Tom looked through file after file of eyewitness statements, but nothing shouted out to him. He still had not seen a clear description of either suspect. He stared at his right trouser pocket, where he kept the last of what he so desperately craved. He sniffed and quickly wiped the trickle of coke drainage from his nose, his breathing labored.
Emma sat two feet from him, going through yet more statements. He dropped his pile and approached the window.
“Had enough?” she asked.
“Are we really getting anywhere?”
While she continued searching, a thick-set, heavily bearded man walked in with a DVD case. “The surveillance tapes you asked for,” he said to Emma.
She took them and looked at Tom. “So you gonna take a look at this with me or you gonna keep on sulking?”
“I’m not sulking. I just wonder whether we’ll actually get anything.”
She lowered the blinds and inserted the DVD into her laptop, which was situated on the oak table in the center of the room. A picture appeared on the sixty-inch LCD screen on the opposite wall, depicting views of the parking garage from the entrance and all three floors.
Tom sat beside her and watched. They focused on the entrance, watching cars come and go. After about ten minutes, a tall woman with short hair appeared on the screen holding a gun.
Tom rose from his seat. “That’s her. That’s Annabel.”
Annabel fired multiple shots before running out of view. Emma leaned forward. Then a man with dark hair that reached his shoulders appeared. He stood looking in the direction in which Annabel had run.
Tom walked toward the screen. “Pause it.”
Emma halted the video. Tom tilted his head left and right as he studied the man. “Why’s he just standing there?” He put a finger to his temple. “Go forward slowly.”
They watched as the man hovered near the entrance for a moment before darting into the parking area.
“Where did he go?” Tom shouted.
Emma stood and looked intently at the sixty-inch screen. “There, on the third floor!”
They both took a step forward and watched the man walk toward a row of cars before stopping. Tom frowned as he waited for some sort of movement. The man then turned around full circle as if looking for something.
“Rewind,” Tom shouted. “Rewind. We’ve got him.”
Emma rewound the video and advanced it forward frame by frame as the man spun around until his face stared directly at the camera. Tom moved closer and squinted to get a better look, but the picture was too blurry.
Emma took an image of the screen and moved it to her photo-editing software. “I can clean it up.”
Tom looked at her anxiously. “How long?”
Emma didn’t answer but tapped furiously on her keyboard. Tom returned to his seat, his hands trembling. He looked toward his pocket, fantasizing about inhaling his secret source of comfort. He looked at the concentration on Emma’s face and assumed it would be a while, maybe long enough for him to take a quick comfort break.
“I’ve got it,” she said.
He stared at the screen but still saw only the blurry picture. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Hang on.” Emma pressed a number of buttons before an enhanced picture of the man came up. The high cheekbones and the bright blue eyes were unmistakable.
“It’s him,” Tom said. “It’s Tobias.” He scratched his three-day old stubble. “But what’s he doing?”
Emma returned to the main video and resumed playback.
Tobias looked around for a few seconds before walking to another part of the garage, where he could barely be seen behind some pillars. He seemed to be pressing something in his hand.
Emma paused the video. “What’s he doing?”
Tom motioned for her to continue with the playback. No more than five seconds later, a car’s headlights flashed on and Tobias ran toward it.
“Pause it,” Tom shouted. “A car was waiting for them. That’s why they went to the parking garage, to get a car. He even had the keys in his hands. Someone’s helping them.”
Emma’s eyes widened. “Who?”
“I have no idea. Who would want to help them? Not Juan or Antonio. No, they want them dead.”
“Maybe Tobias has people helping him out.”
“Or Annabel. We already know she was a hit at the academy, with some powerful friends, no doubt.” He walked toward the window, hands on his head. “What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong? We’ve always been trying to figure out who Tobias really is, but have we done the same with Annabel?”
Emma shrugged.
“I mean, what do we really know about her other than what Nathan’s told us?”
Emma picked up the landline phone. “Is Nathan in the building? ... Can you get him a message to call me as soon as he can? ... Yes, Emma Green.” She hung up.
“I think we need to find out everything Nathan knows about her. And I mean everything.” Tom paced up and down. The anxiety was heightening his craving. “I’ll be right back.”
***
Tom snorted two lines of cocaine before opening the stall door. As he walked to the sink, he turned sharply at the sound of the stall door slamming shut. Sweat poured from his face, and his eyes darted around the restroom. When a chubby-faced man walked in and nodded at him, Tom nodded back. Fighting the urge to run out of the building to get some fresh air, he settled for splashing cold water onto his face. In the mirror, he studied his messy brown hair and stubble. He saw red eyes that should have been white and wished he had not dabbled in narcotics again.
He walked out of the restroom minutes later, his lips still occasionally twitching. As he headed back into his office, Emma was speaking to Nathan as they looked at her laptop screen.
“What have I missed?” he asked.
“Tom,” Nathan exclaimed. “How are you, pal?”
Tom shook his friend’s hand. It felt slightly greasy, as if he had just finished a meal without washing his hands. His tight brown cardigan didn’t do much to hide his gut. “I can’t complain,” Tom said, sniffing. He glanced at Emma, who looked at him curiously. He turned back toward Nathan. “So, what have you got on Annabel?”
Nathan clicked on a thumbnail and the image of a young girl with dark pigtails and a warm smile filled the laptop screen. Emma smiled adoringly, with both hands on her chest.
“Annabel Lopez at just 9,” Nathan said, “a few days after first arriving in the states.” He brought up a photo of her looking glum and standing between a middle-aged man with dark hair and a brunette woman. “She was born Annabel Vásquez on the twenty-first of October 1980 in Mexico City. Her father was Mexican, and she had an American mother. They both died in a car crash when she was 5. She ended up in foster care after that and found a home with Chico and Isabela Lopez.” He pointed at the man and woman on the screen. “They brought her to the United States in 1990, when she was 9. They lived with Isabela’s sister in a three-bedroom apartment where Annabel had to share a room with two others.”
“What a life she’s led,” Emma said.
“Less than a year after arriving in the states, Isabela filed a number of reports with the police. It appears that her husband was physically assaulting both her and their adopted daughter, so much so that the ten-year-old Annabel tried her utmost to stay at friends’ rather than going home.
“After they got their own one-bedroom flat, the beating got so bad that it resulted in Isabela suffering a major blow to the head after only two months. She spent the rest of her days in intensive care, eventually succumbing to her wounds. With her foster mom no longer around to help her, Annabel bore the brunt of her foster father’s abuse, showing up to school every day with fresh bruises.
“She continued lying to teachers and friends as to the source of her injuries, which got worse and worse. She retaliated one day and stabbed Chico to death with a kitchen knife. The state deemed it self-defense and left her in social care. With both foster parents dead, however, A
nnabel had no home. She moved from foster family to foster family, but by then the damage had been done. She never lasted more than two months in a new place. She also developed a fixation with fire.”
“Fire?” Tom said.
“She burned the house of the first foster parents who took her in.”
Emma and Tom exchanged glances.
“The state really believed she would never find a home, but in 1993 this woman”—he brought up a photo of a blond-haired woman, around 40, with her arms around a smiling Annabel—“took her in.”
“She seems so happy,” Emma said.
“She was. Jessica Baxter helped Annabel overcome her childhood trauma, her birth parents’ dying in an accident and the ordeal she suffered at the hands of her foster father.” Another picture of Jessica appeared, her arms around a sixteen-year-old Annabel at a charity function in Manhattan.
“They both look so happy in this one,” Emma said. “Look at Annabel’s eyes, full of joy.”
“They were, but unfortunately, Jessica started to suffer from the same mental illness that plagued her family for years. Annabel looked after her for a few years before her condition worsened to the point that she sometimes went a whole week not knowing who her foster daughter was. She was eventually institutionalized, and Annabel refused to just watch as the health of the only parent she truly loved deteriorated. She went back to Mexico in 2000 for a college degree in criminal psychology. She stayed there for four years.”
He clicked on a graduation picture of her and another woman with similar dark features, though her eyes were green rather than blue.
“That’s Penélope,” Tom shouted.
“Correct,” Nathan said. “It was probably in college that they began their friendship.”
“They look so close in that picture,” Emma said.
“What happened after?” Tom asked.
“Well, before Annabel came back to America, it’s believed she took grueling military training and advanced martial-arts classes. Her head wasn’t right after her mother’s condition got worse. That’s probably why she became detached, as many people started describing her. When she eventually came back, Jessica’s condition still wasn’t fantastic. At 24, she took even more gun classes and competed in illegal martial-arts tournaments and lots of high-velocity activities. She completely changed into a different person. It might have been her foster mom’s condition or something else, something that might have happened in Mexico. We believe she met Antonio Cabrera a few months later through Rico Martinez, who at the time was a close acquaintance of her very good friend Penélope Salazar.”
“Hang on,” Tom said. “You’re saying that she dated Antonio before Penélope did?”
Nathan nodded.
“That was unexpected.”
“Then she started associating with many other members of The Dominguez Family, including one Reynaldo Machado.”
Emma’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding. She didn’t ... Not with Reynaldo.”
Nathan nodded again. “They definitely were dating, and it broke Antonio. He started seeing Penélope soon after, but I’m sure Annabel seeing Reynaldo ate at him.”
“So what happened with Reynaldo and Annabel?” Emma asked.
“It ended before it began. She started dating a Wall Street heavy hitter a few months after, which was also when she enrolled for the academy.”
Tom stood up. “Well, this certainly changes everything. What if it’s Reynaldo helping Annabel?”
“Or even Antonio,” Emma said. “Maybe he hasn’t gotten over her yet. Maybe they both wanted Penélope out of the way.”
Tom scratched his head and walked to the window. “I don’t know. Annabel seemed so happy with Penélope in those pictures. I don’t think she would murder her for anyone.”
“You never really know people,” Nathan said.
Tom returned to his seat, and they all remained quiet for a moment.
“So where’s Jessica now?” Emma asked.
“She’s staying at her younger sister’s place in Brooklyn,” Nathan said.
“Does Annabel still see her?” Tom asked.
Nathan shrugged. “I don’t think she’s been to see her recently, but I guess that could be a good place to start. She’s never stopped loving her. She was the only mother figure she truly knew.”
“Then I think we need to talk to her.” Tom started putting away the files on his table.
Emma frowned at him and cocked her head. “Are you sure?” she said. “You heard Nathan. There’s nothing she can tell us now.”
“I don’t care,” Tom said. “We have nothing else to chase.”
“We can talk to Reynaldo.”
“And what would he say? Even if he hates Antonio’s guts, he won’t spill anything. He’s too loyal to Jorge.” Tom walked to his chair and slung his jacket over his shoulder.
Nathan put his laptop in a leather case and shook Tom’s hand. He nodded at Emma and left the room.
***
Tom pulled out the sheet of paper with Jessica’s address as they reached the corner of East Jeffrey Street. “Pull over here.”
Emma parked between a large delivery truck and a small red Toyota. They got out of the car and stared at a four-story apartment building. The trees that grew around it were so large that they looked like a forest.
“Creepy, isn’t it?” Tom said.
Emma eyed him for a second and walked up to the intercom switch. A raspy voice answered. “Hello?”
“Ms. Thomas?” Emma said.
“Yes?”
“I’m Agent Green with the FBI. I spoke to you earlier on the phone.”
“Oh yes,” the woman said. “You want to see Jessica.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The door opened and Tom and Emma walked in. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and knocked on the apartment door. A tall skinny woman, possibly in her late fifties, opened it. She wore a lightweight white dress and flat shoes.
“Jane Thomas?” Tom said, showing his badge.
The woman nodded.
“Will it be possible to speak with your sister?” Emma asked.
“What’s this about? We haven’t heard from Annabel in nearly a year.”
“And we’re not saying you have. We just want to understand Annabel a bit more. Maybe find out why she’s helping this man.”
Jane looked at the floor with a sad expression.
“I promise we’ll be gone before you know it,” Emma said.
Reluctantly, Jane nodded and stepped aside, allowing the agents to enter. They waited as she put all three locks back into the place. She led them through a corridor that smelled strongly of cinnamon. Photos crowded the wall, mostly picturing Jane and a young man.
“Is that your son?” Emma asked, gesturing toward a picture of a man in a Navy uniform.
“Yes,” Jane said. “That was my Godfrey.”
“Was?” Tom said.
“He died serving his country ten years ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” Emma said.
She waved her hand as if to dismiss Emma’s condolences. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago.” She led them into the living room.
Tom stood by the door and looked around the room, which was home to two small fish tanks and countless flowerpots. Jane motioned for them to sit on a three-seat corner sofa. “Can I offer you some coffee?”
Tom shook his head.
“I would love a glass of water, please,” Emma said.
Jane gave her a warm smile and walked to the kitchen.
“I like this place,” Emma said.
“Are you kidding?” Tom whispered.
Emma frowned at him.
“What? It just gives me the creeps.”
“And so it should,” came a voice from the corridor. A short woman with long white hair and a tired face walked into the living room. She looked frail but walked with more purpose than Tom would have expected of someone who was supposed to be mentally challenged.
> “Mrs. Baxter?” Emma said, standing up.
“Ms.,” Jessica replied, “and please, sit.” She pointed at Tom. “He’s right to be scared of this place, you know. In fact, we should all be scared, for our world is about to turn upside down. All our dreams are about to start happening. The good, the bad and the downright evil.” She paused and looked around the room. “There has been evil carried out in this house. More than I would like to remember.”
Emma and Tom exchanged glances.
Jessica sat at the end of the sofa. “Have you met my sister?”
“Yes,” Emma said. “She let us in.”
“But of course she did. Who else would have?”
Emma glanced at Tom, who was staring at Jessica.
“You folks think I’m crazy. You all do. But I’m not crazy. You want to send me back because I speak the truth.” She raised her voice. “I do. I do. I do.”
“Jessica,” Jane shouted as she ran into the room. She held her sister’s hand, which shook considerably.
Emma stood up. “Is she okay?”
“We’ll never be okay,” Jessica screamed. “As long as he’s out there.”
Tom gave Jane a questioning look, and she met his gaze for a moment before kneeling in front of her sister. “I told you they were coming, didn’t I?”
“Who are they?” Jessica said. “What do they want to do with me?”
‘Nothing, darling. They just want to talk about Annabel.’
Jessica burst out crying. “My baby. Why did she have to die?”
“She’s not dead, ma’am,” Tom said, rising to his feet.
“She is to me,” Jessica growled. “Her body might be here, but her soul is gone. She killed her. He killed her. You all killed her.”
Tom sat back down and sighed.
Jane walked toward them and handed Emma her glass of water. “I told you this was a waste of time,” she said. “She refuses to talk of Annabel anymore.”
“I can see that,” Emma said. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.” She rose, and Tom followed suit. “We’ll go now.” She edged closer to the frail woman. “We’re going now, Jessica. It was lovely to meet you.”
The gray-haired woman glared at both of them. “It was Mexico, you know.”
Emma stared at her dumbfounded. Tom knelt in front of Jessica. “What do you mean? What happened in Mexico?”
The Kiss after Midnight (The Midnight Trilogy) Page 14
