Scarlet Angel (4 page)

Scarlett looked down at her car sitting across the
street then at her phone. “Well, Rishabh, it’s getting late. I
better go.”

Rishabh stood and walked over and retrieved a dusty
shoebox from above his fridge. “Since you insist on knowing, I have
this.”

She took the box from him. “What is it?”

“
It’s just a few things I saved
from your apartment. I’m sorry to say that everything else is gone,
but we thought you were dead.”

Scarlett smiled at him. She reached out and hugged
the man. “That’s okay. I understand. Thank you for this, though.
And for the cup of tea and the talk. It means a lot.”

Rishabh walked over and opened the door to the
stairwell. “I would say that you need to keep in touch, but you
shouldn’t. Go home. Don’t come back. Be happy with who you are
now.”

She just smiled. “I’ll think about it. Bye,
Rishabh.”

He smiled back at her. “You take care.”

* * *

Scarlett turned the key in the ignition and the
little car’s engine sputtered to life. Warm air spewed forth from
the vents, making more sweat bead on her forehead. She always hated
it when she forgot to crack the windows.

She glanced over at the dusty box on the seat next
to her. She wanted to know what was inside but dreaded opening it.
Rishabh had been right. She was happy. Why did she need to look
into what appeared to be a troubled and unhappy past?

Scarlett thought about Ruby, Cash, Emma and the
kids. If her past was dangerous, it was better to just let it be.
The last thing she wanted was to endanger anyone in her new
family.

But what about my old family?
That thought
worried her. She must have had a mother and father in her past
life, people who cared about her. Wouldn’t they be happy to see her
too? Or would the dangers of her own history come back to haunt
them as well?

No matter how much she wanted to know about her
former life and the people it involved, she could not escape the
thought of putting them in peril. Even people barely connected to
her like Rishabh and Frank in apartment F, with his ramblings about
Mr. Crow, could get hurt. If there was any chance of that, she had
to avoid it.

Scarlett came to a decision. She glanced at the box
one last time.

Someday I’ll open you up. But not today.

Chapter 5
Whiskey Breath

It’s funny how when you make up your mind, the
universe has a way of yanking you right back on the path it wants
you on.

* * *

Scarlett’s car slowed to a stop in front of the
house she shared with Ruby. The voice of the vehicle’s computer
driver made her look up from her commpad. “Destination arrived.
Choose alternate parking location.”

She looked up to see a red minivan in her usual spot
and sighed.
Dammit, Cash.
She thought it was annoying. He
thought it was funny. He would even jokingly claim that he was
there first.

“
Just park against the
curb.”

The car pulled up to the curb. Across the street,
she noticed a vehicle she’d not seen before. The mostly primer-grey
sedan was once a creamy yellow but now threatened to leave chunks
of rust on the asphalt. With its squared design, she guessed it to
be at least thirty years old, probably even before autodrive was
standard.

Given the strange events at Universal Dynamic and
her conversation with Rishabh, the unfamiliar car made her wary.
Scarlett looked down one side of the street then the other. The
late afternoon shadows toyed with her imagination, hinting at men
in dark suits lurking in the dark spots.

Her heart rate quickened. Panic crept in at the
edges of her mind until she caught herself. She took in a deep
breath and exhaled slowly.
I’m being paranoid. It probably
belongs to a friend of the neighbors.

Inside the house, everything was quiet. Quieter than
usual. There was a news vid playing and no chatter from the
kitchen, where Ruby and Cash usually talked. Her keys jingled and
she silenced them.

“
Ruby? Cash? Hello?”

Scarlett stepped deeper into the living room. A
million thoughts ran through her mind. Ruby had grown fragile in
the five years Scarlett had known her. If no one was there, maybe
they were at the hospital.

Finally, Cash’s voice came from the other room. “In
the kitchen, Scarlett.”

Fear gripped her chest. Something was wrong. There
was slight quiver in his voice, despite his attempt at sounding
upbeat. She also noticed that he used her full first name instead
of her nickname, Scar.

An image of the beat-up car across the street
flashed in her mind.
What the hell is going on?

If something was wrong but Cash was trying to hide
it, then they must be in real trouble. She kept her own voice light
and casual to play along. “Oh, okay. Be there in a sec. Just want
to put my purse down.”

She let her handbag slide from her shoulder and land
on the couch cushion. Scarlett glanced around for anything she
could use as a weapon. Her eyes locked onto a fire poker with a
wicked hook. Her feet glided across the wood floor without a sound
as she retrieved the weapon.

Scarlett considered kicking the door in but she
needed to know what was going on inside first. She approached the
swinging door and peeked through the tiny gap. Ruby sat on a tall
stool with her hands behind her back. To the older woman’s right,
Scarlett saw Cash’s shoulder. His arms were also pulled back.

She angled to see more of the room when something
blocked her view. Scarlett flung her arm up just as the door burst
open. The corner of the swinging door smashed into her forearm and
threw her backward.

Her back slammed to the floor. She rolled with the
impact and bounded back up. Five years of self-defense training
kicked in and she crouched to lunge at her attacker.

The large figure filled her field of view. The
barrel of a small gun aimed at her face made her heart skip a beat
and she froze.

Her vision followed the gun back to the hand, along
the arm and up to her attacker’s face. The man’s unshaven cheeks
were pockmarked with scars and sores from years of fighting and
drug use. But it was his voice that turned her heart cold. “Hello,
Jillian.”

The moment the scratchy words grated from his lips,
Scarlett knew who he was. This was the man who had tried to kill
her five years ago.

Vertigo swept over Scarlett and her knees gave out.
She felt herself falling and heard the man’s words echo in her
mind. His voice triggered a cascade of terror-filled memories from
that night. The pain, the penetration, his weight on top of her...
But most of all, she remembered the man’s rancid
whiskey-breath.

“
You.” The words choked in her
throat.

“
It’s been a few years, ain’t it.
You’s done pretty good, considerin’ yer ‘spose t’be
dead.”

Scarlett struggled to find her voice. Fear paralyzed
her throat and dried her mouth. Finally she choked out a few words.
“What... what do you want?”

The man lunged forward and grabbed her blouse,
lifting her back to her feet. Forgotten, the fire-poker fell to the
floor with a clang. “What I want? What I want?” The man shouted at
her, his voice growing in pitch. “I want’cha dead! Yer s’posed
t’die five years ago. Now, if I don’ fix that, they’s gonna’ kill
me. And ain’t nobody killin’ me!”

The powerful fist flung Scarlett to the side and
over the couch. She sailed through the air, her arms flailing. Her
body slammed into the floor, hard. Her ears rang from the impact
and her head swam.

The man landed next to her with a loud thump and
seized her hair. He yanked her up and slammed her into the mirror
hanging on the wall. The mirror and the wall behind it fractured,
sending glass and drywall dust onto the console table below.

Scarlett struggled to breathe as the man spoke, but
the impact knocked the wind from her lungs. “Now, I’m gonna’ finish
the job, just like I started.”

The man shoved his pistol into his waistband. His
hand closed around her neck and held her against the wall. Powerful
fingers gripped her throat and cut off the trickle of air she had
been able to get.

Scarlett knew what came next. The memory of the last
time he choked her flashed in her mind. This time there would be no
second chance; he would make sure she was dead.

She reached for the man’s face, but his arms were
longer than hers. Just like before, her arms thrashed about,
reaching for anything. Her chest shook with convulsions, trying
desperately to get air. She looked into the man’s eyes and felt the
sick pleasure and rage that filled them.

Her vision blurred from the tears and her lungs
burned. All she could think about was what would happen to Cash and
Ruby when he was done with her.

Darkness crept in on the edges of her vision until
she could only see the man’s face. But the blackness did not stop.
It continued to swallow the world. In that last moment before
everything was gone, something inside Scarlett snapped.

She refused to be the victim again. Scarlett had no
idea why this man wanted her dead, but that did not matter anymore.
As she felt her consciousness begin to fade, she also felt a fire
ignite in her chest.

Scarlett’s fingers closed on the brass shaft of a
candlestick sitting on the table. She swung her hand up hard and
felt the impact of her weapon against the side of the man’s
head.

In the black of near unconsciousness, the grip on
her throat disappeared. The candlestick slipped from her fingers
and clattered to the floor. A second later, she followed.

Scarlett landed on her hands and knees and gasped
for air. Pain ripped through her chest as the oxygen-starved
muscles struggled for every molecule. Her neck burned with each
breath she took in and every cough she hacked out.

She struggled against the void. All she could hear
was the pounding of her own heart, the ragged sounds of her labored
breaths and the dry hacking of her coughs. After a few minutes, her
heart slowed and her breathing became almost normal. Between
coughs, she heard Cash’s and Ruby’s muffled shouts from the other
room.

A fresh round of agony tore through her throat when
she spoke “It’s okay... I’m okay, I think.”

She opened her eyes and blinked away tears. A few
feet away, she saw her assailant lying on the ground with his eyes
closed.

Scarlett climbed to her feet and was gripped by a
new kind of terror. Surrounding the man’s head was a growing pool
of blood.

Chapter 6
The First

What is murder? Is it the taking of an innocent
life? Is it killing a scumbag who really deserved it? Even if he
killed you first?

* * *

Scarlett stared at the motionless body lying face
down on the floor. She thought it funny that she would notice the
man’s grimy plaid shirt, stained jeans and sweat-soaked hair.
Looking over the body, she realized she didn’t even know the name
of the man she just killed.

Or did I?

Her attacker’s back rose and fell in shallow
breaths. He was alive.

Relief and disappointment rushed over her. She
didn’t want to kill anyone, even though she wanted him dead.
Scarlett could not reconcile those two feelings.

A low moan escaped from the man’s lips. His hand
twitched and Scarlett sprang into action. She reached down, pulled
the small pistol from his waistband, and shoved it into her
own.

Scarlett marched out of the room and into the
kitchen. Ruby and Cash sat against the far wall, still bound to
their chairs with gags in their mouths. “Are you guys okay?”

The two mumbled their confirmations.

She ran over to Cash and fumbled with the knots
holding his wrists. After a few moments, the rope loosened and came
undone. Once Cash’s hands were free, Scarlett moved to the sink.
“Help her out, please. I need to take care of something.” Scarlett
filled a glass of water and left the room.

Back in the living room, Scarlett grabbed her
attacker by his greasy shirt and yanked him onto his back. She
reached down and lifted one eyelid to see only white.

She set the glass on the narrow table nearby.
Oh
no you don’t.
With a strength she did not know she had, she
seized the man’s shirt and lifted him to his feet. Scarlett slammed
him into the wall where he’d held her just moments ago.

She grabbed the glass of water and splashed it
across the man’s face He sputtered a breath. “What the hell?”

Scarlett shoved the man against the wall, sending
more drywall to the floor. “Who sent you?”

His eyes crossed for a moment then he focused on her
face. “What?”

“
I said ‘Who sent
you’!”

The man smiled faintly and closed his eyes. “Piss
off.”

Scarlett pulled the man away from the wall and
shoved him into the depression again. “Tell me.”

“
Why? He’s gonna kill me
anyway.”

He?
Scarlett felt the wind fall from her
sails.

Her grip relaxed. The intruder took advantage of her
distraction and thrust his arms up. Scarlett’s hands came free. She
stumbled back enough to let the man’s wild haymaker miss her nose
by a few inches.

Scarlett’s martial arts training kicked in again. In
her mind, she saw the moves play out. She guided his passing hand
and pushed it, spinning him more than he intended. Taking advantage
of his unbalanced state, she stepped up to him and brought her
elbow across the man’s cheek. He crumpled to the floor.

She knelt down beside him. “Who sent you?”

His eyes flickered as he struggled to stay awake.
“Why should I tell you?”

Scarlett was not sure what made her say her next
words, they just seemed to flow from her lips. “Because I’ll kill
you quickly. You can bet they won’t be so nice.”