He mouths a few more words, and I put my ear to his face so I can hear.
“Whaddya want with that whore anyway?”
I drive a fist into his stomach, but he doesn’t even grunt. He just widens his mouth into a toothless, bloody smile.Fuck him.
Then he mumbles something that I manage to catch.
“You’ll never find her. She’s gone.”
My blood runs cold as his words seem to confirm my worst fears. But I push through the terror. I need to find her. I need to find whatever’s left of her.
“Where’s her body, then? Did you bury it? Burn it? Cut… cutit into pieces?”
I can barely get those words out. But all he does is stare at me with that bloody toothless grin of his.
So, I lift my gun up and pull the trigger.
-
“I’ve looked everywhere. Haven’t found her, but I did find out some more about her past. Maybe there’s a clue there.”
I have to give it to Vincent, he came back. It’s probably the biggest show of loyalty he’s given me so far. He came back after finding the blood in her old boyfriend’s apartment, knowing I might kill him. Knowing I probably would.
I didn’t. Logan convinced me not to. He didn’t appeal to any sense of mercy, unlike Everest did when I brought him into the situation. Logan knows me too well for that. I don’t do mercy.
“Vincent is useful,” Logan had said. “There’s no doubt about it. Maybe not so good at keeping an eye on people. But very good at finding out information.”
Vincent has more than confirmed his assessment. He’s sitting before us, Everest and me, with a binder full of notes.
Logan’s not here. He’s been obsessively searching for her, even though I’m convinced it won’t do any good. She’s dead. I saw it, clear as day, in the cockroach’s eye, before I killed him.
“She lived with her parents, Maisie and Thomas Connor, until she was about fourteen,” says Vincent. “Then, her parents separated, and her mother went off with a new guy named Alfie Jones. A month later, both Maisie and Thomas were found dead at Thomas’place. It was labeled a murder-suicide, even though some unidentified DNA from a close relative was also found on his body. They were never able to identify it, but the Feds recently figured it out, and I got the information. I already told you Seraphina killed her father. Well, what happened is that Maisie was beaten to death by Thomas, and then Seraphina killed him in retaliation.”
I lean in, my eyes wide. It had already been a shock to hear that my girl had it in her to kill a man. But to find out she did it to avenge someone that she loved shows me a new side of her. She was brave, very brave.
My thoughts return once more to that time when she kneed me in the crotch and cursed at me. That was pure courage. And I rewarded her for it by beating the shit out of her.
I close my eyes bitterly.
“Tell me about this Alfie Jones,” I request, trying to force my thoughts away from our last moments together. The gun pointed at her head. My sick enjoyment of her fear when she thought I was about to kill her.I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if I thought she was taking it seriously,I think lamely to myself.No, doesn’t matter,another internal voice cuts in. I didn’t care to find out what she thought. I put a gun to her head and it brought me pleasure, because I’m a sick fuck.
Why couldn’t I have shown her kindness? Why couldn’t I have been the man she deserved?
I don’t care if she stole the nanochip. None of that matters anymore. I take a drag of my cigarette, practically willing the newly-resumed habit to give me cancer.
“Seraphina lived with him for just that one month,” continues Vincent. “She never returned home after killing her father. She moved in with Ben Duncan. I don’t have much information on Alfie Jones. All I know is she was fourteen when she moved out. She lived with Ben in his mom’s basement apartment, and that’s where she was living when she was shoplifting at the Devil stores. Makes sense that’s where she returned when you…wetold her to disappear.”
I grunt. Typical Vincent, to try to tone things down so I don’t come off so bad. No one but me was behind the decision to make her disappear. He can’t tell me otherwise.
“She didn’t have anyone else to go to?” I ask.
“No friends, no family. No one but Ben Duncan.”
I close my eyes. My poor girl has had a rough life. I feel an overwhelming pang of regret as I think of her time with me. Images of her sweet upturned face, lighting up when she saw me, setting in resignation when I hurt her, always so needy and so willing to accept the worst from me if it meant I would stay for a bit, haunt me. I could have made her so happy. Instead, I destroyed her.
“She also had Alfie Jones,” points out Everest. “But I guess if she preferred to return to a shitty abusive drug addict of a boyfriend, things must have been worse with him.”
I clench my jaw. It hurts to think how much the men in her life have failed her.
