Fractured

by Wendy Byrne

  “So you’ve said, hmmm, maybe a hundred times. That hasn’t stopped me yet, has it?”

  “A girl can hope.” She inserted the key into the lock and turned the knob. The door seemed stuck, so she pushed. But it didn’t budge.

  She wasn’t a weakling. She worked out regularly and could bench press her own weight. But this door wasn’t moving. And she had a distinct feeling it had nothing to do with her current physical condition.

  Landry took over, first jiggling the door knob, then pounding on the top corner. “It’s like it’s stuck somehow.”

  Could this night get any worse? They looked at each other and drew their guns. That trouble vibe skittered down her spine.

  “I can break through, but you’ll have to get a new door.”

  Normally she would have argued with him about just who would be knocking down her door, but they both knew she wasn’t up to it. “Do it.”

  Like her, Landry worked out on a regular basis and ran a couple of miles a day. He could bench press over three hundred pounds and was as strong as an ox. Even so, it took him five tries before the door broke free.

  They barreled through the splintered door simultaneously, although he had momentum going in his favor so he moved out in front. Guns drawn, they began their walk-through. He turned left toward the kitchen and dining room while she went right toward the bedrooms and bathroom.

  The place wasn’t large, but there were more than enough places where somebody could hide. Other than the mess he’d made of the door, nothing looked disturbed. But still she had this awful sensation simmering low in her belly.

  Gun ready, she hit the hall bathroom first. Nothing. Next the spare bedroom. She looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the door. Still Nothing.

  “Clear.” Landry called from the kitchen. Seconds later she heard him walking through the place to join her.

  “Master bedroom.” She headed toward her room. Landry scooted in behind. She flung open the bedroom door, gun raised. She checked the closet, then the master bathroom while he scoped out the other side of the room.

  “Oh, hell.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  By the time she’d left the bathroom to join him, he’d already re-holstered his gun. Hands on his hips, he was staring down at something on the floor by the window.

  “What is it, Landry?” She didn’t expect him to answer as she’d already come around to the window side of the bed.

  Her mind took a couple beats to process. When it did, a cold chill slithered down her spine. The body lay crumpled on the floor by the window. Somehow he’d landed underneath the desk her grandfather had fashioned out of an old French door. Her laptop sat in the middle, undisturbed.

  While one hand flew to her mouth, the other reached into her pocket. “Oh, my God.” A memory from long ago hit her with the force of a Mack truck. The man’s right forearm. It couldn’t be. But what were the chances…

  “Do you know him?” He glanced at her like she’d gone crazy.

  Maybe she had because what she was thinking didn’t make any kind of sense. Still, she had to know for sure. She drew in a breath, oblivious to the excruciating pain that had been there ten minutes earlier and bent down to touch the man’s arm to turn it ever so slightly.

  “Isabella, you shouldn’t—“ he didn’t finish his thought, knowing she’d be aware of all the precautions about disturbing a crime scene.

  It couldn’t be, but there it was. Just as she remembered it. A tattoo: two intertwined hearts with the letter ‘T’ inside each. In the middle, a smaller heart with the letter ‘I’.

  She could barely breathe, let alone utter the words. “I think it’s my father.”

  Chapter Two

  Landry knew Isabella liked to keep secrets, but leading him to believe all this time her father had been dead was kind of a big one.

  “Your father? So that means when you told me he was dead you were predicting the future?” He grasped her chin, forcing her eyes away from the body and onto him.

  Anger rocketed down his spine from his head to his toes. In the past he’d gone round and round with Isabella, doing everything in his power to get her to let him in, to no avail. This oversight of hers further proved the futility of thinking they’d ever make a go of their relationship. This only proved she couldn’t even trust him, no matter how benign the information.

  She avoided his eyes while the words rushed out in a torrent of emotion. “He was in prison for murder. I haven’t seen or talked to him since I was a kid. As far as I was concerned he was dead.”

  Her admission tempered his anger. Despite her trust issues, it seemed pretty understandable she’d be reluctant to admit this particular family lineage.

  “But if he was serving life, what is he doing dead on your floor? I didn’t hear anything on the scanner about a jail break.”

  If she were a run-of-the-mill suspect, he’d be highly suspicious of the circumstances. But knowing her like he did, he saw sincerity in her shocked expression. Well, that and the fact she absently fingered her own version of a talisman—her beloved grandfather’s handkerchief—until he thought for sure she’d wear a hole in it.

  She chewed her lip. “Maybe it’s not him. Maybe somebody else has a tattoo like that.” Her hand shook when she pointed toward the dead guy’s arm.

  Landry bent down to get a closer inspection. “You mean this one? The one with the two hearts-”

  “And the little one inside.” She didn’t let him finished, but rattled off information as if in a trance. “Two Ts: Tyrone and Teresa. The ‘I’ inside is for Isabella.” She visibly shivered. “What would be the chances…”

  She didn’t have to finish what she was thinking since he was thinking the same thing. The odds that another person had the exact same tattoo in the same spot had to be astronomical.

  “It’s been a long time. You were a kid. Maybe you don’t remember it.”

  She shook her head. “No, he got it the day before my sixth birthday. I’ll never forget.”

  “We’d better call it in.” He didn’t wait for her approval, and used his cell to make the call.

  He rattled off the address while she plunked down on the bed. She’d pulled the old worn handkerchief out of her pocket and had it clenched tightly in her fist while her eyes kept straying back to the body as if she still couldn’t believe what she saw. He sat next to her and rested his hand on her knee.

  “So let’s assume he’s your father, what’s he doing here?”

  She gulped. “I have no idea. I never wrote or visited him. As far as I know, he never tried to communicate with me.” She glanced at the body and sucked in her bottom lip.

  He’d seen this woman go up against gangbangers without batting an eye. But now she looked vulnerable and frightened. Two words he’d never ever link with her until this very moment.

  “Are you all right?”

  Her body tensed while her jaw became rigid. “I haven’t seen the man since I was six.” Despite the caustic tone, she rubbed the edge of the handkerchief like a genie’s bottle, waiting to be granted three wishes. No doubt if a genie appeared she’d wish this dead body would disappear and take away the memories she clearly didn’t want to surface.

  “But he’s still your father.”

  “No, my grandfather was my real father. This man was a sperm donor, nothing more.” She was working hard at covering her shock, as well as something much more painful, he suspected.

  Landry knew better than to pursue that angle when she had her back up. “Why don’t you change.” Knowing they had precious little time, and she was still in a weird trance-like state, he decided to help. First, he took off her coat, then yanked the sweater over her head. He un-fastened her vest and slipped it off. “You’re going to have some huge bruises.” He fingered the areas with a soft touch and then blew out a breath but didn’t offer any further comment. Next, he walked to the dresser and pulled out a sweatshirt. After slipping it over her head, he helped her to a standin
g position. “I’m going to have a look around the neighborhood,” Landry said.

  She looked like hell; a caustic mix of lethargy and shock. Isabella had been in the middle of a lot of heavy-duty cases over the years, but still managed to keep it together. This definitely had her off-kilter.

  “I’m fine. Go do what you need to do.” She glanced briefly in his direction while he moved toward the back door.

  “When they get here, tell them—”

  She held up her hand and gave him a withering look. “I know what to say. Besides, it isn’t as if I did this.”

  “But you don’t want to make things difficult for yourself, either. Dead body, your place. Need I say more?”

  As he headed out the back door, Landry knew there was a whole lot Isabella wasn’t telling him. Which was nothing new. But this time, the potential ramifications seemed much more ominous.

  * * *

  She glanced at the body on the floor. Maybe it was the detective in her. Maybe it was a need to see the man she couldn’t really remember.

  He’d been a teenager when she’d been born, so he wasn’t even fifty yet. But the ravages of age had set in with a vengeance on his wiry body. A mixture of African-American, Cherokee Indian and Italian-American, his complexion was light like hers. He still sported the gang tattoos he’d gotten thirty-plus years ago, along with the one she’d embedded into her brain.

  When her father had showed it to her, Isabella had the vivid sensation of being part of something special. She remembered asking him if she could get one just like it on her arm, and he laughed. A great big belly laugh that made her giggle. And then he’d disappeared from her life. It wasn’t until much later that she’d found out what had happened to him.

  She tried to summon up some kind of emotion, but couldn’t. What she’d told Landry was accurate. She didn’t know this man. Didn’t mourn his passing.

  Conversely, when her grandfather died, she cried every morning for six months straight. Her heart ached and tears still sprung to her eyes every time she thought about the void in her life that could never be filled again. She glanced into her lap and the one lone keepsake she had of him. If he were here he’d know exactly what to do.

  But this man meant little or nothing to her. He’d never been there to comfort her when she’d been scared or sit by her bed when she’d been sick or lecture her when she’d strayed off course.

  So what was he doing in her apartment? And did her cousin Lou’s midnight excursion have anything to do with it?

  Immediately, she brushed away the thought. No way Lou killed her father.

  He was a good kid. A little confused and immature at times, but basically on the up-and-up. But why did he look so guilty when she ran into him downstairs?

  The siren shut off as the squad car squealed to a stop in front of her home. With a whole lot of effort, she stuffed the handkerchief back inside her pocket and brushed aside the sudden bout of lethargy before meeting the police at the landing. “In here.” She led them to the bedroom and then left so they could preserve evidence at the scene before the assigned detective arrived.

  A few moments later, they found her in the kitchen. “Where’s Taylor?”

  “He went to check around the neighborhood.”

  “What was he doing here anyway?” Vic Malone, the veteran cop on the scene didn’t even try to hide his smile.

  Keeping a secret in a police station was next to impossible. The saga of their on-again off-again relationship made great fodder for office gossip.

  “Scratching my itch, if you must know.” She rolled her eyes and let them believe what they wanted to anyway.

  The rookie with Vic didn’t know where to look or what to say. The cop banter was something every rookie had to become accustomed to.

  “Did somebody mention my name?” Landry came in the back door, his game face firmly in place.

  “Sanchez was filling us in on her love life. Looks like the dead body kinda interfered with your plans.”

  He gave her a two-second glance before responding. “Yeah, dead bodies are definite mood killers.”

  Vic glanced at the rookie. “Make a note of that, Jimmy Boy. Don’t try to score with the ladies if there’s a dead body hanging around.” He put his hands on his hips. “Why don’t we start at the beginning? Looks like there was a crowbar wedged against the door latch.” He pointed toward the splintered door. “Is that your handiwork, Sanchez?”

  “Taylor did the honors.” She sucked in a breath, wishing she’d had the sense to pop a couple of painkillers before they got there. “We came home and figured out pretty quickly something was wedged against the lock.”

  As if reading her mind, Landry handed her some pills and a bottle of water. He didn’t say a word, only winked.

  “How about the back door?”

  “It looked clean. Maybe that’s how they got in and out. Could have messed with the front door to slow us down in case we came home while they were inside,” Landry said.

  “Jimmy, knock on the door downstairs and find out if they heard anything.”

  After Jimmy left, Vic turned his attention back to her. “How about the dead guy? Ever see him before?”

  She took a gulp of water and glanced at Landry. He inched closer and placed a reassuring hand at the small of her back.

  It took several seconds for the words to come out. The whole thing seemed surreal. “I think—” she gulped desperately searching for the emotionless, hard-nosed detective inside. “He might be my father, Tyrone Samuels.” There, she’d said it. Out loud. “Except he’s supposed to be serving a life sentence.”

  “Why do you think it’s him?” Vic looked at her like she’d sprouted another head.

  Landry pointed. “The tattoo on the right forearm.”

  Vic bent down to take a closer look before nodding. “It does seem pretty unusual, so I guess that puts a different spin on things. Where’s your piece? Both of you.”

  Before she could respond, Jimmy came back from downstairs. “Ah…we have a…problem. Nobody answered, so I looked in the windows. The place was cleaned out.”

  A creepy sensation slithered down her spine. She didn’t want to believe she’d been sent on a wild goose chase tonight so this whole thing could be orchestrated. She really didn’t want to believe that Lou had anything to do with it. But what other choice did she have other than the logical conclusion laid out before her?

  “No way. We saw my cousin on our way in. That couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes ago.” Sure Lou might not be there, but Cynthia had to be around. “That’s okay, I’ll use my key to get in.”

  The four of them walked down the stairs. She knocked on the front door of Lou’s apartment. “Cynthia, it’s me, Bella.” She waited a beat before using her key. “Anybody home. It’s—” The words died as she flipped on the light switch to find the place empty. There wasn’t a stick of furniture left in any of the rooms. No dishes, no baby paraphernalia, nothing. “What the he—?”

  “Better put a BOLO out for Lou—” Landry glanced in her direction. “Is his last name Sanchez?”

  She nodded, still too numb to do anything else. She didn’t want to believe Lou had screwed her over, but what other conclusion could she have?

  * * *

  It took a couple of hours to process the scene, talk with the detective and remove the body. Even though she felt exhausted, she was pretty sure it would be impossible to sleep. Vic and the rookie had put crime scene tape across the remnants of the front door and left. She and Landry were supposed to stay to gather some of her things and exit through the back, putting the tape up there as well.

  It was still freaking her out about Lou and Cynthia leaving like that. It didn’t make sense. They had no place to go. If she really tried to justify their departure she could hypothesize Lou might have found a job and then gotten a bigger place. With her being gone so much he might not have had a chance to tell her. Maybe it was guilt she saw on his face a couple of hours ago.
Which, of course, was utter and complete nonsense. What kind of low-life would slink away in the middle of the night like…a criminal?

  Despite evidence to the contrary, she still couldn’t get her head around the idea that Lou was a criminal. But how could she miss them moving out unless they didn’t want her to know about it? They knew her work habits; her pattern of behavior; the fact that she was gone ninety percent of the time and just came home to crash the other ten percent.

  The only explanation for Lou’s sudden departure that made any kind of sense had to do with the murder of her father. Lou had to be scared. Scared for himself. Scared for his family.

  But he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have. Lou didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He’d grown up in the middle of prime gang recruitment territory. He’d seen what happened to childhood friends as they got caught up with the criminal mentality. An act of violence would be totally out of character.

  That meant he either heard something or saw something. Which also meant that Lou and Cynthia and the baby could be in real danger.

  “Why don’t you stay at my place tonight?” Landry’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  “Out of the question. You live in a studio apartment.” The last place she wanted to be was in a confined space with Landry for the remainder of the evening. She felt vulnerable and weak for the second time tonight. It would be in her best interest if she backed away from Landry.

  “It’s two in the morning. You can’t stay here with a boarded-up front door. Besides, it’s a crime scene. I can have one of my cousins come over to take care of your door after we get the okay. In a couple of days, you can probably get back in.”

  She shrugged. He was right. She didn’t have any place to stay.

  If this had happened to him, he’d have half a dozen relatives he could bunk with. All she had was her cousin, his wife and their one-year-old child downstairs, but now even they were missing. With a lot of effort, she willed herself from spiraling down that path again.