What Hurts the Most: An engrossing, heart-stopping thriller (7th Street Crew Book 1)

by Willow Rose

  All three of us nod. Tim pulls his head out from the car and signals someone that we are cleared. With my heart in my throat, we drive through the security gate with the many guards following our every move. At least that’s what I feel they’re doing…watching us closely.

  We drive past a big sign welcoming us. We are in. We’re inside the base they call the control center for Cape Canaveral Air Station, America's gateway to space.

  We find the road taking us to the South housing areas. We drive along the big runway for the airplanes, and I watch as a big one takes off into the air. There is water on both sides of the base, since it is located on a thin area of the barrier island. Many of the houses have views over the Intracoastal waters.

  Before we left, I called Chloe and had her find the general’s address for me. I am holding the piece of paper in front of me where the address is written. I feel nervous, but also determined. I want to find Olivia Hartman and ask her about my brother, about her relationship to him, and if she knows anything that might help us. I pray and hope this pays off somehow.

  “It’s here,” Joey says. “Number 1145, right?”

  “Right,” I say, and fold the paper with the address on it. I put it in my pocket, then take in a deep breath as Joey parks the car in front of the house.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” he asks.

  I think about it for a second, and then tell him I can do this on my own. I get out of the car and walk up to the front door and ring the doorbell. It doesn’t take long for it to open. There she is. The famous Olivia Hartman. The woman whose picture I have been staring at ever since I found out she was seeing my brother. She is just as beautiful as her picture, and a lot more so than back in high school. Some people age better than others.

  “Mary?” she says.

  I nod. “We need to talk.”

  She looks behind me and around us to make sure nobody is looking, then tells me to come inside. I follow her into the house. It’s big. Two stories with great views of the Intracoastal. It’s nicely decorated as well. Double O has good taste. Expensive as well.

  We sit down in her living room. The couch is soft and delicate. The fabric is white. It is obvious they have no children. She looks at me with a sigh.

  “I guess I know why you’re here.”

  Chapter Fifty

  September 2015

  Liz can’t believe her eyes. Did she just see Mary Mills on the base? Did she just see her drive up to the general’s house and walk up to the entrance? Yes, she did. She watched it all when she got back from her run at the track. She saw her ring the doorbell and Olivia Hartman open the door. She can’t believe the general’s wife actually let her inside.

  Liz feels a pinch of worry. What is the bitch doing here, and why is Olivia letting her inside her home?

  Liz is doing jumping jacks in front of her own driveway. She is panting and groaning, mostly with anger, and a little with worry. She waits and watches. Waits and watches patiently. When Mary doesn’t come back out, Liz decides to go inside her house. She searches through her things frantically and pulls out her gun. She looks at the clock on the wall. She is off until 1300 hours. There is still time. She feels the cold gun between her hands when she loads it. She grumbles in anger.

  How the hell is she supposed to do this? She’s on base, for crying out loud. If she fires a gun, she’ll get caught. She can’t escape. Not from the base. Can she pull it off somehow anyway?

  Liz growls and looks out the window. The car is still there, parked in the general’s driveway. There is no way she can go into the general’s house and fire a gun and get away with it. No way. But she can’t let her go either, can she? No, she has to do something. Anything.

  You should have hit her with your car when you had the chance, you idiot. Now she is here, who knows what she is up to, how she will destroy everything for you again.

  Just thinking about Mary makes everything turn inside of Liz. The anger hasn’t decreased over the years. On the contrary. She feels it much stronger now than back then. Back when…Argh, just thinking about it makes her want to just go over there and shoot her in the head, not caring one bit about what will happen afterwards. Heck, she could shoot them all if she wants to. She can get away with it, can’t she? She has gotten away with so many things so far.

  No, it’s too dangerous.

  Liz looks at the car. It looks like someone is sitting inside of it. Who is it? It looks like a child in the back seat. Is that Mary’s child? It looks like it. Could she use him, maybe? But wait. There is someone else in the car. It looks like a man.

  Damn it!

  Liz sighs, frustrated. She isn’t good with spontaneous decisions. She likes to be in control. She likes to plan ahead and then act. Like the day with Billy the Kid. She had planned what she wanted to do and bought the drain cleaner. The past few days she has thought long and hard about what to do about Mary, now that she is back, and she believes she has come up with an idea that will be her best to date. But now this happens? Liz doesn’t know what to do. She lifts the gun and walks to the window, pointing it at the car. Liz is an excellent shot. Always hits her target. Never misses a single shot when in the field. She always gets her man.

  Or woman.

  Liz knows she can shoot the boy from where she is standing. They’re less than a mile away. Her 9mm can make the shot. But then what? She needs to think about her escape as well. Maybe she can think about that later. Her desire to hurt Mary drowns out all other thoughts. Right now, she is blinded by it. By her rage.

  God, how I hate her. How I loathe everything about her.

  But she wants her to suffer. To feel pain, to be hurt. That is when it hits her. That is when the idea comes to her mind like lightning from a clear blue sky.

  What hurts the most?

  Liz laughs at her own cleverness. She looks at the car across the street and is filled by a triumphant sensation.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  September 2015

  “I need you to tell me everything you know about my brother,” I say.

  Olivia, or Double O, looks at me. I know she doesn’t want me there; in fact, I am probably the last person she wants in her house right now. But I am not leaving. Not until I get some answers.

  “And don’t tell me you don’t know him, ‘cause I know you two were seeing each other.”

  Olivia’s green eyes stare at me. To my surprise, she seems frightened. Maybe she is just acting.

  “I…I don’t know what to tell you.” She sighs and looks away. “Yes, we met at a party at the Officer’s Club, and we have had some fun, that’s all.”

  “Fun?” I ask feeling, anger rise inside of me. Was that all my brother was to her? A toy?

  She shakes her head; her eyes search the floor. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Start by telling me what happened. Why is he in jail right now?” I ask.

  Olivia looks up again and our eyes meet. Hers are full of regret. “You should go…if my husband finds out…he has eyes and ears everywhere here. It was very dangerous of you to come here.”

  “I don’t care about your husband or who he is. I demand to know what happened to my brother. You were with him, weren’t you? You were with him when he was arrested, weren’t you?”

  Olivia shakes her head. I can tell she is lying. She is not a very good liar.

  “Come on!” I say. “You were seen at Starbucks together. You were seen leaving together. Did you go back to his place to have sex, huh? To have some of your fun, huh?”

  Olivia’s eyes are growing wider.

  “You can’t lie to me, Olivia. I know you were there. I saw your shoeprint in his studio. You stepped in some blue paint. I just can’t seem to figure out why that part was left out of the police report. Are they working together? Is the detective in the general’s pocket?”

  I can tell by the look in her eyes that I am right. “So, they framed him, huh? They framed my brother because he was sleeping with you.” I look down at
her hand and spot the ring with the green stone from my brother’s bathroom. “Nice ring, by the way.”

  Olivia reaches out and grabs my arm with a gasp. “You’ve got to be careful, Mary. These people are capable of anything. Yes, they framed Blake. They even forced me to place the bloody chisel under the sink so the police would find it. The general found out about us weeks ago and has been planning this all along. He’ll do anything. He’ll get rid of you as well if he knows that you know.”

  “I am not scared of him,” I snort.

  “You should be. And now you must leave. The word about you being here must have reached my husband by now.”

  I stare at the woman whom I used to go to school with and wonder what happened to her. Back then, she had been so strong. So tough. Now she was reduced to this shadow of her former self.

  That’s when I notice the bruises on her arm. She sees it in my eyes and rolls down her sleeve. Even though Olivia has never been and will never be my favorite person, I feel bad for her all of a sudden.

  “You should get out of here,” I say. “Why don’t you leave him?”

  Her eyes turn moist. I can tell she is terrified just by the thought.

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried? I love your brother. I wanted to leave the general for him. It was more than just a fling to me. Blake was…well…it doesn’t matter anymore. There is no way out for me. Now you must go before they get here.”

  I rise to my feet. I walk towards the door when I turn and look at her again. “If you planted the evidence that framed my brother, then who killed Jamilla Jenkins?”

  Olivia shakes her head. “I don’t know. Now, please. Leave.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  September 2015

  I walk back to the car and get in. Everything inside of me is pumping like crazy. I feel so angry, yet so frustrated at the same time.

  “What happened?” Joey asks. He puts down the phone. I can tell he has been playing Candy Crush. Salter is on his iPad. My pulse is throbbing in my throat. I feel like crying. Or screaming. Maybe both.

  “He was framed,” I say. “Olivia told me they framed him. She was in on it. Because of the affair. The general has it in for my brother and he has got the police working for him.”

  “Wow. That was a lot of information you got from that brief meeting,” Joey says.

  I sigh. “Yes, but what can I use it for? If the police have decided that Blake is guilty, they’ll make sure to prove it. They have all the evidence in the world. And there is no way I am ever going to get Olivia to tell the truth in a courtroom. The woman was terrified just to talk to me. Yet, she is the only one who knows the real story.” I hit my hand a few times hard on the dashboard. “Damn you, Blake!”

  Joey puts a hand on my shoulder like he always used to when I was upset.

  “I don’t want to calm down,” I say to him. “I am entitled to be angry. He messed with the wrong people, Joey. And now he is paying the price. But it’s a price that is much too high. It’ll end up killing him. And there is nothing I can do to help him.”

  “So, if they planted the evidence, then who killed the girl?” Joey asks all of a sudden.

  “That’s what I asked,” I say. “Olivia said she doesn’t know. I believe her. She’s a bad liar.”

  “So, let me get this straight. They had Olivia plant the chisel, but what about the witness? They had her lie too?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, sure. She’s an army girl too. They’re all in on it.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Sure. Jamie Barley, why?”

  “Why not pay her a visit while we’re here? There’s a guy walking over there. I bet he knows where she lives.”

  Before I can protest, Joey jumps out of the car and runs to a man in uniform. I think about what Olivia said about the general having people everywhere. If that is true, then this guy is probably one of them. Joey talks to him and I watch as they chitchat. I can tell by Joey’s body language that he is getting what he wants. He smiles when he returns to the car.

  “She lives further down the road and to the right. I got the address,” he says, and gets in.

  We drive down the road and find the address. I walk up to the door and ring the doorbell. I can’t help but look around me constantly. I feel like there are eyes on me everywhere.

  The door is opened immediately. But it is not Jamie Barley that is in the doorway. It’s a man. A uniformed man.

  “Hi. I’m looking for Jamie Barley,” I say, trying to sound like I’m not terrified, but my eyes give me away. I smile awkwardly. The guy is quite intimidating. He looks at me and doesn’t smile back. He grabs my arm and leans over and speaks with a very low voice, almost a whisper, in my ear.

  “If you know what’s best for you, you get the hell out of here. You are not welcome here. Go back to your son, your dog, and husband and take them with you back to New York before it’s too late.”

  He lets go of my arm and I gasp because it hurts so badly. Now he smiles. Widely.

  “A message from the general,” he adds.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  September 2015

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  I get in the car and avoid looking at Joey.

  “What happened? You’re all pale,” he says.

  I shake my head. “I…I think I was just threatened by someone working for the general.”

  Joey turns the engine over and starts driving. I can’t figure out what I am feeling. I am angry. I am so angry I could explode, but I am also terrified. I have never been threatened like that before. If it was only me, it would be different, but I have responsibilities. I have to think about my child. Still, I have to help Blake, right? I can’t leave him like this.

  I have no idea what to do. Where to go from here.

  “So, I take it you didn’t get to talk to Jamie Barley?” Joey says, as we leave the housing quarters. I am sweating heavily. I feel so paranoid, thinking they are watching us, watching our every move.

  “No,” I say. “Only the guy that said he had a message from the general. He basically told us to leave town because we weren’t safe or welcome here. It scared the crap out of me. He even knew we lived in New York. And that we had a dog. Look, I still have goose bumps and I’m not cold. On the contrary, I’m sweating.”

  Joey hits his hand onto the dashboard in anger. “I shouldn’t have let you go in there alone. I knew it. I just knew it. They can’t do this to you. They can’t threaten you like that. I just wanna…I wanna go back and…Scaring you like that. Who do these people think they are?”

  “Well, in here, they’re the people in charge. But they’re not getting to me. I might be leaving the base, but I am not going anywhere. I am not stopping. I will find out what happened to Jamilla Jenkins and have my brother acquitted. I feel more determined than ever. After what Olivia told me, there is no doubt in my heart that my brother is innocent, and I will do whatever it takes to prove it,” I say, as we approach the exit of the base.

  We have to wait in a line to get out. Soldiers are picking out random cars for a more thorough check. Making sure people don’t take out anything they’re not supposed to.

  Joey looks at me while we wait for it to be our turn. I can tell he is scared. “You’re not doing this alone,” he says. “I’ll be with you, and I am sure the rest of the crew will as well.”

  “Me too, Mom,” I hear Salter say, just as the soldier at the gate points at our car and pulls us aside. They ask us to get out because they are doing a random search and our car has been chosen.

  Yeah right! Random!

  We wait while they split the car to pieces. They even take out the seats. I have to really focus to keep calm. I want to tell them how I feel about all this, but Joey’s arm around my shoulder keeps me from doing it. I look at him and he smiles from ear to ear and thanks the soldiers for doing their duty. I want to pull his hair out, but know that he is right. That it is the only way to go about this, even though I hate it. This is the
ir territory, and they have the power to make us wait all day if they like.

  It takes forty-five minutes before they are done and we can finally leave the base. I feel a huge relief as we drive out into A1A, where it no longer feels like a thousand eyes are constantly examining us.

  I still have this feeling of extreme unease as we drive back into Cocoa Beach. We stop at the gas station and buy some candy for Salter and me. I am in desperate need of something sweet to make me feel better. I buy a bag of chips as well, and some sodas for later. Joey fills up the car while Salter and I fill up on goodies. I open a chocolate bar right away while we walk back to the car. Sirens are wailing and a huge fire truck drives past us on A1A. Joey points.

  “Looks like there’s a big fire somewhere,” he says.

  I see the smoke in the distance, but take no further notice of it. Neither does Salter or Joey. We get in the car and drive off. As we get further up A1A, we realize the fire is getting closer. As we reach 10th Street, my heart drops and I stop breathing.

  “Oh, my God,” Joey exclaims. “The fire. It’s at your dad’s house! The fire is in your father’s house!”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  March 1992

  Ally looks to AK for a signal, a sign, anything to tell her what to do. Mary Mills is standing at the top of the stairs looking down at them. She has seen them, but still she is not saying anything. It’s like she and AK are staring at each other, sizing each other up.

  Ally is waiting for Mary to scream and for AK to run, but nothing happens. They are just staring at each other. Does Mary know it is AK? Does she recognize her behind the mask?

  “What do you want?” Mary finally asks.

  AK doesn’t answer. She is staring at Mary, her body trembling. It’s like she is paralyzed. Ally has never seen her like this before.