“Yes,” he said, no hint of uncertainty in his voice.
It struck her as odd that he was so sure, but it made sense. Everything else that day was etched so clearly in his mind.
“I baptized the baby,” he said, “And then I baptized him. First time—and the last—I’d ever done anything like that.”
The dam that had been cracking … broke. A flood of memories rushed at her like a torrent of water. The baby, the man, the anniversary of her mother’s death.
“I … I was … I was there.”
“Yes,” her father said, as tears slid down his face. “Yes, you were.”
11
Revelations
Psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists call it dissociative amnesia. The brain pushes a traumatic event back and hides it deep in your subconscious. The person experiencing this sometimes has an altered memory of the trauma, but in Amber’s case, she had no memory of it at all … until today. When her father revealed the spare details of the Sunday in question, the fog began to lift. It wasn’t a sudden revelation, but more like a television screen coming into focus.
But underneath it, for reasons she didn’t fully understand yet, she felt an undercurrent—no, more like a riptide—of dread. After lunch, she’d accompanied her dad to his home, the same home she grew up in. It looked exactly like every other house in the neighborhood. Stucco exterior, an arched doorway, and red clay roof tiles. The yard was scraggly, he’d let it go. Seeing her old room, which her father and mother had eventually made a guest room, was first like meeting a stranger, but when she laid down on the bed and closed her eyes, she could almost see the alternating pink and purple walls, the fluffy pink bean bag chair, the small white melamine desk, and the doll chest overflowing with different girls and plush animals (also pink and purple.)
She hadn’t meant to nap, but the quick turnaround flights had left her a bit lagged and before fifteen minutes had passed, she was asleep. Her mind decided this would be a good time to reveal the true details of that fateful Sunday. Oddly, she realized she was dreaming. The lucidity of it was bright and clear, but everything else … and it was literally everything … was red.
Hate.
She felt so much anger and violence, but she didn’t know why. It was a normal Sunday, at least, as normal as they had been after her mother died. This particular day, was the anniversary of her mom’s death. It was always hard, but her father made it his mission to make the day a little less dark. She began to recall the sermon. She had cried. Everyone in the church had cried. The people with the new baby had felt so special and blessed by this inspirational service. In her dream she saw two men shaking hands and slapping backs at the front of the chapel. She always sat in the choir, though she never had a good singing voice. Unsure whether her mind was playing tricks on her, or if she had really seen it, she saw that one of the men was a younger Marcario Morales. The other, maybe a friend of Morales, was a bit hazy.
Morales looked almost the same. His jet-black hair was a bit longer and thicker. His smile was wide and flawless. She was almost convinced that he was the same man, a real person, the man she was now trying to help … but then she saw his eyes. Something about them was different from the Marc she had met back in the Sullivan Correctional Facility. The man in her dream leered at her. She couldn’t see herself in the dream, but she knew she was only fourteen at the time. His gaze seemed completely … wolf-like.
Suddenly, the scene shifted to the family home. The sun was setting, orange and purple, over the horizon. The smell of fried chicken, greens, and black-eyed peas filled the air. Sunday dinner. For a long time after her mother died, her father went through all the same rituals, fixed all the same meals, said all the same prayers. It was as if he was trying to ease the pain of their mutual loss.
And then … the door. A knock. No, more like an insistent pounding. She watched over her father’s shoulder as he opened the door. And there he was, Marcario Morales, the man who had undressed her with his eyes back at the church. Her father, ever a man of God, let him in. Morales went on and on about how he had been so moved by the sermon. He talked of going into the seminary, or maybe becoming a missionary, and had sought the preacher out to ask how to get started.
A timer buzzed in the kitchen. Her father ushered Morales into the house and left her alone with him to check on the food. Amber was still asleep, dreaming this horrible dream, but tears began to run from her eyes. The redness she had seen before was back. It was following Morales into her home.
12
Out of Town
The images that followed were sharp and clear. Her memory had returned completely and she was horrified by what she remembered. It seemed as if Morales had worked out the plan while he was at the church. He had come here with one goal in mind.
He must have seen her at the chapel, dressed in her Sunday best, the pretty, young preacher’s daughter. When her father went into the kitchen to check on the food, he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down on the couch. She tried to fight, but he was much too strong. He tore her dress exposing her shoulder and tried to jerk the hem above her thighs. She kicked and managed to connect between his legs. He roared in pain and punched her in the face. She remembered the pain, the week of staying at home nursing the black eye.
Suddenly, her father was there. If ever there was an angel of God sent to smite the enemy, it was her father. He stormed into the room, shotgun in hand. Morales fell off her and stumbled backward toward the door.
Her father pumped the shotgun once and she screamed. Time slowed. She could see his finger squeezing. Moving ever so slowly backward. He’s going to shoot him. Without thinking, Amber grabbed a pillow from the couch and flung it at the gun. The blast was deafening in the small living room. Wood splintered and glass shattered at the front of the house. She had deflected his shot and Morales was unharmed. He didn’t wait to see if he would fire again. Her father racked the slide and raised the shotgun as the man crashed through the door and out into the yard. He fired again, but it was too late. He was gone.
Amber bolted upright in bed with a scream.
For an hour, or maybe two, she sat in bed sobbing. When she was able to take more than a shallow breath, she reached for her phone on the bedside table. Tapping the screen, she saw it was only three thirty in the morning. She got up and sat at the small desk by the window. Without wanting to, she relived the events over and over in her mind. Her calm slowly returned, rising within her like the gray, dawn sun. Rain drizzled over the window.
The events of that day, so long ago, horrific as they might have been, would ironically be the alibi that Morales needed to get off for murdering Eric Torres. He wasn’t there. He was here, in Florida, trying to rape me, she thought. And above all that, her father had gone out of town on business the next weekend, leaving her with his stupid new girlfriend, Stacy McCloud, stopping by every damn day trying to be friends.
And, until today, she had repressed it all. She had no memory of any of the events of that weekend, the church service, the christening of the baby, seeing Morales at the church, the attack at her home, and her father abandoning her in her time of greatest need to go…
She couldn’t remember where he’d gone, only that he’d left her alone with Stacy. Ugh. She pulled open the top drawer of the desk and was surprised to see a snow globe. When her father had remodeled her room, she had told him to donate all of the toys and stuffed animals. She didn’t have the space to drag it all with her to Savannah. She reached into the drawer and pulled out the small glass orb. Inside, the globe, surrounded by swirling rainbow colored “snow,” was a pink flamingo. Even with her memory returning, she did not recall ever having owned a flamingo snow globe.
She flipped it over. The generic price tag was still on the bottom. BZ $29.99. She wondered idly if it had been Stacy’s, or maybe a gift from the wannabe mother to her father. An odd thing to give a man. Amber shrugged it off and put it back in the drawer.
The smell of bac
on and eggs permeated the air. With a start, she realized what had happened. She glanced at her phone again. It was half past eight. She had slept all through the evening and night. She called the station to explain her absence, but the chief stopped her.
“Don’t worry, Ber,” Chief Decker had said, “Tweed explained that you were hard at work on the Morales mess. You almost done with the report?”
The Morales mess, she thought. That’s one way to put it. She realized that she could indeed close the case. Marcario Morales had been in Florida, assaulting her when Eric Torres was being shot.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Just like you said. Open and shut.”
“Atta girl,” he boomed. “When you get back, why don’t we look at getting you out from behind that desk again? Be safe. Gotta go.”
He hung up and she stared at her phone. She wasn’t sure if she was still reeling from the revelation of her past with Morales, or something else. The prospect of getting out on the road again, patrolling the quaint streets of Savannah wasn’t as appealing as it should have been.
“Bear-bear?” her father called. “I’ve got breakfast.”
She took a deep breath. She knew she would have to talk to her father about it … but not until after they’d eaten.
13
Sins of the Father
After a quick stop in the bathroom to wipe away the streaming streaks of mascara on her cheeks, she walked into the kitchen. Her dad was whistling and grinning as he flipped a pancake.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he said. “I think I made too many. Maybe someone will stop by and eat a few.”
The statement made the icy chill run up her spine. This wasn’t going to wait.
“Daddy?” she said, fighting the tremble in her voice.
He looked over his shoulder as he poured a tall glass of orange juice. Neither of them had ever been coffee drinkers. Part of her wanted to run out and get an ice-cold energy drink for this conversation. But it was too late for that now.
She relayed her dream. She told him all about remembering the service and the man coming to the house—the same man she was trying to prove innocent. Her tears began to flow again. His face froze in something between terror … and fury.
“And you … you …” He opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand to stop him. “You left me.”
“Bear-bear. I’m … I’m so sor— “
“I was assaulted, Daddy,” she cried. “And I needed you. I needed you to hold me and assure me that not all men were evil. But no. No, you had something more important to do. You couldn’t wait to get out of town and leave me with … with Stacy.”
Guilt washed over his face and his eyes began to moisten.
“I had no choice,” he said, and then quoted, “for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” Amber demanded. She slammed a hand down on the kitchen table turning over a glass of orange juice.
He reached out to her, but she flinched away. Tears ran down his cheeks. For a long moment, he was silent. He wiped the wetness on his face with his shirt sleeve.
“Stacy was a good woman,” he finally said. “I know you didn’t like her, but she was there for me after your mother died.”
This time, he was the one who stopped Amber from saying anything, his calloused hand raised in front of her.
“I never slept with her you know. You never knew it, but she lost her husband just a year before we lost your mom. He was killed by a drunk driver. She needed me like I needed her. Contrary to what you might think, we were never lovers. We were more than friends, but we were only companions … companions in grief.”
Amber felt herself growing smaller and smaller. She almost felt as if she were a child again at the foot of her father.
“And I am so sorry for what those men did to you.” His voice was choked with emotion. “A father is supposed to protect his children, but I couldn’t even do that. At least, I couldn’t do it at the time.”
He took a minute to compose himself.
“They tried to call me, you know?”
“What? Who tried to call you?” Amber asked.
“That man’s lawyer. She left a message on my machine—we had actual tape recorder machines back then—said she was hoping to get me to provide an alibi for him.”
Amber realized he was talking about Morales. She felt her heart thrumming in her chest.
“I didn’t call back,” he said darkly. “I changed my number. I never heard from them after that.”
“Daddy,” she said, her voice soft and tiny, “are you telling me you let them put an innocent man in prison.”
Without warning and with more thunderous anger than she could’ve imagined her father could display, he jumped up out of his chair. “That man is far from innocent,” he roared.
She flinched and backed away, sinking down into her chair.
“These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction,” he quoted, spittle flying from his lips, a finger wagging in the air.
The room went still after his tirade. Crickets chirped outside as Cicadas buzzed louder to drown them out.
“But daddy … what about me? You left me.”
His face turned to stone and his voice went flat.
“That man had to pay for what he had done.”
He suddenly looked ancient, far older than when she had arrived. His breathing was raspy and his chest heaved.
A flicker of meaning began to shine in her mind. A dark fear grew as she considered what her father was saying.
“Daddy?” She asked quietly, “Did you … did you do something?”
He said nothing. He stood and walked out of the kitchen leaving her with the cold food.
Joseph Cross had gone to bed, complaining of being tired, so very tired. Amber, however, felt her internal clock was off. Having slept the afternoon and night before, she was wide awake. Her mind drifted through all the impossible things she had been through in the last twenty-four hours. It occurred to her that she should probably make a few notes so she wouldn’t forget anything. She leaned into her father’s room to check on him. He was snoring loudly, his breathing still ragged. But he was breathing.
She padded down the hall to her room, closed the door behind her, and opened her backpack. She pulled out a legal pad with notes about the case and shoved her hand down in the front pocket searching for a pen. Try as she might, she couldn’t find one, so she opened up the desk drawer. She found a blue ball point pen with no cap. It’ll do, she thought with a shrug.
Her eyes fell on the flamingo snow globe. She picked it up, shook it, and placed it on the corner of the desk. It shimmered and swirled. It was actually quite pretty. She scratched a few notes on her pad: the who, what, where, when, how, and why of everything she had remembered. Though it was a traumatic event for her personally, and one that might, at best, get Marcario Morales in trouble for attempted sexual assault, it was actually, a pretty solid alibi for the jerk. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but she thought the statute of limitations might have run out for the attack a long time ago anyway.
The flecks of flamingo snow had settled, so she picked up the globe and shook it again. On a whim, she took out her phone and took a picture of it. Then she did a Google search for similar images. Four-hundred-ninety-two thousand and eighty-nine photos of random snow globes appeared, but on page two, a picture caught her eye. There it was. A glass shelf full of flamingo snow globes just like the one on her desk. She clicked over to the hosting page and froze.
Just above the section for Symbolic Animal Adoption and below the link about Wild Encounters was the title of the page.
Bronx Zoo.
She grabbed the flamingo globe and flipped it over. BZ $29.99.
Her father had left her all those years ago to fly to New York, following Marcario Morales …
A gas
p caught in her throat as she finished the thought.
To dispense God’s justice.
14
End of Innocence
She pounded on his bedroom door. “Daddy, what did you do?”
He didn’t answer, but she knew he could hear her. He wasn’t speaking directly to her, but she could hear him whispering … to someone. She leaned against the door; her ear pressed to the painted wood. He’s praying, she thought. She looked down at the knob and rattled it a few more times unsuccessfully. Then the tiny hole in the center of it caught her eye. It had one of those safety pin holes to open the door in emergencies. She ran her fingers on the top of the door frame and along with a hefty amount of dust, she raked the special key down from its hiding place. She jammed it into the hole and popped the lock.
Flinging the door open, she entered into a completely dark room. His heavy curtains were pulled. The threadbare quilt that her mother had made long ago had been pulled from the bed. He had it folded beneath his knees. He was kneeling and had his forehead pressed onto the quilt-covered floor as well.
“Daddy,” she said, struggling to keep calm, “tell me what happened. What is the meaning of this?”
She jabbed her hand forward. In it, she held the flamingo snow globe that had been purchased at the Bronx Zoo. For a second, he looked at it, his eyes showing only confusion. But slowly, the light came on in them.
“It was a gift. I bought it for you, but … but when I came home … you were so grown up. It didn’t seem like something you …”
His speech was nearly incoherent. He was blathering on, staring at the small glass ball with the tiny pink flamingo inside.
“So, what are you saying? You bought this for me when you followed Morales to New York to do what exactly?”
Her Lost Alibi: A gripping suspense thriller. (An Amber Cross Thriller Book 1) Page 5
