by L. T. Ryan
“It was actively routing him.”
“And now Lavelle is dead. His wife and mistress fled, presumably together, and we’ve got no idea why.” I paced along the back wall. “The driver have any clue what happened here?”
“I haven’t talked to him, but to my knowledge, no, he doesn’t. I’ve got digital forensics at Lavelle’s house now, looking through his devices. If he reached out to this guy via a computer or tablet in that house, we’ll know.”
I thought back to our interview at Lavelle’s dining room table. Pictured his phone. “He had an iPhone, so if there’s a Mac in there, we might even be able to see if he did this through text messages.”
“Good point.”
“I think it’s best they give the driver minimal information. And he needs to be pushed further. Find out if he knew the next destination.”
“They already tried, but he wouldn’t even admit that he was going to Vegas despite the GPS destination.”
I settled back on the stool at the table and swirled the last bit of coffee around the bottom of the cup. The whirlwind of activity had caught up to me. I felt like collapsing on the floor and taking a nap.
“So, what’re you gonna do?” Bridget’s question ended on a high note, as though my answer would set the tone for our relationship here on out.
“Can’t see much reason to stay here,” I said. “Cops aren’t gonna deal with me. Howerton seems to want me out of his hair. If I thought that Emilia and Liliana were gonna stay here, maybe. But without a clue to where they’re going, I think I’m better help to you in Denver.”
“I think that’s a good plan. Book the earliest flight you can find. We just got word that Manny Delgado has been cleared for questioning.”
On that note, we ended the call, but my mind ran with what I wanted to ask Manny now, given everything that had happened during the past twenty-four hours. How deep was his connection with Liliana? Maybe the scared man-child we encountered in her apartment was an act. Chances were, he knew more than he had let on, and I was determined to find out.
I booked a flight leaving in ninety minutes and dialed up an Uber to take me there in fifteen.
Howerton appeared a couple of minutes later. He shot me a flat grin, looked away, shook his head.
“What gives?” I asked.
“Tried to get permission to bring you on with me, but they aren’t having it. Sorry, bud.”
“That’s okay, bud.” I slid my phone off the table and stuffed it in my pocket. “I’m heading out in a few, anyway.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “Give me a call anytime.”
I didn’t accept his offering. “Pretty sure Bridget knows how to get ahold of you.”
23
The last embers of sunlight sliced through the parted drapes and bathed Molly in golden light from the waist up. She slid a pillow behind her head and admired her naked torso. Someone had to. It didn’t seem Cal would break away from his new interest long enough to visit her this afternoon. Would he want her later?
The light faded. She lay there in the dim room for a few minutes before rising. The hardwood flooring chilled her bare feet. She crossed the room and stood in front of the window, staring out at the field. Tall grasses poked beyond the snowfall, bending and bowing in the breeze. Beyond them, children played football on the dead-end street.
Cal and that woman stood next to one another, watching the game. Her son had entered. The kid was younger than the other boys, but they had trouble catching him once he had the ball in his hands. Quite an athlete, she thought.
Molly turned away, fetched her shirt and slid it over her arms and shoulders, leaving the top few buttons undone. Then she donned her house shoes and made her way to the kitchen. She had a feeling she’d be making dinner for four tonight.
She poured a glass of wine and broke off four sections from the dark chocolate bar she kept hidden above the refrigerator. She chewed a piece, then took a large sip of wine, swirling it around her mouth, marrying the two distinct tastes into one that instantly set her at ease. It wouldn’t last. Tears were forcing themselves upon her in waves.
It would be best to get them out now. Before Cal came in with his new obsession and her little brat. But the bells on the front door jingled, and she knew she had no time to cry. She wiped away the mist from her eyes and greeted Cal at the door.
“Can I take your coat, sir?” She moved in behind him and caught his jacket as he slipped it off his shoulders. Past him, the woman and her son stood on the porch. Molly had seen her around when she had gone to the compound store to stock up. “Are your friends joining us for dinner?”
“We don’t want to be a problem,” the woman said, offering a meek smile.
“Don’t be silly,” Cal said. “Molly can accommodate you with her meal. She’ll join Robbie and have some chicken nuggets or something.” He returned Robbie’s smile. “That sound good to you, buddy?”
Molly had to hide the shock on her face. Children were always referred to by their first initial. If you were heard calling a kid by their name, you would be put in isolation. The reasoning, she had been told, was the children were not yet members. They had to reach fifteen and make the decision to stay. And beyond that, referring to the boy as “buddy”? What the hell was going on?
She stepped aside as the woman entered.
“I’m Marissa.”
“Molly.”
“You keep a beautiful house, Molly.”
Are we in the suburbs now?
No one had acted so casually in Cal’s house. Not that Molly could recall. Cal invited people over to humiliate them. Perhaps Marissa was naïve to believe he wanted her there.
Cal took Marissa’s coat and hung it by the door, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her on a tour of the house with Robbie close behind.
Molly felt as though she’d taken a sledgehammer to the gut. She’d finally made a dent in the man’s life and he’d replaced her.
She grabbed a towel from the closet and wiped the floor dry, then returned to the kitchen. The meatloaf had five minutes remaining. She’d only made enough for two, as Cal hated leftovers cluttering the refrigerator. He also despised waste. Once he finished, it was up to her to dispose of the remaining food, and he insisted she eat it. To counter the rules, she made less food.
Opening the freezer, she closed her eyes and allowed the frigid air to cool her burning face. How could she have been so dumb? She gritted her teeth against the question, knowing she couldn’t dwell on it now. There’d be time for that later. So she reached in and took out a box of chicken nuggets and put twenty in the microwave.
When Cal and Marissa returned, dinner was on the table. Molly had pulled all but two chairs away. Marissa noticed and looked up at Molly quizzically.
“Won’t you be joining us?” Marissa asked.
“She’ll eat with Robbie in the other room.” Cal stood next to the table with a seat pulled out. He gestured for Marissa to sit.
“Come on, R,” she said, careful not to use his full name. Just because Cal had, that did not justify her following suit.
The boy followed her into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and asked him if anything appealed to him.
“Do you have lemonade?” He lifted his eyes at the last second.
“I do.” She smiled and reached into the back and pulled out a bottle of Snapple Mango Madness. “Will this do?”
He nodded, grabbed the bottle from her, and followed her into the living room. She set up two TV trays and they ate their nuggets in silence.
Molly could hear enough from the dining room to know that things were going well. His tone was light. Her’s was flirty. They laughed. Too much. More than he’d ever laughed at anything she’d ever said. This woman was Cal’s prize. Molly was his dirty laundry.
“Hey, Molly,” he called out.
She went to the other room to see what he needed.
“Can you open a bottle of wine for us?” Cal said.
“Something red.”
“Certainly.”
She left for the pantry and grabbed a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon off the shelf. Holding the wine key in her hand, with the corkscrew poking out from between her middle and ring fingers, she imagined what it would be like to strike Marissa with it. To plunge the corkscrew into her eye and rip it out of her head. Molly realized how broadly she was smiling at the thought. It should’ve freaked her out.
It didn’t.
But to act upon the feeling would result in her own death.
Correction, Molly: to act upon it now would result in your death.
She choked down the feelings, found a smile and plastered it on her face while taking down two glasses. Amid the new couple’s laughter, she poured each a glass and returned to the living room to find Robbie finishing the last of her nuggets.
At least she wouldn’t have to purge tonight.
24
By early evening, I was back in Denver and had caught an Uber to the hospital. The same woman stood guard behind her podium inside the entrance. She shot me a look, followed by pointing a loaded finger in my direction. I attempted to disarm her with my smile. She was having none of it.
“Is Manny Delgado in the same room?” I asked.
“He’s a popular guy today.” She had on a white blouse without a sweater to conceal her name tag.
“I’m sure there’s been lots of cop-types trying to visit him, Glynda.”
“All kinds of types.” She made a sweeping gesture over her logbook. “Cops, kids, thugs, backwoods people.”
“Backwoods people? Like rednecks?”
“Whatever you wanna call them. They certainly didn’t fit the profile I had of who might visit him.”
“You can get in trouble with that.”
“What? Profiling?” She shook her head. “You learn to pick it up pretty quickly in a place like this. When I see patients have a visitor that doesn’t fit in with the others that come around, something’s up.”
“You’d have made a great detective.”
She arched an eyebrow and waggled her shoulders. “Who says I wasn’t one?”
“Good point. So, tell me. Do you take this much interest in all patients?”
She shrugged and placed her hands flat on the podium. “I just remember things. Sure, lots of people in and out all day, but you know, I associate faces with names and entries in my book.” She looked down and scribbled something not meant for me to see. “Why don’t you meet your cop friends upstairs now, Mr…?”
“Tanner,” I said. “Detective Tanner.”
As I waited for an elevator to arrive, I glanced over at Glynda, still perched behind her podium, waiting for the next visitor to enter her hospital. Of everything she said, one thing stood out: backwoods people. What did that mean? I’d have to ask Manny.
Bridget met me when I stepped off the elevator. She leaned in for a quick hug. The floral scent of her shampoo washed over me, putting me at ease for a moment. Beyond her waited a kid who’d nearly been beaten to death and now had to face a couple of cops and an FBI agent who were all going to pester him with questions. I needed to focus and prepare for his responses and reactions.
“So, did you get lucky in Sin City?” She smirked.
“What happens in Vegas…” I bantered. Her eye roll was enough to convince me to not complete the overdone tagline. “I’m pretty baffled, to tell you the truth. It’s like this guy thought he had us beat. There was no way we could track him down.”
“Someone tracked him down.” She pointed to the right at a hallway intersection. “I still can’t get over the fact the video was gone.”
“Pretty obvious it was an inside job. But why? And who?” I thought back to the napkin from the alley. “I bet if we could get a few people from the security team in a room, they’d know the name on that napkin.”
“I’ve considered that, too. I think it’ll be our next move.” She stopped and held out her arm in front of my chest. “Forgot to tell you, we had a hit on Jordan Sears.”
“That right?” I recalled Brad finding Sears’ name associated with a domestic dispute report Manny’s mother filed, naming Sears as her assailant. Nothing had come from it, though. “What do we know about him?”
“Sort of a drifter, loner. Currently living out in the woods somewhere outside of town.”
“An area locals would refer to as backwoods?”
She shrugged. “I dunno, maybe? Why? That’s an oddly specific question.”
“Something Glynda said.”
“Who the hell is Glynda?”
“At the front desk, when you walk into the hospital. She said there’s been quite a bit of interest in Manny today, including a backwoods character. Perhaps that was this Sears guy. Anyway, my interest in him just went way up.”
She shifted and leaned against the wall. “So, we’re gonna hit him with Sears, fish for info on his deceased mother and sister, and mention Vegas.”
“And Liliana. I want to see his reaction when I say that she stood two feet from me.” I tapped my fingers against my phone in my pocket. “I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“Let’s show him a picture of Emilia. Just to see his reaction.”
“I’m game. Braxton won’t mind, I’m sure.” She glanced at her smartwatch. “Speaking of our new detective friend, he just texted. Doctor just finished his rounds with Manny. We can go in.”
When we reached Delgado’s room, Braxton was waiting inside, next to Manny’s bed. The kid tried to smile when he saw us. Half his face was swollen, his jaw wired shut, a bandage tinged with red wrapped around his forehead.
“How you doing, Manny?” I asked.
He extended his arm, which hung against his chest in a sling, and gave me a hanging in there gesture.
“Gonna be able to talk?”
He nodded and spoke. His voice came out as a whisper. “It hurts, but I can do it.”
Braxton took the lead. “We’ll keep this short, Manny. I know you’re in a fair amount of pain and need your rest.”
“The meds are making me loopy.”
“That’s not always a bad thing,” I offered. Bridget nudged me in response. Braxton shot daggers at me. “I mean, obviously not today.”
Manny tried to smile again. “I ain’t said I mind them. But, yeah, I’d rather be on my couch smoking a blunt than be in here doped up on painkillers.”
“Wouldn’t we all,” Braxton said. “I mean the bit about not being in here.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook off the comment. “Anyway, first thing, Manny, is if you can give us any information on who did this to you, that would go a long way in helping us bring them in. So far, no one has come forward as a witness.”
He slowly shook his head, grimacing as he did so. “No one will come forward. That’s okay, though.” All expression left his face as it hardened. “I can tell you exactly who did this.”
The whirring and beeping of medical equipment was the only sound in the room for the next ten seconds. Couldn’t even hear a breath being taken. We were all holding it in.
“Fucking Anton and Jordan.”
Braxton looked at Bridget, then at me. Two intertwined names brought to us on the same night for different reasons.
“Is that Anton Moore?” Braxton asked.
Manny nodded.
“And Jordan Sears?”
“Yeah.” He licked his lips. “He was my stepfather for a bit. Damn hillbilly used to beat my mom. One night, I’d had enough. I knocked him on his ass. After that, he left.”
I felt Bridget’s gaze piercing me.
“How old were you when this happened?” I asked.
“Fourteen,” he said. “Maybe fifteen. I was pretty much this size then. Bit stronger now, I guess. But there was two of them yesterday. And a baseball bat. They got the drop on me. Wasn’t much I could do.”
“Did you manage to land a punch? Elbow? A kick?” Braxton asked.
Manny flexed his hands. Didn’t m
atter how tough you were, knuckles got bruised and swollen after colliding with flesh-covered bone.
“You know, I can’t quite remember,” he said. “But my right hand feels like I hit something.”
Braxton leaned toward us. “Don’t remember seeing any marks on Anton. Do you?”
“You interviewed him?” Manny asked. He was pulling himself up to a better seated position, grimacing with each inch of adjustment. Through gritted teeth, he continued. “What did he say?”
Braxton took a moment to dip back into interrogation mode. “Talked about how you were boys. Said he’d never do anything to hurt you. He wanted to catch whoever did this even more than me.”
Manny’s eyes grew wet. His cheeks burned red. His nostrils flared. He seemed to mouth “son of a bitch” but I couldn’t be sure.
Braxton started for the door and gestured for us to follow him. We huddled together outside the room. “What do you two think about this?”
“You both know I was laying into Anton,” I said. “The guy was pretty well versed, well-rehearsed, and not going to indict himself. But this is a strong counterargument. As strong as we’re gonna get short of getting some video footage, of course.”
“This Sears guy,” Braxton said. “That’s a couple times we’ve heard his name, both in conjunction with Manny. Think there’s really something to this?”
“What’s the connection between Sears and Anton Moore, despite maybe them knowing each other while Sears was with Manny’s mother?” Bridget asked.
I broke free from the huddle and stepped into the room to find out. “Manny, tell me about Sears and Anton. Why would they get together to attack you?”
He had slumped back in his bed while we were gone. His eyes were half-opened, glazed over. He’d been hitting the plunger on his medicine the entire time we were in there. Most times, nothing comes out. But the latest dose of morphine had taken effect. Bridget squeezed past me, her scent occupying the space after she passed. My mind drifted for a moment. She leaned in close to Manny.
