Murderfunding, p.22
#MurderFunding, page 22
“Murders? You’re acting like they were serial killers or something.” Um, wasn’t that just the argument you were having with yourself, Becks? Clearly, Becca wasn’t ready to accept that her mom killed all those people for no reason. Ruth must have believed in the justice of what she was doing. The prisoners on Alcatraz 2.0 were convicted killers, the worst humanity had to offer. They deserved their fates. “My mom executed prisoners.”
Stef’s face was red, her cheeks still wet, and anger spilled from every pore as she shoved her finger in Becca’s face. “Your mom was a criminal. Just ask Cinderella Survivor.”
“Who was a convicted killer.”
The redness drained from Stef’s face, her features rigid with pain as if she’d just been punched in the gut. “You’re the same as they are.”
“I’m their daughter!”
Stef stumbled backward out of the bathroom. “I thought you were different.”
Becca turned her back on Stef, squeezing her eyes shut. You’re more like your mom than you realize. Becca had experienced what it was like to be the victim of a Painiac. She’d watched people die—colleagues, friends. She wasn’t like that. She wasn’t one of them. And yet there she was, defending her mom’s actions. Maybe Stef was right?
She glanced into the hallway, looking for Stef, but she had already returned to the kitchen. Becca wanted to go to her. To say she was sorry. But what was she sorry for? The words that she’d said? What she really wanted to apologize for was who she was.
And that wouldn’t do either of them any good.
DEE’S LEG ACHED. SHE’D been trying to keep the pain under wraps, worried that Nyles would call off the search and have Javier take them home at her first sign of discomfort, but for the last half hour, she’d been unable to hide the grimace on her face, and she’d caught Nyles glancing at her several times.
“Are you okay?” he asked at last.
Dee nodded, not trusting her voice.
“She’s in pain,” Griselda said, her fingers still clacking away on her laptop keys from the front seat. “Has been for at least the last hour.”
Thanks, Gris.
“That’s it,” Nyles said, leaning forward from the backseat. “Javier, I think we should take Dee—”
“No!” The pain in her leg was temporary. She’d get home, elevate and ice it, and be fine. She was going to push through this search. She had to. “How many developments are left?”
“Two,” Griselda answered. “The entrance to the next one is a block away.”
Nyles dropped his voice. “We can do this tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be tonight.”
“Yes,” Dee said, her eyes meeting his. “It does.” They were running out of time, and without firm evidence to go on, they were never going to convince the authorities that Victor Merchant and the whole Who Wants to Be a Painiac? setup was nothing more than a charade. “People might die.”
“If they haven’t already.” Griselda turned toward them, rotating her laptop to face them. “Look at this shit. The cops are searching for a minibus that shot its way off a lot in Culver City. Plus those bodies they found earlier today.”
“See?” Dee said, already feeling like those deaths were on her head. “We can’t wait.”
“Miss Guerrera,” Javier said, catching her eye in the rearview mirror. “Perhaps Mr. Harding is right. Your father wouldn’t like this.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Nyles muttered. “And he’s probably going to kill me when he finds out.”
Time for a compromise. “One more,” Dee said. “Then we’ll go home. Okay?”
Reflected in the mirror, Javier’s eyes shifted to Nyles; then with a curt nod, he turned to Griselda. “Which way?”
How many homes had they driven past that day? Hundreds. At some point, the Spanish style and tile roofs all began to look alike. It had been years; the day had been traumatic. Could her memory even be trusted? Dee was beginning to worry that they’d already passed the house and she hadn’t even recognized it. And if that were true, there was a chance that no one would ever figure out The Postman’s true identity. Her memory represented their last hope.
Dee gazed out the window as the lineup of enormous houses marched by. It was dark, and the way the streetlamps illuminated the McMansions made them all kind of look the same. Of course, it was a housing development, so that was the point. But it certainly didn’t help.
The throbbing in her leg had become a throbbing in her head, and Dee felt the full weight of what she was trying to do. Maybe her dad was right? She should stay out of this. Government agents and lawyers and trained freaking adults who did this sort of thing for a living were on the case. How could two teenagers and a twenty-year-old hacker accomplish what the entire United States government could not? She and her friends had done the impossible: they’d survived Alcatraz 2.0. It was enough. They’d been through hell, watched people they care about die in the most violent and horrific ways, and were left with scars both physical and psychological that would never fully heal. It was someone else’s turn to fight this fight. Cinderella Survivor’s role in all this should be officially—
Dee gasped. She’d been only half paying attention as Javier drove, lost in her own thoughts and fears, when suddenly it was no longer night, she was no longer seventeen, and she was no longer safe.
The house stared at her as if alive. Taunting. Laughing. The lights from the foyer streamed through the front door, illuminating the stairs like a set of buckteeth amid a perpetual grin. The last time she’d seen this house, it had been in the bright daylight, when she had been sitting in the back of a US Postal Service van, while police swarmed the area. The current situation couldn’t have been more different, but it didn’t matter. The sweeping staircase, the twin palm trees.
She was stopped in front of The Postman’s house.
Javier hit the brakes the instant Dee made a sound. “Is this it?”
“I think we’ve found it,” Griselda said, answering for her.
“My God,” Nyles breathed.
Griselda’s fingers flew over the keys of her laptop. “I’ll start on the property records.”
Dee felt Nyles’s hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Dee lied. Kimmi’s dead. The Postman’s dead. Dee reminded herself of these facts at least three times a day, but sitting in front of this house, it was hard to believe that either of them were actually gone. But they are. And whoever owned the house now probably had no knowledge of what had happened there so long ago. She had no rational reason to be afraid of it now, but suddenly, Dee felt the need to prove that to herself. She opened the door, pushing it wide with her good leg. “Gris, can you hand me my crutches?”
“Dee, what are you doing?” Nyles sounded alarmed. Like she was about to do something crazy.
I am.
Javier was out of the car in a heartbeat. He raced around to the passenger side just as Griselda helped Dee out of the backseat. “Miss Guerrera, you promised.”
“I just need to ring the doorbell,” she said. It sounded much stupider when she said it out loud.
“Why?” Nyles asked.
Ugh. Why was he being difficult? “I just need to.”
“Here.” Griselda reached past Nyles and pulled Dee’s crutches from the backseat. “I’ll come with you.”
“Gris!” Nyles cried.
“What? Girl needs to ring the doorbell.”
“Miss Guerrera!” Javier said. He stood at the end of the walkway, blocking their path to the house. “I refuse to let you put yourself in danger.”
Nyles looked as if he agreed with the bodyguard, but Griselda was smiling. “How about this: You let us go up the stairs and I’ll let you ring the doorbell?”
“Please,” Dee added. “Javier, people are dying. Don’t you want to help?”
Javier looked unconvinced.
“Look,” Griselda pressed. “I’m sure you’re packing, so we’re not going to be in any real danger. And I promise to throw myself in front of Princess here if shit goes sideways. Deal?”
Javier’s eyes shifted from Griselda to Dee; then without a word, he stepped aside and escorted them up to the front door.
Dee grinned at Griselda as they started up the tiled steps. It was nice to have another girl around who understood her in a way that Nyles never could. She’d had that kind of relationship with Monica, and as Griselda helped her up the last few steps, Dee realized how much she’d missed girl friendship.
“Just for the record,” Nyles said, climbing the stairs behind them, “I don’t approve.”
“Duly noted,” Griselda said over her shoulder. “I’ll be sure to tell Mr. Guerrera that you filed an official protest. I’m sure that will give you…” She paused, glancing sideways at Dee. “…diplomatic immunity.”
Nyles paused midstep. “I hate you.”
Dee laughed. She couldn’t help herself. And suddenly, confronting the house that had taken so much from her didn’t feel nearly as terrifying. She wasn’t alone anymore. She had friends who would stand by her no matter what.
Javier reached out and rang the doorbell. “Stay behind me, Miss Guerrera.”
“There’s probably no one home,” Nyles said nervously as they waited.
Griselda corrected him. “You mean you hope there’s no one home.”
Footsteps across the foyer proved otherwise.
The guy who opened the door wasn’t exactly what Dee was expecting. A five-million-dollar home within spitting distance of the beach? This was the territory of the middle-aged film executive. But this guy looked only a few years older than Dee and her friends, young and tall and eating a slice of pizza. Someone’s adult son who had failed to launch, probably.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Dee opened her mouth, unsure what to say. Did you know your house was the site of a kidnapping? probably wasn’t a good opener. But as she stood there, trying to formulate words, someone behind the pizza guy pulled the door open, swinging it wide.
And then Dee felt her face go cold.
“You,” Dee said, staring at a face she’d only seen on the Internet.
“You,” the girl said back to her. Then her face hardened. “You killed my mom.”
Becca wanted to throw herself on Cinderella Survivor, to claw at her face and pound her head into the tiled doorstep of Coop’s house. This girl had killed her mom. Her mom. Who had been literally ripped apart by ravenous wolves because of this bitch.
“I’m going to kill you,” Becca said. Then she froze, her hands trembling. You’re more like your mom than you realize. Holy crap, was she?
Chaos broke out around her. The blond guy who had arrived with Cinderella Survivor had thrown himself in front of her as Stef pulled Becca away from the door.
“No!” Stef cried. “That’s not who you are.”
Becca whirled on her. “Isn’t it? Isn’t that what you told me thirty seconds ago? That I’m just like my mom.”
“I was wrong.” She reached out and touched Becca’s cheek. “You don’t have to take revenge for something that had nothing to do with you.” She sounded so wise, as if she knew exactly what she was talking about. And for the second time that night, Becca felt her chest heave as a wave of sobbing overtook her.
Fiona rounded the corner from the kitchen. “What the hell…” Her voice trailed off as she stared wide-eyed at the newcomers. “Cinderella Survivor,” she said, her tone reverential. Then she pointed at the other two in turn. “And you’re Nyles. And you’re Griselda.”
“Guilty,” Griselda said. She was smiling, much more confident than anyone else in the room, and as she stepped aside, Becca could see why. Emerging from the darkness behind her was an enormous, bull-chested man with arms so thick and muscly they made Dwayne Johnson look like the scrawny kid at the beach. And in one hand, he held a gun. Pointed right at Coop. “Now very calmly, you’re going to tell us what the fuck you’re doing in this house.”
Wait, what? Why was she focusing on Coop? Becca was the reason the Death Row Breakfast Club and their bodybuilding sidekick were there, right? Just like Stef, they’d figured out that Molly Mauler was her mom and they’d come for…No. That didn’t make any sense.
“How did you find us?” Becca asked.
“Oh my God!” Fiona gripped Coop’s arm, her eyes locked on Dee. “You’re going to turn us in. We didn’t do anything, okay? They were trying to kill us!”
“Who?” Dee asked. It was only the second word she’d spoken. Her face was pinched, like she was in pain, and then Becca noticed the crutches, the bandaged leg, and she remembered the injuries Dee had sustained that last night on Alcatraz 2.0.
The night Mom died.
“Victor and the Russians!” Fiona was crying again, the tears streaming down her face in well-worn tracks. “They said it was just a game show and then Sumo…and…and Kylie. Kayden.”
Dee turned to Nyles, the look of pain on her face deepening. It wasn’t just about her leg anymore. “We’re too late.”
Griselda wasn’t distracted, though. Her eyes were trained on Coop, as was Javier’s handgun. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“It’s not what you think,” Coop replied. He looked miserable. Not afraid, not angry, just utterly and completely miserable.
“Do they know?” Griselda asked.
Coop shook his head, hair wagging in front of his eyes.
“Do you want to tell them, or should I?”
Coop took a deep breath, blowing it out through pursed lips. “You know how when we got here,” he started, turning sheepishly to Becca and Stef, “I said that after we ate I needed to tell you something?”
Becca felt a twinge of panic in her stomach. Coop looked so serious, so distraught. On a day that had gone from weird to bad to totally fucked up in the course of just a few hours, Becca felt like they were about to get one last sucker punch. “Yeah.”
“Here’s the thing.” His gaze shifted from Becca to Fiona, lingered there for a moment, then back to Becca. “Victor Merchant isn’t The Postman’s son.”
“That’s your big news?” Fiona asked. She laughed nervously, still gripping his arm. “I thought you were going to tell us that you were one of those Russians or something.”
Only Becca saw that Coop wasn’t laughing along. His face, if anything, had become more troubled. “How do you know he’s not The Postman’s son?” Becca asked slowly.
Coop’s eyes dropped to the floor. “Because I am.”
COOP WAS THE POSTMAN’S son? Had he been in on it with Victor the whole time?
Can.
Not.
Hang.
No, it was impossible. There was no way Coop could have been protected inside the Juggernaut. There was too much chaos, too many ways to die. And no one in their right mind would have voluntarily entered that arena if they’d known what they would find. Besides, Becca had seen the horror on Coop’s face as people began to die around them. That wasn’t an act.
“I don’t believe it,” she said.
Griselda smirked. “Believe it.”
“If you’re The Postman Jr.,” Stef said slowly, still piecing things together, “then how is Victor Merchant connected to The Postman?”
“I am not The Postman Jr.” Coop spat the words out.
“I hate to point out a technicality,” the Brit said, “but if The Postman was your father, then you are, at least in some technical sense of the word, Junior.”
Coop ran his fingers through his hair, eyes cast to the ceiling. “There’s so much of this you don’t understand.”
“Ya think?” Becca asked.
Coop laughed. Easy, affable Coop. “Touché, Wicked. Look, I can explain everything. But I think you guys should come inside.”
The Rock raised his gun, reminding everyone it was there, as Griselda smiled at him approvingly. “Into the house with the creepy white room of torture?” she said. “Yeah, no thanks.”
“That room was dismantled years ago,” Coop said. His eyes drifted to Dee. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I didn’t know about it until years later.”
Nyles arched a brow. “You expect us to believe that?”
“I really can explain.” Coop poked his head through scanning up and down the street. “But apparently the cops are looking for us in conjunction with, like, a dozen dead bodies.”
“More like fifteen,” Becca mumbled.
Stef glared at her. “Not helping.”
“Right, fifteen,” Coop said. “And I’m worried that a couple of runaway teens in sequined dresses, a bloodstained gown, and Cinderella Survivor herself hanging out on my front steps is going to draw some unwanted attention from the neighborhood watch.”
“I think we should call the authorities,” Nyles said. “The whole bloody country is looking for you.”
“Technically,” Coop said, correcting him, “they’re looking for The Postman Jr. And like I said, that’s not me. I may have been Abe Bronson’s son, but I am not the heir to his business.”
“Abe Bronson…” Becca’s eyes grew wide. That was Victor’s connection. He wasn’t the son of The Postman; he was his business partner.
Nyles rolled his eyes, slipping his cell phone from his pocket. “Either way, the police should be informed.”
“Don’t!” Becca cried, stepping forward.
The bodyguard’s gun swung to face her. “Why not?” he growled.
Becca felt her words catch in her throat. Weirdly, it wasn’t the first time she’d had a gun pointed at her—not even the first time that day—but the muzzle was so close she could practically see down it, and the bodyguard’s eyes were cold and calculating where Talky Montoya’s had been crazed and wild. This man didn’t enjoy killing, but he clearly had no qualms about doing so.
She swallowed, feeling the weight of her words. She didn’t trust Cinderella Survivor, her friends, or this bulked-up dude with a handgun, but at that moment, she needed them to trust her. “Because we won’t stay alive long enough to tell the truth about what happened on Who Wants to Be a Painiac? tonight. A lot of people died in there. People we cared about. And someone needs to pay for that.” Her eyes shifted from the bodyguard to Dee. “If the police find us, I don’t think Victor Merchant will let us live long enough to see justice served.”
