Beautifully Damaged (Contemporary Romantic Suspense)

by Faye, Amy

  "Erin, are you going to be alright?"

  She furrowed her brow at the question. Alright? Why wouldn't she be alright? She nodded just in time to take a look around, a look at the pictures on the wall. There were photos on near every wall, and they were of her face, staring back at her. It took her a minute to register that they might have been Becca's, some of them.

  Others, she remembered taking. There was her senior high school photo, right beside Becca's. She remembered that time. Mom had been sliding already. Dad had just moved. Broke them up between junior and senior years. Becca's clothes looked like they barely fit her. She looked tired, ragged, worn out, even though it had only been a few months since they'd seen each other. They barely looked anything alike, when normally you couldn't tell them apart.

  The divide only grew wider as the photos got older. Nothing more recent than five years or so. It gave Erin some hope that things had gotten turned around, but what she was seeing hit her hard in the gut. This was what life was for them, huh? What a fuck up.

  She took a breath. She couldn't let it upset her, as much as it was going to upset her in either case. She needed to keep her head level.

  "I'm fine," she said in response to Roy's concerned look.

  He handed her a pair of rubber gloves and fitted a pair onto his own hands as they walked back.

  "We found him in the back."

  She followed Roy past the bathroom. There couldn't have been more than four rooms in the whole place, no basement in evidence. The place was about as tiny as anyone could find, anywhere. Erin took a breath as he stepped through the door and braced for impact.

  The floor seemed to fall out from under her feet when she stepped through and the room held no evidence of her father's body except for a wicker rocking chair, stained red. There was violence in the room, though. 'Signs of a struggle,' she thought to herself. Trying to maintain her distance as best she could.

  A record player on the floor. A speaker system with the front panel kicked in. A second chair, overturned. The blood was all over the room, but in the end the darkest spot was the chair.

  "We found him there. In the chair."

  "He would have fought back."

  "And the room suggests he did," Roy agreed. "But local P.D. found him sitting up in that chair."

  "Do we have a time of death?"

  "They caught it pretty soon after the guy left. One of the neighbors called, said he heard some loud noises like a fight, saw someone run off, and went over to check on your father."

  "Why am I here?"

  "I'm getting to that," he said. "She didn't get an answer, called the cops—witness says that the murder took place at around 2:53 in the afternoon, yesterday. Medical examiner's estimate essentially matches that timeline."

  "Okay."

  "I want to understand why he did this, just as much as you do, Erin. Which means we have to ask the important questions, don't you agree?" She agreed, though she didn't like the discussion one bit. "Which means we need to understand why they would kill a fifty-six year old man who, by all accounts, rarely left the house. Every other murder was in public, young, women. Now we've got a man who looked to rarely go further than the front couch, and he's dead in his house."

  "I don't know what to say."

  "I know you don't. But we need someone who knows more than we do, or we lose the biggest opportunity we're going to have to catch this guy."

  Thirty-Four

  Erin wasn't sure that she was who they needed. Someone who knew him? Her father was a closed book to her. She knew as much as she could imply from the pictures on the walls. She knew as much as Mom had told her, and most of that had been delirious. She knew that he was the man who had left her mother to fall apart because he didn't like the dust on the wind, the dirty air, and the heat that never got too extreme.

  The droughts hadn't even started by then. He had just left his wife and daughter to their fates and that was the man she knew him to be.

  "What do you need from me?"

  "We need some sort of insight. Why him? Why now?"

  Erin took a breath. It had something to do with her sister, she knew. But Becca had been a closed book, too. When she was fifteen, she'd liked the same things everyone liked in 2005.

  That had been more than fifteen years ago. The girl who she'd seen dead on that slab was a stranger. It wasn't fun to admit that the person who Erin owed the most, the one who had taken responsibility for watching Dad, the one who had been her twin, a second person exactly like her, was a complete and total stranger.

  She shouldn't have been thinking about it, and she certainly shouldn't have been thinking about it in those terms. Erin knew she needed to have her wits about her, and beating herself up wasn't helping.

  "I don't know if I can help you. I don't know anything about my sister's life."

  "I don't know if we're talking about something to do with your sister, Erin."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" She let her irritation touch her voice in spite of herself. "Becca was killed by the same guy, might even have been the same knife. Or if not the same guy, definitely the same couple of guys. There's obviously a connection. I just don't know what it is."

  "Maybe you do, Erin. Who knew your sister? Who knew her well?"

  "I don't know. Probably a lot of people. She was always popular in school."

  "But who knew her well enough to know her father, to know that he lived alone apart from her? Who knew where the house was? Who had a grudge against him?"

  Erin let out a disappointed sigh. "I can think of one person."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "I did."

  Roy dipped his head to look up into her downturned eyes. Erin turned her back.

  "But you didn't do it."

  "I might have, if I had the opportunity."

  "I also know you weren't here yesterday at 2 o'Clock P.M."

  "That's right," she said. "So it wasn't me. But I don't know anyone else with a motive. The man didn't leave the house except to buy booze. He paid the mortgage with welfare money and Becca's work on the side, I'd guess. The few times I've taken his calls, she's working, he's drunk."

  There was no story to be told here. Someone had died here, and they'd sat Dad back in his seat as if to try to rub it all in her face.

  She took a deep breath in, held it an instant, and breathed it back out. Slow. She had to think. Someone else with a motive. Someone else who knew her sister. She was an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.

  "Hutchinson."

  "You figure?" The expression on Roy's face told her that he'd already considered the idea, and he hadn't dismissed it.

  "I told him about Dad. He seemed to already know, and then he made a remark about how, if it was his dad, he wouldn't let him get away with it."

  "That sounds like he was considering this already."

  "And maybe he was. But why? She was already dead. Eventually he'd have realized what happened when the beers in the fridge ran out. He was on a downward trajectory already. No reason to kill him now."

  "I don't know, but we have a connection now, and a solid one."

  "Do you mind if I just—can I wait outside?"

  "Sure," Roy said, suddenly seeming to realize where they both were, and what she must have been feeling as she stood there surrounded by the tatters of her sister's life.

  Erin managed to keep herself looking professional until she hit the door, and that was about all she could manage. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with Dad? Why would Becca stay in a place like that? It looked lifeless, the whole place. Erin liked small places. She liked her apartment, which was only half the size of the house she just walked out of, and no garage.

  But that place looked less like a happy home than it did a tomb, where her father waited to die and her sister hadn't been able to touch, not in ten years.

  She sucked in a breath. This was a mistake. She shouldn't have come here. It was only upsetting her. But she couldn't change where she was. Why had R
oy brought her here? Why did he think she needed to see this? Was he trying to hurt her?

  No, she thought. That didn't make sense. He wasn't that kind, not normally. There was something else at work here, but she couldn't begin to figure what it was. That was the worst part, was thinking that she couldn't be sure why any of this.

  She had about caught her breath when Roy came out and sat down on the stoop beside her.

  "You okay?"

  "I will be," she answered, only half-sure that she was telling the truth.

  "I'm sorry," he said, looking over across the street at a much nicer house instead of looking at her.

  "I know." She let out another deep breath. "I got something before you called. You got me a few minutes after I left the L.A. field office. I heard you were gone, so I just didn't know how to get in contact."

  "Yeah. I had to turn off the phone. Descent."

  Erin didn't know whether to believe him. She decided to ignore it. "Someone slipped an envelope under my door, an envelope with my name on it. Inside was… I dunno, a confession? Diary? Journal? Someone had torn a page out of a book, and as far as I was able to decipher it in a couple hours of slowly slogging through—the handwriting was just. Oh, boy. It talked about a killing, not unlike these ones. Seven stab wounds."

  "We'll start comparing it as best we can with the previous four murders when we get back to California."

  "That's just it. I think it's older than that. The paper I was holding, looked like it couldn't have been any newer than, say, ten years old. Maybe more. Could've been as many as fifteen years ago, that page was written. There wasn't any date, at least not on the page I saw."

  "Okay, so what are you thinking?"

  "I think we're looking at the murder that started this whole mess."

  "The others are copies of that first one?"

  "I don't know, but I bet you that there's a connection. Why—I couldn't say. But if there's going to be an answer to any of this, then you're going to find it chasing down that confession and figuring out what the hell the story is with it. My father's a dead end. You want the guys who did this, that note's the answer."

  Thirty-Five

  Erin felt her ears popping as they made their final descent in to L.A.X. and prepared for the pressure that was going to be right back on as soon as she got there. She wondered dimly how long it would take for Craig to put himself back into her life. Not long, she suspected. It was only a matter of time now.

  She stood up as soon as she was able and put the coat over her bag and started heading out. It took her a while to realize that she was outpacing all the others.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I think maybe you should go back to the hotel, babe."

  She made a face that showed exactly how much she approved of that idea.

  "Why's that?"

  "Erin—I don't need you to be in danger here. We're going to go pick up Craig, and I know you said he has connections. We won't be able to pick them all up, and as much as I trust your gun-hand, I don't want you looking over your shoulder the rest of your life. We go get him, you stay in the hotel. We'll talk after, okay?"

  "No, that's horse-shit. I'm coming with you, whether you like it or not."

  "No you're not. That's not how this is going to happen. I'll make sure you're mentioned in the report. I'm not going to leave you high and dry here, but you're not going to be there when we pick him up."

  Erin sucked in a breath and felt her nostrils flaring with anger, but she forced herself to still. "Fine."

  She stepped off the plane and back into the real world, where things were nicer and warmer and happier and she couldn't breathe as well but that didn't matter because it was her place.

  Erin enjoyed the few minutes of solitude she had on the way to the Jeep. She had expected that whoever was following her, they'd be back on it as soon as she touched down, but apparently it was going to take some time for word to cycle around that she was back in town.

  She managed to make it to someplace to get a bite to eat. She resisted the desire to eat quickly. Sure, Craig could come find her. That would be fine, because then she'd be able to keep him busy until Roy showed up. Even if she had to use… peculiar methods to keep him busy.

  But nothing happened. She finished her food and left. The trip back to the hotel was uneventful. Still cycling, she guessed.

  Erin wondered dimly if they had picked up Craig yet. Sometimes they got lucky like that, even without a location they could get a guy quickly. But then, sometimes it took hours. Days. They could only do what they could do.

  She opened the hotel room door. Her stuff was where she'd left it, which was just as well. She stripped down and slipped into bed. It had been a long day, and sleeping on the plane, with Roy there beside her, their shoulders pressed uncomfortably together, she wasn't going to get any sleeping done.

  All she could think the whole flight was about how much she wasn't looking forward to the conversation that she knew they were going to have to have at some point. Because she'd been a bitch about it, sure, but in the end, she wasn't wrong. They'd go their separate ways and the odds of them reconnecting again were slim.

  She shut her eyes and tried to tune out the chatter of thoughts about Roy Schafer and his stupid perfect face. Then she tried to slow her heart down, but between Roy and Craig she was too riled up and fretful to sleep. She sat up and looked into the bathroom. No windows in the whole room. There was a time when she thought that was unusual. Like they had to have windows somewhere, right?

  As it turned out, no. They didn't. The place gave her a sick reminder of Dad's place. Erin didn't like the way that thought made her feel, but she couldn't get rid of it. Not completely, not like she wanted to. So instead she just sat there remembering what it had been like inside that house. Imagining what Becca's life must have been like.

  There were certain little thumb-prints of a responsible member of society in the little house. A coffee maker by the sink. The sink was mostly empty. The pizza box next to it had been her father, no doubt. But there were heavy iron pans hanging on the wall beside the stove. Another sign of her sister's influence.

  How had they managed to get along all those years? What did it mean that they had both managed to get by all those years, Becca separated from her sister? Dad separated from his daughter? What did it say about Erin that she hadn't felt the absence as anything other than a reason to feel hurt?

  She slumped back in the bed and reached for the remote by the bed, flicked the TV on and flipped through the channels. There was nothing good. There never was. It was why she didn't watch TV much, if ever. Erin made a mental note to cancel what little cable service she had. There wasn't much point, but the salesman had assured her that it was so much cheaper to bundle her internet together with the cable service, and that she would definitely watch it once she had it.

  That had turned out to be a crock of shit, just like it had been a crock of shit when Becca and her had both promised they would write. It hadn't even lasted a week before they lost interest in it.

  That was probably her fault. Erin the bitch should've kept it up, but she was too much of a bitch. So it was probably mostly her fault that Becca had dealt with everything she'd dealt with.

  That was fine. It was her fault that Mom couldn't handle it when Dad left, and it was her fault that Becca had to handle Dad alone. But that was fine.

  It hurt now, and it had hurt before, but just like it had before, she would get over it. She turned the television to a dead station and turned the volume down low. She left it loud enough to drown out the sound of her thoughts, though, and let herself slip deeper into the bed. She needed to sleep, if she wanted to have any hopes of ever feeling normal again.

  Sleep and work. Those were the two things that were going to get her healed right up. If they weren't going to let her work, they could at least let her sleep.

  She settled into an uneasy dream. She was back in high school. Nobody particularly liked her, which was a fairly r
ealistic portrayal, but the bell was ringing and the whole school had been demolished and moved to a new building, and her class schedule hadn't been updated with the new room numbers.

  Erin woke up feeling as if she hadn't rested a bit. She stiffened as she felt the hand on the back of her neck. Left her eyes closed, as if they might think that she was still asleep. They'd done it the instant that she woke up—there was no way that they didn't know she had woken already.

  But even still, she played dead and hoped that not moving would make for a convincing sleeping imitation.

  "Open your eyes." An unfamiliar voice, stern and gravelly. She opened her eyes without wanting to, and was faced with an unfamiliar face that looked startling like what she expected the murderer to look like. She gulped in as much air as her lungs would hold before she could stop herself.

  Maybe this is what Becca felt like right before, Erin thought with a vague sense of detachment.

  Erin certainly felt like she was going to die.

  Thirty-Six

  "Get up."

  Erin did. There were times for fighting back, but Erin didn't feel as if this were one of them. Staring down a man twice her size who looked like he could wrestle a bear and do all right for himself, moments after she woke up, might not be the best time.

  She tried to see without looking if her gun was still on the bedside table, with the hope that he might have overlooked it. If he had, which was unlikely, and she got a chance, which was equally unlikely, it would do more than even the odds.

  But the table was empty. No miracles today, she thought. Sad, because things could have been going so well. She pushed herself all the way upright.

  "Hands where I can see them."

  She moved her hands on top of the blanket. She was extremely aware of how little clothing she was wearing, little more than a shirt over… well, nothing at all, really.

  She had to hope that someone was going to come and check on her. Someone had to, right? Craig had spent so much damn time keeping check on her that it was absurd that he wouldn't look in on her. Then again, perhaps he'd sent this guy.