“I’m sorry.” Vera turns for the door.
I grab her by the arm. Hard. And pull her to me. “You’re not fucking going anywhere.”
She tries to twist out of my grip. “Let me go. I’m not safe here. I’m not safe anywhere.”
“I really don’t fucking care right now. You’re not leaving that man in prison.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re damn right I don’t. How can you fucking live with yourself and what you’ve done?”
“That missing witness isn’t missing. She’s dead.”
Chapter 26
Vera
“Is this more of your lies?” Cora’s face is full of hate for me. “You’ll say and do anything, won’t you?”
“Wait a minute,” Beau tells Cora with a hand out. He turns to me. “Is this true?”
I nod.
“How do you know she’s dead? You said she, right?”
“Cherry,” I start. “Her name was Cherry. Or at least that’s what she was called. I don’t know her real name. Javier slit her throat right in front of me.”
The memory burns fresh and I’m catapulted back to that stark room with the blackout curtains so you couldn’t tell day from night.
“Cherry didn’t keep her mouth shut,” Javier had sneered, holding her black hair in his fist as she clamped her hands to her neck, the blood gushing between her fingers as she gasped her last breath. “Now she can’t talk at all.”
His laugh had echoed in the bare room. I can still hear it in my head. He made me sleep in the room with her body that night, her sightless eyes shining in the darkness, the combined stench of blood and shit gagging me. In the morning he came and got me and took me to his office. Obediently, I got undressed and went to my knees in front of him. He sat back as I unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. I sucked him off, as I was trained to do. As all the girls were trained to do when he brought us in there. All the while he caressed my face, telling me he loved me. When I was done and had rebuckled his belt, he made me bend over his desk naked. He unbuckled his belt again and beat me with it, holding me down with a hand on my back while I screamed in agony and he struck me over and over.
When he finished he yanked me up by the hair. “You’ve always been one of my favorites, but I’ll cut you like I did Cherry if you try the shit she did. Got it?”
“Y-y-yes, sir.”
“Vera?” Beau’s voice snaps me back to the here and now.
I close my eyes and fight for control. Everything around me is spinning, spinning, spinning and I can’t and I’m having trouble keeping it together. There. Better. But my hold is tenuous at best.
“Cherry and I,” I continue slowly. “We were supposed to testify that we saw Sam French kill a woman. A city councilman’s wife. It was supposed to look like a home invasion.
“Cherry and I were hired for the party. There was drinking, drugs, and sex of course. We only left Hell House—that’s what we called where we were kept—on special occasions for very special clients, under guard. Sam was one of the guards. Javier always went with us. He has very strict rules about parties. Anyone who isn’t on the guest list doesn’t get in. The councilman’s wife came in through the garage, slipping past Sam. She was supposed to be at a spa for the weekend and came home early. She freaked out when she walked in on Cherry and me with her husband.
“Javier shot the wife. He got Sam to help him make it look like a home invasion. Sam didn’t know—none of us knew—Javier planned to pin it on Sam. It was payback for being so careless. Cherry and I were supposed to say we were with the councilman at his election office, helping with flyers. We were his alibi.
“You have to understand. This was a very special councilman. Whatever Javier wanted, this guy got passed. He was a perverted fuck.” I close my eyes on the memories of that night and what I had to do. “Didn’t give a shit about his wife either. I think he was glad she was dead, like Javier did him a favor.
“Cherry got cold feet and told the cops the truth. Javier found out. He killed her for going against him and as a lesson to me. He…punished me. Severely. In advance, so I didn’t get the same idea Cherry did. When he held me down I took something. He doesn’t know I have this….” I pull a thumb drive from the pocket in my bra.
“What’s on it?” Beau asks.
“How he keeps his books. His clients. The money. The girls. Everything. I pulled it out of his laptop and palmed it. I couldn’t work that night because of the welts.”
Cora winces. She’s been quietly judging the whole time I’ve been talking. Up until now, I don’t think she believed me. She finally might.