Diamonds, page 3
But Dad has also checked out a bit the last few months. He’s going to miss me, and I worry that once I’m gone, he’ll be trapped with Mum. I asked him once why he never considered getting a divorce. He told me that he couldn’t risk Mum getting full custody of me. If he stayed with her, he could make sure I was safe.
You’re safer in the lion’s den if you have a lion on your side.
But here I am, leaving him alone with her. Years of tending to my mother have left him a shell of his former self. Most days he ends up snoring on the couch with a half-empty can of beer in his hand within an hour of coming home from work.
I’ll come back for holidays, of course. And hell, now that I’m out of the house, he can leave her. I’ll stay with him whenever I visit. I’m an adult now. No one can dictate with whom I choose to stay.
“Darling, could you come up here for a second?”
Shit. Mum’s calling from the bathroom. Probably a last-ditch attempt to get me to change my mind about school. But that ship has sailed. I’ve already paid the deposit for my on-campus housing—tuition is fully covered, thank goodness—and the flight from Heathrow to O’Hare departs in a few hours. It’s too late to change anything.
Still, though, I walk up the stairs to her and Dad’s master suite, where the shower is running at full force, steaming up the entire bathroom.
Mum is at the counter, staring at the fogged-over mirror. She’s wearing a ratty green bathrobe, and her hair, which she normally brushes perfectly every morning, is tangled wildly. There’s an unhinged look in her eyes, and she has that same sweet-and-sour smile on her face that she did that day in the kitchen.
Oh, no.
I walk into the bathroom. The steam hits me like a wall, and I feel it condensing on my skin.
“Yes, Mum?”
She slowly turns her head toward me, her smile not faltering. “Sweetness, Mummy has something for you. Something for you to take to America. Something to remind you of your poor mummy, keep you from forgetting her.”
I squint through the fog of the room. A gift? I wasn’t expecting that.
She reaches under her counter and pulls out a fine crystal duck. One she bought while she and Dad were on holiday in Venice.
I drop my jaw. “Mum. That duck cost you a fortune. I couldn’t possibly—”
She raises a hand to silence me. “Hush, my pumpkin. Your father and I have discussed it, and we want you to have this.” She clutches at the lapel of her bathrobe. “I want you to have this.”
I shake my head. “But Mum, that duck has to be the most expensive thing you own. I really think it would be safer here, not in some student dorm.”
She bursts into tears.
“Nothing I do is good enough for you, is it? I’ve slaved over you since the day you were conceived. Do you know how bad my morning sickness was?” She glares at me, poking me sharply in the chest. “How much time I had to spend cleaning up every ounce of vomit that you forced out of my body? How I gave up my career to raise you, only for you to pursue a fruitless degree?”
“Mum, we’ve talked about this.”
“Enough.” She forces the crystal duck into my hands. “You’re taking this.”
I swallow. “Okay, Mum. Thank you for such a thoughtful gift.”
I’m not going to take this with me. First of all, I have no room left in the three suitcases I’m taking with me to Northwestern. And even if I did, I have no way of wrapping it to ensure it’ll arrive safely. I know how haphazardly the Yanks handle luggage coming off a plane.
I’ll leave it with Dad, let him know to leave it in a safe place. Some place where Mum won’t find it if she goes looking around. I know they have a safe-deposit box at the bank. Maybe there.
But all that matters is that Mum thinks I took the gift. I’ve learned after all these years to concede to her demands when she gets like this. Once she’s lucid again, she’ll understand why I can’t take this priceless object with me.
“Is that all, Mum?”
She narrows her eyes nearly into slits at my words. “Just one more thing, my pet.”
And she curls her fingers into a fist and punches the mirror, sending glass flying everywhere.
3
MADDOX
I grab Alissa’s shoulders. “Alissa? Are you okay?”
She blinks a few times. “S-Sorry. Just shaken by this whole experience.”
I brush a finger over her cheek. “Of course you are, baby. I am, too.” I look around the picnic grove. “But right now, I have to finish replanting this bush. We can’t leave any trace that we were here.”
She looks down at her finger that she pricked on the rose bush. “Shit, Maddox. I was bleeding. My DNA will be here.”
Shit. She’s right. “Have you ever done a DNA test with the cops before?”
She shakes her head.
“Then they won’t be able to prove that any blood left here was your DNA. No need to worry about that.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No. I’m almost done.” I toss a few more shovelfuls of dirt into the small hole under the rosebush. “Do you think you can carry the hatbox?”
She looks back at the picnic table. “Oh my God, Maddox. You didn’t rebury the hatbox!”
“Of course not, baby. We need to take it to a coroner, have it tested.”
“Why?”
“Because if we’re going to accuse Rouge of killing May, we need to prove that she was under Rouge’s employ at the time of her death. That May was killed shortly after being suspended from the club. And we need to know how she was killed.”
“I think it was the removal of her head, Maddox.”
“We don’t know that. That could have happened after she was killed. But we need to take it to a coroner to find these things out. Once we know how May died, we can try to figure out where and when it happened, trace our steps back, and hopefully link the death to Rouge, or whoever did this.” I gesture to the hatbox. “But we’d better get moving before one of Rouge’s Kings show up.”
“Her Kings?”
“Yeah, the Kings of Aces Underground. There’s one for each section. King of Spades, King of Clubs, and so on. They act as Rouge’s muscle. And my guess is they’re the ones who carry out her dirty work.”
“So it was likely one of them who killed May.”
“And they’d be the ones scoping out the area to make sure no one figured out what happened to May,” I reply. “There are rumors that Rouge also uses her Kings as…sexual entertainment. That’s how she gets them to do her bidding.”
She scoffs. “How could anyone do something as awful as what happened to May just for the promise of a good pussy?”
I can’t respond to that. Because I was once under Rouge’s spell myself. I don’t know what it is about her, but she’s like a black widow. You know that being with her is dangerous, but that’s part of the allure of it.
Until you take a step too far and learn something you wish you never knew.
Or at least…you think you learn something.
The memory is still a little fuzzy.
I don’t want to tell that story to Alissa now. We don’t have time, and I don’t want her to think less of me for the mistakes of my past.
I still haven’t even told her about my father. His downfall from grace in the last year of his mayorship. She needs to hear about him before she learns the darkest parts of my history. Peel away the layers of my deranged past one at a time.
This is, after all, only our third date.
Fuck.
What a third date.
Most people say that you should abstain from sex until the third date. We had sex on our second date and went straight to exhuming body parts on our third.
Why hasn’t this woman turned the other way and run as far as she can?
Could it be because she has feelings for me? The same kind of feelings that I have for her?
I shake the thought out of my head. If there were ever not a time for this conversation, it’s right now.
I shovel the last small pile of dirt back into the hole under the rosebush. Without the volume of the hatbox, the rosebush is a little lower than it was before, but it’s probably not noticeable. I’ve scraped together a little extra soil from around the other bushes to make up for it.
“Maddox?”
I look back at Alissa. “Yeah?”
“Shouldn’t we take the hatbox to the police? Not the coroner? Surely it will end up with the coroner anyway if we take it to them first. And then they can get an investigation underway.”
I sigh and rub at my forehead. “And that would be a great idea if the chief of police weren’t a dues-paying member of Aces Underground. I’m afraid Rouge has him wrapped around her little finger.”
She widens her eyes. “So if we go to the cops…”
“Then Rouge will know for sure that we were the ones who discovered May’s head.” I swallow. “And if she knows that, then there’s no telling what she’ll do to us.”
4
ALISSA
My heart starts thrumming again.
Maddox is right. We’re in danger.
And we can’t go to the police.
We could bury May’s head back under the rosebush, forget any of this ever happened.
But that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Now that we’ve started this awful quest, we have to see it through.
I rub at the goosebumps on my arms. “Are you sure you can trust the coroner? If Rouge has bought the police, who’s to say she hasn’t paid him off as well?”
Maddox shakes his head. “No. This guy is an old family friend. He personally did my father’s autopsy when he died. I trust him with my life. Bill’s his name. Bill Lassard.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’d trust this man with my life and my death, Alissa. And believe me when I say I would never do anything that might compromise your safety.”
A warmth fills me despite the chill of the Chicago night. I want to kiss Maddox right here, but he’s right. We have to get moving. I break my hands away from his and cross over to the hatbox.
I don’t know why, but I lift the lid and look inside again. Maybe this was all a bad dream. The shock of seeing May’s head will force me awake, and I’ll look over and see Maddox next to me, snuggle up to him until he wakes up and makes me breakfast.
But this isn’t a dream. May’s head looks right back up at me from inside the box.
I gulp back the nausea and force myself to keep looking as I hold my breath to keep the stench of rotting flesh at bay.
This poor girl. She put her entire life on the line, moved to a foreign country, and worked her arse off at Aces Underground, just to end up like this.
She really was—is—a beautiful girl. There’s even still a hint of rose to her cheeks, despite her deteriorating skin. Even in death, her lips are full and her eyelashes long. I bring my fingers over her eyelids and close them as a few tears roll down my cheeks.
Dirty martini, she called me. The one time we spoke.
It’s what I had ordered from her the night before. She had no way of knowing my name.
I lean down and whisper to her. “Dirty martini is going to figure out what happened to you, May. And the person or people who extinguished your light will go to prison for a long, long time.”
I’m about to replace the lid on the hatbox when I notice something under May’s head. I take another deep breath and reach into the box, pushing her head gently aside.
And… Oh my God.
It wasn’t just her head.
Her hands are in here, too. The flesh is already pulling away from her light-pink nails, but there’s no denying what I’m seeing.
“Maddox!”
He rushes over. “What is it?”
I point in the box. “They chopped off her hands, too.”
“Shit.” He looks inside. “And they’re burned off at the ends. They destroyed her fingerprints. They’re trying to make it more difficult to identify her.”
“But they can still identify her from her teeth, can’t they?”
“I think so, baby.” Maddox darts his eyes around the area. “But we really need to get the hell out of here. Right the fuck now.”
5
MADDOX
I’m driving. Fast.
Alissa’s in the passenger seat, and the hatbox containing May’s head is in the back seat, buckled behind a seatbelt.
I thought about putting it in the trunk, but then I worried that it might tip over and spill its contents. The last thing we need right now is the sound of May’s head rolling around in the trunk. And we want to keep it in as pristine condition as possible so Bill can confirm her identity.
Alissa leans over and squints at the speedometer. “You’re going awfully bloody fast.”
“It’s Chicago. People never go the speed limit here.”
“But it’s the middle of the night. It’s not like you have to worry about traffic.”
“I have to worry about getting the fuck out of that damned park, Alissa. About someone following us. We’re not even close to being out of the woods.” I point my thumb to the rear of the car. “Just ask our good friend in the back seat.”
“Yes, but we’re also not going to do ourselves any favors if we end up in an accident.”
I don’t respond.
Maddox Hathaway isn’t driving, anyway.
Mad Maddox is.
I used to think Mad Maddox only came out when I was aroused.
But tonight, I’ve learned he comes out when my fight-or-flight kicks in. And truth be told, he’s been at the reins since I came face to face with May’s severed head.
And Mad Maddox has one mission. Get to the coroner as quickly as possible. Speed limit be damned.
It’s the middle of the night. No one’s going to pull me over in the middle of the night. The cops who are on duty this time of night are focusing on our city’s many murderers and rapists.
Alissa swallows. “So you said this man did your father’s autopsy?”
“Correct.”
“Bill, you said his name was.”
“Bill Lassard, yeah.”
“And he’s a…friend of the family?”
“I guess you could say that, yeah.”
Bill isn’t a family friend. At least not in the way Alissa means. He’s the city’s head coroner, and he rubbed elbows with my dad during his term as mayor.
But Alissa doesn’t know about my dad. And now certainly isn’t the time to tell that story.
“And you’re sure we can trust him?”
I rub at the back of my neck. “Fuck, Alissa. I can’t know for sure after all we’ve been through. But Bill Lassard is great at what he does, and he never asks too many questions. He’s not a member of Aces, so he has no connection to Rouge as far as I know. He’s our best bet. Speaking of which”—I reach into my pocket and grab my cell phone, speaking into its receiver—“Hey Siri, call Bill Lassard’s cell.”
It doesn’t ring at all. Just goes straight to his voicemail.
“You’ve reached Bill Lassard. Sorry to miss your call. Please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Alissa sighs. “Sounds like we may have to wait until morning. He probably has his phone on sleep mode.”
“You can break through Do Not Disturb if you make two calls back-to-back.” I tap the phone again.
This time it rings. Three times, four times.
And then the voicemail message again.
“Maddox, I think—”
“No. One more time.”
I make the call once more, letting it ring once, twice—
A groggy voice comes through the other end. “Christ, Maddox, do you know what time it is?”
“Bill. Thank God you answered. Listen, I know it’s late, but I have an emergency. Something I need you to look at as soon as possible. How close are you to the morgue downtown?”
“I live right around the corner, but—”
“I wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t an emergency. Please. I’m five minutes away from there myself. Can you meet us there?”
“Shit.” He yawns through the phone. “Are you sure it can’t wait until morning?”
“A hundred percent. Cannot wait.”
“What the hell. I suppose I owe you.”
I wrinkle my forehead. What the fuck does Bill owe me for? I haven’t seen him since he handed me the report for my dad’s autopsy.
Maybe Dad did him some favors during his term as mayor that Bill was never able to pay back.
Shit. What kind of favors would a mayor be doing a coroner? Was Dad into some bad shit?
He had all those sex scandals after his so-called HOUSE bill ruined his entire political career, but that was the worst of what came to light as his approval ratings took a nosedive.
Was there more?
And fuck… Does that mean I can’t trust Bill?
I rub my forehead. I don’t know what to think anymore.
Why the fuck is this my job?
I guess normally the spouse of the deceased takes care of funeral arrangements, but Dad unloaded Mom a few months before he died. I’m his legal next of kin.
But given Dad’s position, you’d think the City of Chicago would be making his arrangements.
Then again, he plunged half the city into unemployment and homelessness in his last year, so maybe they didn’t feel particularly obligated to shell out for his posthumous expenses.
His estate is covering the cost of everything, but I’m the one who has to deal with all the little details. Pick out a coffin, arrange a burial, even decide which suit he’ll spend eternity in.
Probably that Armani suit he hated so much, the one he wore the night of my eighteenth birthday. That would be some fucking justice.
I got a call from Bill Lassard, the city coroner, asking me to come in and identify the body.
