What's Done in Darkness (27 page)

But it turned out that my imagination was running rampant. We got to the Key West airport, and there were no air marshals, no FBI, no police whatsoever. Nor was there a line of reporters waiting to barrage us with more questions about what had happened in Mexico.

*   *   *

By the time the taxi pulled up in front of the café, I was ready to sleep for a few days. Katrina must have felt the same way, because once we made our way inside she said, “I hope you're not offended. But I need to go to bed. I just want to sleep.”

“God, me too,” I said.

Katrina pushed open the door from the kitchen and peered into the café at large. “I can't believe it,” she said, her voice cracking. “Christian's never coming back here.”

I went up to her and put my arm around her waist. “It still feels like a dream.”

“If only we hadn't gone to Mexico. We could have stayed here, still had a good time.”

She sobbed softly, and I stayed with her until she'd cried her fill.

“I don't think I'll open tomorrow. It's going to be too hard.”

“Don't even think about the café for now. You've been through a harrowing ordeal. Of course you can't open yet.”

She nodded as she wiped her tears. “Thanks for understanding.”

Then we went upstairs and to our respective rooms. As promised, I called Marie, let her know that I was back and safe.

“Are you going to come home?” she asked me.

“I don't think I can leave Katrina. She's a mess. And she's got no one. Her parents died, and now Christian's dead.”

“Right. That makes sense.” Marie sighed softly. “I'm just … I'm worried, but I was more worried when you were in a strange country. I feel better that you're back in the U.S. What happened? Shit, Jade, they said that that guy's neck was slit. And his sister is making it seem as though Katrina might have killed him?”

I told my sister everything I knew. About the guy in the bar, Katrina's flirting, the shocking truth that she had married Christian but also the fact that she'd been in the bar with me all night and
couldn't
have killed Christian.

“Of course she didn't kill him,” Marie agreed. “How many tourists are murdered in Mexico? It wouldn't be on my top list of places to visit. I don't even know why you guys went there.”

I didn't have an answer for that, so I said nothing.

“This is the kind of story you hear about happening to other people,” Marie went on. “You don't expect
other people
to be your sister and your friend.”

“Tell me about it. Honestly, I'm still processing that this even happened.” I sucked in a breath, blew it out slowly. “Marie, I wanted to let you know that I got back safely. But I'm really, really tired. Can we talk tomorrow?”

“Yeah, of course. If anything changes, call me.”

“Anything like what?”

“Well, if you get word that they've caught the killer.”

“Right. You might know that before I do. I'm heading straight to bed.”

“I love you,” Marie said. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

It was rare that Marie and I said we loved each other and it felt awkward, but I returned the sentiment. “I love you, too, Sis.”

Once I ended the call with my sister I tried to sleep, but it turned out that I was too wired. I lay in bed for a good hour, unable to sleep, when I decided that it was pointless to try to drift off. So I got up and opened up my laptop and watched a bit of CNN.

The news was the same as it had been before. There was nothing new.

Then I checked my Facebook account.

I was surprised to see that I had a dozen messages in my in-box. I clicked on it and scanned the list, saw that I had messages from friends I hadn't heard from since grad. It soon became clear to me that they'd seen the news. All of them wanted to know what was going on.

I scoffed. They didn't care about me. They simply wanted to be able to get the gossip firsthand.

To my surprise, there was a message from Wesley. After he'd practically told me to screw off and die, I was shocked to hear from him. But this was a big story.

Jade, what the hell happened in Mexico? Why were you even there? Call me, okay?

“Yeah, right,” I muttered, then deleted the message. I'd debated at least letting him know I was okay but decided against it. I just wanted to be done with him once and for all.

I supposed I would ultimately reply to him later or send him a text to let him know that I was okay and he didn't have to worry about me. But first, I wanted to get through the messages in my in-box.

My interest was piqued by the photo of a woman I'd never seen before. She was pretty, with dark skin, a stunning smile, and a full head of curly, natural hair. Her name was Shawde Williams, which I didn't recognize.

I could only see the first line of her message without clicking it open totally:

You don't know me, but it's very important …

I clicked on the message, fully opening it:

You don't know me, but it's very important that you contact me as soon as possible. It's about your trip to Mexico and what happened there. Call me, or send me your number and I'll call you. Trust me, it's of vital importance that you get in touch with me.

The woman had ended her message to me with her phone number.

I frowned, wondering who she was and why she wanted to reach me. Probably some psychic who'd seen the story about Christian's murder on the news and wanted to “reach out” to me to give me advice … for a fee.

Likely, Katrina had also gotten such a message.

I deleted it.

*   *   *

Finally I fell asleep and slept for hours, awaking the next morning surprised to see that it was after eleven. Though I shouldn't have been surprised that I'd slept a solid twelve hours. The whole ordeal of Christian's murder, the questioning by the police, and then the trip home had drained me.

I climbed out of bed and went to check on Katrina. The place was quiet, so I assumed that she was still sleeping. Lord knew, after what happened she might not want to get out of bed for a long time.

I knocked on her door softly. “Katrina?”

I waited, knocked again, and when I got no response I turned the knob. Her bed was empty and unmade.

Folding my arms over my chest, I made a face. Had she opened up shop?

I went downstairs to check it out but found the place dark and empty. I frowned. Where was she?

There was no point in staying downstairs, so I went back up to my room. I checked my phone for a message from her, found nothing.

But I did have a few messages from Wesley. I still didn't feel like replying to him yet. Maybe I was trying to make him suffer. I didn't know.

I noticed that I had a new Facebook notification. There was another message from that same woman, Shawde Williams:

Please, it's absolutely urgent that you contact me. I'll call you if you want. Just give me your number. My brother went to school with Katrina.

As I read her last sentence, my eyes bulged. Was this a ruse?

I clicked on the woman's profile and could see an enlarged version of her profile picture. She didn't look like a deranged person. She was attractive, smartly dressed. The profile said her hometown was Albany, New York. Her relationship status reflected
IT'S COMPLICATED.
Her profession
, MEDICAL
.

Well, she hadn't called herself a psychic … and with her claim that her brother had gone to school with Katrina I was intrigued. I didn't think she would simply make that fact up. Better that she pretend she was the one who'd gone to school with Katrina if she was hoping to get me to contact her.

But still, who knew? Some people liked to insinuate themselves into other people's drama.

For the next several minutes, I debated what to do. My gut told me she wasn't lying, but I didn't want to contact a person with ulterior motives.

And then something else occurred to me. Months ago, after I'd delivered that package of weed for Wesley, he'd had a dispute with his dealer. Wesley had worried that the dealer might try to contact me or his other friends to get the money he believed he was owed. To be on the safe side, Wesley had warned me to be suspicious of random people trying to contact me. Just in case. I'd all but forgotten about that.

Was it possible that someone had created a fake account, complete with a fake picture, as a way to get me to contact them? But why? All for a bit of weed money I had nothing to do with?

I jotted down the woman's number. I would block my number and call her. That way, I could find out what the deal was. And if she didn't appear to be who she claimed, I could hang up and she would never have my information. Then I would block her on Facebook.

A minute later I blocked my number, then punched in the digits to Shawde's number. It rang three times before she picked up.

“Hello?”

I hesitated.

“Hello?” the woman repeated.

“Hi,” I said. Tentative. “You contacted me on Facebook.”

“Jade?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” she said, and sounded relieved. “Thank you for getting back to me.”

“What's this about?”

A beat. “It's about Katrina. What happened in Mexico.”

“With all due respect, how can you possibly know anything about it?”

“I'd like to get together with you. See you face-to-face and explain everything.”

I didn't respond. First of all, God only knew where this woman was. If she was in Albany, I certainly wouldn't be going there, and I didn't imagine she'd come down here. And second, I didn't have enough information to feel that meeting her would be wise.

“I know this sounds crazy,” she went on, “but with what's going on … you're in danger.”

“Because of Katrina?” I asked doubtfully. “Or is this really about Wesley?” There, I'd said it. If this was a ruse by some small-time weed dealer, I was certain that I would have thrown the person off of their game.

“Wesley?” The woman sounded genuinely confused. “Is he involved with Katrina?”

“No.” There went that theory.

“Look, will you meet me? I'm in Key West.”

My jaw dropped. “You—you're here?”

“I came as soon as I could. Like I told you, this is serious. And I'd rather not talk about it on the phone.”

I was unsure. And yet curious. “And if I say no?”

I heard the woman sigh. “I'll be disappointed. But I'll also tell you to watch your back where Katrina's concerned.”

“If you saw the news, then you know that her boyfriend was murdered in Mexico. I'm not sure what kind of beef you have with her, but I was with her at the time and I know she didn't kill the guy. Or maybe you just want to involve yourself in this story for some reason.” Lord knew there were far too many crazy people in the world.

Shawde chuckled, but the sound held no mirth. “She's got you believing her, too. She's good at that.”

I bit my inner cheek. This was insane. Some crazy guy had just murdered Katrina's boyfriend, and the woman on the line was acting as though Katrina was a villain.

The same as Melody believed.

“Maybe you saw Christian's sister on the news and some
spirit
has compelled you to come here and save me. I'm sorry you wasted your time, because there's nothing you can tell me—”

“Five and a half years ago, at the University at Buffalo, Katrina dated my brother. And he ended up dead.” Shawde paused for a few seconds, letting her words sink in. “Now will you meet me?”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I agreed to meet Shawde at one that afternoon at The Inn at Key West, where she was staying. We would go to one of the restaurants on-site to have our talk.

And he ended up dead.
Her words had played over in my mind all morning, and now as I neared the hotel I had a sickening sensation in my gut that I couldn't shake. Another dead boyfriend? Like in Mexico when I'd learned that Katrina had married Christian, my world had shifted on its axis, leaving me strangely disoriented.

I called my sister as I started to walk toward the hotel but got her voice mail. Hanging up, I found Brian's number and called him. I needed to talk to someone about this.

Brian's phone didn't ring at all, just went immediately to voice mail. An automated voice announced, “Please leave a message after the tone.”

I frowned, then tried again. Once again his phone didn't ring. I got the same automated message.

Before Mexico, the fact that Brian didn't have a personal voice mail greeting hadn't fazed me. But now I remembered Katrina's comment about Brian and Keith being shady. How she'd wondered if they were involved in criminal activity. Was she right? Was that why Brian didn't announce who he was in a message on his cell phone?

And why did he have a Key West number when he didn't even live here? He had probably picked up a burner phone just to be able to correspond with me.

He'd told me to trust him, but what was with all the suspicious behavior? It was probably best that I forget him once and for all.

Of course, he'd probably heard the news about what had happened by now and likely wasn't going to contact me again anyway.

Pushing Brian from my thoughts, I continued to the hotel to meet Shawde. We'd agreed to meet in the lobby, and Shawde had told me that she would be wearing a pink dress to help me identify her more easily. Although having seen her picture online, I knew I would recognize her.

My first thought upon entering the hotel was that it was absolutely lovely. The lobby was like a grand entrance to a mansion, with a double staircase that led to the second level.

And as I looked up to that level, that's where I spotted the woman who had to be Shawde. She saw me the moment I saw her, because she instantly got up from the armchair where she'd been sitting and started down the right side of the staircase. She was wearing a long pink sundress as she said she'd be wearing, but what I recognized was the full head of curly hair, styled in an Afro.