Merciless (Alexandria Novels 2)

She studied her father’s face, alight with a smile that she never remembered seeing. He’d always been so somber, and though he smiled, it wasn’t the brilliant explosion of glee that this grin radiated.

Beside her father stood Blue, who had wrapped his arm casually around Frank’s shoulders as if they were old, casual friends.

She glanced in the corner and saw that the picture had been taken twenty-eight years ago. Just before Blue had begun his affair with her mother.

The men’s smiles looked so true and bright that it seemed unimaginable that treachery lurked down the road. By the end of that year her mother had left her father and Angie’s safe world had been shattered. Loving parents had morphed into an emotionally absent father and a mother she saw only once a month.

Angie flipped the picture over and read the inscription.

Celebrating the donation of the new wing to be dedicated to the Darius Cross Foundation.

Darius Cross!

Her face flushed, and her heart raced. She reread the inscription.

Angie had never imagined that her family’s ties to the Cross family stretched back beyond the dark night Josiah had raped Eva. She’d assumed Darius’s taste for revenge was due to grief. But now it appeared that Darius had known Eva and Angie’s history better than they did themselves.

She searched the faces of the men in the photo and realized the man on the far right was Darius Cross. Thirty years ago he’d have been in his forties. He cut a striking figure. His hair was thick and only grayed at the temples. His skin sported a deeply tanned hue, and his teeth flashed bright and even. Micah strongly favored his father’s appearance.

The Darius Cross she’d remembered was heavier. His hair had been much thinner, and the rawboned cheeks had softened. At the trial, his eyes had reflected anger and mistrust, not excitement and joy.

She traced Darius’s face. Her family had deep ties to the Cross family. That fact stirred unease and scared her for reasons she could not explain.

Angie picked up her phone and dialed Eva’s cell. She’d commissioned the report without her sister’s knowledge, but she could not sit on the information. Eva had a right to know what had happened to her father.

And perhaps, this new information would jog Eva’s earliest memories, and they could learn more about the families’ connections.

“This is Eva,” the voice mail message said. “You know me, I never remember my phone but leave a message anyway.”

“I swear to God, Eva, I am going to surgically implant that phone in you. I will just talk to you later.” Angie snapped the phone closed.

Whatever she had to say to her sister would have to wait until a return call or dinner tonight when Angie went to King’s.

Malcolm arrived at the home of Vivian Sweet just after ten. Her home was a small, one-story rancher located off of Glebe Road. Like the other homes around it, it had been built after World War II, and despite the low square footage, the homes in this area sold quickly when they went on the market. The homes to the right and left of Mrs. Sweet’s house looked as if they’d undergone facelifts. No doubt the older owners had sold out to young professionals. Whereas Mrs. Sweet’s house looked tired, dated, as if it hadn’t seen much TLC in a long time.

He climbed the brick steps and rang the bell. A planter by the door sported a mum with dying orange blossoms, and chipped and rusted black paint covered a cast-iron railing.

Seconds passed and no one answered. He rang the bell again, glancing toward a large picture window to the right of the steps. Drawn curtains blocked his view into the house.

There was no solid connection between Lulu Sweet and Sierra Day. Most would question the time he’d spent this afternoon looking for Lulu when he was knee-deep in an active murder investigation. But they still had no real leads in Sierra’s case. And as the hours ticked by and he found no sign of Lulu, he believed there might be a connection between the two cases.

Finally, he heard footsteps on the other side of the door. A chain scraped against a lock and dropped to dangle against the door. A dead bolt slid free, and the door opened.

Standing on the other side of the screen door was a willowy woman. She wore a blue housecoat and slippers. A baby’s cry drifted out from another room.

“Can I help you?” the woman said through the screen door.

“Mrs. Vivian Sweet?”

“Yes.”

He withdrew his badge from the breast pocket of his jacket. “I’m Detective Kier with Alexandria Police.”

The baby’s wail grew angrier, more insistent. “Are you here about Lulu?”

“How did you know?”

“You’re not the first policeman to show up on my doorstep asking about Lulu. Trouble finds her pretty quick.”

“Can I ask you a couple of questions about your daughter?”

Mrs. Sweet glanced back into the house toward the source of the baby’s wail. “I have to get my grandson.”

Malcolm grinned. “Boy’s got some lungs on him.”

A ghost of a smile tipped the edge of her lips. “That he does. Come on in and wait in the living room while I get him.”

She unlocked the screen door and Malcolm stepped into the house, which smelled of baby powder and Vicks VapoRub. Circumstances had forced together two generations that didn’t really fit.

Mrs. Sweet reappeared with a baby resting on her hip. The kid was bald, had big watery blue eyes, and chewed on his meaty fist. The kid’s bulk made his grandmother look all the more frail and old.

“What’s his name?” Kier said.

“David.”

The baby wiggled in his grandmother’s arms and then thrust out his hands toward Malcolm. Instinct had Malcolm moving toward the kid, who reminded him of his nephew, Jack, and his niece, Elizabeth. When he was in Richmond, he was always hoisting those two, tossing them in the air or changing a dirty diaper.

Mrs. Sweet hesitated. “He’ll drool all over your jacket, and sometimes he spits up.”

Malcolm grinned. “I’ll chance it.”

“Suit yourself.”

Malcolm held out his hands to the kid, who tipped his body weight forward and all but plunged into Malcolm’s waiting hands. The kid stared up at him, his big eyes searching and curious. David had “handful” written all over him. “He looks like he might walk soon.”

Vivian nodded. “You’re right.You mind holding on to him while I grab a bottle? It should be warm now.”

“Sure.” The kid smelled of powder, but judging by the mushy weight of his diaper, he had already filled it up. When Vivian vanished into the kitchen Malcolm looked at the kid. “You’re carrying a load, aren’t you, pal?”

The boy gurgled and laughed.

“Figured as much.”

Vivian reappeared. “I can feed him.”

The veins in the woman’s hand blazed blue and bright, and he noted her fingers shook very slightly. “Let me. I’ve got some experience.”

They sat on the small sofa and chair in the living room. Vivian released a sigh as she sat down. “You got kids?”

“No. Not yet. My brother has a couple of kids, and I see them often.” Malcolm cradled the boy, who greedily grabbed the bottle, tossed his weight back into the crook of his arm, and sucked the nipple. “He’s an eater.”

“He’s going to be a bruiser.”

“He seems healthy.”

She pushed a wisp of gray hair from her face. “He is, thank God. Lulu was clean when she was pregnant.”

“That’s good for the kid.”

“Yes.” She smoothed her palms over thin thighs. “No matter how hard she tries to climb out, the junk drags her down every time. No matter how much she swears she’ll never use again, she does.” She picked at a stray thread on her housecoat. “Did the courts send you?”

“I came because Ms. Carlson was worried about your daughter. I promised to ask around.”

The scent of illness clung to the woman, and he guessed she wasn’t plagued by the flu or

a cold but was gravely ill. “I spoke to Ms. Carlson in the courthouse yesterday. She looked frazzled when she came barreling into the courtroom. She’d been waiting on Lulu. She’d been so convinced that Lulu would show.” She shook her head. “Funny that Ms. Carlson would help. She all but tore my girl apart on the stand.”

“I remember.”

“I was so blistering angry with Ms. Carlson. I wrote her a few letters after the trial and told her I thought she was a bloodsucker. Dixon didn’t deserve a fair trial. He deserved to be hung. Lulu has her faults, but he hurt her bad.”

Malcolm had had similar thoughts regarding Dixon, and still he heard himself defending Angie, saying, “A fair trial is a basic right for everyone.”

“I don’t care about rights. Dixon was bad. He needed to die.”

“Has your daughter seen him at all since the trial?” No one in their right mind would seek out a man who’d brutalized them, but he’d seen a lot of odd behavior since joining the force.