Chapter Twenty – Angela
Chapter Twenty
Angela
My apartment smelled like my mother.
Not the normal smells of her, her skin, the body powder she used after she showered, the scent of her shampoo in her hair—no, it smelled like all the dark and unknowable parts of her, her blood, her piss, her shit, her fear.
Inside me my wolf roiled in anger, in a way I was not allowed, pacing, growling, ready to lurch out and fight anyone, and me ready to let her—and we weren’t even all the way inside yet.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Mark’s man, Paco, had come on again around seven p.m. that night and hadn’t left me alone since, while Mark was off ‘working.’
On saving me.
“We just need some things,” I said. And I have to see. I left that part unspoken. But how could I not bear witness to the place where my mother’d died?
Especially when she’d died because of me?
He looked me over and then relented, letting me walk past him, through the kitchen, into the rest of the house.
There were still pieces of police tape fluttering behind us on the door, all the doorjambs were dusted with black powder for lifting fingerprints, and little evidence markers were tented up by the most ominous bloodstains.
My couch’d been flipped for some reason, who knew why, and just past it was the largest stain of all.
I knew it’d been hers.
They’d made me identify her body in the morgue, and by then they’d already collected their evidence and washed away the signs of her death—made her look as peaceful as possible for my sake.
But I knew her—there was no way she’d gone down without a fight, for all her age and frailty, and this stain was from that struggle—the last few moments of her life.
I went down on my heels and reached out without thinking, and Paco rested his hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Don’t,” he counseled, in a gentle tone.
“Why not?”
“Trust me, the image here will stay with you long enough. You don’t need to think about touching her blood every time you see your hand.”
Wise, and true. I stayed there quiet for as long as I could, absorbing the horror before standing again.
“You said you needed to get some things, right?” Paco said, giving a pointed look to the duffle bag slung over my shoulder.
I nodded, and made to head up the stairs.
My room looked like a tornado had hit it.
The mirror had been shattered, there were shards of glass everywhere—my counters had been swept free of knickknacks, mementos, and jewelry, the memories of a lifetime, sprawled upon the floor, the painting Jack had done of Rabbit torn in two.
I held myself, surveying the damage. This was why I wore tattoos—no one could ever take them away from me.
What flower would I choose for my own mother?
A wave of regret pulsed through me, and Paco stepped closer, to catch me in case I fell.
We both heard someone enter the apartment below us—the door was being guarded by police, but that didn’t stop us both from tensing, until we heard the static-y garble of police radio chatter.
I’d been given special permission to come back here, via strings Mark had pulled, but it could be revoked at any time and if I didn’t pack now—I stomped over to my dresser and opened drawers, throwing their contents into the duffle bag.
At the bottom of my underwear drawer, I found one of my emergency bottles of colloidal silver.
I didn’t need it anymore, I didn’t think, but Rabbit—I shoved it into the bag, hoping Paco hadn’t seen, or that he’d be smart enough not to ask.
After that I went back into the hallway, and Paco followed me into Rabbit’s room.
His room they’d left alone. They didn’t want to hurt him—only to scare me into giving him up.
And to think at one point in time I’d thought Gray loved me.
I walked over to Rabbit’s dresser and took more care packing, pulling out complete outfits for him, and choosing a few favorite toys, anything that would give him some semblance of normalcy.
The sound of police chatter neared, and I knew Paco was putting himself between me and the door, as a detective arrived.
“We’ll be done in a minute, officer,” Paco said, addressing the man, without changing his position.
“I’d like to have a word with you,” he said, angling around Paco as I ignored him. I needed to find the last Dino-blaster for Rabbit—there were four in the set, and if he’d ever put his toys back where they belonged….
Paco answered for me. “You can arrange that through her lawyer.”
“It’s good to see you again, Miss Roberts,” said a distantly familiar voice. I stopped what I was doing, elbow deep in a jumble of toys.
“Her name is Wilshire,” Paco growled, falling into defensive mode, ready to reach for his holstered weapon as I turned around.
“Officer,” I said, quietly. The one and only time I’d used a fake name in my entire life was when I’d turned that woman’s skull in to the police, years ago. I’d chosen my mother’s maiden name in my panic.
“Paul Derizzio—remember me?” He came forward with his hand out, and then looked to Paco. “I’m going to need a moment alone with her.”
Paco said nothing, just gave the man a dry look, and didn’t move.
“It’s okay,” I said, coming up behind him. “Really.”
“Nothing personal Miss Wilshire, but you’re not really in charge here.”
I stepped between the men and straightened my shoulders. “Paul’s an old personal friend. He would never hurt me.”
Paco clearly didn’t believe me, but there were more cops downstairs, we were far outnumbered. He fished in his pocket and then shook Paul’s still extended hand—satisfying himself that the cop was congenial perhaps?—and then moved aside. “I’ll be outside the door.”
Derizzio looked at his hand oddly, then wiped it on his leg once we were alone—and stepped back to close the door behind Paco. “Miss Wilshire? It’s been awhile,” he said.
“You can call me Angela—and it has been.” I never got the chance to tell him how much I appreciated his discretion all those years ago, when he could’ve easily taken me in alongside Gray. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you. You made my career. I’m a lieutenant now.
” He crossed the room to sit on Rabbit’s bed, and patted the bed beside him for me.
He was older now, soft gray dappling his temples.
“I only needed that skull to get a warrant, and afterward—I said you were some drifter. You looked worse for the wear on the tapes from all the rain, and honestly, no one cared—Gray’s lawyer argued that the skull was a set-up, but there was no denying the other bodies that we found. ”
I joined him on the bed, an arm’s length down. “How many graves were there?”
“Eight bodies, plus some miscellaneous parts.” He shrugged a shoulder, not being casual so much as inured to horror.
“I’ve spent the past seven years wondering if I did the right thing that morning, not turning you in.
I didn’t know if you’d gone to ground, or if they’d found a different graveyard for you. ”
“I only moved back in with my parents and had a normal life.”
“And a child, I see,” he said, looking around at Rabbit’s room.
“Yeah.” It’d taken me so long to paint Rabbit’s room for him—and now he’d never see it again. Or his grandma. I was taken aback by a fresh wave of pain, and somewhere inside me my wolf howled.
“I know you’re grieving, but I have to ask—is the murder of your mother related to you or the Pack?”
I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “No.”
“And this is a random act of senseless violence?” he pressed on.
“It must be,” I whispered.
“Even though you’ve got the best bodyguards Carrera Law can buy?” He shifted on the bed to face me. “I know you don’t really know me, Miss Wilshire, but I have your best interests at heart.”
“Thank you, but—"
“You and your son need to be under round the clock police protection,” he interrupted.
I stood and started walking toward the door. “What I need is to be nearer to my son right now—he cried himself to sleep last night, and if I’m not there when he wakes up….”
“Turn off the light,” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“Turn off the light,” Derizzio he repeated, contemplating me from the bed. I sidled against the door, confident Paco was listening in on the other side. “Please, Angela.”
My hand found the light switch and flipped it off.
Lieutenant Derizzio pulled out a UV light of some sort and flashed it on the far wall—illuminating the clear outline of a rabbit.
It took up the entire wall—I couldn’t see it earlier, painted on the black.
It’d traced over the edges of a painted supernova though, and that’s what the officer had seen.
“It’s in blood. Does that mean anything to you?” he asked.
They’d painted in his room in my mother’s blood. A warning—and a promise to me that they would take him.
I was frozen with the horror of it all—and she took her chance. My wolf shifted forward, occupying me, with a mother’s fury and a daughter’s pain. I almost said things in her language, barks and growls, as it was I fell to the floor, feeling her shape make my bones start to bend.
“Angela?” Paco said, coming into the room at once, the door hitting me—the pain of that, and the flash as he hit the switch and the lights came back on—and the way his gun was pointed at Derizzio’s head—the Lieutenant calmly held his hands up as I regathered myself, with Paco hunched over me, waiting for an attack.
“I’m all right.”
“For now,” Derizzio said. “But the forces after you,” he began, as I started desperately pawing through my bag, “there’s no way you can stop them.
And no way you can pay enough people to protect you like I will—do you want to be at the mercy of your new boyfriend besides?
How long can his patience—and bank account—last?
Do you have any idea how expensive good help is these days? ”
“With all due respect officer, shut up,” Paco growled.
I found what I was looking for—the bottle of colloidal silver.
I uncapped it and took a swig quickly, feeling it burn the entire length of my throat and fall into my stomach like poison.
Everything that was wolf-like inside me ran away, leaving me, an exhausted woman in the depths of her grief, crumpled on the floor.
I started crying and I didn’t stop until Paco had herded me into his car.