Blood in the Past (Blood for Blood Series) Read online

  BLOOD IN THE PAST

  Jordanna East

  Dedication

  For my husband, Justin. I can’t imagine where I would be without you, let alone where my writing would be. You pushed me when I wanted to fall down and wither away. Do me a favor, never stop pushing.

  For my friend, Jillian. You left too soon and now I like to imagine you’re playfully taunting the people below you, making them believe you’re sitting in a tree, when you’re really sitting in the window behind it. I’ll join you there one day. We’ll taunt them together.

  Contents

  Dedication

  1 Barren Platform.

  2 Fought and Won.

  3 Home is Where Your Story Begins.

  4 Next of Kin.

  5 She Chose Life.

  6 An Insect on Display.

  7 A Sea of Names Etched in Stones.

  8 Blood in the Paint.

  About the Author

  Contact the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  1

  Barren Platform.

  JILLIAN GAZED AT the family across from her. Two young girls pranced around their parents. They stumbled with the swaying and lurching of the train, the beads at the ends of their braids clattering like marbles in a satchel. The father lifted one daughter onto his lap while the mother straightened the other’s dress. The family’s skin was the same syrupy brown as Jillian’s, but the similarities ended there. Though the girls’ cheekbones were high and rounded like hers, they weren’t hidden behind years of despondence. Jillian smiled at them, and the mother nodded politely. Before Jillian could entertain another somber thought, her roommate, Mel, elbowed her hard in the ribs.

  “Get up. We’re gonna miss our stop.”

  “I know, Mel.” Jillian’s voice was so soft Mel probably hadn’t heard her. Jillian wasn’t used to being heard anyway.

  They grabbed their belongings from the floor, nestled between their feet. Jillian had taught Mel to put her feet through the straps so no one could shoot through the car and snatch her bag before dashing out the closing doors. Mel had scoffed until she’d seen it done to another passenger on the way home from a concert one night.

  Mel swung from pole to pole through the subway car toward the exit, unaware of her surroundings, while Jillian marched behind her. Though Jillian would never admit it, she envied Mel’s devil-may-care nature. The doors slid open before them, then closed with a thud behind them. Before the train rushed off, Jillian glanced back at the happy, nuclear family and wondered if they were heading home after eating out at a family restaurant. Perhaps even celebrating the girls’ good report cards. She shoved her hands deep in her pockets to keep herself from waving.

  Jillian made use of her long legs to catch up to her roommate. “You know, I wait for you after class. The least you could do is wait for me once in a while.” Her usually meek volume elevated only slightly, but her annoyance was still palpable.

  “I don’t need you to wait for me. I keep telling you that.” Mel popped her gum loudly. The echo shot throughout the platform. “What were you staring off at anyway? I’m too hungry for your damn subway daydreams, kiddo.”

  Jillian cringed when Mel called her “kiddo.” Mostly because Mel, as the outsider, the naive one, was not in a position to condescend. The girl possessed all the markings of someone trying to hide her true vulnerability. Her harsh face, framed by a short, angled haircut, was peppered with piercings and darkened with severe eyeliner. If anyone called her by her full first name, Melody, she’d stare daggers through their face. Her roommate was right about one thing, though: Jillian didn’t need to wait for her. It wasn’t as if they were friends. They had virtually nothing in common. Yet, Jillian thought waiting was the polite thing to do. Their classes ended at almost the same time, and they were going to the same place. Still, maybe she wouldn’t wait for Mel next week.

  Jillian rolled a scrunchie off of her wrist and tried her best to smooth her long, thick hair into a ponytail. Although a crisp, barely-spring evening awaited them above ground, the subway platform felt humid, soupy even. The barren platform stretched out before them, peppered with steel columns scarred by chipped, peeling paint. Their classes ended after eight p.m. on Thursdays: too late for the rush-hour crowd, too early for the bar crowd. Jillian embraced the silence and inhaled the scent of cigarette butts and urine that reminded her of her childhood. She waited for Mel to make a sarcastic remark about the stench.

  Mel’s complaint never came.

  As they approached the staircase to the street, a shadow darted around one of the columns and rushed toward them from the left, barely within Jillian’s peripheral vision. She saw it a fraction of a second before Mel. The shadow stepped in front of them, blocking the stairs. Jillian’s focus crept concentrically outward from the dull, steel barrel of the gun to the man’s hooded face.

  Jillian gasped, more out of surprise than fear. But Mel’s scream echoed. Jillian nudged her roommate to quiet her. After a moment of shock and hesitation, they thrust their bags toward the man—just as a metallic click reverberated through the silence of the deserted subway platform.

  ***

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

  “We were mugged on our way home from class,” Jillian answered as she unlocked the door to their apartment, her voice as smooth and calm as her facial features. She watched Mel amble ahead of her, head straight to their futon, and cower into the corner of it. She brushed a sharp, black strand of hair from her forehead. Visibly quivering, tears streamed into the tissue she clutched with both hands. Jillian supposed a gun in the face would do that to anyone not from a big city. Mel came from a tiny speck on the map in Ohio before she moved out to Philadelphia for grad school.

  Jillian, on the other hand, had been robbed at gunpoint during her freshman year of college. As much as she’d loved her iPod, she handed it over without a word, along with her favorite shoulder bag. She remembered glaring at the gunman the entire time, daring him—no, willing him—to take the crime a step further. His eyes had widened in terror, unused to his prey challenging him. Jillian had even surprised herself that day, realizing then how damaged she was.

  “Are either of you injured?” the dispatcher asked with only the slightest animation. Her dry, crackled voice snapped Jillian back to the present. Jillian placed an ungainly hand on her roommate’s thigh to calm her; she could hardly hear the operator over Mel’s sniveling.

  “No, we’re unhurt,” Jillian replied. Mel’s crying grew louder. She shoved her quaking hands under her thighs to steady them. Jillian wrapped an awkward arm around her, attempting to cradle her narrow shoulders. That was the closest they’d ever been, physically or otherwise.

  The dispatcher asked several more questions, confirmed their address, and promised to send officers to take their statements. Jillian retreated to the kitchenette, thinking of her upcoming exam—a test on criminal psychology—and the notes she’d lost in the mugging. She chuckled at the irony.

  In the living room, Mel returned to normal in phases, hardening before Jillian’s eyes. Ten minutes passed, and Mel’s shuddering body had almost stilled. She asked Jillian to retrieve the vodka from on top of the fridge, mumbling about how a swig of warm vodka would calm her nerves before the cops arrived. Always trying to appear badass, Jillian thought. Unless a gun’s pointed at her.

  Jillian tried not to roll her eyes at the facade as she reached for the liquor. “Only because you just quit smoking,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Just get me the damn vodka, Jill,” Mel hissed, her voice hoarse from crying.

  Jillian offered it to her by stretch
ing over the back of the futon separating the sitting room from the kitchen. Mel snatched the bottle. Jillian dismissed Mel’s abruptness and rounded the couch. She sat beside her, leaving a comfortable space between them; Jillian hoped to console Mel, but she didn’t want to smother her. Mel swigged the vodka straight from the bottle and sat back, eyes closed. The only sound in the room was her deep exhale.

  Jillian cut the silence first, but barely; her voice hovered near a whisper. “It’s going to be hard to walk with someone behind you for a while, but you’ll get over it.”

  The statement rang cold in the apartment, colder than she intended. Furthermore, she didn’t know why she’d said it. If she wanted to use the ordeal to bond with Mel, she should have led with something more conventional, like a simple, Are you okay? Annoyed with herself, Jillian opened her mouth to better convey her sentiment, but Mel interrupted.

  “What do you mean?” Mel shot up straight in her seat. “This has happened to you before?”

  “Yes. Several years ago.” As she often did when she felt uncomfortable, Jillian picked at imaginary hangnails, scraping each fingernail with another. She cleared her throat and continued, “It was no big deal, really. They don’t hurt you as long as you give up your things. You saw how quickly that guy ran away after we gave him our bags.”

  “No big deal? No big deal!” Mel slammed the vodka bottle on the coffee table. “He had a gun pointed at our faces! And he cocked it, like he was getting ready to shoot us! I can still hear that clicking noise.”

  During Mel’s tantrum, some of the vodka splashed out of the bottle and sprayed Jillian’s jeans. She wiped at the tiny, damp spots, concentrating more on her hands than her roommate. “Well, you shouldn’t have screamed. You attracted too much attention. And you took too long to give him your stuff.”

  Mel stood up, scoffing loudly. “Um, yeah. You know what, Jill, I don’t get you sometimes.” Jillian watched her pace around the room. “Two years we’ve lived together, and I still don’t fucking understand you, you know that?”

  She gulped down some more vodka and stared at Jillian, her eyes hard despite the smudged, runny makeup staining her face. Jillian knew Mel was right. She’d never told her about her past, about how she grew up. Probably never would. In fact, Mel wouldn’t even know Jillian’s last name if it didn’t appear on the mail. Still, Jillian wasn’t about to explain that she was used to violence, used to having her belongings taken.

  ***

  Jillian and Mel sat in silence until two officers showed up half an hour later. When the intercom hummed, Mel replaced the cap on the bottle of vodka and rolled it out of sight under the futon. Jillian ran downstairs to let them in. They were much older than Jillian and Mel, both graduate students at Temple University. The shorter one had graying, receding ash-blond hair, and the outline of his Kevlar vest beneath his shirt hardly covered his paunch. The taller one’s hair utterly contrasted that of his partner’s—thick and dark. A lovely complement to his complexion, Jillian thought. Their radios buzzed with officious-sounding chatter while the balding one asked the usual questions regarding their ordeal.

  Mel did most of the talking, acting as though she’d recorded all the details of their attack. Jillian had largely dismissed the attacker’s features. For Jillian, being mugged again just added another event to a long list of life’s injustices. But for Mel, it was a life-changer. Jillian listened as her roommate rattled off imagined recollections of the mugger’s clothes, the depth of his voice, and the appearance of his fingernails. She even thought she’d smelled a distinct odor on him. Jillian pressed her lips together to keep from snickering as Mel recalled smelling something other than the usual cigarette smoke and human waste. Jillian remembered reading in her criminal psychology text that witnesses often created erroneous details in order to escape their own subconscious feelings of helplessness, but was Mel serious?

  Between the lines of questioning, the taller officer stole glances at Jillian. She chided her imagination; he wasn’t checking her out. Not here, not now. But she failed to ignore his smiles, so out of place under the circumstances. She couldn’t neglect his handsome face or the dangerous spark in his eyes. His olive-colored brow slanted forward just enough to cast a mysterious shadow over his dark eyes. Jillian fought to look away, especially once she noticed the officer’s left hand.

  The light in the room reflected off his wedding band as well as his badge. But Jillian felt warmed by the thought that she’d captured the man’s attention, even if only in her imagination. Even if he’s married, she mused, hoping her raised eyebrow went unnoticed.

  When she chanced a second glance in the officer’s direction, he winked. At least, she thought he winked. She lowered her eyes to his badge. The bold lettering read “KYLE.” Obviously a badge wouldn’t display a first name, but she liked it as a last name. The other officer wrapped things up with Mel, so Jillian tried to think of a way to keep them there longer, if only for a few more minutes. She desperately wanted to know if Officer Kyle’s advances were real or imagined.

  The officers rose to leave. “We have coffee!” Jillian blurted, then winced. “I mean, would you guys like some coffee before you go?” Way to not sound desperate. Jillian could feel Mel’s quizzical expression.

  Officer Kyle stood a step behind his partner and said nothing. He looked at his feet, an action that failed to hide his smile. His partner answered politely, “No, thank you, ladies. We have to get back out there.” He gestured toward the streets with a nod in the direction of the door. As if on cue, their radios blazed louder with codes and phrases foreign to Jillian.

  She took a breath and tried again. “Okay, well, how does this work? Will you be back to follow up, or is there a number I—I mean we—can call if there’s anything we’ve forgotten?” Her voice cracked once, prompting another sideways glance from her roommate. Officer Kyle reached over his partner’s shoulder and handed a business card to Jillian, not Mel.

  Calvin was his first name. Calvin Kyle. Jillian liked his first name even more than his last. Put together, they sounded like a smooth action movie hero, like James Bond or a character from Mission Impossible or Ocean’s 11.

  Calvin turned to Mel. “I’ll be back to check on you both in a couple days.” His voice rumbled deeply, yet buttery. His eyes sparkled, or so Jillian thought, when his gaze lingered on her a moment. She felt certain he spoke purely for her benefit.

  2

  Fought and Won.

  CALVIN KYLE RETURNED two days later. Waiting had driven Jillian mad, but when she opened the door and saw him, her stomach melted. “Hi, uh, Officer.” She was careful not to sound too obvious by using his name. “It’s just me here at the moment. Mel’s at class.” She suspected he might be there for her though.

  “No, I came to check on you both. I keep my promises.”

  Jillian ushered him in and led him upstairs to the apartment. The sticky stairs sucked at their soles, saving them from an uncomfortable silence. Or perhaps exacerbating it; Jillian couldn’t be sure. When they reached her floor, she opened their door and he brushed past her, his uniform rustling against her T-shirt. Jillian felt her face warm as if the sun had crossed the threshold with him. “Okay, well, can I offer you some coffee or something?”

  She watched from the kitchenette as Calvin made himself comfortable on the futon by moving aside throw pillows and textbooks. “So hospitable.” He laughed, settled into the cushion, and twisted to face her. “Do you have lemonade?”

  “Iced tea?”

  “Perfect.”

  Jillian poured two glasses of iced tea. The ice cubes jostled and clinked as she approached him, her hands quivering with anticipation. She’d picked up on his attraction to her. He was there. In their apartment. To see her.

  Now what?

  Calvin shuffled through her note cards, then flipped through a few pages in her Contemporary Clinical Psychology text. “What are you studying?”

  Jillian fumbled over the polite, yet personal, question. She
managed to point at the cover of the textbook in his lap. Even if he was there for her, the absence of formalities unsettled her. She’d expected follow-up questions regarding the mugging, or even news that they’d caught the guy, however improbable that scenario. She felt more comfortable with subtle flirting than blatant advances. Then again, he’d only asked about her area of study. Finally, she found her words, speaking deliberately to keep from stuttering. “I’m getting my Master’s in Clinical Psychology. This is my last year,” she said, pointing to the cover of the textbook.

  “Okay, that’s it. I’m outta here.” He half-stood with both hands up in mock concession. “I don’t trust head doctors.”

  Jillian giggled into her hands. “Why does everyone say that?” She didn’t even know which “everyone” she was referring to, but it felt like the right thing to say. With every shared laugh, Jillian knew his visit had little to do with the mugging.

  Calvin shrugged. “No one likes to feel transparent, I guess. Makes them vulnerable. We all have secrets and private thoughts, experiences we’d rather keep to ourselves.”