“The second move is the booty shake. Now this move actually starts in your feet. You want to alternate bending your knee while lifting your heel then straighten your leg, placing your heel back on the floor, and repeat on the other leg. Once you get the feet and legs down, put a little hip action in it. Again start slow, and then once you get the feel, go ahead and speed up. Did you all see how that works?
“The last move I want to show you is the walk down. Feet shoulder-width apart, legs straight. Put a small bend in your back and tilt your booty up. Then, starting at your hips, using your hands, walk down your legs as far as you can. If you can make it all the way to the floor, great. If not, just stop at your thighs. That’s fine too. Wherever you end up, just drop or dip your booty down then, chest first, body-roll back up.”
All the women began practicing without Lily even having to prompt them to. “Great! Good job, ladies. Let me just get some music on.”
As she was walking back to turn her iPod back on, she heard a phone ringing. It had the same ring that landlines used to have. She ignored it and kept walking. It was probably one of the students who had that old-fashioned ring as their ringtone.
She pressed play and music filled the air. She turned back and everyone was practicing. Some definitely had their favorite move and were just doing it over and over. Some were practicing all three. She noticed that Amanda and Karina had started making up their own routine. It was really good too.
Lily was trying to concentrate on the class but was a little distracted when she kept hearing the ringing sound. When the music stopped, the ringing didn’t.
“Does anyone know whose phone that is?” Lily asked the class, hoping someone would cop to it and just go take the call outside.
“I think it’s the landline,” Sue Ann said as she shuffled over to a little alcove next to the window and picked up a phone that, in all the time Lily had spent in this room rehearsing with Karina, she’d never noticed.
“Community Center, this is Sue Ann.”
Sue Ann’s cheery tone reminded Lily of another reason why she loved it here. In other places, if a dance class had been interrupted, people would have been mad or at the very least irritated. Not here. Everyone just waited patiently while Sue Ann took care of it.
“I don’t think so.” Sue Ann’s brow furrowed as she looked around the room. “Let me just ask to be on the safe side. Is there a Karla here?” Sue Ann covered the phone and spoke a little louder. “Karla? Is there a Karla here?”
Lily froze. She felt like all of the blood in her body was draining out of her. Her face began tingling and her hands went completely numb. She stared at the phone in Sue Ann’s hand in disbelief as she tried to calm her racing heart.
“Sorry, no one here by that name.” Sue Ann happily returned the phone to the receiver and shuffled back to her spot.
Lily felt everyone’s eyes on her, waiting for instruction, and she knew she had to stay calm and not panic. But she wasn’t calm and she was definitely panicking.
The next thing she knew, Karina was by her side. “Are you okay, Lily? You look a little pale.”
Lily did her best to nod as Karina handed her some water. Taking the moment she had while she took a sip of the water, she used every last ounce of strength she could muster to pull herself together. She couldn’t alarm anyone. Couldn’t draw any attention to herself.
Somehow she managed to put a smile on her face as she set the water bottle down. Thankfully she’d taught Burlesque 101 more times than she could count so she could recite the instructions in her sleep. “Okay, ladies, let’s try that again. This time, make sure you practice more than one move.”
All the women gave her strange looks but she just continued to smile warmly as she pressed the play button on her iPod. As everyone began to get back into the dancing and the attention was no longer on her, she took a moment to lean back against the wall.
Her mind was racing a mile a minute. Someone had found her. But who? Who was still looking for her?
It didn’t matter. She needed to leave. Start over.
Tears began to form in her eyes so she shut them. She had to be strong. No tears. No fear. There was no room for weakness or second-guessing.
She felt a vibration on her leg and looked down to see that her phone was going off in her bag. She watched her hand lower and pull it out of her bag as if it were someone else controlling her movements.
Looking down, she saw that it was a Hope Falls area code, but she didn't recognize the number.
Oh, God.
She needed to move. She had to leave town. Whoever it was was here in Hope Falls and they’d found her.
Her thinking was sharper now. She needed to leave the room without drawing unnecessary attention to herself. She had to go. Now!
She took a deep breath. No need to panic—at least not yet. She didn't know, not for sure. She should just answer the call.
“Hello,” she whispered weakly.
Then a man’s voice she didn’t recognize cut through her panicked state of shock, uttering the words she had been dreading since that fateful night full of gunshots and screams so many years ago.
His cheerful tone as he smoothly delivered the deceptively innocuous line conveyed more menace than any overt threat could have possibly done, and—for the first time in years—Lily felt her blood run ice cold.
Her hand gripped the phone and she closed her eyes in resignation as she heard the words.
“Hi, Karla. How ya been?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eric drummed his fingers on his desk, trying to stay awake as he went over the quarterly budget. He just couldn’t keep his eyes open. He’d been on patrol the last two nights.
From the looks of the budget, it was a good thing he had been. He’d posted up behind the Sue Ann’s Café sign, the last bit of civilization before the road became deserted and winding, and he had pulled over at least ten vehicles per night and issued them citations. With the budget looking this dire, hell, every ticket helped.
Rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hands, he decided that he was going to need some serious caffeinated assistance if he was going to make it through his shift. He pushed back in his rolling chair and stood from his desk. Just as he was stepping around it, the intercom buzzed.
“Chief Maguire.”
He sighed as his head dropped back. He just wanted his coffee fix.
“Yes, Jill.”
“There’s a…Sully for you on line thre—”
Before she even finished speaking, he’d picked up the phone and pressed the line next to four, which was the one that was blinking. “Hey, Sully. What’s the word?”
He didn’t know why he was so nervous. He knew Lily now. Maybe not her past, but he knew her and he loved her. Sully couldn’t give him any information that would change that. But still, his heart pounded so hard he thought he might crack a rib.
“Maguire, how well do you know this girl?”
“What did you find?” Eric just wanted to know. He didn’t want to play twenty questions.
“I just e-mailed you the report. Lily Sotelo, age 26, was born Karla Liliana Perez in Queens, NY. The basics are mother died at three and she was placed in multiple foster homes until the age of twelve. Removed from several for suspected child abuse. Then she bounced around in group homes until the age of sixteen. That's when it gets weird.”
“Weird how?” Eric heard himself asking, as if from a distance. He was torn between feeling his heart break for what poor Lily had been through as a child and desperate curiosity at what Sully would consider 'weird.'
“Well, that's when she was taken into WITSEC.”
“What?!” Eric roared, his heart beating faster. WITSEC was the nation's Witness Protection program. In order to qualify, her life must have been in serious danger from some very bad people. Damn! No wonder she was so easily startled!
Unfazed, Sully continued. “She remained in witness protection until two years ago, when the US Marshal’s
office released her from the program, citing zero threat to informant.”
“What?!” Eric repeated, stunned. He could not believe what he was hearing. How had Lily—or…Karla—been through everything that Sully was laying out and come out so amazing?
It had to be a mistake. Could that be it? Could Sully have the wrong person?
“Yeah, l know it’s crazy,” Sully said, his flat tone of voice a contrast to his words. “Look, I've got a shit-ton of work backing up on my desk, so read my report and call me if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Sully.”
“No problem, man.”
Eric opened his email and clicked on the attachment. As it came up on the screen, Eric was still having a hard time processing what he was reading.
Karla Perez aka Jillian Reyes aka Melody Rios aka Sylvia Morales aka Eva Valdez aka Lily Sotelo.
Holy shit!
As he read over the specifics of what Sully had laid out, his heart felt like it was breaking inside his chest. There were several pictures of Lily or Karla as a child, taken by case workers. She looked so small and vulnerable. She’d been shuttled around more times than Eric could count at a glance
He felt sick and angry. She’d had no one. No one to protect her. No one to keep her safe. No one.
She’d made good grades in school up until her junior year with no disciplinary problems. Then there were notes from her counselor, alleging that Karla had started running with a bad crowd.
He kept scrolling and saw a police report stating that she had been a witness to a murder and escaped by stabbing the assailant and running to a neighbor for help.
When he saw the assailant’s name, he stopped breathing. It was Rico Giordano head of the Giordano crime family.
Eric had just graduated from the Police Academy when news had broken about Giordano’s arrest. It had made national headlines. He even knew that they’d locked him away on a first-degree murder charge.
Why the hell would they discharge Lily from witness protection if she was an eye witness in that case?
Scanning down farther, he saw that the Giordano crew had basically disbanded after he’d died in prison and now it looked like the rest of his crew had died or turned state’s evidence and were in a WITSEC prison facility.
Then he got to pictures of the crime and glimpsed Giordano’s arrest photo. He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to see if he was hallucinating. He wasn’t.
Grabbing his ticket pad, he flipped through several before he got to the one needed. Quickly he typed in the New Jersey license in his database.
It took the program only seconds to come back with an image, but they were the longest seconds of his life. As the screen filled, he saw that he had given a ticket to the spitting image of Rico Giordano last night. He’d pulled over Giovanni Rizzo, twenty years old, from Brooklyn, New York.
He searched his database for Giovanni’s birth certificate. After several minutes, a scanned copy from the DMV appeared on his screen. Eric quickly skimmed to find what he needed. There.
Birth Father: Rico Giordano
Fuck!
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lily drove until she was about a mile out of town before pulling over. She jumped out of her Jeep and ran to the back, popping her hatch. She moved her blanket aside and didn’t see anything.
Her trunk was empty. It was gone. No, it couldn’t be gone!
Eric!
He must have taken in her in-case-of-emergency bag one of the times he was unloading her car. Her throat closed as panic overwhelmed her. She felt herself getting dizzy.
Stop! she commanded herself. She absolutely could not lose it. She had to think. That bag had everything. A whole new identity. Birth Certificate. Passport. License. Cash.
She could call Agent Stone, but he was the only person who knew she’d relocated. What if he had something to do with this? Plus, they’d already discharged her from WITSEC, so there was a chance they wouldn’t even take this seriously.
She remembered her protocol. No second-guessing. Quick decisions.
Okay, she had to get that bag. It was her only option. Which meant she had to go back to her house.
Jumping back in her car, she flipped a U-turn and sped past the Welcome to Hope Falls sign on the side of the road. She fought tears as panic, fear, and sadness all volleyed for the top spot in her mind.
She couldn’t feel right now. She just had to think. She knew going back to her house was a risk, but she had no other play to make. If she didn’t get that bag, she couldn’t start over.
As she drove, her mind started flipping through places she would go like a slideshow. She’d done her research over the last two years since she’d been on her own, and she thought the most logical, safe move was to leave the country. She just needed to decide where.
She turned onto Pine Tree Circle and everything seemed calm. She scanned the area. There was nothing out of place. No strange cars.
She sped quickly up her driveway, threw the car in park, and ran to the door. She could hear Shadow barking from next door. He had begun doing that every time she came home because he wanted to come next door and see her.
Ignoring his barks, she unlocked her front door and rushed into her house, trying to think where Eric would have put a bag. She checked the front closet. Nothing. The hall closet. Nothing.
As she stepped into the bedroom, she screamed when she saw that her window was broken and glass was everywhere.
Turning to run, she felt arms come around her and drag her backwards.
No!
She screamed. She kicked. She would not go down without a fight!
Suddenly, she felt something covering her mouth, filling her nostrils with a rancid odor. She shook her head violently, trying to escape the foul-smelling cloth, but soon felt the fight draining out of her. Her movements became slower, and she sensed herself being lowered to the floor.
She felt hot breath on her neck and heard a low chuckle in her ear. Revulsion roared through her, but she couldn't summon the will to do anything about it.
“Hello, Karla.” She heard the oily, smooth voice from the phone whisper in her ear. “I've been waiting a long time for this. You and me? Oh, yeah. We're gonna have some fun.”
And that, mercifully, was the last thing she was aware of before everything went black.
---~---
Eric turned on his sirens as he raced to the Community Center. He knew Lily was teaching a class there. He’d kept trying her phone but she wasn’t picking up.
He’d told Jill to call the US Marshal’s office and tell them that Rico Giordano’s son was here and that Eric believed it was because he was coming after Karla Perez aka Lily Sotelo.
Eric screeched up to the front of the Community Center and looked for Lily’s Jeep but didn’t see it. He ran into the building almost, blowing right past Karina’s security. “Smith, is Lily here?”
“No, sir. She left about thirty minutes ago. Said she wasn’t feeling well.”
Shit!
Eric turned and felt like he was moving through quicksand as he ran back to his SUV. Everything seemed like it was going in slow motion.
Speeding out of the parking lot, he called in an APB for both Lily’s and Rizzo’s cars.
This couldn’t be happening! He couldn’t lose her! He had so much adrenaline racing through his body that he felt like he was going to explode. He knew he had to keep himself together.
He had to find her. She had to be okay.
Pulling onto his street, he saw that Lily’s Jeep was haphazardly parked in her driveway with the driver’s door open.
Pressing the clip on his shoulder, he called out, “This is Maguire. I need backup at 435 Pine Tree Circle.”
Blood pounded in his head as he slammed on his brakes, jumping out of the car.
The only sound Eric heard was Shadow barking his head off from his own backyard. Moving up the brick path of Lily’s house, gun drawn, he moved stealthily inside her wide-open front door.
> Hearing movement in the back bedroom, he crept down the hall, keeping his back pressed firmly against the wall. He paused outside the room, knowing that if he made a wrong move it could cost Lily her life.
He couldn’t get a visual of the room. He tried to use the bathroom mirror’s reflection but it only showed a small corner area.
He had no choice he had to go in blind.
Pushing the door open and stepping inside, he saw Rizzo straddling a broken window, trying to drag Lily’s unconscious body out through it.
“Let her go,” Eric commanded, his gun trained on Rizzo’s head.
“Oh shit.” Rizzo’s eyes flew to Eric's as he pulled Lily up higher and put a gun to her head. “Move and she dies.”
Eric didn’t have a clean shot. “Drop the weapon, Rizzo.”
Rizzo’s eyes were wild, and the hand he held the gun with shook. “I mean it! I’ve wanted to kill this bitch for ten years. I’ll do it! I’ll kill her.”
“Drop the gun, Rizzo.”
Eric knew backup was on the way. He just had to keep talking to him. Maybe if he moved to the side he could get a clear shot. He took a small step to the left.
“Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot.”
Eric saw Rizzo’s finger shake on the trigger with the barrel pressed up against Lily’s temple. He had to get that gun away from him. One twitch and Lily would be gone.
Rage rioted through him. She was so close and yet he still couldn’t protect her.
Eric heard distant sounds of sirens, and he knew his backup was close. But would they get there in time?
Rizzo’s eyes widened at the sound of sirens getting louder. “Fuck it! If I’m going to jail, I’m killing this bitch first.” His hand tilted up and Eric saw his index finger tighten.
“No!” Eric lunged forward just as Shadow jumped through the window, biting Rizzo’s wrist. A gun shot rang out. Eric landed on top of Lily, covering her body.
Looking down at her, he did a quick scan and saw that she wasn’t bleeding. Then, lifting his head, he saw no sign of Rizzo or Shadow. Pulling Lily against the wall, he crouched below the window, rising up slowly, gun drawn.
Snow Angel (The Hope Falls Chronicles) Page 21
