My Sister's Murderer

  My Sister’s Murderer (1)

  Liv Bennett

  Copyright © 2018 by Liv Bennett

  Red Pearl Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. The uploading, scanning, and distribution of this book in any form or by any means—including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover image by juhy13, iStockphoto LP. (Stock photo ID: 155282350)

  Font: Watchtower - Distressed Title Font at Medialoot (https://medialoot.com/fonts)

  Contents

  My Sister’s Murderer

  Ch 1

  Ch 2

  Ch 3

  Ch 4

  Ch 5

  Ch 6

  Ch 7

  Ch 8

  Ch 9

  Ch 10

  Ch 11

  Ch 12

  Ch 13

  Ch 14

  Ch 15

  CH 16

  Ch 17

  Ch 18

  Ch 19

  Ch 20

  Ch 21

  Ch 22

  Ch 23

  Ch 24

  Ch 25

  Ch 26

  Ch 27

  Ch 28

  Ch 29

  Ch 30

  Ch 31

  About the Author

  My Sister’s Murderer

  From the moment my sister was born, I wanted her dead.

  She stole my childhood. The news of her mother's pregnancy destroyed my family. My mother drove to her death because of her. My father distanced himself from me. I grew up under the tyranny of her mother.

  Now my sister is dead. Barely nineteen.

  She killed herself, they say. Slashed her wrist. Bled to death. Just two months into her new life as a college student in Boulder, Colorado.

  She didn't do it.

  She couldn't have done it to us.

  Someone else ended her life. And, I will find out who.

  I'll move to Boulder, start a new life, follow in her footsteps, and track down her murderer.

  I was never a sister to her. I abandoned her before she was even born. I declared her an enemy, while she was a dream of a sister.

  It took her death for me to see my mistake.

  Finding her murderer is possibly the one way I can apologize to her. The only way I can finally show my love for her.

  Before I can even make it to Boulder, I meet a gorgeous stranger who knew my sister. He keeps showing up in my life again and again.

  My heart gives in and I fall hard for him. But in my head, I can’t help but wonder…

  Is he the one who killed my sister?

  Ch 1

  A Murder In Boulder

  From the day she was born, I wanted to kill my sister. Maybe not exactly kill her, but there were one too many occasions where I wished her dead.

  Now, watching her casket being lowered into a twenty-four-square-foot hole before she turned nineteen, I feel a sickly sense of guilt wrenching my gut. I can remember the first of the many times I came close to holding a pillow over her face.

  Mine wasn’t your usual jealousy between sisters. Ruby ruined my family. She stole my childhood. Growing up, I had to watch my dad falling in love with her as if their bond was made in Heaven, while I was paid even less attention than our pet cat.

  I was seven when my father stopped coming home. I can still remember falling asleep was next to impossible that night without him reading me a bedtime story. Mom lay down with me, tossing and turning, her big body pushing me against the edge of my bed. Her cries—however silent she thought they were—echo in my mind to this day. She cried every day from that day on, during grocery shopping, while taking out the trash, loading the dishwasher. She bawled while driving me to school.

  I found out the reason for my father’s absence a couple of weeks after he left when I accidentally overheard mom talking with her sister over the phone. He moved in with Tara. She’s three months pregnant.

  Mom became a ghost of herself, mostly crying, and when not crying, her mind was somewhere else. We barely talked. She’d fix me a plate with salami and crackers for dinner and resume her spot by the window with a bottle of wine in her hand. She’d gaze out at the dark street until her bottle was empty, and eventually slur some words about it getting late and that I needed to go to bed.

  One night, her regular amount of wine wasn’t enough. She needed more. An entire bottle of wine couldn’t drown her pain. Throwing the empty bottle to the floor, she grabbed the car keys and ran out. That was the last time I saw her. She died in a car accident during the one-mile drive to the liquor store.

  That’s how I became the unwanted addition to my father’s new family. A few months later, my half-sister, Ruby, the home wrecker, was born.

  She was like a ray of sunlight, captivating my dad’s attention with her first ear-piercing cry. She learned to talk very early and would talk for hours. My dad didn’t need TV when she was around. It was a hard pill for me to swallow.

  Even as a baby and then as a little girl, jaws would drop when people saw her for the first time. That reaction would be followed by gushing compliments that my step-mother, Tara, would eat up.

  Ruby’s magic charm continued to increase as she grew. Her hair was a bright shade of blonde, thick and bouncy; the kind wealthy women throw bags of money at hairdressers to get. And, she kept it long, down to her hips. With her perfect cheekbones, blue eyes, plump lips, ballerina-like figure, topnotch grades, and endless supply of friends, she was everything I wasn’t. But, I didn’t care about those details. She could have been president of the United States for all I cared.

  I’d cry every night while praying to have my mom and our old life back the way it was before my sister came along. My father used to come home in the evenings, grab a beer, and settle across from the TV with his feet propped on the coffee table and me in his lap. He’d ask about my school day and listen to me while flipping through the channels.

  Mom would announce that dinner was ready; the delicious smell of something roasted reaching my nose long before her shout out. Dad would be the last to join us for dinner and the first to finish, practically gobbling down everything on his plate without any chewing. Our evening would continue with the three of us watching TV, with me snuggled between my parents, warm and sleepy in my cozy spot. I wanted it all again.

  I lost my special place in my dad’s eyes. He never took me on his lap again, rarely hugged me, and didn’t bother to ask about school or anything else, for that matter. I was a reminder of the past he longed to forget, the mistakes he made, the death he caused.

  Between the two, my step-mother showed me more attention although it usually involved giving me instructions on household chores she wanted done.

  You can call me Tara, she said rubbing her big belly the day I moved into the house she lived in with my father. It was clear she wanted some kind of distance between us. A stepmother would mean a connection, a family bond. Calling her Tara meant I was and would remain an outsider.

  Now at her daughter’s funeral, Tara shrieks with an ear-splitting sob once the casket that carries Ruby’s body hits the bottom of the grave. Her hair is greasy from not being washed for days, and her makeup-free face is showing every trace of her wrinkles and puffiness. Just a few weeks ago, she looked like a Hollywood celebrity on the red carpet.

/>   A part of me whispers this is karma getting back at her. My mother spent her last days crying and drove herself to her death because of Tara. Justice is finally served. Nineteen years late, but still…

  Of course, the one with the biggest sin is my father. However tough and stoic he tries to appear, he can’t hide the train-wrecked look on his face as he stares at the coffin being buried under the dirt. He doesn’t need tears or sobs to show exactly how broken he is on the inside. His world is crushed, and his life has lost its meaning.

  His precious daughter won’t brighten his world anymore. She won’t jump into his arms when he comes home after work or shower him with kisses and adoration. He won’t get his favorite blueberry pancakes with World’s Best Dad written in chocolate syrup on them on lazy Sunday mornings. She claimed her secret ingredient made it so delicious. He assured her the secret ingredient was her endless love.

  While the three of them enjoyed their Sunday morning pancakes out in the garden, I was put in charge of taking care of the mess Ruby had created in the kitchen.

  God forbid there’d be dirt somewhere in the house. Tara wouldn’t be able to swallow a piece of her breakfast from the emotional burden of it. I was the dishwasher while Ruby enjoyed the spotlight like a Michelin chef.

  I didn’t mind the kitchen work if it meant I wouldn’t have to witness their lovey-dovey conversations. I love you more. No, I love you more.

  He was my father too. I could have made him any kind of pancake he wanted if he’d just let me…if he’d just shown me a bit of love. It was as if I was a bystander in their lives, a piece of furniture they couldn’t get rid of but hoped someone would agree to take off their hands for free someday.

  I blame him for my lack of love for my own sister. He not only deprived me of his love but also made it hard for me to love Ruby.

  All the unpleasantness and neglect of our parents aside, Ruby was a sweet girl. She even looked up to me as an older sister, came to me with her problems, and opened up to me first when she got her period. She always remembered to get me birthday gifts when my own father forgot the date. When I left home as soon as I turned eighteen, she was the only one who called me. I knew what was going on in my father’s life only through Ruby.

  I tried to push her away for the longest time, pretended I had work to do, housework, or chores to take care of.

  In kindergarten, she’d draw pictures of the two of us jumping rope in our backyard, building a sandcastle on the beach, or the four of us going on a picnic—which never happened, by the way, and goes to show her wild imagination.

  Her drawings of us were hilarious, rectangular torsos, square heads, proportionally big hands and feet, but it was clear who was who, me with my brown ponytail, Tara with her long blonde curls and big, red lips, Dad with his short, spiky hair, and her, a small copy of Tara. My favorite was one where Dad and Tara were side-by-side in a garden full of pink flowers, and I was holding hands with Ruby next to them.

  Tara refused to hang it on the fridge amid the other drawings of hers—likely due to my appearance in it. Still, Ruby wouldn’t budge. She cried her way into getting the picture hung in the center of all her drawings.

  I found the drawing in the recycle bin several days later, torn down the center and wrinkled. I left the part with Dad and Tara on it in the recycle bin, smoothed out the part where Ruby and I held hands, and kept it in my diary. It’s the only picture I have of Ruby and me together, and it’s not even a real picture. Dad would probably pay me his full pension to own it.

  It’s in my pocket now, the proof that I was loved.

  When the men finally fill up the grave with dirt, I reach for the drawing in my pocket and squeeze it tightly. My heart twists with guilt.

  Last Christmas Eve, Ruby showed up at my door with a gift after a long drive on icy roads from home in Colorado Springs to the new place I rented with two other girls in Denver. I didn’t open the door, pretended I wasn’t at home, and silenced my phone to make sure she didn’t hear it on the other side of the door.

  Through the peephole, I watched her face go from excited to disheartened with each new ring of the bell. She left three voicemails, not showing a trace of her disappointment, wishing me a wonderful Christmas before leaving the gift at my door.

  The streets were covered in a thick blanket of snow, and more was falling. I almost changed my mind when Ruby got into her Honda and rubbed her hands to warm herself up. She looked like she could have used a cup of hot cocoa before her long drive back home. I just stayed by the window when she turned on the car engine and vanished into the traffic.

  I didn’t want her to see my pitiful life, how I was barely getting by, cramped up in a two-bedroom apartment with two strangers and furniture gathered from the dumpster. I didn’t want her to know I’d be eating ramen noodles and cupcakes I got for forty cents as manager specials for my Christmas Eve dinner all by myself.

  She’d talk about it to Tara and my father. I could picture Tara shrugging her shoulder and saying It was her decision to move away, or something along those lines as if she hadn’t made it clear to me I wouldn’t be welcome in their house past my eighteenth birthday.

  I didn’t open Ruby’s gift right away. In fact, I didn’t even go outside to pick it up. One of my roommates brought it in when she returned from her Christmas vacation. It was a hand-sewn quilt with a tree in the center and our names embroidered on its trunk. It was made using my favorite colors, purple, green and blue.

  I loathed how she could remember that detail, hated how beautiful the quilt looked, and how warm it felt around my body. It was a piece of art one could leave to their kids as a family heirloom. I had a strong suspicion she sewed it herself. Nothing was too time-consuming or too expensive for the people she loved.

  I threw it to the back of the portable wardrobe I’d bought from Goodwill.

  The first thing I did when I heard about her death was to rummage through the wardrobe and find that quilt. I needed to feel her in some way, needed something to cry on that belonged to her, something she had touched and poured love into.

  The shock of the news was too overwhelming. She killed herself according to the police, slashed her wrists. The girl who deserved to have Joy as her middle name ended her life with such a horrible act?

  Even I, who considered her my nemesis, knew she wouldn’t do this to her parents and to me. It was hard to admit to myself, but she was better than that.

  The news of her death wasn’t sensationalized, and, thankfully, we never had to deal with persistent, rude journalists accosting us in the street.

  Now, as I stand among the crowd at her funeral, I can’t help but notice that it could compete with one of a small-town mayor. Anyone who knew her has shown up and offered condolences to Tara and my father. Not to me, though. I guess I should extend my thanks for that where it is due. Tara makes sure no one knows about my existence, much less my relationship to her family.

  When the ceremony is over, my father pulls me to an isolated corner, his poker-face failing him. He clears his throat and slides his hands into the pockets of his dress pants as he turns toward me, his eyes avoiding mine as usual. “Thanks for being with us today. We really appreciate it.”

  Jesus! She was my only sister, the only family member who ever showed me any genuine affection. Where else would I be if not at her funeral? Why am I not included in us? I roll my eyes, knowing he won’t see it since he’s not looking at my face.

  He runs his eyes across the room greeting people with a courteous nod, unaffected by my obvious distress. “This has been a hard day for us, a very hard day. Nothing could have prepared Tara and me for such pain. I still feel like she’ll burst through the door and tell us it was all part of a well-planned joke.”

  I experienced similar pain, the same feeling of disbelief years ago when I was one of the only two participants at my mother’s funeral, the other being my aunt.

  “I know the feel—” I mumble, but he cuts me off as if my words don’t matter
. In fact, they don’t and rarely did to him.

  “Tara and I can’t believe she died like that. You knew her as well as we did. She was full of life. She…she…” Out of the blue, he spins around, his face toward the wall, his back to me, hugging himself.

  Seeing his body shaking, I speculate to myself as to whether he’s choking or going through cardiac arrest before realizing the mighty Clint Evans, the epitome of strength and cold-heartedness, does actually have a heart, and it’s bleeding.

  I cock my head to get a better view of the fat tears running down his pale cheeks, wetting the thick fur of the gray beard. He still has some level of control in his emotional meltdown. He manages to keep his sobs silent. Compared to Tara’s loud theatrical performance, my father’s mourning is noticeable only when examined from up close. Even so, the effect is the same. His grief is so overwhelming, it is difficult to watch as it floods out in silent, endless tears.

  I wonder for a brief moment if he shed any tears at all for my mother, if he felt a twinge of guilt for her death. I’d like to think that he did, that he nurtures some sort of kindness and compassion beneath his tough exterior.

  His meltdown sends ripples of sadness through my chest. “Dad...” I reach for his elbow and gently nudge him, feeling hesitant at the same time, not knowing if my boldness will anger him.

  Whereas I expect him to push me away, he grabs my hand and raises it to his mouth, pressing his lips against my palm, kissing me perhaps for the first time since I was seven.