get out from under the bed and find out?
Finally, Briana rolled out from under the bed on the side farthest from the door. She crawled across the carpet and peered through the open doorway into the living room. Sheila lay where Briana had last seen her. Her eyes still open, her face pale, the blood beneath her arm making a dark stain on the white shag area rug they’d purchased together last spring.
Briana glanced toward the entry. The door to their apartment hung open, the doorframe split as if someone had kicked the door in.
Nothing moved. No footsteps sounded on the tile entry.
Still on her hands and knees, Briana crawled toward her friend, tears welling in her eyes, blurring her vision. She had to blink several times to clear them before she could reach for Sheila’s neck. Pressing two fingers to the base of her throat, she waited, praying for a miracle.
No pulse. No steady rise and fall of her chest. Nothing.
“Oh, Sheila,” Briana whispered, the tears falling in earnest now.
The hole in Sheila’s chest told the story.
Briana sat on the floor beside her friend, holding her hand, crying.
Sirens she’d heard moments before now blared loudly outside of the apartment. Soon, several policemen entered, weapons drawn.
Briana looked to them, her heart breaking. “You’re too late.”
They helped her up and started the interrogation, asking questions she didn’t have answers to. Her thoughts went to Alejandra and her baby, but she couldn’t say a word about them without giving up their location.
When they were finished, they told her she couldn’t remain there. Her apartment was now a crime scene. She would have to find another place to stay. They let her grab her purse and keys but nothing else.
“Do you need someone to drive you to a hotel?” the officer in charge asked.
She shook her head, amazed it didn’t fall off as fast as it was spinning. “No,” she said. “I can drive myself.”
“We can provide an escort, if you’d like,” he offered.
“No. I’ll be all right,” she said, though she knew she was lying.
Walking out of her apartment, she didn’t look back. She couldn’t. What had happened was inconceivable. Her mind could not comprehend it.
Briana climbed into her car and started the engine out of sheer muscle memory. When she reached for the shift, her cellphone rang.
She dug in her purse for it and pulled it out, praying it was Sheila claiming it had all been a hoax. Come back up to the apartment. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.
The phone didn’t feel right in her hand, but nothing felt right at that moment. When she swiped her finger across the screen to answer, a voice came across, speaking a language she didn’t understand. It took her a moment to realize it was Spanish. “You have the wrong number,” she said and started to end the call.
The voice switched to English with a strong Spanish accent. “Who is this? Where is Alejandra?”
Briana pulled the cellphone away from her ear and stared down at it. It had a black case like hers, but the phone wasn’t hers. “You will tell me where she is now,” the man’s voice said. “If you do not, I will find you, and I will make you tell me, if I have to beat the information out of you. Do you hear me?”
“You did this?” Briana asked. “You had my roommate killed in your effort to find Alejandra?”
“I will do whatever it takes to bring her back to El Salvador,” the man’s voice said.
Anger and raw hatred burned hot inside Briana, bubbling up her throat. “You can rot in hell before I tell you anything.” She ended the call, lowered her window and flung the phone out onto the pavement. “Hell, you hear me?” she yelled. Then she shifted into reverse, backed up a few feet, shifted into drive and ran over the cellphone.
The gesture wouldn’t bring back Sheila, but it cut off the man who’d sent his thug to find Alejandra and who had killed her roommate in the process.
As she drove away from her apartment building, Briana knew the man wouldn’t stop until he found Alejandra and her child. Briana was the only one who knew who Alejandra was and where she was staying with her daughter, Bella.
If El Chefe Diablo was as bad as Alejandra had indicated, he would send his killers after Briana.
She needed help. The police didn’t have time to guard her, and they wouldn’t do it unless she told them why El Chefe