Her Lost Alibi by David Berens (e reader .txt) 📕

God, let him in. Morales went on and on about how he had been so moved by the sermon. He talked of going into the seminary, or maybe becoming a missionary, and had sought the preacher out to ask how to get started.

A timer buzzed in the kitchen. Her father ushered Morales into the house and left her alone with him to check on the food. Amber was still asleep, dreaming this horrible dream, but tears began to run from her eyes. The redness she had seen before was back. It was following Morales into her home.

12

Out of Town

The images that followed were sharp and clear. Her memory had returned completely and she was horrified by what she remembered. It seemed as if Morales had worked out the plan while he was at the church. He had come here with one goal in mind.

He must have seen her at the chapel, dressed in her Sunday best, the pretty, young preacher’s daughter. When her father went into the kitchen to check on the food, he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down on the couch. She tried to fight, but he was much too strong. He tore her dress exposing her shoulder and tried to jerk the hem above her thighs. She kicked and managed to connect between his legs. He roared in pain and punched her in the face. She remembered the pain, the week of staying at home nursing the black eye.

Suddenly, her father was there. If ever there was an angel of God sent to smite the enemy, it was her father. He stormed into the room, shotgun in hand. Morales fell off her and stumbled backward toward the door.

Her father pumped the shotgun once and she screamed. Time slowed. She could see his finger squeezing. Moving ever so slowly backward. He’s going to shoot him. Without thinking, Amber grabbed a pillow from the couch and flung it at the gun. The blast was deafening in the small living room. Wood splintered and glass shattered at the front of the house. She had deflected his shot and Morales was unharmed. He didn’t wait to see if he would fire again. Her father racked the slide and raised the shotgun as the man crashed through the door and out into the yard. He fired again, but it was too late. He was gone.

Amber bolted upright in bed with a scream.

For an hour, or maybe two, she sat in bed sobbing. When she was able to take more than a shallow breath, she reached for her phone on the bedside table. Tapping the screen, she saw it was only three thirty in the morning. She got up and sat at the small desk by the window. Without wanting to, she relived the events over and over in her mind. Her calm slowly returned, rising within her like the gray, dawn sun. Rain drizzled over the window.

The events of that day, so long ago, horrific as they might have been, would ironically be the alibi that Morales needed to get off for murdering Eric Torres. He wasn’t there. He was here, in Florida, trying to rape me, she thought. And above all that, her father had gone out of town on business the next weekend, leaving her with his stupid new girlfriend, Stacy McCloud, stopping by every damn day trying to be friends.

And, until today, she had repressed it all. She had no memory of any of the events of that weekend, the church service, the christening of the baby, seeing Morales at the church, the attack at her home, and her father abandoning her in her time of greatest need to go…

She couldn’t remember where he’d gone, only that he’d left her alone with Stacy. Ugh. She pulled open the top drawer of the desk and was surprised to see a snow globe. When her father had remodeled her room, she had told him to donate all of the toys and stuffed animals. She didn’t have the space to drag it all with her to Savannah. She reached into the drawer and pulled out the small glass orb. Inside, the globe, surrounded by swirling rainbow colored “snow,” was a pink flamingo. Even with her memory returning, she did not recall ever having owned a flamingo snow globe.

She flipped it over. The generic price tag was still on the bottom. BZ $29.99. She wondered idly if it had been Stacy’s, or maybe a gift from the wannabe mother to her father. An odd thing to give a man. Amber shrugged it off and put it back in the drawer.

The smell of bacon and eggs permeated the air. With a start, she realized what had happened. She glanced at her phone again. It was half past eight. She had slept all through the evening and night. She called the station to explain her absence, but the chief stopped her.

“Don’t worry, Ber,” Chief Decker had said, “Tweed explained that you were hard at work on the Morales mess. You almost done with the report?”

The Morales mess, she thought. That’s one way to put it. She realized that she could indeed close the case. Marcario Morales had been in Florida, assaulting her when Eric Torres was being shot.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Just like you said. Open and shut.”

“Atta girl,” he boomed. “When you get back, why don’t we look at getting you out from behind that desk again? Be safe. Gotta go.”

He hung up and she stared at her phone. She wasn’t sure if she was still reeling from the revelation of her past with Morales, or something else. The prospect of getting out on the road again, patrolling the quaint streets of Savannah wasn’t as appealing as it should have been.

“Bear-bear?” her father called. “I’ve got breakfast.”

She took a deep breath. She knew she would have to talk to her father about it … but not until after they’d eaten.

13

Sins of the Father

After a quick stop in