Obsession (Seven Deadly Sins Book 2)

by Shantel Tessier

  She continues to look down at the sheet. Jet walks to the other side and looks down at her. “We need you to identify the body,” he says it as if she isn’t already upset enough.

  “Jet,” I growl.

  “I know this must be hard, but you want to catch who did this, right?” he asks her, and that seems to get some response out of her because she nods her head once as she sniffs.

  “Jet …” I am about to tell him to give her more time. She will pull it back when she’s ready, but he does it. He rips back the sheet, exposing the naked woman who was Skye’s best friend just days ago. She lies there. Eyes closed, her arms down by her side. Her body naked and completely exposed to the world she left behind. Her body was in the water for at least two days, and you can tell. She has been cleaned off, but you can tell by the way she is bloated. She has dark bruises around her neck. She had been strangled at some point, by what looks to be some type of thin wire, but that was not the cause of death. She has bruises on her chest that are unknown, but I’ve seen the type before. Knees being pressed into her sternum. It cracked her chest. Both of her eyes, black and swollen. A cut across her right cheek and a split lip. Broken nose. She was tortured. Abused. Whoever got their hands on her didn’t want her to have a quick death. They wanted her to suffer, and suffer she did.

  “Tiffany.” She chokes on her name as she reaches out and places her shaking hands on Tiffany’s upper arm. She pulls her hands back and places one over her mouth. She lets out a sob.

  Jet gets the confirmation that this is Tiffany and asks, “Does she have any family members we can contact?” She just stares down at her, ignoring him. “Siblings?” She finally shakes her head slowly. “Parents.” She continues to shake her head. “There has to be someone—”

  “She had me.” She interrupts him, her voice barely audible.

  He goes to cover her back up, but Skye reaches out, leans over the table, and pushes him away. “No,” she shouts at him.

  “Skye,” I say as I place my hands on her shoulders. She shoves them off.

  “No,” she says through the tears. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.” She shakes her head quickly. “Tiffany,” she cries. “I’m right here, Tiffany.”

  “Cover her up,” I order Jet. She has already seen more than she should have.

  He goes to do it again, and this time, Skye leans over, placing her chest to her friend. “No.” She sobs. “I’m not ready to leave,” she cries frantically.

  “She’s gone, Skye.” I wrap my arms around her chest and pull her back. She fights me as she starts sobbing. “It’s okay,” I say as she reaches for her, and I grab her hands to pull her back. “Cover her up,” I shout again to Jet.

  I yank Skye from her friend just as Jet covers her up. She cries uncontrollably and turns her body into mine. She wraps her arms around my neck and buries her head into my chest. Her body shakes against mine, and her knees buckle, no longer able to hold herself up. I bend down and pick her up by sliding an arm under her knees. Then I turn around and walk out with her in my arms, ignoring the look Jet gives me.

  SKYE

  I wait out on the playground for my friend Tiffany. I don’t know how many days it has been, but it seems like I haven’t seen her in forever. When I told Daddy that she hadn’t been to school, he told me she has probably been sick and would return when she is better.

  I play in the sand all by myself while the other kids play around me. They don’t talk to me. They don’t even look at me. Daddy says it’s because I’m special, and others are afraid of special. But not Tiffany. She’s special like me. All I have is Tiffany, and I feel so alone. Will I see her again?

  “Skye.”

  I look up and see her running toward me. Two pigtails fly around in the wind. “Tiffany,” I say standing and running to her.

  I come to her and hug her tightly. She hisses in a breath and pulls away from me. “Ow,” she says as she starts to cry.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask confused.

  “My side.” She raises her shirt to show me that her skin is a dark green and blue color.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Mommy said I was being bad,” she says as she sniffs.

  She’s dead! Tiffany is truly gone! I saw it with my own eyes, but I refuse to believe it. Someone beat her just as her parents had when she was younger.

  Brecken puts me in his car, and I roll myself into a ball. I place my head in my hands as I try to breathe. But it’s hard. My chest is tight, and my mind is foggy. I let out a sob before the driver’s side door opens and then closes. Two strong arms wrap around my shoulders, and I feel myself falling into a strong chest. I cry uncontrollably as we sit in the parking lot. My best friend lies feet from us on a metal slab. Cold and alone.

  “I’m so sorry, Skye,” I hear Brecken say through my sobs, but all I can do is cry. All I can do is hold this stranger who just gave me the worst news in the world.

  He pulls away from me, places his hands on my face, and makes me look up at him. “I’m gonna keep my promise, Skye. I’m gonna find who did this. And they will pay.”

  Another sob wracks my body, and I close my eyes as tears run down my face. I feel his lips on my forehead, soft and tender. When he removes them, I pull away and fall into my seat.

  My chest hurts, my head throbs, and my throat is raw. I can’t tell you how long I’ve cried. It may be days, or it may just be a few hours. All I know is that we come to a stop, and I hear a door open and close. My door opens, and Brecken is there. “Come here, baby,” he says as he steps up to me.

  I try to move my body closer to him, but I can’t move. My legs are heavy, and my arms don’t wanna work. “I’m sorry,” I cry as I shake my head.

  His arm wedges itself between my legs and the passenger seat and then his other slides behind my back. He lifts me out of the Range Rover, and I bury myself into his chest. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he whispers.

  He carries me for what feels like forever, and then he’s laying me on something soft. I open my eyes to see that I’m lying on a bed. He sits down next to me and places his hand on my back. He gently rubs it as I look up at him. “It breaks my heart, Skye. I wish I could take it away,” he says softly.

  “They tortured her,” I say as a sob escapes my lips. He nods. “What kind of person would do that to her?” I ask. “Especially Tiffany,” I say, trying to understand why this word is so cruel. “She was the nicest person I have ever met.” I cry. “What do I do now?” I ask needing someone to tell me what to do. “I need you to tell me what to do.”

  He adjusts himself and lies down beside me, turning onto his side to face me. “You grieve,” he says simply.

  “What …?” Isn’t that what I’m doing?

  “You grieve for your loss, Skye.” He lifts his hand, and his knuckles rub the tears away that have fallen.

  “How long until it stops hurting?” I ask sucking in a deep breath. “How long until I can breathe?” Tiffany isn’t the first loved one I’ve lost, but I’ve never felt this way before. Like my heart is being ripped from my chest.

  “I can’t tell you that,” he whispers as he wipes away the fresh tears from my face.

  And then another thought hits me, and I roll onto my stomach as I bury my face into his bed. I sob, and his hand gently rubs his back. “I don’t have any money…” I mumble into the bed.

  He gently pushes me over onto my back, and I look up at him through my tears. “Money for what?” he asks softly.

  “To give her what she deserves.”

  His brows pull together in confusion and then he sighs as he understands what I’m thinking. “To give her a funeral.” He states.

  I feel so ashamed. “What will happen to her body?” I choke on the question. “What will they do to her?” I lied to Jet. She has parents, but they are dead to her. And they don’t live anywhere around here. As far as they are concerned, she’s been dead for a long time.

  He takes a deep breath. “What do
you want to do?” He lifts his hand and wipes my tears away. “What do you think she would want?”

  “She would want to be cremated,” I say, and my chest tightens. Tiffany was claustrophobic. We laughed about that when we moved into our small studio apartment. To know that she was living in a box in the ground for the rest of eternity … I would feel like I was suffocating with her.

  Before he can say anything, I bury my face into his chest as I wrap my arm around his side. His arm goes over mine, and he hugs me tightly as I sob like a child.

  He laid there with me for I don’t know how long. I sobbed. I screamed so long that I hurt my own ears, and all he did was hold me as if I needed him. And I did.

  A hundred different questions keep going through my mind. And I don’t have an answer for any of them. I have no fucking clue where to start, and I don’t think the guys do either. I hear them talking about it when they call Brecken. I hear him say how depressed I am. I hear him say that he doesn’t want to leave me alone and that he needs to be here with me. I hate how that makes me feel too. I hate that when he holds me, I allow myself to cry even harder. As if it’s okay to be weak. I hate that Tiffany is gone and I hate myself for not doing more to find her. To protect her. I should have been with her that night. Once again, I failed. How many times in my life am I going to fail? How many times before I just give up and say fuck it? I’d rather be with the loved ones I’ve lost than in this hellhole.

  A soft knock on the door lets me know he’s about to enter. I stare up at the ceiling as the door softly opens. And then he walks in. A glass of water in his right hand and some crackers in his left.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  He sits down beside me placing the crackers and the water on the nightstand. “You need to eat something.”

  I just stare up at the ceiling and ignore him. He’ll leave. He doesn’t stay in here long. He feels sorry for me. He pities me.

  He sighs as he looks down at his watch. I look him over and realize that he is wearing a suit. A black three-piece suit with a purple vest and a white tie. “I have to leave,” he says, looking down at me. “I don’t wanna leave you here alone. Jet is in the living room doing some work. But if you need anything, call me.” I just stare up at his dark brown eyes wondering how we got to this point. How he has become my babysitter. Just five days ago, he wanted me to move. Now, he is taking care of me as if I can’t do it myself. I’ve pretty much thrown all dignity out the window.

  I’m numb. I’m heartbroken. I’m pissed. Every emotion runs through me at any given second. “I’ll be fine,” I finally say.

  He reaches out; his knuckles gently touch my cheek, and my eyes well up with tears. They silently fall down the side of my face, and his knuckles wipe them away as if they were never there. He does that a lot. He reaches out to touch me, hold me, and I find myself needing it, silently begging him to do it.

  He removes his hand and stands up, turns, and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  I roll over, bury my head into his pillow, and sob.

  “Are you ready?” Tiffany asks as soon as I sit down at my desk in class.

  I nod my head as I bite my lip nervously. “My bag is in my locker. But are you sure you wanna—”

  “Skye,” she interrupts me. She reaches over and grabs my hand. I see the bruise that she tries to hide under her long-sleeve shirt. It had ridden up when she reached out to touch me. She wants to run just as badly as I do. “It’s you and me, girl. We are in this together. If you go, I go.”

  I smile at her, and she smiles back. We release hands when the teacher enters and I take a deep breath. This is our last day here. We’re finally doing it. We’ve been talking about it for a year now, and today, we act on it. We’re gonna run away. At the young age of twelve, we’re gonna be runaways.

  We’re both tired of living a life of fear. I have no other choice but to run from it. When I made the decision to run a year ago, Tiffany asked me to wait. She wanted to come with me. And now, we’re doing it.

  She places a note on my desk, and I open it up to read it. “You’re never gonna be alone again, Skye. We’ll always have each other.”

  I must have passed out at some point because the next thing I know, I wake up and have to use the restroom. As I get up, I hear Jet in the living room. I walk out of the bedroom and down the hall. I see the back of Jet’s head when I come up behind the couch.

  “About time you get out of bed,” he says not even bothering to turn around.

  I walk past the couch to the recliner. I plop down onto it and reach up to wipe the tears from my face. They never stop coming. He looks over at me, and his bright blue eyes scrutinize me as he judges me. Weak. Jet and Brecken have that in common.

  “Brecken left some dinner in the kitchen. Are you hungry?” he asks. I shake my head. “I wouldn’t eat that shit either,” he says with a laugh.

  He looks back down at some papers in his hand. He goes through a few of them and then throws them onto the table. I see the picture that I had given him of Tiffany and me the day I went to the police station. I wish that were how I remembered her. Smiling. Laughing. All I see now when I close my eyes is her bruised and beaten body.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” he says.

  “Why are you here?” I finally speak. I don’t understand why a cop is helping Brecken. A druggie. I’m not sure how the police work, but I’m pretty sure they don’t partner up with criminals. Unless … Jet is crooked. Brecken introduced me to another cop at the morgue, but I don’t remember his name or what he looked like.

  “Because Brecken feels that you need to be watched twenty-four-seven,” he says as if he doesn’t feel the same way.

  So he’s hired help? “What do you think?” I ask softly.

  “About you?” I nod. He leans back on the couch crossing his arms over his big chest. “I think everyone needs time to grieve. And then I think there’s time to face reality. Your friend is gone.” The words are like a knife to my chest. “Crying isn’t going to bring her back. You either face the fact that she’s gone and try to help us find who hurt her, or you sit back there in that room for days. Maybe weeks. Possibly months. Allowing the killer more time to cover up their tracks.” He looks me up and down, and I swallow the lump in my throat. I’m still in the same clothes that I was wearing when Brecken came to my house. I think that was two or three days ago now. I’m not sure; I’ve lost track of time. “He sees you as weak. That’s no secret. But honestly, I think that’s what he wants you to be.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what’s going on between you and Brecken.”

  “Nothing …”

  “He wants you to stay back in that room and cry. He wants to hold you and feel useful for some ungodly reason. Because if you’re there, then he doesn’t have to protect you out here.”

  “I don’t need him,” I say through gritted teeth.

  He smiles. A cold and slow smile. “Well, your actions aren’t the same as your words.”

  Then he returns his attention to his papers. And my thoughts return to Tiffany.

  Things have been going great. We left our hometown in Michigan three years ago. The lunch bell rang, and we walked out of that school and straight to the bus. No one ever questioned us, and no one bothered us. We took the bus from Michigan to Florida, and we haven’t looked back. We came here because Tiffany has a grandmother here. She welcomed us with open arms and has kept her word. She hasn’t called Tiffany’s parents or my uncle. I have a feeling she understands what it feels like to hide. I’ve wanted to run since my parents were killed. I couldn’t stay with my uncle any longer; he would have killed me.

  I am constantly looking over my shoulder. I feel like he’s looking for me, but he’s never there. Tiffany swears that no one is looking for us, but I can’t shake this feeling that they will find us. And when he does, he’ll make me regret that I ever left him.


  Jet throws down some papers, and it gets my attention. “Shit,” he hisses.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  He runs a hand over his buzzed hair. “I’m trying to solve your friend’s case, and everything is a dead end.”

  I lick my lips and think about something. “Did she have any belongings?” He stares up at me. “She always wore a ring on her right hand. Was it there?” He shakes his head. “A silver necklace in the shape of a heart?” He shakes his head again. “What about her cell phone?”

  “Nothing,” he growls. “No purse. No car. No phone. No jewelry. Nothing.”

  What purpose would someone have to take everything from her? Was it a robbery? They wouldn’t have gotten much from her, though. Those things weren’t worth much. But her phone … Why would they want that? Would they use her phone thinking they could use it until it was shut off? That doesn’t make much sense, though. Everyone these days has cell phones. If only I could …

  “Can you get her cell phone records?” I ask.

  “I can, but that takes time. We have to go before the judge and subpoena her carrier—”

  “Do you have a computer here?” I interrupt him.

  “No. But I saw a laptop in the spare bedroom …”

  I’m up and running before he can even finish the sentence. I storm into the spare bedroom and flip on the light. I spot it on top of the dresser. I go over to it and open it up. I turn it on as he enters the room. “What are you looking for?” he asks, coming up behind me.

  I don’t answer as I pray that Brecken doesn’t have a password on it. I almost smile when it doesn’t. I go straight to the Internet and then to the website of her cellular provider. I know every email and password that she uses.

  “What is that gonna do?” he demands.

  “Give me a second,” I snap as my fingers fly over the keys. “I have an idea,” I say biting my lip. I promise, Tiffany. I’m gonna find who hurt you. And they’re gonna pay.

  I smile as I pull up her phone records. I look through a few numbers here and there, but they are numbers that I know. Mine. A few from work. Then a couple I don’t recognize. “Give me your phone.” I lift my right hand and snap my fingers. He hands it to me without question.