Gage’s phone vibrated in his pocket, the dull buzz sounding like a bomb going off. Eyes still trained to the mirror, Gage slapped his hand against the pocket of his pants, silencing the buzz. Unaware of the sound, the man continued creeping down the hall in the opposite direction, using the tip of his gun to push open every door he passed. Checking every room.
As they watched the mirror in horror, Celeste and Gage both held their breath, understanding that if they could see him… he could see them.
All it would take was one sharp look over his shoulder—one quick swivel on his heel—and he’d be looking right at them.
And when he did, there was no doubt he’d be putting the pistol in his hand to good use.
Twice.
7
White soapsuds screamed out against Veda’s dark brown skin as she massaged the fruity smelling shampoo into Coco’s scalp, causing the suds to grow bigger every second. Lukewarm water poured from the bathtub’s spout, filling the bathroom with the constant trickle of running water. Veda worked the soap into Coco’s jet-black chemically straightened hair. The white bubbles slowly turned pink as it mixed with the blood that had somehow gotten caked into her strands. Veda’s fingers began to shake almost as badly as Coco’s entire body, which still trembled from where she was curled into a ball in the middle of the tub.
The bloodstained soapsuds slowly dripped down Coco’s skin—just as deep brown as Veda’s even though Coco was half white—and into the porcelain tub. The pink suds hit the floor of the tub, turning the water there soft pink as well, as it journeyed to the head of the tub and disappeared down the drain. Every time Veda was sure there couldn’t possibly be any more blood left, the soap suds and water ebbed pink once more, driving her back to the shampoo and body wash bottles that were nearly empty on the tile floor next to her, their plastic bodies also covered in bloodstained soap and water.
Swallowing thickly, heart in her throat—as it had been since the moment Coco had shown up at her door—Veda removed her hands from Coco’s hair and stood on wobbly knees, seizing the hand-held showerhead before lifting the lever on top of the faucet, activating the showerhead’s stream.
She came back down to her knees, whispering, “Head back.”
Coco let her big brown eyes—which had been trained stoically forward—flutter closed. Still hugging her knees to her naked chest, shaking like a leaf, she heeded Veda’s request and tilted her head back. Veda couldn’t tell if Coco shook because she was cold, or terrified. She didn’t ask as she brought the stream to Coco’s hairline and rinsed the soap she’d just worked into her hair. The tub filled with baby pink water once more, but Veda was relieved to see that the color was slowly lightening. When she’d first helped Coco into that tub, the water had been bright red.
Coco’s head fell forward when Veda finished rinsing and stood to return the showerhead to its holder, reactivating the main spout.
Veda poured more shampoo into her hand. One more good rinse and she was sure every trace of pink would leave the water for good. Behind her, however, Coco’s clothes were still soaked in blood, lying in a heap at the corner of Veda’s bathroom. On top of that heap was a pair of kitchen shears, shears Coco had been holding in the back pocket of her jeans, with blades soaked in blood as well.
Coco sniffled, her hoarse voice coming softly, eyes still forward, devoid of emotion. “You told me to come to you if it ever happened again.”
“And you did the right thing in coming to me,” Veda said, silently thanking God that, in the midst of her panic, Coco had made the decision to drive to Veda’s apartment and not the police station. Even if it had meant showing up at her door dripping blood like Carrie, and giving Veda the scare of her life.
Veda frowned as she recalled the conversation she’d had with Coco, so many months ago, where Coco had confessed that her half-brother, Todd Lockwood, had made a habit of sneaking into her bed in the dead of night since she was a small child. Usually when he and Coco’s wealthy parents were out of town, which was often. After her confession, Coco had begged Veda not to go to the police, and Veda had complied, only because she’d planned to take matters into her own hands.
And she had.
Shortly after cutting Todd’s miserable nuts out, she’d told Coco that if Todd ever tried anything with her again that she should come straight to her.
And she had.
“It all happened so fast,” Coco whispered, her voice just as unsteady as her trembling body as Veda worked the shampoo into her hair once more. “He came up behind me in the kitchen. The shears were next to me… and I grabbed them…” Reliving the horror story she’d experienced earlier that night all over again, probably playing like a movie in her head, Coco’s eyes grew even bigger, her voice lowering to a barely discernible mumble. “I—I grabbed them…”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Veda whispered, still massaging.
Her heart shredded to pieces as she replayed the story Coco had told her—a story that had come in short, haphazard bursts of emotion over the course of the night. Bursts that Veda was slowly beginning to piece together. Her heart exploded with fury at the thought of Todd sneaking into the kitchen behind Coco, knowing the house was empty since their parents were out of town, coming up behind Coco and pressing his dick against her ass. Trying to pull down her jeans and panties against her will. To steal from her something that didn’t belong to him. Something he’d already stolen several times before—since Coco was a small child.
Veda thought of how terrified Coco must’ve been when she’d realized the nightmare Todd had forced her to endure for most of her young life—a nightmare she’d believed The Shadow Rock Chopper had finally brought to an end by castrating him—was far from over. She thought of how easily those kitchen shears must’ve found themselves in Coco’s hand—the way sharp objects often did when one was being attacked—and how easily the blades must’ve found themselves in Todd’s neck. His chest. His stomach. Any place Coco could get them, including the erection he’d taken out of his own jeans, which hadn’t been spared a meeting with the pointed ends of those shears.
Veda thought about how dull the blades on kitchen sheers were. How the force, the strain, the toil, Coco had to put behind every stab must’ve been incredible. She thought about how dangerous dull blades were—much more so than sharp, clean ones. She thought about the kind of jagged wounds an unsharpened blade left behind. Wounds that had the power to kill ten times faster, or in Todd’s case, leave a man in a coma. She nearly smiled at the thought of how much pain Todd must’ve been in, but she couldn’t because, at that moment, his pain meant Coco’s too.
Veda’s teeth clenched. “That piece of shit got exactly what was coming to him.”
I should’ve killed him myself. Veda managed to bite back that sentence. I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.
Coco’s eyes flew to her, teeth chattering. “He’s gonna die, isn’t he?”
“God willing.”
“But if he dies, I won’t be able to graduate.” Coco’s eyes expanded as she seemed to realize that, if Todd died, missing graduation would be the least of her worries. “If he dies, I’ll go to prison.”
Veda’s stopped massaging the shampoo into her scalp, holding her eyes strongly. “You’re not going anywhere. I’m going to take care of everything. Nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
Veda made the promise with as much authority as she could, her eyes flying to the cell phone she’d left sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. The cell phone she’d used to call Linc earlier that night, telling him she had a huge problem, only to be shut down with a ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ She couldn’t even be angry with Linc for shutting her down because she knew he was ignoring her in the interest of helping Gage—who’d apparently gotten himself into a world of trouble on the Celeste.
When a shot of fear raced through her at the thought of Gage being hurt, Veda slammed her eyes closed, praying for
focus. For now, Gage’s well-being was completely out of her control. Coco’s well-being, however, was in her control. And considering her attack on Todd earlier that night was almost identical to the attacks carried out by The Shadow Rock Chopper over the months, Veda couldn’t deny that this was partially her fault—if not all her fault.
She’d always known she was a bad influence. That Coco’s adoration of her was not only shortsighted but dangerous. It was only at that moment, however, as she found herself washing blood out of Coco’s hair, that Veda realized just how dangerous her influence on Coco actually was. That she’d managed to influence Coco without even trying. Without even being present. In a way that might prove deadly.
Even worse was the fact that Veda had known all along what Todd had done to Coco. She’d been arrogant enough to believe that she had the power to fix it by castrating him. So consumed with herself, and her need for revenge, she hadn’t even noticed Coco’s slow descent over the months. A descent that had driven her to a pair of dull kitchen shears to stop Todd once and for all.
I should have killed him when I had the chance. She’d had the chance, nearly a year ago. She’d had Todd lying naked, unconscious, on his bathroom floor. She’d had the syringe of sodium thiopental in his neck. Just one solid push of the lever and she’d have ended his miserable life forever.
But no.
Her conscience hadn’t allowed it. Her conscience had convinced her that castrating him—forcing him to live with that maddening loss of control the way she had for so many years—was a better punishment. That letting him live, and watching him suffer, would be much more gratifying than killing him.
It had been the wrong choice, a choice that had circled back around to bite Coco square in the ass.
The guilt turned her stomach. “You will walk in your graduation. I’m never, ever, going to let anything happen to you.” As Veda said the words, a fire came to life in her heart, because she meant them with every fiber of her being.
Instead of dwelling on what a huge mistake she’d made letting Todd live, Veda managed to find a silver lining. Just because she couldn’t go back in time and kill Todd didn’t mean she couldn’t kill him now. He was lying in a coma at the hospital, her place of employment. A coma—which meant everyone was pretty much just waiting for him to die. All she had to do was flip a few switches to bring that wait to an end. No one would bat an eye when the coma patient kicked the dust. It would be expected. What would really surprise everyone was if Todd actually woke up.
And if he did wake up… he’d sing like a canary. The first two words out of his mouth would be loud and clear—Coco Lockwood.
Veda refused to let that happen. Just as she was in the midst of promising Coco she was going to take care of it once more, her doorbell rang, stopping her heart.
“Finish up,” she said, handing the showerhead to Coco before leaning in and kissing her cheek. “Keep washing and rinsing. Don’t stop until the water runs clear. Not a hint of pink, okay?”
Coco took the showerhead from Veda. It shook in her hand. She lifted her big brown eyes to watch as Veda stood, and then nodded softly.
Veda left the bathroom with a deep breath, hurrying across her living room and toward the door. Whoever had just rung the doorbell was now banging furiously, so hard it made the walls shake. One look through her peephole and she exhaled in relief, throwing the door open.
“Linc, thank God—”
“Turn on the TV.” Linc didn’t even look at her as he stepped inside the apartment, brushing her shoulder as he swept by her, moving to the coffee table where the evidence that proved she was The Chopper still sat, evidence that had lost all significance to both of them during a night quickly spiraling into madness. “Where’s the remote?” he barked.
Veda slammed her front door closed. “I don’t know. I threw it. I was angry at the news lady.” Veda realized it didn’t matter, her eyes flying to the bathroom before shooting back to Linc. “Linc, I have a huge problem—”
Linc went to the couch, launching every throw pillow off in search for the remote, huffing the whole way.
Veda’s eyes widened at him. “Can you slow down for one second?”
Linc moved to the seat cushions next, removing them from the couch completely, grumbling to himself. “Took my badge…”
“What?” Veda sputtered. “Who took your badge?”
“Threw me off the scene…”
“Scene? What scene?”
He continued as if he couldn’t hear her. “Even though it was my informant who gave her the lead in the first place…”
Her eyes widened at the word ‘informant.’ “Gage? Is he okay?”
“… Has time to be petty with a can full of kids gone fuckin’ AWOL…”
“Kids? Can?”
Linc circled the couch and pulled it away from the wall, looking behind it for the remote. “The roadblocks were my goddamn idea in the first place…”
Veda realized this was going to be the kind of night where no one spoke in full sentences. Only in short, random bursts that forced her to put their jumbled words together like pieces of a puzzle. She’d already suffered through it with Coco and was well on her way there with Linc, who was clearly in his own world, completely incapable of normal conversation. Knowing this, she crossed the room to the TV, fingered the edge, and pressed the power button.
Linc shot up from where he was still bent behind the couch, eyes flying to the TV when the voices of newscasters filled the room.
“That’s right. TVs still have buttons,” Veda said.
Linc moved to the TV in a flash, pointing to Veda as his eyes remained trained on the screen. “Turn it up.”
Veda shot another look toward the bathroom, deciding that the bloody angel still curled up in her bathtub would have to wait until Linc got whatever was driving him crazy out of his system. He was clearly in no state to help her clean up after Coco. To help her get rid of the evidence in the way only a cop could. Not until he’d calmed down. So Veda turned the volume up without another word.
Then she came up next to Linc, crossing her arms and frowning at the TV to see what all the fuss was about.
With the volume up, the female newscaster’s voice was amplified. “This just in, the Celeste, Blackwater Cruises’ largest ship, has been surrounded by police this evening after concerns of stowaways onboard. Concerns that prompted a search of the ship that came up empty…”
Veda’s face fell as Linc’s previously jumbled words slowly began to make more sense.
Can of kids.
AWOL.
Roadblocks.
The male newscaster joined in. “But police haven’t given up yet, Sally. We’ve been following this story since it broke, working with our affiliates in the area, and so far, police have searched nearly two hundred shipping containers in the shipyard and have also set up roadblocks all across Shadow Rock in the hopes of finding—”
“I’m sorry, John, but I have to jump in…” Sally pressed two fingers to her ear and squinted, appearing to listen in on a member of the production team speaking through her earpiece. “It appears we have breaking news that the underage stowaways have been found….”
The newscast cut to helicopter footage of a lorry truck that had been stopped at one of the roadblocks on the highway, carrying a royal blue container on its back.
Sally frowned into the camera in horror, an expression that perfectly matched the one slowly spreading across Veda’s face too. “And we’re getting word that the driver of the truck is dead in what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head…”
“What the fuck…” Veda couldn’t even finish, her words petering away as her eyes flew to Linc, just in time to see the color drain from his face. She didn’t know when he’d pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number, but he had. Phone to his ear, his horrified eyes remained trained to the TV. Veda searched his profile as his jaw tightened, guessing he was irate at being sent to the voicemail of whoever he’d called
.
His deep voice rang out. “They found the kids. Driver’s dead. You’re the only person alive who can testify about where that container originated.” He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “If you’re at the house, get the hell out of the house. If you’re still in town, get the hell out of town. Disappear as fast as you can, in any way you can, or you’re next.”
Linc hung up without another word.
Veda couldn’t speak.
Because she knew who Linc had called without even having to ask, and her heart was in her throat.
8
Gage and Celeste’s chests heaved from where they were hunkered down on the shower floor, their heavy breathing bouncing off the walls. The white marble shower was as big as a walk-in closet, and moonlight boomed into the double doors of the large window that had been built into the opposite wall. The glow of that moon—as well as the stars dotting the black sky all around it—served as the only illumination in the pitch-black bathroom. Neither of them had dared to flip on a switch after they’d raced inside that bathroom and curled themselves into the farthest corner of the large shower. The only corner that wasn’t flanked by tall glass.
Beyond the half wall they were both crouched behind—the half wall that hid them from sight—was a Jacuzzi bathtub, followed by a double sink, and then the closed door of the bathroom. From where she was curled up in the shower’s sharpest corner, snuggled between the wall and the warmth of Gage’s strong body, Celeste shook so badly she nearly caused him to start shaking as well. She had the flap of his black jacket in a death grip, making it feel tight against his skin. Making him feel trapped in. The tips of her long hair tickled the backs of his hands from where he had his arms locked tight around her, holding her close, and her breath warmed his neck in sharp spurts as it flew from her flared nostrils.
Dull stomps sounded on the other side of the bathroom door, causing their breathing to pick up, booming against the white marble walls. The stomps grew louder, closer to the bathroom. Whoever was on the other side of that door, in Gage’s bedroom, had surely caught sight of the clothes strewn all over the room and the TV that had been left on. Gage was thankful that, at the very least, he’d had the presence of mind to hide the suitcase Celeste had been packing under the bed before they’d raced into that bathroom. A half packed suitcase would’ve been the biggest indicator that someone was still in the house.
Rouse (Revenge Book 7) Page 5
