The Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 7-9

by Jonas Saul

  “What are you doing?” Violeta shouted. “Do it again and make sure you get a finger, or it’ll be your last chance.”

  Amelia cried a torrent now. Her lips moved like she was praying. Caleb was a pillar of stone. The only thing moving on him was sweat as it leaked down from his forehead. His face had paled as he waited for the hammer to fall.

  “No countdown this time,” Violeta said. “Just pick it up and do it.”

  Amelia lifted the hammer above her head. Caleb nodded and closed his eyes slowly, then opened them.

  “I love you, Amelia.”

  “I love you, too, Caleb.”

  “Oh, how sweet,” Violeta said softly, in a gentle, motherly voice. Then she screamed, “Fucking do it!”

  Disgusting human beings.

  The smoke detector screeched at that exact moment, startling all three of them. Over the high-pitched agonizing wail of the unit, Violeta shouted for Amelia to hit the mouse or kill the bear.

  Amelia brought the hammer down. This time the business end hit Caleb’s middle finger dead on, snapping it at the knuckle and denting it below the rest of his fingers. He bit his lip and withdrew his broken hand to hold it close to his chest.

  Violeta ripped the hammer out of Amelia’s hands and swung it above the stove at the offending smoke detector on the ceiling. It tore into the white plastic casing and broke it clean off. The unit shot into the wall and dropped at Violeta’s feet. She stomped on it until the screech quieted.

  Hammer in her left hand, gun still firmly in her right, Violeta stepped back to the table, lifted the hammer and brought it down on Amelia’s wrist. She didn’t see it in time to react. The hammed snapped her wrist, bending her hand down at an odd angle. It reminded Violeta of a YouTube video Tam had watched where a skateboarder had fallen and snapped his wrist back.

  Amelia screamed and held up the offending wrist.

  Violeta swung again, this time aiming for Amelia’s other hand. Because she was using her left hand, she pivoted on her feet at the unexpected weight of the hammer missing its target.

  The table moved, skirting fast at Amelia. Her chair tipped back and then she was falling.

  It happened too fast for Violeta to realize what was going on.

  Now she was falling as something heavy banged into her. She landed on her left shoulder, and pain shot up her side and into her neck. The hammer flew from her grasp and tumbled a few feet away, but the gun stayed where it was, locked on her finger.

  Caleb’s weight was on her, and she understood quickly what had happened. The hero had shoved the table out of his way, knocking Amelia down, and then he dove on Violeta. Even with the pain of a broken finger, it hadn’t dampened Caleb’s will to fight the intruder in his house.

  But Violeta had the advantage.

  Amelia screamed on the floor beside her. The hammer was on the floor somewhere, which meant Amelia could be grabbing it at any second.

  Violeta had no choice but to use the gun. She had come here with violent intent and had wanted to leave murder as a last resort, but this was self-defense now. She was being attacked. Any jury of her peers would see that.

  Caleb applied pressure to her throat with his unbroken hand. She had failed to get a good breath while under his weight, and couldn’t maneuver him off yet. Even as her breath was cut off and her face reddened from the pressure, she winked at him and attempted to smile as she brought the gun around and set the tip against his side.

  His hand wrapped tighter as he pushed down toward the floor, cutting off all chance at air.

  She pulled the trigger.

  Amelia shouted in surprise at the loud report, and she shambled away from them. Caleb’s body went rigid, his hand locked in place. For a brief moment she wondered if he would go into spasms, his hand clenching, squeezing her throat until he crushed it in his death throes.

  Something warm trickled over Violeta’s stomach and waist.

  Caleb was bleeding on her.

  His body relaxed as he lost consciousness, which gave her a chance to roll sideways. His weight eased off her as she breathed in deep, coughed and breathed again. Her eyesight cleared and the room came back into view.

  Amelia’s high-pitched scream reminded Violeta of the smoke alarm. Amelia scrambled to her husband on her one good hand, hugged him and called his name over and over.

  As Amelia clung to her bleeding husband, it riled Violeta to an intense anger that boiled over. She raised the gun and fired at Amelia. The gun wavered in her weakened hand and the bullet went wide.

  Amelia, a stunned expression on her face, leaned down and hugged her husband.

  “Why aren’t you running?” Violeta shouted.

  Amelia kept her head down, her arms wrapped around Caleb.

  Violeta got to her feet, using the counter for support. The paella smoke rolled just above her head. She kicked the hammer out of the way, picked up her cane and aimed the gun at the top of Amelia’s head.

  “Goodbye, you stupid bitch.”

  The front door opened.

  “Momma?” Tam called. “I’m here.”

  Chapter 39

  Parkman sat beside Aaron in the backseat of the cruiser as they pulled up on the ambulance.

  “We need to continue on to the house,” Parkman said.

  “We will, but I want to know what I’m walking into,” Gibbons said.

  The tires squealed when he stopped. Even as the car settled on its shocks, he was already hopping out, leaving the car door open.

  “Are you in charge here?” Gibbons asked the first guy he saw in a suit. The man nodded. His tie was loosened around the neck, his shirt unbuttoned. He looked ragged like he’d worked an extra shift. Parkman had been there and done that in his time.

  Gibbons identified himself then asked, “What happened?”

  “We got a call from a cop by the name of Carson Dodge down in Florida.”

  “Florida? What the hell has that got to do with this?” Gibbons asked.

  “Hell if I know. All we heard was there was this big ambulance carrying an expensive package. Something extremely valuable. He had a reason to believe it was in our town. Then one of our guys spotted it.”

  “What was in it?”

  “A doctor and an off-duty cop.”

  “They were the expensive package?”

  The suit shook his head. “Apparently that package walked away. We’ve got a couple of cruisers driving around and K9 units are on their way.”

  “You guys got a name of this valuable package that walked away?”

  “Sarah Roberts. Mean anything to you?”

  Gibbons looked back at Parkman. “Yeah. I think I know where she might be.” Gibbons pointed at Parkman. “Or at least he does.”

  Chapter 40

  Violeta lowered the weapon.

  “Tam, what are you doing here?”

  “You told me to meet you here, remember?”

  Violeta didn’t remember that. She recalled telling Martin to return in an hour, but not Tam. So much was happening she couldn’t be expected to remember all of it.

  She knew where Tam had been. Conspiring with Oliver. Meeting with cops. Calling the brigade on her. Violating her trust. Betraying her every which way.

  You’re just like the rest of them.

  “Right, yes, I remember now,” Violeta said, her voice soft, reassuring. “Come over here.”

  “What happened?” Tam asked as she started through the living room. “Where’s all the smoke coming from?”

  No one had touched the paella. It had become a blackened mess in the wok. Violeta was surprised she wasn’t coughing more because of it.

  “Did you do as I asked? Is Sarah dead?”

  Amelia’s head shot up at the mention of her daughter’s name.

  “Yes, Momma.” Tam nodded as she came up the stairs. “When I got to Parkman’s apartment, those guys you hired had hurt her real bad. I actually did a good thing. Putting her out of her misery like that was humane.”

  Vi
oleta couldn’t contain her anger toward Tam anymore. Suppressing it was like trying to contain the explosives inside a grenade after the pin was pulled.

  “I didn’t ask you to do anything humane.” She spit the last word out and brought the gun around to bear on Tam.

  Tam stopped on the top stair just before entering the kitchen. Her eyes widened. “Momma, what are you doing?”

  “I heard you talking to your dead father.”

  “But Momma, he’s not dead.”

  “He will be when I’m through with him. I heard you conspiring against me.”

  Tam shook her head back and forth, the frightened look on her face giving Violeta pause. There was something about causing terror in her daughter that had always pleasured her.

  “Now here’s how I see it,” Violeta said as she moved slowly toward Tam. “I’m going to shoot you. Then I’m going to kill Sarah’s mom.”

  “No, no—” Tam wailed. “You can’t, Momma. No more hurting anyone.”

  “Shut up!” Violeta flicked hair out of her eyes with a jerk of her head. “Once this is done, I will walk out of here and go to your father and fix that mess. When the police show up here, they will see everything.” She placed the gun against her daughter’s forehead. “Don’t move an inch, my darling.” Violeta stood over her, looking down as Tam was still one stair below. “I will tell them how you went to Toronto and shot Sarah. Then followed her back here and killed her in Parkman’s apartment. To rid the world of this wicked family, you then came here and killed Sarah’s parents. It was and always has been about killing Sarah. Everything is about killing Sarah. That’s what I’ll tell the authorities.” She leaned in close and whispered as if they were the only two in on the wonderful joke. “You would wake at night from a nightmare yelling those words. Killing Sarah. When I would ask about it, you would—”

  “Momma!” Tam yelled. “Look out!”

  She had taken her eyes off the broken down Amelia. Instantly she realized what a horrible mistake that was. She had thought Amelia didn’t have just a broken wrist, but a broken spirit as well.

  She ducked and tried to bring the gun around, but when she did, Amelia was still on the floor, clutching at her husband.

  Hands grabbed at her arm and pushed. Violeta lost her balance and fell. The steps behind her led to a back door before turning and heading to the basement. She landed awkwardly on the top stair, her head dropping below it, arching her back until the strain was too much. Pain shot up her spine and she cried out.

  Tam landed on her, scratching at her face, screaming like a demented hyena, shredding the skin on her cheeks as if it was the skin of a kiwi.

  She fought back, flailing uselessly with her arms, but Tam was younger and stronger.

  The gun.

  She looked for it, but the gun was gone.

  Tam’s hands jabbed, cut, and punched at her as the teenager bellowed insanely. Violeta feared for her eyes, her looks. Spinning her head back and forth to disengage Tam’s fingers, she wondered for a brief second if this was the end. Would she die under the weight of the daughter she had labored over and gave birth to? She had changed her diapers, helped her through homework and was trying to teach her survival in a world that would eat you up if you weren’t quick and smart.

  Her mind floundered, her will weakening. Then her hand bumped the cane. She gripped it with the tenacity of a dying soul’s last chance, flicked the knife’s release clasp, and brought it around blindly.

  It hit something hard and the scratching stopped. The weight holding her down fell away. She tried to open her eyes, but only blinked through blood that seemed to be coming from all over her face.

  She tried to get up, but sharp pains screamed through her lower back. A shout escaped her lips. A roll to her side allowed her to maneuver herself into a sitting position. Tam lay on the kitchen floor, holding her own face.

  Violeta wiped at her eyes and blinked away the crimson to see. The knife had sliced from Tam’s hairline, across her left eye, and finished on the bridge of her nose. Tam had both hands over her eye as blood seeped through her fingers.

  Violeta grinned. She had won. The battle was over. Tam would have to respect that she had been bested even when Violeta was on the losing end. Her dominance would go a long way in teaching Tam what a woman could do.

  “This is just the beginning,” Violeta murmured through dampened lips. She spit blood out in order to speak better, “of the horrors I’m going to do to you, you little whore scum. You will be the doormat you have been destined to become since you were born.”

  She pushed up against the wall and got to her knees, breathing heavily to manage the pain in her back.

  Amelia had gotten up and now stood over her husband.

  Violeta’s gun was in Amelia’s unbroken hand.

  Several cars pulled up out front. Amelia snuck a glance through the large living room window at the arriving vehicles. From the slightly elevated kitchen, Violeta had a good angle to see police cars, unmarked cruisers, and an ambulance.

  The cavalry was here. But the Roberts family wasn’t dead yet. Her word against theirs wouldn’t work now.

  She had to leave. Turn up somewhere later. Claim she wasn’t here at all and never had been. She would pay Martin a million dollars to swear her an alibi.

  How did the police get here so damn fast?

  Amelia coughed. The smoke had subsided as there was nothing much left to burn in the wok. But Amelia was standing closest to the stove.

  The front door opened.

  Amelia looked toward it and coughed harder.

  Violeta took her chance. She pushed her bum off the top of the stairs and dropped down three feet to the bottom where she almost fell headlong into the door from the pain in her back. She got the deadbolt unlocked, and threw open the back door.

  At any second a bullet would enter her from behind, but she had nothing else to lose. It was get out alive or die in prison.

  She ran into the night with no bullets chasing her.

  One quick look over her shoulder and she saw Tam coming out the back door after her, one hand still covering her wounded eye.

  Tam had the hammer in her other hand.

  Then the grapevines of the vineyard behind the Roberts’ house swallowed Violeta up and she disappeared in the dark.

  Chapter 41

  Parkman watched from the front of the house.

  “I’m so scared of what they might find in there.” He hopped from one foot to the other. “Was there something I missed? Could I have done something different to avoid all this? Because you know it’s all my fault. I took this client on in the first place.”

  Aaron slapped his shoulder. “Don’t talk so stupid. You did your job. You found her missing husband. How could you know she was a fucking lunatic? The important thing is to find Sarah. If she wandered off from that ambulance, she could be anywhere.” He gestured at the house. “Unless they find her in there. Which I hope they don’t.”

  “I know. She has a head wound. She needs rest, not violence. Shit, the stuff she’s been through. It’s got to be killing her right now.”

  “It has been. That’s why she wanted to quit.”

  “Maybe that’s the best thing for her.”

  Movement in the dark behind the house caught his eye.

  “Hey, Aaron,” he pointed. “Look. Is that someone running?”

  They both leaned sideways, away from the light coming out of the big living room window. A short woman or a young girl ran into the vineyard and disappeared in the darkness.

  Her arm had been raised with something in it.

  Parkman took off in a sprint with Aaron close behind.

  No one shouted after them. Parkman hit the vines first, then ducked down and clamped his eyes shut.

  Aaron dropped beside him. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “Trying to hear better?”

  “No,” Parkman whispered. “Acclimating my eyes to the darkness faster.”

  After a few more secon
ds, Parkman opened his eyes and could now see the tops of the rows of vines from the dim light coming from the few houses that rimmed the vineyard.

  Aaron tugged on his arm and leaned in close to his ear. “Do you think that was Sarah?”

  Aaron’s breath tickled Parkman’s ear. “No. I think it was Violeta’s daughter.”