Friday, August 22nd – 8:34 pm
Inside St. Paul Apostle Catholic Church, Luys sat in a few pews back from the altar and stared up at the wood cross with the sculpture of Jesus. The silence in the room sounded loud yet eerie and hollow. He had several minutes of solitude before he had to leave, and they locked the doors behind him for the night.
He had stayed at work long after everyone had left for home and decided to stop here to clear his head. When it came to his job, being the last one to leave had become a habit. He didn’t dare do any research on a side pet project until he was alone, knowing he would likely get fired if word got out he was delving into areas that were unrelated to the medical facility’s research programs.
Hours before, staring at his computer screen, he had not believed the results. He had researched bacterial and protozoal infections, also autoimmune diseases. He had gone down the virus route years before with nothing to show for it, but then a couple of years ago, he’d decided to retrace his steps and focus on a different hypothesis: an unidentified virus, one yet to be discovered, ran through his blood system. He had then researched various modern viruses and turned his focus on the West Nile virus.
He toggled to another screen, replaying the formation of new cells. He had been working with the new protein RBBTS for some time, hoping one small deviation might be the trick to create a new and distinct virus. He was banking a new virus that would fight and eradicate the cells inside his body. Finally, it looked like he might not be running down another rabbit hole.
Luys should be ecstatic. He was closer to finding a way to normalize not only his blood cells but the people he loved.
But what was normal? He did not know anymore. And if he did become normal, what would a cure solve? His death and that of his family?
He was asking those questions all over again as he wrapped both hands around the top of the pew in front of him. Raised a devote Catholic, but having lost faith long ago, he still found himself gravitating to a place of worship during times when he needed answers or a sense of balance. Even knowing he would be excommunicated from the Catholic church in today’s modern times, never mind decades or centuries before, it was the energy within the walls that soothed his soul if he even had one. Faith. Hope. Conviction of something bigger than this earth. Those beliefs seemed ingrained in the brick, the wood, the plaster, the paint.
And if he died, did he go to hell or heaven or somewhere else? Was he damned as the church insisted?
The idea of dying terrified him. He’d thought he wanted a cure, but now over the years, the closer he came to the possibility, dread would mount and erode the urge for answers.
Soon he would have to start testing. A hypothesis only worked so far. He would have to experiment on himself. He couldn’t ask Gabriel, not when he’d finally found some token of happiness with Amanda.
His hands tightened around the top of the pew.
Enough.
It could wait until tomorrow.
He’d been searching for a cure for decades, if not longer.
The fall of a footstep startled him. For a moment, he’d forgotten he wasn’t the only one here searching for solace. He glanced over his shoulder.
A woman moved her hand into the sign of the cross before slipping into a pew on the opposite side of the aisle, sinking down on a padded kneeler and bowing her head. Her cap of red hair gleamed beneath the electric sconces on the walls and reminded him of Avery.
He turned back to the alter. He shouldn’t think of Avery other than as a woman he needed to protect. He found her beautiful. The sheet of auburn hair that flowed past her shoulders, the gentle curve of her cheeks, the long slope of her neck, the pink hue to her cheeks, the intelligence, even fierceness in her eyes. Her femininity, vulnerability, and strength called to him. There was something about her that touched him as no one had for years.
Which wasn’t good. He needed to keep his heart out of it.
But how could he when it was already starting to crack from an emotion he’d long thought he’d lost?
His lips thinned. He needed to remember what happened the last time he had let a woman into his life and his heart.
He almost lost his freedom because of it.
Bowing his head, he prayed for strength, wisdom, and a path forward when it came to dealing with Mayor. He had searched for the house Avery had mentioned over by Scottsdale Road and Gold Dust but had no luck, even with his brother’s help. Mayor probably had created a new identity.
Luys looked up at the marble figure of Christ on the cross, arms outstretched, hands open. Streetlights from outside beamed through the stained glass over the dome above the altar, creating a kaleidoscope of colors and turning the sculpture’s skin strangely to gold.
Feeling calmed, somewhat centered, he slipped from the pew and moved quietly down the aisle, passing one or two others in prayer. As the double door closed from behind him and he took the shallow stairs to the sidewalk, his phone rang. Frowning, he almost did not answer it, thinking of a junk call, but then he thought of Avery.
“Yes.”
“Am I speaking to Luys Martinez?”
“Yes. Why?”
“This is Detective Hatcher. I’d like you to come in voluntarily for further questioning.”
Luys grabbed the arm rail. The temptation to hang up overwhelmed him, but he didn’t disconnect. Why did they want to talk to him? Thoughts veered to the murder in the complex. “This is about Avery, right?”
“That, and I had a couple of other questions. I’m sure you’re aware of the murder in your building, correct?”
“Of course. Everyone in the area is familiar with it.”
“So, can you come in?”
Did they think he was the killer? Savagely murdering another person? But then he thought of his last conversation with Detective Hatcher. The suspicion... Guilty before proven innocent. “When?”
“Monday morning. Say eight.”
“I have to work.”
A sigh filtered through the connection. “We all have to work. How is your lunch hour?”
Luys stopped midway down the steps. “I’ll have to call you back. I’ll need to find representation before I speak with anyone.”
“I don’t think you’ll need it. We only have a few questions.”
Luys hesitated. What were a few questions? Then he thought of another time when he had been questioned. The suspicion in both officers’ eyes. Their glib words. The feeling of being guilty before he had even said a word. He would be a fool to think this was not any different.
Guilty before proven innocent.
“You can leave by your own free will at any time,” Hatcher encouraged.
Luys was not a fool. At least, he liked to think so, sensing an ominous quality beneath Hatcher’s words as he took the last couple of steps and turned down the sidewalk to the parking lot. Nerves curled around his stomach. They must think he was a suspect. Why else have him come to the precinct?
“I’ll come by during my lunch hour.”
“You do that,” Harris clipped out.
Disconnecting, he realized he’d almost walked past the parking lot to his car. On the drive home, he tried to keep his thoughts from scattering into various scenarios. He did not dare let panic form his thoughts and actions.
By the time Luys parked and got out of his car, exhaustion weaved through the cords of his muscles. He rubbed at the back of his neck but could not remove the knots beneath his skin as he strode to the complex’s mail center. After he had retrieved several pieces of junk mail, he turned toward his condo. A flash of blonde hair caught against his peripheral vision.
Mayor.
The mail crumpled beneath his rigid grasp. He rushed down the sidewalk, past his and Avery’s front door, and rounded the corner of the building. Another flash of blonde hair. He broke into a run.
After turning another corner, he stumbled to a stop. Mayor had disappeared. He swore savagely. Realizing Mayor was playing one of her sick games, he pivoted and rushed back the way he’d come, horrified she might do something to Avery.
He banged on Avery’s door. If Mayor so much as touched Avery, he’d kill her. Slowly. With pleasure.
Avery didn’t answer.
“Avery! Are you in there? Are you okay? Answer me!”
Still no answer.
“Avery! Tell me you’re okay!”
When he didn’t get a response, he shoved at the door with the entire weight of his body. The door buckled, metal broke, and the door flew open, hitting the wall with a loud bang.
“God’s teeth. You have to be fine. I’d never be able to live with myself if anything happened to you.”
He stumbled to a halt in the living room. No sign of her. The lights were on; voices rumbled from the television. Alarmed, he hurried through the bedroom and adjoining bathroom, not finding any sign of her. Back in the living room, he stared at the front door leading to the outside. Laughter erupted from the television. The sound scratched across his senses. While the silence from outside screamed louder at him.
She’d been attacked before. Mayor was hanging around her with some sick cat and mouse game in mind. She couldn’t have been the one who’d assaulted Avery, could she?
That wasn’t like Mayor. She liked mind games, violent games, but Mayor always lost interest quickly. If she’d been fixated on only Avery, Mayor would have killed her long before now.
Plus, she’d never touched a woman before. Ever. All her victims had been male before...
~~*~~
Avery stood unmoving for a good thirty seconds as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Streetlamps from outside the complex stabbed through the living room window blinds, throwing knife-like lines across the flooring.
A staleness clung to the air, and some distinct scent permeated the place. Death? No. She was too fanciful. Dust or disuse?
She edged farther into the room and listened, breathing in and out slowly to calm her sensitized nerves. Noise, at first soft and indistinct, grew and formed into meaning. Loud, then louder. The hum of the fridge, voices—a couple—from another condo. The footsteps of someone else not far away.
Impossible. They were too far away for a normal person to hear.
Stop. Stop it!
She shook her head, and the noise shattered into stunning silence.
Taking in a deep fortifying breath, she moved deeper into the condo and slipped into the bedroom. Drawers were half-open while others lay upended on the floor. Jeez. Didn’t the police have any respect for the dead? What must his family think?
She’d be furious if the police went through the belongings of someone she loved with such disregard, never mind dead or alive. Then she realized maybe this was how the police had found Harris’ place, and the murderer had been the one who’d rampaged through his possessions.
After stepping over to the dresser, she swiped her phone for the flashlight and shined the beam’s light into one of the drawers. Rumpled clothing spilled from the inside. She touched a sweater, the material cool to the fingers. It felt stranger than strange nosing around in a dead person’s dresser drawers. This man had worn the garment. He had parents, brothers, and sisters, didn’t he? Most people did.
She moved the sweater aside, delving deeper, searching between the other garments. Not finding anything other than clothing, she folded the sweaters back in order and moved on to the other drawers. After finding nothing unusual in the dresser, she crept across the floor to search the rest of the room.
She stumbled to a stop. Until now, she hadn’t noticed the stains on the carpet. Dark, like spilled red wine, but alcohol had nothing to do with it.
Blood. It had to be.
She’d been right when she’d stepped into the condo. She’d smelled the scent of death after all.
Avoiding the side of the bed with the bloodstains, she moved in the other direction. The drum of her pulse pounded in her ears. She checked under the bed, between the mattress and box spring, the adjoining bathroom, determined not to miss any spot, no matter how unlikely—even the medicine cabinet.
Not finding anything in the bedroom—she probably wouldn’t know if she saw something pertinent, but she needed to try—she crept down the hallway to the central part of the condo. A sound whispered from behind her. She jerked around and threw the flashlight’s beam toward the noise as she hurriedly backed away, ramming her calf against a piece of furniture. Not seeing anything in the hall, she eased the light back around and illuminated the corner of a gray sectional where she’d banged her leg. Great. She was now hearing things. Still, even with no one out to get her, her heart continued to drum wildly as she edged around the sofa and stepped toward the kitchen. On seeing a desk in the dining area, she paused. Computer cables snaked across its surface and down the sides to disappear into the shadows. Nothing else rested across the tabletop. The police or detectives must have removed his computer. She almost walked away, believing any evidence they might have found was probably on the computer and completely removed. But that damn curiosity and need to know made her walk over to the desk and search for other possible, though dated evidence.
She opened the top two drawers. Only some sticky notes and a couple of pens. The very bottom drawer, much deeper than the others, stuck, and she closed and opened it several times, only managing to pry it by two inches. Something was wrong with it. Muttering silently to herself, she gave it one strong tug. It jerked open, the corner of it hitting her knee.
“Damn stupid thing!”
Swearing a couple more choice words, she rubbed her thigh and peered inside.
Empty.
Well, of course. What should she expect? She was running around inside a murder victim’s condo, looking into things that she shouldn’t be looking into. The police had come and gone days before, and they were professionals and knew what they were looking for when it came to evidence or clues.
She could be arrested for breaking and entering. But she needed answers. There had to be a tie between her and the victim. There was too much of a coincidence. The police knew it too, even though they’d been closed lipped. Trying to get answers from them was ridiculous. They might think of her as some type of number, but she was a person deserving of the truth. Yeah, there was Ben Atkins and his warning about Luys. But he’d left her with no reason why she needed to back away from him. Was she supposed to have blind faith because of a police officer’s badge?
Shaking off her growing discontent, she searched the drawer, thinking there might be a false bottom. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But what was she expecting? Evidence of his death jumping out at her saying, ‘Here I am!’
Muttering under her breath, she turned to the kitchen next. The room took longer than the others. Too many pots, pans, and utensils. Several cupboards later, with zero proof of anything unusual, Avery moved across the floor on her knees to the cabinets beneath the sink. Probably the least likely place to look.
After moving a multitude of different cleaners and discovering zilch, she thought of searching inside the boxes but decided against it. The chances of him hiding something there were minuscule. Still, stubbornness, and nothing more, made her slide her fingers inside the cabinet above the doors.
Frowning, she ran an index finger over some type of protrusion. She stilled. It didn’t feel right. Hunching lower on her knees, she angled the flashlight into the cabinet and upward. Still unable to see, she used her fingers to feel around inside and along the wood above the cabinet’s opening. Something was taped inside and several inches above the counter. A rectangular shape. Using a fingernail, she pried the object loose and sat back on her heels.
A thumb drive.
Okay. That’s strange. And weird.
But smart. If someone was trying to hide anything of value, no one would think to look there.
She palmed the memory stick before slipping it into her pocket, then snapped off the light from her phone and moved through the rest of the condo, using her flashlight sparingly. Her remaining search felt anticlimactic. She didn’t find anything significant in the living room.
A muffled bang carried through the room. Avery stilled, cocking her head to one side. The noise sounded as if it was from her own condo. For the last two days, she’d tried to ignore her heightened sense of hearing, making herself pretend it was all her imagination and that her life hadn’t changed at all. She couldn’t ignore her hearing any longer. She’d known something was seriously wrong before. She’d brushed it aside, but that had been a disservice to herself.
Frowning, she closed her eyes and focused, this time wanting the array of noise and distinct sounds to bombard her. She flinched as a multitude of sounds hit her from every area. Struggling against the onslaught, she focused on where the bang came from.
Then Luys’ voice slammed into her head.
“Avery! Are you in there? Are you okay? Answer me!”
She hurried across the living room, thankful for how the carpet muffled her footsteps.
Why was he in her condo? Had something else happened?
As she reached the door, a thin layer of light lined one side of the entrance. She stiffened. The door was ajar. Unease crawled across her skin. She’d closed the door. Pivoting, she faced the living room and snapped on the switch on the wall. Light flared. She blinked against the glare as she fumbled for the pepper spray in the back of her pocket.
No one was in the room with her.
A sigh wafted in the air behind her, a whisper of breath against her hair.
Sucking oxygen into her lungs, she turned back to the door, her thumb on the nozzle.
Again no one. But she couldn’t dispel the sense of someone having been in the condo with her.
She reached over to turn off the entrance’s light for fear of drawing attention but paused.
The door jamb. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d first entered Harris’ home because she’d been in the dark. But now—now—
Jesus. Someone had jimmied the lock and broken into the place before she’d even stepped through the threshold.
She’d been wandering through all the rooms, and someone could have easily been inside with her, watching her every move.
And Mayor? Was she the one who’d broken into the victim’s condo?
If so, then why? More importantly, why would she goad Avery into searching the victim’s rooms if she’d already been inside the place? Unless she was hoping Avery might find something she might have missed?
Avery traced the outline of the thumb drive in her pocket with a finger. That would explain the way the place had felt ransacked. Maybe it hadn’t been the police or the murderer but Mayor all this time. And if that was the cause, maybe she was the killer.
But again, why? Why would she kill Noah Harris? Could she have killed the neighbor because he’d been keeping something from her?
Luys’ voice boomed through the wall and into her head.
“Avery! Tell me you’re okay!”
Then, “God’s teeth. You have to be fine. I’d never be able to live with myself if anything happened to you.”
Something was wrong.
Forgetting the door and Mayor, she slipped from the condo, careful of keeping to the shadows until she was several yards away. From there, she rushed around the building to her own condo and stumbled to a halt.
The door to her home stood wide open. Light from inside reflected onto the sidewalk and desert landscaping.
She rushed to the threshold but paused. “What the hell?”
Luys stood in the middle of her living room.
“Luys, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”