The Row Page 8

  The theory about killing the women because he actually wanted to kill Mama is also one I’ve heard before, but that didn’t make it seem any less absurd. The victims were blond and similar in age. Other than that, they weren’t very much like Mama. If Daddy really had wanted to kill Mama, why not just do that instead of killing these other women? It made no sense. I would know if I was living in the nightmare they’d described. And our home life only became messed up after they threw my daddy in prison.

  I go back to the original search and read through article after article, but most of it is the same old stuff I already knew. I find a few details I didn’t know about Daddy’s childhood on a site called—of all things—Murderpedia.

  It mentions that Daddy’s father, Joseph Beckett, was in and out of prison for the sale and use of recreational drugs. My parents had said Grandpa Beckett was dead and we had never talked about him. This article says he’s alive and living in Florida. I frown, rereading the lines about Grandpa. Why would Mama and Daddy lie about that? And who updates this site anyway? Maybe this information isn’t even correct.

  Below this is a single line about Daddy being in a few foster homes when he was young, before his mother cleaned up her drug habit.

  I put another licorice in my mouth, sucking on it instead of chewing. Daddy’s father was in and out of jail, and his mother was a drug addict?

  I read through the whole page again, wondering if this information is reliable or not. If this article is true, how many other things don’t I know about Daddy’s past?

  I glance at the clock in the corner of the laptop screen and am amazed to see it’s already almost six. Maybe I can check out one or two more articles before I have to head out to meet Jordan.

  I go back to the search page, scrolling past the other similar articles and looking for something new. My eyes stop on a page that makes my mouth dry out: “Captain Vega Rides Arrest of East End Killer Straight to the Chief’s Office.”

  It’s an old article—this happened almost ten years ago. Still, my body trembles with anger as I click the link. I skim through the article and a few sentences stick out, making my blood boil.

  It was standing room only as Mayor Yardley introduced the newly appointed chief. As Vega approached the podium, the crowd broke into applause …

  Despite a slow start to his career, Nicolas Vega has been a hero in the Houston area ever since the arrest and conviction of David Beckett for the East End Murders two years ago.

  The mayor finished the conference with a simple statement: “I feel we can all sleep better knowing that Chief Vega is now guiding our men and women in uniform to protect this city. They will grow by having such a solid representative of justice to lead them.”

  I growl to myself. The idea that one man benefited so much from putting my father in prison makes my stomach roll. I scroll through the rest of the article and stop when I see a picture. It’s easy to recognize Chief Vega. He’s the one who came to our house, handcuffed my father, and took him away while my mother cried and held me tight against her. It had been the most terrifying moment of my life.

  It still fills my nightmares. I can’t forget something like that.

  The mayor stands with an arm around him, and on the other side of Chief Vega stands a tall, beautiful woman with a bright smile and long black hair. She looks familiar, too. Odd, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her before. Close by her side stands a little boy, and I squint at the photo, sure I must be seeing it wrong. It looks so much like Jordan’s brother, Matthew.

  I zoom in on the boy. Frowning before quickly scrolling through the article, I look for the paragraph I skimmed over about Vega’s family. When I find it my heart shatters as I read.

  Celebrating this day with Chief Vega were his wife, Anna, and his son, Jordan.

  11

  I STARE AT JORDAN’S NAME ON THE SCREEN, willing it not to be true. I hadn’t known him long, but I’d felt like there could be something real with him. Whether intentionally or not, I’d trusted him with things—so many things. I’d believed he really cared about me.

  I think back through all our texts and our conversations and don’t understand how I’d never asked for his last name. My mind whirls. Had I given him mine? Yes, he’d asked me my last name when I told him Daddy was on death row.

  My hands go to my mouth before curling into tight fists at my side. The way he’d responded, taking that deep breath, the way his hand shook … he’d known exactly who I was in that instant. More importantly, I’m almost entirely certain he knew his father had been the one to arrest my father.

  And he hadn’t told me.

  I stand up so quickly my chair falls over behind me, but I ignore it. I pace circles around it as red-hot anger bubbles through my veins. Jordan had talked to me, comforted me, taken me home, and then texted me to check in. He’d called, and we’d chatted a few times. He’d had plenty of opportunities to tell me the truth, and he’d chosen not to.

  I glance at the clock. I’m supposed to meet him in thirty minutes. Would it be better to just stand him up? Or to go and tell him exactly what I think about him, his secrets, and his father?

  His father …

  My feet seem to lock to the floor and I stop pacing.

  I told Jordan—the son of the man who put my dad on death row—that my father had finally confessed.

  It may not matter. If Daddy is sticking to this story, then he might have told all the guards and the warden by now.

  But if he was just doing as I hope and simply wanted to help Mama and me move on … if he truly isn’t giving up, if he still wants to fight, then …

  I pick up my car keys from my desk, grab my purse, and run out the door.

  * * *

  By the time I walk into Galaxy Café my body seems to have turned into a roiling mess of anger and sadness. I’d really started to like Jordan. I don’t blame him for being Vega’s son. He’s no more responsible for that than I am for being the daughter of a man in Polunsky. But how could he have not told me when he found out?

  For that, I absolutely do blame him.

  I’m right on time, but Jordan is here early, already in a booth in the corner. He waves at me and smiles widely.

  I stalk past the host trying to ask me how many are in my party. When I reach the table, the smile and most of the color have drained from Jordan’s face. As I sit down across from him, the server walks up.

  “Can I get you a drink or an appetizer to start with, miss?”

  I don’t even glance up. I’m too busy trying to glare a hole into Jordan’s forehead. “I won’t be staying.”

  “Oh … okay.” The server stands there awkwardly for a moment before Jordan looks up at him.

  “Could you give us a couple minutes?”

  “Sure.” The server turns his back, but I hear him let out a low whistle as he walks away.

  Now that I’m here, I’m silent. I can’t seem to say the words that brought me here. I hold on tight to my anger because I know that if it leaves me, right here, with Jordan watching me with guilt and sorrow in his eyes, I will only be left with the pain of losing another friend.

  And I’ve felt that enough for a lifetime.

  “Riley…,” Jordan starts, and I look down immediately, staring hard at my firmly clasped hands on the table in front of me. He sighs deeply and continues, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Did you realize it that night at the park? Or did you know before that?”

  “At the park,” he answers softly. “I had no idea before that, but I knew who you were the moment you said your dad was at Polunsky. You only confirmed it for me when you told me your last name was Beckett.”

  I shake my head. “How? Your dad must’ve put more than just my father in there.”

  “He has,” Jordan says, then hesitates before evading my question. “It’s hard to explain.”

  My anger increases at even the idea that he thinks he still has a right to keep any secrets from me after I’ve exposed all of mi
ne. “Fine. I don’t care why.”

  Jordan flinches, then starts talking. “I deliberately don’t pay a lot of attention to my dad’s cases and I think that’s because of you.”

  I frown, caught by surprise. “What? Why?”

  “When I was much younger, I remember seeing my dad’s name on a newspaper. I was excited, and so I picked it up and started reading. It started off talking about a serial killer he had arrested.” He pauses and looks down at the table for a moment before finishing. “But at the bottom, there were pictures from the arrest. The first one had a man being walked out of his house with handcuffs. But there was a girl standing in the doorway behind him. She had on big fluffy slippers and pajamas. Her hair was all tangled on one side like she’d been sleeping. She was sobbing and I’d never seen that kind of pain on another kid’s face before. It was an awful picture. I decided then that good men didn’t make little kids cry like that. I never wanted to know any details about his job after seeing that.”

  We sit in silence for a while as I fight the urge to feel anything toward him but anger.

  “It was your dad he arrested, Riley. I would never forget his name after seeing that picture.” He looks up at me, and his eyes are so sad.

  “I only have one question for you.” I straighten my back and stare him in the eye. “Have you told anyone what I told you—about what my father said at my last visit?”

  His spine stiffens but he doesn’t answer.

  “Tell me.”

  There is something cold in his gaze now. I realize with a touch of malicious satisfaction that I’ve offended him. “Of course I haven’t.”

  “No one? Not even the chief?” I lean forward, trying to sense if he’s lying.

  “No one.” He doesn’t blink, and his expression begs me to believe him. Then he continues, “Telling anyone won’t help or change anything. He’s lost his final appeal anyway, so him confessing doesn’t matter much.”

  “That’s all I needed to know.” I get to my feet and walk away, forcing myself not to look back at him when he says my name.

  12

  ON THURSDAY MORNING, I lie awake in bed. The phone on my nightstand vibrates and I grab it immediately. When I see it’s just an email from the library about a book due this week, I sigh and drop it back in place. It’s not like I’ve responded to Jordan’s texts since I left him at the Galaxy diner on Monday, but it somehow still depresses me that I haven’t heard from him since Tuesday, when he’d texted me three times with similar messages.

  I’m sorry.

  I didn’t mean to hurt you.

  I’m so sorry, Riley. I only wanted to help you, to be there, but somehow I ruined everything instead.

  His final message broke my heart into pieces. Because having someone to talk to was everything I’ve wanted for so long, but it was coming from a guy I couldn’t trust anymore to give it to me.

  Since then he has left me alone, and I feel so alone.

  There is a deep longing in the pit of my stomach from not having Daddy’s letters to read every day. Even after planning what to ask him all week, I can’t decide if I want to go visit him tomorrow. I don’t want to hear him say those awful words again. I don’t know if I can take it.

  I curl into a little ball as another wave of sadness hits me. All my favorite memories from visiting my father roll over me. They used to smooth my rough edges like water on the stones in the sea, but now they slice deep canyons of pain in their wake.

  Daddy and the times he would tell me a joke and we’d laugh so hard that the guard would check in and tell us to keep it down.

  Daddy and the stories he used to tell me of his court cases before he landed at Polunsky. He made even the boring ones sound interesting.

  Daddy sharing his love of chess with me and teaching me how to play.

  How could this man be a killer? I couldn’t make sense of it. My father the wronged innocent or my father the murderer? I don’t know which is the lie, I just know that he lied.

  I pull my blanket up under my chin as I tremble under the weight of this burden. I don’t want it.

  Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours.

  Time is passing too fast. Everything in me tells me to go to Polunsky tomorrow. Everything but my own fear. It will be a Friday. Going to Polunsky is what I do on Fridays, right?

  Clenching my blanket tight in my fingers, I close my eyes and fight the tears that burn from the inside out. What if what he said is true and Daddy murdered those women?

  If I cry for a monster, do I become one? How can I mourn a murderer?

  Deciding that lying in bed isn’t helping anything, I sit straight up, staring into my reflection on the mirrored closet doors. My skin is so pale it looks ghostly next to my messy dark hair. Heavy shadows haunt the skin beneath my eyes and only enhance the effect. I smack my cheeks quickly with the palms of my hands, trying to force some color into them. I glance at the clock and see it’s only eight, so I flop back onto my pillows.

  My phone vibrates again and I grab limply for it. When I see Mr. Masters’s name, I click the Answer button.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Miss Riley.” His voice sounds rushed and not at all like him. “Listen, something has happened, and your mother didn’t answer, so I need you to pass on my message to her as well.”

  My stomach sinks. We’ve had one phone call like this before. Daddy had been beaten up in Polunsky and ended up in the infirmary. I say a quick and silent prayer before asking, “What is it?”

  “My informant just contacted me. There was a murder last night. A new victim was found. I can’t be sure until I get there, but it sounds the same as the others.” Masters starts talking very fast, but none of the words he’s saying are things I’ve prepared myself for. It takes me a minute to understand what he’s talking about.

  He starts rattling off details and my head spins. These are words that I’ve heard dozens of times before: strangulation, blond woman, mid-thirties, tortured. But they’ve always been things Daddy was being accused of doing. Never something he couldn’t possibly have done due to being locked up in Polunsky.

  “When? Who? Do they know who did it? Where did it happen?” I start shooting off questions just to signify to him that I’m still here.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I’m heading there now. I’m almost to the corner of Barlow and Prairie, so it isn’t far from here.” I hear the ticking sound of a blinker in the background and realize he’s in his car. “I’ll head your way as soon as I finish talking to the detectives. You just sit tight, Miss Riley, and I’ll get back to you with answers as quick as I can.”

  Then I hear a click and he’s gone. I stare at the phone without seeing. My brain is a tumbling mass of confusion and excitement.

  This news is what we’ve always wanted. A reason to cast doubt on Daddy’s entire case. Finally, it’s something to make people start questioning everything they accepted as truth more than ten years ago.

  This is it. But it comes the week after Daddy tells me he is guilty. Does this mean that what I’d hoped is true, and he only said what he did because he’d given up? I blink and breathe and just keep thinking. What I want to do more than anything is drive to the scene of this new murder right now. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I feel it pulling me all the same. Half of this need I’m feeling comes from the hope that I could possibly find answers to the truth there. The other half is something more like morbid curiosity. I’ve always believed Daddy was innocent, so I’ve always wondered about the person who had really committed these crimes. If they caught him, will he still be there? Handcuffed in the back of some police car? What kind of monster could he be? Does he look like a killer or does he keep all that darkness locked up inside?

  The murderer had been tricky in the past, but now he’s out of practice. After all, twelve years is a pretty long break. It was more likely someone could catch him now than ever before. But seeing if they’d finally caught the real murderer isn’t
my only reason. I’ve seen so many awful things over the years in pictures in a courtroom that the scenarios have felt like a TV show. This is the chance to see what they’ve been holding over Daddy’s head for most of my life—in person—and as sick as it seems, it’s also more morbidly tempting than I can even try to explain.

  And I could be there in twenty minutes.

  While I was considering, I threw on a pair of jeans, a striped T-shirt, and a baseball cap without even thinking about it. My body seems to have decided for me.

  So I decide not to argue. I pick up my keys and run out the door.

  * * *

  I drive through the streets like the devil himself is hot on my heels. When I arrive at the intersection Mr. Masters mentioned, the actual crime scene is easy to find. Everything looks exactly as I expected. Yellow police tape blocks off the entire parking lot in front of the pharmacy on the corner, as well as the entrance to the alley behind the building. I park a block away and run toward the crowd gathering at the edge of the yellow tape. The first news van has arrived, and I have to dodge around it to get closer. As I pass, the words of the reporter drift over me. She raises the same questions that have been plaguing me.

  “Sources have told us that this murder seems to mimic those of the East End Murders from over a decade ago. This is especially shocking because the convicted perpetrator of those crimes, David Beckett, is currently on death row. Mr. Beckett lost his final appeal last week, and is scheduled to be executed at the end of this month. The police now have a big question to answer and a limited window in which to do it. Do we have a copycat killer on our hands? Or has the district attorney kept an innocent man in prison for the last eleven years?”

  At least I’m not the only one asking these questions anymore.

  I slip in and out between people until I’m at the front of the growing crowd, my stomach pressed against the police tape. I try to get a peek, leaning to one side, then another, but I can’t see anything from way out here, and there is an officer only five feet in front of me to make sure I don’t think about getting any closer.