Page 97 of Chad's Chase
“My father wanted the bodies removed from the house, dumped, and burned. So when we got to the location to dump the bodies, while Havil was pouring the gasoline, I told Verdin to just go ahead and check in with my father to let him know the job was complete. Once he did, I shot him in the head, before decapitating him. Then I pulled two of Ricardo’s wisdom teeth, tossed them next to Verdin’s body, and lit them all on fire.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “This means Verdin’s headless body was passed off as Ricardo when they ran dental DNA for identification.”
Another nod of confirmation. “I disposed Verdin’s head far out into the ocean. Don’t think it has ever been found.”
“And Havil?”
“He was with us for a while, eager to please me.”
“It was never just you and Liz at your aunt’s place, was it?”
He shook his head. “She had a pool house that she begrudgingly allowed Ricardo and Havil to hide out in.” His lips twisted ruefully. “But your brother had morphed into a paranoid fuck since that night, and he believed Havil was a liability. You know, he knew our secret, easy for him to turn on us and run back to my father if we ever pissed him off. So your brother lost it one night and slit the guy’s throat from ear to ear while he was sleeping.”
A loud gasp echoed in the room and we all shifted our gazes to a gaping Clementine.
“Shit,” Chad swore.
Ricardo winced, and Clementine widened judgmental eyes at him. “Youkilledsomeone? You never told me that part!”
“Clem—” Ricardo pleaded, reaching out to her, but she backed away from him like he was some hideous creature.
“Don’ttouch me!” she yelled. “I can’t believe…I can’t believe I’m going to be having a baby for a…for amurderer.” She drew in a few rapid breaths. “Chad I managed to come to terms with. Your sister, I’ve hardly even accepted it yet. But now you, too?Why, Rick?”
Clementine tumbled back into one of the sofa chairs, as though her feet could no longer hold her up. She dropped her head in her hands and began sobbing, while Ricardo watched her helplessly.
“You,” I directed at Ricardo. He eyed me charily, like he was afraid of me or something. “Have you ever tried to find me? Ever sought to find out if your little sister was dead or alive?”
His gaze shot to Chad, seeking his rescue.
“Jhay—” Chad jumped in, but I was having none of it.
“I’m talking to mybrother, Chadrick!” I screamed with a shitload of asperity. “You know, the biggest, tallest, healthiest man in the room. The one smelling like motherfucking sunshine and daisies, walking around so damn easily without having to look over his shoulder.” Eyes still glowering at Ricardo, I asked again, “Have you ever done anythingat allto find me?”
“I’m not supposed to be alive, sis,” he said, timorous. “I’ve been hiding out behind God’s back since Chad saved me that night. The places I can go and the things I can do are limited. If Rafail finds out—”
“That’s all your problem is? Do you haveanyidea what my life has been like?” There was too much anger boiling within me, and I needed something to take it out on before I exploded, so I spun and chucked Chad off the sofa handle, knocking him sideward into the sofa. “Why the fuck didn’t you kill me? Why did you let me live?! You say I was ‘everything’, when in fact I was nothing. You chose this piece of shit and your precious Liz over me. You ran with them and left me behind. You.Left.Me.Behind. I was nothing to you. Nothing, you soulless liar!”
I was flat-out bawling now. Because all this was unfair. So unfair that my brother was living this rich and free fucking life, and I’d been doled twelve years of cruelty, pain, and suffocation.
To my brother: “You callthisimprisonment? This is what you call ‘behind God’s back’, you ungrateful shit?” I kicked over the coffee table in front of me. “I’m the only family you have left, and, even though Chad risked his life to save yours, hisnon-blood brother, you couldn’t lift even a fucking finger to try and save mine? No, you decided to kick back in big ole America and fuck your pretty wife’s tiny pussy, have babies and start a new family with a nice, lavish life. Because Jhay Byrd’s a lost cause, right?”
Face a mask of distress and compunction, Ricardo just stared over my head, avoiding my eyes.
Nothing. He had absolutely nothing to say to me. Nothing at all! No apologies, no trying to calm me down, no nothing, because he really didn’t give a shit. What a selfish fuck!
Using the back of my hand to wipe the snot and tears from my nose, I sniffed. “Well, there sure as shit aren’t gonna be any more new Byrds.”
Moving fast, I bent and picked up a pointy shard of the broken whiskey glass and charged toward a wide-eyed Clementine, the shard in my hand poised to puncture her precious baby bump.
Mere inches from her, I was attacked, my body diverting sideward through the air as I was tackled to the ground. I landed with a teeth-shattering thud on the wooden floors, pain shooting through my spine.
A raging Chad was on top of me, roaring, “Have you lost your fucking mind?!!”
I tried to throw him off me, but I would’ve had more luck charming my way out of a beer attack. “Get off me, you stupid sonuvabitch!”
“Jhay, calm do—”
Reinforcing my grip on the shard of glass, I drove my hand up and aimed for the bulging blue vein in his neck, but Chad caught on to the move just in the nick of time and shifted. Not fast enough, though, because the shard got jammed into his shoulder instead, and blood began squirting.
Like a big, tough badass, he merely grunted at the pain, and I took advantage of his disposition and shoved him off me. Giving up the fight, he rolled easily onto his back, his hand reaching up to his shoulder to pull out the piece of glass.
I jumped to my feet and kicked his hand away, then stomped my heel down on the glass so it sank deeper into his flesh. This time he shouted from the pain.
Ah, that was more like it. Keeping my heel pressed on the broken glass, I leaned down and stuck my hand into his front pocket where I knew his car keys were.
Once I had them, I lifted my heel from the glass, but just as quickly stomped it back down again, and hissed, “Go fuck yourself, Blood” before beating feet out of the house.
