House of V

by Raen Smith

  “So what’s the deal? Do you think that guy has Sister Josephine?” Mark’s question snapped me back.

  “No, I don’t think he does. He seemed genuinely surprised to see me. In awe, actually,” I said as I looked out the passenger window again. The landscape was quickly changing as the downtown vanished behind us. I closed my eyes, envisioning the rolling waves of the sea to my right, however I wouldn’t hear the soft crashes of the water lapping to shore here in Appleton. Instead, I opened my eyes to the flat landscape filled with houses. A landscape without Ryan.

  “You take a lot of men by surprise,” Mark said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “I guess you could say that,” I replied. Mark’s banter edged into our conversation with ease even though I hadn’t wanted it to. I listened to Mark’s small taps on the wheel as I thought of Ryan. How he would never take me back. How I would never see him again. How much better off he would be without me. How much I wanted nothing else than to be with him.

  “So what’s the plan?” Mark asked as his fingers finally rested against the wheel

  “I thought you didn’t want to be involved at all?” I mused.

  “You’re right, I don’t, but I do want to know what the hell you are going to be doing tomorrow. I don’t want you trying to drag my pregnant sister into all this,” he said.

  “That club is holding a convention tomorrow night, and I was invited as a guest of honor,” I said with a slight bow of my head, ignoring his comment about Delaney. I wasn’t going to stop her from getting involved; it was her decision, not mine. We both knew that.

  “Congratulations. How did you pull that off?”

  “Just did. So I’ll be going to that, but I’ll have to talk strategy with Sanchez in the morning. I don’t know that they can hold every single person there for questioning, but we’ve got to try something. One of those sick bastards has to have Sister Josephine. I think we’ll have to do some investigative work in the morning, make a few stops. Delaney mentioned the cottage wasn’t sold yet,” I said. The beautiful sandy beaches of Lake Michigan popped into my head. It wasn’t quite Norway, but Lake Michigan did have its own vastness that I used to love. That memory was now tarnished with the vision of Ethan taking his last breaths to protect me. Everyone around me suffered because of me. I couldn’t let that happen anymore.

  “No, not yet. We haven’t even really touched it, to be honest. We needed a break,” Mark replied. “With Delaney being pregnant and all, it was time to hold off on a few things. It’s been a pretty difficult year.”

  “That’s a gross understatement.”

  “But we’re moving past it,” Mark said softly. “Are you?”

  “I was. I thought I was doing pretty well until that pregnant sister of yours brought me here. By the way, you have her to thank for your special house guest,” I said, throwing the hat on the seat between us.

  “I’ll be sure to do that. You should keep the hat. It looked good on you,” Mark replied.

  “I’m not really a Packer fan.” I shrugged it off and tried to avoid the game that I didn’t want to fall into. Mark was making it difficult, but I had a job to do. I hated that he was edging in on me like this.

  “You can’t live in Wisconsin and not be a Packer fan. It’s impossible. A mortal sin, probably,” Mark laughed. “Have you ever been to Lambeau Field?”

  “No, and I don’t plan on going. How’s the company? Tell me more about it. As much as I hate to say this, I actually miss my old job,” I said, changing the subject to avoid the likely suggestion that I should go to a game with Mark. I didn’t need to spend any more time with Mark than I already was. “But I don’t miss my old boss, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” Mark replied, his voice softer again. “We miss having you there. Frank took your position, and he’s doing pretty well.”

  “Old Frank is a softie, but one hell of a guy,” I said. I had always liked Frank and had promoted him to Manager just a few months before I’d left. If there was anyone that was going to take over my job and do it well, it was Frank, and I was genuinely happy to hear that he had taken my position.

  “Not like you, though,” Mark said.

  God, Mark was making this hard.

  “You just always knew what to do. It’s almost as if you knew what was going to happen before it happened. Since you left, we’ve had more security breaches than I’d like to admit.”

  “He’ll figure it out. Plus, it’s not like I can come back or anything. I don’t think killing the boss was exactly the reputation I was looking for. Anyway, I’m not staying in Wisconsin.”

  “James said something about you having to stay here, I thought,” Mark said, sounding doubtful.

  “Just a year then I’m out,” I said. “I can’t stay here. There’s no place for me to go. I won’t be able to stand the stares and pointing. You know, anonymity is a beautiful thing. It really is.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Mark replied, pausing. The silence hung like a sweeping fog before he added, “But you can’t keep running forever, Evie.”

  I wish Mark would have told me something I didn’t already know.

  ***

  I crawled into Mark’s bed, feeling the cotton sheets rub against my bare skin, and inhaled the smell of him. It was different than Ryan’s, and it made me miss him more than I ever thought I would. I didn’t feel good lying in another man’s bed, however Mark had insisted that I take his bed while he slept on the floor in his office. He had turned the room into a workspace only weeks after Delaney had moved out to live with James. As I said good night, he had shut the door reluctantly.

  “Never going to happen,” I had said softly.

  “I know,” he had said. “But a guy can dream, right? We’re not related, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Believe me, I knew. Despite the pull of old feelings from Mark, I knew that as long as Ryan was still out there, I wouldn’t ever be able to let go of the hope that we could be together. I wanted him in my life, yet I couldn’t say the same about him. Like the coward I was, I had left him standing in the kitchen without telling him how much I loved him. Loving someone didn’t come easy to me.

  Delaney and James were already sound asleep in his spare bedroom, and Hobart was still wide awake on the couch flipping through channels. He had just completed a perimeter check after my insistence. He was on his second energy drink and had at least moved on from the bag of chips to an apple. I had eyed his holster and 9mm before I had wandered off to bed. He gave me a look any idiot could decipher, Don’t even think about it.

  What was everybody’s problem?

  I stared at the ceiling fan as its blades went round and round on the slowest speed. I wondered how I had found myself here, in Mark’s bed, the last place I’d envisioned myself to be just a few days ago. My life in Norway had been normalizing, as normal as you could get while being a fugitive. I had been blending in, and Ryan and I had been making a life together.

  I cursed myself for leaving and for coming to do what I had to do, but it was in my blood to take care of what needed to be done. I needed to make things right. Besides, I wondered if I was being called to be a guardian angel for Sister Josephine. I listened again, waiting to hear a voice that would guide me. Instead, the whirring of the fan lulled me. My now blue eyes grew tired until I couldn’t fight the heaviness anymore.

  Then I found myself in a wheat field, the summer sun beating against my back. Something urged me to turn around, a feeling of being pulled behind me. I looked down to see my black boots laced well past my ankles. I wanted to reach down to touch them, the rubber so comforting and soothing to me, but I resisted and succumbed to the urge behind me. My black dress fluttered in the wind as I turned and felt the familiar cotton against my skin.

  The bold sun shone in my eyes as I squinted to see the outline ahead of me. I put my hand up above my eyes, shielding the rays just enough to make out the house in front of me. It was a farmhouse exactly like the one
Holston had built in Amberg except it was older and smaller and not as vibrant or modern as the one he had built. Still, it was a faded white with a sunroom in the front of the home.

  The sound of laughter called me toward the house. I stepped through the wheat as it brushed against my skin. I held my hands out and let the tops of the wheat tickle my fingertips as I neared the house only a few feet away. Two identical toddler boys tore around the side of the house wearing the same exact jean overalls and plaid shirts. They laughed and poked at each other. Their warmth and energy revitalized me, calling me to come closer, and as I did, the boys turned toward me.

  Now I was only a few feet away. Their faces were so beautiful, unblemished and innocent, that I wanted to reach out to touch them. I watched my own hand extend toward them. I was closer now, only inches away to that peach skin when they suddenly disappeared. My hand fell forward into the empty space where they once were. I blinked my eyes and rubbed them hard, hoping that the boys would reappear.

  Instead, the sound of the front door shutting pulled my attention away from the beautiful boys. A woman bounced down the steps with curly blonde hair, her face hidden from me as her head bent down to move down toward me. Her dress was a flowing crimson that blew in the gentle breeze. And as she lifted her head, my heart pounded at the thought of seeing her face. A sweet voice echoed through the air as if she was almost singing. It was her. I would recognize that voice anywhere.

  Elizabeth.

  I wanted to run to her, but my legs wouldn’t move. They were planted firmly in the grass, my boots as heavy as rocks. I reached my hand out again, desperate to touch the red fabric. Elizabeth’s eyes looked at me, her face a golden white.

  “You better find him fast before Sister Josephine ends up the same way I did. Think, Evie. Who still wants you? Who wants you dead? Who wants revenge?”

  I reached my hand further as my fingers stretched as far as they would reach. I looked out at my own hand to see that my fingernails were a deep crimson, the same color as her dress. I glanced up to see her dress, but it had disappeared, just like the boys had. Soon, I was standing in the wheat field again, alone in the darkness of night. It dawned on me then, that the color that had soaked through Elizabeth’s dress and my fingernails was the color of blood.

  ***

  I woke up in a pool of sweat, my hair drenched and stuck to my neck like wet noodles. My eyelids flashed open to see the ceiling fan blades still spinning the methodic rotation just as they had been when I’d first fallen asleep. I pulled my hands from beneath the covers to check my fingernails, half expecting to see the bright flush of life on them, but instead, they were clear and unpainted. I let them fall back down on the blanket when I heard a startle from the other side of the room. My body shot up and the gasp caught in my throat as I saw Mark standing by the door.

  “It’s only me,” he said, holding up his hands as if I’d pull a gun from beneath the covers.

  “Jesus, Mark,” I said, falling back onto the pillow. His bed. I was in Mark’s bed.

  “You sleep okay? You were thrashing around a lot. I thought I heard something, so I came in here to check on you.”

  “I’m fine,” I said as my thoughts chased the images in my dream. The two perfect little boys in their overalls stayed with me; their laughter still rung in my ears. And Elizabeth in her beautiful dress looked at me with her sad eyes. Her words rolled through my head. Revenge.

  “Nightmare?”

  “A guardian angel,” I answered in a whisper as Mark moved forward to sit on the edge of the bed. He sat gingerly, as if the bed wasn’t his own.

  “You could use one of those right about now.” Mark smiled.

  “You’re telling me.” I turned toward the soft glow that exuded from the navy curtains. I wondered who had helped Mark pick them out. He definitely didn’t do it himself. “What time is it?”

  “Almost seven,” he answered, following my eyes to the curtains. “Ex-girlfriend. Well, not exactly ex-girlfriend, more like a friend,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.

  “Is Sanchez here?” I asked, diverting the attention away from the girlfriend talk. Mark deserved to have a girlfriend, and that someone definitely wasn’t me.

  “Not yet.”

  “Good. Delaney up yet?”

  “Yeah, James and Delaney are both up in the kitchen. Hobart’s sleeping on the couch.”

  “Jesus, some patrol.” I shook my head.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m going to grab a shower and then head into work. I don’t want anyone to be suspicious about anything. If you need something, just let me know. Delaney has my number.” Mark moved off the bed and toward the door. He stopped and turned back to me as Delaney appeared in the doorway behind him. “Just promise me one thing, Evie. Don’t get yourself killed and please don’t drag my sister into it. Even if she wants to, just keep her out of it.”

  I nodded my head with a smile. We all knew that keeping Delaney out of it was going to be damn near impossible.

  “What a great protector you are, Mark,” Delaney teased behind him. “But I think I can take care of myself.”

  “I don’t care about you. I’m talking about my niece or nephew,” he joked, laying a hand on her belly before he gave me one more warning look. “All right, I’ll leave you two alone.”

  “How’d you sleep?” Delaney asked. Her knit dress bounced against her knees as she slid onto the bed.

  “Fine. I’m just racking my brain to figure out who would want me. Who would want to seek revenge on me,” I said, sitting up. “Not that I haven’t earned my fair share of haters, but who would go to such extremes to get to me?”

  “What happened last night? Did you see anyone from the Vigilante League?” Delaney asked as she put her hand on her belly. “I tried to stay up and wait for you, but I just couldn’t. This baby exhausts me already.”

  “Yeah, I was invited to the secret “convention” being held tonight at the house Holston built for your mom. I ran into The White Knight himself,” I replied.

  “Our mom,” Delaney corrected, smoothing out her dress before she added. “How did you pull off the invite?”

  “Right, our mom.” I was still unable to wrap my mind around the fact that I had a mother that was very alive and well; Ann Jones, nonetheless. I didn’t know how long that would take.

  “The White Knight asked me to come. He immediately recognized me in the hallway of the pub and claimed that no one would believe that he saw me unless they got to see me for themselves. So voila, I’m the guest of honor. Lucky me.”

  “You think one of them has Sister Josephine?” Delaney asked.

  “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out. I don’t know what the plan is yet for today, but I was thinking we should head to the cabin on Lake Michigan. Everything is still there, right? You didn’t clean anything out?”

  “No, I think the FBI and police went through some of his stuff there, but I don’t think they took anything. Anything they seized was from his house in Appleton. It’s still hard to believe that anyone bought that house,” Delaney said as she shuddered. “It was a screaming steal, but still.”

  “Who bought the house?”

  “I don’t know. Some single guy that wanted to keep his name anonymous during the buying process,” Delaney said. “For privacy reasons or something. He probably didn’t want to be harassed by the media. I don’t know if he’s moved in or not yet.”

  “I think we should go back to the cottage. See if we can dig anything up. Let the police worry about Fred Sullivan and tracing any leads from his body.”

  “You said we,” Delaney said slowly as her hands fidgeted across the blanket. She looked at me, her blue eyes staring into my own.

  “Did I?” I asked, my lips turning up into crooked grin.

  “Like old times,” Delaney said as a glint flashed in her own smile.

  “Like old times.”

  ***

  “This is FBI Agent Jim Allen,” Sanchez said as he walked through t
he door and set his black duffle bag on the kitchen island. A smaller man followed Sanchez, about a head shorter and thirty pounds lighter, wearing freshly pressed khaki pants and a button down shirt. His dark brown hair was cut tight and neat while his eyeglasses shone with a recent polishing.

  FBI. Just what I needed.

  “I’m Delaney. Nice to meet you,” Delaney stepped forward and shook his hand. James followed, leaving me as the only person left for introductions. Mark had already left for the office. Delaney nudged me lightly with her elbow.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, extending my hand to his while I kept my eyes on Sanchez, who nodded his head in approval. I turned my attention to Agent Allen whose body was stiff and upright as if someone had stuck a metal rod up his back.

  This should be fun.

  “Evie Parker,” he said. His voice was slow and disciplined as he shook my hand in a firm grip. “I’m pleased that you will be assisting in the case with the Appleton Police Department and FBI. It’s of utmost importance to us to return Sister Josephine safely and to find the person responsible for murdering Fred Sullivan. I hear you may have some expertise, shall I say, in the subject area.”

  “You could say that. I’ll do my best,” I replied. My face was stoic to match his steady glare.

  “Good, I’m glad to hear that. Chief Sanchez has cut you a good deal from what I saw,” Agent Allen replied, setting his briefcase on the island. He flicked it open and let the hinged top down with added effort. “And it appears that you have already started your work.”

  He pulled out a black and white photo of me standing with Jeremy George at Bazil’s. I wasn’t sure if he heard my jaw hit the floor, but I scooped it back and cleared my throat. I didn’t see anyone else that I thought was suspicious or that would be taking my picture in the area.

  “I - ” I stuttered, trying to find the right words to explain myself.