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

by Willow Rose

  “I know,” she told her friends. “I know it’s going to be hard, but it’s what I want. I want to move on with my life. I hope John will understand. And I hope you will too.”

  She could tell by the look on her friends’ faces that they didn’t. They didn’t want to. They all enjoyed their lives and didn’t like the way she was suddenly questioning hers. It was written all over their faces.

  We thought you were one of us.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  January 2015

  He was looking at her through the window of his truck. Melanie was her name. She was beautiful. Everything about her was so intoxicating. The Snakecharmer had been observing her for quite a while…months, actually. She and her friends always went to the same place for lunch on Wednesdays with their babies in their strollers. They ate Cobb salads and drank white wine while talking. The same procedure every Wednesday.

  Her long painted fingernails were playing with her hair while she spoke to her friends in the parking lot outside the restaurant. They were saying their goodbyes. He rolled down his window and peeked out.

  “Hey there,” he said. “Can I give you girls a ride anywhere?”

  They looked at one another and laughed. “In that thing?” one asked with a shiver.

  The three of them shook their heads. The condescending look on their faces was saying, Who does he think he is? Why is he talking to us?

  The Snakecharmer laughed. He pulled his arm inside the window.

  “All right, ladies. Suit yourselves.”

  He backed out of the parking lot and drove off with a grin on his face. He watched them shake their heads in his rearview mirror before he drove onto the street, took a right turn, then took a small street down and ended up in front of a big house in a nice neighborhood. He stopped the engine.

  Then he waited.

  Minutes later, he spotted the woman driving down the street in her brown Audi. She parked the car in the driveway and got out on her high heels. She grabbed the baby from the back seat and placed him on her hip. He smiled and watched her from afar. Such a gorgeous woman with such a perfect life. Such a shame.

  “Yes, that’s right. I know where you live, little bitch. I know everything about you.”

  He waited till she walked inside her house before he got out of the car, then he walked into the neighbor’s yard, crawled over the wall, and landed in her yard. He knew his way around. He walked up to the back porch with the pool area and watched her through the large windows as she put the baby in a playpen. He hid while watching her open the sliding doors leading to the yard to let the cat out, leaving them open.

  It was almost too easy.

  He didn’t have to wait long before the car drove up. He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock.

  “Right on time, as usual, Your Honor,” he mumbled, as he watched the judge get out of his black Cadillac Escalade and trot up the driveway wearing his black suit. He was looking over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him. Lucky for him, the driveway was surrounded by big walls, just as the entire house was. People always thought they were protecting themselves by putting up walls around their property, when in reality, they just made it easier for people like the Snakecharmer to act without risk of being seen.

  He heard the doorbell ring, then the door open, and soon he saw the judge and the woman cuddled up in a warm embrace against the wall of the foyer.

  He watched them through the big windows on the porch. “I guess this court is now in session,” he whispered. “The Honorable Judge Martin presiding.”

  As usual, he could see everything they did. As usual, he could follow their every move when the judge pulled up her skirt and threw her up against the wall. When she pulled down his pants and took him in her mouth. When he lifted her up and threw her on the dining room table and entered her from behind. Yes, everything up until now was just as usual on a Wednesday afternoon in Cocoa Beach.

  But after this, nothing would be as usual for the two of them again.

  The Snakecharmer picked up his gun, walked towards the sliding door, and walked inside. While he could hear the two of them moaning and groaning in the living room, on the couch, he crept up behind them, placed a gun to the judge’s head and fired while yelling.

  “All rise!!”

  The woman beneath the judge screamed, terrified when the blood spurted into her face, then again when she spotted the familiar face above the lifeless body. The baby had woken up and was crying in his playpen.

  “W…what…who…why…?” the woman stuttered, thinking somehow this must be a misunderstanding; somehow, he must have gotten it all wrong. She stared with disbelief at his face, waiting for some kind of explanation, but was struck with terror as she saw the dark chill in his eyes.

  “Shhh…” he whispered, then stroked her beautiful face gently with his fingers. A small whimper emerged from her mouth. A tear escaped her eye. He caught it with his finger and looked at it. Then he picked up a pillow. He smiled at her with compassion and excitement, right before he forced it against her lips. She tried to fight him off with all her strength, but with no success. Her painted fingernails pierced through the skin on his arm.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  January 2015

  The Snakecharmer wrapped the body of Melanie into a blanket, then carried it out to his truck and put her in the back. Drago and Django hissed in their glass tank.

  “Easy there, boys,” he grinned. “This is Melanie. She will be riding with us today.”

  He grabbed a gas can, closed the back of the truck, and walked back to the house. He had driven the car into the driveway and closed the gate. No one would ever see him, and even if they did, they wouldn’t wonder why he was there.

  The Snakecharmer whistled as he walked back to the house with the can in his hand. Today was one of the good days. He had considered leaving something for the detectives to chew on. Something like lipstick painted on a mirror with a message or a note, but had decided that wasn’t his thing. It was too risky. He wanted them to know he was the master. He was the one in charge, and if he started leaving little notes behind, then they would just end up tracking him down. And that wasn’t part of his plan.

  No, he had come up with something much better.

  He walked inside and looked at the dead judge on the carpet. Bloodstains had completely ruined the light couch. He poured gasoline on the body of Judge Martin, then saluted him respectfully with a large grin before he grabbed his lighter and set him on fire. Still grinning, he walked to the playpen where the baby was crying. The Snakecharmer smiled at the young child, who was eager to be picked up and reaching his arms in the air. The Snakecharmer tilted his head while the heat from the flames behind him licked at his neck.

  “Now, isn’t that adorable?” he said.

  The baby cried louder, still reaching up his arms. He smiled, then bent down and picked him up, right before he rushed out of the burning house.

  He put the child in the passenger seat of the truck and strapped him down, then opened the gate and raced out of the driveway. Once he reached the end of the road, he heard a loud explosion behind him, and with a grin on his face, he watched the house go up in flames in the rearview mirror.

  He imitated the sound of the explosion with his mouth, then looked at the child in the back.

  “Mama?” the child said with a whimper.

  The man shook his head. “No. Not mama. Dada. Can you say that? Dada? Mama is gone. She left us, Son. You know how it is. It’s always the children that get hurt.”

  He stopped at a red light. A police car drove up on his side. The Snakecharmer pretended he didn’t notice. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the officer in the car. He was eating something while looking at the resorts to his right.

  He didn’t even look at the truck.

  The man chuckled to himself, then looked at the baby. “They make it almost too easy.”

  While waiting for the light to turn, the man could tell the police officer go
t news over the radio. He looked perplexed, then put on the siren and tried to get out of the line of traffic. The Snakecharmer backed up to make room for the officer and let him drive through.

  “Almost too easy,” he repeated, as he watched the car disappear in the opposite direction down A1A and heard the many sirens approaching in the distance. “What do you say…Will?”

  Yes, that’s it. He looks like a Will.

  The kid didn’t react. He had stopped crying, though. Fire trucks and ambulances were blasting by in the opposite direction.

  “Will it is, then.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  January 1985

  She had the baby. It took thirty-two hours of labor to get him out, but she had the baby. And Victor was right there all the time, holding her hand, wiping her forehead with a cold cloth, taking her aggressive comments, and loving her when she needed it.

  He was there for her through everything.

  When he came to take her and their son home, he told her he had a surprise for her.

  “You’re driving the wrong way,” she said. “Our condo is in the opposite part of town.”

  “I told you I had a surprise,” he said with a grin.

  Annie really tried to like his smile, but his teeth were so crooked and yellow from too much coffee. His parents were loaded; why didn’t he just get them fixed?

  Lying in the hospital with her newborn, resting for days, regaining her strength, Annie had decided that if she was going to live with this man for the rest of her life, then she would have to try and make the best of what she had. At least he adored her. Maybe she could change him. People changed. She could get him to have his teeth done, she could get him to stop eating things that smelled bad, maybe use a better cologne. She could change the way he dressed. That was what women did, wasn’t it? It had been done before, so of course she could.

  They came closer to a gated neighborhood and Victor drove up to the booth. A uniformed man came out. When he saw Victor, he lifted his cap and opened the gate.

  “Does he know you?” Annie asked.

  Victor couldn’t stop grinning. It didn’t make him prettier. “He’ll get to know you too. Soon.”

  Annie drew her brows together. What was this? Were they going to visit someone? Was he just showing her and the baby off? Because, if that was the case, then she certainly wasn’t up for it.

  “Victor…I don’t think…”

  Victor stopped her, then parked the car in front of a big house. Annie looked at it through the window. It was huge. No, it was humongous. And so beautiful. It looked just like a house she had once seen in a magazine.

  “Who lives here?” she asked.

  “Don’t you recognize it?” he asked.

  “It looks like…”

  Victor pulled out the magazine and showed her. “One and the same,” he said, smiling from ear to ear.

  “You found the same house? How did you know? Why?” Annie asked, still not understanding what was going on.

  “Yes. You showed it to me. Don’t you remember? You said it was the most beautiful house you had ever seen.”

  “But…but that was months ago. How did you…remember?” Annie asked. Her voice was shivering.

  “Nothing is too good for my baby,” Victor said.

  Annie’s heart dropped. Could it be? What was he saying? “Do…do you mean…?”

  No, it can’t be!

  Victor nodded, smiling from ear to ear. “Yes, darling. I bought it for you.”

  Annie found it hard to breathe. She couldn’t believe what he was saying. Instead of saying anything, she shrieked and woke up the baby in the back seat.

  “Oh, my God, Victor!”

  She leaned over and kissed him, and for once, didn’t care about his bad teeth or smell. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I love you, Victor!”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  January 2015

  It looked like the end of the world. I could hardly believe my own eyes when I arrived at the scene on Country Club Road. It was late in the afternoon. Flames were still licking the sky. The heat was unbearable. Luckily, the wind carried the smoke out over the Banana River.

  It had taken the firefighters hours to get the fire under control and make sure it wasn’t threatening the neighboring houses. The fire still wasn’t entirely put out, but at least it was contained. Neighbors had gathered in the street, watching the scene with terror in their eyes.

  “That poor family,” they whispered.

  Usually, I was never called out to fires, but Weasel had asked me to come down. I was glad I had asked my mom to pick up the twins.

  “So, they got it under control, I hear?” I said.

  Weasel nodded. She was wearing her hair in a ponytail today. It looked great. “Took a while, but yes. The entire house burned down, though. They can put it out, they say, but not save it.”

  I took in a deep breath. The family had lost everything, then. “So, why did you want to talk to me?”

  Weasel looked at her shoes, then up at me. “I spoke to the husband. He was on a business trip in Southern Florida. He got here an hour ago. He says his wife and child are missing. He’s been calling her. He talked to all of her friends, who she met with for lunch, and they said she went home. With the baby.”

  My heart stopped. “You think…you think they were in the house?”

  Weasel shrugged. “I don’t know what I think anymore. But I thought you should know.”

  I nodded. It was what they would call a suspicious death. That was my field. “Got it. Anything else I should know?”

  Weasel looked at me. “No. Go on home to those beautiful kids of yours. Kiss them from me, will you?”

  I chuckled. Weasel never had kids of her own. I often wondered if she regretted her decision.

  “Sure thing.” While I spoke, the firefighters finally managed to put out the last few flames. The spectators clapped, and so did I. They were the true heroes around here. First responders in most situations. They never knew what would await them when they arrived.

  “Chief!” I heard the Captain of the fire department yell, addressed to Weasel. He approached her, holding something between his hands. “We found this.”

  “A gas can,” I said. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the driveway. Next to that burnt out car over there.”

  “Was that the wife’s car?” I asked. “There seem to be two.”

  Weasel looked pensive. “The husband said she drove a brown Audi.”

  “That’s not a brown car,” I said. “Anyone can see that, even from where we’re standing. It might have been burned, but that car was black.”

  I walked closer and spotted the license plate. It was still sitting in its place. I kneeled next to it, careful not to step on anything. Weasel was behind me.

  “Could you run this plate for me, please?” I asked.

  “Sure thing.” Weasel grabbed her radio and ran the plate. Then she looked at me while shaking her head. “It belongs to Judge Pete Martin.” Weasel went pale. “What the…what is Judge Martin’s car doing here?”

  “Maybe he was visiting?”

  “You think he was in there as well? Oh, my God.” Weasel clasped her face. I couldn’t blame her for being upset. “What the heck is going on around here?” she asked, looking at me like I had an answer for everything.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I can tell you one thing. Someone set this house on fire. And that someone wanted us to know it was on purpose.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  January 2015

  Weasel and I drove in my Jeep together to get to Judge Martin’s house. He lived in one of the newer houses in Cocoa Isles, overlooking the Thousand Islands. His wife opened the door.

  “Mrs. Martin?” I asked and showed her my badge.

  “Yes?” She looked from me to Weasel and back. The terror was in her eyes. It seemed like she already suspected something was wrong. “Weslie? What’s going on here?”

  “We�
��re looking for Pete,” Weasel said.

  “He’s not here. He was supposed to be home hours ago. I called his cell, but…” she stopped herself. Her eyes were flickering back and forth between us. “Did something happen?”

  “We don’t know yet, ma’am,” I said. “But we did locate his car.”

  “His car? Where?”

  I took in a deep breath. Weslie was personal friends with the judge and his wife. It was best if I told her. I didn’t have emotions involved. “It was parked in the driveway of a house that burned down this afternoon. We still don’t…”

  I didn’t get any further before she broke down and cried. “Oh, no!” She clasped her mouth. “I mean, I heard the sirens…I watched it on TV. The news chopper showed everything. I wondered…I knew…”

  “Could you tell us what your husband might be doing there?” I asked.

  “He…he…he was visiting…he thought I didn’t know, but I did. It has been going on for months. I let him. Thought he would figure out that he wasn’t really missing out on anything, that he had all he needed at home, if you understand what I mean…It wasn’t like it was his first. He always comes back…he always…oh, my…if you’ll excuse me, I need to…sit down.”

  I grabbed her arm before she fell and helped her inside the hallway. I found a chair and helped her sit down.

  “Just take it easy, Mrs. Martin,” I said. “We don’t know that anything has happened to him yet.”

  Weasel held her hand while Mrs. Martin sobbed, then bit her lip to hold it back. “It’s all my fault. I should have stood up to him. I should have told him I knew. Told him to end it as soon as I found out. I even drove over there to see her. She was gorgeous. And so much younger than me. How was I supposed to compete? All I could do was to give him a stable home to come back to and hope he would know not to throw that away, you know?”

  I exhaled. “I know,” I said. “You did the best you could.”