Written With You

by Martinez, Aly

  “I can do that,” I vowed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take good care of her. I swear.”

  “I know you will.”

  He didn’t relax, not even a fraction. He simply punched the accelerator and gunned it toward his house.

  CAVEN

  A breath I’d been holding for what felt like my entire life flew from my lungs as my house came into view. The gate was still closed, Willow’s car in the driveway, but nothing was out of the ordinary. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen at the police station; there were so many balls in the air, so many secrets untold. But if I could just get them somewhere safe, nothing else mattered.

  The police officer pulled in behind me, parking sideways and blocking anyone from coming up or down the driveway. Then he climbed half out of his cruiser. “I’ll keep an eye out here while you get your kid. Don’t take too long. The captain is waiting for you at the station. Seems he’s familiar with your father.”

  Of course he was. The majority of the country, especially those in blue, was familiar with the shit Malcom had done that day at the Watersedge Mall.

  “In and out. Five minutes max.” I rested my hand on Willow’s back, guiding her up the front steps. After I unlocked the front door, I pushed it open and called, “Rosie!”

  “Right here, Daddy!” She laughed and I swear to God muscles I didn’t know I had sagged with relief.

  Now to get them out of there.

  I passed Willow my keys then typed my code into the beeping alarm. “Take my car. Her car seat’s already installed. There are some DVDs under the console. That should keep her busy on the drive. Alejandra packed her bag, but buy whatever else you need while you’re down there.”

  “Okay,” she breathed, wrapping her hand around the tattoo on my forearm. “We’ll be fine. I promise.”

  And she would. I knew it with every fiber of my being.

  Or at least I thought I did.

  The moment we made it to the living room, I realized just how wrong I’d been.

  We must have seen him at the same time, because I threw an arm out to the side to stop her just as she fisted the back of my shirt, pulling me up short.

  “Oh, God,” she croaked.

  Twenty-four hours earlier, it would have been a welcome sight. A surprise visit from my brother—Rosalee’s favorite uncle. But in that moment, finding Trent on the couch with his arm draped around my daughter, who was sitting beside him with a book open on her lap and a smile on her face as she turned the pages…

  It was the most terrifying thing I had ever witnessed.

  And that was before I saw the gun in his hand.

  And it was definitely before I caught sight of Jenn and Alejandra lying facedown, unmoving, in the hallway.

  WILLOW

  My heart stopped, and the oxygen became too toxic to breathe.

  It was too much.

  I’d never get used to how much he looked like Malcom.

  Especially now that he had a gun.

  And Rosalee.

  And…

  My head began to spin and the past roared in my ears when I saw Jenn and Alejandra lying in the hall. It wasn’t the food court. But it was too close. Too similar. Too devastating. My vision tunneled and I couldn’t tell if they were breathing. They were so agonizingly still.

  My legs began to shake and it was all I could do to stay on my feet, but falling was not an option.

  He had her.

  He had my Rosalee.

  “Hey, Daddy! Hey, Willow,” she chirped. “Look, Uncle Trent bought me a book about animals. It has llamas and everything.”

  He grinned at Caven, slimy and baleful. “I sure did. Uncle Trent’s the best. Right?”

  “Right,” she replied.

  “Rosalee, come here,” Caven rumbled, taking a long stride forward. “Right now. Come here.”

  She started to slide off the couch, but all at once, Trent’s arm snaked around her and he slapped a hand over her mouth. As he stood up, he leveled the gun on his brother’s chest.

  “Please stop!” I cried, darting forward as she dangled in his arms like a rag doll.

  His gun swung to me, and just as fast, Caven sidestepped in front of me.

  “No!” Caven boomed, lifting his hands in surrender. “This is not about them. This is about me and you. Let them go and I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “What I wanted was for you to keep your fucking mouth shut.” He jerked his chin toward the hall. “Do you see that? You did that. You told Jenn about the goddamn pictures and left me with no fucking choice. My own wife and you fucking killed her.”

  My pulse thundered in my ears, the fear from the past almost as debilitating as the panic in the present.

  This wasn’t happening.

  Not again.

  Not again.

  When I heard Rosalee’s muffled scream, I moved around Caven, unable to hide for a second longer while she was in the arms of the beast.

  Tears were rolling down her face as she kicked her legs and had both arms outstretched for Caven. Her eyes. Oh, God, the confusion and terror in her bulging eyes were like a million arrows falling from the sky. I didn’t want this for her. I’d have given my life right then and there if it meant she never had to know a fear like that.

  “It’s okay, baby,” Caven choked out. “It’s okay. Daddy’s right here. Just relax.”

  His reassurances only made her fight even harder, and my chest constricted as Trent’s fingers bit into the side of her face.

  “Please. You’re hurting her,” I pleaded.

  “And you,” Trent snarled, his gun once again training on me. “You and your fucking sister have been nothing but a pain in my ass for years. If I’d known there were two of you, I’d have killed you both at the same goddamn time.”

  “What?” I gasped, his confession penetrating my brain one syllable at a time. “You…you killed her?” That wasn’t possible. It’d been a car accident.

  An accident just like the first of Malcom Lowe’s first twelve victims.

  I blanched as his verbal knife slid, slow and violent, into my gut.

  “She was a cokehead who deserved far worse than what I gave her. The crazy bitch was constantly asking for me at the station and following me home from work. She and that worthless piece of shit, Aaron White, camped out in front of my house, taking pictures like they were at a fucking zoo. I’ve never had a dead woman blackmail me before. Or man for that matter. Good old Aaron can attest to that from the morgue.”

  He shifted Rosalee in his arm and cracked his neck. “Everything would have been fine until you, like a cockroach, came back. I knew you were a liar from the moment I saw you. I’d already killed Hadley Banks. There was no fucking way she was sitting in my brother’s house, waiting to blow out her birthday candles. You should have stayed gone, Willow. You should have fucking stayed gone. And none of this would have happened.”

  He suddenly turned the gun to Rosalee’s temple.

  I screamed, tears springing to my eyes, but Caven lurched forward. His jaw so hard that it was magic that his teeth hadn’t crumbled.

  “Stop! Stop. She’s Mom, Trent. She’s the only part of Mom we have left. Just give her to me. I’ll give you all the cash you need, and this can all be over.”

  He swung the gun back on Caven. “Fuck Mom! She liked to run her mouth too. Dad warned me over and over again that you were just like her and you would flip on us the first chance you got.”

  “Dad was a fucking psychopath.”

  “But he was right about you. You were all set to turn him into the police with those Polaroids. You didn’t give a damn about your family. You didn’t care about me. You’ve always been such a selfish prick. And you’re the worst fucking kind because you won’t die. I’d chained every door at the mall that day. And you still somehow made it out alive. I gave you every benefit of the doubt. I told you to keep your fucking mo
uth shut, but you can’t do it, so your mountain of bodies just keeps growing by the day, little brother.”

  Bile clawed up the back of my throat as I watched his every word slash across Caven’s face and strip him bare.

  But it wasn’t Caven the boy, the one from the mall, broken and defeated.

  It wasn’t the helpless kid so filled with anguish and guilt that he could barely breathe.

  It was Caven the man who would do absolutely anything to protect his family—even at the risk of his own life.

  “You helped him?” Caven whispered, inching closer.

  Trent grinned with honest-to-God pride. “Couldn’t let the old man take all the glory.”

  “You were just like him. You always have been.” It was almost imperceptible, but with every sentence, Caven closed the gap between him and his daughter. “I don’t know how I was so blind all these years.”

  Suddenly, Trent moved the gun back to Rosalee. “If I were you, that would be the last step you take toward me.”

  When I was eight years old, lying as still as possible on the floor of a bloody battlefield in the middle of a mall food court, I’d sent up my very first prayer that someone, anyone, would save me.

  It was Caven who’d arrived that day.

  But in his house eighteen years later, while I was at the risk of losing my entire family all over again, a different kind of savior appeared.

  “Mr. Hunt,” the young cop called, pushing the front door open. “Is everything—oh, shit!”

  Trent’s gun exploded.

  The sounds echoed in my ears, and everything in my body tried to shut down. From my knees buckling to my vision blurring, the memories of the past threatened to take over. But just as Caven had told me all those months earlier, the one thing that would always override my fears was making sure Rosalee was safe. And the second I saw Trent drop her, instinct took over and I dove across the room, scooping her up as Caven finally tackled his brother.

  Gathering her in my arms, I scrambled to my feet just in time to dodge the two men crashing to the floor.

  “Go!” Caven grunted, his fist colliding with Trent’s jaw. “Get her out of here. Go!”

  I hated to leave him, but Rosalee needed me more. Racing as fast as I could, my chest heaving with every step, I ran out the back door with Rosalee sobbing in my arms. I’d made it all the way around the house, my throat raw and on fire from screaming for help, when I heard the unmistakable sound of another gunshot.

  Rosalee’s grip around my neck tightened to match the vise in my chest. I had no idea who had fired the shot. Or who it had hit. But I didn’t stop running. There was nothing I could do to help Caven at that point, but all he would have wanted was for her to be safe.

  I could give him that. I could give us that.

  Sirens screamed in the background as I raced toward the end of the driveway. “It’s okay, sweet girl. I got you. We’re gonna be okay.”

  “I want my daddy,” she cried into my neck.

  Truth be told, I wanted him too.

  I smoothed the top of her hair down and spun in a circle as blue lights flashed in the distance. “He’s right behind us, baby. I promise.”

  It was a promise I prayed I could keep.

  It couldn’t have taken more than a minute for police cars to fill his driveway and officers to storm inside with guns drawn. But as I stood across the street, staring at the front door, with a hysterical little girl in my arms and my heart in my throat, I felt no relief.

  I felt like I was lying on the floor of that mall again. My life wasn’t in danger, but I was on the edge of extinction all the same.

  Ambulance after ambulance arrived, still no sign of Caven, and with every second that passed, I died inside a little more.

  I hadn’t had him long. Life couldn’t take him from me too.

  Not like this. Not after everything we’d been through.

  “Willow?” Rosalee choked out, sitting up, her eyes so red that they almost matched her hair. “Where’s Daddy? I want to see him.”

  That time, I didn’t even have to lie. Because in the most amazing second of my life, Caven appeared in the open doorway of his house.

  My heart exploded in time with my legs as I took off at a dead sprint with Rosalee bouncing in my arms.

  He was staggering and covered in blood. It was exactly what I assumed my worst nightmare would look like.

  But he was alive. Therefore, never had Caven Hunt been more beautiful.

  “Daddy!” Rosalee screamed, fighting her way out of my arms.

  He’d barely collapsed into a sitting position on the bottom step before she careened into his open arms.

  “Hey, baby,” he murmured, shifting her to one side and reaching for me.

  As much as I wanted to fall into his arms and never leave, there was too much blood to set my mind at ease. “Oh my God, Caven. Are you okay? I heard a gunshot. I thought… Are you hurt?”

  His face paled. “It wasn’t me.”

  Three whispered words had never been louder.

  He was okay.

  Trent was not.

  He was nothing but a coward whose final act of emotional terrorism was to leave his death on his brother’s conscience.

  “Oh, Caven,” I breathed, dropping to my knees in front of him. I hooked one arm around his neck, my other around Rosalee’s shoulders.

  “None of that matters. It’s over. It’s finally over. We’re living in the seconds. And nothing matters except for this second right now. We’re safe. We’re okay.” His voice cracked, but he still managed to force out, “We’re going to be just fine.” He kissed my forehead and then Rosalee’s. “Okay?”

  “Absolutely.” I squeezed them tight. “We’re a family. We’ll get through this too.”

  He nodded, and as I peered up at him, I saw that all-too-familiar storm brewing in his eyes.

  “Don’t say it,” I whispered. “Don’t you dare apologize. Not now. Not for this. Not ever. You did not do this, Caven. None of this.”

  He nodded again, but he didn’t believe me. He was a good man with a heavy conscience. It was going to take a long time to convince him that he couldn’t carry the weight of the world.

  Luckily for me, I had forever.

  CAVEN

  One month later…

  “What’s taking them so long?” Willow asked, the sound of waves crashing in the background. Rosalee was a few yards away, giggling and racing the waves up the beach.

  I shrugged, digging my toes into the sand. “Royal Rumble off the balcony?”

  “God, I hope not. We don’t have enough ice for Ian’s balls.”

  The side of my mouth curled. “And what makes you think Beth would win?”

  She shot me a pointed glare. “You’ve spent the last week with Beth. Tell me you seriously think Ian could take her.”

  “Take her? No. Handle her? Absolutely.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I kinda wish they would have sex and get it over with already so they’d stop bickering all the damn time.”

  I glanced back at the beach house. “Who says they’re not?”

  Willow lifted her phone and flashed the screen my way. “No texts. Trust me, I’ll know if Beth is getting laid before Ian does.”

  I let out a loud laugh and brought her hand to my mouth to kiss the back of it.

  A wise woman had once told me that we aren’t given a hundred years all at once. Time was doled out one very manageable second at a time. If all you focus on is the big picture and worry about tomorrow, you lose the happiness that can be found in the seconds.

  And God, had we earned some good seconds.

  After Willow had rushed out of my house with Rosalee in her arms, my anger had broken through the all-encompassing fear. A raw betrayal had branded my soul. I hadn’t been able to hit Trent hard enough to make myself feel better, and while he’d landed a few blows of his own, it was when he fumbled the gun that I knew it had to end once and for all. I pulled the trigger on my own brother.
And after seeing him hold that gun to my daughter’s head, there would never be a day when I regretted it.

  I’d sworn to Willow that Trent wasn’t my father. And he wasn’t.

  He was worse.

  When the police searched his house, they found not just my father’s stack of Polaroids—the ones Trent had claimed to have burned all those years earlier—but a stack of Trent’s own victims, including a picture of Hadley dead in her car.

  From what the police could piece together, Hadley had figured out Trent was the woman in the picture and had been hell-bent on exposing him. Files from Aaron White’s computer showed surveillance footage he and Hadley had taken during one of their stakeouts. It was a very clear, very damning video of Trent disposing of a body. The authorities surmised that these were what he’d been so desperate to get off the stolen flash drive that had never been recovered. Though we couldn’t be sure because, while Aaron White had been found OD’d on a park bench after he’d trashed Willow’s house, a Polaroid of him dead had been recovered at Trent’s house.

  In some ways, nothing made sense.

  In others, I was a fool not to see it earlier.

  My father had beaten Trent every day of his life. But he’d never hated Malcom the way I had. He’d been the one to convince me that we needed to get our paychecks and leave town, but his real motive had been to buy himself time so he and his fellow sociopath could get a plan together. And considering that Malcom hadn’t seemed to care if he lived or died in the mall that day, maybe Trent had been the mastermind all along.

  For years, he’d pretended to be the doting brother and uncle. He’d sat at my dining room table and taken my daughter on vacations. If I hadn’t seen his madness firsthand at my house that day, I’m not sure I would have believed he was capable of killing dozens of people. Let alone his own wife.

  Jenn died that day. Recordings from my security cameras revealed that Trent had choked his loving wife with his bare hands. In a miracle, Alejandra survived. She’d sustained quite a few injuries, including a broken cheekbone, cracked ribs, and swelling on her brain. She’d put up one hell of a fight, but she was no match for Trent. An oblivious Rosalee had interrupted him before he’d been able to ensure she was dead. It was quite possibly the only thing that saved her life.