Windows in the Mist Read online

  He fell to his knees, raised the dagger high over his head and closed his eyes. He could hear his abuela’s voice in his head.

  Piensa de nuevo en lo que Dios quiere que creas. Y en lo que quiereque hagas.

  Vincent moaned and Javier’s eyes flew open. His fears of what God may have wanted him to believe or do became irrelevant to survival. He plunged the knife down into the back of Vincent’s head. When it stopped moving, Javier promptly vomited. Bile burned his esophagus as tears and snot dripped down his face. Skittering, he didn’t stop till his back reached the wall of the hallway.

  “Get up, Javier. Get up. Get up!”

  He quickly wrapped the strip of cloth, that he’d somehow managed to hold on to, around his leg and tied it tightly. Bracing his back against the wall, he levered himself into a standing position. His head felt like a lead balloon perched on top of his neck, but he managed to look away from the dead body. He blinked several times, trying to focus on the immediate situation. He had to get the fuck out of Dodge.

  This was his first real look at his environment. It was indeed a hallway. He had two choices, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember which direction they’d come from. He turned right, and after about twelve steps found himself outside a door. He could open it and see for himself the room where Vincent had done his best to break him, or he could move on to his future.

  Javier kept walking. He saw an end to the hallway just a handful of steps away. He paused and peered around the corner. The space opened up into a barn-like structure. A quick sniff carried a hint of stale fertilizer in the air. Rows of wooden tables and scattered shelving indicated that this had been at one point a nursery. He saw a pair of glass doors, covered in brown paper. Javier stumbled his way over, his leg seconds away from giving out just as he pressed his hands against the metal frame of the door.

  The doors rattled as he pushed, but did not open. “No!” The deadbolt of the door was just visible between the metal frames. The most likely answer was that Vincent kept the keys either on him or stashed somewhere, but fuck if he was going on a treasure hunt. He examined the area, looking for something he could use to break the glass. A rock, an old flower pot—hell, he was even ready to kung fu one of the tables and grab a piece of wood.

  “Or I could just look for another door.”

  Nope. He was getting out this way or not at all, and option two wasn’t acceptable. He could risk taking a running leap to break through, but his catalog of injuries was high enough already. He looked down and, as he bent to start searching the ground, he felt a draft over his back. He turned and out of the corner of his eye saw a sheet of plastic beneath one of the tables on the other side of the room. He tried to stand, but his body refused to listen to his brain.

  Crawling his way across the room, slower than he probably had done as a baby, he stared at the plastic, making sure it wasn’t an apparition of some kind, mentally pleading that it really was a way out and not just taunting him with the possibility. He reached out and his fingers brushed the opaque barrier.

  “Please, please,” he whispered.

  He pushed the plastic to the side and tears slid down his face when the fresh air of the outside world hit him. His left hand encountered dirt as he crawled through, and Javier dug his fingers into the loose soil. He made it through and looked around. There were a couple of long red metal buildings and some half-moon greenhouses, but an air of desolation permeated the air. The business must have closed a while ago, but Javier didn’t recognize it. He heard road noise coming from not far away. There was nothing but a sea of dead fields in front of him. Foot by foot he worked his way around the building. As he turned the final corner, he saw a large empty gravel parking lot with a sliding chain-link gate.

  That empty parking lot was a white desert standing between him and the promise of a lifesaving oasis. He took his first step and the rock bit into the soles of his bare feet. The flares of pain were more of a nuisance than problematic. Javier gripped the fence. He didn’t have the strength to climb over.

  The sound of an engine came from his left. The brightness of the sun made the truck’s image waver like a mirage.

  “Help!” he cried, waving his arm.

  The truck sped past and Javier really didn’t think he had anything left. He found himself unable to stand any longer. His head jerked up at the sound of screeching brakes. The truck skidded to a stop, and Javier gipped the metal rings of the fence till his fingers went white.

  “Help,” he cried, weakly.

  A man came running towards him, and Javier tried to reach through the fence.

  “Holy shit, man. Are you okay?”

  He couldn’t find any words. He just let emotions have free rein, and prayed his savior understood him.

  “I have a pair of bolt cutters in my truck. I’ll be right back. Um, I should ask, are you alone?”

  Was he alone? He was more alone than this stranger could even understand.

  “I’ll be right back. I promise. I’m going to get you out.”

  The words were a pledge, but Javier had a feeling that getting out was only the beginning.

  Chapter Two

  He opened his eyes slowly, but the world was out of focus. Javier blinked several times and slowly the blur faded.

  “Hey, you’re awake!”

  It was a chore getting his head to turn towards the voice. He couldn’t seem to stop the tears from welling up when Brandon and Tyler appeared beside the hospital bed. One or both of them had been there every time he’d opened his eyes for the past several days.

  Brandon stood quickly. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.”

  They’d been pumping antibiotics through his veins to fight off the sepsis, and he still felt like hammered shit. He couldn’t seem to find his voice, and when he tried to shake his head, it felt like a thousand marbles were smashing against one another.

  Tyler gripped Javier’s hand. “Look, I know you’re still not completely with it, but the cops have been in and out, trying to talk to you. I managed to overhear a few words here and there, and…did you do it?”

  Javier nodded. He’d done it. He’d killed a man. Granted, Vincent had probably only been buying time before he did the deed, but clearly Javier wasn’t the badass he’d always imagined himself to be, given that he’d been on the verge of tears from the moment he’d woken up in the hospital.

  “Good,” Brandon and Tyler said together.

  “Look, the cops are going to be back soon to ask questions. Do you want to talk to them or you want me to tell them to fuck off?” Brandon asked.

  Javier tried to grin, but winced when his lip split. “It has to be done. I was looking forward to going home, but guess it’s off to another prison for me.”

  Tyler gripped Javier’s hand harder. “Bullshit. It was self-defense. Any idiot can understand that. The fucker kidnapped and tortured you for seven goddamn months.”

  Even though he was lying down, his head started to spin. “What?”

  “What, what? I get that you’re probably not thinking very clearly yet, but even you have to admit your logic doesn’t hold up. How many people get sent to jail for defending their lives?”

  He couldn’t seem to catch his breath and there was a loud beeping sound assaulting his ears.

  “What’s going on in here?” a nurse said, running into the room. He placed one hand on Javier’s abdomen, just below his ribs, and the other on his chest. “Mr. Alde, you need to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

  He tried to follow the nurse’s directions, but his vision started to go black around the edges.

  “What’s wrong?” Brandon asked.

  “Again, Mr. Alde. Come on, you can do it. Move my hands with the air coming in and going out. Focus on each breath. I can get a sedative if I have to.”

  That was enough of a threat that he tried to focus and stop himself from hyperventilating. Gradually the black faded and his chest didn’t feel as if it were being crushe
d. The loud beeping went away, and awareness crept in that the nurse had been notified his heart monitor was going berserk.

  “That’s better. Now, was it something medical that triggered the panic attack?”

  “No, I’m sor—”

  “Hey, none of that. You’re going through a lot of shit right now, pardon the unprofessional language. So no apologies for having a freak-out moment. In fact, I’m amazed this was your first one. I just need to make sure it wasn’t triggered by something medical.”

  “Seven months?” Javier asked, his voice cracking.

  The nurse looked across at Brandon and Tyler and Javier turned his head, seeking out his best friends. He must have heard them wrong.

  Tyler sighed and sank into the chair near the window. “Yeah. I thought you knew that. Fuck, I’m sorry, man.”

  Brandon sat on the arm of the chair and ran his hand over the back of Tyler’s head. Now that Javier really looked, there was something different about the two of them. Gone was the thin transparent wall separating them from one another. Brandon had always been somewhat aloof and snarky, but now his eyes and touch on his lover radiated concern and support.

  “Apparently, you’re not the only one who needs to be interrogated. All right, give us your best shot.”

  Ah, there’s the snark.

  “Honestly, I’m not even really sure if I know what I don’t know.”

  “Gentlemen, sounds like you have things under control here. I’m going back on rounds. Hit the Call button if you need anything.” Frowning, the nurse left the room.

  “Um, let’s start with what’s his name again?”

  Tyler pointed to the dry erase board. “Day nurse is Keith. Night nurse is Angela.”

  “Right. My memory is for shit right now. So seven months. That means it’s…”

  “May 2017. You missed an awesome New Year’s Eve party. It was a total rager.”

  Javier smirked at the absurdity of Brandon’s last statement, despite the fact that his gut clenched at having lost so much time. How had he not somehow subconsciously realized that two entire seasons had passed while he was locked away?

  “You’re in Lubbock at University Medical Center.”

  “Yeah, that one I got, based on all the signage around here. I assume, judging by what I see in front of me, that Brandon stopped being a paranoid control freak and the two of you are good?”

  “I know you’re all busted up, so I won’t ever so politely say ‘Go fuck yourself’.”

  There was no heat in the words, and Javier found himself smiling, despite everything but his mouth hurting.

  Tyler took Brandon’s hand and pulled the man over for a kiss. “I love you, but you can be such a dick.”

  Brandon smiled at Tyler. “Well, at least I’m not an asshole.” He looked over at Javier. “In all seriousness, we’re good. Believe it or not, I’m a cowboy now!”

  Javier squinted and tried to give Brandon a look of disbelief but feared, with his face looking the way it did, he didn’t quite pull it off. “Somehow I can’t exactly picture you out in a barn shoveling shit.”

  “Meh, once you’ve seen your boyfriend’s arm up a horse’s va-jay-jay, you’re only half a step away from living a real-life True Grit adventure.”

  Tyler rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him.”

  “Oh, I never do.”

  Brandon growled and Javier realized exactly what his friends were up to. It would be so easy for him to lie in this bed and fall apart, but Brandon and Tyler were doing everything in their power to make him feel as if they were sitting in a bar, having drinks on the weekend. All three of them were doing a damn good job of hiding behind the masks of normalcy. But the veneer was thin. Brandon had dark circles under his eyes and Tyler’s hair stuck up in ten different directions. The signs of his ordeal were written over every inch of Javier’s body. So, as much as he appreciated the effort, the problem was that he wasn’t normal anymore.

  “Javier Alde?”

  He turned and was met with just one more reminder of the recent events. The door to his hospital room was filled by two men flashing badges and wearing stern expressions.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Detective Berberidis and this is Detective Kirner. We need to speak to you.”

  Javier nodded. “I understand.”

  Detective Kirner looked over at Tyler and Brandon. “Can you please step out?”

  Brandon stood, folding his arms. “Is this an interrogation? Due to his extreme injuries, Mr. Alde has not had the opportunity to contact his attorney yet.” He took out his cell. “I believe he has that right before he says anything to you. I’ll be happy to call him and you gentleman can return at a later time with notice.”

  God bless Brandon, but Javier knew putting off the discussion or interrogation wasn’t going to change the facts.

  “It’s okay. I’ll talk to them.”

  Tyler stood. “I understand where you are coming from, Javier, but I’ve been in business long enough to say with authority that having a lawyer present is never a bad idea.” He directed his stare at the detective. “Even when a person is completely innocent.”

  Detective Berberidis sighed. “Gentlemen, I understand you’re trying to protect your friend’s interests, but technically, if you don’t allow us to speak to him, that’s impeding an investigation. This is not an interrogation. Mr. Alde is not being charged with anything at this time. We are simply trying to gather all the facts of the case.”

  “I’ll agree to talk to you, if my friends can remain present.”

  The two detectives looked at each other and shrugged. “Fine with us for now.”

  Brandon tapped the screen of his phone. “I’ll record the conversation. Just so there’s no confusion later.”

  Detective Kirner took out a small notebook. “Can you please tell us about how you knew Mr. Pesano?”

  Javier frowned. “I’m sorry, who?”

  Berberidis squinted and tensed his jaw. “The man we found with a knife in the back of his skull inside a bathroom of a vacated nursery. The same vacated nursery you were found running from by a passing motorist.”

  “His name is, sorry was, Vincent Finch. Not Pesano.”

  Kirner looked down at his notebook. “His fingerprints matched those of a Mr. Luca Pesano from Long Island, New York.”

  Javier shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that. I met Vincent last June. We were introduced by a mutual friend and started dating. Our relationship didn’t develop the way I had hoped, and I broke it off with him in August. I didn’t see him again until the beginning of October when we ran into each other at a club. That night he asked to go out for a drink. I saw it as a way to get closure, so I agreed. I made the mistake of getting in his car and it was then he hit me with a Taser. I have no recollection of getting from Dallas to the location from where I escaped. He kept me prisoner and tortured me in ways I will not speak of at this time. Two days ago, I saw an opportunity to escape, and I did. When I made it out of the building, I flagged down a passing truck and must have passed out. Because I woke up here.”

  “And your opportunity to ‘escape’ just happens to involve killing a man? It’s a tad convenient that he can’t tell his side of the story, don’t you think? How do we know that he abducted you at all? How do we know that the two of you didn’t just get into a fight? It’s not like you tried to hide the evidence. The knife was still sticking out of his head, and your fingerprints were all over the handle.”

  Javier’s heart raced in his chest. For a moment he thought he could still smell the odor of his vomit mixed with the blood on the floor of that bathroom. He vaguely heard Brandon’s and Tyler’s voices mixing with those of the detectives’.

  “Mr. Alde!”

  “It was me or him. I had no choice! If you check…if you check the knife, you should also find his prints. And my blood. You guys can do that, right? Or do all those cop shows lie about the forensic two-donor stuff?” He whipped the sheet away fr
om the lower half of his body and pulled down his hospital gown to expose his chest. “He stabbed me in the leg while I was trying to get away.” He held out his arms. “Look at me! Do you think all these injuries happened in a single fight?”

  Detective Kirner held up his hand. “I hear you. And we are in the processes of examining all the evidence. Including the entire building.”

  They’d found the other rooms. Javier tried to blink away the evidence of the wave of humiliation that swamped him.

  “There is one thing I’m struggling to understand. You’re claiming that you were in that building for the past seven months, against your will, and nobody reported you missing?”

  “I did!” Brandon shouted. “When I hadn’t heard anything from him in a couple of weeks, I went to his apartment, his work and I checked his social media accounts. He’d disappeared. I filed a missing person’s report with the Dallas Police. They said there was nothing they could do because there were no signs of any suspicious activity. His work had received a notice of resignation, his landlord was told Javier was breaking the lease, all his accounts had been closed. They said he must have just decided to leave. But I knew it was bullshit.”

  “Why?”

  “One, Javier had just moved to Dallas a year before that. Two, he loved his job and would never quit, especially without notice. And three, he was so proud of his fancy apartment you’d think the address was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

  Tyler stood. “I too spoke with Detective Mercer with the Dallas Police Department. I explained that I had reservations about Vincent based on some behaviors I’d observed that summer when they were still together.”

  “What behaviors would that be?”

  “I know this is strictly anecdotal, but it was the way he looked at Javier when his back was turned. Almost like he was playing a part. One minute he’d be…” Tyler looked at Javier for a second. “Acting as a typical new lover, but the next there was this manic hatred in his eyes, then flash and back to before. However, we only met him one time. And, unfortunately, it was at a graduation party for a friend, so the evening was quite chaotic. Hardly the place for an intimate conversation, getting to know someone. My gut wasn’t much for Detective Mercer to go on, and I was told when he did a quick background check nothing was red-flagged. We reached out to Javier’s friend who introduced them for more information, but that didn’t lead anywhere.”