The party was in full swing, complete with a rhythm and blues band, a cartoonist drawing caricatures, an impromptu performance by an up and coming blues singer and enough catered food to feed an army. It was the perfect time for her to slip out of the festivities unnoticed. Anyone who was anyone in Briarwood had shown up for Sierra and Caleb’s celebration, Marissa thought with admiration. They were beloved by all. She’d bet that nobody would even notice her disappearance from the party.
She was exhausted. There was nothing she wanted more than a hot shower and some bed rest. After waking up at six this morning she’d put in a full day at the office, then headed over to the Jackson’s estate for her best friend’s baby shower. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d suffered a small twinge of jealousy at the sight of a very pregnant Sierra, radiant in her floral maternity dress, slow dancing with the love of her life, Caleb. She’d watched from the sidelines as he’d lovingly patted Sierra’s belly, his eyes filled with worship as he whispered secrets to his unborn child and his soulmate.
In truth, Sierra and Caleb were her inspiration. Despite the fact they had been separated for many years by lies and deception, the couple had found their way back to each other last year. Caleb had stepped in to protect Lily when her life was in danger. Now were married and blissfully awaiting the birth of their first child. Caleb liked to say they’d never stopped loving one another – they’d just lost their way. The fact that they’d overcome incredible odds to end up together served as a reminder to her that with love all things were possible.
Tears misted her eyes as a feeling of deep longing swept through her. She wanted a man to look at her the way Caleb was gazing at Sierra. She wanted a love that withstood all the bad things that life threw at you. She wanted her happily ever after moment, complete with a vintage wedding dress and a handsome groom waiting for her at the altar. She wanted the fairytale.
Who was she kidding? She wasn’t Sierra Jackson Matthews. She wasn’t a beautiful heiress brought up in a world of unimaginable wealth and influence. She wasn’t the owner of the Horseshoe Ranch, one of the biggest ranches this side of Texas. She was plain old Marissa Santana. Sierra’s best friend. The working girl with the middle class background and the over-sized mouth. But who was she really? Who did she belong to? Whose eyes did she have? Did she resemble her Mama or her Daddy? She had to rid herself of these crazy questions, ones that kept her up half the night, creating dark circles under her eyes and leaving her with lingering feelings of self-doubt.
What difference did it make? She’d been raised with all the love and care in the world by Eddie and Carmen Santana, two kindhearted souls who’d taken her into their home and adopted her at the age of five. They had raised her, along with their biological son, Tony, in a modest, God fearing home filled with love and affection. Her adopted parents had always told her that she was “the child of their dreams if not their bodies”. And that would’ve been enough for her, had it not been for the periodic flashes of memory that came to her at various periods in her life. Although the flashes were indistinct, fleeting images, they stirred up painful feelings of great happiness and unbearable loss. And there were the nightmares. Dark, terrifying dreams of fire and ash that left her shaking and sobbing.
The insistent peal of her cell phone gained her attention and she quickly glanced at the caller ID, letting out a loud groan as she instantly recognized her brother’s phone number on the display. He had been blowing up her phone for the last few hours with non-stop phone calls. Not to mention he’d called her a few times while she was the shower.
“Leave me alone, Tony,” she pleaded as she willed herself not to pick up the call. Ignoring her brother’s phone calls was an exercise in futility. She knew him well enough to know he would keep calling her phone until she answered. She let out a sigh and picked up the phone.
“Hi, Tony. What’s going on?” she asked in a clipped tone. “I was at Sierra’s baby shower and I see you’ve been calling me repeatedly.”
“Your baby brother needs you, Marissa.”
“You’re not my baby brother. You’re three years older than I am.”
Tony laughed on the other end of the line. “But I know you’d still do anything for me, right?”
Marissa rolled her eyes, wishing she had never taken his call in the first place. Tony usually called her to borrow money or to fill her in on some ridiculous personal matter such as his latest girlfriend drama. She was tired of being his personal ATM machine and twenty-four seven sounding board. It was time for her brother to grow up and get a life. As it was, he was draining her of the little energy she possessed.
“I’m about to pull into my driveway. I’m in need of a serious bubble bath and a glass of Merlot. Can I call you tomorrow? It’s been a long day.”
“I know you’re not going to desert me in my hour of need,” Tony said in a whiny voice.
“If you’re calling me again for money, I’m all tapped out. Like I told you last time, I am not your ATM machine or your personal bank. If you insist on gambling away your money, you need to make sure it’s your hard earned money that you’re throwing away. I work way too hard to throw good money after bad.” She hated to be short with her brother, but enough was enough. She’d prayed for him, given him the benefit of the doubt and waited patiently for him to grow up. So far it hadn’t happened.
Marissa could hear the sound of sniffles over the phone. “Baby sister, it’s serious this time. Really serious. I’m in the hole real deep this time. Problem is...if I don’t get the money into certain people’s hands tonight, you may be singing at my funeral.”
She put her head on the steering wheel and began to massage her pounding temples with her free hand. It never failed. Her brother’s phone calls always gave her a migraine. Time after time she told herself she wasn’t going to let her brother pull her back into his sordid situations. Yet time after time she found herself being dragged back into Tony’s messes.
“Marissa? Are you listening? They’ve made threats to kill me...to chop me up into small, unrecognizable pieces. They want their money tonight. Marissa? Marissa? Can you hear me?”
At that moment she was paralyzed by a feeling of intense, pulsing fear. As a result, her hands began to tremble. These low lives weren’t playing around. They were threatening violence, perhaps even death. She couldn’t lose her brother! Beside her parents, Tony was her closest living relative. For a moment she was swept up in a dark current of sadness and overwhelming pain. The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, she realized. Goosebumps tingled on her arms and she willed herself to remember where and when she’d experienced these powerful emotions before. For a second she felt as if she could almost remember a smell of burning leaves on an icy cold night. And then it was gone, along with her tidbit of memory.
This wasn’t the first time she had been catapulted into the past, courtesy of a fragment of memory she couldn’t place.
“Are you still there?” Tony asked in a teary voice.
“I’m here, Tony. I’ll always be here for you. You’re my brother,” she responded, her voice full of emotion. “I love you.”
She heard a loud sigh of relief on the other end of the phone. “So, you’ll do it then? You’ll meet Ronnie at the Limelight with the money?”
“The Limelight? That place is practically condemned. You know the wharf is a dangerous place even in broad daylight.”
“You’ll be fine. You won’t even have to get out of your car. I’ll let Ronnie know you’ll hand off the payment to him from the driver’s side window. Is one a.m. Okay?”
She made a tutting sound. “One in the morning? Tony! That’s crazy. I have to be at the office at seven.” A profound silence ensued on the other end of the line. She bit her lip. Guilt swept over her. Her brother’s life was on the line. “I guess that’s okay, given the circumstances. Maybe I can ask one of my male friends to come along for the ride for protection.”
“It’s safer if you go by yourself and make the payment. We don’t
want to rile them up by bringing along anyone else.”
Safer for whom? She had to be nuts to show up at Wharf at one o’clock in the morning to pay off Ronnie Devlin, a lowlife criminal who had an arrest record as long as her arm. Not that she hadn’t done worse, she fumed. Over the years her brother had asked her to save him from the fire more times than she could count. The worst incident had involved bail money, an emergency trip to Tijuana and a DUI charge. She was no longer surprised at her brother’s lapses in judgment, just profoundly disappointed. It was stressful enough trying to hide the situation from her parents, not to mention the endless worrying over his reckless lifestyle.
As she stepped out of her red Lexus onto her pebbled driveway Marissa couldn’t resist admiring her unique home. She’d purchased the yellow Victorian with the sea blue shutters three years ago, shortly after opening her own real estate agency, Santana Properties. At the time it had been a wreck of a place, having been written off as a hopeless case by its owner, Willie Davies, who was eager to sell the place and “be rid of it.” Over the span of two years she’d lovingly restored it to its former glory, painting the exterior and interior, gutting the kitchen, the master bath and bedroom and refurbishing it from top to bottom with plush furniture, jazzy artwork, one-of-a-kind antiques and gleaming mirrors. It was her pride and joy, a testament to her determination and dedication to hearth and home. As soon as she unlocked and pushed open her front door the smell of vanilla greeted her like an old friend. As a woman Marissa loved sensory stimulants – soaps, perfumes, candles and incense.
As a realtor she knew the importance of a good smelling home. There was an old trick in the real estate business involving the scent of baked apples and chocolate chip cookies hovering in the air as a potential buyer walked through the home. These smells evoked images of warmth and contentment, thereby making the potential buyer feel an immediate connection with that particular home. Marissa had utilized that old trick more times than she could count. And more times than not it worked like magic. As realtor of the year for the third year running, she could testify to the fact that a realtor had to use every gimmick at her disposal to move the houses.
She wearily pushed the button on her answering machine, mentally noting that a realtor’s work was never truly done. There were always clients looking to make contact with her it seemed, no matter what time of the day or night. She chuckled out loud as she recalled the time an anxious buyer had contacted her in the middle of the night to make an offer on a house. She couldn’t help but shake her head as she listened to a message from her ex-boyfriend, Christopher, who happened to be in town and was wondering if they could “get together.”
“Not in a million years,” she said in a snide voice as she recalled all the drama Christopher had put her through during their year long relationship. There were also a half dozen messages from her brother, who’d apparently been trying to reach her all day on her landline prior to his contacting her via cell phone. There was a heartwarming message from Mama requesting her presence tomorrow at Sunday dinner and a separate message from Daddy telling her he was worried about Tony.
“So what else is new?” she muttered, wishing her parents didn’t have to worry about her brother. She was beginning to think nothing would ever change with him.
She closed her eyes and prayed. Lord, please show Tony the way. I’m scared for my brother. He needs to grow up and embrace a new path. He needs You in his life. He needs to change before everything catches up to him. I pray he finds You.
After checking her messages, Marissa glanced at her watch, letting out a loud groan as she realized that she had approximately three hours to unwind and take a cat nap. She treated herself to a warm bubble bath and then dressed in her most comfortable sweats and t-shirt, settling into a deep sleep on her Queen sized mahogany sleigh bed. All too soon her alarm went off and by force of habit she hit the snooze button. Ten minutes later she was out the door with a wad of cash from her emergency fund neatly tucked in her front pocket.
Although she had no intention of getting out of her car once she arrived at the The Limelight, Marissa intended to deliver a scathing message to Ronnie when she hand-delivered the cash. She’d practiced her speech in her head at least half a dozen times. She was going to tell Ronnie Devlin that if he ever so much as looked Tony’s way she was prepared to alert the authorities to the fact that he was running an illegal enterprise. “No one messes with my family, Ronnie,” she murmured as she drove the deserted back roads towards the center of town. Ronnie Devlin. She’d known him since she was in kindergarten, and he’d always been trouble, in and out of wayward youth programs since he was a young teen. Ronnie had been in trouble with the law more times than Marissa could count. His future didn’t look bright.
The Limelight was a deserted two story building that most people in town wanted to see condemned and demolished. When she was in high school it was a popular hangout for the over twenty-one crowd, who gathered at the club to listen to music and learn the latest dance steps. A firestorm had erupted when a sixteen-year-old girl was assaulted at the club after being drugged in one of the back rooms. The Limelight had never recovered from all the bad publicity and the torrent of negative public opinion. Located at the Wharf, the Limelight was now a local hangout for criminal minded individuals looking for nothing but trouble. At the moment it seemed deserted.
Impatiently, she drummed her nails on the steering wheel. It was already ten past one. She had no intention of sitting around all night waiting for a no good bum like Ronnie. Where was he anyway? No doubt he was somewhere up to no good. There were two other cars parked in the far corner of the lot, she realized, so it was possible that he was inside the building. Matter of fact, the yellow Hummer with the gaudy rims looked familiar. She could’ve sworn she’d seen Ronnie riding around in it a few months ago. Figures he’d buy the flashiest car on the lot.
She had a good idea that he was inside the building, but there was no way she was getting out of the car to find out where he was. Mama hadn’t raised a fool...or had she? She was stuck down here at the wharf at one-thirty in the morning doing a fool’s errand while Tony was getting his beauty rest. That fact alone had to make her some kind of fool.
Her love for her brother had landed her in this predicament! She found herself getting drowsy and her eyelids began to close against her will. I’ll just rest my eyes for a minute, she thought, as she drifted off to sleep. Just a few minutes of rest and then I’ll be all ready to deal with Ronnie.
A loud popping noise rang out in the stillness of the early morning. Her eyes swung open and she looked around the car in a panic, searching for signs of an intruder. What was that noise? She looked outside the car as another loud popping sound went off. Her heart began to thud with dread as the realization hit her that the noise sounded like a gunshot. She’d watched enough Law and Order to know the sound by heart. Although the night was pitch dark, a florescent street lamp illuminated two figures, both male, standing in the back entrance of the building. She leaned forward in her seat so she was pressed against the steering wheel and squinting out the window.
One of the men was Ronnie! She would know that egg-shaped, bald head anywhere. She watched in horror as Ronnie clutched his chest as a crimson stain began to spread across his bright orange shirt. He staggered briefly, then fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.
She let out a scream and her horn began blaring as her body pressed against the steering wheel.
A man stepped from the doorway and turned towards her, his gun raised and pointed directly at her. Marissa screamed as a bullet shattered the windshield of the Hummer parked next to her. She revved the engine of her car and reversed it at break-neck speed down the pebbled road, her tires whirring with activity. A pinging sound hit the front of her car and she kept her foot on the gas, gunning it till she hit the street.
She barreled down the road for a half mile, letting out a frightened scream when she saw headlights in her rear view mirror. Marissa kept h
er foot on the gas pedal, increasing her speed by the second. She was pushing eighty mph, crying and praying at the same time, desperate to make it to the main road and stay a safe distance from the car behind her.
A sense of relief flooded through her when she saw the flashing red and blue lights behind her. She pulled her car over to the shoulder and let out a ragged sigh. As she let out an “Hallelujah!” she watched in her rear view mirror as a familiar figure got out of the squad car and headed in her direction. There was no mistaking the jet black hair, the massive build and the deep scowl that had settled in on his face. Once again she was plunged into a nightmare. Rescue had come by way of Sheriff Matt Cruz
Chapter Two
It was three in the morning, and by all logic he should be asleep in his bed at this hour, Sheriff Matt Cruz reasoned. Instead, he was in the squad room, trying to figure out how Marissa Santana had gotten herself involved in the town’s first murder in over sixty years. After stopping her doing eighty miles an hour in a forty-mile zone, he’d been shocked to hear she’d witnessed a shooting at the Wharf. From the moment the story tumbled off her lips, he’d never doubted for a second her version of events. He’d immediately called for backup at the The Limelight, dropped Marissa off at the station and then headed back to the crime scene to meet the medical examiner. And now he was back at the station questioning his star witness about what had transpired this evening.
He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes focused on Marissa’s wild-eyed appearance. Despite the fact she’d been at the scene of a shooting and chased by a killer, the woman looked pretty pleasing to the eye. He hated to admit it, but she was attractive. Beautiful, actually. Her chocolate brown hair was styled in a riot of long, beautiful waves that looked natural rather than processed. Her almond shaped eyes were a light brown color – caramel, perhaps. Her skin was an olive color, and it was flawless and smooth. Although she was a tiny thing she was definitely curvy, he noticed. Yes, she was definitely a looker. He let out a snort. Not that he would ever be interested in a woman who spread lies all over town and couldn’t stop gossiping. Not in a million years.
Heart 0f Mine (Secrets 0f Savannah Book 6) Page 15
