by A. Zavarelli
“But how?” I demanded. “How could they just arrest him?”
“He wouldn’t speak to them. There was no defense. Everything was written down as it was spoken in Ed’s words. Ace was told to sign the confession, and he did.”
“Just like that?” I asked in disbelief.
“Just like that. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Another victim of a broken justice system.”
“Why would he sign it?” I pressed. “I don’t understand.”
“It happens more often than you might imagine,” Lucian replied. “And in Huck’s case, it was simple. Ed had convinced him he was responsible for her death. Huck brought her into the home, and Ed claimed it was his evil spell that forced his hands. In Huck’s mind, he accepted responsibility, and he believed he should be punished for it. Punishment for things he couldn’t control was all he ever knew. There was nobody to advocate for him or tell him otherwise. By the time I heard of his case, he’d already spent ten years in prison.”
I was grateful Lucian was still turned away so he couldn’t witness the tears spilling down my cheeks. “You freed him. It seems like it would be impossible.”
“It almost was.” He pinched the muscle at the base of his neck. “I visited him for months before he finally spoke to me, and I’d almost given up at that point. That was just the first hurdle. I still had to build trust and get him to open up to me about what really happened. I did my own research and put together a theory, but I needed him to confirm it. The process for overturning a conviction is a long, desolate road. I didn’t know if we’d ever get there, but after three years of fighting, Ace finally walked free.”
“What happened to Ed? Did he just walk away?”
“Not quite.” Lucian shook his head. “After the investigation was re-opened, several other missing young women were linked to Ed. Evidence turned up in the house that would have inevitably led to his arrest, but before that could happen, Ed drove his car into a tree and killed himself.”
“Coward,” I scoffed.
Lucian turned to study me. “Ace doesn’t think he deserves good things in his life, Birdie. In his eyes, he still believes it was his fault his mother and Mary-Kate died. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s punished himself for it.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “Honestly, he came to my house the other night, and I could tell something wasn’t right. The thing is, Gypsy asked him to look after you, and she’s my wife, so at the end of the day, I just want her to be happy. But not at the expense of Ace.”
“What does that mean?” I couldn’t hide the hurt in my voice. “You think I’m going to screw him up even worse?”
“I think you have the capability,” Lucian corrected. “I just want to make sure those aren’t your intentions. That you understand I don’t want to see him hurt.”
“It isn’t my intention.” I squeezed my fingers against the grainy wood. “I’m not going back there anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” Even as I said it, it felt like a lie.
Lucian sat down beside me on the bench and stared at the floor. “He’s different with you. I’ve never seen him so out of sorts.”
That statement shouldn’t make my stupid heart beat faster, but it did. Still, I had questions. Things I needed to know for myself.
“Did you tell him to stalk me for over a year?”
“I asked him to keep an eye on you,” Lucian answered. “You were supposed to leave Vegas, in case that hasn’t already been established several times.”
I ignored his jab. “Does keeping an eye on me extend to the type of food I eat? Or the wine I drink? Or implanting secret spies into my life who I think are my friends?”
An odd expression passed over Lucian’s face. He probably thought I was crazy, but he didn’t verbalize it. Instead, he looked lost in his own thoughts, like pieces of a puzzle were falling together. And then he stood, checking his watch, as anxiety crept back into his features. His thoughts had returned to my sister and the baby.
“I have to go,” he said abruptly.
“You’re not going to call Ace and tell him I was here?”
His lips curled into a smile. “Oh, I will. But you should have about a twenty-minute head start by the time he gets here.”
TWENTY MINUTES WAS NOT A lot of time to get out of this part of town, especially since I didn’t even know where I was going. Instinct drove me toward the parking lot of the church, but I hesitated on the stairs, considering Lucian’s words.
Ace is going out of his mind looking for you.
Did he feel bad for what happened? Was he even capable of feeling anything? Sometimes, I couldn’t tell. Now I understood the reasons for his behavior, but it didn’t make it any easier to figure him out. The things Lucian told me would take days to process, if not weeks.
Regardless, the images were burned into my mind. To imagine Ace as a little boy without words was to feel heartbreak in its purest form. He’d never been loved. He’d never been protected. Even as an adult, he was still learning how to communicate with the world and navigate his emotions. I wanted to fix him. I wanted to heal him. But not with the pain he thought he needed. What Ace really needed was love, but how could I show him the way when I didn’t even know it myself? I think that truth hurt the most. I couldn’t be what he really needed.
With Ace’s history, I couldn’t imagine he’d ever find a single redeeming quality in me when he learned who I really was. He thought he’d seen me at my worst. The rage, the cons, the lies. He’d even spoken with Detective Taylor, but he didn’t know the worst thing I’d ever done. And if it ever came out, I knew with horrific certainty that he wouldn’t ever want to look at me again.
My phone rang, shaking me from my thoughts, and a glance at the screen confirmed it was the past calling.
“Joe?” I answered.
“Miss me?” The slimy voice on the other line sounded distant as if he had me on speakerphone.
“I’ve been calling you,” I grumbled. “Are you ready to make a deal or not?”
“So eager,” he mused. “How about I’m ready to talk about it?”
I pinched the phone in my grip as I forced myself to stay calm and play his stupid game. “Okay, so talk.”
“Not on the phone,” he scolded. “Meet me inside the Rio. I’ll be at the bar.”
“You’re in Vegas?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Birdie. Are you coming or not?”
He’d intentionally asked me to meet him in a public place, knowing I wouldn’t agree otherwise. Not after the last time. Even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, it was my only option.
“Fine. Give me twenty minutes.”
“See you then.”
He hung up, and I glanced around the empty lot, still torn by the thought of leaving here before Ace arrived. But it was done. He wasn’t part of this, and I needed to remember that. The only thing that mattered now was getting my life back.
The Rio wasn’t on my list of usual haunts in Vegas, but it was right up Joe’s alley. After the cabbie dropped me off, I walked straight into the bar and scanned the patrons, but I didn’t see him.
Something in my gut warned me this was too convenient. He didn’t need to meet with me in person; he just liked to toy with me. That was his MO. And now here I sat, looking like a fool while he probably watched on from a machine, snickering at his ability to control me like a puppet.
Twenty minutes passed. And then thirty. The first three texts I sent him went unanswered, but on the fourth, he finally responded.
Joe: Something came up. Another time.
Seriously? I stared at the screen, dumbfounded. Now he was definitely playing games with me. But even this was out of character for him. Regardless, I wasn’t about to waste my time sitting around while he figured his shit out. Clearly, he thought my threat to expose him was a joke. Maybe he thought he was untouchable. Maybe I was really screwed. I texted him back anyway.
B
irdie: You know what’s about to ‘come up’ in your world, Joe? The police at your door if you don’t give me that fucking tape.
I waited five minutes and still no response. With a groan, I marched back toward the exit and stepped outside into the afternoon heat. The Rio was a short walking distance from the Strip, and I figured I could use the time to blow off some of my pent-up frustrations. There was also the matter of figuring out where I would go.
More than one time today, I’d considered hopping on a plane and saying fuck it all. I didn’t know where I’d end up or what I would do, but maybe there was another life out there for me. Only, I knew there wasn’t. Vegas was my home. I’d tried leaving before, and even then, I couldn’t stay gone long. Now I had Ace and Gypsy and my nephew to consider. But unless I got the evidence on that tape, I had no future at all, and that was what it all boiled down to.
I turned the corner on the sidewalk and almost stumbled over a bum napping in the middle of it. The foliage was thick here, and I often saw the homeless utilizing that real estate for shade and comfort. Farther down the ravine in the storage lot were shipping containers converted into homes. Definitely not legal, but people lived there too. That was Vegas for you. There was a very thin line between abject poverty and the filthy rich, and it was sometimes only a matter of feet.
“Birdie.”
I froze when I heard my name, and when I turned, I noticed it was the same bum I’d just passed a minute ago. The question was how the hell did he know me? It freaked me out, and everything in my gut screamed at me to get out of there.
“You have the wrong person.” I kept walking, but so did he. I could hear his footfalls behind me, growing more urgent as mine did too.
“Hold up,” he said. “I have a message for you.”
Whatever it was, I didn’t want to hear it. I stepped up my pace, racing for the pedestrian bridge ahead. At this point, I had two choices. Run out into traffic and become roadkill or get away from him on foot. For once in my life, I was glad I wasn’t wearing heels.
I made it across the crosswalk and onto the pedestrian bridge, but as my luck would have it, nobody else was on it. And from the sounds of it, my stalker wasn’t giving up.
“Leave me alone,” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran. “I’m not whoever you think I am.”
I waited for a response, but there wasn’t one. I understood why a moment later when he reached out and grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking me back against him. At that instant, I knew two things. He was a lot bigger than me, and he meant me harm.
Before I could process anything else, he slammed my face against the metal grate on the bridge. The wind shot out of my chest on a sharp exhalation, and I struggled to breathe as he did it again, hitting my head so hard I crumpled onto the concrete in a heap.
My aggressor was a blur, a distorted face that might be familiar, but I couldn’t tell. Evil always looked the same. I tried to curl into myself, but he stomped his foot against my knees until my hold gave out. When my body fell back open, he rolled me onto my back and kneeled onto my chest, crushing me with his weight. Just like when I was a little girl.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I hated myself for being weak as I shook my head and pleaded with him. But I had nothing else. I couldn’t save myself in this situation. I couldn’t do anything but try to appeal to the humanity I knew didn’t exist.
He proved it in the next second when he finally moved his knee and allowed me to drag in a breath, only to slap me across the face so hard blackness seeped into my vision. I tried to focus, and I tried to punch and kick, but my body was weak and sluggish. In my mind, I thought I was fighting back, but I realized after a while that they were only small indistinguishable movements. I was losing the fight rapidly.
Another slap. And then another. They kept coming, and I could feel my head flopping from side to side, unable to deflect them. My consciousness seemed to be coming and going, and I was only getting bits and pieces of what was happening as he started to unbuckle his belt and unzip his jeans.
That was when I resorted to the only defense I had left. We weren’t too far from the Strip. Someone had to be close by. I gathered all the strength I could manage and screamed until it felt like my throat was bloody.
“Stupid bitch.” A large hand wrapped around my neck and squeezed. The only thing I could see was a pair of dark eyes looking back at me as he spat in my face. “You fucking ruin everything.”
He slammed his palm against my chest and clambered to his feet, disappearing from my vision. The only thing that remained was a familiar note of black licorice from his clothing that made me want to vomit. Hurried footsteps approached from farther down the ramp, and I could only hope it wasn’t another monster lurking around the corner. But when I looked up and saw two frightened girls staring back at me, I’d never been so relieved in my life.
One held a can of pepper spray in the direction my attacker had fled while the other fumbled with the phone in her hand. She was on the verge of calling the cops when I shook my head.
“Please, no police. Just help me up. Get me to the Strip. That’s all I need.”
They both froze and looked at each other. It was obvious they didn’t want to listen to me. I probably looked about as good as I currently felt right now, but after a quiet moment of debate, they did as I asked. Helping me up, they balanced my noodle of a body between them as they walked me the remaining distance. I could barely move my arms when they found a place to prop me as I requested.
“You need to go to a hospital,” one of the girls said. “We can’t just leave you here like this.”
“It’s okay. I have someone you can call.” I tried to pull the burner phone from my pocket but realized it was gone. Whoever attacked me must have taken it.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Can they take you to the hospital?”
I nodded. I was good at pretending everything was okay, even if it wasn’t. I just needed to not think about what almost happened. If I could just get outside of my head, everything would be all right.
“Do you have the number written down somewhere?” The girl pulled up the keypad on her phone.
I shook my head. I didn’t need to write it down. Since Ace had texted me whenever I popped back up in Vegas, I knew his number by heart. Gypsy taught me long ago to memorize important numbers, and it occurred to me now that his was at the top of my list. Rattling off the digits, she dialed for me, considered handing me the phone, and then realized that wouldn’t work. I leaned my head back against the concrete wall and fought the exhaustion pulling at my heavy eyes.
“Just tell him I’m ready to come home now.”
I DOUBLE PARKED THE TRUCK on the side of the street and bailed out the minute I recognized the blond halo of hair. My feet were moving in her direction before my mind could catch up to what was happening. I was running on adrenaline and zero sleep, but this time, it wasn’t just my paranoia that something was wrong.
She was slumped against the building, head drooped forward with a curtain of hair around her shoulders. I couldn’t see her face, but I saw the matching expressions of concern on the two women beside her.
“Birdie?” I choked out her name, but it was too quiet for her to hear. I was still too far away, yet somehow, she knew. She knew I was there.
Her head lifted, and I came to an abrupt stop on the sidewalk, causing a chain reaction as pedestrians bumped against each other when they swerved to avoid me. Haunted eyes locked onto my face, relief swelling in the icy blue depths as she brought a trembling hand to her mouth and choked back a sob.
She was battered and bloody, and the horror of what I saw transported me back in time. I was trembling, vibrating, pieces of my past shifting and breaking apart the deep-rooted emotions I’d buried long ago. Fear and fury swirled in my gut, mixing into a toxic cocktail I could no longer control. It bled into my veins and infected me as my body lurched forward with one objective in mind.
Maim. Kill. Destroy.
“W
ho did this?” I snarled, making all three girls jump as their heads swiveled in my direction.
“Do you know this guy?” one of the unfamiliar faces asked Birdie.
She nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.
“Huck?” The pain in her voice snapped me out of the alternate reality I’d found myself in. I blinked, trying to shake off the grip of the past and focus on my present. On my future. On my whole fucking world as I knew it.
“Birdie,” I choked out her name again as I knelt before her to examine her face.
“Just take me home,” she pleaded. “I want to go home.”
Home.
Her home was with me. I wanted to tell her as much, but I couldn’t speak. In a matter of seconds, she’d turned me mute again. Her battered face was too fucking much. I buried my face into her body, clinging to her like a fool as I vowed to kill whoever did this to her. I would make them suffer in a thousand different ways until they begged me for death. It was the only possible outcome. Nobody touched this angel.
Birdie’s fingers came to rest in my hair, stroking me in a way that soothed the murderous thoughts ravaging my mind. I should have been the one to comfort her. That was my job. But I didn’t know how, and it was never more evident than when I looked up at her and saw the exhaustion on her face.
I stood and gingerly lifted her body into my arms, cradling her against my chest. Turning toward the women who had called me, it occurred to me that I owed them more than they could ever know.
“Thank you,” I forced out. “For staying with her.”
“Please take her to a doctor.”
I nodded, and they watched on as I moved in the direction of the truck. It was still idling, and it appeared I’d forgotten my keys in the ignition during the chaos. But it was the douchebag in the Porsche behind me who drew my attention.
He kept honking, screaming out obscenities as I took my time securing Birdie into her seat. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to sit there and inventory every bruise and scratch on her face so I could provide a detailed checklist for the doctor. But traffic had become congested behind us, and the Porsche fucker was only getting louder and more obnoxious.