Snow Angel (The Hope Falls Chronicles) (28 page)

There were sounds of understanding and acknowledgment as everyone nodded and practiced what

she’d just shown them.

“Now before I teach you ladies any routine, I want you all to get used to some of the movements we’ll

be using, so I am going to demonstrate several. Then I’ll put on a little music and want you to do what feels natural while incorporating what I’ve shown you.

“The first move is the shimmy. So we’re going to alternate moving our shoulders back and forth. Start

slow, get the feel, and then you can speed up. Also, there are several positions you can have your hands in while shimmying. Either extended for a more showstopper feel, like this, or in your lap or behind your

back for a little coy type of a vibe.” She demonstrated for her class.

“The second move is the booty shake. Now this move actually starts in your feet. You want to alternate

bending your knee while lifting your heel then straighten your leg, placing your heel back on the floor, and repeat on the other leg. Once you get the feet and legs down, put a little hip action in it. Again start slow, and then once you get the feel, go ahead and speed up. Did you all see how that works?

“The last move I want to show you is the walk down. Feet shoulder-width apart, legs straight. Put a

small bend in your back and tilt your booty up. Then, starting at your hips, using your hands, walk down

your legs as far as you can. If you can make it all the way to the floor, great. If not, just stop at your thighs.

That’s fine too. Wherever you end up, just drop or dip your booty down then, chest first, body-roll back

up.”

All the women began practicing without Lily even having to prompt them to. “Great! Good job, ladies.

Let me just get some music on.”

As she was walking back to turn her iPod back on, she heard a phone ringing. It had the same ring that

landlines used to have. She ignored it and kept walking. It was probably one of the students who had that

old-fashioned ring as their ringtone.

She pressed play and music filled the air. She turned back and everyone was practicing. Some definitely

had their favorite move and were just doing it over and over. Some were practicing all three. She noticed

that Amanda and Karina had started making up their own routine. It was
really
good too.

Lily was trying to concentrate on the class but was a little distracted when she kept hearing the ringing

sound. When the music stopped, the ringing didn’t.

“Does anyone know whose phone that is?” Lily asked the class, hoping someone would cop to it and

just go take the call outside.

“I think it’s the landline,” Sue Ann said as she shuffled over to a little alcove next to the window and

picked up a phone that, in all the time Lily had spent in this room rehearsing with Karina, she’d never

noticed.

“Community Center, this is Sue Ann.”

Sue Ann’s cheery tone reminded Lily of another reason why she loved it here. In other places, if a

dance class had been interrupted, people would have been mad or at the very least irritated. Not here.

Everyone just waited patiently while Sue Ann took care of it.

“I don’t think so.” Sue Ann’s brow furrowed as she looked around the room. “Let me just ask to be on

the safe side. Is there a Karla here?” Sue Ann covered the phone and spoke a little louder. “Karla? Is there a Karla here?”

Lily froze. She felt like all of the blood in her body was draining out of her. Her face began tingling and her hands went completely numb. She stared at the phone in Sue Ann’s hand in disbelief as she tried to

calm her racing heart.

“Sorry, no one here by that name.” Sue Ann happily returned the phone to the receiver and shuffled

back to her spot.

Lily felt everyone’s eyes on her, waiting for instruction, and she knew she had to stay calm and not

panic. But she wasn’t calm and she was definitely panicking.

The next thing she knew, Karina was by her side. “Are you okay, Lily? You look a little pale.”

Lily did her best to nod as Karina handed her some water. Taking the moment she had while she took a

sip of the water, she used every last ounce of strength she could muster to pull herself together. She

couldn’t alarm anyone. Couldn’t draw any attention to herself.

Somehow she managed to put a smile on her face as she set the water bottle down. Thankfully she’d

taught Burlesque 101 more times than she could count so she could recite the instructions in her sleep.

“Okay, ladies, let’s try that again. This time, make sure you practice more than one move.”

All the women gave her strange looks but she just continued to smile warmly as she pressed the play

button on her iPod. As everyone began to get back into the dancing and the attention was no longer on her,

she took a moment to lean back against the wall.

Her mind was racing a mile a minute. Someone had found her. But who? Who was still looking for her?

It didn’t matter. She needed to leave. Start over.

Tears began to form in her eyes so she shut them. She had to be strong. No tears. No fear. There was no

room for weakness or second-guessing.

She felt a vibration on her leg and looked down to see that her phone was going off in her bag. She

watched her hand lower and pull it out of her bag as if it were someone else controlling her movements.

Looking down, she saw that it was a Hope Falls area code, but she didn't recognize the number.

Oh, God.

She needed to move. She had to leave town. Whoever it was was here in Hope Falls and they’d found

her.

Her thinking was sharper now. She needed to leave the room without drawing unnecessary attention to

herself. She had to go. Now!

She took a deep breath. No need to panic—at least not yet. She didn't
know
, not for sure. She should just answer the call.

“Hello,” she whispered weakly.

Then a man’s voice she didn’t recognize cut through her panicked state of shock, uttering the words she

had been dreading since that fateful night full of gunshots and screams so many years ago.

His cheerful tone as he smoothly delivered the deceptively innocuous line conveyed more menace than

any overt threat could have possibly done, and—for the first time in years—Lily felt her blood run ice cold.

Her hand gripped the phone and she closed her eyes in resignation as she heard the words.

“Hi, Karla. How ya been?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Eric drummed his fingers on his desk, trying to stay awake as he went over the quarterly budget. He just

couldn’t keep his eyes open. He’d been on patrol the last two nights.

From the looks of the budget, it was a good thing he had been. He’d posted up behind the Sue Ann’s

Café sign, the last bit of civilization before the road became deserted and winding, and he had pulled over at least ten vehicles per night and issued them citations. With the budget looking this dire, hell, every ticket helped.

Rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hands, he decided that he was going to need some serious

caffeinated assistance if he was going to make it through his shift. He pushed back in his rolling chair and stood from his desk. Just as he was stepping around it, the intercom buzzed.

“Chief Maguire.”

He sighed as his head dropped back. He just wanted his coffee fix.

“Yes, Jill.”

“There’s a…Sully for you on line thre—”

Before she even finished speaking, he’d picked up the phone and pressed the line next to four, which

was the one that was blinking. “Hey, Sully. What’s the word?”

He didn’t know why he was so nervous. He knew Lily now. Maybe not her past, but he knew her and

he loved her. Sully couldn’t give him any information that would change that. But still, his heart pounded

so hard he thought he might crack a rib.

“Maguire, how well do you know this girl?”

“What did you find?” Eric just wanted to know. He didn’t want to play twenty questions.

“I just e-mailed you the report. Lily Sotelo, age 26, was born Karla Liliana Perez in Queens, NY. The

basics are mother died at three and she was placed in multiple foster homes until the age of twelve.

Removed from several for suspected child abuse. Then she bounced around in group homes until the age

of sixteen. That's when it gets weird.”

“Weird how?” Eric heard himself asking, as if from a distance. He was torn between feeling his heart

break for what poor Lily had been through as a child and desperate curiosity at what Sully would consider

'weird.'

“Well, that's when she was taken into WITSEC.”

“What?!” Eric roared, his heart beating faster. WITSEC was the nation's Witness Protection program. In

order to qualify, her life must have been in serious danger from some very bad people. Damn! No wonder

she was so easily startled!

Unfazed, Sully continued. “She remained in witness protection until two years ago, when the US

Marshal’s office released her from the program, citing zero threat to informant.”

“What?!” Eric repeated, stunned. He could not believe what he was hearing. How had Lily—or…Karla

—been through everything that Sully was laying out and come out so amazing?

It had to be a mistake. Could that be it? Could Sully have the wrong person?

“Yeah, l know it’s crazy,” Sully said, his flat tone of voice a contrast to his words. “Look, I've got a shit-ton of work backing up on my desk, so read my report and call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Sully.”

“No problem, man.”

Eric opened his email and clicked on the attachment. As it came up on the screen, Eric was still having a

hard time processing what he was reading.

Karla Perez aka Jillian Reyes aka Melody Rios aka Sylvia Morales aka Eva Valdez aka Lily Sotelo.

Holy shit!

As he read over the specifics of what Sully had laid out, his heart felt like it was breaking inside his

chest. There were several pictures of Lily or Karla as a child, taken by case workers. She looked so small

and vulnerable. She’d been shuttled around more times than Eric could count at a glance

He felt sick and angry. She’d had no one. No one to protect her. No one to keep her safe. No one.

She’d made good grades in school up until her junior year with no disciplinary problems. Then there

were notes from her counselor, alleging that Karla had started running with a bad crowd.

He kept scrolling and saw a police report stating that she had been a witness to a murder and escaped by

stabbing the assailant and running to a neighbor for help.

When he saw the assailant’s name, he stopped breathing. It was Rico Giordano head of the Giordano

crime family.

Eric had just graduated from the Police Academy when news had broken about Giordano’s arrest. It

had made national headlines. He even knew that they’d locked him away on a first-degree murder charge.

Why the hell would they discharge Lily from witness protection if she was an eye witness in that case?

Scanning down farther, he saw that the Giordano crew had basically disbanded after he’d died in prison

and now it looked like the rest of his crew had died or turned state’s evidence and were in a WITSEC

prison facility.

Then he got to pictures of the crime and glimpsed Giordano’s arrest photo. He rubbed his eyes in an

attempt to see if he was hallucinating. He wasn’t.

Grabbing his ticket pad, he flipped through several before he got to the one needed. Quickly he typed in

the New Jersey license in his database.

It took the program only seconds to come back with an image, but they were the longest seconds of his

life. As the screen filled, he saw that he had given a ticket to the spitting image of Rico Giordano last night.

He’d pulled over Giovanni Rizzo, twenty years old, from Brooklyn, New York.

He searched his database for Giovanni’s birth certificate. After several minutes, a scanned copy from the

DMV appeared on his screen. Eric quickly skimmed to find what he needed. There.

Birth Father: Rico Giordano

Fuck
!

Chapter Twenty-Five

Lily drove until she was about a mile out of town before pulling over. She jumped out of her Jeep and

ran to the back, popping her hatch. She moved her blanket aside and didn’t see
anything
.

Her trunk was empty. It was gone. No, it couldn’t be gone!

Eric
!

He must have taken in her in-case-of-emergency bag one of the times he was unloading her car. Her

throat closed as panic overwhelmed her. She felt herself getting dizzy.

Stop
! she commanded herself. She absolutely could not lose it. She had to think. That bag had

everything. A whole new identity. Birth Certificate. Passport. License. Cash.

She could call Agent Stone, but he was the only person who knew she’d relocated. What if he had

something to do with this? Plus, they’d already discharged her from WITSEC, so there was a chance they

wouldn’t even take this seriously.

She remembered her protocol. No second-guessing. Quick decisions.

Okay, she had to get that bag. It was her only option. Which meant she had to go back to her house.

Jumping back in her car, she flipped a U-turn and sped past the Welcome to Hope Falls sign on the side

of the road. She fought tears as panic, fear, and sadness all volleyed for the top spot in her mind.

She couldn’t feel right now. She just had to think. She knew going back to her house was a risk, but

she had no other play to make. If she didn’t get that bag, she couldn’t start over.

As she drove, her mind started flipping through places she would go like a slideshow. She’d done her