by Julie Leto
Tracy blushed and timidly gestured toward the kitchen. “I don’t need fancy shoes out here. Just a good pair of work boots and fur-lined slippers when the nights get cold.”
Marisela followed, placing the baskets of berries beside the sink and accepting the glass of iced tea Tracy offered. She took a sip and the sweet, tangy flavor soothed the throat she hadn’t realized was parched. Man, picking fruit was no picnic.
“You stay out here on the farm all the time?” she asked.
“Mostly,” Tracy said, reaching into a carved cabinet to retrieve a battered aluminum colander. “I’m not very social…anymore.”
There it was. Her in. Marisela glanced out through the window and saw Frankie leaning on the back of the Corvette, phone in hand.
“Did something happen?”
Tracy turned away, pretending to look for something when Marisela couldn’t imagine what else she’d need to rinse off the berries other than the colander she had in her hand, the berries, and some tap water.
“I’m sorry,” Marisela said, reaching out and touching Tracy softly on the shoulder. “That was rude. I shouldn’t be nosy. It’s just that, I don’t know, you seem like a really nice person. I’d hate to think of you all cooped up.”
Tracy turned around slowly, her eyes a little glossy. “I like living like this. Beats the alternative.”
“Which is?”
Tracy turned on the water, sliding her fingers underneath the stream to test the temperature. “Well, my choices have always seemed to be either hanging out with the wrong crowd and making stupid choices or in-patient-therapy. I prefer this farm to Windchaser Farm.”
Marisela pressed her lips together tightly. Tracy wasn’t exactly mincing words. “Sounds like a tough life.”
“I’m sorry,” Tracy said, her voice more forceful. “That’s an awfully personal thing for me to share.”
Marisela waved her hand as if Tracy’s confession hadn’t struck her hard. “Hey, we all screw up sometimes!”
“Some more than others. I’ve been a serial screwup for fifteen years. But out here, in the isolated farm country, I tend to do better. Least I have for nearly a year now. One day at a time.”
“You know that’s right,” Marisela insisted, attitude lacing every word. The girl-talk angle was working. Now she just had to ramp up the stakes. “I got in with the wrong crowd when I was in school. Wasn’t pretty for me, either.”
Tracy turned the berries into the colander. “Drugs?”
Marisela winced uncomfortably. “Selling, not taking. Mostly, I was a petty thief and a major thug. Some bad shit went down. I learned my lessons the hard way.”
“What happened?”
Tracy’s stare was intense, intimate. She wasn’t asking because of Marisela, necessarily, but for herself. She was seeking the secret. The magic bullet. The trick to escaping the downward spiral.
“I was attacked,” Marisela said, twisting the truth a bit to gain Tracy’s trust. “I nearly died. I literally had the sense beat into me, as my papi likes to say.”
The colander dropped noisily into the sink, but Tracy didn’t seem to care.
“Beat into you? By whom?”
Marisela reached out for the colander, took it and busied herself by shaking the water around the metal sieve. “Bunch of girls jumped me?”
“A bunch?”
Marisela nodded. “After a basketball game in the gym parking lot. Nearly killed me. Trust me, they wanted to. They tried. I was in the hospital for two weeks.”
None of which was a lie. She’d just described, in scant detail, her bleed-out from las Reinas. The only part of the story she’d failed to mention was that she’d asked for the beating as a way to permanently exit the gang. That detail might not help her stir Tracy’s sympathy.
“How’d you get away?” Tracy’s voice vibrated with breathless desperation. She slid out a metal kitchen chair and dropped into the floral-patterned seat.
Marisela twisted the faucet and pumped some liquid soap into her hands.
“I fought back,” she said with a shrug. “I was a tough kid.”
“I hate violence,” Tracy said, her voice faint and faraway. From her seat at the table, she was staring out the window, but not at Frank. He wasn’t standing by the car anymore. Tracy’s gaze was now lost in the turquoise-blue sky where not even one fluffy cloud dared dispel the perfect morning scene.
Marisela grabbed a dishtowel and approached Tracy slowly.
“Most people hate violence,” she concluded. “Doesn’t mean we all aren’t capable of kicking a little ass when it’s necessary.”
A sob caught in Tracy’s throat and her eyes instantly filled with large, gelatinous tears. Marisela could now see that Tracy wasn’t staring out the window at all. On a small shelf beside the fluttering curtains was a small picture frame. In the center, two girls in black-and-white, like one of those photographs taken at a booth in the mall, smiled as if they owned the entire world. Looking more like twins than sisters, Tracy and Rebecca Manning’s grins were toothy and genuine, with that special teenage goofiness that only emerged in the company of close friends. Marisela and Lia had a whole collection of pictures just like this one.
She took the picture down and noticed there wasn’t a speck of dust on the polished metal frame.
“Is this you?” she asked.
Tracy cupped the photograph lovingly in her palms as tears slid with painful slowness down her cheeks. “Me and Becca.”
“You look so much alike.”
“She was my sister.”
“Was?”
“She died,” Tracy said.
Not she was murdered? Not she was killed? Just she died?
“I’m so sorry,” she replied.
She put her hand softly on Tracy’s shoulder, and was surprised when the woman didn’t flinch. Instead she traced the tiny, smiling face in the photograph with her quaking touch.
“We were born only thirteen months apart. Irish twins, right?”
Two fat drops fell from her eyes, splashing on the glass.
“Pobrecita,” Marisela said softly. “You don’t have to talk about it. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
That wasn’t honest, but Marisela had to play this out. She was in too deep to turn back now. And she was making progress.
Tracy shook her head. “No, no. It’s okay,” she said with a sniffle and a deep, fortifying breath. She swiped the tears off her face brutally. “No one ever wants me to talk about it. Well, my brother never wants me to. He says it too painful. That I shouldn’t torture myself anymore.” Tracy glared up at Marisela, her light brown eyes intense with more than just fifteen-year-old grief. “He doesn’t know the half of it!”
Near-hysteria pitched Tracy’s voice higher, so that she startled herself with the sound. She clamped her hand over her mouth and shot out of her chair. With jerky hands, she shoved the picture frame back on the shelf, knocking down the tiny kitty-shaped salt and pepper shakers perched beside it. Tracy screamed.
One bounced. The other dropped onto the linoleum and rolled under the table. Tracy immediately dropped to the ground on all fours, scrambling for the runaway knickknack and crying openly now with no immediate sign of stopping.
Marisela dropped to the ground beside her. “Mijita, what’s wrong?”
“These were Becca’s! They can’t break. They—”
The rest of her sentence was captured by a panic-stricken sob and even as Tracy recovered the runaway kitty, her shaking hands sent it clattering to the ground once again. Marisela slid under the table with Tracy, and taking a cue from her mother, who was a hell of a lot better at this shit than Marisela was, wrapped Tracy in her arms. Instantly, Tracy pressed her face tight to Marisela’s shoulder, the moisture of her misery almost instantly sinking through.
Please let this pay off. Please let this pan out.
Not that Marisela was coldhearted, but damn. It had been fifteen years.
For a few moments, Marisela croon
ed to Tracy in Spanish, telling her not to worry, encouraging her to let out her emotions. She was certain the woman had no idea what she was talking about, but somehow, speaking in the native tongue of her parents had a musical effect that went a long way toward communicating, even if the words were unintelligible.
Soon after, Tracy seemed to calm. The rivers of tears drenching Marisela’s jacket trickled down to a steady but lessening stream. Without words, she helped Tracy to her feet, then slid her back into her chair at the kitchen table. She grabbed the iced tea Tracy had poured for herself, but hadn’t touched. “Here, mija, take a drink.”
Tracy obeyed. “I was only fifteen.”
“You were a baby.”
“I was so angry with her! She was ruining everything.”
Marisela slid into the chair next to Tracy’s then scooted closer. “Big sisters do that,” she commented, thinking that her own sister, Belinda, likely had a damned long list of all the ways Marisela had effectively screwed up her childhood.
Tracy used the dishtowel as a handkerchief, wiping her face and blowing her nose. “You don’t understand. She wanted to destroy him, but she ended up destroying me.”
Marisela’s heart clenched. This was the information she needed. Right here. Right now. “Who? Who did she want to destroy?”
Tracy shook her head. “You’re not from around here. You don’t know the story.”
Marisela reached out and cupped Tracy’s quivering hand. “No, I don’t know the story. But if you want to tell me, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll listen.”
Tracy shot out of her chair. “I can’t! I appreciate—”
“I’m not just a stranger, Tracy.”
The words tumbled our of Marisela’s mouth in a rush, but she had to trust her gut.
Tracy’s head tilted in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Your sister died. She was probably killed. That’s torn you apart over all these years, hasn’t it?”
“Who are you?”
Marisela stood. “My name is Marisela Morales and I work for an organization called Titan International. Two days ago, someone tried to kill Craig Bennett, the congressman. A few weeks ago, Raymond Hightower was murdered on a mountaintop in Switzerland.”
With each tidbit of information, Tracy’s face lost a shade of color. She went from red to pink and splotchy to blushing pale.
“And yesterday, Evan Cole was shot on his way to visit your sister’s grave.”
What was left of Tracy’s color instantly drained from her face. She brought her shaking hand to her mouth, whispered what Marisela thought was Evan’s name, and then fainted dead away on the floor.
* * *
Marisela shouted for Frankie, but hearing no response, she grabbed the dishtowel, doused it with water from the sink, wrung it out as quickly as she could, and then slid next to Tracy on the floor. She cursed as she moved Tracy’s head, checking for bumps, but she couldn’t feel any. Marisela ran the wet towel over Tracy’s face, and almost instantly, the woman’s eyes fluttered open.
“What happened?”
Marisela helped Tracy sit up. In the silent seconds that followed, Tracy’s memory slammed back into operation.
“Did you say Evan…was killed…at Rebecca’s grave?”
“Didn’t you know he was dead? It was all over the news.”
Tracy shook her head, groaning and clutching at her temple. “I don’t watch the news or read newspapers. Too depressing. Oh, my God. Evan?”
To her credit, Tracy didn’t dissolve into tears again. Marisela retrieved the iced tea and held the glass to Tracy’s mouth, so she could take a few sips.
“Who was Evan Cole to you?”
Tracy’s eyes widened with fear. “What is this Titan group you work for?” she asked, after pushing the glass away.
Marisela focused. Okay, she had to drop the Evan Cole questions. For now. Concentrate. Employ a dash of honesty. Judging by the bits and pieces Marisela had heard so far, Tracy obviously knew more about the night her sister died than she had told the police all those years ago. And her knowledge could be the key to finding out who had hired Yizenia Santiago to exact revenge for a fifteen-year-old crime. So far, she saw no evidence to indicate that Tracy was behind the killings. The woman appeared haunted, not bitter. And her shock at hearing about the fates of the men she’d once hung around with had been too genuine to be faked by a woman so emotionally fragile.
“We’re a private investigation firm. When Craig Bennett was shot, his wife hired us to protect him and find out who was trying to kill him. Certain evidence leads us to believe that his attempted murder was retribution for what happened to your sister on that island fifteen years ago.”
Tracy braced her hands on either side of her in an attempt to stand, but she seemed to have no strength in her arms.
“Oh, God. You said someone tried to kill Craig. Is he—?”
“No, he’s recovering. Slowly.”
Tracy’s lips pressed into a tight line. Not good.
“You were dating Bradley Hightower,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. Non-threatening. “After he dumped your sister.”
She gave a little nod.
“She was supposedly furious about that. Did she go to the island that night to confront the two of you?” Tracy shook her head.
Marisela grabbed her arm at the elbow, firmly but gently. “Raymond Hightower is dead, Tracy. Evan Cole, who wasn’t even there that night, was ruthlessly murdered yesterday right in front of me.”
The waterworks renewed, though the tears flowed silently.
“Craig Bennett is clinging to life in a hospital and could spend the rest of his days living in fear if we don’t find out who is trying to kill him. And Brad Hightower! We can’t find him yet, but he’s in danger and could be next on the killer’s list. If there was anyone else there that night, anyone else who might become a target of this killer, we need to know so we can protect them. Do you understand?”
Tracy managed a nod.
“Was anyone else there that night?”
“No,” she said weakly. “Craig and Bradley had gone camping.”
“Just the two of them?” Marisela asked.
Tracy nodded. “Evan had a party for his parents. I don’t know why Raymond didn’t go. He usually did. I was in bed that night”—her voice grew stronger—”sleeping. But Becca came in, all psyched up about something she just had to show me. Had to! We snuck out our bedroom window. I don’t know how, but she’d gotten Raymond to drive us over to the marina where she stole a boat and made us go with her to the island.”
Marisela helped Tracy stand. They slipped back into the kitchen chairs, but not before Marisela glanced out the window. Still no sign of Frankie. She was starting to wonder where the hell he’d run off to, especially since she’d called out for him minutes ago and he’d yet to respond.
That wasn’t like him. Wasn’t like him at all.
But before Marisela could suggest she go find him, Tracy continued to talk. “Becca had this crazy look in her eye the whole time. Like she knew something we didn’t know. Like she was finally going to get everything she ever wanted. Halfway there, Raymond wanted to turn back, but Becca wouldn’t let him. She said we had to see what was really going on.”
“If Evan wasn’t there that night, why did someone kill him?” Marisela asked, trying to move Tracy along. An icy hand clawed at Marisela’s spine the longer Frankie remained out of contact. She needed Tracy to spill. Now.
Tracy shook her head, slowly at first, then with growing speed. “No one knew. No one but me.”
“No one knew what? What happened that night, Tracy? What you tell me could save Bradley Hightower’s life. And maybe yours. You were there, weren’t you? Rebecca made you go. What if this killer is simply targeting everyone who was there that night, including you? You need to tell me everything so we can protect you. How did your sister go from leading you on some expedition to being murdered? Why didn’t you tell all this to the po
lice? What have you been covering up all these years, so much that it’s been eating you alive?”
Tracy took a deep, vibrating breath. She opened her mouth to speak, but Marisela silenced her when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of someone sneaking past the kitchen doorway.
Marisela reached for her LadySmith. The weapon, smaller than her Taurus 9 mm, was easier to hide, but she didn’t want to pull it in case Frankie was the one who’d invaded the house. But why would he sneak around? To search Tracy’s stuff? Possibly…but that hadn’t been the plan.
She glanced out the window yet again and saw nothing, including no new cars in the drive. Just Tracy’s white truck and the Corvette, still and untouched. But with all the boo-hooing going on in the kitchen, she supposed someone could have come up the gravel drive without her or Tracy noticing. And the vibe didn’t feel right. She’d bet her newly stuffed bank account that Frankie wasn’t the one in the house.
“What’s wrong?” Tracy whimpered.
A noise from the back of the house forced Marisela to spring to action. Spotting Tracy’s keys on the counter, she grabbed them and tucked them tightly in Tracy’s hand. “You need to get out of here.”
The sound had startled Tracy, but she hadn’t processed that her home had been invaded. “What’s happening?”
Marisela shushed her and spoke directly into her ear. “I’m not sure, but you need to get to your brother. Can you do that?”
Tracy’s eyes widened with fear. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Marisela pulled her gun, but pointed it away from Tracy. “I think someone just broke into the house.”
Tracy stood, her arms and legs unsteady, her eyes darting around as if the collections she’d amassed were her primary concern, ahead of her life. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Marisela whispered, taking Tracy by the arm and leading her toward the archway that separated the kitchen from the hall. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Where’s Frank? Your boyfriend. Is he really your boyfriend?”
“Good question,” Marisela replied, answering the location question, not the boyfriend one. “I’ll find him, too. Trust me.”