Turning back to me, she said, “That little brat, Miguel…you wouldn’t believe the shit he did in our house. And I’m going to make sure he spends the rest of his life in jail.”
“Okay, the show is over,” Ross said, moving in front of Monique. “I know you’re upset, but we need to be smart in what information we share with the world. Especially her,” he said, using his head to point me out.
“Screw you, lawyer!” Monique cried out, pushing him to the side.
Ross mumbled something, quickly backing off, his face etched with a bit of fear. His assistant grimaced, but didn’t rush in to help.
I would have laughed out loud had I not seen the hatred in her eyes as she now tried to plow through her dad to reach me.
“That kid, Miguel—”
“Monique, this isn’t the place,” her dad said.
Stan suddenly reached across the table, grabbed my purse, and handed it to me. He took hold of my arm. “Ivy, let’s just get out of here.”
I shuffled backward two steps.
“You don’t want to hear the truth about your precious little orphan boy?” Monique’s venomous tone split the air.
I stopped moving.
“Monique, please,” her dad said, now physically holding her back from coming after me.
“I can’t keep this inside any longer,” she said.
“Russell,” Ross said, “this will damage our case if she continues to spill everything in public like this.”
“I’m trying, Herbert. Dammit, Monique, please listen to us,” he said, his brow furrowed.
She tried to shake him off, but he held on. “I have to tell her, and everyone in this fucking place, how CPS and everyone who pretends to care is really screwing up so many families. And this time it killed my brother.”
I could feel Stan tugging my arm, but I didn’t budge. I had to hear what this torn girl had to say.
“Miguel was crazy. Do you hear me? Crazy,” she said. “He would always ramble and mumble to himself, twitching at the same time.”
“He had issues, and we knew that, and I’m sure your parents were informed when he was transitioned into your home. Miguel had been exposed to unspeakable violence, so while I hate to hear this, I’m not surprised by what you’re describing. But that doesn’t necessarily make him crazy.” I found myself taking up for the kid, which I realized may not have been the smartest move.
Monique had stopped pushing forward, her eyes scanning the floor. Maybe I’d been wrong. Instead of inciting even more rage, perhaps my words had given her some perspective.
I released a breath, the knots in my shoulders subsiding ever so slightly. But before I got to my next breath, she jerked her head around and glared at her father once again.
“Monique, what’s going on? Are you okay?” he asked.
“I have to tell her. I just can’t let her walk around this world without knowing how that kid fucked up my life in more ways than one.”
“Dear God, Russell, are we going to air all of the family’s dirty laundry right here in the middle of a restaurant?” Ross asked with a desperate tone.
Russell tried to pull his daughter away, but she shook off his grip. I knew all eyes in the restaurant were on us, but even as Stan whispered for us to go, I knew I had to hear Monique out.
“How, Monique? What did Miguel do?” I asked.
She closed her eyes and pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. She swallowed hard, then said, “He walked into my room one night with Toby, our cat. Honestly, he looked possessed. His eyes were on fire.”
She released a whimper, but quickly regained control as she set her sights back on me. “He had a knife in one hand and the cat in the other. And—”
I could see her chest heaving as her dad pleaded with her to stop. She wasn’t listening to anyone right now.
“He put the point of the knife right at Toby’s throat. He said he’d gut Toby if I didn’t—”
“Don’t do this, Monique. This isn’t the time or place.” Russell’s tone had lost its compassion. In fact, he sounded outright angry. “Let’s first just grieve over Tommy, and then we’ll deal with all of the baggage.”
Monique paused for a second, but it didn’t dissuade her from continuing. “I had to take off my clothes.”
“What the…?” Stan said as I, along with a few onlookers, gasped.
“He was going to kill our cat. So you tell me if that’s twisted, bitch.”
I had to remind myself to breathe. “I…I don’t know what to say. We had no idea.” I said, looking to Russell. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He had dropped his arms to his side. He was no longer trying to console his daughter, his face nothing more than chiseled fury.
“So not only do I have those fun memories to deal with, but now I’ve lost my brother.”
“Did you tell your parents what happened?”
“This is so inappropriate,” Ross chimed in. “We are not going to get into who said what and when. That will all come out in both trials.”
I knew he was referring to the Miguel’s criminal trail and the civil suit against CPS and me.
“Did you?” I asked again.
“None of your fucking business,” she said, her eyes momentarily taking notice of the ambulance-chasing lawyer. His assistant was so far back he was practically blending in with the crowd that had formed around us.
Now she clammed up? She had to be hiding something, but I let it go and asked the most pertinent question I could think of. “So why would Miguel kill Tommy?”
“Don’t answer that!” Ross threw up his hand to block Monique’s vision, but she pushed it away.
“Because Tommy knew. He knew that Miguel was nothing but a fucking pervert,” she said, her eyes bubbling with tears. “Tommy started saying that if he got out of that hostage hell alive, he would tell everyone what happened to his big sister. So Miguel grabbed his dad’s gun when he wasn’t looking and shot Tommy right in the head.”
Bile tickled the back of my throat, and I had to take a quick swallow. As Russell and Ross wrangled with each other over what had spilled out, I hurriedly tried to process everything. Had she told this story to Huerta? If so, then Stan would have eventually learned of it. At the least, I would hope Huerta would share the information with Stan. Moreover, it also told me that Huerta was likely still searching for evidence to support Monique’s story—which might be why he let me play good cop with Miguel. Nothing beats a detailed confession.
“Someone has to pay,” Monique said through all the commotion. “Not just for killing my brother, but for destroying my life. I’ll never be the same.” She finally relented and began to back up. “Someone has to pay.”
I watched them walk off, Ross babbling and throwing his hands in the air. He probably was in a near panic, wondering how this scene would impact their ability to win the civil suit. And not just win, but drain the state coffers of millions. As for my vast empire, they wouldn’t get much more than the thousand bucks in my savings account.
“Let’s get out of here. I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach.” I glanced at Stan, who looked like he’d been beaten up.
As we made our way into the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of the Gideons and the two lawyers just before they slipped into a dark, foreign luxury sedan. Russell gripped Monique’s upper arms and looked her straight in the eye while he said some words to her. It took an extra second, but she finally raised her head and nodded. Then she fell into his chest and hugged him.
Stan and I creeped through heavy traffic, neither of us saying a word. We were both stunned at the turn of events and everything that had come out. Now I had even more questions than before.
13
A cool mist glistened under the streetlights up ahead, the tiny droplets appearing to hover in midair. Cristina Tafoya could feel the familiar wet blanket coat her thick mane of hair. She had on a hoodie under her high school letter jacket, but she chose not to cover her head. Walking the streets lat
e at night—living on the street—infused her with life. It was a freedom she didn’t take lightly. Not after finally walking out on her drug-addled mother and her abusive boyfriend.
It had been just over a year since that explosive night. The trauma had nearly given her a heart attack—yes, even at age sixteen. But more importantly, it had been the kick in the pants she needed to wake up and take control of her life. There was no parental figure in her life to give a damn.
Her life had changed that Christmas Eve. A celebration of the holiday season with friends. But they had been his friends, which meant there was a greater than fifty-percent chance that booze and drugs would be consumed in astronomic proportions. In some respects, the evening was nothing but a blur. But whenever she attempted to sleep, the details would inevitably play out, and the horror would consume her. After stupidly doing drugs with her mother’s boyfriend, Jesse, she had been raped by him and his buddy.
She licked the mist off her lips and let the light rain wash those painful memories back to where they belonged: her past. She had been so engrossed in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice the man until he was right up next to her. On pure instinct, she dropped her body while pulling the shank out of its sheath in her pocket. She planted a foot and swung her leg around, driving her opposite foot into his locked knee. The man screamed like a little kid. She knew his knee had been hyperextended, if not broken.
“Cristina!” he yelled.
She rolled once, then jumped to her feet and saw herself staring at Rudy, the neighborhood pimp who was also a lush. “What the hell are you doing coming up on me like that?”
“I just need to borrow a few bucks,” he moaned, collapsing to the ground, holding his injured leg. “And here you go and fuck with my knee.”
He had once tried to recruit her to join his team of girls, but there was no way she was allowing some old fart to rent out her body. While a few of the girls thought he was beyond creepy, Cristina never felt threatened. At least not until just now. What was he thinking, sneaking up on her like that?
“I can’t afford no doctor,” he continued, rolling on the wet concrete.
“None of us can, Rudy. Maybe you learned your lesson. Don’t sneak up on me.”
“I didn’t. I won’t.” He moved to a sitting position, then she helped him get to his feet. In a nearby alley she found a broken tree branch left over from last week’s freaky ice storm and handed it to Rudy. This gave him just enough support to limp away without saying another word. Once he disappeared into the nighttime mist, with a renewed sense of alertness, she resumed her trek. Five more blocks until she reached her makeshift home.
She passed a few acquaintances along her path, but she didn’t stop and chat. Not tonight. The confrontation with Rudy had left a bad taste in her mouth. She didn’t enjoy hurting other people, not unless they crossed the line with her. Then an internal switch would flip. A part of her would roar to life that she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. But it was obvious how it came to be—the need to survive.
A vertical, red sign blinked at the corner up ahead, drawing a few patrons into the late-night bar and small musical venue. On many occasions, she had parked herself against the outside wall, where she could just make out the sweet tunes of a local band or a solo guitarist. When there had been nothing in her life and even less hope, there had always been music. It was more than her oxygen. It saturated her bloodstream and provided an emotional outlet from this sometimes fucked-up world.
Rounding the corner into the narrow side street, Cristina could hear the whining purr of kittens echoing from an adjacent alley. She’d found the litter and their mama a couple of days earlier. The mama cat was licking her babies, allowing each to drink her milk. Cristina felt an odd connection with the little furballs, with their desire to cling to their mother and yet figure out a way to survive life on the street.
Other than the cats, there was not a soul in sight. She cut behind an abandoned building, which had once been a department store. It had been for sale for years, but investors had instead focused on building on the northern side of San Antonio, letting the older, less attractive sections of the city continue their decaying process. While the glut of empty buildings and fewer viable business prospects didn’t help the area’s economy, it did offer a silver lining: numerous places to find cover from weather and, when lucky, a temporary home. With the alley illuminated by nothing more than a soft, yellow light at the far end, she pulled up next to a stack of crates. Taking a quick glance up and down the alley to ensure no one was following her, she climbed up the pyramid of crates she had built. At the top, she felt a little wiggle beneath her, and she quickly grabbed the frame of the window. She pushed it open and crawled inside, landing on a ledge about six inches wide. She took in a breath and shuffled to the right until the landing area expanded and she was able to make her way down a metal staircase to the concrete floor below.
Off in the corner, behind a wall of boxes, she found her little spot. A thin mattress she had found by the curb, a small crate that served as a side table for her things. A small battery-operated lamp sat on top.
She removed her wet coats and tossed them on the floor next to her trash bag full of clothes, which rested against her most prized possession—Violet. Her acoustic guitar that had a patch of purple running along the front. She patted the side, as if it were a friend, a soulmate. And in some respects, it was. She occasionally played her guitar on the side of the streets, up near the River Walk, where tourists would sometimes shower her with money. That money would last her for weeks. She didn’t make her performances an everyday or every weekend ritual because her music playing would also attract the seamy part of the underground life in San Antonio. Those who saw her as a potential commodity to be sold…like Rudy, but a lot more forceful. She had learned to pick her spots, make some money, and then move on. She couldn’t be too greedy.
Resting her head on a rolled-up sweatshirt that served as her pillow, she pulled out a silver locket. She popped it open and stared at the picture of her and her mother. Cristina was no more than six years old in the photo, a smile from ear to ear with missing baby teeth that made her look even younger. With hair that waved like a curtain of silk and a sparkle in her eye, her mom looked vibrant. Alive. She had pulled Cristina in close, and it was easy to see their resemblance: round faces, small noses, and tiny ears. That was how she always wanted to remember her mom. Not the desperate woman. Not the woman without an ounce of self-esteem. Not the woman who had allowed her daughter to be gang-raped in her house and basically done nothing about it.
Thwack.
Her breath caught in her throat. Someone was in the expansive basement, on the other side of her box blockade. She quickly lifted from her mattress and reached for her jacket, searching for her small knife.
“Cristina, my dear, is that you?”
It was him.
14
Jumping to her feet with her coat in hand, she walked to the edge of her wall of boxes. “Oh, hey.”
The man was shining a light from his cell phone in her face, and she could only make out his general shape. But she knew every inch of his stout, V-shaped frame. She raised a hand to block the light.
“Oh, sorry,” he said.
“How did you get in here?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He had avoided her question, and her gut twisted into a knot. “You didn’t say how you got in here. In fact, how did you know I lived here?”
With the light shining up to the tiled ceiling, he released a casual chuckle as he glanced around her makeshift home. “After our conversations, I had a general sense of where you lived. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.”
“Why are you here?” Still holding the jacket, she crossed her arms, and her fingers searched the pocket for the knife.
“It’s been a while, Cristina. I knew we had some good times together, and I kind of think we might be ready to take that next step.”
Good times?
She stopped fidgeting for her knife. She couldn’t help but stare at the man who had renewed her lack of trust in almost any male over the age of twenty-one. He had the profile of a movie star, with his thick, broad shoulders and steely-gray eyes. The eyes that had put her in a trance, so that she felt high just by looking at him. Well, high beyond the mind-altering drugs she had once snorted merrily up her nose.
“What do you mean by a next step?” She knew she shouldn’t be asking questions. She needed to lay down the law, let him know she couldn’t…wouldn’t be part of his games any longer.
He shuffled closer and held out his hand, but she pretended to see something on her bed, and she reached back for her bag of clothes.
“Come on now, Cristina. I can see you’re a little nervous. What has it been, a month or two?”
More like forty-two days. Forty-two days of sobriety. Forty-two days of trying to figure out that she deserved better. Much better.
“Brian, I’m—”
“What is it, darling’?” He’d closed the gap in the blink of an eye and now brushed a thumb against her cheek.
The smell of his cologne infused her mind with a hundred images, a few of her running her hands across his taut muscles, but so many more that included a hoard of drugs, adult sex toys, and the faces of other women he’d brought to their little rendezvous—all there to share the wealth of everything he was giving. Since the day she had met him, she felt an odd combination of magnetism and repulsion. He was the forbidden fruit. But after forty-two days of ridding her mind and body of all the unhealthy cravings he represented, she could now truly see the kind of person he was: a disgusting, dehumanizing prick who loved to push people to the brink for his own sick pleasure.
She felt acid churning in her stomach, and instantly she knew that her ulcer had returned with a vengeance. “I’m not feeling very well. I think you need to leave,” she said, turning her cheek away from his touch.
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 9
