When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(111)

The mist swirls around the dishwasher, seeking substance. I feel a silvery presence at my shoulder. My mamita. She is sad. Because he told me the truth? It wasn’t anything I hadn’t figured out these past years. This man, his line of work, the days we had meat on the table.

She is my mamita. I am her chiquita. I don’t care about the rest. The Bad Man is evil. And the rest of us suffered for it.

As if listening, the room grows heavy. The house has opinions, too. Not that the Bad Man understands. Like so many, he ignores what he can’t comprehend.

“Shooting you was one of the best things I ever did,” he gloats now. “Gave me an excuse to bail on that godforsaken desert and come home once and for all. I needed the local doc to patch you up. There’s good money in young girls, you know. But unfortunately, the bullet did too much damage to your face, lowered the value. Once he diagnosed you as mute, however, I convinced Martha to take you in. What could be better than a servant who can never talk back? I moved my operation to the mountains and business exploded, especially after I found some other ‘specialty’ suppliers who were only too happy to help. We’ve had a great run for over a decade now. If that damn hiker had never gone off trail . . .”

I tilt my head, listening despite myself. I don’t know this story. The whole of it. I only know the bits and pieces myself and the others have lived. My curiosity allows him to close the gap between us without me realizing it.

His flash of smile in the steamy air is the only warning I get.

He pounces. Instinctively, I swing up the mop. I can’t see where I hit. Enough to earn a startled oomph, then he’s on the move again.

I jab the air with the mop. I twirl it to spray more bleach. I target his groin, knees, any point of weakness, while the dishwasher’s steam builds thickly, and the house groans its distress, and I feel my mother’s spirit suddenly snap around me, as if she would hold me tight.

He grabs the wooden handle. I try to tug back. He jerks the mop toward him. I have no choice but to release my only weapon, or be tossed against him.

He steps through the steam, and there’s no mistaking the triumph in his face. He brings up his bloody blade, waving it almost lazily. A click, somewhere to the side. It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.

Whap.

Something nails him from behind. I can’t see what in the mist. But he jumps to the left, glancing quickly behind him.

Whap.

The mop handle whacks him in the shoulder, moved by hands that aren’t my own.

“What the fuck?” he growls at me. “What are you doing?”

I can’t answer, of course. I can’t tell him that his rage and wickedness trapped them here. They died hating him. They died screaming and begging for mercy. Until their souls were doomed to haunt him, or maybe his presence haunts them. I’ve never been sure. But he has harmed and killed and hated. And now, he is joined with them, all of his victims, and they’ve waited a long time for this moment.

Across the kitchen the gas range flares on. All six burners raging hot. A low shadow darts through the mist, shockingly close.

The Bad Man leaps back from the stove, closer to the dishwasher.

I understand what I must do next.

I feel power. I feel peace. I’m not a towering inferno of rage or vengeance.

I am a daughter, a sister, a friend.

I’m a girl who doesn’t want anyone to suffer anymore.

Cabinets shake. Pots rattle. Glass suddenly sweeps off a distant shelf and shatters to the ground. The mist seems to come alive. Shadows, crouching black forms, here, there, everywhere.

The Bad Man backs up again, deeper into the boiling mist. He’s forgotten about his knife. He doesn’t know how to fight what he can’t see. But he feels the threat now. I can see it in the growing rage and horror on his face.

He thought he could destroy us. He thought he could snuff out our lives as carelessly and callously as he wanted. He thought he could get away with anything, because who was to stop a man as wicked as him?

He thought wrong.

My mother strokes my cheek. Soothing. Encouraging.

The shadow darting by again. An oomph as something lashes out against the Bad Man’s legs. He howls in frustration.

Then, it’s all very simple.

I step toward the Bad Man. I pick up the mop at his feet.

The backs of his legs are pressed against the churning conveyor belt, as he stabs the mist with his knife, slashes at the thick steam.

“Now.” I hear the voice as clear as day.

And I follow its command, lifting the heavy mop all the way up, till the head is level with his chest.



* * *



—

AT THE LAST MINUTE, THE Bad Man turns the blade toward me.

As the kitchen door slams open, the FBI agent races through, D.D. lurching in behind her, covered in blood.

“Bonita, duck!”

I understand that they want to shoot him but I’m in their way. I should step back, let them do their jobs. But this isn’t about them. This is about me and my sisters and my mother.

Because I can feel them, even if no one else does. I can see them, even if no one else wants to. And I know them, my sisters in pain.

Together, we shove the mop head into the Bad Man’s chest. Together, we drive him back with superhuman strength until he topples onto the conveyor belt, and the sanitizing cycle once more kicks to life.