DEAD WRONG
DEAD WRONG
PATRICIA STOLTEY
FIVE STAR
A part of Gale, Cengage Learning
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Copyright © 2014 by Patricia Stoltey
Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Stoltey, Patricia.
Dead wrong / Patricia Stoltey. — First edition.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-1-4328-2986-5 (hardcover) — ISBN 1-4328-2986-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4328-2979-7 (ebook) — ISBN 1-4328-2979-3 (ebook)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2979-7 eISBN-10: 1-4328-2979-3
1. Abusive men—Fiction. 2. Runaway children—Fiction. 3. Murder—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.T6563D43 2014
813'.6—dc23 2014025066
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First Edition. First Printing: November 2014
This title is available as an e-book.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2979-7 ISBN-10: 1-4328-2979-3
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Visit our website– http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/
Contact Five Star™ Publishing at [email protected]
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 18 17 16 15 14
For my mom
Sylvia T. Swartz
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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Many thanks to all of the members of my critique group, Rain-tree Writers. I am especially grateful to April Moore, Bev Marquart, Brian Kaufman, and Ken Harmon.
And last but definitely not least, a big thank you to Five Star senior editor Deni Dietz for teaching me more than I ever learned in writing classes.
CHAPTER 1
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Glades, Florida
Wednesday, January 22
Lynnette staggered backward from the hall into the kitchen until she bumped against the table. She gripped a chair with one hand and raised the other to her face, an automatic response to the pounding in her head. Her knees buckled. Using the chair back to steady her balance, she sat down hard.
Her tongue felt sticky, the taste salty. She had to breathe through her mouth. Sharper pain shot through her nose when she touched it. She raised her head and stared at her fingers, now smeared with red streaks. Liquid oozed down her throat when she tilted her head back. She gagged and coughed.
“Carl,” she whispered as she raised her head. Tears stung her eyes. She wanted to run out the door, but he leaned against the wall and watched her, his eyes narrowed and his hands clenched at his sides as though waiting for another reason to strike.
“Don’t start with me,” he said. “And don’t ever tell me what to do.”
“I didn’t—”
“The hell you didn’t. Go clean up your face.” Carl went to the refrigerator, took out a beer and popped the top. He returned to the living room without waiting to see if she did as told. A few seconds later, the volume on the television increased.
Lynnette braced one hand on the table and the other on the chair seat before standing on spongy legs that threatened to collapse and dump her on the floor. She pulled a dishtowel from the drawer by the sink and shuffled to the freezer for ice. Gently holding the compress to the bridge of her nose, she returned to the kitchen chair.
What the hell just happened? Lynnette glanced at the wall clock. Two-thirty in the morning. She’d been asleep when Carl got home thirty minutes ago, but he’d slammed a door and yelled a string of obscenities that jolted her awake. A sharp clatter followed, as though he’d thrown his car keys against the wall.
Alarmed, Lynnette had jumped out of bed and hurried down the hall. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Hell, no, I’m not okay. The bastards put me on desk duty.” He yanked off his badge and tossed it on the table. His gun belt dangled over his arm.
“Why?”
“We heard a ruckus from behind the old mall and drove back there to check it out. Gang of Puerto Ricans smoking and drinking, looking for trouble. We tried to break it up. They gave us a load of shit, so I jerked one kid aside and kicked his ass. Punks. They deserve what they get.”
“They reported you?”
“Yeah. Right after they dragged that kid off to the hospital.” Carl snorted. “I know damn well he wasn’t hurt that bad.”
“What’ll happen now?”
He grimaced. “I have an appointment with my supervisor after lunch.”
“Then what? Will they suspend you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Carl had moved toward the refrigerator, then seemed to remember the gun belt over his arm. He muttered, “Damn,” and stuck the belt on top of the refrigerator before opening the door and grabbing a beer. A few seconds later he had settled into his easy chair in the living room in front of the television. Lynnette had watched him, all the while wondering what kind of man would beat up a kid just for smarting off.
“Damn it, stop staring at me. Go back to sleep.”
She’d turned on her heel and headed for bed. After listening to the television blasting loud music and gunfire for fifteen minutes, she’d returned to the living room.
“Carl, babe, can you turn the volume down? I can’t get to sleep with—”
“God damn it!” In four long strides, he’d reached Lynnette and punched her in the face.
Now she sat in the kitchen with the ice pack pressed to her face, trembling, trying not to cry, trying not to scream, trying to be calm. She had no idea how to react. Would she trigger another outburst if she went to the bathroom? What if staying in the kitchen made him mad? Should she go to bed? Call the cops? Walk out?
One thing was certain. If he tried to hit her again, she would fight back . . . and that would not end well for her. Her cop husband was six feet two inches tall and weighed two hundred twenty pounds. No contest. He’d hear if she called the police. Her hands shook as she considered and rejected the idea. What about making a run for it? Her car keys were in her purse, and the purse was in the bedroom. He’d see her go down the hall and come back with luggage. He’d know. He’d stop her.
She removed the ice pack. The towel was bloody and smelled faintly of bleach. She tipped her head back again and pressed the ice to her nose. It hurt. It hurt even more that her husband of less than five days had hit her with his fist.
My husband. Not for long, baby.
In a small ceremony at city hall with only two witnesses, Lynnette had agreed to love, honor and cherish Carl Foster. She had made a terrible mistake, one her stepmother, Ramona, had warned her against.
“Lynnette, darling,” Ramona had said after meeting Carl for the fi
rst time. “You’re not seeing the man clearly. He’s too possessive, too demanding. He was rude to me, as though he wanted to make me mad so I’d leave. You’re twenty-eight, old enough to know better. What would your father say?”
“You don’t know Carl the way I do, Ramona. Please give him a chance.”
A couple of days later, before the wedding, Lynnette walked in on Carl and Ramona yelling at each other. Ramona grabbed Lynnette’s arm and tried to pull her out of the room, but Lynnette had jerked away and stepped to Carl’s side. Carl ordered Ramona out of his house, and that was that.
Thinking about the blinders she’d been wearing a week ago made her head hurt worse. She heard a noise and then a sigh, so she took the ice pack away from her face. Carl stood by the table in the kitchen, less than three feet from her chair. He stepped toward her. She held up her hand in warning.
He stopped and bent his head, then rubbed the heel of his hand against the corner of his eye. His jaw clenched. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at her, his glare taking her breath away. A picture of a boy, crumpled on the ground, flashed and disappeared. She thought about Carl hitting the kid as hard as he’d hit her. What to do? Treat him like a mean dog? Cower?
“This was your fault, you know,” Carl said. “You shouldn’t have messed with me. Not this morning.”
“My fault?” What an asshole. But she couldn’t say anything more. He was a very dangerous asshole. She stared at his shoes to avoid eye contact.
His tone hardened, almost as though he rebuked Lynnette for her lack of forgiveness. “What do you want from me?”
To see you dragged off to jail, you creep. She pointed to her nose. “I think you broke it.”
He took a step closer and squinted as he studied her face.
She held up her hand again. “Stay back.”
Carl ran his fingers through his hair, rubbed his jaw, and peered at her nose from where he stood.
He shrugged. “I can’t tell from here. Looks okay to me.”
“I should go to the emergency room.”
“Don’t be a baby. You’re not going anywhere. Don’t even try.”
He took another beer from the refrigerator, snapping the top open as he strolled out of the room. Then the television blared even louder than it had before.
Lynnette stood, still shaky, and used the edge of the table as support while she tested her ability to walk. In the bathroom, the mirror reflected a battered woman—a woman Lynnette didn’t recognize. After gently probing her nose and cheekbones, she decided she didn’t need a doctor. The bleeding had stopped. One eye was going to be a shiner for sure, the right eyelid more puffy than the left. She washed down a couple of aspirin with water from the tap.
Slumped on the floor, her back propped against the door, she ran her fingers absent-mindedly across the plush bath mat. She wanted to walk out right now, but not in her nightgown, not without her papers and her laptop. There was no way to pack without getting caught.
Patience, Lynnette. Wait until he leaves.
Until then, she didn’t dare piss him off.
Carl rattled the doorknob. “I’m going to bed. I need to get in there.”
“Yeah, okay.” She struggled to her feet and flushed the toilet, then opened the door and slipped past him without a word.
After fixing a new ice pack in the kitchen, she stretched out on the living room couch to think.
Why didn’t I see the signs? Ramona had tried so hard to tell her. The way he’d pressured her about marriage so soon after they started dating. Insisted she spend all her free time with him. Discouraged her from making new friends. He claimed his possessive nature was all about love, but she wasn’t stupid. She should have known better.
I fell for this guy’s line. He looked great in his uniform, and the sex was incredible. I let him talk me into getting married because I . . .
Lynnette shook her head. What did it matter? She tried to shift her busy brain into neutral while she took deep slow breaths. “Quiet, quiet,” she muttered.
After dozing off and on until mid-morning, Lynnette gave up on sleep. She sat on the edge of the couch with her head bowed and wished her father was still alive. He had been her anchor, the one person she could always talk to. Without him, living in this new town, she felt completely alone.
Thoughts of her father would have to wait. It wouldn’t be wise to dwell on her grief, not if she wanted to maintain her anger and resolve. She sat up straight and whispered, “Bullshit. I will not live like this.”
She returned to the bathroom and examined her face in the magnifying side of her hand mirror. That only made the blooming bruises look worse. She combed her dark hair forward around her face, but it was too short to hide the damage. She dabbed liquid foundation around her nose and right eye. The swollen eyelid was going to attract attention. Using the ice pack a couple more times might help. There was plenty of time before she could leave.
She went out the kitchen door that led to the garage and retrieved her big-ass pair of sunglasses from the car’s console.
Back in the kitchen, she made a pot of coffee. A half hour later, when she heard Carl moving around the bedroom, the pot was nearly empty. She did her best thinking over coffee, its dark roast aroma and warmth both comforting and energizing.
Focused now, she made a plan. Fixing Carl’s lunch on schedule seemed wise, even if she didn’t want to see or talk to him. Not now. He’d become a stranger in an instant, and she didn’t know what he might do next.
As she made sandwiches, she thought of all the things that might go wrong, her mind throwing out one question after another. Would she make too much noise if she used the food processor? Would he notice she’d picked a patch of mold off one corner of the bread crust? She hadn’t brewed a pot of tea for iced but used instant instead. Would he taste the difference?
It shocked her to be so afraid in her own home—the one place she thought would be a safe haven.
A handful of chips and an apple, peeled and quartered the way he liked it—surely he would be satisfied with that. After Lynnette set Carl’s plate on the table, she rinsed off the paring knife and left it beside the sink.
The screened patio off the living room seemed like a good place to eat her lunch while she stayed out of Carl’s way. Juggling a plate with her own sandwich and glass of iced tea, she struggled briefly with the security lock on the sliding glass door. Outside, the pink stuffed cushions on the patio furniture smelled of mildew. It no longer mattered. She sat in the chair across the table from the glass door so she could see Carl when he entered the living room. After a few minutes he approached the door, made eye contact, watched her for a moment, and walked away. The garage door rumbled open and then closed.
CHAPTER 2
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Miami, Florida
Wednesday, January 22
Sammy Grick rang the mansion doorbell twenty times, but Mrs. Ortega never answered. Hired to pick up a package from Mr. O’s house and deliver it to him in Los Angeles, Sammy didn’t want to screw up a good thing. Pleasing the boss was the only way to keep this job making big money. Mr. O paid his best gofers well. Paid a lot better than collecting insurance from property owners and kicking the shit out of the skims.
Sammy banged on the door with his fist loud enough to wake the fucking dead, even though the doorbell had echoed from inside each time he jammed his thumb on the button.
No one answered.
Sammy pulled his cell phone out of the computer case he carried and called his boss.
“Mr. O, she’s not here.”
“What?”
“Mrs. O isn’t answering the door. I don’t think she’s home. Should I pick the lock?”
“No, that’ll set off an alarm. There’s a key in a jar under the bush by the garage door. When you get inside, if the light on the alarm pad is green, enter 7329 to turn it off. Then I’ll tell you what to do.”
Two minutes later, with only a brief glance at the hoity-toity furniture i
n the dining room and the glassed-in wine closet that ran the length of the hall to the restaurant-sized kitchen, Sammy climbed the winding staircase to the master bedroom to loot his boss’s wall safe according to his new instructions. Fucking screw-ups. Why did it always happen to him? Like the time he hijacked someone’s baby by mistake.
He was supposed to pick up Mr. O’s Lexus from a hotel parking lot and take it to the airport. The key wouldn’t work, and Sammy panicked, scared he’d be late picking up Mr. O. He rigged the ignition, thinking he had the right car and the wrong key, and took off. Six blocks later, he heard the noise in the back.
In any other situation, Sammy would have fingered the son of a bitch who’d messed him up, taken him down and kicked the bastard until nothing but a pile of bloody gunk remained. But Sammy couldn’t blame a baby for sitting in the car seat where his whore of a mother left him. He sped back to the hotel parking lot, screeched the car to a stop at the rear of the lot, and backed it hard into a concrete post. Twice.
The baby wailed.
“That’s what your fucking stupid bitch mother gets for leaving you alone!” he had yelled as he struggled to free himself from the seatbelt. Then even louder, “Why do they put the son-of-a-bitching buckle under your ass?”
It was a good thing Mr. O never heard about that one. Mr. O would have fired him, right after he’d built Sammy a new asshole. This new courier job was his best chance to make good and get more responsibility, do something more respectable than smashing fingers with a ball-peen hammer or hoisting bodies into dumpsters that reeked of rotten meat. “Do this job right and you’ll make a bundle,” Mr. O had told him. “Fail me and you’re fucked.” So what happens first thing on this new job? Sammy has to call in and admit something had gone wrong before he was even inside the mansion’s front door.
Dead Wrong Page 1
