“It’s good to hear your voice, Belle.” The sincerity in his tone only made her ache more. “I wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Me, too.” She struggled to hold back sobs that she knew she couldn’t restrain for much longer. “I’ll see you at the funeral.”
“See you.” And then he was gone, the call disconnected.
Sobs broke free as Belle continued to sit with her back against the door while tears flowed down her cheeks and memories flooded her mind.
Nate had been such a great guy. What had happened to him that would make him want to take his own life?
The CoS had drifted apart over the years. In truth, Belle knew she had broken it irreparably when she’d run away from home. The group had stayed friends, but Christie had told Belle that it had never been the same. Christie had said that Dylan had changed, withdrawing from everyone in the CoS but Nate. According to Christie, Dylan’s easy smile had vanished and he’d become more reserved.
What a shock it had been to hear Dylan’s voice after all this time.
Belle hadn’t forgiven herself for what she’d done to the CoS and Dylan, but she’d had to run. At that point in her life, she knew she had no choice. She couldn’t take one more day of the abuse she’d faced at the hands of Harvey Driscoll, her stepfather. She was positive that if Dylan had found out, he would have ended up in prison for killing the bastard.
When she’d discovered that her stepfather had been instrumental in the murder of Dylan’s father, it had pushed her over the edge. She’d known Dylan would never be able to look at her the same way, and it would have given him another reason to kill Harvey.
So she’d run. And she’d never gone back.
Over the years, as Internet child pornography had grown, she’d worried sometimes that the pictures and videos Harvey had taken of her would someday surface, but if they had, she had no knowledge of it.
With her husband’s connections, Christie had tracked Belle down fifteen years ago. It had been a shock to hear from Christie, but she’d been insistent on rebuilding a friendship, and they had become close friends again. Every year Christie came out to Houston to visit Belle, most of the time with Salvatore. Christie’s husband doted on his wife and liked to travel with her when business allowed.
An insistent knock came at the office door, startling Belle. She glanced at the time on her cell phone and saw that she’d been in her office a good half hour and it was the restaurant’s busiest time of day.
“Just a minute,” she called out as she pushed herself to her feet while wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands.
“What the hell is going on, Belle?” Gerald shouted through the door.
Damn. The owner was not an easy man to be around and she did her best to avoid pissing him off.
She pocketed the phone, turned and opened the door, and faced the scowling man who, at five-six, was half an inch shorter than her. He was almost as big around as he was tall.
He glared at her. “Your makeup is a mess and your eyes are red.”
She wiped below her eyes with her fingertips in an attempt to wipe away smudges. “I just learned a close friend of mine died.”
“Pull yourself together and cry on your own time.” He narrowed his gaze. “I have a restaurant to run. Get back to work. Now.”
Her skin prickled. She had only worked for him for two months, but she’d grown to find he was a cold man. This, however, was beyond anything she’d expected. She regretted leaving the restaurant she had managed before this one. It had seemed like such a good opportunity at the time.
She straightened. “Give me five minutes to fix my makeup.”
“Make it three.” He started to turn away when she stopped him.
“I need to take off the rest of this week.” She straightened as he slowly looked back at her. “I have to drive to Arizona for the services and the funeral. I’ll be gone five days.”
“You are needed here.” His tone was icy.
“I’m needed there, too.” Belle tried to keep her hands from clenching into fists. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
He gestured toward her desk. “If you plan on leaving, then you’d better pack up your things now.”
She stared at him, unable to believe his ultimatum. “My friend just died.”
“Your leaving isn’t going to bring your friend back.” He snarled the words. “So get your ass to work.”
Belle turned and walked to the desk. She reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out her purse. She hadn’t worked here long enough to accumulate anything.
She slung the purse over her shoulder and walked back to the shorter man. “You have my address. You can mail my final check directly to me.”
His face turned a deep shade of red. “Don’t even think about coming back.”
She slipped past him and strode out the back door into the parking lot, letting the door slam shut behind her with a final heavy thud.
The fury burning through Belle twisted with her need to grieve for Nate. Damn Gerald. Now she was out of a job, and soon she’d be on her way out of town. She liked having a decent savings, but it wasn’t going to last long with all that was hitting her at once. Not to mention she had a mortgage and car payment to make.
And then there was Dylan. He had called her himself.
Just the sound of his voice had brought back memories so sweet they were almost too painful to bear. All they had shared, all the plans they’d made…everything turned to dust.
She climbed into her red Prius and slammed that door, too. In moments she was headed to her house, thirty minutes away from the restaurant.
When she finally reached the subdivision, she pulled her car up to the community mailboxes and climbed out. Her box was lucky number thirteen. She jammed her key into the keyhole and opened the small door before digging out junk mail and bills then locking the door again. She flipped through the mail as she walked back to the car and stopped before she reached for the door handle.
A card with no return address was in the pile of mail. It was a postcard from Bisbee, a photo of the Copper Queen Hotel on the front. Her brow furrowed and she climbed into her car and shut the door behind her. She tossed the rest of the mail onto the passenger seat before focusing on the postcard.
She flipped it over. When she saw the untidy penmanship and started to read, she felt blood drain from her face.
Belle,
You’ve come a long way from that teenage girl who had to leave. You’ve done well, and I’m proud of you.
I’ll never forget when your big brown dog bit me on the ass. Don’t let your past bite yours.
Please be careful.
Love,
Nate
Belle sat and stared at the note, reading it over and over. Nate had written this, but now he was dead. It was like hearing from the beyond.
The odd thing was the incident he mentioned and the fact that he’d gotten it a little wrong. She’d always known Nate to have perfect recall, so this was strange. Her dog had been white, not brown.
Tears filled her eyes, blurring the words. Why would he send this postcard, then kill himself? Had it been his way of saying goodbye?
She set the postcard on the seat next to the pile of junk mail before driving the rest of the way down the street to her house. She pulled her car into her garage, lowered the door, and then grabbed her purse and all the mail before going into her home.
Inside, after she’d tossed aside her purse and discarded the junk mail, she stood in the middle of the kitchen and gripped Nate’s postcard. She closed her eyes and took a deep cleansing breath.
Right now nothing mattered but going back to Bisbee and being with her old friends as they said goodbye to Nate.
Her mind jumped to what she had run away from as a teenager and she shuddered and opened her eyes. As far as she knew, Harvey, her abuser, was still in Bisbee.
A weight came crashing down on her. She’d been through years of counseling where
she’d learned to accept that the sexual abuse had not been her fault. Her stepfather had shamed her and capitalized on her self-guilt to have her buy into her shame and take it into debasement.
Fear that the abuse would escalate had caused her to run. She swallowed past the painful tightness in her throat. For all she knew the bastard could have ended up killing her.
During her counseling sessions since, she’d been told she needed to face her abuser for closure. Now the perfect opportunity was waiting for her in Bisbee. Her hands shook and her heart palpitated. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to face the man without killing him.
~~*~~
Belle guided the car along the highway, glad she was finally closing in on the Texas/New Mexico border. Not much longer and she’d make it to Las Cruces. She was exhausted from driving and very much looking forward to a hotel room with clean linens and hopefully a comfortable bed.
Truth was, she hated to drive, especially across desolate stretches of land, and there was a lot of that through Texas and New Mexico. It wouldn’t be so bad once she entered Cochise County in the lower southeast corner of Arizona.
Driving gave her far too much time to think, and dwelling on things she couldn’t change wasn’t what she’d wanted to do. Thoughts of Nate, her stepfather, and Dylan continued to bombard her.
And Dylan being the one to call her—she hadn’t been able to forget the sound of his voice and the way her body had reacted the moment she’d heard it.
She tried to think about good times. Their old hangout had been the Puma Den, a popular pizza joint in San Jose, a subdivision of Bisbee. The pizza place had been named after their high school’s mascot, the puma. She smiled to herself as she remembered the seven of them crowded around a table eating garbage pizza, talking about school, sports, band, and anything else that might come up. Nate had always had to have anchovies, which she’d picked off her pieces.
Then there were the plans she and Dylan had made for the future…the things they would do and the places they would travel to. One of their favorite dreams was their honeymoon. They would go someplace with snow and cuddle up in a cabin in front of a fire. Snow was something they got little of in southern Arizona, and it had seemed so romantic when they were young.
Everything had been romantic until her life had fallen apart. Her throat ached. She had to stop thinking of Dylan in that way. It had been over long ago.
Belle checked her speed and saw that it had crept up too high. She put the car on cruise control as her thoughts remained on the Circle of Seven and Dylan.
The CoS had been an odd group, but they’d been together since their elementary days. What they had gone through together when they were young, thanks to Mr. Norton, had created a tight friendship that survived even the social complexities of junior high and high school. The seven of them were like The Breakfast Club in some ways.
During fourth grade at Greenway Elementary, Mr. Norton, the evilest of the evil teachers, had always had it in for them for one reason or another. Only God knew why. Mr. Norton had constantly sent the seven of them to the principal, who had been vile, too. Mr. Johnson had pulled down their underpants to expose their bare bottoms before paddling them. Now she knew it had been perverted and child abuse, but that was back when teachers and principals got away with it.
Mr. Johnson had drilled holes into the paddle so it hurt worse when it smacked their skin. After hitting them, he had made them sit together on the steps outside, during recess, their bottoms stinging and their cheeks burning with humiliation. The seven of them hadn’t been allowed to move, but they had talked and talked when Mr. Johnson wasn’t checking on them.
They began to call themselves the Circle of Seven and had forged a friendship that had withstood so much over time. Over the years, everything they went through individually also continued to strengthen the group.
At Bisbee Middle School the school mascot had been the Cobras, the colors purple and gold. When they’d graduated, they’d gone to Bisbee High and had become the Pumas with red and gray as their school colors.
Belle had been a cheerleader at BMS and BHS. Once she left Bisbee, she’d fallen into the restaurant business. Over the years, she’d worked her way up from bottle washer to making a decent living in restaurant management.
Christie had kept Belle updated on what everyone else was up to. Interestingly enough, only three of the original seven had children.
Tom had excelled in various high school organizations, as well as being class president and the class valedictorian. He’d divorced recently and had transferred from Tucson Medical Center to take a position at Copper Queen Hospital as a physician. He had joint custody of his son, but only had the boy in the summer because his ex still lived in Tucson.
Leon had been a football hero who now had a wife and three children, and they owned a water well drilling business. He lived a little ways from Bisbee, close to Sierra Vista.
Marta had played varsity basketball. These days she lived with her wife, Nancy, and their fraternal twin sons who had been conceived with donor sperm. Marta had been a stay at home mom with their boys.
Christie had played flute in the band, and had been quiet but popular. After marrying Salvatore, she started working in his office. They’d attempted to have children but they had been unable to get pregnant.
Dylan was a cowboy and had worked on his father’s ranch when he wasn’t at school or spending time with the CoS. Now he was in federal law enforcement, and had never married. She swallowed and had to push thoughts of Dylan away because thinking about him was too painful. No one had ever made her feel the way Dylan had.
Nate had never had a thing for organized activities or labels. He’d driven a hot rod and had been a girl magnet. Even though he’d dated, he hadn’t seemed to realize so many girls had a thing for him.
A smile touched Belle’s lips as she thought about Nate as he had been then. Despite his outward appearance and the souped-up Charger he drove, he’d been the quietest of the group. He would interject comments and jokes when they were together that would crack up all of them. He might have been the least talkative, but he’d had an awesome sense of humor and he’d been something of a prankster. They’d always been able to count on him for a little levity.
Like the time when they’d seen their English teacher, Mr. Bishop, smoking pot off campus on the last day of school their freshman year. Marta and Christie were so against any kind of drugs that they’d been upset to see their favorite teacher with a joint.
Nate had cracked a joke, which had them all laughing, even Marta and Christie. They’d headed to the Puma Den, determined to put aside what they’d seen. Who were they to judge?
That one memory of Nate and the CoS shifted to a memory she’d hidden deep for so many years. She swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel tight, unable to stop her mind from going back to that night.
After they’d left the pizza place, Belle and Dylan had taken off in his truck and had driven up to the Divide. It had been the most precious thing in her life, nearly wiping away the pain of the emotional and verbal abuse at the hands of her mother.
She’d lost her virginity to Dylan that night. It had been something beautiful that she’d held onto until she had ended up running away.
When her stepfather had begun to abuse her months later, at least he hadn’t been able to take that part of her innocence.
One memory bled into another.
A tear rolled down her cheek as she remembered how her mother, Mary, had died from a drug overdose that summer, leaving Belle alone with her stepfather. One form of abuse had ended with her mother’s death. But a far worse abuse had followed when her stepfather had come home drunk and forced himself on her not long after her mother’s death.
She had taken her mother’s place in her stepfather’s bed whenever he dragged her into his bedroom. The shame and guilt had changed her forever. She had dropped out of cheerleading and had been withdrawn with her CoS friends. She had still hung out
with them, still dated Dylan, but she’d had to force herself to participate in conversations and struggled to smile moment by moment.
The emotions crashing down on her were overwhelming. The blare of a horn snapped her back to the present and she realized she’d started to drift into another lane. Heart thudding, she swerved back into the correct lane. She braked and pulled off the freeway, into the emergency lane, and parked on the side of the road.
Her breaths came hard and fast and she realized she was hyperventilating. She pressed the button for her emergency flashers and put her forehead against the steering wheel as she tried to slow her breathing.
When she finally regained her composure, she leaned back in her seat to take a few more moments to make sure she was calm enough to drive. After another five minutes she switched off the flashers, waited for traffic to clear, and pulled back onto the highway.
The one thing she knew was that going back to Bisbee was the second hardest thing she’d ever done. The first had been leaving.
CHAPTER 3
Rain fell from the sky like tears. Dylan slammed his truck door and shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. Drops hit his Stetson and rolled off the brim as he headed past five other vehicles, toward a small group gathered on a ridge in the Mule Mountains.
The clearing on the ridge had been one of the CoS’s favorite places to hang out when they were in high school and needed some kind of escape.
Dylan couldn’t help the churning in his mind or his gut as he trod over wet earth and past scraggly bushes and cacti.
Detective Jensen had called Dylan and confirmed his suspicions that the spatter on the baseboard in Nate’s living room was blood. Not only was it blood, but according to DNA tests it belonged to Edmund Salcido, a suspected bookkeeper for the Jimenez Cartel. Edmund had been convicted embezzlement in the past, so they were fortunate to have his DNA in the database.
Dylan’s boot slipped in mud as he closed in on the five figures. All wore jeans and jackets, a couple with raincoats. This was not a place or a time for formality. He almost smiled but didn’t when he thought of how Nate would have laughed if they had dressed formally and in black.
No Mercy Page 3
