The Art of Fear (The Little Things That Kill Series Book 1)

by Pamela Crane

  I have no idea where I’m going as we head into a part of town I’ve never been, but the lady explains that with no emergency placements available, I’ll be staying at a group home until a foster home opens up. If it even comes to that, she adds. She tells me it’s a nice place, with lots of activities and a private school and kids just like me. I’ll fit in, I’ll have fun, I’ll feel much better about it in a few days.

  All lies.

  In the backseat of her car, I feel so alone, just me and some mismatched clothes, a folded picture of me and Carli, and my favorite Richard Adams books—all that remains of the life I leave behind.

  The group home is everything I dreamed it would be, and then some—if dreams were nightmares.

  We arrive at a small campus dotted with brick buildings. The sign is written in a simple black font against a pale blue backdrop with unkempt grass sprouting up around it. No flowers, no kids’ toys strewn in the yard, nothing to indicate kids actually have fun here.

  Nothing homey. Nothing charming. Nothing comforting to a lone ten-year-old snatched away from her parents.

  I step into a spacious lobby where a bunch of kids sprawled on a sofa, their limbs pretzeled into crazy shapes, watch cartoons on a wall-mounted TV. It’s impossible to judge from their impassive expressions if they’re bored or unhappy or just tube numb. Next I drop off my bag of meager possessions for a staff member to inspect, then I’m shown my room. A ten-by-ten square with a single bed and a dresser.

  I’m guided back into the nucleus of the building where we pass a room decorated in homemade art, with a girl pounding out discordant chords on a console piano. I’d partake in art projects and group therapy sessions in this room, I’m told. Next is the dining room and kitchen, where all the kids contribute to meal preparations and cleaning. I’d only ever helped my mom make macaroni and cheese once before, and I still overcooked the noodles and over-milked the powdered cheese.

  As we circle back to the row of bedrooms, I hear a girl crying behind a partially closed door. I wonder how long she’s been here, how many days she spends crying. I can’t be that girl.

  The only comfort I have as I curl myself into a ball against the wall beside my new bed is that I don’t have a roommate to torture me. I feel myself slipping, losing all will. How can I overcome this? Closing my eyes, I picture Carli and me, hand in hand, skipping through some never-never land with unbridled joy.

  For her, for Carli, I must survive.

  I decide then and there that if I’m going to survive, I need to be tough. I need to turn my anger and hurt inward and be stoic and strong. What do I even know about strength, other than what the school bullies have shown me throughout my childhood? I must shed my old self and be reborn. I’ll rebel, I’ll defy authority, I’ll search for the loophole that will keep my spirit alive.

  But it wasn’t enough to drive away the fear, or the desire for death.

  Chapter 26

  Tina

  2014

  Sophia Alvarez’s breaths misted the chilled afternoon air in floating, frantic puffs. She had been walking until her legs grew numb, avoiding all the major roads where she could get spotted. Months of planning had gone into this moment, but now she was regretting her newfound freedom—and her decision to do this in the dead of winter. Soon night would fall and she would be homeless, foodless, freezing, and alone.

  Not that starvation was foreign to her. Even at the suspicion of Sophia “squaring up”—or fleeing—her pimp would withhold food for days. Sometimes even water if he was feeling testy. But rather than putting the fear of God in her like his threats did to his other girls, it only trained Sophia to be tougher. To push her endurance. The if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them flock mentality of her “family” of victims had never set in. Adapting wasn’t an option. Fight or flight. Fight never got her anything but a brutal beating and loss of privileges—like school—so flight it would be.

  It was a miracle she’d gotten this far. Her weeks of uncharacteristic deference should have been a red flag. But he must have just assumed she’d finally—after ten rebellious, punishing years—broke.

  Then it came. The perfect opportunity.

  For nearly a year Sophia had been his one and only until just months earlier, when he picked up another girl—twelve years old. Marla. That was when it happened. The decision. The turning point. It was one thing for Sophia to be worn out, tossed aside, overpowered, and beaten, but watching another child go down with her … her resistance was born. She’d escape and come back to rescue Marla. Meeting the girl’s emerald eyes, it was a promise Tina made to the child the first night she arrived, cuddling into Sophia’s arms and crying herself to sleep.

  One might conjure an image of a shoddy apartment building in a ghetto red-light district. One might imagine dim, flickering lights and screams echoing down a hallway lined with drug addicts passed out along the floor. One might even envision a bare mattress with soiled sheets balled up in a corner while rats scurried under their feet.

  Life wasn’t actually like that for her.

  Sophia was “elite.”

  Some perverts liked their “dates” young, and pre-pubescent girls like Sophia had once come at a higher price. Dollars dictated better hygiene and living conditions. Her pimp certainly didn’t want to live in filth, and she lived with him, so there you have it. Sophia didn’t know it yet, but the creature comforts she “enjoyed” would vanish little by little as she matured into adolescence, putting her in the streets with the other “wifeys” turning tricks.

  But George favored her.

  Not every girl was so lucky.

  It was a suburban house. One story. Three bedrooms with actual bed frames and clean linens. She’d had the same Hello Kitty bedspread since her first day there, a gift for being a good girl and doing what she was told. Until she stopped doing what she was told.

  She learned quickly to adapt to survive.

  Blending in to avoid snooping neighbors was how she survived. She attended school, but friendships were forbidden. Extra-curriculars, forbidden. Speaking about her captors, forbidden.

  She was to act shy, he was to be called “Daddy,” and that was that. She’d be rewarded for compliance and beaten for defiance. A six-year-old doesn’t call a bluff when a man threatens to gut her and then kill her entire family if she ever tells a soul. Especially when he’s followed up on his threats of pain and torture.

  So she obeys. Without a second thought.

  And thus her world turned, a student by day and a rape victim by night.

  Until it stopped, mid-rotation.

  Sophia was now sixteen and on a do-or-die mission. She’d plotted the where and how, but needed the when. She rode the bus to and from school now—a recent privilege earned by her indulgence of George’s every wish. The route gave her a glimpse of the sprawling town and the side streets that she could travel on. In computer class she scoured resources for local victim shelters—she didn’t trust cops—and mapped out her journey in feverish handwriting on a piece of notebook paper she hid in her pocket. Leaving when school let out at 2:15, it’d be a bit of a walk, but doable.

  As Sophia’s had been, Marla’s “seasoning” was accomplished through a series of moves meant to intimidate, manipulate, beat down, and destroy self-will. Her little brother’s life was the chess piece used to coerce Marla to obey. She was old enough to understand George wasn’t bluffing and that it was her job to protect her long-lost family—by any means possible. Even with her own life.

  And when she cried for Mommy and Daddy? No food. Cried louder? No water. Days on end locked in her room, isolated. It was an effective method, a mental branding.

  After years of subhuman treatment, it was hard to break free from the cycle.

  But Sophia was doing it right now.

  As she glanced at her paper and then the approaching street sign, she had one turn remaining. She was going to make it before dark!

  Humming Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It” while
her steps quickened, she felt a freedom she’d never know.

  The door was unlocked when she arrived at the shelter.

  “Hey, honey,” a black woman greeted her behind a folding table. “You here for a room?”

  Sophia nodded, her trained shyness suddenly muting her.

  “You got a name?”

  She hesitated, then said confidently, “Tina.”

  “Welcome to a new life, Tina.”

  **

  The present

  9:03 p.m.

  Sophia’s eyelids fluttered in a restless sleep as I stood over her, watching the contours of her forehead gently slope into defined cheekbones, all wrapped in smooth brown skin. Her hair matted to her scalp in a sweaty mess that I wanted to touch, but didn’t.

  I wondered what she was dreaming of, if the nightmares followed her here. The time for mercy had come. I knew what Sophia suffered. I knew it was a burden no girl—no woman—should bear. It was time to give back what I had promised her so long ago—her innocence.

  I had betrayed her, so it was my responsibility to fix what I had broken.

  They would call me a heartless monster, the media. But I knew better. I worshipped on the altar of her flesh. She was mine, and I was hers. We belonged together. Others would shudder with revulsion at my aid, shrinking far from me as I passed, but not Sophia. She would understand.

  It felt spontaneous, standing here in this moment. I hadn’t planned on this. Sophia hadn’t been on my list—not yet, at least. But her suicide attempt was an echo from a long-ago cry for help. This was the only way I knew how to help her.

  I brought peace. I brought an end to suffering. I was her sentry at the gate of liberation.

  Not all good deeds can be on a schedule.

  The thick pillow filled my gloved palms as I held it with outstretched hands. I sucked in a cleansing breath, then placed it over Sophia’s face, holding it down with the entire weight of my body as she violently clawed at me, kicking fiercely, while I listened for any approaching staff footsteps beyond the locked door. Her muffled cries got no further than the pillowcase fibers, and I knew my window of time was closing before someone knocked to come in.

  The knife I had placed next to her glinted in the glow of the television on the wall. I grabbed it and caught myself for a beat—for I loved Sophia in my own unique way—before I plunged the blade into her side. The flailing stopped, and I fought with the urge to stay. No, the risk was too great to wait for her last heartbeat, for her last living moment to be with me.

  With a chaste kiss on her hand, I uttered a placid “I love you.” I had backed up my love with action, no cheap words would suffice. Feeling the electric shock of her touch, her skin felt like a trembling flower opening, soft and serene as her hand fell. Although her petals were crushed, she would bloom again on the other side.

  I pocketed the knife and slipped out the door, letting it stridently swing closed behind me, whispering a mournful good-bye as I walked out of the hospital.

  Chapter 27

  Ari

  Six days until dead

  Nine twenty-one.

  A phone call that late made me jump. This time I recognized the number.

  This time the words were dire. Cryptic, which only unleashed panic in me.

  Tina Alvarez is in critical condition.

  No answers. No information. Nothing but an order for me to come down to the Intensive Care Unit where they would fill me in.

  Had she attempted suicide again? God, I hoped she hadn’t succeeded this time.

  I ran two red lights and sped fifteen miles over the limit. But when I got there, Tina was unconscious.

  Damn it, this was my fault.

  I flagged the nurse on duty, demanding a play-by-play of what exactly happened. The twenty-something fresh-faced recent nursing school grad stammered her way through the details she knew, which were vague. Her blond ponytail swung like a cheerleader’s as she waved her arms to accompany her words—a hand talker. Tina had a visitor in the psych ward that evening, but as they didn’t keep a log of who came and went, Newbie Nurse wasn’t sure who he was.

  The next thing they know, a night nurse comes running out of the room yelling for help. Someone had stabbed the patient in room 402 in the abdomen. She never even got a chance to cry for help, as they found her with a pillow over her head and unconscious.

  No one saw his face? I drilled her.

  Just another nameless, faceless person passing through the hallways. There were so many of them every day, no one could ever keep track.

  What about the security cameras? I demanded.

  The cameras only caught grainy, foreshortened views of a baseball-capped individual entering and later exiting the wing—providing no face shots or identifying features—and there were no cameras near Tina’s room down at the end of the hall.

  No one knew who the visitor was.

  No one saw anyone else come or go.

  No one could tell me if Tina would make it.

  All this caring, all this friendship, all for naught.

  Why did everything I touch turn to shit?

  This killer, whoever he was, was taking the Alvarez family down one by one.

  **

  I hadn’t realized it was almost one in the morning when I got home. One twenty by the time I was lying in bed worrying about Tina. Two fifteen when I was tossing and turning, aching for company. Two thirty before I finally dialed the last digit of Tristan’s phone number.

  “I really need to talk to someone. You busy?” I had sputtered the moment he groggily picked up.

  “Time is nothing but a number,” he had insisted philosophically after I caught a whiff of my own desperation and apologized profusely for calling him at such a late hour.

  I didn’t really know him well enough to call him at this hour, did I?

  Now he sat on my sofa across from me, his rumpled T-shirt clinging to his chest, his hair a disheveled mess of bed-head peaks sprouting in every direction, his eyes sleepily unfocused but straining to stay alert. I found his fresh-out-of-bed look sexy, and his cavernous yawns did nothing to spoil the picture.

  “What’s on your mind at three in the morning?” Tristan asked after gulping the Budweiser he had brought with him—a little pick-me-up, he called it.

  “Everything. Nothing. Shit, I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Start with what happened today.”

  My vision lost focus as I stared off in space.

  “Tina was attacked today.” I was too tired to say more.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, but at least this is enough to re-open her dad’s case as a possible murder instead of a suicide.”

  “I guess that’s a silver lining for ya.”

  “Except that Dunn has, like, two cops total and the detective on his case is fifteen years old,” I snapped. “But I guess it’s progress.” I hmphed my sarcasm.

  “Hey, in case you didn’t know, I’m here for you.” He rested his hand on my thigh in a comforting way, like a friend would. “Anything you need. I’m even prepared for a sleepover—got my jammies and everything I need”—he tipped his Budweiser high—“so we have all night.”

  On any other day, in any other scenario, I would have imagined a completely different connotation to having all night together. But today, today Tina was heavy on my heart. There was no room for lusting after Tristan.

  The thickening night pulled and stretched the shadows. Only a dim pinprick of light pierced through the living room from a streetlight that had found the gap between my curtains.

  “How could Tina have been stabbed—while in a hospital? And no one saw a damn thing?”

  “I wish I could answer that.”

  “I mean, he waltzed right out of there, Tristan. How the hell does someone slip into a hospital psych ward unnoticed, smother a patient unnoticed, stab her unnoticed, and leave … unnoticed?”

  He shrugged empathetically. “But she’s okay, right?”

  “She�
�s in critical condition. They think she’ll pull through because they found her right after it happened, but … she could be dead, Tristan!” The hysteria simmered as that alternative reality fabricated itself in my head, verging on a boil. I took a deep calming breath.

  “But she’s not dead. She’s strong. She’ll be okay.” His hand shot up and circled around me, pulling me into him, my back against his body. A protective gesture. A sedative to an unnerved woman like me.

  “I need to figure out who did this … and why. I think I have an idea, but it’s going to sound batshit crazy.”

  “Lucky for you I like batshit crazy.”

  How much was too much to tell? Tina’s story was her own, but Tina, well, Tina was unconscious. Tina was almost killed. Maybe it was time to betray my promise to keep her secrets, if it meant saving her life.

  “I need you to swear to me that this stays between us. Got it?”

  “I gotcha, Ari. My lips are sealed.” To prove it, he held an imaginary key in his fingers and turned the invisible lock on his lips.

  And then I proceeded to tell Tristan everything. About Josef’s death, how I suspected it wasn’t a suicide but a murder. I told him about the autopsy report, about the drugs in his system but how he had no prescription on file, how he had been working with a sex-trafficking ring to sell Tina, and when Tina escaped, Josef owed them money. I told him about the threatening message the traffickers left her, about Tina’s lies to me and to the cops, about her being the last person to see him alive and the one with the biggest motive for revenge.

  I told him about the bleached bathroom and missing notepad from the suicide note. I told him about Killian’s fight with Josef, then my meeting with Killian—and my slipup in telling him which hospital she was at—and hours later her attack. I told him about Killian’s questionable expensive tastes and about Rosalita’s clear ire toward her son and grandson.

  I poured it all out in a waterfall of words, then left it all on the table for Tristan to sort through, to dissect, to piece together a sensible picture from it all.