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“He’s a proficient fighter. He has somewhere private, somewhere large that he can operate in. Could be a house, basement, rented facility. Finally, when you find him…ifyou find him, do not arrest him. His connections run too deep to be imprisoned. He’ll get out, then you’ll be next.”
“So, you’re saying…?”
“You have to kill him. You won’t escape the Diamonds alive, but you might as well take a few down with you.”
Ella went silent for a moment, taking it all in, ensuring this conversation wasn’t merely playing out in her head.
Still, she felt no fear, only determination. She might be unwillingly assuming the role of a suicide bomber, but if this was how it all ended, so be it.
“How did Robert know all this?”
“There were victims. Lots of them. At least a hundred over thirty plus years, all with diamonds carved into their skin. That’s his signature.”
“Was Robert sure about that? My dad didn’t have that.”
“That’s what you think. You’ll know the truth soon enough.” Clarissa’s voice broke and stuttered, choking among the rumbling engine of her vehicle. “I’ve already done too much. This is the last time we’ll speak on this. I need to go.”
Ella’s hands shook in frustration. The figure that plagued her nightmares had manifested itself into a real being, and the person on the other end of the phone had been within grabbing distance of him. She felt like she could see everything she wanted, only it was locked behind an impenetrable wall of glass. She thought about heading back home right now. Hell, evening running back home if that’s what it took.
“Wait, what about Robert’s files? This guy might be able to find me, but how do I find him first?”
“I’m sorry. I’m already risking everything for this. Good luck.”
The phone line went dead, the static hum that had filled her eardrums evaporating into nothingness, leaving her alone in the silence of her motel room.
What the hell was going on?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Abigail Cartwright fumbled with the lock on her front door, then tripped headfirst over the raised doorstep into her hallway. The frills on her blue maxi dress caught between her thighs, and she was sure she heard something rip at the shoulder.
She giggled at her own misfortune, then quickly realized that her friends had been right all along. Her emotions would be a whirlwind. She’d have peaks and valleys, but the change in her life would heighten some kind of feminine instinct, a trait that unlocked once you shed the man-shaped burden in your life: No one knew how to party quite like a newly single woman.
Abigail staggered towards the fridge and grabbed a bottle of mineral water, something to dilute the red wine in her stomach. It was a tragedy that she could count on one hand the times when she’d been this buzzed, because she’d spent the last five years adhering to her husband’s wants and needs. Even sadder was that she was barely into her mid-twenties, yet Abigail had barely experienced the archetypical life a young and vibrant woman should have. Her weekends had been marred by exhaustive cleaning operations, and her evenings had been a dull routine of cooking, dishwashing, and retiring to bed in front of trash television. It had all become tiresome by the age of twenty, but Abigail persisted for tradition’s sake. Now, Abigail had seen the light. If she didn’t get out of there soon, that would be her life until the day that God called her number.
Drowsiness came in a debilitating wave as Abigail sunk into her one-seater chair. The living room spun in an off-kilter rotation, bringing with it the sounds of the night that were amplified by her inebriation. She could hear water rushing through her pipes, could hear her neighbors marching around in the apartment below. She thought she heard someone knocking at her door, but it was after midnight and it wasn’t like her neighbors ever came to say hello. She put it down to a figment of her imagination, then went about sobering herself up before bed.
This was new territory for Abigail, because Alan never let her consume more than two glasses of wine in one sitting. Drunkenness wasn’t ladylike, he’d said. It was embarrassing, shameful, cheap self-indulgence. But now that Alan was gone, Abigail could do whatever she wanted, and she planned on making up for lost time. What had taken her so long to kick him out? How did she endure five years of misery only to wake up one day and decide enough was enough? Abigail had joked that it was the famous quarter-life crisis, but she knew deep down that fear had kept her attached to Alan for so long.
Fear of being alone, fear of not being able to afford single occupancy, fear of the grass not being as green as she hoped. He’d been her one and only love for her entire adult life, and so she feared that moving on wouldn’t be as simple as her friends made out.
But yesterday she’d discovered that the Mark Twain quote held true. You spend a lot of your life worrying about things and most of them never happen. Yesterday she’d met a kind gentleman who’d given her hope, and tonight had been a celebration of her new awareness. She and her date partner had shared life stories, and he’d listened intently and asked the right questions. Abigail had forgotten what it was like to have a two-way conversation with a man after spending so many years having orders barked at her. She could tell the guy was actually listening rather than engineering the quickest path to her bedroom. And the icing on the cake was his promise to surprise her when she least expected it.
Abigail had no idea what he meant, but she was happy to embrace the mystery. They’d exchanged phone numbers, and now she stared at her empty screen, willing a text message from her mysterious admirer to appear. It had been over twenty-four hours since they’d last spoken.
Nothing yet.
The cold water shocked her system back to life and the drowsiness faded. Abigail grabbed her laptop to take a deeper look into yesterday’s date, and she remembered he’d briefly mentioned that he was some kind of online personality. She searched for his name, and the first result was a weekly podcast by the name of Alpha By Design. Sure enough, the same guy’s chiseled face and gleaming white teeth stared back at her in the thumbnail, and he was even wearing the same shirt and jacket he’d had on last night.
Abigail clicked on the page, browsed through some of the episode titles. She had to chuckle to herself because they were outlandish, hammer-to-the-face levels of offensive. A part of her was a little taken aback, but it was clearly all parody. They were efforts in irony, a social dissection of the dating world through the lens of a caricature. She fondly recalled the guy’s weird sense of humor, where he’d compliment her then suddenly take it back.
Great figure,he’d said,how much did it cost your husband?
Abigail laughed it off. She hovered over theplaybutton on the newest episode, but something in the real world suddenly commanded her attention. Her pulse jumped up a few beats per minute in the wake of a loud crash from her kitchen. Abigail threw her laptop to one side, scrambled out of her chair, and edged around the corner of her living room towards the source of the boom. The blood rush made her dizzy, and she had to grab onto the doorframe for support. When the room stopped spinning, Abigail saw that a pile of dishes had collapsed from the kitchen surface into the sink.
Shards of ceramic were heaped like human bones. It was another first for Abigail, because she’d never let the dishes pile high enough for their weight to defy gravity.
But that wasn’t quite the case because a pair of glowing eyeballs shone from the corner of the room. Two glossy marbles widened to their limits.
