station, with the cuffs pinched around his wrists. That jerk wouldn’t even take them off as he waited for Robert at the Valley Lake Police Department building. And he’d been there for almost two hours.
Still. The fact that he wasn’t wearing orange and in county jail already had to mean something, right?
The whole ride back to the station, James begged for his freedom, begged Solomon to listen to him as he tossed out his discoveries about possibly having information on what happened to Tessa, about Maribel, Bella, the recording device, the Moon. Solomon answered him by lighting a cigarette in the patrol car and then smiling for the cameras as he dragged the murderer inside the police station. The cameras that were likely there because Solomon called them himself. The small-town cop got to have his name displayed everywhere for the past week. James was sure he’d be using this leverage to run for mayor, maybe even something bigger. Local portly detective catches bad, bad man.
Finding Tessa Page 24