“Now Cristina, darlin’, that’s no way to treat the man who gave you the best sex you’ve ever had—and that’s according to you, I remind you. You called it mind-blowing,” he said with a baritone laugh.
She threw her jacket down on the bed. “I’m seventeen, Brian. Seventeen fucking years old, and here you are talking to me about mind-blowing sex. That’s fucked up.” She swallowed back bile that had crept into the back of her throat. “You’re what, forty-three years old? You shouldn’t be saying that kind of crap to me. In fact, you should be trying to screw women closer to your age. I could be your daughter.”
His smile disappeared instantly, and she could see him slowly rolling his eyes. He took in a purposeful breath, then licked his lips. “I sense that you’re rebelling, Cristina. I know you think you’re an independent woman by figuring out a way to live on the streets.” He lifted an eyebrow. “If that’s what you call this.”
He’d taken the condescending route this time. She knew it all too well. Bring her down, and then pick her back up, usually with some type of illicit enticement. “That’s where you have it all wrong, Brian. Independent woman? Hardly. You don’t seem to understand that I’m a fucking teenager,” she said, poking her chest so hard she knew it would lead to a bruise.
“Teenager. So now you want me to pretend you’re a little girl?” he said with a pouty mouth. “The next thing you’re going to try to convince me of is that you’re a virgin.”
He put his hand to his stomach, laughing hysterically. All the while, Cristina’s disgust increased exponentially. And then the urge hit her. Her raw emotion had sent her over the edge, and she had to have it.
“Your eyes, Cristina,” he said, suddenly aware of her changed expression. “They’re begging for more of that magic white powder. Guess what I have behind door number one?” He pulled a baggie out of his front pocket and let it swing in front of her eyes.
She didn’t say a word—his eyes watching her, her mind wanting what he was offering. But she knew if she took one line, it was all over. Not only would she sniff every speck of coke up her nose in just a few minutes, but then she wouldn’t own her body. And she would allow herself to do anything for this…devil. That was what he was: a fucking devil.
She closed her eyes and turned her back to him. “Stop it. Put that crap away. I don’t do coke anymore.”
“Are you sure about that, darlin’? Once a druggie, always a druggie, right?”
“Screw you, Brian.”
“Did I hit a sensitive nerve?”
He gripped her shoulders and ran his tongue along the nape of her neck. She cringed and tingled at the same time, again reminding her of the contradiction in her reactions to this man.
“Please leave,” she said with little conviction.
“I know what that means. You want that magic powder. You want me, and you want to get a little kinky. Brian knows what you want. We can do it right here on your little mattress. We can break it in the right way. The dirtier the better, right?”
Without thinking, she grabbed for her coat and found the grip of her knife. Screaming, she flung her arm backward, slicing the short blade across his biceps.
“Ah, you fucking bitch!”
With her heart about to jump out of her chest, she crouched lower, readying herself for a counterattack.
Blood oozed between his fingers, and he watched it, mesmerized, for what seemed like a long time. And the more blood he saw, the more his eyes looked like they’d been set on fire. Sounding like a Harley Davidson that had just been started, his fury roared to life, and he barreled into her. They both crashed over boxes, landing next to her bed on the unforgiving floor. For a brief second, Cristina thought she’d been cut as blood snaked down her forehead onto the side of her face. Brian moaned and slowly turned on top of her, and she realized his arm was hovering over her face, dripping blood. She hurt all over, and she had no idea where her knife had fallen. Trying to push him off and find the knife at the same time, she knew she only had seconds before he came to his senses.
There!
She felt the end of the knife’s rubber grip with her fingertips, scooting it closer to the palm of her hand. She wrapped her fingers and took hold.
Brian backhanded her across the face, and the knife fell to the floor. He kicked it away. With the large man now straddling her, she attempted to claw at his eyes, but he grabbed her arm, twisting her wrist. Completely helpless and in unbearable pain, she screamed again.
“Shut the hell up. You think you’re going to surprise me with your little Girl Scout knife? You’re as delusional as you are weak and pathetic. I think I’m going to fuck you one more time for the road and then throw you out with the garbage. You certainly smell like you’ve been sleeping in a dumpster.”
He spit in her face, and then, as blood from his cut splattered onto her, he let go of her arm to unzip his pants. He started to laugh hysterically as he tugged at her jeans, growling like a bear as her clothes slowly became dislodged and fell below her waist, despite her attempts to fight him off. Tears began to spill from her eyes as she realized she had no hope of stopping Brian from raping her. All of her bravado, her little safe house…they had done her no good. He had found her, and after teasing her with his charm and baggie of cocaine, he was going to get his, regardless of how she felt about it.
She stopped fighting.
At that moment, she heard a buzzing noise, and Brian abruptly ceased his assault. He frantically searched the floor and then picked up his cell phone. His eyes grew wide as he wiped sweat from his brow. He seemed to study the name or number on the screen for at least twenty seconds. Then he pressed a button on the side of the phone and jumped away from her.
“I don’t need you,” he said, lifting to his feet, pulling his zipper up. “You’d just give me an STD anyway. Why go to the trouble?” He took two steps, then flipped back around, an evil fury carved into his crumpled forehead. “I should use your own shank and gut you like the stinky, disgusting pig you are. But I don’t have time. You say a word, and I’ll hunt you down. And then you’ll beg me to kill you as fast as possible. Because I have a lot more toys than you’ve ever seen.” He turned quickly and headed into the darkness.
Cristina tried to control her breathing. When she heard his laughter echoing off the filthy walls as he left, she shivered.
Without wasting a second, she slid her clothes back on, located her knife, and tossed her bare essentials into her backpack. Then she picked up her guitar and climbed up to the windowsill. She looked back at the mess below her; hopefully she could come back to retrieve her bed, table, and lamp once she found a new place. A safer place, where Brian could never find her. If she didn’t end up being able to retrieve her belongings, then it wasn’t meant to be. She’d start over, as she had in the past.
Slipping through the narrow window, she made her way down the pyramid of crates until her feet hit the alley. A quick glance in both directions to ensure Brian was nowhere to be seen, and she headed for the main street, her stride decisive. Not once did she think about returning to her mother’s home. If her safety was ever in doubt, Cristina knew there was only one person she could rely on: herself.
As she felt the cold mist once again blanket her face, she knew the next time she ran into Brian, she’d be ready for anything he threw at her. If anyone was going to die, it wouldn’t be her. That much she promised herself.
15
Sitting at my CPS desk with my head in my hands, I let out a huge yawn. My night of sleep had been restless at best. I couldn’t help but replay the scene at the taco restaurant—Monique not only sharing the disturbing information about Miguel, but also spewing out such venom. She had so much anger inside and, for whatever reason, had decided to lash out primarily at me. I didn’t take it personally, at least not in the way she’d intended. If anything, I felt sad for everything she’d experienced, seeing her brother killed right before her eyes and, of course, being forced to “do things.”
If she was telling the truth.
I had spent a good part of last night chiding myself for questioning the victim. It wasn’t something I was accustomed to doing. Yet, there was something about Monique and her story that seemed over the top. Too outlandish to believe. And that was when I wondered if my fondness for Miguel had clouded my ability to see things as they really were.
Just as the weight of my eyes had become too heavy to remain open, I had heard noises throughout my modest one-bedroom apartment in southwest San Antonio. A rattling window at my tiny balcony, a creaking floor from the living room. Nothing too alarming, but enough to fire up my brain and, with that, my imagination. For a few seconds, I even allowed myself to pull a few unpleasant childhood memories to my frontal lobe. After I openly cursed myself for going down that mine-riddled path, I had buried my head under my pillow and finally fallen asleep just after three o’clock.
My cell phone startled me from my weary haze. I wiped my eyes, shuffled some folders, and grabbed the phone. A text from Stan:
Witness came forward – she saw Matt Garza by wife’s car at mall arguing with driver; ballistics report still outstanding. DELETE this note once you read it. Please.:)
I huffed out a tired breath, frustrated at the path Miguel’s dad had taken with his life. Had he ever thought about how his actions influenced his son? Even if none of this had exploded into two murders and a hostage situation, Miguel had still been exposed to excessive abuse. And research proved that the scarring from such abuse could manifest itself in the future, with Miguel repeating the same behavior as his father. A vicious, never-ending cycle, unless he was able to get some serious counseling. But counseling and healing weren’t high on the list of priorities for those who held Miguel’s fate in their hands. They wanted justice, even if that meant sacrificing another life in the process.
“Hey, Ivy, mind if I join you for an early lunch?” Kari leaned against the frame of the office door, her little purple lunch box swaying at her side.
“Sure. I’m not getting a lot of work done,” I said, waving her in.
She sat down and pulled out a baggie of sugar snap peas and two plastic containers, one with strawberries and the other with celery.
“You’re a smart woman, Kari.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, showing a timid smile.
“You’re eating healthy. Good for you. I need to get back in the habit of eating well, working out regularly. Might help in dealing with the stress of the job.”
“Amen to that,” she said, eating one of the strawberries. Then she paused and set her hands on the edge of the desk. “Honestly, I’m kind of sick of eating the same thing every day.”
I chuckled. “Need some help with grocery shopping? I can do it even on the cheapest budget.”
“It’s not that.” She pursed her lips and took in a deep breath. “It’s Donnie. He likes for me to be fit. And I can only do that if I eat like a mouse.”
“Seriously?”
She simply nodded.
“Kari, is everything okay at home? I mean, you’re an adult, and while it’s good to eat healthy and all that, you can make your own choices.”
She blinked a few times, then looked off to the side.
“Sorry if I hit a sore subject.”
Looking up, she curled a lock of stringy hair around her ear. “Uh…no, no, it’s not that. Donnie’s a good guy. He’s just going through a rough patch right now, and I don’t want to do anything to rock the boat.”
I’d met Donnie a couple of times at happy hours, but I was never able to read him. “A rough patch?”
“He’s been job-hopping a lot. Not finding the right vibe at the last three car dealerships he’s worked at. He’s frustrated that no one gives him any respect. So that means I’m frustrated too,” she said, nodding as if she needed to convince herself.
“I hope things turn around.” I held up a finger and opened a drawer on my desk and pulled out my excuse for a lunch: an apple and leftover pizza from the night before. “You want to trade a piece of cold pizza for your strawberries?”
Her round eyes grew larger as she licked her lips. “Are you serious?” She sounded like a little kid who’d been offered a free trip to Disney World.
“I couldn’t be more serious.”
We made the trade, and for the next five minutes I told myself that I actually enjoyed strawberries. Surprisingly, my brain sparked to life. I grabbed my mouse and started clicking through the CPS internal database, searching in the Foster Family section for the file on the Gideons.
Kari pinged me with a few questions, and I gave her the CliffsNotes version of the run-in that Stan and I had with Russell and Monique Gideon, as well as the slimeball lawyer, Herbert Ross, at Torchy’s Tacos the previous day.
“Is Hubbard okay with you digging into the case? I just know that Joanna has been brownnosing a lot lately, and we all know how protective Joanna can be about her cases.”
I shifted my eyes away from my flat-screen for a second. “Hubbard gave me instructions to try to change the narrative of the story away from CPS. To me, that means to figure out what really happened and who’s to blame for what went down.”
“Don’t we know?” Kari said, inhaling another large bite of pizza topped with black olives, mushrooms, and green peppers. “You said that he admitted it, and now Monique has essentially corroborated the story. I know it’s not easy, Ivy, but it seems pretty cut and dry. I think Miguel might be a killer.”
Just hearing the words made my stomach tighten. “Have you ever had a case where someone told you something, maybe admitted doing something wrong, and even after they told you, you still didn’t believe them?”
She put a finger to her chin. “Now that I think about it, I guess that has happened. This one mother admitted to abusing her daughter, but I doubted it from the moment the words came out of her mouth. When I finally got her away from the house and told her about safe-house options, she broke down and cried, said she’d been covering for her boyfriend.”
“See?” I threw up my hand. “It’s called trusting your gut, Kari. Now, I’m not saying this situation with Miguel is that simple. In fact, I keep going back and forth on it, wondering if I’m ignoring the obvious because he’s ten years old and we connected a bit.”
“But you have questions about the Gideons?”
“They lost a son, so, again, it’s difficult for me to lay judgment on their behavior,” I said.
“I hear doubt in your voice.”
“I want to know more about the dad, Russell. And then there’s Monique. As upset as she was, I think she might be hiding something. But it’s hard to say.”
“What about Mrs. Gideon?”
“She was incredibly upset at the house when it happened…understandably so. She wasn’t at the restaurant.”
“Imagine that—a mother actually grieving over her son’s death, instead of meeting with that leech, Ross, to plot some type of lawsuit.”
“Did I tell you I like your sassy side?”
She smiled, then turned her eyes to the rest of my pizza. “Go ahead and just go crazy,” I said with a giggle.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” she said, pulling out another piece and taking a bite.
My eyes gravitated back to the computer monitor where I scanned a long list of names.
“Do you mind if I look over your shoulder?” she asked between bites.
“I’ll make it easy on you,” I said, turning the screen halfway so that Kari could also see it. I clicked on the Gideon file and quickly found the background data on Russell Gideon. “Okay…graduated from San Pedro High School near LA.”
“Hold on a second,” Kari said, leaning closer, then pointing at a smiling picture of Russell. “You didn’t tell me he was a looker. Holy smokes, Ivy. This guy could be on the cover of GQ magazine.”
“You can pick your jaw up off my desk now.”
“Oh, was I that obvious?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sm
iled. “Uh…yeah.”
“What can I say? It’s been a while. Donnie has been distracted and stressed. A girl’s gotta fantasize occasionally.”
Kari was definitely coming out of her shell. I wondered how this would affect her life at home—for better or for worse? I said, “Couldn’t agree more, Kari. Back to business.”
“Indeed.” It was Hubbard’s gravelly voice, and I nearly jumped out of my chair.
16
Our boss stood at the door, leering. “Are you ladies actually doing work, or perhaps ogling over a man from one of our cases?”
“We’re actually eating lunch while we work,” I said. “I’m bouncing some ideas off Kari.” I gave my pizza-loving buddy a quick wink.
Locking her hands in front of her, Hubbard walked past the front of my desk to the other side of my office. “Ivy, it’s been twenty-four hours since we spoke, and I need to know what you’re doing to ensure our department is exonerated from being even partially to blame for this unfortunate incident.”
That was her way of asking how quickly I could make certain that Miguel would be charged, thereby turning the focus away from the debacle at the crime scene and onto yet another sad story about a messed-up kid. Fortunately, she didn’t know about Monique’s revelation that she personally witnessed Miguel shooting her brother. Not yet. I had at most a day or two, and possibly as little as a few hours, before Hubbard would learn of Monique’s admission. And then there was Ross. That asshat could show up at any moment with his lawsuit, and then I knew shit would really hit the fan.
“Ivy, are you daydreaming?” Hubbard was snapping her wrinkly fingers loudly within inches of my face. I wanted to smack her hand away, but I simply leaned back in my creaky chair and slowly exhaled.
“I’m just thinking.”
“About how to get us out of this mess, I hope.”
I pondered how much I should share. I didn’t want to lose my job. I had no backup plan. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine my life without the focus of working with families, kids in particular, who truly needed a helping hand.
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 10
