Текст книги "Sixth Grave on the Edge"
Автор книги: Даринда Джонс
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
The Dealer lowered me to the roof carefully, and a jolt of pain shot through me the second my toes touched down. My right leg collapsed, and the Dealer tightened his hold to keep me from falling. I bit down, pushed off him, and tried to rush to the access door for the elevator, but I just couldn’t support my own weight. I stumbled before I took two steps. He caught me. That was when I noticed the bodies on the roof.
The Dealer shrugged. “I think after throwing those two off the roof and trying to throw you off, they got into an argument and killed each other. Who would’ve thought they’d do such a thing?”
“Works for me,” I said, glaring at Mendoza’s corpse. “Please, take me down.”
He cradled me in his arms and carried me down the stairs to the elevator.
Holding me close, he said, “We need you alive, sugar. No more thoughts of joining the mutt,
capisce
?”
The Dealer’s words dislodged the sobs I was holding on to, and I cried and screamed and railed against him. He pulled me tighter, and I felt true empathy radiate off him. Who would’ve thought a demon, a Daeva, could feel empathy?
When we got to the ground, the men there were dead, as well. “You could’ve marked their souls,” the Dealer said as he walked where I pointed, right up to Reyes’s body.
I scrambled out of the Dealer’s hold and fell beside Reyes. He looked perfect. He had blood from being beaten, but otherwise, he looked perfect. Serene. His long lashes lay against his cheeks. I felt for a pulse at his neck. Waited. Repositioned my fingers and waited again. Nothing.
“Reyes,” I said, urging him to open his eyes. “Reyes, please.”
The Dealer put a hand on my shoulder and tried to coax me off him. I’d draped my body over his and was running my fingers gingerly over his face.
The Dealer’s grip tightened at the same time I felt a presence. I looked up and watched as a darkness pooled near Reyes’s body. It lifted and molded itself into the shape that resembled a human, but its proportions weren’t quite right. Only after it had fully formed did I realize it was Reyes, but only partly so. His demon side had emerged. He was massive and towered above us as the Dealer moved between us.
I struggled to my knees as Artemis appeared beside me, her guttural snarls echoing around us. I held her to me as the Dealer slowly slid out the dagger from his boot. Every time he made a move, Reyes growled, his black gaze moving from me to Artemis to the Dealer. Every time it landed on me, it took everything in me to hold Artemis back. She didn’t recognize him, the man she’d been sleeping with for the last couple of weeks.
He had all of Reyes’s stark beauty, his fluid lines and smooth textures; only his eyes were deeper and blacker, and he had razor-sharp teeth, like the demons I’d seen. Was this what happened when his physical body died? Was this what all the warnings had been about?
Slowly, and with infinite care, the Dealer passed me the knife. “Kill him,” he said, his voice soft, unhurried. “Or everyone dies.” He turned back to me. “He’ll destroy the world, sugar. And everything in it.”
Rocket’s premonition hit me hard. He’d said I would be the one to kill him. He’d warned me that there was nothing I could do to stop it, not without dire consequences. Was that what he meant? Would my not killing him mean the destruction of the world?
Before I could think on it much longer, Reyes knocked the Dealer aside and lunged for me. I slowed time, holding back both Artemis and the Dealer, who was already charging Reyes. I stood and marveled at the Dealer and Artemis. Even though I was holding back time, they were still charging forward, their essences a blur, they were so fast. But I was faster.
I stepped to Reyes, who was also a blur, and placed a hand on his handsome face. Even part demon, he was stunning, more dark and enigmatic than before. When he shook off my hand and gained precious inches, his teeth opening to rip into my jugular, I placed the knife at his heart and pushed, barely breaking the skin.
He stopped. Looked down at the blade. Back up at me. And recognition shone on his face. The knife was already spreading the poison that only a demon could feel. A blackness crept around the insertion point and began to spread, but his attention was fixed on me.
The demon side of him dissolved, and Reyes reemerged. He stumbled back and shook his head as though trying to shake out of the stupor he’d been in. I let time crash back and held Artemis to me to stop her from attacking. The Dealer realized what I’d done and stopped his advance as well. But when time bounced back like a train crashing through me, so did the pain. My knees buckled, and I fell back onto Reyes’s body, but I did not take my eyes off his incorporeal essence. He fell to his knees, shook his head once more, then dropped it into his hands, trying to get his bearings.
“Come back to me,” I whispered to him. I ordered him. “Rey’aziel, come back to me.”
His gaze shot to mine, and he did as I’d asked. He came back.
Then he was in front of me, but Artemis had calmed down. When he touched my face, she whimpered and nudged his hand with her nose. He gave her a quick caress.
I’d looked down, my brows sliding together in confusion. “Come back to me,” I ordered again.
He was grinning when I looked up again. “You have to kiss me, like in all of your fairy tales.”
“Kiss you?” I questioned.
“First you have to say yes, then you have to kiss me.”
I heard sirens in the distance and wondered who’d called the police. “I have to say yes?”
He sat beside me and nodded.
“And what am I agreeing to?”
“It’s a simple yes/no question, Dutch.”
His proposal. “You’re blackmailing me.” I couldn’t help but feel appalled. And a little flattered.
He shrugged. “If that’s what it takes, okay.”
I looked down at his face, bloodied and bruised, but still so impossibly handsome, my heart ached. “Yes,” I said, realizing how silly I’d been to make him wait for the answer I’d always known in my heart I would give. I could not live without him. It would be like expecting a sunflower to live without the sun. Without further ado, I placed my mouth on his.
He sucked in a soft breath from under my mouth. I leaned back. His incorporeal body was back where it belonged. “You look like heaven,” he said.
“That’s weird, because you look like hell.”
He laughed, then winced in pain.
“Are you really okay?” I asked.
“He’s fine,” the Dealer said as though disappointed.
Then I heard another voice. A female voice. One with a distinct nasally quality to it.
“Well?” she asked, standing beside me and tapping her bare toes in the dirt next to me. “What are you going to do about this?”
I looked over at her body, an all-consuming dread coming over me. No way. No way in hell was I going to put up with that witch for the rest of my life.
“Cry?” I asked.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?”
“Pretty much.”
“This is your fault.”
The sirens were getting closer. How was I going to explain all this?
“Jessica, look,” I said, trying to rush her, “you have to cross. I can’t do this with you.”
“Cross? Through you?” She sneered at me. “I would rather die.”
I started to point out the obvious, but she disappeared before I got another word out. Being haunted by a former best friend turned enemy number one was so going to suck like Tornado Alley in April.
I glanced up at the Dealer. He stood with arms over chest, his top hat perched to one side. “Mr. Joyce’s soul,” I said, reminding him that we had yet to settle a certain bargain.
He lifted first a shoulder, then one corner of his mouth, then the brim of his hat in a silent salute. “It’s all his.”
Relief washed over me, but it was short-lived, as a line of official vehicles raced toward us. Agent Carson led three other SUVs onto the scene. It had bullet holes in it when it swerved to a stop, covering me in dust. Her questionable act provided the perfect cover for me to quickly stash the knife, sliding it into the boot of my nonbroken ankle before the dust settled around us.
When she stepped out, I flattened the leg of my jeans and said, “You totally did that on purpose.”
Her men bolted from the vehicles, and she rushed over to me as Reyes eased up. Someone told him to stay put, but he rose to his feet anyway. So stubborn.
“Carson,” I said after she checked for a pulse on Jessica’s throat.
I couldn’t look at her. It had been a long, long drop, and it showed. I glanced around. The Dealer was gone, of course.
“There are more on the roof,” I added as an agent helped me to my feet. I balanced on one foot to keep my weight off the broken one. It would heal in a few days. A cast would only annoy me, so I didn’t let the extent of my injuries show. “I heard gunshots after I escaped them.”
Agent Carson barked a few orders, sending men into the elevators before giving me her attention. “I suppose you have an explanation.” She looked at me first, then Reyes, then back at me.
I pulled my lower lip between my teeth and shrugged. “I’m still working on it.”
A plethora of cop cars were speeding onto the site, lights flashing and sirens blazing.
“Well, hurry,” she said, ordering another of her men to guide them. “We’ve been tailing you, worried something like this might happen.”
Reyes pulled me to his side, expertly taking my weight with skilled nonchalance. “Then you’re late,” he said, seeming annoyed.
Uncle Bob showed up then, as did the captain, and I wondered what it would be like to have him on our team. Would it be nice for Ubie to have someone to talk to? He used to talk at great length with my dad, but their relationship seemed to be cooling a little, much to my despair. Maybe having the captain in on the whole departed thing would be good for him.
He rushed over, but before he could say anything, Reyes lifted me into his arms and carried me toward Ubie’s SUV. No one seemed particularly alarmed that Reyes looked like he’d just fallen from a seven-story grain elevator. His clothes did, anyway. His dark skin was unmarred, flawless, and whether that was a result of our kiss or just his natural ability to heal at the speed of light, I didn’t know.
“I’m assuming you have everything you need for the moment,” Reyes said to Carson.
She started to protest, but one look at the determined expression on Reyes’s face convinced her otherwise. “I’ll need both of your statements first thing—”
“She needs to get home,” he said to Uncle Bob, his tone brooking no argument.
Ubie nodded, offered another quick nod to Agent Carson, then walked over to open the door for Reyes, who he sat me inside, his movements gentle, unhurried. His profile was so strong, so amazingly perfect, it was hard not to stare. I wondered if I would ever get used to his exquisiteness. To his blinding perfection. Prolly not.
“Yes,” I said, repeating my answer in case he didn’t hear me the first time.
Despite the time lag, a charming set of dimples appeared at the corners of his full mouth. “You already said that.”
“I know. I just wanted to make sure you heard me.”
“Just remember that feeling a moment.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he motioned Ubie over to us.
“Would you mind obstructing the view?” Reyes asked him. Ubie’s brows slid together in concern, so he explained. “She is going to start healing immediately. This has to be set.”
I gasped when I realized he was talking about my ankle. It felt engulfed in flames, but it was nothing I hadn’t been through before. Still, the thought of Reyes setting it—of it being set at all—filled me with terror.
Uncle Bob nodded and shifted his weight until his body was blocking the view of the officers on-site.
I gripped Reyes’s arm, clawing at him as he slid off my boot. He almost brought me out of my seat as Ubie peeled off one hand and took it into his. After studying my lower extremities, a feat I couldn’t bring myself to do, Reyes glanced back at me, his deep mahogany eyes sympathetic when he said, “Bite down.”
Fear spiked like a nuclear explosion in my head. “Maybe we should—”
A sharp pop sounded in the small space, and the pain that shot through me evoked a gasp loud enough to turn the heads of those around us. Reyes’s arms were around me instantly, and I clutched on to him, buried a scream in his shoulder as the pain—a pain that had risen so high and so fast, I’d almost passed out—ebbed. When it reached a level tolerable enough for me to trust myself not to cry out in agony, I eased my hold. Only then did I realize Uncle Bob still had my hand, his thick fingers engulfing mine until all that was visible were my fingertips.
22
On a scale of one to stepping on a LEGO,
how much pain are you in?
—SIGN IN HOSPITAL
Two days after the incident that would come to be known around the world, or at least around the office, as the Great Silo Tragedy, I quite bitterly hobbled to the entrance of the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility, crutch in one hand, case file in the other. Cookie had managed to track down what happened to Miranda. She got a copy of the case file. It explained what had happened to her, why she’d chosen to haunt a cable car, and what became of her abusive mother.
I had a funeral to get to later in the day, but this morning was set aside for one woman and one woman only: Miranda’s mother. The woman who had abused her daughter so severely, the girl could not escape the mental repercussions even in death.
I needed to know. What she did to her daughter was unconscionable. I needed to know if she felt remorse of any kind. If she took responsibility for what she’d done. If she knew how severely her actions had affected her gorgeous child. If she cared. How anyone could do such a thing was far beyond my realm of understanding. Did it take a sociopath? Or simply an utter bitch?
I pulled some strings, namely the one I had wrapped around Uncle Bob, and had him call the women’s detention center to set up an interview. He told them I was a consultant working on a case for APD and needed to question Mrs. Nelms about an old case. Which would explain why I was sitting in front of a large pane of glass, waiting for Miranda’s mother to arrive.
She was in prison, thankfully, for her daughter’s death, but she’d never admitted to any wrongdoing. The court transcripts showed that she’d professed her innocence even after a jury of her peers had convicted her. Even after a judge had sentenced her to fifteen years in prison. She’d probably be out on parole in a couple more years. If she failed my test, I’d be waiting.
A large woman stepped into the room. I was surprised. In the mug shot from her arrest record, Mrs. Nelms was painfully thin, the lines of her face hard and cracked like the plains of an unforgiving desert. She’d gained weight while in the big house and cut her horrendously bleached-out hair. She now wore it short and didn’t look so much like a crack addict as the stalwart matriarch of a Russian girls’ school. Neither look was appealing.
She sat in front of me, her regard curious as she picked up the phone. I did the same and, wanting a clean, unobstructed read off her, said one word only.
“Miranda.”
Outwardly, she blinked and waited for me to get to my point. Inwardly, her defenses rose. Her pulse quickened. Her muscles tensed.
“Did you kill her?” I continued.
She pressed her lips together so hard, they turned white. When she finally spoke, it was with a vehemence I hadn’t expected. “I did not kill Miranda.”
I forced myself to be still as a wave of shock rushed through me. She wasn’t lying. Not completely. But I knew from Miranda’s crossing she had been horribly and unforgivingly abused by this woman. I went over the case file in my mind. They’d found Miranda’s body in the Sandia Mountains, almost directly under the path of the tram. She was too decomposed when they found her to determine an exact cause of death, but the evidence pointed most strongly to blunt force trauma to the head. She had two cracks in her skull. Either could have caused a subdural hematoma. Either could have caused her death. She also had ligature marks on her ankles and wrists and multiple discolorations along her skin suggesting massive amounts of bruising.
That certainly wasn’t enough to convict Mrs. Nelms. In fact, it would almost point to the opposite. Anyone could have taken Miranda. Anyone could have tied her up and killed her. But the prosecution had proved that Mrs. Nelms lied about how long Miranda had been missing. She’d reported her daughter missing two weeks before they found her body, but forensics showed she’d been in the wilderness at least a month. The fact that the timelines didn’t match up combined with other circumstantial evidence, like the multiple fractures and repeated visits to the emergency room over Miranda’s short life, was enough for a jury to find her guilty of a lesser charge of gross child endangerment resulting in death. The prosecution, knowing they probably couldn’t get much more, settled for that.
“I had nothing to do with her death,” she added. Though there was a boatload of resentment, there wasn’t the slightest spark of guilt in her eyes. How was that possible? I’d felt it from Miranda. Sensed it when she crossed. This woman had caused her death. She had to have.
I leaned forward, more determined than ever to get to the bottom of Miranda’s passing. “Then who did?”
“Is this why you came here? To question me on my case? The guards said it was for another case. I just figured it was about my son.”
“Marcus? Is he in trouble?”
She glared at me, making it very clear she had nothing else to say.
Perhaps she was a sociopath, and the reason I felt no guilt off her was because she simply felt none. But she’d reacted when I mentioned Marcus’s name. She’d flinched, the movement quick, almost invisible. And a wave of emotion sprang out of her. It wasn’t what I’d expected. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was fear. The kind of fear that materialized when one had done something bad and didn’t want anyone else to find out about it. Not that I had any experience in that area.
I suddenly had someplace else to be.
“Fine,” I said, placing my elbows on the desk in front of me, “you may or may not have been directly responsible for Miranda’s death, but you damn sure contributed. She’s in a better place, a place where monsters like you can never harm her again.”
Mrs. Nelms schooled her expression, refusing to say more. It didn’t matter. I had what I’d come for. What I needed to see. She had zero remorse for what she’d done. Whether she killed her daughter or not, she was a monster, and I intended to make sure she burned in hell for what she’d done.
Just in case someone in the future dropped the ball and she got sent in the wrong direction after she died, I put my hand on the glass, relaxed my muscles, cleared my mind, and stepped back onto another plane. I’d been here before. I’d seen Reyes’s eternal fire from this plane. I’d seen the flames that licked across his skin, that caressed every inch of him. And from this plane, I could see the true nature of the woman sitting before me. I could see her soul, cold and dark and empty like a giant chasm.
I swept my hand between us, brushing my fingertips along the glass partition, sweeping my essence across to her, and marked her soul. As I sat there, an energy took shape in the blackness within her. I had seen it before on Reyes. Not on his soul, but imprinted on his skin. It was part of the map to hell, a part of his tattoos, and I knew I’d sent Mrs. Nelms’s soul to the right place.
I grinned and spoke into the receiver, my tone matter-of-fact, and somehow she knew I was telling the truth. I could feel her acceptance of each word that left my mouth as I said them. “You will suffer in hell for a very, very long time.”
Fear spiked within her. She sat stunned a moment, then slammed down the receiver and stood to leave. I offered her a quick wink, then did the same. I had places to be and people to see.
The moment I got back into Misery, I called Cookie. “I need an address,” I said when she answered. “Marcus Nelms. I need to know where he is right now.”
* * *
I exited off I-40 at Moriarty, a small town about thirty minutes east of Albuquerque, and headed straight down Central. Marcus Nelms would be in his very early twenties. Cookie said he’d been in and out of jail since he was twelve for various offenses, but mainly possession of a controlled substance. After a few twists and turns that led me to a small mobile home park, I pulled to a stop in front of one just as my phone alerted me to a text. Cookie sent me Marcus’s latest mug shot. He was a nice-looking kid who’d already led a hard life.
I stepped out and walked through milk– and ragweed until I got to a wobbly set of stairs and, after taking my life into my own hands, the front door. With no vehicle out front and no lights on inside, no one appeared to be home, but I knocked anyway. After my third and most aggressive try, I felt annoyance through the paper-thin walls of the mobile a few seconds before the door inched open.
A set of dark eyes peered through the slit. It belonged to one Mr. Marcus Nelms. I showed him my PI license to make myself seem more official, then asked, “Mr. Nelms, can I talk to you about a case I’m working on?”
“I’m busy,” he said, his voice deep and groggy. I’d clearly woken him.
“Marcus,” I said, trying to connect, “my name is Charley Davidson. I’m a PI. You’re not in any trouble at all. I just need to ask you a couple of quick questions, then I’ll leave. Can I come in?”
He hesitated, then released a loud sigh and opened the door. He stood shirtless, his jeans fitting low on his hips, revealing the fact that he’d decided to go commando underneath them. He was too thin, his unhealthy skin revealing long-term drug use, and his hair hadn’t been washed in at least a week, though he didn’t smell bad. I stepped inside the dark living room as he turned on a single lamp. It illuminated the place just enough for me to make my way to a rickety recliner.
I took a moment to absorb what I could, to get a better understanding of him. The frigidity I’d felt with his mother wasn’t there. He wasn’t all warm and fuzzy inside, but he wasn’t cold. Calculating. He was … vulnerable.
“What’s this about?” he asked as he cracked open an energy drink and took a large gulp. His Adam’s apple rose and fell, his lack of fat tissue making it easily visible. He dropped onto the only other chair in the room, another rickety recliner, only with a little more stuffing than mine. After crossing his bare feet on the milk crate he was using as a coffee table, he gave me his full attention.
“Do you have roommates?” I asked, looking behind me, not wanting to be caught off guard.
“Not at the moment. My girlfriend left me a couple weeks ago.” He peered into the top of the can. “Said I had commitment issues. Johnny send you?”
He took another long swig, so I figured I’d get right to the point. “I don’t know who Johnny is, but I wanted to ask you about your mother.”
He stopped drinking, coughed lightly, then said, “Bitch ain’t my mother. You come to the wrong place if you think I’m going to answer anything about her. Ain’t seen her in years, anyway.”
I did feel hatred radiating out of him, but also something else. Pain. A thick, caustic pain that seared the back of my throat when I breathed in. Either that or he had a meth lab in the back and I was breathing in the toxic fumes. That would suck.
He looked out the dirty front window, rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb.
I waited a heartbeat, gave his emotions time to level out, then went for the jugular. “She says she didn’t kill Miranda.”
What hit me next felt like a fist in my gut, but he hadn’t moved. I fought the urge to double over, his pain was so powerful, so suffocating. Yet he hadn’t moved. His expression hadn’t changed.
“She’s a liar” was all he said.
“I believe you. I was just wondering if you could tell me what you remember about the time Miranda disappeared. It would really help my case.”
“And what case would that be?” he asked. He turned a heated scowl on me. “She’s in prison. What else is there?”
“There’s justice for Miranda,” I said, but it did no good. He was already deflecting, looking me up and down like I was his next meal, even though I felt very little interest emanating out of him. It was a ploy to change the subject. To put me on guard.
“What’s your name again?”
I leaned forward as nonthreateningly as I could and spoke slowly, gauging his reaction to each word I spoke. “My name is Charley, and I would love for you to tell me what you remember about your sister.”
Sister. That’s when his grief, as hot and raw as if she’d died yesterday, hit me in the midsection again, and I suddenly understood why he did drugs. He was still hemorrhaging so much pain, so much guilt over his sister’s death, self-medication was the only way he could deal with it. But there were better ways. I made a solemn promise right then and there to make sure he found them.
“She was missing for a month before they found her body. Do you remember what happened before she disappeared?”
He took another drink and went back to staring out the window, his jaw working under the weight of his guilt.
“Did your mother hurt her?”
He scoffed aloud before scowling at me, his eyes shimmering, a telling wetness pooling in their depths. “What makes you think I’m going to tell you a fucking thing when I didn’t tell the cops shit?”
“I’m not the cops, and I’m in this for Miranda and Miranda only.”
“She’s dead. Ain’t a fucking thing you can do about that, yeah?”
His torment was hard to see past. My own eyes were watering, too, remembering the frightened little girl in the cable car, remembering her despair, her utter hopelessness. Her belief that she had no value whatsoever. “You were a couple of years older than she was,” I said. “Maybe you feel responsible somehow.”
A slow, calculating smile appeared. He leaned forward, closed the distance between us until his face was in my hair, his mouth at my ear, and said, “I’m glad she’s dead.” His breath hitched in his chest, and it took him a moment to say more. “I wish she’d never been born.”
As cruel and unusual as his words sounded, as vehemently said, they didn’t mean what he would have me believe. I felt absolutely no hatred coming from him. No malice or contempt. I felt only a deep reverence and a debilitating, cutting guilt. That seemed to be going around a lot lately.
He pushed me away from him and stalked down the hall. After giving him a moment to gather myself, I followed. I could feel grief pouring out of him, so without knocking, I opened the door to a tiny bathroom. He was in a state of agony as he splashed water on his face. On the sink next to him was a bottle of prescription pills. According to his file, he’d been suicidal for years, and my guess was that those pills were a very powerful pain reliever. It took something powerful to mask that much pain.
I stepped in as he toweled off his face. “Marcus,” I said as softly and as unthreateningly as I could manage, “you do realize you aren’t actually responsible for her death, right?”
He granted me a flirtatious wink. “Sure.”
He opened the bottle, dropped two large white painkillers into his palm, then popped them into his mouth. He swallowed, waited a moment, then sank to the floor as his guilt devoured him. It was why he’d turned to drugs in the first place. I suddenly understood all too well. He felt guilty for not helping his sister when he had the chance. He’d loved her. I could feel it course through him.
“Please tell me that bitch isn’t getting out of prison anytime soon,” he said.
I knelt beside him. Like his sister, he’d been taught from an early age that he had no value. No intrinsic worth.
My torso felt too tight as I inched toward him. “Can you tell me what happened, Marcus?”
“Why do you care what happened to her?” he asked. “Nobody cared. My mother only reported her missing because a neighbor started asking questions. She’d been gone more than two weeks.” He looked up at me. “Can you imagine that? Two fucking weeks before she even considered calling the cops.”
“Marcus,” I said, putting a palm softly on his knee.
He had the towel in both hands, wringing it until his knuckles turned white. Dredging up the memories was taking its toll on him. He took the bottle off the sink and tilted it at his mouth, swallowing at least one more before setting it aside and covering his eyes with one hand. “We’d been evicted and were living in my aunt’s house while she tried to sell it. She married some rich guy from California and said we could stay there until it sold.”
That explained why Miranda was in that part of the city. The property around where she’d been found was upscale, and Mrs. Nelms didn’t strike me as ever having money.
“Something wasn’t right,” he continued. His hand clenched around the towel. “She was acting different. She kept saying she wanted her sister’s house but couldn’t afford it—then this man in a business suit came over and I heard them talking. My mom was buying life insurance on us.” He lowered his hand to look at me.
The bathroom had more light, and I could finally make out the color of his eyes. They were hazel green.
“She was going to kill Miranda. I knew it. From then on, every time she looked at her, she had this smile.” He wiped at his cheeks. “No, this smirk. And she started talking to me about everything we were going to do with the house. She wanted a pool and a wet bar and a big TV. She said if her sister could have nice things, so could she. Then one night, she came into our room. Told us to get dressed. Said we were going to the lake. It was the middle of the night in the middle of January, but she wanted to go to the lake.” His gaze slid past me. “She was going to kill her.”
I sat as still as I could and listened. He needed to tell the story. Miranda’s story.
“But we weren’t packing fast enough, and she hit Miranda. Hard. I just remember blood. So, she told me to forget the lake, that she was going to take her to the hospital, but I knew that was a lie, too. I took Miranda and snuck out the back door. We were just going to hide until morning, until I could get help, but it was so cold. We didn’t have our jackets. And it was so dark. We stumbled around, just trying to find somewhere to get warm when it started to snow. Miranda said she couldn’t go any farther, so we huddled next to a rock.” Fresh tears pushed past his lashes and streamed over his sunken cheeks. “She fell asleep in my arms and didn’t wake up.” He covered his face and bit back the sobs fighting to get past his closed throat. “I tried to carry her, but she was so heavy. I just left her there. Like she was nothing.” A sob finally wrenched its way past his efforts, and he covered his face again.
