She took in a shaky breath. I sipped my lemonade, trying to keep my own emotions in check. She had to get it all out, and I had to know the truth, not just for Emma’s sake, or my own, but for how we would approach her defense.
“I saw a light from the woods, and I walked over there.”
“Why would your mom be in the woods?” Zahera asked, doubt evident in her tone.
“Don’t judge, Z,” I said, frowning at her.
“Sorry. You’re right. I need to zip it.” She ran her fingers along her lips.
“Keep going, Cristina,” I said.
“She’s right. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’d allowed myself to believe the impossible—that my mom actually gave a damn about me.”
She put a fist to her mouth, as if she were holding back tears.
“Don’t judge yourself.” I leaned over and put my hand on her knee.
She exhaled. “When he showed himself, I think I stopped breathing. I couldn’t believe it was him…after all this time.”
The veins at her temples became more prominent. She was in pain. But I couldn’t let her go mute until everything had been said. I nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“The memories came back of him hurting me, of him…” She didn’t have to finish. Zahera and I knew what Jesse had done to her. Zeke could only guess, but at least he didn’t interrupt her thoughts.
“I couldn’t move. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t will myself to do it for what seemed like an eternity. I was a chicken shit.” She slammed her fist to the table and then covered her face.
Zahera reached over, rubbed her back. “This is tearing me up inside watching you do this to yourself. We can take a break if you want.”
“No,” Cristina and I both said in tandem.
We shared a brief chuckle as I handed Cristina a napkin. She wiped her nose and face, then took a deep breath in and out. “He started telling me all of this shit about my mom being pregnant.”
I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “What?”
“Who knows if he was telling the truth? He said she wasn’t taking care of his needs, and that’s why he wanted me. He’s so fucking disgusting!” she screamed. And then she began to sob, heaving out breaths as tears fell from her cheeks.
“Get her something to drink,” I said to Zahera.
“I’ll get it.” Zeke jumped out of his chair, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and handed it to Cristina in mere seconds.
“Thanks.” She cracked the top and chugged half of it, then she wiped her mouth with her forearm. She used the napkin to clear off a trail of tears and gathered herself. “He attacked me, had me pinned down. He was going to rape me,” she said, moving her eyes from me to Zeke. “Again. Just like he used to do.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Zeke shifting in his chair. Even the one trained in violence was having a difficult time hearing this.
“That beast deserved to die,” Zahera said.
I just looked at her.
“Sorry, but I couldn’t hold back. He was the lowest form of human that has ever lived. I hate him and I never even knew him.”
“Thanks, Z.” Cristina held out her hand, and Zahera squeezed it.
“What happened next?” I asked.
“It was fate. I found a stick and stabbed him in the eye.”
“Woo-hoo!” Zahera shouted.
I gave her another look. She zipped her mouth again.
“He slithered off me like the snake he is. I grabbed this stone that fit perfectly in my hand, and I pounded his face and head over and over and over again.”
Oh no. She actually did it. She killed him. I looked over at Zeke, who shook his head. We’d just heard a confession. I wasn’t sure what to say or do next.
“Zahera, didn’t you say you had another lawyer friend who could help us out?”
“Yeah, I can make a call in the morning.”
“You think I killed him?” Cristina said with a raised voice.
“No…it’s just that…” I could feel perspiration forming at my hair line. I blew a stream of cool air toward my forehead.
“Just what?” She shook her head slowly as her eyes became glassy again. “Of all the people who I thought would believe me, it was you, Ivy. But I guess you never really did. I can’t fucking believe it.”
“No, Cristina, it’s not like that.” A tear escaped the corner of my eye.
“Then what’s it like? Huh?”
“Well, you just said you pounded his head over and over again. That’s how he died, Cristina. He was bludgeoned to death.”
Zahera put both hands over her mouth.
No one spoke. We all sat there, glancing up to look at each other, and then we’d move our eyes away. Cristina opened her water bottle and drank until it was empty. She calmly set it on the table and gazed straight ahead. She wasn’t looking at Zeke. I guessed she was lost in her thoughts of what had taken place a few nights ago.
“Ivy, Zahera…I’m sorry,” she said.
“You don’t need to apologize, girl,” Zahera said. “No way. I’m going to get you the best lawyer I can find, and we’ll fight it. This was clearly self-defense.”
“I didn’t kill him. I wanted to for a few seconds, but I didn’t do it.”
“But you already said that you—”
“I told the truth. I hurt him, and dammit, it felt good. But he told me to stop. That’s when I raised the rock up, and I was about to end his life right there. But something hit me. As much as I knew he didn’t deserve to live, as much as I knew I’d be doing the world a favor, something stopped me. I guess I couldn’t lower myself to his level. So I dropped the rock and walked off.” She turned and faced me. “He was still alive and rolling on the ground when I walked away.”
Zahera gasped…in a good way.
I said, “I’m sorry if I doubted you, Cristina.”
“Thank you,” she said, dabbing her napkin at her eyes again. “Now I just wonder how my mom is doing. Is she pregnant? Hell, is she even alive?”
I would find out and then try to devise a plan to keep Cristina out of prison.
31
It was early the next morning, and I sat in my typical corner booth of Smoothies and Stuff. In a bartering deal I’d worked out with the new owners, the little corner with windows bordering two sides of the shop was considered our so-called “home office” for ECHO. The owners gave us this booth specifically because they knew it was visible from the street. If a place was popular, then it only drew more customers, they’d said. Made sense to me.
I opened a map application on my phone and inserted the address Cristina had given me as the last known address for her mom, Lena. The search process started as the little wheel on the screen spun. I took a pull from my smoothie and looked up to see Stan and his cousin Nick in line. The FBI agent, who appeared to be an inch or so taller than Stan just because of his slender frame, was doing a lot of pointing at the menu above the cashier’s head. It was apparent he was educating Stan about all of the healthy options available. Not once in all of the meetings here at the shop had Stan consumed a healthy smoothie.
History was in the making.
The search results came back with a location on the west side of San Antonio, near Lackland Air Force Base. I wondered what I’d find when I finally hunted down Lena Tafoya—if I could find her. I tried to stay positive. I would locate her. But what condition would she be in? Would she care that Cristina was being charged with Jesse’s murder? Would she be open to finally mending the relationship with her daughter, to even offering some feeble attempt at support for her daughter during this difficult time?
A crazy but noteworthy question shot to the front of my mind: what if she’s actually upset at Cristina for killing her abusive boyfriend? I’d come across far too many women who had suffered so much at the hands of their significant other, but were still obsessively and blindly loyal to that person. It had been one of the most startling and disturbing aspects o
f my job at CPS.
I saw Nick pull out his wallet and pay the cashier, a smirk on his face. Stan was brooding like a little kid being forced to eat his veggies.
For a quick moment, I thought about the end of our conversation from last night, how Cristina had described her last few seconds with Jesse. Consumed by fear and anger, she’d had every reason to kill Jesse. But she had stopped herself before it was too late. My pride in her went sky high when she’d said that.
What about you, Ivy? Would you stop yourself if you had the chance to kill Milton?
I refused to get into an internal debate on that topic, knowing I’d fall back into my depressive slumber while constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting and wondering if the next guy around the corner was him—Milton.
Almost surprisingly, Zahera and I weren’t the only ones who’d believed Cristina. Zeke admitted that her description of events, as gut-wrenching as they were, sounded authentic. He said he’d recommend to Dillon that Cristina be allowed to stay and help take care of Emma. He’d also informed me that Dillon’s parents had been held up in California. Something about a sick dog.
Nick and then Stan slid into the seat opposite me. “You figured everything out yet?” Nick asked.
“Hardly. More questions than ever.” I looked at Stan, who set his drink down, held up both hands.
“I’m sorry about not being able to give you any warning about Cristina being arrested,” he said. “The assistant DA worked with the ME’s office and on-site detectives to quickly conclude that Cristina was their number one suspect. And because I knew Cristina, they weren’t sharing crap with me.”
“I understand you can’t control the entire justice system, Stan. But you know these charges are crap, right?” I poked at the table to emphasize my words.
“She was charged with murder, correct?” Nick asked, sucking his smoothie through the straw with determination. It was a thick drink, especially at the early stages.
I quickly corrected him. “Manslaughter.”
“And that’s a good thing,” Stan said. “It shows that the DA’s office recognizes the peril Cristina was in.”
“But why not say she acted in self-defense and just move on?”
“My guess is because of the amount of violence that was inflicted during the process of killing Jesse.” Stan picked up his cup, eyed the contents, then set it back down. “They didn’t share much with me, but I did get a glance at the pictures of the dead body. It made my stomach turn, and that’s saying a lot.”
I nodded, my eyes shifting to my phone.
“If there’s anything you think I can do to help, just tell me,” Stan said. “Do you have a good lawyer yet?”
“Ross had to stand in last night to get Cristina out on bail.”
“That snake? Shocked that he went to the trouble.”
“Only because Saul begged. He’ll probably be forced to turn over his first-born child as payback.”
Nick snorted out a laugh, then noticed I wasn’t smiling, so he quickly brought the straw back to his mouth.
“I just want the investigation to not stop. Cristina didn’t kill him. Someone must have come across him in the woods and killed him. We need to check the cameras at the elementary school and the high school on the other side of the woods and identify every person caught on tape.”
“That’s a good place to start,” Nick said.
“But I need the so-called good guys to be digging for this killer.”
“Tell you what,” Stan said. “Let me talk to Moreno. Maybe he’ll do me a favor and check into a few things…on the side.”
I released a breath. “Thank you, Stan.”
“Hey, he might push back. He might not want to get on the bad side of Ronda, that assistant DA. But I’ll do my best.”
“Cool.”
“So, what’s the other reason you dragged us here? Just to get Nick all in my business?” He moved his eyes from his cousin to me. “Surely you two didn’t conspire against me, right? This isn’t some type of sick eat-healthy intervention?” He sat up, snapped his fingers before I could get off a response. “It was my wife. Bev’s been talking to both of you.”
“Are you done yet?” Nick said. “Geez, Stan. Save the grassy-knoll conspiracy theories for UFOs and the Illuminati and the New World Order.”
Stan slumped in his chair as I put a hand to my mouth to hide my smile.
“It’s just that I’m a grown man, and I know what I can and should eat. And this crap,” he said, picking up the cup as if it were a dangerous toxic chemical, “isn’t real food. And it tastes like a piece of chalk.”
“You haven’t tasted it. How would you know?” Nick said.
I arched an eyebrow in support of Nick cornering Stan, who dropped his jaw and then pointed at his smoothie. “You think I’m afraid to drink this?”
We both stared at him.
“Screw both of you.” He picked up the cup, pinched his nose with his opposite hand, and took a long pull from the straw.
“Are you going to keel over and die?” Nick asked.
“Not half bad.” Stan took in another gulp and nodded. “At least for today, I’ll bypass the fast-food drive-thru for breakfast.”
I clapped my hands and smiled at Stan.
Nick reached for Stan’s cup. “You got that Orange Crush flavor. Let me give it a try.”
Stan smacked his hand. “Get your own, cuz.”
Though I was smiling, I wasn’t sure I could deal with a healthy Stan.
32
Nick put down his phone and turned to Stan, who was using a wet paper towel to wipe his face. “What do you want me to say, Stan? Your system is so used to fat, sugar, and all sorts of manmade crap that it rejected the healthy stuff. Especially how fast you drank it.”
Stan moaned and rolled his eyes. “Ivy, you were starting to get into the Dillon case. Please take my mind off my stomach pains.”
I tried not to laugh at his expense. “Honestly, I’m still conflicted about Dillon. I see how much he does for his daughter, how much she adores him. It’s hard to get my head around how he could hurt anyone, especially an underage girl.”
“What can I say? People are rarely one-hundred-percent good or bad.” He stopped for a second, as if he expected me to counter his comment with my own thoughts about Milton. I didn’t go there, and he finally ended the awkward pause.
“You know as much as I do that good people do stupid shit and vice versa. Nick and I both take it one case at a time, one piece of evidence at a time, and try to keep the emotion out of it. It’s not always possible, but if you don’t, then you risk not seeing something you should have picked up.”
Keep the emotion out of it. It seemed impossible, especially dealing with little kids and good friends. “Have you guys made any headway on finding the sniper?”
Nick shot a glance at his cousin.
Stan threw his head back. “Nick, how many times do I have to tell you that she’s cool?”
“Okay, okay, it’s just taking me a while to get used to working in this unorthodox manner.” He looked at me. “No suspect is in our sights, so there’s not a lot of real meat on this case. Yet. Based upon the analyses of the bullets, we believe the weapon to be an M24 SWS. It’s a military version of the Remington 700.”
I looked at Stan, who then said, “All of that technical stuff doesn’t mean much to her.”
“We don’t have a trail leading us right to the killer. Not yet anyway. But the technical stuff can help us. I’ve got a team of folks back in Boston who are digging through every database they can get their hands on to review purchases of that type of rifle.”
“Do you really think a sniper—probably a professional—just walked into a gun store and used his credit card to buy the weapon?” I asked, skepticism oozing.
“Cynical,” Nick said. “But I can’t say you’re wrong. It’s just one step we’re taking. If nothing else, it will eliminate that evidence trail. If we get lucky, then…” He looked at his ph
one. “Now, one more thing on the technical front. The local FBI crime scene investigators analyzed the angle of the bullets that hit off the patio pavestones. They were able to determine that the shooter was positioned in a tree approximately one hundred yards out.”
I glanced at Stan, then back to Nick.
“Before you say anything, the cops scoured that entire wooded area. They didn’t find any shells or anything else left behind by the shooter.”
I nodded. “But this guy—”
Nick held up a finger. “Never said it was a guy.”
“Okay, this person couldn’t have been that good of a shot. Bullets were sprayed all over the patio.”
Nick nodded. “That’s where this doesn’t make a lot of sense. The shooter uses a top-notch sniper rifle, but then has the accuracy of a weekend warrior.”
“Does any of this change your opinion that this could all point back to Belsito?” I asked.
He pressed his lips into his teeth. “Can’t say. We need to find the shooter, and then see if he—”
“Or she,” Stan said.
“Or she can be traced back to Belsito, or maybe there’s another motive we’re not seeing. For right now, the SAPD has a protective detail on Dillon at the hospital. They’ll continue their assignment once he’s home.”
“What about Zeke and his squad?”
“I guess Dillon could refuse the protection, but I wouldn’t if I were him,” Nick said. “We’ll keep digging. More evidence will turn up. It always does.”
I thumbed through the pictures on my phone. When I found the one I wanted, I tapped the screen to enlarge it, and then I turned my phone so the Radowski cousins could see the image.
“Three teenagers messing around,” Stan said. “I think you’ve got the wrong picture.”
I’d returned to Dillon’s office when Zeke wasn’t patrolling the area and taken a picture of the three boys in the frame. “I think Dillon’s in the middle.”
Stan leaned closer. “I’ll be damned. I think you’re right.”
“Dillon isn’t a military guy. He went to MIT. He’s into science and space exploration. So, it might be a long shot, but I thought he might have some old buddy who’s jealous about all of his wealth and wanted to get back at him.”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 64
