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

by Pamela Crane

  But George’s face remained unmoving, except for a slight upturn of his lips. Then his good eye narrowed and his lips lifted in a serpentine smile.

  My father. George Battan. Carli. Tina. Josef. They were all connected in some twisted crime circle. That made my own father a suspect—of what, I wasn’t yet sure. Murder?

  Please, God, no. He’s messing with me.

  “Keep your family secrets close, Ari Wilburn, before they take you all down with them.”

  **

  I waded in early afternoon sunlight that had broken through the blanket of overcast gray by the time I left the police station, dropping off my recorded conversation and written police statement that I hoped would put George Battan behind bars for a long time—at least as long as Tina’s forced prostitution. As for all the other victims over the years, that would take time to build a case, Tristan woefully explained. But at least he’d be in jail, unable to do more damage for the time being.

  Then there was my dad. George’s smug smile foreshadowed that I would be unearthing quite a few hideous family secrets. Murder couldn’t be one of them. Never. I speculated that it only regarded money—maybe Dad handled George’s finances and was trying to get out, and that’s why George came after Carli. My dad wearing the mask of a killer—preposterous.

  At least Tina’s drama was over, even if the taste of my first success as an undercover dick was bittersweet.

  As I arrived home, I couldn’t wait to tell her that we could start looking for her daughter, hopefully ending our silent feud. But when I opened the front door to find a tidy, empty living room, her bedding folded and neatly stacked aside, and her purse hanging crookedly from the dining room chair, my first thought was that she had taken a walk, probably still fuming at me for insinuating her brother was a killer while he lay in a hospital bed near death.

  She’d forgive me once I filled her in on George’s capture … I hoped.

  I rang her cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I left a message asking her to call me as soon as she got this, then wandered into the kitchen to see what scraps I could throw together for lunch. Something was odd, but I couldn’t quite place what. Two dirty glasses sat in the sink, which in any other context wouldn’t have been alarming, but why would Tina have used two different glasses? Perhaps I was overthinking it, searching for clues to a shadowy intrigue where there were none, but the unsettled feeling persisted.

  After rummaging in the fridge, I piled ham and cheese between two slices of whole wheat—which Tina insisted was healthier, albeit too grainy for my taste—then tossed the empty baggie in the garbage. I took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. I wondered if she had left any clue as to her whereabouts. With no trace of a note anywhere, I pulled the lid off the garbage, just in case she had accidentally thrown it away. Nothing but the baggie I had just pitched and an empty liquor bottle.

  We hadn’t drunk together recently, so it was a curious thing to find in the garbage, particularly at this hour. Had she been drinking this morning? And with who?

  I lifted the bottle out and set it on the counter.

  Jose Cuervo Clasico Silver.

  Something about it felt so familiar. So close to home. But what?

  I couldn’t imagine Tina having a sudden impulse for tequila. And disappearing like this? It wasn’t like her. Something was wrong, my mind screamed. But I had no proof. She was an adult, able to make her own decisions, and she’d only been gone a couple hours. I figured I’d wait it out until evening before contacting Tristan. The last thing I wanted to do was paint myself as the panicky roommate putting together a search party for a girl who merely went shopping—but without her purse?

  Ambling through the apartment with my mind still buzzing from the morning, I headed to the bathroom to wash my face. That’s when I saw it. I hadn’t noticed it before when we were cleaning up after the break-in, but there it was. Nestled along the baseboard in the shadow of a lamp table next to the bathroom door.

  Chap-Stick.

  Not my Burt Bees brand. And not Tina’s Blistex. Yes, we had gotten close enough to know the brands of lip balm we each used—and even shared them.

  It was an obscure detail to remember, but one that weaseled its way into my memory bank.

  Killian. I remembered him lathering it on when I walked in the Waffle House.

  If this wasn’t Tina’s, and I knew it wasn’t mine, that meant he had been here. But now he was in a coma in the hospital and utterly useless for getting information.

  Dread pulsed through me. An ill feeling nagged at me.

  The front door hadn’t been broken into. I checked the back patio sliding door—securely closed and locked.

  She must have left through the front door. I wondered if anyone had seen anything, but in apartments like this people rarely did. We all hid behind the solitude of our walls, hoping to avoid human contact at all costs and calling it privacy.

  I stepped onto the concrete pad where a plastic chair and table collected mildew. From the earlier rain the yard was soggy. With squishy steps I crept along the side of the building but saw nothing unusual. No sign of anyone sitting outside who might have seen anything. And if they had, what would be remarkable about a tenant coming and going?

  Nothing seemed out of place.

  And yet everything felt so … wrong.

  An image flashed in my head. Josef. Blood spatter. Rivulets of crimson flowing along the table, coursing around the clutter on his table.

  That’s when it hit me. The familiar sight—the bottle. It was the same brand of tequila at Josef’s crime scene. And suddenly I had an idea of where Tina might be.

  With the only person who knew everything.

  With the only person connected to them all.

  With the only person who managed to survive.

  Rosalita.

  Chapter 37

  I remembered.

  I remembered her as a palm-sized pound of pink squiggling flesh. Arms reaching, fingers squeezing, toes flexing, mouth yawning.

  I remembered, and then a sob choked me.

  My little Sophia, once upon a time a beautiful stained-glass window of brightness and light, but now a mound of jagged shards. Her heart had become corroded, like a rusted nail that once held together something of value but lost its purpose as the oxidization steadily chipped it away into flakes of dust.

  Sophia lay asleep in the chair, my tequila concoction forcing her into deep dreams while the breathy sounds of slumber rose and fell like feathery slips of air. Her eyelids twitched as if entranced in a dream. I wondered briefly what she was seeing, living in her distant dreamscape, before I was brought back to the moment by the task at hand. I stepped beside her, cupping her limp hand in mine. It felt lifelessly cool to the touch, clammy.

  After what I’d done to Killian, I hadn’t expected her to embrace me when I showed up at the apartment. I hadn’t anticipated the warm welcome and laughter and tears. It was a succor to my aching heart. And it made her capture that much easier—a simple invitation for a drive.

  So easy. So willing. So trusting.

  Now that I held her tight, I yearned to tell her a tall tale, like back in the old days. Back when she would climb into my lap, her chubby arms circling my neck, her pouty lips kissing my cheek as I spoke into her ear so that she would know that it was true. Spittle would tickle my earlobe as she exchanged my stories for her deepest thoughts—the musings of a toddler. Her adventures with her baby doll, the party they planned, the leggy bug she’d discovered crawling along her bedroom floor.

  She was my love at first sight, and I knew if she awakened she’d be scared to be near me seeing me like this, her body bound, but I hoped my words would penetrate her thoughts in an intimate prelude before our final moments together. Sophia’s eyes had always been so dark, warm, and innocent, as though without a worry or care in this world. All faith and adoration. Until Josef’s betrayal. It often haunted me. I imagined her tiny palms pressed against the glass, tears wet against her cheeks,
as she was driven away from the only life she knew.

  It was time to free her. To play our last game together.

  I heard her breath quicken and I leaned down into her view. Her eyelids fluttered into open slits, but they were unfocused and hazy. I wondered if she recognized where we were, if she knew about the game. The more guileless the game, the more potential I saw filling up those pools with hope of a better future. Her face was framed in bleached curls like a Raphaelian portrait as sunlight streaked through highlights of red. High afternoon sun poured over us together in a final embrace, but it would only set on one of us tonight. One of us would die with the evening, while the other lived another day of agony until the restitution was complete.

  I imagined her tendrils plastered back with crimson syrup. Her wet lips were a vow of a secret unspoken between us, until it burst like a jet of blood from her silky throat. There would be no more secrets. No more lies. No more betrayals.

  Her muscles tensed into taut strips, and her eyelids drooped open and closed. I felt an unseen hand on my back, prodding me forward. I could feel invisible fingers strangling my neck, a warning that I must finish what I started. But I felt fear. I was afraid of yet again failing.

  I had failed too often already.

  My little butterfly would flap her wings for the last time. Or maybe for the first time. If only I could keep her tucked away safely behind glass, I could protect her. But I knew the damage I’d caused. My fingertips smeared her colorful wings, and only my tears could repaint them in the black of death. She was no longer a butterfly but a ragged moth, wingtips chewed so she could no longer fly. Her metamorphosis would be a violent one, but from it she would emerge flying free.

  Chapter 38

  Ari

  One day until dead

  The motel was nameless and faceless, a generic haven for the perverts and drifters that frequented it under the dark wings of night. As I pulled into the dusty lot of cracked parking spots, I wondered what went on behind the one-story row of splintering green doors and closed blinds. I had remembered Rosalita mentioning she was staying somewhere on 98, and the pickings were slim.

  After calling Tristan to let him know Tina was missing, he told me what I had expected to hear, what I wanted to hear. She probably went out for lunch. Or she might be visiting her brother at the hospital. Maybe she stopped in at work. Didn’t he think I would double-check all those scenarios? Of course I had. And I turned up empty-handed, as expected. Killian was still in a coma and hadn’t had any visitors when I finally got through to the nurse’s station claiming to be his sister, and Tina’s work hadn’t heard from her since before her suicide attempt. Just as I suspected.

  So here I was, the only place I could think of where she might be.

  The only safe place. Unless it wasn’t safe anymore. Unless Rosalita wasn’t who I thought she was. Or perhaps she was exactly who I thought she was.

  I couldn’t imagine this sprawling line of grimy walls and crooked doors and smudged glass seeing better days, considering it sat next to a rundown nudie bar where the women looked like grandmas who’d spent decades too long sunbathing, judging from the crones with cotton candy hair loitering outside on their ciggie breaks.

  The front desk accepted a twenty-dollar-bill in exchange for the room number for Rosalita Alvarez, a bargain by my book. I trotted briskly to room number 5, hoping to pop in on them having tea together. But after the news about Killian, friendly visits seemed like an anomaly lately.

  I rapped on the door, hearing a muffled response on the other side. The door clattered open, and Rosalita looked at me with a question in her eyes.

  “Ari, right?”

  “Yeah, is Tina here?” I inched closer, trying to look past her plump bosom blocking the open gap.

  “No, why? What’s going on?”

  A fizz of panic crackled. Tina wasn’t with Rosalita. She hadn’t left a note. Her phone was turned off. But her intact purse was a stark message that she hadn’t taken a leisurely trip to the store. And there was nothing but an empty bottle of alcohol leading me to her abductor. With George Battan as good as jailed right now, and Killian comatose, who was left that would want to hurt her? Were there enemies Tina hadn’t told me about?

  There were so many secrets, so many lies to unravel …

  Precious seconds were ticking down. Life-saving seconds.

  I didn’t care what the police would remind me—that it was too soon. She hadn’t been gone long enough. No, it was time to report her missing. To send out search parties. To investigate, damn it! Too much had happened to let another hour pass, another minute where her life could be in danger.

  I needed to think, but my brain was skipping all over on autopilot.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” Rosalita moved aside and guided me to a single chair pressed against the wall. I fell into the stiff cushion like a dropped weight, hard and fast.

  “She’s gone. I think someone abducted her. I came home and she wasn’t there. I don’t know what to do.” My words were rushed and furious, scattered and uncertain.

  “Calm down. Breathe. First, how long has she been gone?”

  “A couple hours, I guess. I was out all morning, but I came home and she wasn’t there. Her phone’s gone, and when I tried to call it was turned off—or her battery’s dead. No note or anything. But she cleaned up before she left. It doesn’t seem like she left in a hurry. I don’t know what to think, what to do.”

  “Her abductors—I bet it’s them. They’ve tried to get to her before.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. The guy who’s been after her for the money, George Battan, he’s in police custody right now. There’s no way his people, or crew, or whatever they’re called, would have had time to take her—or risked it right now. They probably don’t even know about George yet. Besides, if they had, there would have been a sign of a struggle. Stuff knocked over. But it’s too neat and tidy. It looks like she just up and left.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “That’s the first thing I did. They said it’s too soon to do anything. They want me to wait to see if she calls or shows up. I just don’t feel right. I need to do something.”

  “I don’t know, dear. I don’t know.” Rosalita looked sadly at her hands folded in her lap.

  “Do you know if Tina had any other secrets—anything else hidden in her past? Anyone in particular that might come for her? Someone she might have trusted enough to leave with?”

  Rosalita looked up at me with alarm. “Secrets? Like what?”

  “Like … like her baby.”

  “A baby? There was a baby?” Rosalita’s voice shattered just then, as if the words were delicate pieces of glass slicing along her throat.

  I couldn’t hide the lies for Tina anymore. Not from Rosalita, not now.

  The secrets tumbled out like a fuse crackling wildly, about to explode.

  “Giana. But she was taken from her at birth.”

  “No!” Rosalita looked nostalgic. And something else. Wounded? “Giana. It’s a beautiful name. She must be devastated.”

  “She hasn’t really talked to me about it. I found out accidentally. But it’s just one of many lies she told me—or didn’t tell me. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “We have a lot of secrets in our family. It’s a generational curse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rosalita sighed, as if exhaling the weight of the world in one breath. “It all started with me. I doomed my family to pain when I was a child. I had a sister—a baby sister. My hermanita. I was watching over her one evening while my parents were out. They frequently left me in charge, even at such a young age. Back then children weren’t really children. We grew up so quickly in those days.”

  I understood this intimately.

  “I was bathing the baby when I heard my parents fighting outside. They fought a lot, mostly over money. We were so poor. Everything was such a struggle for us. I only left
her a few minutes in the tub, but when I came back she was face up just below the water’s surface. Unmoving. Her eyes were open, glassy, unblinking. In a panic I picked her up, but she was already dead. Her body just hung, like a limp cloth in my arms.”

  Rosalita hugged her arms around her chest, as if clutching the memory of her sister in her arms.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. So I hurriedly dried her off and bundled her in some fresh clothes and placed her in her crib, dead and cold, and let my parents find her that way. I never told anyone the truth before. And I’ve paid the price for my lies ever since.”

  I rose and sat beside her on the bed, the mattress sinking as it nudged our thighs together. Her body was racked with sobbing as I circled my arm around her narrow shoulders. I knew this pain personally. Neither of us had deserved the years of self-punishment, and yet we both fell beneath the weight of responsibility at so tender an age.

  “I know how you feel. I lost a sister too … and carried the blame alone.”

  “It’s a burden no child should bear. But it’s haunted me all this time, harboring the truth of what happened. I appreciate being able to share this with another person. I worry that it’s this sin that has followed my family, cursed us—caused my only son Josef to grow up a monster and marry a horrible woman, and then my granddaughter was doomed to be a perpetual victim. I can’t stop the cycle of devastation.”

  “No, don’t say that. They have nothing to do with what happened to you, Rosalita. It’s not your fault.”

  “But God casts the sins of the parents on the children, doesn’t he? My deceit messed me up”—she tapped her index finger against her temple—“up here. And I passed it on to Josef. Even as a baby he was evil. I could just tell. In his eyes. As a result, he sold Sophia into slavery. It started with me, so it ends with me, doesn’t it?”

  Was it really that simple? One horrible mistake and your future would be fatally flawed? Was suffering so cut-and-dry, so black-and-white? I had always lived in the gray. In the gray I could escape the blame. In the gray I wasn’t at fault. Richard Littleton was. But if Rosalita was correct, I would never escape punishment. My future children would get sucked into the cycle, forever damaged.