Dusty was so busy processing that statement that she almost missed what Theo did next. With a considerable effort, he worked the cutters behind Alberto, opening and closing them. While she couldn’t see what he’d done, she heard a meaty plop into the bucket and watched Theo’s eyes settle a bit while Alberto’s screams rose in intensity.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Theo came back around to the front while his voice took on a strange tone. “Did that hurt? Do you want me to stop? Are you begging me?” Over his shoulder, without taking an eye off the man dangling from the ceiling, he asked Dusty, “Do you want to do the other one?”
“N-no.”
“Shame. It’s actually satisfying.” Then he walked back around and cut the man’s other hand off with a soft grunt. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Mr. Pina. We’re going to let you bleed out here. It shouldn’t take too long.” Bending down, Theo picked up the hands and tossed them, one by one, to Dusty, who caught them reflexively, before dropping them, leaving a smudge of blood on her clothes, then on the plastic-sheeted floor. They were hot and soft, doughy almost, the flesh still living, the blood almost boiling. It was surreal, the man they belonged to being several feet away.
She stared at Alberto while Theo continued to talk to him.
“Then I’m going to send one of your hands to Guy and one to Mark, so they know I’m coming. You got off easy.” A large metal, 55-gallon drum sat to the side of Pina. An important detail. She took it in, filing it away. She wasn’t sure how to feel right now. A huge part of her knew she should be disgusted, but she wasn’t. Should be horrified, but no.
Dusty didn’t feel any of those things. No revulsion.
If anything, she was a little jealous. She could see the tension lift from Theo. She could see the satisfaction settle in. She wanted that.
“They’re going to get it rough. Brutally. Like my sunshine.” A sense of anticipation filled Dusty at his words.
Theo was in control. Pina finally saw it and slumped in his bindings, letting the blood flow from his wrist stumps. Dusty saw it too and felt freer than she had in a long time.
Theo was doing what the police couldn’t. What the courts hadn’t.
He was taking back his life. He was giving Dusty back hers.
It wouldn’t bring Sunny back; her smile was lost to the world forever. But it would bring some measure of justice to these assholes who had taken her so brutally from them. Sure, Dusty had her bar, a semblance of friends, her regulars who came into the bar each night. But as far as a security in her position in this world went, she had nothing. Pina had taken that from her.
She watched Theo slowly walk around Pina until the blood only came in soft drips, then she watched him cut the body down and dispose of it and the blood in the drum, fasten the lid, then roll it outside. He pulled a large wipe out of his pocket and cleaned everything off, so that it looked like every other drum there.
She finally realized exactly where they were.
“Hazardous waste,” she muttered to herself. This must be where it was all collected from the city collection sites before it was taken off to be done whatever it was they did with this stuff.
“It blends in here. They don’t dump these until they collect a bargeful. That’s gonna take a couple of months. This is temporary storage.” He pulled a sharpie out of another pocket and drew a large circle on the drum before putting the sharpie back in his pocket. Now it looked different from the others. Just a little.
Dusty was silent in her car as she followed Theo back to her apartment in the city. Her mind swirled with thoughts of what she’d seen and how she felt about it.
She should be horrified. She should be disgusted. She should be repulsed. But she wasn’t. Theo had been there. He’d been tied up and forced to watch what happened to her sister, while he begged and screamed for them to stop, to take him instead. And then he’d relived it all during the joke of a trial, through photos and testimony. He’d been the prosecution’s star witness, trying to tell his story while the douchebag had asked all the wrong questions.
Theo had grown, physically, in the last ten years. When she’d last seen him, he’d been a lanky hundred and forty pounds, maybe. Worked in an office as an accountant for some up-and-coming firm. After everything had happened, he’d joined the Army and put on almost a hundred pounds of what looked like pure muscle. He wouldn’t be tied to a chair, helpless, again.
He was doing what the system couldn’t.
Was it illegal? Yes. Was it humane? Probably not. Was it what they deserved? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Watching Theo work so meticulously and emotionlessly, she’d fallen a little in love with him. All over again. Over the years, she’d told herself her feelings hadn’t been what she remembered. That she hadn’t really fallen in love with her sister’s husband. But tonight had changed it all. Watching him avenge Sunny had awakened something she didn’t know had been lying dormant this entire time.
She didn’t know what was next. But she was all in.
Two days later, Theo was at home getting ready to meet Holder for his shift change. Jeremy was in his room next door with Miranda, headboard banging, and Theo didn’t have it in him to care anymore. He was honestly glad for his pal, finally. He wasn’t sure what had brought it about, but he wasn’t pissed off at his buddy for having something Theo could never have again. He was happy for Jeremy, wanted him to have all the sex because it seemed that Miranda really loved Jeremy as much as Jeremy was obviously smitten with his girl.
Good for them.
Theo stood in front of the mirror and adjusted his vest. His dad had always told him to dress better than his station, as it was important to his father. It wasn’t that important to him, but it had been ingrained in him. His dad was a janitor at the local school, but every weekend, he put on his suit and took his children to the park, to church, to the neighborhood diner for ice cream. He’d wanted to be seen in his suit around the neighborhood, so people didn’t just think of him as the school janitor. His mother had just been tired all the time; she worked as a secretary downtown. His parents had worked hard for very little, and he’d been a scholarship kid in the community college. They’d been so proud of him when he’d gotten his entry-level accountant position. Truth was, if Theo had stayed, he never would have made it out of a cubicle, no matter how hard he worked. He didn’t have the connections it took to go further. But Sunny hadn’t cared. She had plans to go to school to become a kindergarten teacher. She had just enrolled when she was killed.
He’d lost his dad while he was overseas and his mom soon after. His sister was in California somewhere, and they hadn’t spoken in over a year. Not for any particular reason, just life. She was married with kids, and their phone calls were stilted at best, uncomfortable at worst, and it was just hard.
Theo had lived the last ten years for his vengeance, and now it was happening. Dusty had initially thrown a ratchet into things. He’d seen her following him three nights ago. Had heard her come into his carefully staked out warehouse. Heard the gasp of shock she’d tried to hide.
And then he’d invited her to take part in his carefully crafted plan for revenge. It had surprised even him, but something felt right about it. She deserved her closure too.
Still, something bothered him about her being there. She wasn’t part of the plan, and if he changed the plans now, he’d be caught. But maybe he deserved to be caught…
Realizing he was lost in his head, Theo put on his suit jacket, grabbed his pack, and left, ignoring the soft moans from Jeremy’s bedroom.
It was an almost thirty-minute drive into the part of the city where Split was, but he didn’t mind. When he got there, Holder was sitting on the corner of the bar, sipping his pretend drink.
“Quiet day?” Theo tossed out as he nodded to Dusty for a beer.
“Yep. She did some grocery shopping, cleaned up around the apartment, and I got to know her downstairs neighbor. Mr. Hendricks. Pervy old man, but nice enough. She flirts with him because sh
e thinks he’s harmless, but I’m going to have Po run a background on him anyway.”
Theo nodded as Dusty brought him his beer. He sipped it. He hated beer, honestly, but it was cold and wet, and his body was hot. Beer lent a certain appearance to things, and he would sip this beer until it got too hot to be palatable, then have Dusty bring him another.
“My wife is a cop, and she caught a missing person’s case for this Alberto Pina. Seems he didn’t come home Saturday night, and his mommy is anxious. So I’ve been keeping an eye out. He could be around.”
“Okay. I’ll keep an eye out too. Do we know where the others are?” Figured. He ignored the fidgety chill creeping up his spine. Irony of the situation, for sure. New job he actually liked, with proficient co-workers, a semblance of a cover for his actions, and one of his co-workers would catch him being the bad guy.
“Yeah, Po and Lilith are working us up something tonight, but according to the computers and Amber, nobody’s reported them missing. Lilith and her boyfriend are going out tonight to see if they can put some eyes on them.”
No need. Tonight was Mark’s youngest’s T-ball game, and Guy’s oldest was having her sweet sixteen dress fitting, where he would no doubt hem and haw about the price of the dress, and his wife would put her pussy-whipping foot down and make him buy it. The party was Saturday, and Theo had decided Guy would make it to see his daughter’s sweet sixteen. He was feeling generous.
“Well, I’ll be extra vigilant and not let Dusty go out after work tonight. It’s one of her early nights, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Dusty’s voice rang out from across the bar. “And I’m too old to go out after work. Only babies have the gumption to go out at eleven o’clock at night. I’m not made for that anymore.” She was wiping the bar down. There were only about three other people here, which Theo supposed was normal for a Tuesday night.
Holder tapped on the bar. “Well, I’m going home. Catch you guys tomorrow.” To Theo, he said, “I’ll email my report when I get home. You should have it in an hour.”
“Cool.” Theo took another sip of his beer and swiveled his chair around to look at the bar.
Holder left, and Theo was on. The last three days had been awkward at best, with what they’d shared Saturday night. It had been his first official day on the job, and a long one it had turned into, with his pre-arranged plans and the unexpected addition of Dusty, but all in all, it had been a good day.
But the day after, he’d watched Dusty in her apartment. No bar, since it was closed on Sunday. Just watching her cook, watching her eat, watching her watch TV.
Most people would have been bored.
He found himself enthralled, and it pissed him off. Every time he looked at her, his brain would turn her into a comparison chart of Sunny, and there really was zero comparison. Sure, they looked the same, but they were not the same. He constantly had to remind himself of that. Of course, in her apartment, it was pretty obvious. Sunny would clean as she cooked, and Dusty barely cooked at all, unless boiling some noodles and opening a jar of sauce counted. But she left it all for the next morning, saying she liked to clean in the mornings.
Theo had cleaned it up after she went to bed.
“Dusty? I need help with something.”
“Sure, Aaron. What is it?” They were having a conversation right next to him, so he swiveled back around to listen.
“Julie and I have an anniversary this weekend, and I’m clueless. Does it have to be a romantic gift?” The dude looked totally perplexed, his shoulders hunched up to his ears, eyes wide with his question. It was almost cute. Theo had decided the first night he liked this guy. He wasn’t going to be buddies with him, but he didn’t suck. Totally harmless, probably hated killing bugs. But very effective as a bouncer type.
“Probably. How many years? It’s your first, isn’t it?”
He shuffled his feet. “Yeah.”
“Then get her something made of paper. There’s a really cool shop just a couple blocks away from here that sells all sorts of homemade paper and stuff. Why don’t you go there? Or, if you want, we can meet Thursday before work and I’ll go with you.” She was smiling brightly at Aaron, and Theo felt a strange clench in his gut.
It was Sunny’s smile.
In that moment, for the first time in days, he saw Sunny again. It sent a charge of something contradictory through him. He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her like she really was Sunny. Then he wanted to kiss her like she was Dusty. Then he wanted to slit his own throat, because it just wasn’t possible.
His fists were clenched and he was pressing down so hard on the bar it creaked.
Theo needed to take a walk.
“Gonna go scout the perimeter,” Theo growled as he threw himself from the barstool and left. Dusty felt a weird absence with him gone, although it was better than him sitting there and her feeling so damn awkward.
Neither of them had said a word about what happened the other night. They had just made some semblance of normalcy, with him sleeping on her couch, peering through her window, and watching her piddle around her tiny apartment.
Something had just made him mad, though, and for the life of her, she had no idea what it was.
After she and Aaron firmed up plans to meet Thursday before the bar opened, she got back to work. Harold came in for his old-fashioned, and Sue came in for her first of three Amber beers. Salvadore left, since he’d been here since they’d opened. He was a day drinker and regaled her with old war stories while he was here.
“Don? You doing okay? You need a ride home?”
“Nah. I’m good. But this is my last one.”
“Gotcha.”
The night went on in the same vein, with regulars coming and going. Theo came back and pouted at the end of the bar, eagle-eyeing everybody. She and Aaron restocked things, and she wrote up her order for the week, since the beer guy was coming tomorrow when they opened, and the liquor guy was coming the day after. Sometime tomorrow, she had to go to the local mega mart and stock up the bathrooms.
When the night was finished, she followed a still silent Theo out to his truck. That was one thing about these guys doing their thing. She didn’t have to drive anywhere, and it was kind of cool.
They drove the few blocks to her apartment, an old walk-up between two other apartment buildings. The rest of the neighborhood was businesses, and she was lucky to get this apartment when she’d found it.
In her apartment, she was determined to open a dialogue. Theo was too quiet. She was afraid she’d pissed him off somehow, and she wanted to make things right. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite sure what she’d done, so she started with the obvious.
She tossed him a bottle of water and poured herself a glass of wine. Dusty noticed he didn’t really drink the beers he ordered at the bar.
“So, I know this is weird between us, but I wanted to apologize.” She sat down in the one chair in her living room, next to the sofa, which he’d claimed as his from day one. He looked at her, his dark eyes intensely focused on her. She looked down at her hands rubbing her thighs. “For the kiss. It was a game. Something I had always done. I didn’t realize how serious you guys were. Things were moving so fast between y’all, I really didn’t have a clue.” Or how far she would take the kiss.
She felt heat rise to her cheeks at the memory. Hands down the best kiss she’d ever had. Managing to look up at him, she reared back at the look he was giving her.
His face was red, his features almost ruddy with his anger. His eyes glittered dangerously at her, and his shoulders were tense, his hands clenched into fists at his thighs.
“It’s forgotten,” he gritted out through clenched teeth.
“O-kay.” She stood awkwardly. Why couldn’t they be normal? Whatever that was?
“Normal?” He practically roared at her. So she’d said that last part out loud. A scoff rose to his lips. “The last time we saw each other was at a murder trial where I described in detail how your twin sister was brutally
killed. The time before that, you stuck your tongue down my throat and I wanted to fuck your brains out in the mailroom. But I didn’t know it was even you. I thought my wife had gotten some sexy bug up her ass, but it wasn’t even her. We met with a mindfuck, Dusty. The rest of our time together was a mindfuck too. I don’t think things can ever be normal between us. Even now, sometimes I look at you and I see the woman I love and it’s still fucking with me.”
Fair enough. So they couldn’t be normal.
“You think you’re the only one who loved her?” Dusty kept her voice low, but she was pissed. His holier-than-thou act needed to stop. “She was my fucking twin sister, Theo. My other half, literally my DNA. When she was killed, half of me died. It took a long damn time, but I now know she’s not coming back. She’s gone.” These were words she’d never actually said out loud and they sounded awful. Dusty realized tears streamed down her cheeks and her breathing was ragged.
Theo’s head dropped and his shoulders hunched forward as if he were trying to make himself smaller, hide inside himself. It was a strange look for the guy who until now had obviously never made a mistake, and she didn’t like it, but Dusty kept going.
“Fine, then. Well, whatever else you have planned for Falco and Daimler, I want in. Let me be a part of it. I want the closure too.”
He nodded but didn’t look at her. Something inside her felt defeated. He’d hated her this whole time, and she knew why. She got it. It wasn’t right, but she got it.
She’d always pretended to be Sunny when her twin’s boyfriends came around, and it was funny for both of them. They compared the good kissers and the bad ones. Sunny had never had the guts to do it with hers, because she was always afraid they would take things too far.
Theo, though, had been different. As soon as she’d kissed him, knowing he’d thought she was Sunny, she’d known he was not like the others. The kiss had started out different. It had been so full of love and acceptance. She’d done her sexy taunting thing, and he’d reacted. She’d sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, and he’d fucking devoured her, sucking, biting, nipping. The kiss had quickly turned from the sweetest experience of her life, to the most feral. His hand had grabbed her ass and pressed her against an impressive erection, and they’d very nearly done it right there. She’d managed to stop things and make an excuse about running to go grab some eggs for the soufflé Sunny was making for supper, then she ran like the chickenshit she was.
The Secrets We Keep Page 4
