She Can Kill (She Can Series) (16 page)

Mike wrote down the information. “If I need you to sign a statement that you saw him here last night, will you do it?”

She hesitated. “He scares me, and Tim’s not home. Is it important?”

“It is.” Mike said.

She looked away for a few seconds. “If he scares me, he must terrify Sarah. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

“Is that all? I need to start dinner.”

“Yes. Thanks for your help.” Mike went outside. He didn’t learn much about the blue van, but the two statements on Troy would help Sarah get her restraining order. He turned back toward his house.

Gotcha now, Troy.

“Mike.” Greg climbed out of the van and waved him closer.

“Did you find something?” Mike approached, the uncharacteristic furrow between the ME’s brow putting him on edge.

“I have two wallets.” Greg held two nylon billfolds in his blue-gloved hands. He opened the first. “Jerome Black.” Then the second. “Rodney Lint.”

The dead men’s identities weren’t startling discoveries, but the envelope under the bodies was extremely interesting.

“Mike, there’s one more thing.” Greg motioned him toward the back of the van, where two morgue attendants were lifting a black-bagged corpse onto a gurney.

Mike walked to the side of the gurney. Greg unzipped the bag to the corpse’s waist. He separated the edges and opened the man’s shirt. Above the bullet wounds, someone had carved a
V
into the man’s chest.

Decisions. They had the power to change the course of a man’s life. Cristan hadn’t always made good choices. There was one in particular that stood out in his mind, a night that he could still picture as clearly as a movie in high-definition. The night he’d made the choice from which there was no return.

He spent his early years working with the horses, growing stronger, and training to be one of Franco’s fighters. His duties had gradually increased in scope. He went from being a lookout to a soldier. By the time he turned twenty-one, Christopher was fully integrated into Franco’s private army.

AK-47s were the milk and bread of the arms trade. Lightweight, reliable, and abundant, Kalashnikovs accounted for twenty percent of firearms worldwide. Franco had sold a few crates of AKs to a Buenos Aires gang. Unfortunately, the gang had undergone a recent change in command. The new leadership, short on money and overflowing with ego, had ordered the ambush of the delivery, shooting Franco’s men and demanding a payment renegotiation.

The last thing Christopher had wanted to do that night was drive into Buenos Aires to shake down a drug lord. Eva had been due to return to school the following day. He didn’t fully understand what had grown between them over the past nine years. Companionship, camaraderie. Passion. Whatever it was, they understood each other, and when she was gone, he felt empty. He’d wanted to spend their last night together on a midnight ride on the pampas, not chasing drug dealers through a sprawling urban slum.

But what could he say? He and Eva had kept their relationship hidden. Once Eva graduated from college in a few months, they planned to bring her father in on their secret.

The alley had smelled of paco, a toxic cocaine by-product that two boys had been smoking. Both of the teens would likely be dead within the year. Standing at the entrance, he was hit hard with guilt. Franco had saved him from a similar fate. How could Christopher begrudge his benefactor anything he asked?

Franco had two objectives when a deal went awry: recoup his merchandise and make a statement. He was a hands-on leader. His team of well-armed, well-trained men swept through the dealer’s shantytown headquarters like fire through the pampas. Under Nicolas’s direction, Christopher and Eva went down the alley and crept up the back stairs of a building, where they were instructed to wait for the signal to enter. He tucked his machine gun into his hip and listened for the signal. At the familiar soft whistle, Christopher reached for the doorknob, intending on a silent entry. But Eva swung around him and burst through the door.

Wood smacked wood. Muzzle flashes flared in the dark room as someone opened fire.

Eva!

Christopher dove on top of her, covering her body with his own and pinning her behind the inadequate protection of a half wall. Bullets zinged above their heads. Bits of wood and stucco rained down on his back.

He lifted his head and scanned the dark room. Bright flashes gave away his enemy’s location. He pushed Eva’s shoulders down and slid off of her body. “Stay down,” he shouted in her ear over the gunfire.

Christopher belly-crawled to the edge of the wall. He drew his knife from the sheath on his calf, balanced it in his fingertips, and threw the weapon with a flick of his wrist. The point stuck the gunman in the throat. He emitted a strangled sound and dropped to the floor.

Nicolas was behind him, helping Eva to her feet.

Anger narrowed her eyes. “I could have taken him.”

“You—” Nicolas pointed at her nose, “—would be dead if Christopher hadn’t acted.”

She crossed her arms and sulked, her insolent expression looking more fifteen than twenty-two. Relief nearly buckled Christopher’s knees. Fear for his own life never affected him the same way as a threat to Eva’s.

Men flooded the room. At Nicolas’s direction, the gang members were bound and dragged down the stairs to the dirt-floored main room where Franco waited. One by one, he scrutinized the men who had dared defy him. Wild-eyed, they knelt before him. There was no interrogation. No question-and-answer session. Franco didn’t want excuses. He wanted to set an example. He wanted revenge.

But he turned his attention to Christopher.

“Nicolas told me what happened. Eva is impulsive. She needs to temper her anger.” Franco cupped the back of Christopher’s neck. “It was fate that brought you to my family. Thank you, Christopher, for saving my daughter. You are as much a son to me as if you were my own blood.” He waved toward the gang leader as if presenting Christopher with a gift. “Now, like a true Vargas, claim our retribution.”

Christopher had killed before, but always in the heat of a fight. Pulling the trigger in a do-or-die situation was entirely different from firing a bullet into a bound man’s forehead. His heart rammed into his ribcage. Adrenaline from the earlier firefight faded, leaving a trail of nausea in its wake. His mind detached from his body as he lifted his weapon and fired. Blood spattered the concrete.

A barrage of conflicting emotions swept through him like a wildfire. Shame. Elation. Horror. What had he done? Embarrassed that his hand was shaking, he lowered the gun.

“You are worthy.” Franco nodded, his eyes shining with pride.

Even as his conscience—and stomach—recoiled at the sight of the body, Christopher’s heart swelled at Franco’s praise. For the first time, he felt like he belonged. He felt like family.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“
Let me help you with that.” Cristan went into his daughter’s purple-and-white room. “I thought you were working on that English paper.”

“I am.” Balanced precariously on top of her rolling chair, Lucia held a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other. “But I want to hang the picture Sarah gave me over my bookshelf.”

“All right.” Cristan took his daughter by the elbow while she climbed down. “Next time use the stepladder in the garage. A chair with wheels isn’t the best choice for a step stool.”

She blushed. “I guess not.”

He took the hammer from her hand. “Where do you want it?”

“There.” She pointed.

Cristan tapped the nail into the wall. He held out his hand for the picture, and Lucia handed it over. He felt for the metal hanger on the top of the frame and positioned it over the nail.

Lucia tilted her head and folded her arms over her waist as she studied the picture. “It’s not straight.”

Leaning back, he raised the right side a fraction of an inch. “Better?”

“Perfect.” Lucia smiled, her eyes on the photo. “It was really nice of Sarah to do this for me.”

“Yes, it was.”

“She’s really great.” Lucia’s voice turned wistful. “I wish I had a mother like her.”

“That would be very lucky indeed.” Cristan was not following her into another discussion about him and Sarah. It was too soon, for both of them.

Cristan examined the picture. His eyes were drawn away from the main image to the crowd leaning on the half wall that encircled the arena. Behind a large, bald man, a dark-haired woman stood. Cristan’s muscles went lax as he stared at her. She was turned away from the camera, her face in profile. He took in her posture, the way she held her head, the angle of her jaw.

Eva.

He shook his head. Impossible. His wife was dead. All Lucia’s talk about him dating must be triggering memories. He squeezed
his eyelids closed briefly, then looked back at the picture. The camera
had focused on Lucia and Snowman. The background was blurred.

He went downstairs to his office, took a magnifying glass from the desk drawer, and returned.

“What’s wrong?” Lucia asked.

Cristan held the glass over the woman’s face. The image was larger, but still fuzzy. “Nothing.” But he couldn’t shake the icy ball in the pit of his stomach.

He descended the stairs to the first floor, went to his office, and closed the door.

Sinking into his leather chair, he propped his elbows on the mahogany desk. Who was that woman in the picture? It couldn’t be Eva.

He wanted to leave, to pile their packs into the Range Rover and drive until dawn. A few hundred miles of distance between Lucia and Westbury would make him feel more secure. He’d promised Lucia they could stay here. But if she was in danger, he’d have no choice but to break her heart.

Cristan paced. Frustration burned in his gut. He should have been honest with his daughter. His goal was to protect her from the truth and truly give her a fresh start. But he was beginning to see that his “fresh” start was nothing of the sort. Their lives were still controlled by what had happened in Argentina.

The doorbell rang, and Cristan startled. He glanced at the clock. Seven o’clock. He’d thought it was later. Not that it mattered. No one came to their house. They had no close neighbors, and they had never been bothered by solicitors. He left his office.

Lucia stood at the foot of the stairs. “Who’s at the door?”

“You didn’t invite a friend over?”

She shook her head.

Cristan peered through the tiny hole in the door at the police chief standing on the doorstep. “It’s Chief O’Connell. Probably just follow-up paperwork.”

He ducked into the closet and turned off the alarm system, then opened the door. “Mike.”

“Cristan.” The police chief stepped into the house. He held a yellow clasp envelope in his hand. “Hi, Lucia.”

“Hi,” she said.

Sensing bad news from the police chief, Cristan turned to his daughter and prompted, “Don’t you have a paper to finish?”

She rolled her eyes. “I guess. Bye.” She jogged up the stairs.

Cristan waited for Lucia to disappear down the upstairs hallway. “I assume this isn’t a social call?” he asked Mike.

“No.”

Cristan led the way back to his office. He shut the door. The cop’s face was even more serious than usual. “What happened?”

Mike didn’t waste words. “We found the robbers.”

The tension in Cristan’s chest eased. Not bad news. “Did you arrest them?”

“They’re dead.”

“Dead?” Imagining a shoot-out between the robbers and the police, Cristan rounded his desk and sat. “Did they resist arrest?”

Mike took a chair facing him. “No. Their bodies were found in the back of their van. They’ve been dead several days.”

“Someone else killed the robbers?” Cristan asked, perplexed. If the police hadn’t killed those men . . . “Who?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Maybe they argued with other criminals,” Cristan suggested. “They were obviously not law-abiding citizens. I imagine they associated with others of their sort.”

“That’s one possibility.” Mike cocked his head. Suspicion narrowed his eyes. “The van was parked near Sarah’s house. Kenzie Newell also lives on that street.”

Cristan didn’t know how to respond. Of all the news the police chief could have brought, this was the least expected. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You’ll never guess what we found in the van.”

Cristan waited, feigning calm. He couldn’t even speculate. Mike tossed the yellow envelope onto the desk. Cristan opened the clasp and slid a stack of papers onto the blotter. He thumbed through at least twenty photographs of him. There was a picture of him and Lucia in the car outside the school and another of him coming out of the Quickie-Mart. He paused on an image of him carrying Emma into Sarah’s house. The photo had been taken at night. From the grainy, greenish tint to the picture, he could tell that the photographer had used some sort of night vision module and a telephoto lens. The action captured was innocent, but his body language was protective male, not platonic friend. Clearly, he didn’t conceal his feelings for her as well as he thought. Did he always appear this way around her? Maybe this was why her ex-husband had reacted with jealously.

Cristan sat back, his mind reeling. “This appears to have been taken Thursday night. I drove Sarah and Emma home from the emergency room. This isn’t a secret. Why would anyone care about this?” And who had been outside taking pictures? Someone had been watching him, and Cristan hadn’t noticed. That alone was enough to
freak him out
, as Lucia would say. He’d lost his focus when he came to Westbury. He should have continued to move from city to city. Crowds protected their anonymity. Finding a lovely home for his daughter had been a mistake. He had made too many bad choices early in his life, and the price of his transgressions was a lifetime of running. For him, there would be no escape from the violence of his past.

Cristan moved to the last picture. His heartbeat stammered as he stared at a photo from at least twelve years ago: he and Eva in her favorite Buenos Aires restaurant. He slid it into the pile without commenting. There was no need to bring the old image undue attention, but his thoughts whirled. The picture, taken on Eva’s birthday, had occupied a frame on their wall in their apartment in Buenos Aires. Who could have taken it?

Maria. As the sole remaining family member, she would have been given their personal possessions. He supposed the picture could have been stolen by Aline, but Maria would have had easy access.

“I’m just as confused as you are,” Mike said. “But it seems there’s some relationship between you and those robbers.”

“But what could it be?” Cristan responded honestly. “I had never seen either of them before Tuesday.”

The woman in the picture in Lucia’s room spun in his head. It had to be related. Too many coincidences. Too many unknowns. Lucia would be devastated, but they had to leave. Tonight. He couldn’t wait to find out what was going on. He had to preempt any possible attack.

Maria was here.

He thumbed back to the image of him and Sarah. The thought of
never seeing her again left a hollow ache in his chest. “The only per
son who had an issue with me that night was Sarah’s ex-husband.”

“No deep, dark secrets in your past?” Mike rested his elbows on his knees. His clasped hands fell between his knees.

Cristan’s smile felt as if it would shatter the frozen muscles of his face. “I live a quiet, boring life, Mike.”

The chief didn’t blink. “Except for this week.”

“Except for this week,” Cristan admitted. But he was going to put the past week—and all the associated danger—behind them. Tomorrow, they would be far away from Westbury.

“Have you checked with Sarah’s ex?” Cristan asked. There was no better way to get rid of a cop than to dangle another suspect in front of him. “He is the only person I can think of who has taken any interest in me. He seems irrational and jealous. I was only being a good friend and helping Sarah that night.”

Mike’s eyebrow twitched. “Nice of you.” Clearly, the cop didn’t believe him.

“Troy?” Cristan prompted.

“Troy is next on my list.” Mike stood, leaned over the desk, and swept the pictures into the envelope. “I might need you to identify the robbers.”

“I only saw one of their faces, and his nose was bleeding heavily at the time. His features were distorted.”

“Anything you can tell us will help,” Mike said.

Cristan ushered him out of his office and toward the foyer. “Of course. I’ll do whatever you need. Call me.”

“Don’t worry. I will.” Mike went out the front door. “Good night.”

Cristan shut the door on the police chief and went up the stairs. Despite his dread of the coming conversation, urgency quickened his steps. He knocked on Lucia’s door.

“Come in.”

He opened the door. She was lying across her bed, her laptop open to a text document in front of her. Her eyes locked on his face, and she sat bolt upright. “What happened?”

Cristan hesitated. “The two men who robbed the convenience store have been found.”

“That’s good, right?” she asked.

He sat down on the corner of the bed and took her hands in his. “They’re dead. Someone killed them and left them near Sarah’s house.”

Confusion tilted her head. “What? Why? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No one knows yet.”

“But Chief O’Connell’s going to find out, right?” she asked. “That’s his job.”

“It is.” Cristan searched for the words to soften the blow and found none. “But we have to leave.”

“No.” Lucia snatched her hands out of his and backed away from him. “You promised.”

“I’m sorry. I truly wish this hadn’t happened.” The pain in her eyes lanced his heart.

“I don’t understand.” A tear escaped from her eye. She swiped it away with an angry hand. “Those men robbed the convenience store. What does that have to do with us?”

“It’s too much of a coincidence that their bodies were left outside Sarah’s house.”

“Sarah’s house. Not ours.”

“There were pictures of me in the van,” Cristan said, wishing he didn’t have to give her the details, but knowing he couldn’t just expect her to blindly obey. She deserved answers if he was going to rip her life up by the roots.

Trembling, Lucia stumbled off the bed. She backed to the wall and wrapped her arms around her waist. Her face paled. “I’m not leaving.”

“We have to. It isn’t safe here anymore.”

Two spots of color brightened her cheeks. “Safe from what? What aren’t you telling me?”

He couldn’t lie to her anymore. She wasn’t a child. She needed to know. When the time came for her to be on her own, she would have to be on guard. In order for her to be prepared to live without him someday, she needed to know the nature of the threat she faced. “Your mother wasn’t killed in a car accident.”

Lucia’s mouth opened, then closed before she uttered a word.

Cristan continued, “She was murdered.”

Tears ran down Lucia’s cheeks, but she ignored them. Her gaze was completely focused on Cristan. “You lied.”

“I didn’t want you to grow up afraid.”

“You’ve lied to me my whole life.” Her words ended on a sob she tried to swallow.

“I did what I thought was best. You were very young. I couldn’t take the chance that you would give something away.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been very young for a long time.” Her palms flattened against the Sheetrock behind her, as if she wanted to go through the wall. “When were you going to tell me the truth?”

He had no more excuses. “I should have told you before now.”

“Who murdered my mother?”

“An enemy of her family.” He took a step toward her.

She slid along the wall away from him. “And?”

How could he tell her that the person trying to kill him could be her aunt? If so, he couldn’t imagine that Maria would want to kill her niece, but could she want to take Lucia? Why, after all these years? The anniversary of the massacre was in three days. Perhaps that was the trigger.

He phrased his words carefully. “I am afraid the people who killed your mother will come for you.” That was the truth. He had spent the last twelve years terrified that Aline would find them.

“This is why we’ve been running for my whole life? That’s what we’ve been doing, right? All those moves had nothing to do with your job.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving. I have friends here. I have a life. What good is being alive if I’m miserable?”

“You can make new friends.”

“No.” She wiped her face with both hands. “I won’t do it.”

“I’m not giving you the choice.” Cristan sharpened his tone, hating every word. “You have two hours to pack what you want to take. Everything has to fit in the back of the Range Rover.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, Lucia. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. But I love you more than life itself. I cannot allow any danger near you when I have the power to keep you safe.” Cristan went to the door, his body heavy, his heart black. “Two hours.”