Valley of Fire (Valley of the Moon Book 2)
Page 27
“No wait!” I cried. He didn’t look or sound Russian, but I kept the tree branch tight in my hands just in case. “Tell me how you know me.”
He jumped over the wall and walked over to my mother’s headstone, where he knelt, pulled off his hat, crossed himself, and closed his eyes in what looked like prayer. His hair was pale blond and thinning and what was left of it was pulled back into a thin ponytail. Then he carefully laid the flowers at the base of her headstone. I noticed that both his tanned forearms were covered in tattoos.
“Who are you?” I asked, mystified.
He stood up. He had kind brown eyes and deep crow’s feet etched into his temples, even though he didn’t look that old.
“My name’s Charlie Bernardo. You have no idea how many times I wanted to write to you.”
He looked at me expectantly. A strange terror took hold of me. Did I have an obsessed stalker? Was I about to be murdered? No—there was something else going on. Something bigger. A massive wave of realization crashed into me and I nearly blacked out.
My voice rasped as I spoke. “You . . . you knew my mother.”
He shrugged. “Not really. I met her once, a long time ago.”
My heart thumped in my chest. “Where?”
A flash of worry passed over his face. “Let’s sit down.” The fading light made the clearing on the hillside seem dreamlike and unreal. I sat on the low stone wall, just above the spot where I’d dug the diamond dove out of its mossy hiding place.
He sat a polite distance away from me. He put his cap back on his head and knitted his hands together in his lap. “I once wrote down everything I wanted to say to you. But I never mailed the letter and now I can’t remember any of the words.”
A steady thump pounded in my ears. I stared straight ahead. “Just tell me, please.”
He cleared his throat. “I met your mom on the bridge. The day she died.”
My eyes snapped to his. He had a hint of tears in his eyes. “What do you mean?” My voice vanished, and a strangled, foreign-sounding whisper clawed its way out of my throat. “You saw her jump?” He shook his head. I looked up at the indigo sky.
He clenched his fists and mashed them into his thighs. “I didn’t see her jump—I don’t know how to say this—because she didn’t jump.”
Time itself froze. The trees stopped swaying in the summer evening breeze. The woods were as silent as the dead. Fiery tears stung my eyelids. “Tell me what you saw. Please.”
He wiped his eyes with quivering hands. “I’m sorry, I’m just so relieved. For ten years I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you, and now, today—oh, thank you, God for answering my prayers!”
He cleared his throat and regarded me solemnly. “Ten years ago I was a messed-up ex-foster kid. Nineteen years old, homeless, a drop out. I left Modesto thinking the big city would solve all my problems, but it only created new ones. On Christmas, I found out my little sister had died and nobody at home had even told me. I just . . . snapped.” He wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. “I’m not proud of this, Lana, but I went to the bridge. I climbed over the railing and sat on that little ledge they have down there, below the road, and I was just trying to dig up the courage to either jump, or not jump.”
He shivered like he was reliving that day.
“I said to myself, send me a sign, God. Send me a sign and I won’t do it and I’ll be a better guy, fix my life. But one way or another I was going to put the past behind me.”
He cleared his throat. “So I was sitting there under the bridge—this is ten years ago so it was easier to climb down there than it is now. I was trying to talk myself into it, and I was getting close. Then I heard a voice. I looked up and it was this beautiful angel—she had the same color hair as you.” His eyes lit up and he took a steadying breath. “She started talking to me and then she climbed down. Brave lady, your mom. She told me her name was Annie, and then she told me how she’d lost her baby and came to the bridge every year looking for a sign he was okay, for a reason for her to go on, and she’d finally found the sign.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Me.” His voice choked up. “I was the sign, she told me. Then she got me to my feet and helped me climb back up the railing.”
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “It was like a miracle. Then, as soon as I got over the rail, this other lady appeared.”
A glacier of icy terror smashed through my body. “What lady?” I asked, breathless.
Charlie stared at me. “She was wearing a hooded coat and a scarf, so I didn’t see much. White lady, average height. I don’t remember her face—I was not in my right mind. This lady yelled at me and told me to run away, that the cops were coming and she was going to report me. I was young and naïve and I believed her, so I ran, only—I didn’t run far.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I barely breathed. “I hid behind a pylon and watched. I didn’t get closer . . . but I should have.” He choked back a sob. “I couldn’t believe it when she climbed down to the platform. I heard some shouting, and then this terrible scream, and then the hooded lady was running away and disappeared in the fog.”
Charlie enveloped me in a huge hug and we both cried. Proof. You have no proof. It could have been someone else. Maybe it wasn’t who you think it is.
“I’ve wanted to tell you I’m sorry for so long. I wanted you to know I vowed to make something of myself, and guess what? I spent six years in the Marines. I got a purple heart in Iraq.” He lifted up his jeans at his right ankle and I could see he had a prosthetic leg. “Now my wife and I have three beautiful kids.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “If not for your mom, they’d never have been born.”
He dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flipped it open and showed me a photo of a pretty brunette hugging an older girl and twin little boys. I smiled through my tears.
“We named our daughter Tanith, but we call her Annie. After your mother.” He took another deep breath and stood up. “I want justice for her.”
“Thank you, Charlie,” I whispered.
He looked at me. “And I know who killed your mother.”
My blood turned to icy sludge. “Who?”
“Your mother screamed the lady’s name right before she was pushed. Ramona, she called her.” I kept my breathing calm. “A few years after that, I was looking you and your dad up online, and I saw a photo of his new wife. It was her, Lana! It was your stepmother!”
Ten years of false storylines, of misplaced shame and guilt lifted off my shoulders like ten thousand pounds of lead—replaced with molten rage at the woman who’d stolen my mother from me. My mind raced. Charlie was the only one in the world who could put her in prison. But Ramona was dangerous. Then there was Eden. Could I be the one who took Eden’s mother away from her? When my own had been taken from me?
I met his steady gaze with my own and nodded. “Yes. I know you’re right.”
He palmed his wallet and unzipped one of the pockets. “There’s more, sorry. I was saving this for the day I met you.” He handed me a folded piece of notebook paper. It was soft and worn and tattered around the edges. “I just thought you should have it. But she wasn’t going to do it. She told me she’d decided never to come back to the bridge, since she had a little girl to think of. She told me she felt guilty she had ever thought about jumping and how it wasn’t the answer.”
I slowly unfolded my mother’s suicide note. The note we’d been looking for these last ten years.
And she hadn’t left it anywhere because she didn’t jump. She wasn’t going to jump. Charlie had saved her the same as she’d saved him. And then Ramona had murdered her so she could marry my father, become my stepmother, and try to claim the Ambrose fortune she knew would one day come my way.
I jumped up, suddenly breathless. “Would you be willing to testify at a trial?”
Charlie’s face lit up. “Been waiting ten years for somebody to ask me that.”
#
I made a mental note to send him and his family a nice big chunk of Ambrose money. He’d resolved the biggest mystery of my life. He deserved it.
I was about to get into my car when my cell phone buzzed. I glanced down at the screen.
It was a text message from Alexander.
Look behind you.
I whirled around and a man stepped out of the shadows. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. I turned and ran frantically back up the hill into the woods of the cemetery.
“Help!” I screamed. “Someone, help!” Something heavy hit me in the back and I stumbled and fell. My lungs heaved and I tried to scream again but something rough clamped over my mouth and nose, acrid vapor seared my throat, and the light faded.
#
We were speeding along a rutted road and with each bounce, my head banged against the bare metal floor. Sharp metal cut into my wrists as I struggled to move—handcuffs. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around as my pupils adjusted.
I was inside a dingy van. The cold floor seared the exposed skin on my back. The small windows in the back doors were spray painted black, and the only illumination was the occasional flash of a street light through a crack in the paint. Narrow metal benches lined one side of the interior. A solid metal wall separated the rear compartment from the driver’s seat.
It was a prison cell on wheels. The van swerved hard around a curve and something slid into my feet.
It groaned.
I knew who it was as soon as I smelled his cologne. “Alexander! Are you okay? Oh my God, what happened?” The van hit a pothole and I flopped forward on him.
He took a deep breath and coughed. “I’ve been better. But you should see the other guy.”
One of his eyes was swollen shut. He had blood all over his chin. I pressed my cheek to his and felt cold, sticky wetness.
He whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry we had a fight. Now just move your face a little to the left.” I did, and he lifted his head and pressed his lips to mine.
“I’m sorry too! I’m so sorry! Did Jenner do this to you?”
He told me the story while I tried to squeeze my hands out of the cuffs. Alexander left his apartment planning to drive up to Sonoma to find me. Jenner had been waiting just outside his door. He jumped him from behind, they fought, and the last thing he remembered was a bitter-smelling cloth clamping down over his mouth.
I pulled my hand as hard as I could and the metal edge scraped deeply against my knuckles and then slipped off. With my free hand, I pulled off the tape that bound Alexander’s wrists and felt him for injuries. “What hurts?”
“My head, a little. And something happened to my side.” I ran my hands down his torso over his damp shirt. Warm wetness seeped from his left side. He tried to sit up and winced. I gasped. “He might have had a knife. I can’t remember.”
“It’s just a small cut. Don’t worry.” I took the tape that had been around his wrists, pulled his shirt up, and pressed the tape to the wound. It looked deep and was leaking blood. By some miracle the tape stuck to his skin and held. I applied as much pressure as I could until the van lurched to a stop. The driver’s door opened and I was blinded by a flashlight pointed at my face.
Jenner leaped up into the van in a nimble move for someone his size. He crouched on his feet and stared at us, twirling a set of jangling keys in his fingers, balancing the flashlight on his knee. My eyes adjusted in the dim light. He wore dark work pants and a black sweatshirt over his massive frame. A black woolen cap was pulled down low past his eyebrows. There was a massive purple bruise around his left eye. His lower lip was swollen and there was dried blood in the corner of his mouth.
I scooted closer to Alexander and grabbed his hand. Jenner stuffed the van keys in his back pocket and hauled the doors shut behind him. He pointed the flashlight at Alexander, who covered his eyes with his arm. I gasped—in the glare of the light, I could see his face was covered in blood from a cut on his forehead and he had his own purple and black bruise around one of his eyes.
“Hey, Loverboy,” Jenner said softly. “Sorry I had to fuck up your face like that. Good thing you won’t be needing it much longer.” Alexander shoved me back and got between me and Jenner.
“Get away from her,” he snarled.
Jenner’s eyes darted to Alexander and then to his untied hands. Then he noticed my handcuffs, loose on the floor. He reached behind his back and pulled a gun out of his waistband. He pointed it at Alexander.
“Don’t worry, he won’t shoot us,” I said. “What they’re planning won’t look like an accident if they do.”
Jenner pointed the gun at Alexander. “Try me, Lana. It’s been too long since I shot somebody.” I didn’t dare call his bluff. I shook my head. “Thought so,” he sneered. He waved the gun to Alexander. “Put your right hand up on that bench.” He shined the flashlight to the bench, where a metal ring jutted out of the seat. “Lana, cuff his wrist to that.”
I fought through my fear and tried to think of a way out. “Wait—listen to me! Ramona has no money—you’re not going to get a dime for helping her. Let us go and I’ll make sure you see more money that she ever promised you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Why would I settle for a bite when I’m getting half?”
“Half . . . of my inheritance?” I asked. He nodded brightly. “That’s gonna be hard to spend in prison. I wrote her out of my will—it’s too late, Wade.”
He bristled at that. “You think I’ve been putting up with your stepmom all this time just to end up in jail?” He’d had his angle planned for a while. Ramona was using him—but he was using her right back.
“Victor’s dead! He can’t help her.”
“We don’t need Victor anymore.” He leaned closer to me. I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “He sent his idiots to catch you before you got to New York. When that didn’t work, he promised Ramona he was going to take care of it personally as soon as you landed.” He spat blood onto the floor. His swollen lower lip was flecked with spit. “You’re damn lucky he had the hots for you, or you never would have gotten on that boat alive.”
I picked up the cuffs. They were ice cold. “I got off the boat alive. Victor didn’t.”
“Do it!” he snarled.
I took a deep breath. “What do you think Ramona will do when I tell her about you and Cressida?”
His head jerked up. “Who told you that?”
“No one. It’s on video.”
He licked his lips and his eyes darted wildly. “You think Ramona didn’t know what was going on?” He shook his head. “That crazy bitch knows everything.”
Bile rose in my throat. “Ramona knew?”
He nodded. “I told her if she wanted me to stick around, she’d keep her mouth shut. Nobody complained after that. Especially not Cressida—she was in love with her Uncle Wade, just like her mom.”
“She was under age. You’re going to jail unless you let me get him to a hospital.”
He pressed the gun to my head and looked at Alexander. “Tell her to do it.” Alexander’s mouth was set hard but his eyes looked a little dazed, like he was having trouble focusing. The hem of his shirt was dark with blood.
“You heard her. This is your last chance. Let us go or you’re done,” Alexander said through gritted teeth.
Jenner cocked the gun. Shaking with fury, I reached over to clasp the other side of the cuff to the metal bench. Was Georgette just going to do nothing as Jenner tortured and killed us both? Where WAS she?
I clicked the cuff shut and sat back on my heels. His right arm was chained to the van. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Alexander winked at me and then deliver an expertly placed kick to Jenner’s wrist. The gun flew up and banged into the ceiling, then crashed down into a dark corner of the van.
Before I could move, Jenner’s fist connected with Alexander’s stomach and he groaned. Jenner was at least fifty pounds heavier, five inches taller, and not bleeding out of his side—or handcuffed. I tried to get between them but Jenner shoved me away and I sprawled onto the hard metal floor. With both legs, Alexander kicked Jenner in the chest and he flew backwards, slamming against the back doors. Jenner reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a grimy towel, and lunged towards Alexander. He clamped the towel over Alexander’s mouth.
In seconds, Alexander’s body went limp, his face pale and covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
“What did you do!?” I screamed.
“Chloral hydrate. Same thing I used to get him into the damn van. Same thing I used on you.” I silently prayed for Georgette’s help. He wiped his bleeding mouth and examined the blood on his hand and grinned. His bloody front teeth made him look like a crazed psychopath.
“You’re a lot of trouble, Lana. Maybe I should show you why Cressida liked her Uncle Wade so much.” Blood pounded in my head. He stared at me with his rubbery lips open, breathing heavily.
“Georgette, aidez-moi,” I whispered. “Help me, please.”
The doors of the van swung open.
Chapter 29
Sinus Roris ~ Bay of Dew
We don’t have much time.” The familiar female voice rang out from the darkness outside the van. I stumbled when my feet touched the ground. The chilly air was thick with the smell of pine and eucalyptus and ocean. When my eyes adjusted, I saw my Ferrari—it was parked right next to the van. Someone had driven it from Mountain Cemetery to wherever we were.
The cold seeped through my clothes and I hugged my sides.
Ramona looked me up and down. “Feel like an heiress yet?” She wore black leggings, a dark fur-trimmed jacket zipped to her neck, and black knee-high hiking boots. I was just in jeans and t-shirt. My new black leather jacket had disappeared—as usual.