by Jonas Saul
She had just spoken with Sarah Roberts, who was proving to be quite a formidable young woman.
We’ll see how tough you are when I’ve got your parents tied up in their basement being whipped with my cane.
“Please wait outside the front doors, Martin. I can handle this on my own.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Violeta opened the back door, set the silver cane down first and pushed herself up as if she needed the cane for support. Before closing the door, she leaned back in. “Be ready if I come out fast.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
She shut the door and started inside. At reception, a lone woman sat behind the large wooden counter, typing into a computer.
Probably playing solitaire. Lazy sod.
“Ahem,” Violeta cleared her throat loud enough for it to echo off the corridor to her left. “Oliver Payne, please.”
The woman didn’t look up. She performed an exaggerated display of looking for Oliver, then announced, “Oliver Payne is in room 106 at the end of the hall on the right.”
Without thanking her, Violeta turned and started down the hall, clacking her cane as she went.
When she was done with Oliver, the rest of the evening would be a special feature called Killing Sarah. The rest of the evening would be devoted to that endeavor. Everything Violeta did for the rest of the night would be to kill Sarah mentally, emotionally and then finally, physically. After all the trouble Sarah had caused her, she deserved to perish horribly. Violeta had never considered herself a murderer, but times had changed. If what Sarah said was accurate, her ex-cons were dead and her bodyguard Derek was probably dead, too. Sarah had single-handedly taken out her two very useful skinny ex-cons. She had plans for them to reform her daughter. Tam was supposed to spend the next month tied up in their apartment, but now Sarah Roberts had fucked that all up.
Violeta would have to go find some other wretched human beings to violate her daughter into submissiveness now.
The name Sarah Roberts became synonymous with a vile, putrid hate. Every time Sarah’s name rang through her head, she wanted to spit, but she controlled herself. She was a lady and wouldn’t spit on account of that little whore.
Well, maybe I will spit … on her corpse.
Voices emanated from one of the rooms ahead. She thought she heard someone crying. Her step faltered. Was this a trap? Should she have brought Martin with her?
But then she reasoned that she had done nothing wrong. All she did was pay the good Greek police to help escort her wounded husband back home for proper care. If anyone did anything illegal it was Elias Kostas, not her. His word against hers. She would win as she always did.
She walked with more confidence. Let them try to arrest her. She’d be out by the morning and lawsuits against the Santa Rosa Police Department would be filed by the afternoon. They had enough trouble in Santa Rosa with officers using excessive force recently. A thirteen-year-old boy had been shot in the street, apparently for holding a replica AK-47 in his hands. The police department of Santa Rosa didn’t need any more negative press at the moment.
As she passed door number 105, she could’ve sworn she heard her daughter’s voice.
She stopped in the hall and listened four feet from the open door of room 106.
It was Tam. Tam Rood, the traitor, the turncoat. Tam Rood, the fucking doormat. The rules had been reinforced over and over. Once Tam earned her place, her right to be a part of the family, at eighteen years of age she could legally change her name and become Tamara Payne. But now she would never earn it. Forever, she would be an enemy of the Payne family and not a member. Forever, she would be a door mat and Violeta would be the one to walk on her.
Tam said something about how her mother had ordered her to go to Parkman’s apartment and kill Sarah Roberts.
How could she implicate me this way?
Violeta felt the color drain from her face.
Tam would die for this. There was no other way in Violeta’s world. The brutal truth of it sunk in, and just when Violeta’s resolve would expect to be weakened, the knowledge of Tam dying emboldened her.
A man spoke. He sounded official. He had to call this in, he said, send officers to respond to Parkman’s address. Tam was talking to the police, telling them everything.
Footsteps approached from inside the room. They were coming.
She turned her face away, leaned on the cane, and wobbled a step. Her arm shot out as she used the wall for support.
Her playacting would work in a clinic like this one. Unless the authorities had circulated a photo of her, which she doubted as Tam was just now spilling the beans.
Five feet back, two sets of footfalls gained on her. Then the men passed her as she wobbled on her cane for another step. They didn’t look back once.
She continued up the hall, aiming for the front entrance and Martin dutifully waiting in the car.
It was over. It was truly over. She would’ve never thought Tam would tell the police anything.
Violeta had to lock down and go into protection mode. Especially now that Sarah was in town and looking for her as well.
An hour ago, she thought she had everything sewn up. But her plan was unraveling like white sand through her palms with every word out of Tam’s mouth.
She decided then and there, as she stepped into the warm night, that she would hurt Tam in the most brutal way possible before killing her. Betrayal was the most heinous crime. Acid in the face would be too nice. Tam would just be ugly. A knife in the vagina might do the trick. Ruin her in the worst way possible. Use the tip of the knife to pull each eye out, then let her live, blind, ugly and unfuckable.
Violeta smiled as her thoughts grounded her. Tam Rood would learn just how far she had gone.
Once safely inside the car, she ordered Martin to drive.
He pulled out slowly as to not attract attention.
“Take me to Sarah Robert’s parents’ house. I think it’s time we have a chat.” She gave him the address on Olivet Road. “Do you know what just happened in there?”
“No, ma’am. I was in the car.”
“I’ve lost my daughter.”
Martin drove the car and stayed silent.
“You see, Martin, you either destruct or construct. Be constructive in a relationship, or destructive and break it down. Be responsible or irresponsible. It’s quite easy to understand, really. You go left, or right, up or down. There are only two ways about it and Tam has chosen a way that is opposite of my own, hence, she’s not with me. I’ve lost her. Absolutely and completely.”
She watched the houses flash by, some dark, some with lighted windows.
“Just like these houses,” she added. “In some, a light is on. In others, the lights are off. Tam is like the others now. Her light is off. She’s closed to me. It’s over.” She turned forward and looked at Martin’s eyes in the mirror. “From now on she is Tam Rood only. She is not Tam Rood, my daughter. She will never take my name. She will never be Tamara Payne. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Martin drove through the darkened streets of Santa Rosa while Violeta got increasingly sick to her stomach for what she had to do.
To her, someone was either alive or dead. Being alive meant regeneration, creating, beautifying. Dead meant rotting. That was it. There was simply nothing left for Tam to do but rot and decay. How could her own daughter be of such duplicitous character to betray her? Violeta tried to suppress her rage by clenching and unclenching her fists. Tam’s insidious cunning, her trickery and deceit would come back to haunt her. Violeta wouldn’t take it lying down. Even if she ended up in prison, there were ways to reach out and punish those who put her there.
Sarah Roberts had to be added to that list. If Violeta was going down for something, it was Sarah’s fault, too. Why did she have to come back to Santa Rosa? If Sarah wasn’t here, then her ex-cons would’ve got the bugs at Parkman’s and left. She would’ve dealt with Oliver, got her new deal next w
eek and lived on, leading a happy life.
But Sarah came back, just like the fucking cat. How many lives did this Sarah Roberts have? It angered her that Tam had screwed up. Sending Tam to Toronto was a lesson she needed to learn. In the end, everything was Sarah’s fault. She probably even faked getting shot so the shooter, Tam, would feel terrible for having hit her when it was only meant as a warning shot.
Sarah Roberts. Her new enemy. Her only enemy now.
And she was eight minutes away from Caleb and Amelia’s house.
Won’t they be surprised when they meet her?
They’ll be more surprised that they have to pay the price for their daughter’s actions.
When the two police officers left, Tam turned back to her father and examined the length of his body.
“Is it true?” she asked. “Are you paralyzed?”
Her father and the nurse exchanged a knowing glance. They knew something but weren’t saying. It was probably due to her age and they thought they had to be delicate.
“Go ahead,” Tam said. “Tell me what happened. Don’t hold back. I’ll be eighteen before Christmas. After all I’ve been through with my mother, you don’t think I can handle what you have to say?”
Her father patted the bed. “Come sit down.”
Tam settled in beside him. The nurse sat in a chair in the corner by a little table and opened a magazine.
“What I’m about to tell you might hurt your heart.”
“If it’s bad and it’s about mom, I’ll be okay.” Tam shook her head. “I’m so done with her. I’ll move out before I do her bidding anymore.”
Oliver clasped his hands together across his stomach. “My nurse,” he nodded at the woman with the magazine, “is actually a Greek police officer named Athina. She escorted me back here and met with the two officers who were hiding in the closet because of some of the things your mother has done.”
“I had figured that when they jumped out of the closet.” She smiled at him and realized it was the first real smile on her face in months. “Go to any room in this clinic. I guarantee you won’t find random cops hanging out in closets.”
The Greek cop/nurse giggled in the corner, her eyes still on the magazine.
Oliver lifted his legs. “I’m fine, look. See, no pain. No paralysis. But we can’t let your mother know until this is over. The Reed Clinic graciously allowed us to borrow this room until the Santa Rosa Police investigation is over.”
“What has mom done?”
“She hired the detective to find me.”
Tam nodded. “Yeah, Parkman. I know that.”
“Next, she told the local Greek police captain, Athina’s boss, that I had done terrible things to you and that I had fled the country to escape justice. Since I was in the Eurozone more than three months, they picked me up.”
“So she lied.”
“Exactly. But that part isn’t the issue. She then offered the Greek police captain money to hurt me.”
“Is that what happened to your face?”
“Your mother asked Kostas to paralyze me.”
“I knew it. When she told me earlier tonight that you were back and in this clinic, I asked if she had anything to do with it and she lied to me.”
“Kostas told her he would go through with it, essentially he would break the law, so this could happen.” He swept his arms around the room, pointing at Athina. “As soon as your mother comes here, sees I’m not paralyzed, we’ll have her on tape, we have the money she sent to Greece as evidence, we’ll have everything for several different charges.”
“What if she doesn’t come here?”
“Oh she will. She wouldn’t miss this for the world. Athina is here to protect me from her or her bodyguards and those two cops will be the arresting officers. Athina will give them her statement and then she heads back to Greece tomorrow.”
“But something isn’t right. Mom’s too smart to walk into a trap.” Tam looked at the bedside clock. “And she should have been here by now.” She looked in her father’s eyes. “That means she could only be one place.”
“Where, baby Tammy? Where would your mom go?”
“To Caleb’s house on Olivet Road.”
The nurse set the magazine aside and got up. She walked over and stood beside Oliver.
“Who is Caleb?” her father asked.
“Caleb and Amelia Roberts. They’re Sarah’s parents, the girl they’re hurting at Parkman’s apartment.”
“Why would she go there?”
“Last resort.” Tam got up and started walking in a circle. “Parkman’s apartment is not an option. Coming here is done. She would’ve been here by now. The only place left is the Roberts’ house.” She stopped walking, turned and faced them. “If this is all falling apart around her, she has lost you, she has lost me, and she would know that by now as I haven’t shown up to kill Sarah as she ordered me to do. She will have to apply more pressure somehow. The only place left would be the Roberts’ house, or give up. And mom won’t give up.”
“We’ll tell the cops when they come back. Maybe they could send an officer over to warn these people.”
“It’ll be too late and it’ll be my fault.”
“Your fault? Why’s that?”
“I found them for her. I gave her the address. I was trying to regain my honor with her. She told me I had to.” Her voice was rising steadily. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t ask for this. Why would she hurt me like this? What have I done wrong? She’s my mother. Shouldn’t she—”
“Shhh,” her father consoled. “It’s okay, Tammy. We’ll work it out.”
She panted for a moment, staring at them. They really didn’t know who Violeta Payne had become. They thought police officers would magically drop out of closets and cruisers and arrest all the dastardly people and all would be well in the world. Would the world be well for Sarah Roberts ever again? How about Sarah’s parents when Martin and her mother worked them over, maybe even killed them?
Everything fell squarely on her shoulders. If her mother had taught her one thing, it was owning what she did and if she screwed up, fixing it.
She had found the Roberts’ home address. She had given it to the vile witch her mother had become. Tam and Tam alone had sentenced Sarah’s parents to a fate that was unfair and undeserved all because she wanted to serve her mother.
That meant Tam had to fix it.
She turned and headed for the door.
“Tammy! Wait!”
“No.” She turned back at the door and recited the Roberts’ address on Olivet Road. “Tell them to bring everything they’ve got available. I think mom’s going to kill those people.”
Tam ran for her Mustang, hoping she could stop what she had started and wondering if she could live with the worst-case scenario.
If those people were badly hurt for no reason, or worse, killed, then Tam would only be able to fix something of that magnitude one way.
By killing her mother and then herself.
Chapter 33
Detective Joffrey turned onto Parkman’s street. The car moved along slowly as they watched for a spot to park.
“From here,” Parkman said, happy to be home, “we can call Sarah’s parents to see if they’ve heard from her. I can get changed and if we have time, take a shower. There’s drinks in the fridge if you guys need anything.”
“It feels like we’ve been in the car longer than on the plane,” Aaron said from the back seat.
They passed a large vehicle that resembled an ambulance parked on the side of the road.
“That’s a weird-looking thing,” Aaron said.
Joffrey pulled in and parked seven cars up from the cross between an ambulance and a paddy wagon.
“Okay guys,” Joffrey said. “Watch your backs. Let me go first. I’m the only one with a piece. We have no idea where Sarah is or what Violeta has planned. That woman may even have Parkman’s place under surveillance.”
“Let’s get in and out in thirty minutes
,” Parkman said. “We need to get to Violeta’s and we’ll probably want to meet up with Sarah’s parents to see how they’re doing with Sarah still missing. That work for you guys?”
Joffrey said, “I think we should go to the local police station here in Santa Rosa and let them in on what we’re doing here. Maybe they’ll give us an escort to Violeta’s front door. Especially if we find any listening devices in your apartment.”
Without answering Joffrey, Parkman got out of the car and the other two men followed.