Good Girl, Dead Girl (Valencia Lamb Book 1), page 23
“My god.” I gasp. “You killed her.”
Portia lifts her chin. “Yes, I killed Gracia Cuoco.”
Acid builds in my throat. Her confession is poison coating everything with the bitter tang of hatred.
My breathing is accelerating, hyperventilating, despite the arms I have wrapped around my chest. Black spots gather at the edges of my sight and I try vainly to blink them away. They won’t budge, creeping every closer to the center of my vision and making it harder to focus. “But it was an accident? If you had explained it, surely McCandles would’ve--”
My best friend runs a hand down her long braid. “Oh, come on, Valencia. I went to the casino that night to confront Gracia. I lit Leif’s car on fire. It wouldn’t have mattered that I hadn’t planned it. I killed her. There was nothing I could do after that.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she ignores me, keeps spewing her macabre truth. “Gramps helped me clean up the room so there wasn’t any evidence I’d been there. He had me hide in another room down the hall while he went to the security room and erased the video feeds.”
My hearing tunnels. Everything is happening miles away and under water. “That’s why Leif was on the videos,” I mutter. “When McCandles asked, he gave them the previous week’s footage.”
Portia nods. “Leif came back when we were in the middle of cleaning up, and Gramps pulled a gun on him. You should have seen how calm, how in control he was.”
“I may be old, but I’ve still got it,” Gus says over Portia’s shoulder, dragging my attention to his wrinkled face. I’d forgotten he was in the room, but his granddaughter hadn’t. She looks up at him with such a tender expression, I could throw up right on her scroll-socked feet.
My hands flap, but it doesn’t calm me down. “Uh, um… I don’t understand how you got Leif to dispose of the body? Wouldn’t he have called the sheriff on you or something?”
Portia rubs at an eyebrow. “And work with the people who had just put his dad away? No. Plus, Gramps may have implied that if Leif said anything, he’d have someone in jail take care of his dad. People expect prison guards to be dirt bags, so why not use their ignorance, eh?”
Knees buckling, I brace an arm against the side of the couch to keep myself upright. Denial beats a loud rhythm in my head, drowning out everything else. I try to focus on Portia and mostly fail. I’m going down, the only question is when.
“My dad… how did he…?” My tongue is sluggish and thick in my mouth, unable to form the words I want to hurl at my former best friend.
Portia’s expression flattens. There’s a flicker of something--maybe sadness--in her eyes for a second before it’s gone. Clearing her throat, she looks over her shoulder at Gus.
I try again, willing her attention back to me. I have to know. “My dad. His disappearance, it’s tied to this, right? Tell me. Please.”
A sharp blade eviscerates my insides when Gus gives his granddaughter a nod. I’ve seen that nod before. I know and fear it. It’s the sort of chin dip law enforcement officials give each other before they deliver bad news. I am intimately familiar with that nod. It’s a small gesture, and it’s the stuff nightmares are made of. My eyes water.
Gus’s words utterly destroy me. “Once we were done cleaning up the room so there wouldn’t be anything that tied the crime back to my grandbaby, I used a burner to call in and tell the dispatch there was something under the Copper Street Bridge. Your dad radioed that he was on his way, and I met him there. Your dad was whip smart. He knew immediately that Gracia had been killed elsewhere. He realized pretty quickly that she must have been hurt at the casino, because he knew that’s where she’d been all evening. He put it together in a blink. That’s when I knew what I had to do. See, people underestimate old folks. They don’t expect them to act violently. I used that to my advantage. I asked to ride to the resort with your dad, and once we were alone on the road, I shot him. Blasted Bronco ran into a tree.” The rough scrape of a throat-clearing cough rakes over my body, making me shudder.
Holding onto consciousness by a fraying thread, I drop to my knees. The pads of my fingers dig into my stomach, trying uselessly to control the bucking in my tummy. Through the buzzing in my ears, I barely manage to ask, “Where is he?”
My vision is so dark I can’t hardly see, but I think Gus pats Portia on the shoulder. Steps around her to point something shiny and cylindrical at me. A gun.
His wide, open stance fades with the last of my sight. “I promise to take care of your mom after you’re gone, girlie. It’s a shame. I always liked you. You were like a granddaughter to me, but blood has to come first. If you want, I’ll take you to your daddy. You can rest with him, if that pleases you?”
Gus doesn’t see the canister of pepper spray until it’s too late. My fingers grip the bottle as it slides out of my hoodie pocket. Lifting it, I aim at Gus, knowing I don’t stand a chance if I can’t immobilize him long enough to get that gun aimed away from my chest. Screaming, I try to depress the trigger. It won’t, why isn’t it…?
Chest heaving, I try again and again to depress the trigger, but the signals my brain is sending aren’t reaching my fingers. The canister drops to the carpet.
“I’ll take you to him,” Gus says again.
Not Going Out Like That
Pitch dark. A low rumble of road noise. Words murmured too low to hear.
Jostling rocks my body in a cramped, gritty space. A long metal box, big enough for my limbs curled inward, but too short for me to sit up. Have I been buried alive? The dregs of the pizza I ate at Portia’s turn my stomach, threatening to come up and paint the interior of my prison with spiced, acidic half-masticated pepperonis. The merciless, severing edge of panic splices my breaths, but I beat it back. Shielding my wits from the fraying blade before I do something stupid like hyperventilate. I squint into the dark. There is literally nothing to see. Not even my hair brushing over my eyes.
Tight cords lashed around my ankles bar any movement. Ties lynched around my wrists further restrict, but they aren’t so tight that they bite my skin. I jerk as the box entombing me is driven over a pothole. Okay, not buried alive. Bound and stuffed into a restrictive, coffin-like box.
Robbed of vision, I have to rely on other senses. There’s the scent of gasoline. A caustic odor of steel and rubber.
Pulling my legs inward, I thrust them out, heels first. My soles clang against the metal sides of the tiny cell. Definitely not the trunk of Portia’s car. Not enough flower crowns or spare water bottles rolling around.
I will not cry. I. Will. Not. Cry.
Blinking to dry my eyes, I squint. This could be the giant toolbox Gus welded into the bed of his pickup. Must be.
The truck hits an incline and I roll to the back of the tool chest, hitting my forehead against its unyielding siding. Tires work against the soft, sandy hill. Where in town could we be…?
We’re driving up onto one of the levies.
Everyone in Hacienda has heard about the aqueduct’s cavernous, unending appetite. When people decide to swim in the deceptively strong currents, they drown.
Twenty years ago, a girl watched her best friend drown in one of the levies, and now I’m being held hostage by my supposed best friend. A girl who has been lying to my face, despite the undeniable fact that she knew my dad was innocent of Gracia’s murder. A girl who felt such a strong emotional craving for Destin that she became a murderer. Now that my digging has unearthed her blackened heart, should I be surprised she’s willing to destroy me to protect herself?
And Gus. My heart threatens to split down the middle, even though my honorary grandpa’s villainy is plain. He admitted to my face that he watched Portia murder Gracia over the casino security feed. That he destroyed the footage so his beloved granddaughter’s transgressions would be buried. The old man’s love for Portia colored all of his actions--he covered up a violent crime and committed one of his own. A man I’ve admired all my life revealed his slip from the high ground.
I don’t know what to do with that.
Maybe being blindsided by this is partly my fault. All my life I’ve seen people’s actions in stark black and white. It was easy to categorize every little thing in one of those two boxes. But in the past few months, the people I love have revealed shades of gray that I can’t ignore.
My own father, a man I admired with my whole heart, used a teenage girl to gather information about possible criminal activity at the resort. He knew she was returning to a dangerous situation, and didn’t stop her.
Portia, Rock, and even Gus allowed different forms of love to lead them into wrong decisions. These people I used to think were wholly on the good side turn out to be far from perfect. People, it turns out, make big mistakes, despite good intentions. And sometimes, even their intentions aren’t so great.
I swallow the tight ball that crawls up my throat. If I don’t find a way out of this, my mom will lose her last remaining family member tonight. She won’t ever know what happened to me. It would be so easy for Portia to say I left her house and disappeared at some point between there and my own home. With Gus assisting, they’ll get away with it. Their warped actions devour as they ripple outward, affecting more and more people as time passes.
First Gracia and her family, then Rock and Leif, and then my dad and mom. The wave swells as it towers over me, threatening to push me under and keep me from ever cresting the surface.
I won’t let it take me. Squeezing my eyes shut, I feel along the box’s seams for anything I can use to get out. Nothing but smooth, unbroken steel runs under the pads of my fingers. Balling fists, I shove them into my eye sockets.
I’ll take you to him, Gus said. If he was telling the truth, he’s taking me to my dad’s final resting place. My gut churns, thinking about the old man getting the drop on my dad while the two rode in the Bronco that used to shelter in my driveway. Gus pulling a personal firearm and shooting my father in cold blood. In those split seconds, did my father realize he had been betrayed by a man who mentored his entire law enforcement career? Did he know he was living out his final minutes? During the space between heartbeats, when his lifeblood ebbed from his body, he must have known. Must have wished with everything in him that he could say goodbye to Mom and me while recognizing he’d never get the chance.
I’m not going out like that, without saying goodbye. Setting my jaw, I push up to a crouch with slick palms braced on the toolbox’s walls.
Brakes whine as the truck stops, rocking back before settling. Doors slam, mirroring the hammering of my heart in my panting chest. Footsteps crunch over gravel.
Moonlight floods my prison when the lid opens. Stars litter the sky, rendering Gus’s flurry of white hair in silhouette. “Climb out slowly, and don’t do anything funny,” he orders.
After our argument back at the house, I don’t have anything to say to the man I considered a grandparent, but who turned out to be an all-too-willing grim reaper.
I push to a stand, but my muscles complain, lightning shooting up my legs. My palms grip the sharp edge of the tool chest to steady myself. The metal cuts into my flesh as I sit, holding on with my tied hands so I can pivot to stand in the truck bed.
The aqueduct stretches out behind and before, a water highway cutting through the fields in the gray-hued night. To one side, a picked-over pumpkin field. On the other, the deceptive placidity of the levy’s waters.
“This is where you brought him?” I mumble, unable to tear my eyes away from the rippling water.
In my peripheral vision, Gus’s legs are planted wide, hands notched on emaciated hips.
There is a macabre poetry about it--that I will share my dad’s final resting place. That our bodies will share this stretch of man-made river that feeds farmland all across the valley. I sniff as my eyes mist. He deserved so much more than to become worm food. Despite the secrets he kept, the hard calls he made as an upholder of our laws, he was a good man. A good father. I hope my mom knows that, holds onto it without any doubts. Even if she never hears the story of our deaths.
“Jump down,” Gus orders quietly, gun trained on me. “I meant what I said about funny business. I don’t want to shoot you, girlie, but I will if I have to.”
I look past him to where Portia hovers in his shadow. For all of my life, I thought I had a safe place with these two. Guess not.
Gritting my teeth, I squat and jump to the ground. Dust puffs around my shoes as I tighten my core in an effort not to topple over.
My gaze answers involuntarily when an engine calls from a distance. Bright headlights flare in the dark, far enough away yet to make seeing the car’s frame or detail impossible. The vehicle bumps along a dirt road between fields. Definitely barreling toward our position.
Portia yelps a curse. “Someone’s coming.”
“Get the fishing poles out of the truck,” Gus says, too close.
I don’t turn in time to see his aged hands shove me roughly down the bank toward the blackened water. Rocks and sticks tear at my clothes, puncture my skin, rip viciously at my hair.
Churning water swallows me with a splash. Muffled quiet fills my ears as I sink to the levy bed. Icy liquid wraps its gripping hands around my chest, stealing my air. Snow fills my brain. I can’t breathe. The current tugs at my limbs, dragging me along the rough floor. Throwing my eyes open, all is darkness. Pale gray flashes nearby. A skull. No, a rock. I’m pulled past it before I can take it in.
At least my dad was dead by the time his body hit the water. A headshot from Gus’s gun from inside the Bronco’s cab would have killed him instantly.
The tide’s movement changes, rippling toward me as something snakes around my body, wrapping me in a tight embrace. “No,” I scream, squirming and kicking to free myself from the water plants that drag me to the levy’s base. Planting my feet against the bottom, I fight to slow my momentum. Grapple for something--anything--I can use to cut my bonds.
Pain slices into my palm, but still I close my fingers around a jagged stone. Struggling against a forbidding current, I hack at the rope around my ankles. My cheeks flare out, begging for air. My lungs burn from the inside out.
The tie snaps. I rocket upward.
My muscles yearn for a rest as I combat the water with restrained hands. Frigid air smacks my skin as my head breaks the surface. A shout penetrates the water streaming from my ears. An arm, warm and solid wraps around my waist, pulling me toward the steeply inclined side. Excited barking comes from above.
I gasp, gulping life-giving oxygen. Blink the water out of my burning eyes as my lungs fill. Coughing and spluttering, I lean into the comfort of arms leading out of the water. Strong, lithe arms anchoring me in place as irrigation water eddies around our legs.
“Val, Val, look at me. You okay? I got you. I got you.” Destin’s pale blue eyes are locked on mine, water dripping from his blond lashes. Shuddering uncontrollably, I sag against him, wishing my hands were free to wrap around his steady presence and never let go. A sob splits my lips.
“I got you,” he whispers against the crown of my head. A wave sloshes around our calves, and Destin’s grip tightens. “Let’s get you out of here.” With careful steps, he pulls us both up the angled bank.
“You saved me,” I force out past my chattering teeth. “I guess all that time in the water paid off.”
His chin digs into my hair. “‘Course I did. You’re all I’ve got.”
I press as close as possible to my last friend standing. “You have me.” My eyes press shut against his sodden graphic shirt, but I can hear others scrambling down the levy’s side to splash on either side of us.
From above, another short, clear bark. Bert is there, a jittery streak of white dusted with the moon’s glow.
“Here, I’ll take her.” Sheriff McCandles wades a couple steps closer, gently prying me from Destin’s grasp. I’m trembling and overwhelmed as he and Deputy Sykes assist me up the embankment and cut through the ties to free my hands. I hiss at the ache in my wrists and ankles as they adjust to freedom.
McCandles runs careful hands over my limbs to check for injuries. Once he sees I’m fine, he chuckles. “You sure get in a lot of trouble. No wonder your dad warned the entire department about you.”
“And you’ve got pretty good timing.”
The sheriff tips his head.
Sykes gives Destin a quick once-over, too, before my friend moves to my side again.
McCandles waves an arm, and Kelley jogs over, flashlight strapped to her forehead. She wraps a blanket each around Destin and me.
Activity overtakes the aqueduct’s brim. Radios squawk. Car engines live and die. I catch a glimpse of my former best friend and former favorite old person being loaded into the back of a squad car. Portia turns her tear-stained face in our direction before the car begins its descent toward the road.
“How did you find me?” My eyes bounce between the sheriff and Destin as he guides us toward his truck.
McCandles rests a hand on Destin’s shoulder. “You have persistent friends. Janice Hill came tearing into the station yelling that Portia took the video of the Agani boys disposing of the body. She insisted you were in danger, that you weren’t responding to calls or messages.”
Huh. Janice. She probably did that so she’d still get her exclusive. I find myself smiling a little.
McCandles keeps talking. “Then Destin here comes into the station with the same story. Neither you nor Portia were responding to his texts. One of my deputies said the only car missing from her house was Gus’s truck. Then Des here remembered he had both of you on that Find My Cell app on his phone. I put it together when the damn thing showed both of you here at the levy.”
