Between Darkness and Daylight (35 page)

He wielded the log overhead again, brought it down with all his might,
hoping he didn't catch his mother with the force of the blow.

Splat!

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243

Wow, that one sounded squishy, like he'd gotten past the skull to the
gray matter. He didn't even feel sick when he thought about it, enjoying
the moment too much to be horrified. The adrenaline was rushing through
his veins, warming his insides like hot cocoa on a really cold day. Nah,
make that whiskey. He knew he wasn't legally old enough to have it, years
and years too young, but he wanted it. He deserved a drink, after this!

Mommy struggled beneath her husband’s bulk, managed to push off
his dead weight until the man tumbled to the floor beside her.

"Ricky! Ricky, you can stop now!"

Enrique hadn't even realized he'd raised the log one more time. He
stared into his mother's eyes and smiled, unable to hide his glee. He felt
like DeNiro as Al Capone in
The Untouchables,
when he'd bashed in that
guy's head at that fancy dinner table. This was just like that; he had a
score to settle and was all business. Well, maybe not all business. A lot of
this was personal. He wanted the bastard dead. Dead, dead, dead!

He brought the wood down on the back of his father's skull one more
gut-satisfying time.

Splash!

Enrique thought maybe that was the last straw for his mom and that
she would tell the police he had murdered her husband.

She didn't. Instead, she gave a statement to the effect that he had acted
in self-defense. He knew she hadn't meant it, that she knew the truth.

His age and other mitigating circumstances, namely all the bruises he
and his mother sported, got Enrique off with a song.

But his mother wasn't as forgiving as the juvenile justice system.

Enrique went home after an endless round of police interrogation to
discover she'd had the locks on the apartment changed. The final injustice
had been her treating him like an escaped convict, refusing him entry, and
talking at him through the door as if he were a Jehovah's Witness
.

"You went too far, Ricky. You shouldn't have done that."

"But Mommy, he was hurting you." Good excuse, his defense, and
dammit, it was the best. Justifiable homicide. And the police and court
agreed.

But his mother wasn't going for it. She knew better.

"You killed your father, Ricky. God will never forgive you for that."

244

Gracie C. McKeever

Forgive him? Who cared about God forgiving him? God had never
done anything for him or his mother, had only let his father batter them
and his other sons until he was too tired to raise a hand anymore to them.

Who cared about
God?
Not Enrique, no way; he had better things to do
than worry about his mother's freaking
God.

He pounded the door, paused for a moment and listened to his mom
whimpering on the other side.

Was she
crying
over that bastard!

"Go away, Enrique. I don't ever want to see you again. You
killed
your
father!"

"Mommy, please…"

"You're not my son anymore!"

Stunned, he stood staring at the door for several long moments, sure
his mother looked back at him through the peephole.

He'd saved her lousy life and this was the thanks he got?

Enrique pounded the door several more times, kicked it, too, for good
measure, and felt a supreme sense of satisfaction coursing through his
veins when he heard his mother gasp behind the door.

"Go
away,
Enrique, or I'll call the police!"

He turned from the door, cursing her as he lurched towards the stairs
to leave. He should have let the old man kill her. The ungrateful bitch.

* * * *

They were all the same; ungrateful bitches, biting the hand that fed them. Frenchie, too, turning her back on him, taking his kids and leaving without a backwards glance or good-bye.

He might yet take her back, once he showed her who was boss and made her pay for leaving him. But no way would he let her get away with treating him like an unworthy pariah or let her defection go completely unpunished.

He knew it wasn't all her fault. His Frenchie had a soft heart, too soft, and she gave Mr. Caseworker—the system, everyone except him—the benefit of the doubt.

Didn't she understand that everyone was against them, that they only wanted to keep him from her and the kids, to destroy their family unit?

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Didn't she know that he was the only one she could trust, the only one she
should
trust? Just as he trusted her—with his life, with his soul, with his heart…with his history.

Enrique smiled now when he remembered Frenchie's reaction to his story.

They'd been married two years and were sharing a quiet moment of pillow talk after a hot session of lovemaking.

He'd seen the uncertainty in her eyes when he told her about what had happened between him and his dad, her doubt about the validity of his tale. He'd seen the horror at her realization that she had gotten herself involved with someone who had a more mysterious and dangerous past than she could have ever imagined, a past more deadly and violent than fanciful and romantic.

She'd been so easy to read, her feelings too obvious, and he'd enjoyed seeing her fear, her doubt, reveled in them as she’d digested the fact that she had been sleeping with a killer all this time.

Oh, she'd tried to console him, had talked a good game with the right words of reassurance and understanding—
You did what you had
to…It wasn’t your fault…Your mother shouldn't have blamed you.
But Enrique knew that deep down, she was afraid of him and wondering what she
could do to get out of their marriage.

He ensured leaving him would be a doubly difficult proposition when he got her pregnant for the second time with his son, Ricky.

He'd already coaxed her into getting pregnant with Angela much sooner than she'd wanted, using all his powers of persuasion to convince her that she really wanted to be a young mother, that she looked forward to motherhood as much as he looked forward to fatherhood.

Don't you want a little one? It'll bring us closer together. I want to
raise a houseful of little girls that look just like you and little boys that
look just like me.

He was good, and he knew it. He'd gotten her to marry him after all, gotten her to slow down with the club hopping and girls' nights out. Soon, he'd convinced her that she didn't need to visit her parents so often, that he was all she needed, the only one who cared about her.

The last was especially true. No one could care about his Frenchie as much as he did, and if anyone said they did, they were lying.

246

Gracie C. McKeever

She was all he needed, and he was all she needed; he made her believe this, because it was true. He'd trusted her with his biggest secret, and she'd accepted it, and him, and given him his little girl and his little boy.

Everything would have been fine if she hadn't let her no-men-having, busybody girlfriends fill her head with ideas and lies about him, about how badly he treated her and how isolated she was. Didn't she want back her freedom and old life?

He'd walked in on one of the man-bashing-fests; Frenchie's girls were bad-mouthing him under his own roof! They'd all quieted down—five seconds too slow—and prepared to leave, begging off because of the late hour.

One by one, they kissed Frenchie on their way out, leaving

inspirational
be strong and hang in there
messages in their wake. All in his face, like he wasn't even there! And probably plotting for the next time when they would all hook up to brainwash her against her him.

Some had the decency to avert their eyes as they filed past him, mumbling good-nights, the whole bunch of them hard-up, frigid, lesbian bitches, all of whom Frenchie needed to stay away from.

There'd been one girlfriend in particular—she’d told Frenchie she needed to leave him—to whom he'd later sent a special message and taken care of in his own way, but good.

He and Frenchie had gotten into a big argument over The Mouth, as Enrique referred to the girlfriend, and when Frenchie jumped to her friend's defense, arguing that she would go out and hang with her friends whenever she liked, he'd hit her in the mouth. Up until then, he'd had a pretty clean track record with her, impressing himself with his self-control.

Since Frenchie had always been so mouthy and willful, he told himself it had just been a matter of time before he'd laid his hands on her.

Initially, he'd been contrite, had apologized and told her he'd never do it again. Frenchie accepted his apology, but he'd known he was lying even as he begged for her forgiveness. He'd known because it had felt too good to feel her soft flesh give beneath the force of his hand. It felt too good to give in to the impulse.

Over the years, she'd left him, staying at her parents' house or with various girlfriends—for a night, maybe a couple of days, but never more—and she’d always come back. She’d had no choice. No one wanted
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to risk his wrath, and no one had the time for her drama; they all had dramas of their own. She needed to take care of her own business, they all told her.

And as far as he was concerned, Frenchie's business was staying at home, keeping house for the family, servicing her husband often and well in bed, and taking care of his kids. That was it, end of story. That was all he asked for.

More and more, Enrique came to sympathize with his father, to understand what the old man had wanted from his boys and his wife, all those years ago: simple appreciation and respect.

He figured that wasn't too much for a hard-working man and provider to ask.

But more and more, he got neither appreciation nor respect from Frenchie, until it was all he could do not to knock her teeth down her throat just to shut up the complaining. Even when she got the message and didn't open her mouth to complain verbally, her eyes followed him around the house, condemning his actions, condemning his existence, all low and puny from her martyr's perch, looking down-and-out defeated like a trapped animal.

She didn't fool him. Not then or now.

He'd let her enjoy her freedom for the moment, enjoy her good time with family and friends. But soon he would let her know that he was back in her life…to stay.

248

Gracie C. McKeever

Chapter 22

Nova woke in a cold sweat, tangled in her bed linen like a dolphin caught in a fisherman's net. Claustrophobic, she struggled to unwrap herself, desperate for freedom. Desperate to get away from the nightmare!

Finally kicking away the covers, she lurched from the bed. Yo-Yo barked restlessly and dogged her steps as she staggered to the bedroom window for a whiff of fresh air. Despite the season, she threw the window open wide and stuck out her head, gulping down large doses of outside air until she had her fill, until she was sure the cold and consciousness had chased away the evil—so much blood, so much rage.

She walked back to the queen-size bed with Yo-Yo panting at her heels. Picking up her robe from one of the bottom posts of her bed, she threw it on and tied the sash. Usually, she didn't bother with the nicety, since she wore pajamas and socks to bed no matter the temperature and was the only one in the house. But something about that nightmare inspired modesty, the need to cover up and protect herself any way she could. She felt strangely violated.

Nova went downstairs to the kitchen to make herself a cup of hot chocolate and sat at the counter glossing over magazines and catalogues she hadn't had the time to read before as the milk warmed in the microwave. When the buzzer sounded, she retrieved her cup, blowing on it before stirring a few teaspoonfuls of Ovaltine.

When she returned to her barstool at the counter, Yo-Yo got up on his hind legs and put his forepaws in her lap.

"Begging, Yo-Yo? I'm ashamed of you." She laughed as the retriever barked, no shame in his game, staring at her dead-on and waiting for his share. “Sorry, boy, you can’t have this, but I’ve got something else for you to nosh on if you’re interested.”

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Nova reached for the dog treats she had on the counter and twisted off the top beneath Yo-Yo’s excited gaze. When she took out a biscuit he barked loudly, panting and wagging his tail. “You’d think it
was
chocolate,” she said as she tossed the biscuit in the air and Yo-Yo jumped to catch it in his mouth.

He'd practically inhaled it by the time Nova bent to ruffle his dense coat and hand-feed him another one. “You are so easy to please, Yo-Yo.

Mommy loves you.”

He was a good dog, and more than a companion; he was a comfort and a protector especially during times like now. But he couldn't be or do what she ultimately wanted him to. He wasn't a man who could wrap his strong arms around her and tell her everything was going to be okay.

Scratch that; not just any man, but Zane.

Could she tell even Zane, with whom she shared such an intimate bond, about that nasty nightmare? Could she explain the danger in three-dimensional terms when most of her feelings about it were abstract, yet no less certain?

I'm not saying I'm totally convinced...

That statement alone answered all her questions with its

discouragement.

He still didn't believe her, and she wondered what it would take to make Zane see what she saw, make him understand the urgency of his situation the way she did. How could she make him understand that some psychopath with a grudge was out there gunning for him? Out there, somewhere nearby, waiting.