Devil’s in the Details (6 page)

"Alexandra, please. You know we are all each other have in this world." Her voice trembled before she sniffled.

I sighed, "You have Bill and the dogs, mom." I tried my best to comfort her. I was her only blood family and felt all of the guilt she was handing down. "How about I rent a car and drive down for the weekend? I’ve been given two weeks off to rest up and heal."

As my mother eagerly agreed, I saw the search had ended. A small box telling me that there were three possible matches for my submitted image. Swinging out of the bed, I hobbled back to the desk and hurried an earnest goodbye and I love you to my mother before hanging up and dropping the phone on the desk.

Sliding gingerly back onto the metal chair, I clicked the results and felt a wave of nervousness rush over my entire body. The first close match was a tall man who was an online organic produce seller. Tall, lanky, lean and long blonde hair that made him look female if you squinted. The second result was a twenty two year old girl who had a million and half selfies of her surfing out in Southern California. Lean, lanky and long blonde hair, but clearly too young and too far away to be the blonde I was looking for, that and she had blue eyes.

The third search result brought me to the faculty page of for the Naval Academy. To a portrait shot of a woman with light blonde hair in a full dress uniform of the United States Navy. I gasped as I recognized the slate grey eyes in the portrait as the same ones that were my lighthouse in the storm that terrible night. Staring at the photograph, I felt myself shivering. From nerves, excitement and a thousand other things I couldn't place. The woman was even more beautiful in her naval uniform, slightly smiling at the camera in a way that was professional, but kind.

I scrolled down to look for her name, my nerves boiling to the edge as I took my time. Worried that there wouldn’t be a name, that this would be too easy to find her, but at the bottom, there was a name.

Commander Victoria Bancroft, USN Ret. – Instructor of Military History and Tactics.

I leaned back in my chair, curling up and rubbing my arms to chase away the shivers. "Victoria. Your name is Victoria."

Thomas sat next to me on the gaudy leather couch that he no doubt paid for with his cartel money. We continued watching the action movie he had playing on the impressive large screen television when I broke in through his back door near the kitchen. He had the sound up so loud on his movie theater grade sound system, that he never heard, or saw me, as I stuck the needle in his neck. Injecting him with a tranquilizer that would get muddled in with the rest of the prescription drugs I was about to force feed him.

"How can you watch this crap, Thomas?" I looked over at him, reaching up to drop four more pills down the thick tube I inserted in his throat to make the delivery of pills and booze that much more natural. I followed the pills with a chaser of nice bourbon I had bought just for the occasion. "It's all digital effects, no real talent in the acting. And look? I mean a car physically cannot do that. Physics just doesn't work that way."

Thomas was alive for the moment, but with every minute that passed, he was sliding deeper into an overdose coma and by the end of this terrible movie, he would be dead. I glanced at my watch, pulling back the edge of my black rubber gloves, I was right on schedule. Reaching into my bag, I flicked the top off another prescription bottle of suboxone. Shaking out a small handful of the pills, I sprinkled the rest around Thomas and on the floor. Standing up, I started dropping pill after pill down the tube and looked around the living room. I spotted his briefcase tucked in the corner by the coat rack near his front door. I walked over to it and rifled through it, easily finding the burner cellphone, some bank receipts and a plane ticket to Colombia, hidden in a side pocket. I sighed, looking over at Thomas, "You’re really dumb, Thomas. You've made this far too easy for me."

I haphazardly tossed the items around the living room for when the police showed up, they could close the case quickly with all the evidence laid out for them. Chalking it up to another untraceable cartel hit and leave it at that. The old man and the tea drinkers would be happy with the lack of attention brought by Thomas's death being labelled an overdose and having the cartels information link to Congress, severed.

I moved back to Thomas, picking up the bourbon and reaching to dump the rest of the pills and the bottle down his throat, when he suddenly lurched forward. Coughing, gagging, his hands flailing up to grab at his throat and the tube I had shoved in there. "Shit."

I rushed over to the man, wrapped my fingers around the tube and yanked it as hard as I could. Ripping it out of his throat, I stepped back as I heard the ominous sounds of him about to throw up. And he did. Thomas began throwing up all over the couch and the coffee table in front of him. Throwing up all of the pills and booze I had force fed him.

I clenched my jaw, hesitating as I hated getting dirty, but if I didn't do what I was about to, Thomas would live and I would have to take a messier route. I wasn't interested in giving him a Cuban neck tie tonight, too bloody for what I was wearing.

I rolled my neck and knelt down next to the still vomiting man. He looked up in my eyes with panic and hope. Hope that I would help him, but instead I smiled as I slid my left hand to the back of his and tangled my fingers in his thinning hair. Yanking his head back up, making him whimper in pain, I clamped my right hand over his mouth and pinched his nose shut, cutting off all of his air supply.

Thomas clutched at my arms, trying to get a hold on me but was far too intoxicated to do so. Limp hands and rubbery fingers just slapped at my arms as I held tight, watching his face turn purple. I stared in his eyes, watching the life drain out. I didn't even look away when I heard him gurgle and throw up. My hand holding his mouth closed caused him to start choking on his own vomit. Through it all, I felt nothing but mild annoyance this was taking much longer than I had planned.

It only took three more minutes before Thomas finally gave in and fell limp. I released him and stepped back, letting his head fall forward and smash into the corner of the coffee table. The coroner would write this up as an overdose gone horribly wrong. Thomas threw up so violently that he fell forward, split his forehead open and ended up suffocating himself in his own vile. It would be a messy, embarrassing death that would have his family and neighbors whispering about how he was such a good boy, that they could never believe him to be a drug addict or a drunk.

Wasting no more time, I collected my bag and walked back out the back door. I locked it up and retraced my steps through the condominium complex, keeping my head up and eyes forward so I would not garner too much attention. I would just look like a run of the mill female, carrying an overnight bag, smiling and giggling as she spoke to her lover about being excited to spend the weekend at their place.

I kept the image up until I was back at my car parked in the side lot of the convenience store next to Thomas's complex. Dropping the bag in the trunk, I walked inside to pick up a gallon of milk and a pint of strawberry ice cream. I smiled at the older lady clerk, rubbing my stomach as she looked at the two random items, "Pregnancy cravings are a bitch. I don't even like strawberries."

The lady smiled at me warmly, "Oh honey, I know how that is. I have three daughters and we all had the same strange late night cravings. But next time you should have your husband go out for you. You should be at home resting." She chuckled shaking her head about my fictional husband not being as doting as she wanted.

I laughed with her, "He’s next door getting me tacos to go. Divide and conquer the cravings." I took the bag from her, "But I’ll make sure he gets the next round." I waved at her and left the store. My fake smile dropping from my face the second I walked out of the door.

I dropped the plastic bag in the passenger seat and pulled out of the lot. I didn't need the milk or the ice cream, but I needed an alibi since the convenience store had cameras on the exterior. The older lady would not remember the nice friendly pregnant lady on a Saturday night. Instead she would tell the police about the five different shady customers who came in that night, if they ever came to question her about Thomas and his death. It was a little extra effort on my part to cover my bases, but it was one of the reasons why I was the old man's favorite. I left nothing to chance.

Pulling out on to the main road that would take me to the freeway, I looked up at the street sign as I sat at a red light, instantly recalling the brunette. Alexandra's apartment was less than two blocks away. Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I debated it. Debated driving to her apartment and seeing if she was alright from a distance. Her discharge papers had been in the file Dani sent me. I knew she would be home, and I suddenly wanted to go and see if her apartment was safe since the neighborhood she lived in wasn't.

I sighed, "Don't get involved, Victoria. Go home. Make a milkshake and go to bed." I murmured the words in the quiet of the car. "You've already done too much."

The light turned green and I started driving towards the freeway. I clenched my jaw in awkward silence, my thoughts twisting together as to why I should and should not being doing this until I smashed the radio power button, chasing out the silence and my thoughts with today's top 40 hits. Chasing away the white noise before my heart and my gut forced my hands to turn the car back around and drive to her apartment.

I couldn't get involved.

I repeated that phrase over and over in my head the entire drive back to my house.

I couldn't get any more involved.

But I knew I would, it was only a matter of time before I did. A matter of time before I searched out why her face would show up every time I closed my eyes in the last forty-eight hours.

Chapter 3

"Let your mother do her thing. You know she won't stop." Bill spoke softly as he sat kitty corner from me at the small dinner table in the kitchen. I moved in the chair, trying to smile and not wince as I pressed on very sore and angry bruises.

"I know. I just don't want her to worry." I looked over at my mother, plating the giant sandwiches she was making for Bill and I, rambling nervously about what the neighbors were up to and whatever gossip she felt was necessary to pass on.

"She is going to worry, kid, and looking at you in person, I'm kind of worried too." Bill sighed and leaned forward, picking up his glass of water. "You said you were mugged?"

I turned to look in the soft, yet concerned hazel eyes of my mother's longtime boyfriend. I could see how gruesome my bruises and cuts were in the way he ran his eyes over them, cringing at spots.

Bill had been a part of our lives since I was nineteen and had oddly become my step father even though my mother never wanted to remarry. Bill was good to me, better than good, but still tended to tread lightly. It’s as if he knew he wasn't my father and didn't have the right to act like one. I shrugged, patting him on the shoulder, "That's what the police tell me. All I remember is waking up in a strange car, then waking up in the ER with my coworkers hovering over me."