Betraying Innocence

by Phoenix, Airicka

  Grinning at her, he pulled the car into drive and backed out of the lot. “I would never have been able to accomplish it if you hadn’t distracted Finnegan.”

  Clutching the book to her chest, Ana gaped at him. “I’m an accomplice to a crime?”

  He laughed. “How does it feel?”

  “Scary,” she confessed. Then added, “And a little exciting.”

  He reached across the console and took her hand. “Glad to hear it, because it’s going to get a lot more exciting in the next little while.”

  Ana blinked. “How?”

  “I’m pretty sure Finnegan will have noticed the book is missing by now and he’ll be on the phone with the sheriff, who will be looking for us.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Calm down.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m going to return it, after we’ve had a look.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll take care of it. Trust me.”

  Nauseous, but determined, Ana agreed as he turned down the abandoned road. He pulled into park and turned to her as she flipped the book open on the console.

  “There’s Peter,” Rafe said, pointing to the picture of a skinny boy with massive rabbit teeth and thick glasses.

  “That’s him!” Ana said, stabbing the photo with her finger. “He’s one of the boys.”

  “Well, we don’t have to worry about him.” He turned the page. “What are we going to do when we find all four?” he asked.

  Gaze sweeping the page, Ana frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, are we turning them into the police? Are we killing them?”

  Ana’s head came up. “We’re not killing anyone.”

  “What then?” Rafe tilted his head to the side. “Why are we working so hard to find these guys?”

  “Because they killed someone!” she said, baffled how he could even ask.

  “Right, but what can we do? It’s not like we can just walk into the sheriff’s department and say we’d like to report a murder. There’s no body. The file is closed. We have no evidence. It’s our word against theirs and I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure they won’t listen to me. And something tells me that if you tell them you had a vision—”

  “I don’t know!” she snapped. “I just … I just need to do something. Maybe I’ll confront them, tell them I know what they did. Maybe that’s all Johnny needs, for someone to know what was done to him.”

  “And if it’s not? What if he wants you to find them so you can kill them?”

  Ana swallowed hard. “If I don’t solve this, it’ll just keep happening to the next person who moves into that house. What happens if this is never figured out and the people responsible are all dead? Johnny will never get peace.”

  “Or maybe once they die, he will,” Rafe countered.

  “Do you know how long that could be?”

  He eyed the yearbook. “Another twenty, maybe thirty years.”

  She glowered at his sardonic remark. “I need to do this. I’ll understand if you want out.”

  His fingers closed around her chin. He lifted her face to his and kissed her. “I’m not going anywhere, but I’m telling you right now, if it looks like you’re going to get hurt, I will set that damn house on fire and to hell with Johnny. Agreed?”

  The intensity in his eyes forbade her to do anything but agree. She nodded.

  They continued through the book, skimming faces until she recognized another.

  “That’s the girl Johnny liked,” Ana said, pointing.

  “Kristen Milbrook,” Rafe read.

  “She’s the reason those boys went after Johnny,” she told him. “They lured him into the basement with a letter Johnny assumed Kristen had written to meet her.”

  Rafe just shook his head.

  “Do you have a pen and paper in here?” she asked, looking up from the book.

  He reached across her to the glove compartment. He flipped down the little hatch and rifled through the candy wrappers, used napkins, square packets of foil and scraps of paper. He snatched one at random and a ballpoint pen and passed them to her.

  Ana accepted them, but used her free hand to pluck up one of the silver foils and arch a brow in amused questioning.

  He took it from her, grinning, and tossed it back. “I’m like a boy scout, always prepared.” He shut the compartment door.

  Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to the task at hand. In a row, she wrote down Peter and Kristen’s names. She put a line through Peters and rapped her pen against the open book.

  “Rafe?” She straightened, tilting her head ever so slightly to peer at Kristen better. “Who does she remind you of?”

  Rafe frowned, staring at the picture. “Uh…”

  Ana raised her head to meet his gaze. “Have you ever met Vinny’s mom? Krissie?”

  He shrugged. “A couple of times, but we didn’t exactly run in the same circles.”

  She twisted the book around for him. “Imagine Kristen with blonde hair.”

  His eyes widened. “Are you telling me Johnny’s teenage crush is the Mayor’s wife?”

  “Well, look!” She pushed the book closer to him. “It’s the same eyes, the same nose … only the hair is different and she looks older. And!” Excited now by her find, she wiggled in her seat, tucking one leg under her and turning to face him fully. “The afternoon we went to their house, she said straight out that she knew Johnny. They were in school together. Then!” She stabbed at the photo with the pen. “She came to the house! I think she saw Johnny in the upstairs window. She totally freaked. Rafe, I’m telling you … she’s Kristen!”

  She was out of breath by the time she finished and he was staring at her with wide, amused eyes and a grin. Then he started laughing.

  “What?” she demanded, deflating a little in her enthusiasm.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. You’re just really adorable when you get worked up.”

  Ignoring him, she went back to poking the picture. “Oh, and come on, Krissie … Kristen … it makes sense.”

  He puffed out a lungful of air and slumped back. “So, the Mayor’s wife. The Mayor’s son…”

  Ana gasped as realization donned.

  Rafe quickly shook his head. “No, there is no way!”

  But Ana was already flipping pages, crumpling a few in her haste.

  “Ana, wait—”

  “Oh my God…”

  “We can’t tell anyone.”

  The corners of the book cut into Ana’s palm as she tightened her grip on it. She stared at the front door of her home — or was it Johnny’s home? — and tried to imagine what she would tell her parents.

  “Mom? Dad? The Mayor of Chipawaha Creek, the man whose son was mutilated in our basement by a ghost, well, he’s a killer. Can we have pizza for supper?”

  Something told her that talk wouldn’t go overly well with her parents. Even if there was a chance they believed her, what could they do? Drewer certainly wouldn’t listen. Philip Andrews was as high as the ladder got in a town like Chipawaha Creek. It would be like taking out the president. Maybe not as hard, but close.

  “We have to do something,” she murmured. “He can’t get away with this.”

  “Ana, this isn’t our problem. We can walk away from this!”

  She shook her head. “That’s just it. That’s what everyone’s doing. They’re walking away from this. No wonder Johnny’s so pissed. All these years he’s been trapped in that house while the people who killed him have gone on to become lawyers and the freaking mayor of Pleasantville! I’d be pissed, too. I want to help him and I’m running out of time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ana

  “It’s almost Halloween.” Ana crossed off the days on the calendar in her room and made a big, red circle around October thirty-first. “Three more days,” she told Rafe, who lay sprawled across her bed with the yearbook propped open next to him. “The thirtieth anniversary of Johnny’s death.”

  “I don�
�t think one celebrates deaths,” he mused, stretching his long, sinewy limbs.

  She capped her highlighter and turned to him. “I always loved Halloween. It was my favorite day of the year, except for Christmas.” She walked over to the bed and sat, folding one leg beneath her as she reached for the book. “We should return this before we get charged with theft on top of everything else.”

  Rafe made a humming sound. “I’m still surprised Drewer isn’t banging down the door for it. I was so sure Finnegan would’ve called him by now.”

  Ana shrugged, dumping the book onto her lap. “Maybe he doesn’t know we have it, or he doesn’t care.”

  He took the book from her. “Oh, he cares and I’d bet my last dollar he knows.”

  “Then why…?”

  Rafe shrugged. “No idea.” He bit his lip, absently flipping through the pages, pages they’d combed over a million times. “I’m still surprised he’s not in here. I thought for sure he would be in the same year as Andrews and Carrick.”

  She was about to nod in agreement when her gaze caught something in his mid-flip and she grabbed the book.

  “Wait.” Twisting it around, she shuffled back until she found the index. Pausing, she turned forward three pages and stared. “Look!” She shifted her position so she sat with her back to his chest and the book open in her hands, tilted so they could both see. “All this time, I thought this was part of the index, but it’s not. It’s a list of all the students who had been absent during picture day.”

  “They must have changed their policy at some point because the ones we get now have a default picture with the kid’s name underneath,” Rafe said.

  Ana nodded. “I guess they just made a list back then, because look.” She skimmed her finger down the list and stopped on Nathan Finnegan. “There he is.”

  “There’s no picture though,” Rafe muttered, resting his chin on her shoulder.

  Tapping a finger on the page, Ana skimmed the rest of the names, not really expecting any one of them to jump out, but was surprised when she recognized another one.

  “Randy Dicen.” She pursed her lips and rapped harder at the page. “Why does this name sound so familiar?”

  Rafe shook his head. “I don’t think I know it.”

  “I’ve heard it before!” she hissed, frustration thrumming through her. “I just can’t…”

  “Hey.” He took the book from her and closed it. It was tossed somewhere to the foot of the bed as she was drawn down onto her back. He leaned over her. “I think you need a break.” He kissed her, long and hard. “Let me help you recharge.”

  She fought against the slow liquefaction of her bones with every commanding kiss. “I don’t want to recharge. I want…”

  He shushed her, nipping at her bottom lip with his teeth. His fingers slipped down her front to the strings on her pajama bottoms. “I know exactly what you want.”

  It was after three in the morning when Ana was jostled awake by the mattress shifting and a low, pitiful whining sound. Groggy, she pushed upright as the bed gave a final bounce and Rafe shot over her.

  “Rafe?”

  “It’s Gabby,” he said, yanking on his pants. “I’ll be right back.”

  Ana was upright then, holding the sheets to her as he grabbed his shirt and darted out the door. Gabriella’s whimpering continued, each soft sob breaking Ana’s heart. She silently urged Rafe to hurry.

  “Stop that sniveling!”

  Ana gave a violent start, not having been expecting the vicious snarl. Her heart jack hammered in her chest as she scrambled out of bed and hurried to the window. She snatched up her robe and swung it on and watched Rafe’s silhouette sprint across the yards to the dark house on the other side.

  “Hurry!” she prayed.

  In the monitor, Gabriella’s quiet crying continued and Ana wondered where the girl was. The sound was distant and faded like she wasn’t in her bedroom anymore.

  “I told you to stop!” Dan’s voice carried like a whip through the machine.

  “Gabby!”

  Ana exhaled the breath she was holding at the sound of Rafe’s voice.

  “I had a bad dream,” Gabriella whined. “I had an accident.”

  “Shhh. It’s okay.”

  A door opened somewhere in the house. Loud, monstrous footsteps thundered, each one so violent, Ana could feel her own floors vibrating beneath her feet.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “It’s nothing. I got her.”

  “Why is she out of bed this time?” Dan roared.

  “It was just a nightmare. I’ll take care of it,” Rafe said.

  “Why are you dressed? Where are you going at this hour of the night?”

  Another set of footsteps pattered into the conversation.

  “What’s going on?” It was Mrs. Ramirez. “Gabby, baby, what’s wrong?”

  “I had a bad dream,” came the pitiful response.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!” Dan snarled. “She’s too old for this shit. Stop babying her!”

  “She’s just a little girl,” Rafe said, his voice barely concealing his anger.

  “Give her to me, Ray. I’ll put her to bed,” Mrs. Ramirez said.

  There was some rustling and some shuffling. Then several minutes of silence that Ana wondered about.

  “You didn’t answer me, boy,” Dan’s voice cut through the line, low and blistering. “Why are you dressed?”

  “I was out,” Rafe said simply.

  “It’s three in the morning.”

  “I don’t answer to you.”

  There was a sickening crack, followed by a thump and a groan that made Ana’s stomach churn.

  “You useless pile of shit,” Dan sneered. “Do you think just because you’re screwing around with that little bitch across the yard that you’re worth something now? You will always be worthless. A waste of good space. If I were your father, I would have shoved your mother down the stairs the minute she got knocked up with you.”

  “You touch my mother and I’ll slit your throat in your sleep,” Rafe growled.

  Dan laughed, a sound that sent chills down Ana’s spine.

  “Your whore’s daddy isn’t here to save you this time, boy.” There was a scuffle, a hiss of pain. Then another crack of flesh meeting bone followed by a thud.

  Rage and fear slammed together like waves against a cliff. Ana felt it fuel her, a lit match on gasoline, driving her forward before she could even comprehend the motions of her body.

  In moments, she was running down the stairs. Her feet pounded like the deafening crack of gunfire on every step down. She never paused. She raced to the front door and snatched up the baseball bat her father had taken to keeping next to the wall. She felt the weight of it like a comforting pulse humming up her arm.

  “Ana?”

  She had a vague recollection of her father’s voice, but it was too far away, swallowed by the loud rush of red, hot rage clouding all other thought.

  She was running again, out the back door and across the wide expanse separating her house from Rafe’s. She paused only briefly to slide open the back door before she was sprinting again, moving without seeing a thing. Her feet barely touched the steps as she flew up them. There was another crash and a child sobbing. A woman screamed. Then Ana was at the top, bat in hand and a mile of raw loathing blistering through her.

  “Get off him!”

  Caught unaware, Dan had no chance to get his massive body off Rafe before Ana swung. The bat collided with the back of his neck, not doing much damage but dazing him just enough for him to roll off Rafe. Ana was on him then, swinging and connecting with her full weight behind every blow, giving him no chance to recover. Each one sang up her arm, a satisfying pang of pain that only seemed to drive her to do it again. The howls of agony were like music, drowning out the other voices, the wails and cries around her.

  “Don’t you ever touch him again!” she was screaming herself, emphasizing her warning with another strike.


  “Ana!” Strong arms banded around her, shackling her arms to her sides, restraining her from beating the shit out of the asshole sniveling and cowering at her feet.

  She was pulled back, but not before she got in a good kick. Blood spewed from his shattered nose, splashing across the floor and gushing from between the fingers he clamped over his face.

  “That’s for calling me a whore!” she panted, feeling the adrenaline begin to recede, leaving her shaky and cold.

  “Ana, stop!” It was her father’s voice in her ear, her father’s arms around her, holding her back. “Go home!”

  She shook her head, her breathing like a plume of burning campfire smoke in her chest. “He—”

  “I know. I’ll take care of it. Go home.”

  “Rafe…” Her gaze swung over the chaos, searching for him. She spotted him, lying where Dan had dropped him, not moving. “Rafe?”

  She tore from her father’s grasp and scrambled to where Mrs. Ramirez had all but thrown herself over Rafe, desperately trying to shake him awake.

  “Ray? Ray, baby, wake up!”

  Ana nudged the other woman back just enough to drop her head to his chest, holding her own breath as she willed the drumming in her ears to calm enough to find a heartbeat.

  “He’s alive!” she cried, the sound nearly faint with relief. “Call the police!”

  Mrs. Ramirez stumbled to her feet and dashed to the room down the hall. It was then Ana noticed the tiny figures huddled in the doorway next to Rafe’s room. She spotted Gabriella’s big, blue eyes first, peeking with terror over Michael’s shoulder. Michael’s face was drawn and ashen, and he was visibly shaking, but unlike his sister, he was holding himself together a lot better. Ana’s heart broke for them. Guilt wormed through her, not for what she’d done, she would do it again in a heartbeat, but because they’d witnessed it. She would have given anything to have changed that.

  “I’m—”

  “What…” Ana’s mom appeared at the top of the stairs, clutching her robe at the throat. Her wide eyes jumped from Rafe, to Dan and finally settled on the twins. “Oh dear!” she gasped, leaping over Dan to usher the children back into their rooms. She went in with them and closed the door.