Cora
In the two days since the fire, it felt like I was living in a state of suspended animation.
Time passed.
The world around me kept moving.
But I was equally lost and at the center of it all.
I remembered Drew ordering us delivery food a few times. I even vaguely remembered eating, though I couldn’t have said what it was. It could have been Chinese just as easily as it could have been a burger.
It all tasted like misery.
“Cora, give it a rest for the night,” Drew begged, sprawled out beside me on the bed. He’d been staying in the room with us since we got back.
“No,” I clipped, clicking the restart button again. It stripped me bare every single time, but I couldn’t stop watching.
I wasn’t able to make out his face, but there was no doubting that it was him.
Penn in a black hoodie, going up the stairs.
Penn going into my apartment.
Penn coming out with his toolbox and heading down to his truck.
Dante and Marcos showing up.
Penn running up the stairs as Dante fired his gun, hitting him in the back of the leg.
Penn scrambling into my apartment.
More shots fired at the door until it swung open.
The Guerrero brothers filing inside.
No one ever coming back out.
I fast-forwarded six minutes until flames erupted from my apartment, the camera shaking violently before going black.
I moved the curser back to hover over the restart button, prepared to click again, but River’s voice pulled me up short.
“Stop. You’ve seen it enough. You’re just torturing yourself now.”
I tore my gaze from the screen and gave her my attention. She’d been in the shower for the last hour. Her eyes were red rimmed, and the long, brown hair cascading over her shoulders caused wet circles to form on the front of her gray T-shirt.
We’d hit up Walmart on the way home from the building that first morning. I’d peeled off a grand of my Freedom Account and rushed inside to buy the necessities. The first being a laptop so I could watch the footage from Penn’s secret security camera on something other than the cracked screen of my cell phone. I’d grabbed River a few things I thought she might need, but I’d been too frazzled to look at sizes. We’d only ended up with some baggy T-shirts and panties that were a size too small. I’d promised her I would take her back, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to leave the room yet.
The outside world felt too heavy without him.
“He’s gone, River. It’s torture either way.”
She pursed her lips, a chin quiver escaping before she could hide it. “I know, but it doesn’t matter how much you watch that video. It’s not going to change.”
Yeah. I wasn’t the only one struggling with Penn’s death.
“Come here, baby,” I whispered, extending an arm in her direction.
“No! I don’t want a hug. I want you to stop watching that damn video and figure out where we’re going to live or when I can go back to school, or…or…or…what happens now if Manuel comes after us for this. You know he’s going to find a way to blame you.” She turned her fury on Drew. “And you… Jesus, it was your brother. He’ll be coming after you too.”
Drew sat up, placing both of his feet on the carpet and anchoring his elbows to his knees. “And it was Marcos and Dante who killed him. I’m not feeling particularly sympathetic toward Manuel tonight. Let him send someone after us. I dare him to try.”
River stared at him, incredulous. “You get a two-for-one deal on Penn’s coffin? Because that’s where you’re headed.”
Drew opened his mouth, but I got there first.
“Okay, okay. Let’s take it down a notch. We’re all a little raw right now.”
“Just put the damn computer down!” she yelled at me.
My back shot straight as I stared at her, tears filling our eyes. But before I could even contemplate the appropriate response, she raced back to the bathroom and slammed the door.
“Shit,” I hissed. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” My shoulders shook as I buried my face in my hands.
Drew was at my side in the next heartbeat. “Hey, shhhh.” He rubbed a hand up and down my back. “She’ll be okay.”
“I don’t think the word ‘okay’ is going to be in any of our vocabularies for a very long time.”
He guided my head down to his shoulder. “But we gotta try.”
My breathing stammered. “Why did he leave me and go to the building that night?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
I sniffled and righted myself, glancing at the bathroom door when the sound of the shower made an encore. River was no doubt crying her eyes out in there. Damn kid was so stubborn that she wouldn’t even let me comfort her.
Speaking of stubborn kids…
I cleared my throat and nabbed my phone off the bed. “I need to try the hospital again.”
“Savannah’s a minor. They’re not going to tell you anything over the phone.”
“Maybe not. But if I could get the right person on the phone, you never know. They might have a heart.”
He moved back to his bed, muttering, “Yeah. Maybe.”
I was searching for the hospital number again when my phone started ringing, my pulse skyrocketing when the word unknown flashed on the screen.
“Hello,” I all but yelled.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” Catalina greeted.
My body crumbled as relief, agony, and adrenaline formed an earth-shattering combination inside me.
“No,” I choked out, slapping a hand over my mouth.
“What the hell is going on? I just saw on the news. Are Marcos and Dante really dead?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
I had no idea how that was going to go over. She hated them, but they were still her brothers.
“What the hell happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I have no fucking idea.” I glanced at Drew, who was swirling a paper cup of coffee and studiously pretending not to listen. After opening the drawer, I grabbed a few dollars off the top. “I’m gonna grab a pop,” I told him and then pointed to the bathroom. “Keep an ear out for her.”
He gave me curt nod, and I hurried out.
“Hey, you still there?” I asked, shutting the door, double-checking to make sure the lock had engaged.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Cat replied. “I think I’m in shock though. I can’t believe they’re gone.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I—”
“Sorry?” she snapped. “I’m about to plan a party. Cora, this is huge for us.”
It did feel huge. But it didn’t feel good. It burned like the hottest, sharpest knife slicing through me with methodical timing. Even in their death, they’d managed to punish me one last time.
“They killed Penn.”
She cursed softly.
I swept my gaze through the hall, thankfully finding it empty. “Listen, something’s not right here. It doesn’t add up. Before the fire, Penn got into my safe, left his truck keys and a note that said, One in. One out. And he took down all the stars off my ceiling, Cat.”
“Oh, wow.”
“It gets weirder too. He left the stars in his truck, inside his toolbox, along with all of my pictures and important papers…and the money from the wall.”
“What!” she gasped. “You got the money?”
I laughed, but it broke into a cry. “Oh, honey, you have no idea. I have all the money. Penn left me over a million dollars in cash.”
“Wh… I’m sorry. What did you say?”
I ducked into the vending area when I heard a room door open nearby. I watched a happy couple, holding hands, meander to the elevator too lost in each other to notice I was there.
“You heard me. It was the exact amount, right down to the cent, that I told him I needed to get free of this life.”
“You said he was the maintenance guy. Where did he get cash like that?”
“I have no idea. His brother, Drew, the one that was tight with your father in prison—he’s just as clueless as I am.”
“Don’t you dare let that man try to get his hands on that money.”
“He’s not trying to take it!” I whisper-yelled. “He’s sleeping on a bed next to me like a bodyguard. I have no idea what is going on right now. But something is seriously not right.”
“Shit. Okay, let’s breathe for a second and think this through. There’s got to be an explanation. Maybe he was one of those secret millionaires.”
“This is not a fucking movie!” I snapped. “Jesus, Cat. He had motion sensor cameras in all the hallways. Drew said he installed them almost a month earlier, but Penn never mentioned it to me. I watched the video, and he very obviously carried my money out of the building in his toolbox. But where did the other money come from? It wasn’t in his apartment. He didn’t carry it down. It just magically appeared in the back seat of his truck.
“And it gets worse: The cops said it was an electrical fire in my apartment that started the blaze. But what the fuck? The amount of coincidence involved here is impossible. I’m supposed to believe that Penn just so happened to sneak out of my bed at the hotel and go back to the building where he just so happened to pack up my money? And this was money that he wasn’t even supposed to know existed. And then my stars? I never told him they were Nic’s. But he thought they were important enough to peel them off the ceiling?
“And…and…and then your brothers just so happened to show up in the middle of the night and attacked him? I saw Dante shoot him in the leg before chasing him into my apartment. But what the hell happened after that? They didn’t just all tuck in for the night and go to sleep. Even if it was pure coincidence that the fire started at that exact moment, why did none of them see it? Why did none of them try to get out?” I was panting by the time I finished.
“Maybe the fire wasn’t a coincidence, then. Maybe one of them started the fire.”
“Right!” I yelled, sans the whisper. “Okay, but which one of your dumbass brothers would have the first clue on how to rig an electrical fire? I’ll tell you who could though… Penn. He rewired at least three apartments while he was there. But see, when the cops found their bodies…” My stomach rolled at the memory. “Penn was tied to chair.”
“Shiiit,” she breathed.
“Yet, again, I’m expected to believe that he just so happened to get everything that meant anything to me out of that building that night, then left me the exact amount of money I needed for me and all the girls to escape, and then the building caught fire, burning to the ground, taking the two men who kept me trapped for over half my life with it? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s definitely suspect. But I’m not sure I’d be complaining. He basically solved all of your problems.”
“But he died doing it.” A rush of tears I should have long since run out of snuck up on me. “I want to know what happened to him. I loved him, Cat. I loved him so much. And I feel like he was another man who sacrificed everything for me. I don’t know how to process that.” I rested my forehead against the wall as two vending machines hummed behind me.
“You don’t have to process it, Cora. Not right now, anyway. Grieve. Be sad. Cry. Fine. But you don’t have to figure it out. What are the cops saying?”
I took a few seconds to collect myself before answering. “Nothing really. I think they were just happy to finally be rid of Marcos and Dante. You know the cops haven’t been their biggest fans since Manuel went down.”
“They aren’t the only ones,” she muttered to herself. “Good. At least they aren’t looking at you for any of this. And what about Penn’s brother? Have you talked to him about this?”
Another room door opened, and I peeked into the hall and saw Drew heading my way as if his ears had been burning. I got busy straightening out dollar bills on the side of the pop machine and whispered, “I don’t know. I think he’s still in shock. He keeps saying stupid crap, like maybe Penn was trying to take off with all that money. But Penn clearly left everything for me to find.”
I’d only fed one bill into the machine before Drew rounded the corner.
“Shit. There you are. How long does it take to get a drink? I was starting to worry.”
I swiped under my eyes and offered him a halfhearted smile. “Sorry. I just needed a minute alone.” I pointed at the phone. “It’s Brittany. I was talking to her about getting the girls together so I can give them some money.”
His eyebrows gathered. “Right. Of course.”
“I’ll be back in a minute. Okay?” I lifted the dollar in his direction. “You want anything?”
“Nah. I’m good.” Skeptically, he stared at me for another beat. Then he shook his head and reluctantly backed away.
I leaned through the doorway and watched until he was out of earshot. “Listen, I need a way to get in touch with you. Things are different now. We don’t have to sneak around anymore.”
“Well, maybe not from my brothers, but my father and Thomas are still very much alive.”
“I just need a number, Cat. I’ll keep it private.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll text it over.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Now, I’ve got to go. I’m going to see what info I can get out of Drew. I’ll keep you updated if anything comes up. Oh, and stay away from the storage unit. That’s where I ditched the cash.”
“Jesus. A million dollars. Seriously?”
My stomach pitched as I added, “And ninety-nine cents.”
She sighed. “Okay. I love you. One in. One out. Remember?”
“Always,” I breathed before hanging up.
I finished up at the machine, getting River a Mountain Dew that I hoped would serve as some sort of treat/peace offering. As I walked back to the room, I called Brittany and asked her to get up to the hotel as soon as possible.
If I wanted to keep Drew in the dark, I was going to have to be a little more convincing.